Destructive Anachronism

Update

2012-02-06T04:35:00.001-05:00

Relaunching soon, stay tuned.

Number Two

2011-11-13T05:12:00.002-05:00

“She Walks in Beauty”

Byron told me that.

In many ways he lied.

This wasn’t one of them.

I used to worship Byron and his ilk.

Starry-eyed true believers,

Believers in what – in a past era –

Might have been termed faith.

You read Byron and imagine

The Greece of a Homer who never was,

A land of sunsets and gods and tall men,

Clasped in armor, devoted to their Patroclus,

Hey, likely even sleeping with that Patroclus.

A world of grapes and blood,

In which a man is a man,

Yet twenty years gone desires only return.

Shelley and Wordsworth too.

You live long enough on these blank spaces

You internalize certain things.

Ozymandias, for example.

You take in the nothing in your eyes

You begin to understand emptiness –

Whether it’s inside you or not.

You don’t gain an appreciation for –

No appreciation isn’t quite right

You look in yourself and – despair

Yes, despair; appropriately

It’s time translated into geography

Green everywhere, as far as the eye can see.

Infinity in all directions,

Not even ten minutes from civilization.

Lone and level sands.

That takes care of Shelley.

Wordsworth’s important here as well.

I’ve not yet been to Tintern Abbey,

But I know what the bloke saw.

Sitting on a hill a few miles above the place,

He had a glimpse of something far greater

Or maybe far purer than he would ever be.

Maybe confronted with endlessness

He saw Dorothy, or Dora, or

I don’t know – God?

Don’t take my word on the God part

I’m a veteran unbeliever

But a firm believer in whatever we call the Infinite.

Shelley looked and despaired

Byron looked and was caught

Wordsworth looked and was transfixed.

I look and don’t know

I, of far less genius than those three

Have stood at all points

Yet there is marrow in these bones

There is blood

There is time endlessly

Not city time

But time of the prairie

Of the land and those who came before

Germans and Scandinavians like me

And those who loved this land

Long before my forebears took breath.

Of course this is their land.

It’s my land.

Byron’s, Shelley’s, and Wordsworth’s too.

It’s infinite, this land.

Re-Up take... what?

2011-11-13T04:44:00.000-05:00

Yeah, back again. Talked with a dear friend who reminded me that this outpost is my cobwebbed window out of a murky self. So let's go.

Poem

2011-10-12T12:14:00.000-04:00

Rare, I know.

“A Love Song to New York”

You dirty piece of shit

Your multitudes

Your masses.

You teem with poets

Artists and bankers

Your kimchi is perfect

Your Tom Kha Gai unbeatable

Your subway disgusting

Your cabs overpriced

Yet

You vibrate, you live

Every moment of you lives

Whether your 30 Rock or your Queens

Every inch of you moves

Energy – just the energy

It’s electricity

It’s lightning

You can’t feel it anywhere but Berlin

It consumes you

Those of us who stare at the moon

At the corn rising high and alone

Who consume solitude as you

Children of glass and steel

Grown to love high things

See the Chrysler Building

And long for it; long for the moon empty in the black

Long for the moon smiling on your spire

On your light

On the blackness we share

I often laugh at your hipsters.

I imagine what effort it must take to seem so effortlesslycool.

I never could live up to that.

I have fucked many who presume to.

I have walked down Broadway and Fifth, through Williamsburgand Bushwick. I have heard Whitman echo in my ears. Burroughs call to me fromthe grave. And I, dear friends, have listened.

And so I open this door to stare at the moon

And I think of New York

And wish for it with all my heart

I think of friends I know who are there

I think of the MOMA and all those who made perfection

And the Met and the river and the unending light.

I think of New York in the moonlight.

New Book Review

2011-10-03T13:13:00.004-04:00

of Mark Wisniewski's Show Up, Look Good at bookslut.com.

Occupy Rockford

2011-10-03T13:13:00.001-04:00

I'll be doing most of my blogging at OccupyRockford.blogspot.com, as we organize direct action here in the Forest City, so apologies for prolonged absence.

Not One More Troy Davis

2011-09-22T13:41:00.002-04:00

Not one more. In the United States of America, we do not kill women or men who might be innocent. Or women or men who are guilty; we give them justice, but justice doesn't include killing individuals. Yes, we actually do, but it's going to stop. There is not a single rational reason to murder individuals either convicted or accused of a crime, even one as horrific as homicide. "An eye for an eye" comes from a fictional book and describes 16th-c. justice.

Georgia murdered Troy Davis last night despite legitimate doubts about his guilt. That isn't justice; it's vengeance. Retribution. Revenge. It doesn't bring the victim's family anything but the fleeting satisfaction of seeing another dead man. It doesn't bring them justice -- and if Davis is innocent, it puts them at a further remove from justice, as the state is far less likely to pursue other suspects now that Davis is dead. The death penalty is revenge that accomplishes nothing other than murdering someone, and enough of those someones are either innocent or have questions surrounding their guilt to make it what it is: barbaric. The death penalty is barbaric. It's the kind of thing you see Ned Stark do because Ned Stark would have existed 700 years ago were he real and if he lived on earth.

The death penalty must end. Republicans can laugh all they want about the state -- federal or individual states -- letting people die or actually murdering them, but this is a fight we're going to win. A lot of people had their eyes opened last night about how unjust this antiquated and barbaric institution is; some of them might even be willing to fight. It's insane that in 21st-century America, it's a "left" thing to be against the death penalty.

Here's what the ACLU has to say about the death penalty:

"The U.S.'s capital punishment process:
(1) is fraught with error;

(2) discriminates on the basis of socioeconomic status, race, and geography;

(3) is arbitrary and capricious, including its use against the mentally ill and defendants who did not kill anyone and did not intend that anyone be killed;

(4) costs taxpayers far more than life imprisonment without release;

(5) does nothing to protect people from crime;

(6) seriously harms the survivors of homicide victims;

(7) is plagued by cheap legal representation - the worst, not the best, of American lawyering; and

(8) greatly diminishes the worldwide stature of the United States and its ability to work to end human rights violations in other countries."

This cannot continue a single day longer. No more Troy Davises.

The Campaign to End the Death Penalty is an excellent resource for this, but it comes down to being active and demanding that your state representatives end this travesty in your state. I don't think the conservative Supreme Court will act on it any time soon, so it's a state-by-state fight.

Cross-posted at www.destructiveanachronism.blogspot.com

Troy Davis Again

2011-09-21T09:05:00.000-04:00

The state of Georgia is going to murder -- yes, murder, because I believe that's what it's tantamount to, and I don't blame the individuals who will actually do the deed, as they're just doing their jobs, and in this economy you can't really afford to tell your employer to go screw themselves. No, the murder is the responsibility of the fatally (no pun intended) flawed criminal justice system operating in the state of Georgia and in the United States of America. In any sane country, there would be no death penalty. I recognize that there's some controversy regarding the death penalty. Here's the short version of why it makes zero sense.

You can't. Take. It. Back. There are many documented cases of individuals who have been proven innocent after being executed. There are many more cases of alleged criminals being found innocent after having been convicted for non-executable crimes. If you put a convict to death who later turns out to be innocent, you're complicit in murder, the crime for which you put the alleged convict to death. That means you -- judge, officer, witness whoever are a murderer. Doesn't that irony seem poignant? The standard of evidence used to convict individuals in the United States criminal court system is "beyond a reasonable doubt," and I believe the number is considered 95% certainty. Could you kill a woman or man if there's a 5% chance she or he is innocent? I couldn't. Because if you're wrong state of Georgia, that's not the sort of thing you can ever make right. You kill someone and it's final; you can't bring them back, you can't console their loved ones.

