apartment complex.
water source is found.
Adam O'Neil
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8/21/08
I had a few minutes to kill yesterday before I had to leave for a meeting. I had the idea to buy a 12-pack of Coke for our office from the Family Dollar just down the street about 100 yards north along Pendleton St. I'm about the only one who drinks Cokes, so I don't mind buying more when we run out. Pendleton St is four lanes, but the speed limit is only 30, and at that hour was calm. It was easy to cross. I saw a pipe about a foot in diameter protruding from the ground that came up then curved downward again in a semicircle about three feet in diameter--like a large fishhook with no point. I hadn't remembered it, even though I've walked the street several times. (I'm usually going the opposite direction from our office, though--down to Pete's for lunch.) I thought, okay--fine--a pipe there. No problem. Wouldn't stick my hand in it.
Family Dollar was still closed. I was 15 minutes early. I started down a street I'd never been down. This neighborhood is enjoying a rebirth--sort of like Montford in Asheville a few years back--before the prices really shot up. One yard had a sign that said "Yard of the month" given by the local neighborhood association. I've always told myself I'd never live in a place with a neighborhood association, and that thought popped in my head like clockwork although I did see several houses I liked--and idly, briefly dreamed of owning.
A black man across the street called to me, but I couldn't understand him. I went over to him. He began by saying, "I must look like Burt Reynolds." We talked a bit--with me mainly just nodding and saying "Hmmm." He mentioned Vietnam briefly and the two dollars he'd mistakenly left at his daughter's. He asked me if there was anything legal he could do for a beer. But I didn't hear him right--he'd said "gear," I think. I said I didn't know. I gave him the only dollar in my wallet. I don't usually carry cash, and I didn't mind parting with the dollar. He thanked me and I walked back to the office--without the Coke.
I went on to my meeting, which was a 15-minute drive down Augusta Rd. I was several hours early for a training session in which we were demonstrating for the first time some software I'd been working on for a couple months. The client had asked me to come early and make sure stuff was working because he'd had a few problems the day prior. Minor stuff to me, but perceptions of importance vary greatly between programmers and users. I'd brought some new data I was supposed to load that had the fixes needed.
But my software wouldn't load the new data. It was a problem I'd seen a few days ago but that I'd thought I'd fixed. I had a software update, in fact, but it didn't work, either. I had no choice but to drive back to the office and regroup. There was still a good while before the training was to start, which was good. But still, I was shaken. Ultimately, I fixed the problem in plenty of time, but never understood the root problem. (...which was that "illegal characters" were inserted into a directory path where a log file was to be saved. But the error was happening on a background thread and I'd failed to catch it. Because the error happened in a background thread with no error handling, it went unreported. This caused the data load process to start and stop instantly with no error message. I never understood what those "illegal characters" were, however.)
The training was a success, actually, and my partner and I came back the office satisfied. Those client demos always make me nervous, but there's great relief afterwards. I came home early, and that was that.
8/3/08
The original "code name" for the War on Terror had been Operation Infinite Justice, a name I rather like. But, bowing to pressure from religious (Islamic?) groups, the Bush administration changed the name to Enduring Freedom. The reason given was that "only god" is infinite. Something like that. Caving into that criticism, that "only god" is infinite, reveals a vexing political reality (--our supposed dependence on religious moderates to help stamp out hard-liners--) that muddies whatever clarity we had in the days after 9/11 about what we're up against. I've been calling 9/11 a "faith-based atrocity." I think the average American still sees that term as an unbearable oxymoron. I see it as the ugly truth.
I was going to go into Bi-Lo this morning because it was close, but I saw a large sign inside it promoting a local college sports team--the "Crusaders" of North Greenville University. I decided I would rather not go in a place that displayed such a gleeful endorsement of religious-based conflict. ..."Crusaders" being a practical equivalent of Islamic mujahedeen (Wikipedia).
7/27/08
I ran across Scarlett Johansson's "celebrity playlist" on iTunes, which put me into a tailspin of Google-ogling (safe search: off). I put together my own celebrity playlist:
If You Love Somebody, Set Them Free, Sting. One of the few really great Sting songs. I really like the message of this song.
Excitable Boy, Warren Zevon. My dad had this album back in late 70s, and I remember hearing it back then. I'm forever grateful because Zevon represents positive male energy and strength. The black humor in this particular song is hard to stomach today, but I aspire to process black humor.
E-Pro, Beck. This is my theme song, pretty much. Behold the chunky, visceral beat and roaring guitar.
Let Me Fall, Peter Case. From the album, Full Service No Waiting, which is great from start to finish. This song's got a delicate mix of swagger, soul, and doubt. Another great personal energizer.
I Can't Help You Anymore, Aimee Mann. This song resounds with strength and gives me a positive connection to the feminine.
Follow Your Heart, Thompson Twins. A little corny, but I still love this song for the way it thunders a positive message. I'm a Thompson Twins fan from way back.
Without Love, Nick Lowe. My secret affinity for country comes out here. Luckily, he's a stylish British dude.
Generals and Majors, XTC. A superb pop tune that from the early 80s that I only recently learned about. (Thanks, Mike D!) This is pop its best: very digestible, and with a genius melody.
Hotel Womb, The Church. My celebrity playlist would be incomplete without a song by one of my all-time favorite groups. This is the last track on their seminal album Starfish. It has a delicate thoughtfulness and melancholy strength.
Fortunately Gone, The Breeders. This song reminds me of a woman I had a thing for in college. (And she liked me too--for, like, 24 hours.) This sounds bad, but this song reminds me of her emotional problems of the time and her brave, fitful struggle against them.
Singing in My Sleep, The Chills. More people need to know about this New Zealand pop group. This album, Submarine Bells, is great from start to finish. Known for Greenpeace-type activism, this album oozes moral indignation and thoughtfulness on many fronts. Of course, it wouldn't fly if the melodies weren't great.
Haven't Gone Away, Econoline Crush. These guys had one radio hit, like, seven years ago--"Surefire." I keep liking this group even though there doesn't seem to be much to them. It's a competent, hard, energetic sound that has aged surprisingly well, in my opinion.
Troublemaker, Weezer. This a great, anthemic, tune, and a relatively recent discovery for me.
7/19/08
I watched the movie Dune and started Lawrence of Arabia, but doubt I'll stick with it. Dune is an odd one--not a great way to spend a Saturday. I'd seen it years ago but last night was hit with a sudden case of curiosity about it. Dune has this "Xanadu" pulpiness about it that I like. Its fictional technology has this analog, clockwork-y, almost Victorian feel. There's a surprising amount of wood to be seen early in the movie, rare in science fiction movies, I guess. Many of the props were hastily contrived, and I (think I) see in them the frustrations and bewilderment of the set designer. (I've never seen Xanadu, btw, but want to.)
The impression I have about Frank Herbert, the original author of the novel Dune is not good. The story is almost deeply Christian--about a "messiah" who figures himself out--sadly in an uninteresting way--by having dreams. And then he "leads his people to victory" over the evil Harkonens. Unintentionally, perhaps, there's a fascist edge to all this "messiah" shit. It's hard to think of David Lynch doing anything unintentionally, but I don't know. I was ready for a nap afterward.
The Matrix, an otherwise fine movie, relies on this strange messiah/prophecy device. There's some "prophecy" somewhere that a hero will emerge. The workings of these "prophecies" are pretty murky, fundamentally. Human myths of all kinds through the ages have relied on prophecy for legitimacy, I suppose, but that doesn't mean they still aren't grotesquely phony.
7/17/08
Just watched Death Sentence with Kevin Bacon, a tale of vengeance sort of in the tradition of Death Wish and the Dirty Harry movies, I guess. Movies like this speak of our deep dissatisfaction with our justice system. Indeed, this New Yorker article by Jared Diamond might complicate your appreciation of justice as we know it today.
I've come to see Batman more and more askance. His self-imposed rule of avoiding lethal force casts a glare of fakery over his swashbuckling. For some reason I rented this animated Batman movie on iTunes a couple nights ago (--to distract me from a toothache, partly). It was a series of vignettes by different authors--and, for a while I thought it had more pizzazz than any of the movies. But I watched only half of it. I'll always love the dark romanticism and pageantry of the Batman mystique, but I've become more aware over time of the nutritional emptiness of it. I know I've said this many times, but Shyamalan's Unbreakable works that tortured hero mystique so much better than any of the Batman movies.
For the record, my favorite Batman movie moments happen in act 1 of Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins--before the iconic costume is revealed. I liked seeing Bruce Wayne struggle up the treacherous mountains of Nepal more than any of the later fight scenes. I also liked it when he and Liam Neeson spar with swords on the ice. Neeson offers up a bit of clarity on the reasons for fighting and the logic of vengeance, but these are lost on Wayne. And alas, the movie is written so that Batman can avoid the problem forever, and the movie mostly dithers away into increasingly boring action sequences.