As I wrote on Daily Kos yesterday, I don't know if Davis is guilty or not. But there are just too many questions to murder him without a new trial. Killing someone isn't something you just do. In my opinion it's not something you should ever do, but if you're going to, you have to be 100% certain. Not 95%, not a shoulder-shrug "meh, maybe," but absolutely certain. In Davis's case, that's not the case.

Troy Davis & Why He Matters

2011-09-20T17:01:00.002-04:00

Up at the Daily Kos.

Apropos of Nothing

2011-09-17T10:30:00.002-04:00

Buckets of rain.

2011-09-16T19:55:00.000-04:00

What I love about contemporary TV (the well-done variety that is) is that every scene your eyes scan for the next clue to what happens next, every detail emerging -- why we're in a golden age of television akin to novels. I say this as a person who writes novels.

Ah Our Happy Times

2011-09-16T19:36:00.000-04:00

Just a brief thought to share: Mad Men and Breaking Bad are probably the two most important television shows on the "air" today. Both are completely heartbreaking and soul-searching. Both are works of art, reminiscent of mid-70s cinema, where there's no such thing as a hero(ine) and everyone is suspect. What does it say about us that we're there?

Obligatory Cubs Post

2011-09-16T19:16:00.000-04:00

So Matt Garza pitched a beautiful game, giving up 3 runs on 7 hits in 9.0 IP -- the only problem is that the three runs all came courtesy of the Astros' Carlos Lee, who hit two home runs, the second coming with two outs (two outs!) in the ninth with a man on to send the game to extra innings. Garza's been one of the few bright spots for the Cubs this year, and the fact that he didn't walk a batter (his control's been an issue his entire career so far) bodes well for next season. The Cubs ended up winning 4-3 in 12 innings on a Marlon Byrd infield single to drive home burgeoning star Starlin Castro (really that's not a pun in any way, just his name and there's no other way to put it).

Aramis Ramírez went 3-for-5 with a walk, a strikeout, and his first triple of 2011. After a shaky start, he's now hitting .310/.364/.514 with 25 HR and 91 RBI. Solid glove at third. Career now, he's .284/.342/.500. Since coming over from the Pirates in 2003, he's been the Cubs' most reliable hitter by far (with a hat-tip to the departed Derrek Lee). And at Wrigley, he's out of his mind, going .336/.398/.596 this season and .308/.374/.553 with 124 HR and 438 RBI during his career (all stats courtesy of baseball-reference.com). He's at 23.9 WAR in his time with the Cubs with four seasons with an OPS+ at or above 130 and seven of nine with an OPS+ above 120.

Is he a Hall of Famer?

I think so. No he's not at, nor ever will be at Mike Schmidt status. I doubt anyone ever will be. And is Ramírez a Hall of Famer now? No. But he's 33, playing on a bad team, with the option of moving to a contender after this next season (as a Cubs fan, I pray he won't, but were I GM -- and I should be Tom Ricketts!) -- I would have dealt him at the deadline for some very good prospects. In any case. Let's say he has three good years somewhere near this level left in him, with a few more after declining or in a more limited role. Even playing for the Cubs and discounting that they might get better (not holding my breath) or that he might move to a team where he has some protection in the lineup or could even prolong his career as a DH, you figure he could well end up around some 450 HR and over 1500 RBI for sure. Steady glove, team leader, plays the hot corner well. Even accounting for his career OPS declining below .841 (and discounting for his early Pirate years playing for terrible teams) and career OPS+ of 114 (which is admittedly not Hall-worthy, but again, considering his Cubs years) dropping to say 110, he's still an intriguing candidate, especially as a mostly post-steroid era player.

That last point is important. Ramírez's breakout year was in 2001 with the Pirates in the foul heart of the steroid era, but his best production has been 2004-since, largely in the era of increased vigilance on the part of the MLB and fan distaste for the likes of Barry Bonds's prolate spheroidical head.

I submit that Aramis Ramírez will be worthy of a Hall of Fame induction when he retires. Will he get there? I don't know and I doubt it. The folks who make those calls seem to be coming around to advanced statistics, and it depends on Ramírez continuing to produce at the level he has consistently for the last nine years in Chicago. I think he'll end up with a very worthy case though, provided voters take into account the shitty teams he's played for and the fact that he's played his entire career at third. In any case -- and no doubt about this one -- he's a Cubs Hall of Famer for sure.

Out of Time Man

2011-09-14T17:44:00.000-04:00

By Nick Cave's oft-collaborator Mick Harvey = new favorite song.

Terry Castle on Outside Art

2011-09-14T17:42:00.000-04:00

Oh my was this 07.28.11 essay in the LRB on outsider art, collecting it, and trying to answer the ambiguity of its commoditization or commoditization of its ambiguity a fantastic read. Unfortunately, it's subscriber-only (but if you ask nicely...)

I had never heard of Henry Darger, Martín Ramírez, Adolf Wölfli, et al, but damn am I glad I did, and Castle raises enough questions about contemporary art, the nature of meaning, and intentionality vis-a-vis a hypothetical audience to keep one busy for months.

Saving Books by Making Them More Expensive?

2011-09-13T11:52:00.000-04:00

Really fascinating piece by Bill Morris at The Millions on how the German pricing model (in which stores are not allowed to discount) has made for a still-vibrant indie bookstore culture there, as well as some distinguishing of German and American reading habits =P

Some Thoughts (Not Comprehensive, but Based Around Making the Mistake of Turning on my Television This Morning) on 09.11

2011-09-11T08:35:00.005-04:00

Okay. I know it's September 11th. I know it every year. I will never forget as long as I live. It's the one day in my life -- okay maybe the second to losing my virginity -- where each second changed every second of my subsequent existence. Even as a smug left-wing fucktard posing as an intellectualish-type, I tear up at the the thought of running into a classmate in the hallway between 2nd and 3rd period telling me that a plane hit the World Trade Center and not believing her. Nor will I ever forget arriving in third period to see my music instructor (I used to play a mean jazz trumpet -- this is entirely fictional, not what follows, but the having remote skill at music beyond reading notes), who, as far as I know, still exists in 1985 and a quite genial and laid-back dude, not the kind of guy you'd ever expect to shit about national security as long as his dealer was okay. So I walk in and see him standing at the radio with his hand over his mouth looking like the trombonist had just impaled his cat in front of him (can that happen? Should I try it on my cat? The only trombone I've ever personally handled is the rusty kind and that would be really hard to pull off with a neutered cat.).

Nor -- before the first tower had collapsed (I'm tearing up just thinking about it), watching the tower collapse on TV and seeing my hard-ass (but in I'm going to be a dick to you fucking kids but here for you day and night, in the classroom or out of it) AP US history teacher break down and in a tear-stained voice say, to no one in particular, "Oh my God. Nothing will ever be the same." Watching in complete disbelief, calling my father the second on leaving school just to let him know that I was all right, because the aftermath, who knew? It was the seminal moment of my life, and in the life of anyone affected by it -- essentially every American, Iraqi, Afghani, Pakistani, and what ever other nationality I left out that who've we've been fucking for the last decade. Shit last century.

Trust, no one forgets.
I'm going to spend it like I do every 09.11, remembering those who lost their lives that day, thinking of the insane courage of those incredible first-responders (I would have completely shat myself in their place), spending the one day a year I don't want to see George W. Bush in handcuffs (doesn't apply to Cheney), thanking our troops, mourning the ones that have fallen or been wounded in several meaningless wars launched on false premises thanks to 09.11, and remembering the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghanis and Pakistanis who are dead thanks to those wars. It's a solemn day, and even when I'm 70 (who the fuck am I kidding? If I last 45 years, it'll be a small miracle) I'll remember it and those who suffered and suffer loss on it.
What I won't do is go anywhere near the mainstream media's "magic number that ends in a 5 or a 0" (because unsurprisingly, counting is not something they do well) daylong 09.11-a-thon. Cause if you think those surgically-enhanced millionaires give a shit about the victims of 09.11, you're nuttier than Osama bin Laden thinking he could fuck with New Yorkers and expect not to get face-fucked (literally, that did happen). I'm not going to indulge in the entertainment industry's (yeah mainstream media, that includes you) one day per year of giving a fuck about 09.11 victims, survivors, first-responders, police, fire, our soldiers etc. I'm not going to indulge in professional sports' continuing jingoistic idolatry of the military and their grandstanding of 09.11.

Sports might be the worst offenders on this count. I mean what company even fucking makes American flags the size of Texas for these military circle-jerks? Apparently a shitload of companies. I guess I can buy a "Heavy-Duty Poly" 40'-75' edition (I have no idea what that means) from "Flag Center" in nearby Wauwatosa, Wis. for just $5,100. I'd have to be missing grey matter to do it, but at least I know the option's out there. I'm not impressed by fly-overs -- and you assholes out there bitching about how necessary it is to cut health care funding for old and poor people who need it most, how much do those fucking fly-overs cost? I'll stand and applaud when returning soldiers, decorated soldiers, wounded soldiers throw out the first pitch or are honored before or during a game -- I just don't get why sports are the avenues for that. Shouldn't we be honoring them like all the time? I support troops. I have friends serving and have had friends who have served. My father served. Both my grandparents did. I just never want to see strong, smart, motivated, young people -- people who are just starting to figure shit out and decide what they want to do with their lives -- sent to die for no reason. And that's practically the reality of every war we've fought in the last fifty years. That's not your stereotypical "point at laugh as the sissy LGBT leftie hates America in the high-pitched Jon Stewart voice (you know exactly what I'm talking about)," that's fact. Support the troops? Bring them home.

Back to the media though, I don't need to see the towers being hit by planes. I don't need to see them crumbling or horrified/terrified New Yorkers fearing the worst. I certainly don't need to see G-Dubs, and have no desire to see bin Laden. None of the above will ever be anything but permanently seared into my memory. I did momentarily slip though, in like one of those going to the checkout line and realizing that Nestle Crunch is like $0.79 manners. I watched about ten minutes of 09.11 coverage and saw that kid at St. Patrick's reading the letter to his dead father he never met -- who's dead because he was an NYPD lieutenant who fell on 09.11 while helping fellow first-responders -- and sobbed for a solid ten. Tearing up just thinking about it.

I've never lived in New York or D.C. nor did anyone (to my knowledge) I'm closely associated with lose anything but the pair of pants they pissed on 09.11. So maybe my perspective's skewed. This whole media hullabaloo about the 10-year anniversary just feels like it's about them doing what they do best -- self-promotion. The people affected, directly and obliquely, are the ones who get fucked. So when it comes to remembering 09.11 and how completely terrified/shocked/devasted I was, I'm going to do it by hanging out with my parents, thinking of all affected, and keeping far away from the media bit.
Rest in peace departed, stand strong survivors, lower your rent New York, hunt Timmy Geithner D.C.. And fuck off MSM.

Updated: Amended to fix some orthographical errors.

Your 2011 Milwaukee Brewers

2011-09-08T09:05:00.003-04:00

Writing this from my sickbed, but here goes --

The Brewers picked the wrong year to get so good. They'll fall to the Phillies, probably 4-1, in the NLCS. Gallardo would get a win, but they'll start him against Halladay or Lee, which is a waste (why do teams do that? It seems it would be far smarter to start your ace against the opposition's less-good starters than potentially waste a start against their ace. At the worst, that would come out 1-1. Never understood that logic. Nate Silver, Jonah Keri, Rob Neyer, tell me why I'm horribly mistaken.) And no Cardinals fans, you aren't going to beat the Brew Crew -- even with their upcoming series against Philly. I had the pleasure of attending a recent Brewers-Cubs game, and the home crowd at Miller Park (one of the loveliest fields I've had the joy of attending) literally wills the team to win. The atmosphere is just electric -- the fans believe and the players know they do. Reminded me of the Bulls crowd this past NBA season. Even with a 30% Cubs crowd, the noise was deafening. In a small-market city with the likely probability of losing Prince Fielder this off-season, the fans know this might just be their best shot at the first Brewers World Series title ever and first pennant since 1982.

So let's start with the starting pitching.

Zach Greinke has been on and off this year, but still has posted a 14-6, 3.93 ERA, 172 K in an injury-limited 148.2 IP with a 1.17 WHIP and a .245 BAA. Many folks (myself among them) expected better coming to the NL Central, but that 10.71 K/9 is best in the bigs and a solid 0.7 ahead of Clayton Kershaw (who is the most dominant pitcher in the league that seemingly no one is talking about. Why is this? He plays for a franchise, though troubled with the McCourt saga, that has a legacy in the league and in a huge market. Don't feed me lies about Stephen Strasburg's idealistic future -- yes that's a Postal Service reference -- when Kershaw is completely dominating the NL. I've harped about this on Twitter often, and Halladay, as my favorite athlete and completely owning just about every hitter he faces, has been anointed the NL Cy Young winner already, some buzz about Kershaw is highly overdue.) Back to Greinke -- he still has that overpowering fastball, good change, and devastating slider. Slot him into the two hole in a postseason series.

Yovani Gallardo is the staff ace, and the fine gent I had the pleasure of watching at Miller. His line that night (against an admittedly feeble Cubs lineup): a 7.0 IP, 6H, 1 R, 0 ER, BB, 10K effort. St. Louis has not been kind to him in his two most recent starts, which has sent him to 15-10, 3.71 ERA, 56 BB, 171K in 187.0 IP. 254 BAA land. His biggest problem: giving up home runs, with 24 thus far. That's too many for 187.0 IP. Like so many power pitches, he also runs his pitch count high early in the game. At 25 (shit, that's older than me), he has plenty of time to learn to throw grounders and rely less on the strikeout. For the postseason though, Milwaukee rises or falls on Gallardo and Greinke being solid.

Then there's Shawn Marcum -- perhaps the most underrated pitcher in baseball, and sporting a 12-5, 3.11 ERA, 49 BB, 143 K in 176.1 record with a 1.09 WHIP and a sterling .211 BAA. The Brewers trade for him from Toronto was one of the best recent deals. As a No. 3 starter, he's probably among the best in the league. Only concern: no playoff experience. True of Greinke as well and Gallardo has only one playoff start, so blame my preference for strikeout pitchers, but I just have more faith in them come the postseason. I just think of Curt Schilling, Randy Johnson, and Pedro, though all three are Hall of Famers, not just strikeout pitchers. Anyway, against Hamels, Marcum will be overmatched.

Randy Wolf is your standard journeyman with okay stuff, yet able to eat innings: Oswalt can match him easily.

That leaves Narveson in the pen, about whom I know very little. His numbers aren't impressive.