For a while, Death Sentence got me thinking sadly about real instances of violent crime and the terrible toll it must take on people. But the movie avoids real pain and takes refuge in its action scenes. I think of Tarantino's Kill Bill 2, another story about vengeance. The genius of this movie is that vengeance gives way to something like forgiveness, and the moment where the Bride's righteous wrath softens is one of my all-time favorite movie moments. But not because I think all anger must be tamed and wrangled into "emotional correctness." The Bride had earned her transformation--honoring both the legitimate demands of vengeance and acknowledging a small kernel of love she still had for Bill. It's a truly amazing piece of cinema.
But Death Sentence, not so.
7/9/08
The new Beck album Modern Guilt is pretty good--more subtle and spangled with abstractions than The Information or Guero. It's taken several listens, but I'm starting to see the genius in these melodies. The mood is sullen and far-away-looking, but the tunes are jaunty and groovy. I think I could go on a writing binge with this playing in the background. I think I will disembark in Greenland.
The new Sam Phillips album is not doing much for me, sadly, but I knew that would happen. I still love her and might ask her out.
7/8/08
On occasion of Bill Gates' leaving Microsoft, I wanted to give my assessment of the company's products and technologies:
The good:
The bad:
The mixed:
7/4/08
I'm happy strangely satisfied to know that Sam Phillips and T Bone Burnett are divorced. I found this out cruising Phillips on iTunes. She has a new album, Don't Do Anything. My crush on her goes back a long way, and indeed it's her earlier music I've really connected with. Her more recent stuff has gotten a little abstract, but her restless, questing spirit still attracts me.
Years ago I heard T Bone once quip in an interview that Christianity was "really interesting" to him because "every moment is a moral dilemma." T Bone, as you may know, has been a source of cool in the music industry for a good while now. I'm pretty sure he produced the O Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack. His name turns up in a lot of places.
What pleased me to hear about the divorce is a little hard to describe. Yesterday with my bacon cheeseburger, I decided that I should like to be married only for my money, and that I should accept divorce without complaint when it comes. I will tell my future wife: Look, when you get tired of me--or I tire of you--you can take half my shit and I won't hate you. Who could say I didn't love such a woman--whether I tire of her first or not?
I had the thought recently that while the quest for sexual fulfillment may be an empty, modern vanity, the repression or denial of sexual "fulfillment" is even more dangerous. That will turn one into a crucifix-waving, self-flagellating basket case muttering to no one about how wonderful God is. A friend of mine recently told me that she recommends marriage "when you find the one God has specifically for you." I haven't gotten around to telling her that the god she's referring to is the same one who ordered a hit on his own son and called it love. Further, this is the same god who promises eternal suffering to those who don't think the killing of his son was a good idea. Thus, I probably won't be seeking His matchmaking services.
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I did a little trail ride around Furman yesterday, and this Independence Day concert was going on--all this patriotic music. (There are some fun trails over there, btw, but only a few miles of them at most.) I can't really deal with that kind of music, but I had the thought that it's about time to start developing a definition of patriotism I can live with.
6/28/08
My new favorite movie is Death Proof by Quentin Tarantino. This outrageous and violent romp cleverly packages a celebration of girl power. That's an odd thing for me to like. "Girl power" normally provokes in me a defensive or resentful reaction, but this movie tricked its way past my defenses with its authenticity. The movie has another thing going for it--a truly climactic and cathartic ending--the likes of which I haven't seen since Shyamalan's two best movies--Signs and Unbreakable.
As much as I liked this movie, I felt a little violated at the same time--precisely since it "tricked its way past my defenses." I found myself feeling hopeless crushes on several of the protagonists. "Hopeless crushes"--even on movie characters--have the same basic brain chemistry as real life hopeless crushes. They're unpleasant--usually touching off in me an inner monologue of self-loathing. I think this may simply be a hazard of good movies.
The movie brought to mind a little book I barely read years ago: The Fisher Kind and Handless Maiden: Understanding the Wounded Feeling Function in Masculine and Feminine Psychology (Amazon). I don't have a lot of use for "Jungian thought" as it were, since I believe it's blinded by its own feminism.
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Speaking of Shyamalan, it's a shame to see that his latest, The Happening, isn't very good. The critical response has mainly focused on the implausibility of the premise but I found the immature discussion of relationships and infidelity the most offensive.
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The single, Chemtrails, from Beck's forthcoming album has a gleaming, Euro austerity. More than one lonely iPod-equipped dude will be walking pointlessly behind baseball stadiums in Japan with this one. I think also of nude photo shoots in Sweden. His falsetto comes wafting down from great, sunlit heights. One problem: the melody is not quite compelling.
6/19/08
A provocative piece by Jim Kunstler a couple weeks ago--here, a nutshell description of why we're in Iraq now. I showed it to my brother, but he recoiled in horror. ("What?!?! You mean we deserve 'what's happening to us'? What does that mean? And what about those poor Iraqi children we bombed?") My brother has not acquired the taste for Kunstler that I have. The proper way to enjoy Kunstler is not so much to agree or disagree completely, but to ride his wave, take it in, think about what he's saying. He's the master of persuasive doomsday predictions with a particular knack for incisive and righteous mockery of suburbia. His foreign policy discussion is ridiculed by the far left as "Zionist" and neo-conservative, which I don't really buy. He's probably ignored by the right because he has too many liberal positions. (Harold Bloom, in his book "How to Read and Why" says that the best reason to read is merely to "weigh and consider"--not to argue or convince or persuade or believe or disbelieve.)
What I find a little odd about Kunstler is that while he's got the "doomsday" thing down--which he calls the Long Emergency--the gradual but eventually catastrophic failing of our oil-dependent and overvalued lifestyle--he's repulsed by "conspiracy theories" of any kind. Evidently, this means he believes our doom is not tied to any particular conspiracy as such.
Check out his negative review of the movie Syriana--a movie I happen to like very much. His criticism hinges upon the idea that the movie is a poor teaching tool about the realities of the "global oil predicament" and instead "will cater to exactly the kind of paranoid fantasies that will be least helpful" in the dark days of the Long Emergency. I see his point, but Syriana is still a captivating and rare specimen of cinema. It is a wave I wish he could ride, as it were. I don't see quite what the "paranoid fantasy" is in that movie--unless it's the one about how the CIA colludes--in a convoluted and indirect way--with big oil companies to ensure access to Middle Eastern oil. I'm not sure where the fantasy is--paranoid or not. I don't see why it's so far-fetched to think that there might be an unholy synchrony between business and military interests in the Middle East. I think Kunstler's main point is that the movie is a distraction from more mundane causes of the Long Emergency--our automobile dependency and our compulsion to subject ourselves to shitty architecture and urban planning. He has a whole series on offenses in architecture (Eyesore of the Month)--a subject it turns out he seems to know a lot about. His criticisms of this or that building are often amusing and will get you thinking about how bad architecture reflects poor spiritual health, so to speak. Good stuff. (Example: "Another American city bends over to pick up the soap for a gang of Eurotrash art theory hustlers.")
But back to Iraq and those poor children--and, for that matter, Abu Ghraib. (Check out this amazing New Yorker article about the photographer behind those infamous images.) I took Kunstler's piece as more description than endorsement of the war in Iraq. I think a lot of the commenters on the piece mistook that--reading it as endorsement. It so happens that the description touches several nerves: our gluttonous oil dependency (which your average liberal thinks he can side-step by driving a Prius and recycling his "1" and "2" plastic containers), Iraq's strategic position between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and--most importantly and controversially--retribution for 9/11.
Blaming Saddam Hussein for 9/11 remains a strange but mysteriously compelling brew of an idea. Many saw the logic in attacking Afghanistan, but the case against Iraq hinged upon partisan attitudes--incarnate in the whole WMD debate. Did Hussein have WMD and was he about to use them against us? How you resolve that hypothetical question in your mind also indicated your preference for Fox News or CNN. In other words, it would reveal a personal credo more than a grasp of a real-world situation. I fault Kunstler here for not having much reflection on this. He seems to have bought the whole WMD argument exactly as presented by the Bush administration. I always thought WMD could be literally anywhere--from Indonesia to Madagascar. (And "rogue," malevolent leaders with a will to use them are probably not hard to find in that hemisphere.) That a country with the world's second-largest oil reserves would be a staging point for the next attack on our soil always seemed a bit too convenient.
I guess I feel that the WMD argument was a mask for a deeper and more primitive need for vengeance against an Arab country for the attacks of 9/11. Kunstler says almost exactly this, minus the WMD-as-mask argument. I think some readers may have found that shocking--that our invasion of Iraq had a racist motivation. I don't know what's shocking about that--other than the tragically imprecise nature of our vengeance, and the failure of that vengeance to achieve much satisfaction here. Speaking of "children we bombed" or people we tortured at Abu Ghraib and god knows where else.... The reason I don't get very riled up about that is because there's a lot of human and animal misery to go around--much that I ignore that is much closer to home. Feeling--or trying to feel--great concern for war victims around the world--is hypocritically and absurdly selective. Of course, there are awful things that happen around the world that should make us weep, and things we should strive to prevent from happening--such as Abu Ghraib. A moral problem arises, however, when we pretend not to see homeless and other despairing people, abandoned and hungry animals, victims of violent crime, people duped by predatory lenders, etc.