Speaking of the bullpen: LaTroy Hawkins gave every Cubs fan a heart attack when he briefly closed. At that game at Miller, he gave up 4 H in 0.1 IP with a 3-run Alfonso Soriano double, though has since been solid though rarely-used. K-Rod has been decent since coming over from the Mets, and is a fairly reliable setup man. Takashi Saito has been brilliant since coming off the DL. Kameron Loe has been decent, nothing special. Frankie De La Cruz has been outstanding since being called up on 10 August: 1.86 ERA, 0.83 WHIP. Then there's John Axford closing, he of the 41/43 save/save opp. record and of the Eckersley-level 'stache. Utterly dominant this year, throwing 96-97 every night. All in all, the Brewers pen is pretty damn good, and good bullpens make for good playoff teams.

So to the offense: obviously starting with Mr. Braun, who's having an MVP-level season. .332, 27 HR, 95 RBI, 31 SB (only 6 CS) with a .988 OPS. Those are some staggering numbers, and Braun isn't a waste of space defensively either. He's become one of the best-hitting outfielders in the game (and my Brewers fan friend's heartthrob). He's only slightly overshadowing his first-base teammate Prince Fielder. How does .293, 31 HR, 108 RBI, .946 OPS sound in a pitcher-dominant season? Pretty good. Those two alone can win a game. Around the diamond, Casey McGehee is a liability -- a .293 OBP/.653 OPS just doesn't cut it. Yunieski Betancourt is even worse at short, sporting a .271 OBP and .644 OPS. Jerry Hairston at second is, well, Jerry Hairston .341 OBP/.713 OPS. Essentially average.

Nyjer Morgan in center is decent with an .801 OPS but also nothing special. His anger at the Cards was refreshing though. This seems to be a theme. Seriously YouTube "Nyjer Morgan fight" and there are many examples. Now, I'm a fan of baseball hotheads and bench-clearing brawls. Carlos Zambrano's tirade at Derrek Lee completely galvanized the 2009 Cubs and made for good theater as well. Yet Morgan isn't good enough (Zambrano isn't either anymore) to run his mouth off. That kind of thing can hamstring a club with World Series designs. We'll see if he can hold it together. Honestly I've been impressed with the 2011 Corey Hart -- 23 HR, .849 OPS and solid defense in left.

Basically the Brewers rise and fall with Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder abusing opposing pitchers. Solid defense, which is more important than ESPN thinks outside of Top Ten Plays (which, in a minor complaint didn't include Victor Martinez's go-ahead grand slam last night).

In any other year, the Brewers would be a definite pick to represent the NL in the World Series. Yet this year, the Phillies just have the look of a legendary team. The Brewers will own the NL Central over the Cards (not to even mention my feckless Cubs). Whether they can make it to the top will depend on Gallardo, Greinke, Marcum and the non-Braun/Fielder batsmen.

Next up: the New York Yankees.

Completely Epic

2011-09-06T08:36:00.001-04:00

The Paradox of No Choice

2011-09-05T20:26:00.000-04:00

From Daily Kos. Link!

The Kind of Relationship I Desire

2011-09-05T11:09:00.002-04:00

Essentially the gig that Jamie Kilstein and Allison Kilkenny have -- just listening to Citizen Radio shows how much they dig each other and their hipsterish chemistry. Totally want that with yet-unnamed boy or girl.

Review of Jan Morris's Hav

2011-09-05T10:55:00.001-04:00

Currently available at the most recent issue of Bookslut. Check it out and send me hatred... or at least well-written critique.

Hey US Military

2011-09-05T09:29:00.001-04:00

Stop hating LGBTs. We already deal with enough shit.

Happy Labor Day

2011-09-05T09:19:00.001-04:00

2011 Boston Red Sox

2011-09-03T11:48:00.004-04:00

So let's move on to the Sox. They will be your ALCS Champs, sweeping the Rangers in the divisional series and outlasting the Yanks in the AL Series 4-2.

This despite extraordinarily suspect starting pitching. Let's start there, as the staff is Boston's greatest weakness. You've got your aces in Lester (14-6, 3.05 ERA, 1.21 WHIP) and in Beckett (12-5, 2.54, 0.98). Very solid top two. It gets thin quickly after that. John Lackey is a train wreck. I winced when the Sox signed him, and his 2011 has done nothing to alleviate that concern. How does a 12-10, 5.94 ERA, 1.55 WHIP feel? Not good. Opponents are hitting .299 against him. Two years in Boston makes me an honorary Sox fan, and Lackey makes A.J. Burnett look good. To round out the rotation there's either Timmeh Wakefield or Erik Bedard. I don't envy Terry Francona this decision. You go with the ancient Wakefield and roll the dice on the knuckleball or you go with the unproven Bedard who has the better stuff. Either way the four-slot is a tossup.

The Sox bullpen isn't a whole lot better. Yes, Papelbon has been solid all year and is very reliable in the 9th. Daniel Bard is one of the better set-up men in the AL. Aceves, Wheeler, and Miller do not, however, inspire confidence. The Sox will rise or fall if their starters can make it seven innings to get to Bard and Papelbon. Lester and Beckett, it's on you to step up.

Offensively, the Sox are loaded 1-9. Jacoby Ellsbury is the most talented leadoff hitter in baseball. Without question. He hits for power, average, and runs. .313, 24 HR, 84 RBI, 36 SB, .895 OPS in the leadoff slot. Follow him with Dustin Pedroia, he of the AL MVP: only hitting .308, 18 HR, 74 RBI, 25 SB, .871 OPS. Then there's Adrian Gonzalez, perhaps the best signing of the Epstein era not named Curt Schilling. If he loses AL MVP to Justin Verlander (which could well happen and which I'd support; sorry Adrian) he'll go down as perhaps the most dominant hitter to lose out on the MVP. Numbers: .342, 23 HR, 103 RBI, .956 OPS. Beyond that, he's established himself as the heart and soul of the 2011 Sox, capable of changing a game or series with one swing. At third, you've got Youk, who, in an off year, is still putting up a .264 17 HR 78 RBI with an .855 OPS line. At DH, Big Papi has rediscovered how to hit, to the tune of a .311, 28 HR, 88 RBI, .985 (!) OPS. That's an MVP line. Varitek/Saltalamacchia have been solid behind the plate, Reddick seems reliable.

So yeah, the Sox will rise or fall based on their offense. If Lester and Beckett can shut down the opposition, the Sox hitters should be able to carry Lackey.

Prediction: AL Champs, losing 4-2 to the Phillies in the World Series.

Addendum: I did neglect mentioning Carl Crawford, who has since hit a grand slam today. After a dismal April and May, he's rediscovered what hitting means, and if he gets hot is an extremely dangerous hitter. Defensively non pareil.

Sonata No. 1 for Violin and Piano, op. 80

2011-09-02T20:49:00.001-04:00

Prokofiev. The most heart-rending piece of music ever composed. I will stand by that.

The 2011 Phillies

2011-09-01T16:22:00.005-04:00

As the regular season begins to wind down and as post-season races heat up, I imagine I'll be writing about baseball every five days or so. Consider this installment one now that September is here.

I'm going to start with the presumptive World Series favorites and the best team in baseball now and for the entire season -- the Philadelphia Phillies. My beloved Cubs have been out of the playoff picture since about the third week of April, so I have no compunction when it comes to rooting for the Phils to win it all this year. Roy Halladay has been my favorite athlete -- across all sports, comfortably filling the vacuum adolescent Brett Favre left when I realized he was a franchise-retarding douche -- for quite some time, and I'll root for him on any team against any team except the Cubs. He's going to win another Cy Young this year. That will be number three. You might have recalled from last season that he pitched only the 20th perfect game EVER and only the second post-season no-hitter EVER. Major League Baseball's current complete game leader with 63 (19 shutouts, and in an era that's decidedly hostile to the complete game, though don't tell James Shields that). Career record of 184-91, and a definite possible for the first 300-game winner of the 21st century, among pitchers who have exclusively started in this century. (Yes I know Halladay came up in '98, but really, his pre-2000 career in the bigs doesn't count)

But I digress. I could gush about Doc all day and how he makes me mourn for a glorious baseball past I wasn't alive to see. Let's talk about the Phils in general. Anchored by Halladay, that staff is ridiculous. Cliff Lee (15-7, 2.59 ERA, 1.05 WHIP, third pitcher EVER after Walter Johnson and Bob Gibson to post two months in the same season with an undefeated record with at least four wins and a sub-1.00 ERA) is a proven post-season maestro, and gives the Phils the opportunity to go R-L-L-R in a series, or even R-L-R-L to really fuck with the opposition. Those second two, by the way, are Cole Hamels (13-7, 2.58 ERA, 0.97 WHIP) -- who's seemingly finally mastered his wicked stuff -- and Roy Oswalt (6-8, 3.77 ERA, 1.41 WHIP but 156-91, 3.21, 1.19 career). Think about that. In a seven-game series, the Phillies can send out Halladay-Lee-Hamels with Oswalt in the pen or Halladay-Lee-Hamels-Oswalt to save Halladay and Lee for the NLCS/World Series.

Am I forgetting someone? Ah yes, Vance Worley. Who? you might ask. Just the Phillies' number five 23-year old rookie starter who would be the ace of at least half of MLB clubs. For numbers, how does 10-1, 2.85 ERA, 1.14 WHIP, .224 BAA sound? He'll be a reliever when the postseason rolls around. Add to that bullpen the man with the best name in baseball -- Antonio Bastardo, he of the 1.38 ERA, 0.73 WHIP, 3.26 K/BB, .114 BAA (!) -- Brad Lidge, charter member of the mercurial 21st century closer club and still capable of the 10-pitch 1.0 IP, 0/0/0 3K line, with the extremely reliable Ryan Madson (2.96 ERA, 1.15 WHIP, 26/28 in saves) to finish things off.

In short the 2011 Phils could score two runs per game and still kick ass. However...

There's the lineup. Let's start with Shane Victorino, number two or lead-off guy with Jimmy Rollins on the 15-day DL. Has a .919 OPS. I'm too lazy to check right now, but I'm pretty sure that's top three among current lead-off hitters in all of baseball. Hits for average, doesn't swing at bad pitches, power to both fields, not super-speedy, but smart on the bases and steals when available. Rollins -- who should be back in form for the postseason -- has been overrated his entire career, yet still can hit for power, steal bases, and is above average defensively at short. I really think Victorino is the better choice at 1, based on OBP, but it's hard to argue with a one-two punch of Rollins-Victorino especially with three and four. Speaking of whom... Moving along the infield, you've got Ryan Howard, who is also overrated with an .827 OPS at the power position, yet who can also change a game or series with one swing. Chase Utley has been injured and is slowly coming back, but should get better as September moves into October. When he's right, he's without doubt the best all-around second-baseman in the game. At third you have a platoon of Michael Martinez and Wilson Valdez. Neither amounts to much. Carlos Ruiz and Brian Schneider behind the plate, neither of whom could hit an eephus pitch, but both of whom are solid defensively and definitely can call games.

Outfield isn't much better. Hunter Pence was a huge upgrade in left, both defensively and in terms of adding a power bat who gets on base fairly reliably (.366 OBP). Victorino is about average defensively in center, already mentioned his offensive production. Ibañez in left has been a liability all season -- like the guy, but his 39 years are showing. His mobility defensively has been suspect all season, and a .288 OBP is inexcusable. At least he has postseason experience, and with 17 HR out of 107 hits, does damage when he does connect.

All in all, the Phillies will rise or fall on the basis of their loaded pitching staff. Their offense is less than average, defense slightly better than average, but three runs in the postseason will all but guarantee a win.

Prediction: World Series champions, beating the Boston Red Sox 4-2.

Up next: the Boston Red Sox.

1Q84 Excerpt

2011-08-31T23:21:00.002-04:00

Based on the nine-page excerpt of Haruki Murakami's 1Q84 in the most recent issue of The New Yorker, the English translation of which is (finally!) slated for a 25 October release, there's a lot to look forward to. Definitely reads like vintage Murakami -- relatively straightforward declarative prose, overtones of Japan's twentieth-century political and social history (Tengo's father in Manchuria, Soviet invasion thereof), rock references (Tengo's Jeff Beck t-shirt), surrealism (the town of cats, obviously, not to mention the use of cats to advance the story, as in The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Kafka on the Shore), and an overarching mystery upon which the whole plot turns -- at least in this excerpt. I'm very excited.

Video Game Museum in Berlin

2011-08-31T20:52:00.002-04:00

Well this is cool (kind of like everything in Berlin and why I'm dying to move there because it's the best city on earth /endbreathlessrant) -- The Computerspeielemuseum, devoted to computer and video games, reopened recently and is every bit is awesome as you would expect. Check out some of those old consoles! (Via TheRumpus).

Post-It Note Art

2011-08-30T19:42:00.003-04:00

I tweeted this already, but wanted to be able to show the images -- via The Guardian, Parisian office workers are creating pixellated images using post-it notes on windows, doors, cabinets, etc. Takes one back to the early 90s and 8-bit video games.

I think this was my favorite:

Or:

Check out the link for the other ten -- this definitely made my day.

The Massacre at Old Trafford

2011-08-28T18:36:00.005-04:00

I'm in a foul mood following Manchester United's filleting of Arsenal 8-2 at Old Trafford today. Yes, Verhaeven, Frimpong, Gervinho and others were out, severely exposing the inadequacies of our youthful defense and utter incompetence of the depleted midfield. Yet still, Man U's average age of their starting eleven was just slightly higher than the Gunners', and the combination of Rooney, Nani, Park, et al completely eviscerated an Arsenal side that gave up in about the 60th minute. Another lapse in discipline leading to another red card (Jenkinson), and leaving Arsenal dead last in the Premier League in goal differential (-8), one place above relegation status, and dead last in Fair Play.

I'm of mixed feeling on whether to call for Wenger's head or not, but what's glaringly clear is that he has four days until the transfer window closes to add at least three players, a defender, a defensive midfielder, and ideally another striker. The way things are looking, it's going to be a very uphill battle to muscle out Liverpool or Chelsea to even qualify for next year's Champions' League. At least we have two weeks to regroup and an overmatched Swansea City side at the Emirates coming up next. That, one hopes, should end this six-match Premier League winless streak, and hopefully give a (hopefully) retooled side some confidence heading into Champions' League group play, which begins on 13 September at Dortmund.

Addendum: Worth noting that the last time Arsenal ceded eight goals, Victoria was queen. Also the worst defeat in Arsène Wenger's tenure as manager.

Addendum II: BBC Sport reporting that the transfer of striker Park Chu-Young from Monaco is set to complete tonight for between £3m and £5m.