In other news:
6/1/08
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A ride in Asheville. A ride in SC. | |
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Eric inverts Charlie's bars. A new water source is found. |
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5/25/08
An interesting critique of Nicholson Baker's "Human Smoke" from Chris Hitchens, at Newstatesman.com. See also Louis Menand's criticism at NewYorker.com.
I'm struggling with Baker's argument for pacifism. While I don't really buy it, his book is enchanting for how it savages the whole "Greatest Generation" mythology with deadpan objectivity--a tone, by the way, that's very different from his past books. Hitchens and Menand knock the book--and very eloquently, fairly--for simply being in denial of the level of Hitler's evil, and they have a point. But I think Hitchens and Menand are missing Baker's point--to look at the war on a human scale, without the comfort of grand, strategic rationales--"mechanistic theories of causation" as Baker puts it in that Amazon interview.
What I have found--in thinking about wars, the atomic bomb, every conflict in recent memory that I know anything about--is that you cannot make strategic decisions without sacrificing morality completely in the process. You just can't. Not if you want to call it "strategy." A friend of mine, a Vietnam veteran, says he dislikes the game of Chess because it requires the sacrifice of pawns. He tells me he felt like a pawn in Vietnam, and the very thought of forming a strategy in a game of Chess reminds him too much of the dark machinations of the American war machine. That is, you have to sacrifice pawns.
But here's the catch and the dire fact of our existence: everyone who recoils in fear from strategic thinking gives that power to someone else. In other words, if you thought you'd be helping the world by refusing the drop the bomb on Japan (imagining you had the power to refuse it), then either you would prefer for the Russians to use it first, or perhaps you'd rather an American who enjoyed it do the dirty work.
5/22/08
I am thoroughly prejudiced against secretive religious groups. And therefore, to my sense, I see a troubling development in the "polygamist sect" case in Texas. A Texas appeals court has said that the state was wrong to take children from the sect's ranch due to lack of evidence that the children were actually in danger or being abused. (MSNBC article here.) I find it interesting that the drama has been cast as a righteous struggle of aggrieved mothers to be reunited with their children. The fathers and men of the church are conspicuously absent. The "religious freedom" card has not yet been played. In this case, it's all about the mothers and the "plight of the children" according to this other MSNBC article.
Behold this interesting statement from the appeals court ruling: "The existence of the FLDS belief system as described by the department's witnesses, by itself, does not put children of FLDS parents in physical danger."
If I was "cross-examining" this judge, I would ask:
5/16/08
Although I've made some more progress with Gears of War, it continues to be a frustrating game. I see it as a sign that game design today has--perversely--"progressed" into a dark age. As technology constantly improves, game designers' concept of "fun" has been distorted. The single player games aims to be a "cinematic experience." It wants to be like a movie. It is--but in the worst sense. Every time I get killed, it's like the director yelling "CUT!!!" and I have to act the scene over again--fight the same battle, kill the same monsters. And I get killed a lot. I'm just not that good. As I suffer through Gears of War, the core fallacy of "cinematic" single-player games has become clear to me. They are not like movies. They are like the tedious production of movies. In other words, playing Gears of War is like being the unpaid star of an action movie directed by Michael Bay. Or better, combine the abject shallowness of Michael Bay with the maniacal perfectionism of Stanley Kubrick--oh, and pay $50.
If games want to be like movies, then the imaginary "director" behind the experience cannot be an asshole. That is, he cannot keep yelling "CUT!!!" every two minutes and make me replay the same scene six times in a row. In practical terms, this means that if games want to be like movies in the best sense, then you cannot be allowed to die in the game. If you make a mistake in the game, it should magically correct for it to allow the action to continue uninterrupted--even if you're left with a false sense of skill. What does a "magical correction" mean? I have a couple ideas: a) When you're about to die, the game takes control of your character and automatically defeats whatever enemy is bothering you. b) You die, but you can view the replay and analyze your mistake--perhaps replaying it a few seconds before your death rather than having to restart from the last checkpoint.
The bottom line is that if games want to be enjoyed like a movie--and just above every game after Doom does--then they cannot have asshole directors. Meaning--games cannot make you fight the same battle over and over again to the point where you just give up and quit. The game should treat you like a high-paid actor. The game must be designed to ensure your success--even if it must feign or lie about its difficulty in the process. The single-player game is a fantasy experience. It doesn't have to be honest. It has to be fun.
5/8/08
A friend from high school contacted me recently and urged me to join Facebook, which I did. In the "political views" field of my profile I put "cranky liberal with commando tendencies." I want to explain that. The "liberal" part means two things: a) I believe that there's a lot of social and economic injustice in the world. I think that there is a "class struggle" in this country that will eventually boil over into civil war within thirty years. Don't hit me up for specifics, but I definitely think "things are getting worse" and will eventually reach some kind of colossal breaking point that will affect everyone in a bad way. b) I believe--although with less conviction--in the right to sex without consequences; that is--I believe in a woman's right to end her own pregnancy if she wants. I get a little shaky here because I'm unnerved by women's power in this area. What if she keeps the baby after all? I can be forced provide child support--not to mention forced into the momentous psychic transformation of fatherhood. The whole concept of "sex without consequences" is therefore something I'm not even sure exists. But the "meat-beatin' daydreamer" in me still wants to believe in it. (Thank you, Salt 'n Peppa for that wonderful phrase.)
The "cranky" part means that I see complacency, hypocrisy in my liberal brethren--and of course in myself. In particular, I am annoyed--"cranky"--over the way liberals read our world situation regarding terrorism and Islam. I think today's liberal grossly underestimates the threat posed by religious fundamentalism--both here and abroad. In short, I believe that Jihad is a real problem rooted in the nature of religion and faith itself. Some of my liberal friends do not agree with me here. Typical conservatives don't follow me, either, since they think the remedy for radical Islam is radical Christianity. I am guided by a largely unwavering contempt for religion in any form. However, I must admit that my certainty here--about the universal wrongness of belief in God--is by itself not very satisfying. I am still looking for a way to make a good case against religion. It's actually a lot harder than--say--teaching evolution in public schools. (And that alone is hard enough today!)
I have struggled for a long time to articulate a theory of combating Islamic terrorism. I have found that the very thought process is itself depressing. There are no good options. I have been left stumped by the question of whether we should've used the atomic bomb on Japan, for instance. I don't share my granddad's angry certainty about it. He regretted never having personally dropped a bomb on Japan himself. I think I know where he's coming from, but--to use a cop-out argument--I wasn't there. I lean toward James Carroll's contempt for the bomb (through his book House of War), but don't quite embrace it. Carroll's argument is that the atom bomb is something fundamentally different and uniquely awful in the history of warfare. In other words, sticks and stones are one thing--the atom bomb is something else. I don't totally buy it. I think sticks and stones can be quite bad.
Regarding Islamic-motivated terrorism, my hawkish (un-liberal) attitude towards it is driven largely from the Salman Rushdie/Satanic Verses incident. When faced with the truth that Muslims rioted and plotted the killing of the author of a work of fiction because it insulted their religion, your average liberal just shrugs. Oh well. Sucks to be Salman Rushdie. (See the Wikipedia article about The Satanic Verses. As a side note--I read only a bit of it back in the day. I didn't get it. I have preferred Rushdie's short stories.) In this incident--and several others that have made the news over the years--I see a very sinister development that I believe threatens the whole world. When religion by itself enables or encourages rioting and murderous wrath--and when liberals look the other way, rationalize it, or think that it won't one day affect them--then I see in this the end of the world. I am not really exaggerating there. Religious moderates and liberals must stop making excuses for extremists and be willing to face the awful truth that faith-based goodness carries with it faith-based evil. (I am having trouble making this point conclusively for the general public.) It is one of my treasured beliefs that you can lose the faith and keep the good. This is what I think the world must do--lose the faith and keep the good.
(I also have a few comments to add about 9/11, but I'm too tired to go there. Suffice it to say, I'm still shaken by it--and I see in it very plain evidence of the corrupting power of faith to enable people to do terrible things.)
Our "war on terror" is a sorry thing--complete with an oblivious, deceived public, an exhausted and confused military, a population in Iraq battered to the point of insanity. Our leadership focused on Iraq for cynical reasons: we thought we could win--and Saddam's government was already hostile to us, so a military invasion kind of made sense. The "evidence" against Iraq that it was a bustling origin point for Al Qaeda was mostly lies. Conveniently for the current administration, our unhealthy relationship with Saudi Arabia continues to escape everyone's attention.