Finally Renewed My Library Card

2011-08-27T12:35:00.002-04:00

And managed to snag the one copy in the entire library system of Teju Cole's debut Open City, which I'm extremely excited to read after reading Claire Messud's excellent review in the New York Review of Books. I'm really interested to compare it to Michael Thomas's Man Gone Down (which won the IMPAC/Dublin Prize two years ago and was an excellent and gripping read). There are some superficial similarities, but I'm curious to see how they contrast.

Stay Safe Everyone

2011-08-27T12:32:00.001-04:00

All my friends and acquaintances and everyone in the path of Irene, stay safe, and if you still have time to do so, make sure to stock up on essentials -- it's going to be the flooding and potential power loss that's going to cause the big damage.

Jan Morris

2011-08-21T22:09:00.002-04:00

I had never heard of Jan Morris until about a month ago, when I volunteered to review her novel Hav for Bookslut.com (I'll link to/post it when it's up), and now I can't get enough. Hav itself is one of the most remarkable and luminously written novels I have ever read. In my entire life -- and I read a lot of novels. I just yesterday ordered Travels (1950-2000) -- a selection of her travel essays over that period, and eagerly await its arrival. She is a remarkable figure -- twice-over world traveler, historian, travel writer, memoirist, transgender and trans rights activist, Welsh nationalist. I highly encourage everyone to pick up Hav from the New York Review of Books Classics (pub. date 08.30.11 but available for pre-order through NYRB, your local indie, or amazon) -- it will truly blow you away. I have my one review copy I'm willing send to the first person to get back to me, but unfortunately it's the one copy I have (and it's so good, I humbly ask that you return it when finished). Check it out, guarantee you will have a hard time putting it down.

Light blogging (obviously)

2011-08-21T22:07:00.002-04:00

Sorry for but the one post each of the last few days -- I've been live-tweeting the Libyan uprising like a mad man, so check me out @destroy_time, or see my twitter feed on the lower right-hand corner of the main page. I imagine as events unfold, this will continue to be true.

Letter from Kurt Vonnegut

2011-08-21T20:56:00.001-04:00

This is incredible: a letter from Kurt Vonnegut to his father after being released from a Nazi work camp, in what would turn into Slaughterhouse Five. Via Letters of Note.

Slaughterhouse Five

FROM:

Pfo. K. Vonnegut, Jr.,
12102964 U. S. Army.

TO:

Kurt Vonnegut,
Williams Creek,
Indianapolis, Indiana.

Dear people:

I'm told that you were probably never informed that I was anything other than "missing in action." Chances are that you also failed to receive any of the letters I wrote from Germany. That leaves me a lot of explaining to do -- in precis:

I've been a prisoner of war since December 19th, 1944, when our division was cut to ribbons by Hitler's last desperate thrust through Luxemburg and Belgium. Seven Fanatical Panzer Divisions hit us and cut us off from the rest of Hodges' First Army. The other American Divisions on our flanks managed to pull out: We were obliged to stay and fight. Bayonets aren't much good against tanks: Our ammunition, food and medical supplies gave out and our casualties out-numbered those who could still fight - so we gave up. The 106th got a Presidential Citation and some British Decoration from Montgomery for it, I'm told, but I'll be damned if it was worth it. I was one of the few who weren't wounded. For that much thank God.

Well, the supermen marched us, without food, water or sleep to Limberg, a distance of about sixty miles, I think, where we were loaded and locked up, sixty men to each small, unventilated, unheated box car. There were no sanitary accommodations -- the floors were covered with fresh cow dung. There wasn't room for all of us to lie down. Half slept while the other half stood. We spent several days, including Christmas, on that Limberg siding. On Christmas eve the Royal Air Force bombed and strafed our unmarked train. They killed about one-hundred-and-fifty of us. We got a little water Christmas Day and moved slowly across Germany to a large P.O.W. Camp in Muhlburg, South of Berlin. We were released from the box cars on New Year's Day. The Germans herded us through scalding delousing showers. Many men died from shock in the showers after ten days of starvation, thirst and exposure. But I didn't.

Under the Geneva Convention, Officers and Non-commissioned Officers are not obliged to work when taken prisoner. I am, as you know, a Private. One-hundred-and-fifty such minor beings were shipped to a Dresden work camp on January 10th. I was their leader by virtue of the little German I spoke. It was our misfortune to have sadistic and fanatical guards. We were refused medical attention and clothing: We were given long hours at extremely hard labor. Our food ration was two-hundred-and-fifty grams of black bread and one pint of unseasoned potato soup each day. After desperately trying to improve our situation for two months and having been met with bland smiles I told the guards just what I was going to do to them when the Russians came. They beat me up a little. I was fired as group leader. Beatings were very small time: -- one boy starved to death and the SS Troops shot two for stealing food.

On about February 14th the Americans came over, followed by the R.A.F. their combined labors killed 250,000 people in twenty-four hours and destroyed all of Dresden -- possibly the world's most beautiful city. But not me.

After that we were put to work carrying corpses from Air-Raid shelters; women, children, old men; dead from concussion, fire or suffocation. Civilians cursed us and threw rocks as we carried bodies to huge funeral pyres in the city.

When General Patton took Leipzig we were evacuated on foot to ('the Saxony-Czechoslovakian border'?). There we remained until the war ended. Our guards deserted us. On that happy day the Russians were intent on mopping up isolated outlaw resistance in our sector. Their planes (P-39's) strafed and bombed us, killing fourteen, but not me.

Eight of us stole a team and wagon. We traveled and looted our way through Sudetenland and Saxony for eight days, living like kings. The Russians are crazy about Americans. The Russians picked us up in Dresden. We rode from there to the American lines at Halle in Lend-Lease Ford trucks. We've since been flown to Le Havre.

I'm writing from a Red Cross Club in the Le Havre P.O.W. Repatriation Camp. I'm being wonderfully well feed and entertained. The state-bound ships are jammed, naturally, so I'll have to be patient. I hope to be home in a month. Once home I'll be given twenty-one days recuperation at Atterbury, about $600 back pay and -- get this -- sixty (60) days furlough.

I've too damned much to say, the rest will have to wait, I can't receive mail here so don't write.

May 29, 1945

Love,

Kurt - Jr.

Impoverished meanies oppress the suffering wealthy

2011-08-20T05:20:00.000-04:00

This needs to be said over and over again. Via DailyKos by Tara the Antisocial Social Worker

Impoverished meanies oppress the suffering wealthy

Thao & Mirah on Tour -- Illustrated!

2011-08-19T20:39:00.003-04:00

Wendy MacNaughton illustrates Thao and Mirah on their West Coast tour -- some really amazing work showing the interstices of rock life following two awesome performers. (via @The_Rumpus).

A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

2011-08-19T18:09:00.002-04:00

Everything is ending. But not yet.

(originally published in the May issue of The Rockford Independent Press)

By BENJAMIN TAYLOR

Jennifer Egan has, for the past dozen years or so, proven time and again to be one of the more formally innovative American fiction writers working today. Her 2001 novel Look at Me plays with contemporary conflations of image and identity in telling the story of an emotionally withered model (from Rockford, incidentally) whose facial reconstruction following a horrific accident dramatically alters her experience of Manhattan’s social topography. Her 2007 book The Keep creatively (if unevenly) reimagines the gothic novel to dissect a relationship between two cousins haunted in different ways by their shared and individual pasts.

A Visit From the Goon Squad continues Egan’s exploration of the sedimented nature of identity through formal experimentation. In this instance, Egan subverts the conventions of the “rock novel” to examine the intersecting lives of a number of individuals associated with one Bennie Salazar, founder and CEO of Sow’s Ear Records, and his neurotic kleptomaniac assistant Sasha. It’s thought-provoking in a wistful way, thick with an almost elegiac sense of nostalgia, yet humorous and peppered with enough glimpses of humanity in its most bumbling and earnest sense to avoid draining the reader of any and all vestiges of hope. Just to get the accolades out of the way, A Visit From the Goon Squad was one of the most-decorated books of 2010, winning both the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction.

Employing thirteen vignettes rather than a conventionally straightforward narrative, Egan jumps from character to character, shifting narrative perspective as well as chronology. The effect is a bit disorienting in the first few sections, but ultimately edifying. The reader accesses Bennie and Sasha obliquely, viewing snapshots of various moments in their individual lives and (Platonic) relationship, and seeing them through the eyes of various friends, lovers, and family members. These lacunae in the narratives of Bennie and Sasha’s inner lives keep the reader at a distance that accentuates the fragility of the threads that bind Bennie and Sasha to their respective and mutual pasts.

The novel – or collection of linked short stories (three of the thirteen sections were published as stand-alone pieces in The New Yorker) – spans more than 50 years, from the mid-1970s to somewhere in the neighborhood of 2025 (more on that in a bit), and is above all a meditation on the manner in which those threads twist and fray as time passes, dreams evolve or die, and relationships develop or fade.

A Visit From the Goon Squad opens with Sasha at her therapist’s, discussing her kleptomania and recounting a recent date she had with Alex, who reappears as the focus of the final chapter. Two significant thefts occur during the chapter, and Sasha’s world-weary and damaged personality is revealed in its sad entirety. The narrative then shifts to a middle-aged Bennie, driving with the son he struggles to understand en route to meeting with a once-promising sister band. Bennie’s decline from a hotshot record producer to living anachronism is symbolized nicely by the gold flakes he sprinkles in his coffee in accordance with an Aztec myth that maintains the gold promotes virility. Bennie meets up with Sasha at the sisters’ home, ponders the desire he realizes he’s always had for her, but remains resigned to the impossibility of its fulfillment.

The third section, “Ask Me if I Care,” moves back to Bennie’s youth, when he performed as the bassist in a Bay Area punk rock group named the Flaming Dildos. Bennie’s bandmates and female groupies are introduced along with Lou, a famous musician and producer who’s boning one of the Dildos’ groupies (Lou clearly being a stand-in for Lou Reed). The next section, “Safari,” focuses on Lou six years earlier on a safari with Rolph, his eight-year old son, Charlene, his almost-pubescent daughter, and his girlfriend-cum-assistant Mindy. This section, while having no direct bearing on the Benny-Sasha main narrative, shows why Egan is such a penetrating writer. The safari provides the backdrop for a four-way power struggle pitting Lou against Mindy, Lou against Charlene, Charlene against Rolph, and Lou against Rolph. The conflict is mostly tacit, but illuminates the irreducible characteristics of each character’s place in life, the transitoriness of that place, and the inability to communicate one’s inner life to others. Lou and two of the Dildos’ groupies reappear in the next section at Lou’s deathbed, the two girls now in their forties, one a mother of three, one a recovering heroin addict muddling through.

The middle part of the book returns to Bennie and Sasha, beginning with Bennie and his wife Stephanie growing accustomed to their (now) privileged life in Crandale, where they join the Country Club. The reader learns later that the marriage ultimately fails, and Bennie’s growing disillusionment with the manicured opulence surrounding him in contrast to Stephanie’s twice-weekly tennis dates with a Barbie-esque neighbor certainly presages this. A later section, “Out of Body,” returns the narrative to Sasha and provides the most poignantly-written part of the entire book. Written in the second person, “Out of Body” shows young Sasha as a student at NYU through the eyes of her adored best friend Rob. In the course of the chapter, Rob realizes with wrenching clarity that he’s been in love with Sasha the entire time – too late, as Sasha’s developed a strong relationship with her boyfriend (and future husband) Drew. The clarity of Rob’s love for Sasha and his conflicted feelings toward himself (the reader learns he’s returned to NYU after three months recovering from a suicide attempt) and their mutual friends culminate in an extremely moving and tragic conclusion.

The novel ends with Bennie, Alex, and Scotty, one of his former bandmates, living in a frankly dystopian New York sometime in the middle of the 2020s. Bennie has receded to the margins of the music business, Alex is marginally employed and looking to work for Bennie, and Scotty making baleful music to the accompaniment of his slide guitar. Egan swells quite a bit on her vision of America circa 2025 in this final section, and her vision isn’t exactly optimistic. Yet Egan isn’t pessimistic enough to leave the reader without a grain of hope. The novel ends with two striking images that throw its meditations on time, memory, and identity into sharp relief: a quasi-spontaneous concert given by Scotty that, while technologically mediated and organized, transcends digital distance to celebrate human togetherness; and Bennie and Alex standing before the entrance to what had been Sasha’s apartment long ago, Bennie sighing, “I hope she found a good life. She deserves it.”

Despite its overall excellence, A Visit From the Goon Squad does strike a few false notes. To begin with, there are multiple instances in which, discussing a character toward the end of a section, Egan rips off a few paragraphs telling the reader exactly what would happen to that character in the future. It’s understandable that expanding the novel to include enough vignettes to show these future fates would harm the flow and structure of the finished product, yet these “Many years later…,” “’X’ would go on to…” et cetera feel out of place and seem unnecessary.

The greater problem is Egan’s forced futurism. Some critics – such as the New York Times’ Janet Maslin – found the sections toward the end of the novel that take place in the relatively distant future brave and prescient examinations of future society. And I guess that’s the rub with writing about the future – the world in which we live changes so rapidly that a casual inclusion of “sci-fi” elements seems unconvincing and will inevitably be dated long before the designated year. Egan seemed to try to emphasize that even in that future imperfect, humanity mutually shared still matters in a sense that accelerated technological development can’t quite capture; yet, she spends enough of the final two sections describing the disastrous effects of global warming, advances in mobile technology, fields of solar panels, (even more) ubiquitous government surveillance, and two generations of unnamed and undescribed war that the pathos which galvanized the previous sections of the book fades into the background. Without devoting the energy and page length to flesh out a future world fully – which would, of course, have been impractical in this instance – the jargon, text speak, and glimpses of Dystopia, USA just come across as forced.

All in all, however, A Visit From the Goon Squad is a moving and intelligently written novel justly deserving of its accolades.

A Visit From the Goon Squad

Jennifer Egan

Anchor, 340 pages

$14.95

ISBN: 0-307-47747-7

All the Single Ladies

2011-08-16T17:12:00.002-04:00

I'm struggling with this list published by the New York Observer. Basically, I can't decide if it's an honest celebration of fifty truly remarkable single women, or blatant exploitation of women living in New York and living and looking like a Manhattanite. Not to rail against Manhattan... okay, maybe to rail against Manhattan. As a man, I might not have the best perspective on this, and certainly welcome any of the indoor plumbing folk to correct me. For starters, it's not the list I'd compile, were I that concerned about publicists in New York. I'm not, though I did at least recognize about half of the names on the roster. I would add women like Digby, who is just fucking awesome period, Amanda Marcotte, Amy Goodman, Temple Grandin (okay not technically "in media" but a writer and amazing woman), Rachel Maddow, Tina Fey, Barbara Ehrenreich, Jessa Crispin, Amy Poehler, Kristen Schaal, and many more -- all extremely talented and far more influential and important than many of the young folk on that list. Basically they're all fucking awesome and women who have informed me, inspired me, and made me laugh.