The only legitimate way forward against Islamic terrorism that I see is a more humble, "door-to-door" effort to fight religious fundamentalism at the root--the root of all religions. I'm not clear on what that means in practice, but I believe it has something to do with creative work by brave artists. I believe the war against religious fundamentalism will end up being waged by vulnerable, unarmed people who stand no chance against the angry, chanting mobs. I wish there was a military solution. I would love to see a righteous warrior spirit emerge in the form of American whoop-ass. The "commando" in me is really a mockery of my own admiration for the military--a juvenile, fantasy-based fixation from my days of playing with G.I. Joe figures right up through my bi-annual viewing of Black Hawk Down and The Thin Red Line.
The problem is that this American whoop-ass is tied up in the dark world of the "defense industry"--with its web of conflicted interests, large sums of money at stake, and bribed or deluded politicians--and not to mention--enchantingly terrible tools of destruction. I may be a "hawk" as far as my paranoia about radical Islam (and contempt for religion in general), but I am very different from the traditional neocon of today with his unshakable faith in the "defense industry." I should point out that a civilian-controlled military like ours--arguably corrupted by capitalism--is probably preferable to a system where the military is also the head of state. (Witness Myanmar/Burma.)
5/4/08
My dad got me Gears of War for the PC. I'd played it a little on his Xbox 360 a while back. It's a stunning package. (The trailer is GameSpy's top-rated game "cinematic moment" of all time: GameSpy article.) The game takes place on an Earth-like planet called Sera that's been ruined by global war against a batch of monsters--of subterranean origin. The unique thing here is the art work. The environments are modern-day Greco-Roman-looking cities--scorched and pounded into rubble, then aged, mildewed, and water-damaged exquisitely. It's a quite dreary place--but different from every other post-apocalyptic world you've seen--for the way it manages to evoke a recollection of peaceful times while being totally despairing at the same time.
Dad and I took turns with the game for a couple hours today. I kept playing for a while after he left, but I got frustrated at a particular point. I left the game very angry. I kept getting killed at the same point, but I couldn't tell how. There is no quick save feature in the game, so I had to keep replaying from the last checkpoint--up to the point where I kept getting killed. (The removal the of the quick-save feature in PC games today is a truly sad turn in contemporary game design.) I was so disappointed in this that it made me really resent the whole thing--despite the otherwise brilliant design.
5/1/08
We cannot effectively fight religious fanatics abroad while nurturing them here at home and--not to mention--appeasing them in countries like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Egypt. The argument that war in Iraq is the "front line" in the war on terror is a total sham. It is a focal point of distractions from equally sinister places in the world. Our own brand of Christian fundamentalism continues to ruin us here.
4/26/08
Quite fascinating: Charlie Rose interviews Stephen Gaghan--screenwriter and director of the movie Syriana. (YouTube.) (Thanks, Andy!)
4/24/08
Some new guidelines from the Bush administration regarding proper terminology for combatants in this "war on terror." (I feel a weariness come over me when I write those words) In a nutshell, the gist of the new terminology is to remove the religious inflections ("jihadists," "mujahedeen," "Islamo-fascism") and stick to more single-purpose descriptors like "terrorist" or "violent extremist." (MSNBC article here.) The issue--according to the article--is that terms like "jihadist" give undeserved credibility to these knuckleheads. And the term "Islamo-fascist" offends moderates.
I've been thinking through strategies for this war on terror, and I realize just now how I hate this train of thought--what it consists of, where it leads, what it brings out in me. I happen to think that the only way forward is in fact a frontal attack on Islam itself--moderates be damned. They are the greatest enablers of extremists--particularly when they prevent us from calling a spade a spade. I think the term "Islamo-fascist" is a useful coinage--although it admittedly does have a lot of American neocon baggage. I think it's still a useful term.
I keep thinking of folks like Salman Rushdie, the "Danish Cartoonists" and the like--folks who have had Islamic wrath directed at them. And then I look at this word game game played by Bush and company. It's like a software project backing itself into a stalemate.
4/17/08
A magical night seeing Sarah Vowell at my high school. (about Sarah.) A very rare opportunity--to see her in person at all--much less where I went to school in the late 80s/early 90s. I take pride in being a long time fan of hers. I had every one of her books through Take the Cannoli (--of which I had a signed copy--thanks to an NPR fund drive promotion thing a while back). Those books, though, did not survive the round of purging I did before moving to TR. This says something about by "fandom." For, while I really like her writing, I'm not super into it for its own sake. Instead, I like hearing her talk, I like hearing her intelligence at work. I treasure her grouchy, deadpan sarcasm and searing one-liners. I love her ornate and subtle shielding comprised of feminism and individualism. I don't really need to keep the "evidence" of it in the form of actual books.
Being at my high school was in itself sort of rush. (Asheville School.) I parked way in the back behind Walker Arts Center, and slunk in through an open door into one of the art studios. It looked as if Mr. Crawford, the art teacher, was nearby. Lights were on, fans were blowing (ceramics drying). The studio was smaller than I remember--probably because it was packed like an old attic with junk and student art. A welcome mat read, "You might as well come in. You can't dance and it's too windy to stack BBs." I was bracing myself for speaking to Mr. Crawford. I always liked him, but when you haven't talked to someone in over 15 years, you kinda brace yourself. But he wasn't around. I used to be sort of an artist-type person and did drawings--technical drawings of imaginary cars, airplanes, guns. I also did fantasy characters sort of like you see on Conan paperback novels and the like. I took pride in that at the time and still have some of that work, but I am embarrassed of it even so--due to the juvenile subject matter and the fact that I never really developed as an artist.
I paced around slowly--into the lobby at Walker. I was a good bit early. I strolled through Mitchell Hall hoping to see someone I knew. I did not. I eventually sat down on a brick wall in the plaza and let the time pass. Two young women whom I guessed to be students asked me the time. Turned out they had driven down from Boone--probably from ASU. We talked a little bit about our interest in Vowell. They were embarrassed that they hadn't dressed up like I had. (I was in my new J. Crew suit--sans tie--that I'll be wearing to my brother's and a friend's upcoming weddings. The pants are too tight in the waist. How depressing is that? I've had to buy more. Real bummer since they are just shy of $200.) The two women hung out with me, sort of, not quite wanting to talk to me directly too much. One of them had a book of Vowell's she was hoping to get signed. She said something about having been to a lecture by Gloria Steinem. I said a loud mental "Ah" at that, and I wanted to reply with something provocative that would reveal my sharply mixed feelings about feminism. But I didn't. I let them slip away as we filed into the auditorium, and I didn't see them again.
Oh--and as I was sitting there in the plaza, my old English teacher Mr. Bonner walked by--with Vowell at his side. Only I didn't know it was her--amazingly. (Frankly, I'd thought she was a lot heavier, but in fact she was what I would call "mean skinny." There's a real contradiction in her look--a contradiction between 65% lonely librarian and 35% hipster biatch.) Mr. Bonner recognized me and shook my hand, thanked me for being there. I was so grateful for that. He and I have not really kept in touch over the years. But it's not really necessary. He is one of my all-time favorite educators. If I ever have the chance to speak in public about him, I will thank him for introducing me to My Bloody Valentine. The two ASU chicks were standing there and they saw me shake hands with Mr. Bonner. I was glad that they saw this.
Vowell's talk went by in a haze--sort of. I sat in the very back. The place was 99% full. She talked a little too fast. Not too too fast, but--again--it's not the actual substance of her lecturing I'm interested in so much as Vowell herself. If I caught 80% of it, that was good enough.
I don't really have a full-on crush on Sarah Vowell--although I guess it's something a lot like a crush. I did write my email address on a slip of paper that I had a fantasy of giving to her. Actually, I had another fantasy of giving her a piece of paper with nothing but my name on it--no contact info. The weirdness of that would be intentional, of course--and meant to imply that I had no expectation that she would ever contact me. (But it struck me later that this act--giving someone a card with nothing but your name--could be construed as really cocky. So I'm glad I didn't do that. And no, I never had any conversation with Vowell at all and my email address is still in my wallet.)
One other thing I want to point out is that Vowell once said that she hates Garrison Keillor. She hates that jolly old patrician shtick--and I know what she's talking about. I don't hate it, nor hate Keillor, but I think the fact is that I'm attracted to women who hate Garrison Keillor. Behind that hatred is a consummate ironic intelligence that I love. But the other fact is that such women do not like me. They fucking don't. And you know what? That is okay. I have come to figure out that is okay.
I also wouldn't mind talking to the ASU chick again and telling her how I really feel about Gloria Steinem.
4/11/08
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4/9/08
I have some misgivings about classifying all religious people as "full of shit" because I think there are people who do good in the name of religion. But I remain pretty disgusted with the whole business of faith in today's America, particularly. I was at Olive Garden last night and was watching a silent TV tuned to CNN. The situation in Eldorado, Texas was all over it--about the "polygamist church raid." Here, we have a group that includes "Jesus Christ" as part of its title--a group whose mission appears to be the sexual enslavement of girls and women. The fact that a group can justify its cruel vision with the Bible does not say much for the Bible. You can try to argue that these guys are just "stupid" or "crazy," but I don't buy that. If they were stupid, they would have been caught a lot earlier. If they were crazy, they'd be eating their own shit and getting hepatitis. No, what these guys are are mean, and they have read the Bible better than you and I.
The other disappointing thing here I'm noticing in the news coverage on this is how afraid we are of offending religion. I'm disgusted with how complicit we are as a nation in giving cover for religious groups like this. I'm disgusted that we don't seem to have a clear sense of right and wrong on this. MSNBC is asking the question on their home page: "Religious sect or cult?"
As if it makes a mother-fucking difference. As if sexual enslavement is protected activity for "religious sects," but not for "cults."
4/8/08
Went to my first AU meeting the other night--Americans United for Separation of Church and State. (au.org) It was a little bit exhilarating to think that I might be able to channel my anti-religious fervor into some kind of practical activism. Exhilarating but worrisome. Worrisome because in the meeting I heard the story of a woman in a small town near Charlotte who challenged her town's practice of prayer at council meetings. She won her case, and was shunned by locals--who vandalized her house and "killed her pets."
My impression from the meeting was that AU is split between hardcore anti-religion types like myself and Unitarian-type progressive pluralists. This is not a completely harmonious combination. Progressives think that "diversity" will save us from theocracy. I think it might help; but when I consider the "diversity" of religious viewpoints--they are all--essentially--competing answers to the question of when and how Santa Claus is coming to town. In other words, they are full of shit. This seems to be the hole, or the big intellectual compromise in AU's mission: they're not really an anti-religious organization, they're a Constitutionality watchdog--and they sort of "hide behind" the first 16 words of the 1st Amendment without ever really probing the reasons for them. Or at least not probing them in the dangerous way they need to be probed. In other words, they're afraid to tell people that Santa is not really coming to town. There is a sense--coming from Barry Lynn himself, the AU director--that having beliefs about Santa, or Poseidon, or Christ, or Gaia are okay. I have a problem with that, but am willing to get behind AU. I will be firmly in the "hardcore" anti-religious crowd.
I watched a debate between Lynn and some other guys I don't remember--here.
3/31/08
The new Raconteurs album is rousing, majestic, crunchy, nourishing. It's also got some abstract corners I haven't understood yet--some odd melodies in some of the middle tracks--melodies that are a little too odd. But I keep listening to the first couple minutes of the first track. It's a great opening--in which a few isolated power chords fire over a funky, sauntering beat. The guitar part has a why-didn't-I-think-of-that simplicity and strength.
3/30/08
Bought the new Raconteurs album Consolers of the Lonely. Early impressions very favorable.
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If I don't remind you of a 70s home movie of people happily buzzing about inflating hot-air balloons...then I do now.
3/27/08
Forgot to mention that I read a few pages of Eckhart Tolle's Power of Now recently. It's been nagging me. I really didn't like what I read, and I feel a strong need to explain why. The book is billed as a "guide to enlightenment"--in the Zen/Buddhist sense--though it seems to be staunchly non-denominational--not really a book about Buddhism proper.
Early on, Tolle says there's more to the universe than physical reality, and he takes a dismissive attitude toward science in general. He cites the atom bomb as science's crowning achievement--and from that, disqualifies science as a useful tool for seeking truth. I admit I was left stuttering about the atom bomb comment--because, yes, that is a kind of black cloud that hangs over science. But Tolle doesn't make an actual case or argument for reality beyond the physical. He does give a cereal box description of quantum physics and teleportation--something about subatomic particles staying "connected" after being separated. I don't deny that at all, but Tolle is no physicist; and the behavior of subatomic particles--most certainly mysterious and amazing--is not evidence of a metaphysical or spiritual reality. "Evidence" by definition always points to the physical. That is the only thing "evidence" can do. In fact, Tolle simply takes metaphysical reality for granted--as does the rest of the American electorate. This is something I will not do, and this is the first big problem I have with the book.
(The other bothersome thing here is that Tolle misses the irony of citing--if very carelessly--our understanding of quantum physics as evidence of a spiritual reality--considering how much our knowledge of quantum physics owes to the development of nuclear weapons.)
At its best, science is the discipline of rationality. Granted, it's not really a guarantor of ethical behavior. A certain, ineffable spark of intuition is needed for ethics. But that spark fires (or fails to fire) in the human brain, in human flesh, human tissue. It doesn't come from out there somewhere.
3/25/08
Writing about Kitty was sort of exhausting, and the point I didn't get around to making was how grateful I am for her confession of love for me. At various times in my life I've been really down over women, but when I remember Kitty, it's like finding an illuminated stone in my pocket. That light will never go out.
I'm reading Human Smoke by Nicholson Baker. Baker is part of my personal triumvirate of literary protectors--the other two being Cormac McCarthy and John Ashbery. My connection with Baker goes back to his first novel, The Mezzanine, which I read in high school and is my favorite. The Mezzanine is about a guy who reflects on various odd topics in the last 15 minutes of his lunch hour--shoe-tying and shoelace dynamics, the buoyancy of straws in different kinds of drinks, and the awkward relationship one can have with a convenience store clerk where one buys pornography--among other things. Baker's expert and bold foray into the erotic did not take shape until two of his later books--Vox and The Fermata. Mezzanine remains my favorite for its anthemic, broad and strange scope.
Anyway, Human Smoke is about World War II. There's a fascinating interview with him on Amazon.com here that I recommend. A standout snippet with Baker's sublime command of language color-coded. Items in bold are particularly memorable.
Amazon.com: Why World War Two in particular?
Baker: Politicians constantly fondle a small, clean, paperweight version of this war, as if it provides them with moral clarity. We know that it was the most destructive five year period in history. It was destructive of human lives, and also of shelter, sleep, warmth, gentleness, mercy, political refuge, rational discussion, legal process, civil tradition, and public truth. Millions of people were gassed, shot, starved, and worked to death by a paranoid fanatic. The war's victims felt as if they'd come to the end of civilization.
But then we also say that because it turned out so badly, it was the one just, necessary war. We acknowledge that it was the worst catastrophe in the history of humanity--and yet it was "the good war." The Greatest Generation fought it, and a generation of people was wiped out.
If we don't try to understand this one war better--understand it not in the sense of coming up with elaborate mechanistic theories of causation, but understand it in the humbler sense of feeling our way through its enormity--then cartoon versions of what happened will continue to distort debates about the merits of all future wars.
He says later:
I've had some very good reviews and some very bad ones. The bad ones seem to follow the teeter-totter school: that if a dictator and the nation he controls is evil, then the leader of the nation who opposes the evil dictator must be good. Life isn't that way, of course. There is in fact no "moral equivalence" created by examining coterminous violent and repulsive acts.
So, there's that.
Recent game experience:
3/13/08
I had a friend named Kitty Gretsch who died of breast cancer in December 2001, I think. I'm astonished I didn't write about this when it happened, but I definitely remember the sad email from her "spokesperson" of sorts--sent to the distribution list I was on. But I'm not totally positive on when she died, which continues to baffle me. I met Kitty in the summer of '92, after my first year of college. She was living with two other women in Black Mountain, NC--Lee and Martha. (I think her name was Martha.) Lee went on to be a friend, too, for several years although we're not in touch today--due I guess to a series of small mistakes and some "tectonic drift" that happens between friends sometimes.
I had a summer job where I went to college, Warren Wilson. Lee and I worked in the same office on campus. She'd invited me over for dinner--falafels. Gosh, I'm remembering that dinner, now. Lee had a small crush on me, I'm pretty sure. But I had a crush on this girl Amanda who worked in the college press. Amanda was a sullen, skinny girl who had ruled me out early on. When Lee had invited me over, I said sure--can we also invite Amanda from next door? That must have been a disappointment to Lee, but she agreed. Lee had short, spiked hair, had been to art school, knew a lot of music, and did not get along with her wealthy, conservative parents. She'd introduced me to Tom Tom Club, Laurie Anderson, Julee Cruise, Siouxsie and the Banshees. I remember now a mix tap she'd made for me. There was a Thompson Twins song on that tape I'd never heard before (--Who Wants to be a Millionaire on the Cole Porter tribute album Red, Hot and Blue). I was and am a huge Thompson Twins fan.
I take delight in remembering Lee's and Kitty's house in Black Mountain. I was there only a few times. It was on Route 9 between Black Mountain and Montreat, on the left before you get to Montreat. It was on the side of a mountain that was covered--as I recall it--with kudzu. There was nothing very special about the house. I just liked the location, the kudzu. I liked that I was by then well out of high school and in very new territory. I liked that interesting women lived in the house and that one of them thought well enough of me to invite me to dinner.
Kitty arrived later. She had a dress on and walked with crutches. We were sitting under the deck on a patio, and I remember Kitty walking with difficulty up the wooden steps, over our heads to her room. She came down soon and we were introduced. When the falafels came out of Lee's cast iron pan, I offered to carry Kitty's plate, but she emphatically declined that assistance. She'd put away the crutches and had put on her prosthetic leg. To this day I cannot remember which leg of hers was missing. She'd had cancer as a young girl, and had had to have a leg amputated. Over time I learned to walk at her speed. Her gait was a cross between a skater's on ice and a newborn deer's.
Kitty had an almost prim, traditional manner, and her dream was to be a writer. I pictured her taking after Flannery O'Connor--Southern, but transcendently Southern. Kitty had a keen sense of foreboding. She had, I imagined, a vault of unhappy childhood memories. I think she accepted those bad memories as an energy source for her creativity--accepted that she would have to "work with" those memories forever--for better and worse. I didn't know all that when I met her, but she confided stuff like this to me over time. Today, I am so grateful for the confidence she had in me.
Kitty and I kept in touch sporadically over the years. She lived in Black Mountain for a long time, but eventually moved back to her home city of Tallahassee, Florida. She would visit NC two or three times a year. She once stopped at my house (the garage apartment behind my grandparents' house) when I wasn't there and left me several handwritten pages describing her travels. She stayed over one time. We started out sleeping in the same bed, but I remember confessing a pornographic interest of mine at the time (--the Internet newsgroup alt.sex.stories). I felt so weird and embarrassed about this that I went to sleep in the main house.
On her visits to North Carolina, Kitty would almost always stay at the Sunnybank Inn in Hot Springs, an old Victorian house run by a former Duke chaplain named Elmer Hall (article here). On Kitty's account I made several visits out to Sunnybank over the years, but never really got to know Elmer. He's an interesting guy but was once a little rude to my mom, so I don't have much use for him. Hot Springs is a somewhat mythic cycling destination for me, I'd like to point out. Some of my most grueling summer rides have involved passing through Hot Springs. There are some freaky little dirt back roads between Marshall and Route 209, which leads to Hot Springs. The way back to Asheville, along highway 25/70, is not pleasant--long, straight climbs leading up to the ridge where the Appalachian Trail crosses the highway. There's no shade anywhere, and incredibly loud motorcycle convoys are common in summer. I barely remember when that road was dangerously twisty and slow. There was a lot of protest when they eventually widened and straightened it. To this day I shudder a little at the thought of the dynamite used out there to blast away the mountains over there.
I believe it was Lee who told me in 2000 that Kitty's cancer had come back. When I met Kitty in Hot Springs later, she described to me the novel she was working on. My recollection is that it was about a dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship from the Civil War era. "Dysfunctional" may be the wrong word, but that's the nearest I can recall. She told me a surprising thing that weekend also that I've always treasured. She said, in so many words: look, I know I'm an angry feminist, but "I was dropped on my head" as a child, and becoming an angry feminist was the only way I could cope. She used the exact phrase "dropped on my head as a child." At that time, I was really obsessed with politics of sexual identity. I had struggled with feminism at Warren Wilson--which is to say I had self-esteem crashes stemming from jealousy of a college girlfriend's love of women. I'd had a lesbian girlfriend in college--the fallout from which was really painful for me for a long time. And part of me still craves that danger. As tempting a digression as that is, my reason in bringing it up is that Kitty and I could talk easily about these things. I could bring her poems I was working on. She'd want to hear them.
In March 2001, I stayed with Kitty for a week in Durham. She was being prepped for a bone marrow transplant--needing daily treatments of some kind. (Something like chemo, but not.) She had friends and relatives stay with her in one-week segments. Lee had been there the week before me. She was staying at a Marriot Residence Inn. I'd take her to the hospital in the morning for her treatment and sit with her in a large triangular room with other patients--about forty of them. I got to know a couple of them. I don't remember any names. One woman we'd gotten to know thought Kitty and I were brother and sister, which I took as a compliment. I appreciated being allowed in the treatment room. I was told to wash my hands a lot. I read to Kitty, gave her a few foot massages. I went by myself a few times outside the hospital for lunch. She didn't like me leaving, but she could tell I needed to get out for a little bit now and then.
On my last morning there, Kitty crawled into bed with me without a word. I was surprised but I welcomed her and held her in a loving way. I stroked her bald head. (I understand this feels particularly good to bald people.) I kissed her very gently. We laid there a long time without speaking. I had a hard-on--that I really didn't need. I'm happy to say we did not have sex. I think that would've been really unwise. As if sex is ever "wise." It isn't. For those minutes lying together, Kitty was both afraid of me and clinging to me. I dreaded seeing her mastectomy scars.
After a while I got up and had a shower. I don't think we talked. We headed to the hospital. I was to stay that day until her aunt came. In the car we had a conversation like this:
Adam, I need to tell you something.
Okay.
I love you.
I love you, too.
No, I mean I really love you.
Okay. I really love you, too.
I want you to be my boyfriend.
I don't think I can do that.
Why not?
I don't love you like that.
Why not?
I don't know.
Yes you do. Why don't you?
I don't know. The lord works in mysterious ways.
How long have you felt this way? I asked.
A long time.
Well, I think I'm ready for a boyfriend, she said.
I dropped her off at the main hospital entrance as I'd done all week, then parked the car. I joined her inside. I tried hard to act like nothing was weird. She told me I didn't need to stay--that I could go on home. I offered a token protest, but I really did want to leave. We said good-byes, and then I left, feeling awful, but also lifted. When I got home, there was a message on my answering machine from a friend of hers asking me to turn around and come back and stay another week. I called the friend back and said I "couldn't" do that. I gave her Lee's phone number.
I had no further contact with Kitty. She didn't call me, I didn't call her. I hated that, but I also hated the thought of confronting the change between us. She had the marrow transplant as planned. Her brother was the donor. I don't know the specifics, but I'm pretty sure her condition never particularly improved. (Obviously, it didn't--but I'm not sure if there was ever any real hope of a turnaround.)
3/12/08
Started on a fascinating book about the writing process and eventual failure of M. Night Shyamalan's Lady in the Water: The Man Who Heard Voices (Amazon). (Thanks Andy!) This was my original take on the movie: blog archive.
What I find fascinating here is how blinded Shyamalan is by his own inspiration. He was aflame with inspiration--despite that the writing was particularly difficult. He believed that he'd created a myth that would go on to become a phenomenon like Sixth Sense. But as one of the Disney Studio execs, Nina Jacobson, pointed out to him--it was maddeningly unclear what the myth was really about. (Why was the boar monster trying to hurt Story, the water-nymph?) The other thing that killed the movie was all the exposition. Characters were telling the story instead of acting it. I remember now my experience watching this in the theater--my eyebrows arching in confusion when one character would ask her mother "what happens next in this story." I thought it was a terrible cop-out on Shyamalan's part.
For a long time now I've had this daydream of writing a movie adapted from the game Quake. That game's grip on my imagination has not let up after 12 years. It is a blistering fantasia of despair, violence, and loneliness. The game had a really unique and disturbed aesthetic of both medieval and futuristic touches. The spooky, trance-inducing music was done by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. But just as in music where melody is key, story is key in movies. A movie is nothing without a good story underneath, and I've been unable to settle on a good story for a Quake movie. These are the story possibilities I keep coming back to:
3/9/08
A really neat article in the latest New Yorker about the emotional/psychological significance of the superhero comic, here by Michael Chabon. It's one of those personal essays I like so much--my favorite being Adam Gopnik's reflections on his experience with psychotherapy. (That article is not online. The only info about is here on New Yorker's site.) Anyway, I haven't even finished the Chabon piece. That's typical of the best essays. I can read only small bits at a time before wanting to put them down and take a detour through my own recollections if they're at all comparable with the author's.
(While I'm searching NewYorker.com for old articles that stuck with me, let me point out Salman Rushdie's reflection on the Wizard of Oz, here that I wish I still had a hard-copy of. Only the abstract is available, but some intriguing key phrases will jump out: "lack of a male hero", "the Wizard turns out to be an illusion", "this radical and enabling film...", "...in the end, ceasing to be children, we all become magicians without magic.")
I read a bit more of Chabon's piece, and it's really more about the super hero costume than heroics in general. It's no less fascinating--and immediately makes clear the failings of so many super hero movies: their foolish insistence on reproducing the comic book hero's costume as a real garment. Only one filmmaker I know of outsmarted this--M. Night Shyamalan with his movie Unbreakable. In it, Bruce Willis wears plain clothes, but his rain poncho--an ordinary rain poncho with the word "SECURITY" on it--takes on the deserved gravitas and mystique of the super hero's costume--while still being just a poncho! Brilliant!
But the wisdom of this has always eluded the Batman movies and many like it. I think I can now put my finger on the fail point of Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins. The first half of that movie is awesome--before Bruce Wayne gets the bat suit. The authenticity drops when the iconic bat shows itself. Though it is the moment the audience has been waiting for--when Bruce Wayne dons the bat suit--it is the moment that the lies begin and the movie--like every Batman movie before it--falters.
3/5/08
On a hunch, I visited Borland's web site. (www.borland.com.) 10-15 years ago, Borland was sort of an equal competitor with Microsoft, but they couldn't hang. They're still around, but they've really specialized. I was pleasantly surprised to see that they're into change control and app lifecycle management--areas I'm interested in. They were doing a survey about their web site--which I always like. These were some of the questions and my responses:
1. What were the most positive aspects of your experience today?
There were no naked pictures of me on your site.
2. What were the most negative aspects of your experience today?
The site has too much information. It's overwhelming. Too much happy talk about how great change control is and not enough straight talk about what it costs. There's a missed opportunity to connect with programmers. You go over the programmers head and connect with the manager. But the manager is not the one suffering with poor change control process in the first place.
3. What could we add to the Borland web site to serve you better?
Cut two-thirds of the text on every page. Strip it the hell down. I mean strip it down. Tell the story of poor change control and what you can do about it. Tell it in a way that connects with programmers on a visceral level--rather than connecting with managers on a cerebral level.
I have some harrowing tales of life in the corporate IT world--as it pertains to the business of software change control workflow. My experience centers around both technical and people problems: a poorly conceived and home-grown task management system, and a boss with a temper problem. My experience left me angry and radicalized--with a keen sense of what doesn't work in change control--and a slowly-emerging sense of how it should work.
But let me back up a bit...let me explain "change control" and its significance. Companies of just about any size find themselves needing to develop custom software to support their business at some time or another. That software is usually critical to the business--whether it be financial reporting, or maybe some kind of manufacturing process automation, or perhaps some kind of order entry and fulfillment system. Custom software--like any other piece of software--can be complicated. Changing it can be risky--risky in that it's easy to break--easy to introduce bad side-effects or unexpected behavior. Anyone who makes a software change usually has to really know what they're doing. Not only that--and here's the kicker--the company's leadership as a whole has to be aware of and in control of how its software is being changed. It's not enough that the programmers know what they're doing--it's that the company must also know what their programmers are doing.
There are two main reasons for this need for change control. One is the commonsense business reason, the other is audit compliance. To an extent, these two are intertwined, but audit compliance has become almost an end in itself--threatening at times to become nonsensically complicated and disconnected from its original mission. That part I have a problem with.
You can think of change control as involving these three areas:
Anyway, there are companies that sell products geared for helping companies navigate this process. Borland is one, apparently. Serena is another. Quest is another.
One of my dream jobs would be to design these kinds of systems and participate in the marketing. (I have already started on this with a project code-named Salient.) My frustration with this stuff is that these tools are so expensive. There's no easy way for me to get into them, learn them, and start evangelizing them. They don't make an attempt to connect with the programmer, but instead go for the manager--who normally doesn't know how programmers are suffering on a daily basis.
2/27/08
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A few snowy days here in TR, back in January. |
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| First time riding at Donaldson Center with my friend Erik. |  |
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| My bike commute to Greenville, mapped
here. These are some sights along the way. Notably, a nasty old train car, beautiful in its state of ruin. Half of the route is off-road, which I think is way cool. I have to walk through a creek also to avoid crossing a scary-looking bridge. |
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2/14/08
I've been sick since Saturday, but am coming out of it. For a while there it felt like the End of Days. I found myself actually getting depressed at one point--something I haven't felt in years. My healthy inner core struck back with a happy memory of biking north on the Parkway--from Bull Gap to Craggy Gardens. I was by myself. It was spring, and there were new leaves out and tender young grasses on the road shoulder--the brown of winter healed over. The tree trunks were dark with dampness. Clouds were up ahead I could eat if I kept going. Cloud-eating is a little-known joy of high-altitude biking along the Parkway.
I'm not positive I ever actually biked in those exact conditions. I've eaten plenty of cloud--though, sadly--not at all in SC. Anyway, the more I thought about this ride, the more sure I was it was a combination of happy memories distilled and not a single actual ride. This made me very glad since it meant my subconscious was using creative license to combat depression.
Part of me thinks I should practice this more since one day I--and everyone--will be truly incapacitated--unable to ride. The only option will be to lie back and reflect. Being sick had me thinking of this. Some other friends of mine are nursing injuries of their own right now--some ulnar nerve damage--and another guy with possibly a pinched nerve. So, I am grateful for these memories of cycling that I have, but sobered with the thought that one day that's all I'll have.
1/30/08
All of the sudden I'm sort of into the band Heart. They have a 2004 album called Jupiter's Darling. (I would've called it Darling Jupiter.) I had no idea they were still recording in the 21st century. Anyway I got one track from it sort of on impulse called The Oldest Story in the World. The sample was unexpectedly raw. The track as a whole was pretty good, I guess: soccer moms on the rampage. Reminded me of 4 Non Blondes, from a few years back. I can remember my college girlfriend blasting 4 Non Blondes in her car to suppress conversation once after she had a hard day at work or something. I think this may have ruined them for me--since she had effectively made them her band. That was plenty okay with me. To this day I am very well defended by My Bloody Valentine, The Church, Sam Phillips, INXS.
The Aimee Mann songs are getting better the more I listen--the more I sing them, actually. I drove home yesterday belting out I Can't Help You Anymore. Aimee Mann is like the patron saint of horn-rimmed-glasses-wearing bookstore hotties. The two tracks I got remind me of Beck's Sea Change--the pathos and rich, singable melodies. Also reminds me of Carole King. Mann has a deep, broad voice. She uses just a little bit of vibrato as they would in the 70s. It makes me happy. Crank it the fuck up.
1/26/08
I saw Cloverfield and loved it. Loved it. Loved it. Loved it. Sort of in the tradition of M. Night Shyamalan's Signs (2002), it shows the terror--at a human level--of a monster attack--not just the spectacle. There are some impressive special effects, for sure, but most of the punch of this movie is emotional--as it should be. In fact, the movie is really a love story. When the monster strikes, the protagonist goes toward the destruction to rescue a girl he's had a falling out with. That's really the engine of the story and is what makes the hero endanger himself. The love story angle really works here, and the ending is perfect. In skiing they call it a "hockey stop"--when you turn and skid to a stop in a single elegant move. That's what this movie does--it comes to a perfect, hockey-stop ending.
I've heard complaints about the relentlessly jerky camera work causing motion sickness and disorientation, but I didn't have much of a problem with that. I did feel pretty beat up afterwards, but it was a welcome beating. Bottom line here--to reiterate--is that this movie presents the disaster from the human point of view. It's not like other kinds of monster/disaster movies where nobody you care about gets hurt.
Grade: A
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Would like to try and clarify my feelings about the Dave Matthews Band. DMB is largely meant to be enjoyed in social settings--outdoor concerts. I have trouble with concerts--a stubborn urge to sit and pout. I don't really understand that. DMB brings out the sulking outsider adolescent in me like nothing else. That alto sax of his summons friendly over-achieving white people who hate me. That violin he's got is meant for the hosts of the public TV fundraiser.
On the other hand, I do kinda like the song "So Much to Say."
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On a hunch I check out Aimee Mann on iTunes and lift my DMB-induced depression with two tracks from her latest album The Forgotten Arm: Dear John and I Can't Help You Anymore.
1/25/08
Recent listening:
1/24/08
Sampling a bit of The Cribs, based on a tip from Frere-Jones. The Cribs' sound comes looking for me in my distracted, happy art school youth. The problem is that I never went to art school and so the music doesn't find me. The Cribs jangle and carouse but there are no arresting riffs such as what I hear in the White Stripes' song Blue Orchid.
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Finally got around to seeing "300" thanks to movie rentals on iTunes now. I'd been curious about it since it came out, but had felt sort of icky about it, ashamed of it. It was what I suspected it would be--an ode to military service minus an honest depiction of injury and suffering.
1/14/08
Based on my liking of David Duchovny and a friend's suggestion, I bought Season 1 of the show Californication, now playing on Showtime. I kinda really almost like it a lot. I emphasize "almost." Duchovny plays Hank Moody, a loutish but ultimately saintly single father and writer who, between nightly hook-ups with random women, pleads relentlessly with his ex-girlfriend--with whom he has a daughter--to take him back and finally get married. I had trouble buying that Hank would be so hung up on his ex, played by Natascha McElhone. (She was in Ronin with Robert De Niro.) I had trouble buying that she would still be so friendly with him. You're supposed to get the feeling that the two really "belong together," and it's this immature premise that props up this otherwise smart show. The pilot and second episodes are the best.
1/5/08
My Bloody Valentine is re-uniting and going on tour this summer in Britain. Check it out. I believe a new album is forthcoming. The shows are sold out, but I had no intention of going. Aside from disliking travel (and not having a passport), I never really learned the more fundamental skill of enjoying concerts. Besides, an MBV concert would be like working as a baggage handler at an airport. You'd need some serious ear protection.
The thought of an MBV reunion is immensely gratifying to me. They mean so much to me, as I've said before. When my high school senior year English teacher introduced them to us, it unlocked something in me. I've said this already, but I feel like repeating. Not only is the music enchanting by itself--fusing a burning sensuality with gushing, relentless noise--but Mr. Bonner's recommending them to my class legitimized them--legitimized the act of getting lost in a piece of pop music. Through this, my own creative inclination was validated, legitimized, and I am forever grateful.
12/31/07
Re-reading bits from Seamus Heaney's collection of poems Field Work. I have an autographed copy of the book from the time when a small group of us went to hear him read at Lenoir-Rhyne College in Hickory, in 1992. I was never a huge fan, exactly, the way I was with Ashbery, for instance, but Heaney is a good name to know. He's a grizzled old Irishman who lived in Ireland during its turbulent times in the seventies--times I wish I knew more about. (He's still alive today, far as I know.) Heaney's poetry seems to be partially wrapped up in and propelled by that violence. Sort of like the way U2's music is or was.
But Heaney is only vaguely political, I guess. The poems in Field Work are odes to the Irish landscape. You'll encounter "gargling" tractors, farms, potatoes, neighbors, creeks, lots of place names--which I don't much care for--not knowing what they really represent. Well...more than just odes to the landscape, they are disquieting and hopeful recollections, meditations. Now, really, you could say that about just about any poet!
Here is a poem I come back to:
Homecomings
I
Fetch me the sandmartin
skimming and veering
breast to breast with himself
in the clouds in the river.II
At the worn mouth of the hole
flight after flight after flight
the swoop of his wings
gloved and kissed home.III
A glottal stillness. An eardrum.
Far in, featherbrains tucked in silence,
a silence of water
lipping the bank.IV
Mould my shoulders inward to you.
Occlude me.
Be my damp clay pouting.
Let me listen under your eaves.
The stanzas are numbered like that so you will realize they're meant to be disconnected--visualized separately. I like the pair of verbless sentences that begin stanza 3: "A glottal stillness. An eardrum." I don't know what "glottal" means, but I see it as a trademark Heaney word that evokes nuanced body sensation. Something related to the throat. The eardrum is a sensitive, vulnerable organ lonely in its cave of the ear. So, the stanza works with feelings in the ear and throat. I think that's distinctive about Heaney--as opposed to Ashbery. Ashbery works with your eye and mind. Heaney is in the throat, in the ear.
12/30/07
Recent games played:
12/27/07
Waking up with the Sam Phillip's tune Raised on Promises in my head. I've been a fan of hers since high school. She's been called--cruelly, by idiots--a "bad Cheryl Crow." She had a small part in the movie Die Hard with a Vengeance, but otherwise she's been pretty much off the radar, quietly producing albums every few years. A first time listener's starting point would be Cruel Inventions (1991).
I like her seriousness and her total un-interest in projecting sex appeal. And of course, she wouldn't be in my iTunes library if she didn't have a knack for melody.
She started out in the contemporary Christian music scene and did one or more albums under the name Leslie Phillips. She had some kind of falling out with that crowd. She was too liberal, thank goodness. Her Christian introspection and conscience still show--and I like her for that. (Although, if given the chance, I would certainly argue with her about some of that.)
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I have also been listening again to the later tracks on Beck's must recent album The Information and liking them much more now. I had initially found them too "abstract." The song We Dance Alone is what you listen to walking home alone by the railroad tracks, by abandoned buildings. Onlookers will think you have ants in your pants for the way you'll move to it. The song is a fantasia, a roiling, all-loving dusk-darkened cityscape. The song No Complaints is all acoustic, as far as I can tell, which is happily unexpected here. It's got this nearly expressionless but catchy melody. Hear it played on front porches in poor neighborhoods on overcast days--among kudzu and rusted junk. The song 1000BPM gets weird fast, but the rhythm is unmistakable and compatible with all bodies. The song Motorcade is another kooky number, visually rich and emotionally neutral like a Shaman. That's what I like about Beck--this mystical individualism.
There are still a couple tracks I don't connect with--New Round and Dark Star.
The crowning achievement on the album is still the title track. I've said this already I think, but the song The Information would work as the closing song on a movie adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's The Road. If this movie is made, I will be gravely disappointed if the song is not used.
12/16/07
Lately enjoying a couple of songs by Trashcan Sinatras from their album Weightlifting:
Trashcan Sinatras have been a nice fit with my own brand of solitude for a long time.
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In other news, I had to pee all the way through I Am Legend, but it was so engrossing I didn't leave my seat. However, I wanted to rewrite the third act because I could've written a much better critique of religion than the movie's timid and self-defeating attempt at this. But it's really impossible today to make a truly controversial movie that makes millions of dollars. The big-budget movie industry will continue appeasing American spiritual complacency and gullibility. Bummer!
You know I'm also on the lookout for any emotional falseness. Will Smith is pretty good, I'll say, but I didn't quite buy all of him. I don't want to give anything away, but suffice it to say he acts a bit crazy in a couple scenes--crazy in a way that doesn't jive with the rest of his sane behavior. So, there's a small problem I have there.
Let's compare with another apocalyptic work--McCarthy's The Road. The Road is really a more intense, cathartic, and dangerous work. The Road keeps a knife to your throat the whole time, and does not release you. McCarthy's characters are so helpless and so strongly connected as father and son--and surrounded by so much evil and despair. At least Will Smith has electricity, a fleet of Ford vehicles, free gasoline, and no child to look after. He's got a bachelor's freedom, in other words. The only thing that really does anchor and propel him, emotionally, is his dog. (Dog owners will want to hug theirs after this movie.)
12/7/07
In other news, my workflow project has gone sour, and is currently stalled. I am more intrigued by project failure and wish to study it more than I am disappointed--although I guess I am that, too. I told the project leader that I'd become "very invested in a data model" that is flexible, but flexible only in some specific ways. It doesn't handle some of the realistic business cases we'd wanted to use it for. I have more to say on this, but must get to work.
12/6/07
I drove home today worried about where we're headed as a nation. I fear the rise of the religious right. I was thinking about the speech Mitt Romney gave recently--which I've read only snippets of--in which he argues for keeping religion front and center in public life. He says that "freedom requires religion." This gives me chills. He seems also to make a plea for a kind "religious tolerance" (--"a President needs prayers from all faiths...," he says, if I recall)--but I feel it's mainly a pitch to Evangelicals who are very suspicious of his Mormonism. Indeed, I hope this intra-denominational strife continues. Infighting among religious conservatives over denominational superiority is probably what's preventing a theocratic landslide. Catholics are too busy hating Baptists, who are too busy hating Pentecostals, who are too busy hating...and so on. I'm not sure how the battle lines are actually drawn.
11/29/07
An engaging episode of The Unit in which a team member starts to have second thoughts about all the killing they do. He talks to the chaplain about it, pointing out the commandment against killing. The chaplain replies--and I've heard another Army chaplain say this in an interview once--that the Bible doesn't prohibit "killing" but rather "murder." Supposedly, the ancient Hebrew makes a big distinction here.
I don't buy it because the difference between "killing" and "murder" is a human value judgment influenced by political and strategic motives. It's not an absolute difference, in other words. The Army chaplain reasoning will appease gullible people, but not me.
Now, I am not a pacifist by any stretch. I have a little bit of fascination with the military and have the faintest inkling of regret that I have not served in the military myself. But it's only an inkling. I would really much rather build databases and ride my bicycle. My point is that I believe there are ethical reasons to kill, but that the distinction between "murder" and "killing" is fundamentally political and will appease only stupid people.
11/27/07
In the theater, at the sudden ending of No Country for Old Men, a woman behind me muttered That was awful, and my feelings were immediately hurt. It meant that the enchanting and macabre wisdom of this story was lost to her and presumably lost to many other movie-goers. I want to try to reach these people--those who don't get Cormac McCarthy. In fairness, I should point out that the movie does have an unresolved thread of the plot, but this might be the only legitimate complaint. Let me also summarize in a nutshell the pleasure of this particular story: it's a deeply introspective thriller. It's so introspective, in fact, that the "thriller" aspect is largely just a booster rocket meant to propel the introspection where it couldn't otherwise go. Tommy Lee Jones, playing the old sheriff, has a simultaneously awful and triumphant realization in the end--that the world is lost to evil, but that his way is not completely lost.
11/19/07
Couple of quick thoughts about Beowulf movie before work. The adaptation is