That's why I think it really seems more about a pretty photo shoot looking at that list. The women they picked are certainly beautiful -- I can't deny that. I had no idea Arianna Huffington was 61, because I would have said 45, she looks that good. Consider that last sentence an aside, I just really was surprised by that, and that's fantastic for her. She, though, has accomplished quite a bit, and built a media empire that's in my top five sites most visited and which I check multiple times daily. Sloane Crosley, however, wrote a bestselling if not well-written collection of essays entitled I Was Told There'd Be Cake. She followed it up with last year's much funnier and very better-written How Did You Get This Number? I don't want to knock Sloane, as she clearly has talent and will likely be doing awesome things in the publishing world for quite some time to come. She's only seven years my senior, and I've learned a thing or two about how rough "making it as a writer" can be -- she's made it, I haven't. So I give her her credit and find her very funny and rarely honest for a writer as young as she.

And yet I find it odd that a publication which aspires to seriousness would rank her above Michiko Kakutani, for instance. Again, nothing against Crosley, yet Kakutani is the most feared, admired, hated, respected woman in all of publishing. Writers tremble at the mention of her. She's the name you look for first in the New York Times Book Review. Kakutani can make a career or end it short. I agree with her about 60% of the time, but no one can deny that she functions as the arbiter of literary taste in America. She would be top three on my list. Rachel Maddow is essentially the face of MSNBC and easily the most intelligent political analyst on mainstream cable (I would only compare her with Keith Olbermann, who is easily as intelligent as Maddow, but whose zeal gets in the way of his ranting some times, Stewart, Maher, and Colbert -- the above, obviously, are men). Maddow consistently and eloquently provides the night's most incisive political commentary, and is a frequent guest on Meet the Press. Amy Goodman is simply the best journalist in America. Her program, which she essentially built from scratch, is the most reliable source of news about America and the world, and kept my mind active through a couple of rough years. She writes a column for The Guardian and often contributes to TruthDig, the Huffington Post, and -- I'm sure -- many other sites of which I'm yet unaware. She's an outspoken and active progressive, yet never hyperbolic and always fair to her ideological opponents. Journalism doesn't get better than that.

Just to name those three, as the work of those women in particular occupies a good deal of my day. Yet with the exception of Ms. Huffington, they're not on the list. Yes, I know it's a list of bachelorettes, which is in itself arbitrary. But if you want to talk about powerful women in media, why, aside from showing women like Ms. Crosley (who is, indeed, quite pretty) make the list restricted to just single women? It's such a blatantly sexist ploy on The Observer's part. And you bet it'll get read, mostly because men are as stereotypically fascinated by our junk as any Zach Galifianakis film implies. (I find Z.G. hilarious personally).

The whole list features young, slim, and straight pretty women with a few exceptions included to garnish The Observer's pretension to relevance. What's missing are women of color, LGBT women, activists who don't get on Sunday TV shows, women doing amazing things that impact us all far more than barely thirty pretty publicists. I have nothing against barely thirty pretty publicists, mind you. Yet the entire list seems to objectify young and pretty women for the sake of their youth and prettiness while leaving the actual female movers and shakers in media out for the most part. This benefits only those who think exploiting feminine youth and beauty is cool. Again, nothing wrong with being young and pretty -- I'm condemned to being young for a few more years at least, but never have been pretty, though it seems nice. Nothing against any of the women mentioned in that list, but I have all sorts of question for The Observer, none of which are Brett Baier softballs.

Congrats Jim Thome

2011-08-16T12:26:00.003-04:00

Jim Thome did this last night: 3-4, 2 HR, 5 RBI in a 9-6 Twins victory over the Tigers at Comerica Field. That second home run, a three-run opposite field shot off Daniel Schlereth that provided the margin for the Twins, just happened to be the 600th of his career. He joins Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Willie Mays (my favorite player of all time, and who I stood like 5 feet from at my college graduation), A-Rod, Ken Griffey Jr. and Sammy Sosa, who seems like a jokish afterthought now, but his 2001 .328, 64 HR, 160 RBI, 1.174 OPS season (no, I didn't need to look those up), tainted as it was, was insanely exciting to watch. As a Cubs fan, at least. I shelled out for mlb.tv on my comp., and structured my studying around Cubs games, even if I had a paper due the next day. It was magical. Stats for those eight individuals are available at baseball-reference.com; I won't list them, because if I do, I'm going to end up looking up stats for five hours.

Back to Thome. I've always had a lot of respect of Jim Thome, even when he played for the hated White Sox. I've always thought he has one of the most recognizable home run stances in baseball history, and as a fellow Illinoisan (he's from Peoria and grew up a Cubs fan), always sort of felt a connection with him. For most the two decades he's played, he's sort of been in the shadows of players (at the time) considered greater, players like Griffey, Bonds, McGwire, A-Rod. Speaking of Griffey (still easily the most electric player of the past twenty years in his prime), I always associated him and Thome, at least since I've been old enough to think about the game. Both down-to-earth men who wreaked havoc on opposing pitchers from Bret Saberhagen to Rick Porcello. Griffey would have been on par with Ty Cobb, Ruth, and Mays as one of the all-time greats had injuries during his time with the Reds not cost him many games and slowed him down. Thome was never going to be on that list. But, as his teammates will tell you, he's one of the hardest workers in the game, a team player, the exact opposite of Carlos Zambrano or a sulking Bonds.

His numbers will tell you the same thing (okay, these I did have to look up):

Career: .277, 600 HR, 1662 RBI, .403 OBP (seriously), .961 OPS, only one season after 1993 with an OPS under .847 (and that in an injury-shortened 2005 season in Philadelphia in which he played only 59 games and had only 193 ABs). Last year, he was quietly one of most dangerous hitters in the entire league, quietly putting up a .283/25/59 line with an OPS of 1.039 and an OPS+ of 177, which would have been good for second in the AL behind only Miguel Cabrera's 183 had he had more than 276 at-bats. Extend that line out to 500 ABs, and it turns into .283, 45, 109 line. That's an MVP candidate year. Yeah Thome's only hitting .254 this year, but with a .359 OBP and an .856 OPS, he's still clearly a formidable hitter, and has helped shore up a Twins lineup that's been without Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau for most of the year, and neither one has been 100% clearly. When Michael Cuddyer (nothing against him or any of the piranhas by the way) is your offensive leader with a .295/18/61 line and a .360/.845 OBP/OPS... wait hold on... that would seem to suggest that Jim Thome is the best hitter in the Twins' lineup this year. Identical OBP practically, slightly better OPS. Difference being Cuddyer's 421 ABs to Thome's 185.

Get this man more at-bats! He might not be an everyday player anymore, but c'mon Twins -- this is clearly not your year. At 53-67 you've probably overachieved given Mauer and Morneau's troubles and a fairly weak staff -- Liriano isn't ever going to be who he was before Tommy John, no-hitter aside. The fans love Thome, you have that beautiful new park (which I haven't been to yet, but believe me, it's on my to-do list), and a first-ballot Hall of Famer who seems to have a decent amount left in the tank. I almost never criticize the Twins, as their management and manager do more with less than any other club outside of Tampa Bay, but let him play!

Update: Forget to mention, a lot of what I wrote about Thome, aside from numbers of course, was based on an excellent Tim Kurkjian column on ESPN summarizing Thome's career. I'm not usually a Kurkjian fan, but he clearly has a lot of respect for Thome. It's a very good, insightful, and revealing column well worth reading.

Europe's right-wing populist problem and American parallels

2011-08-14T16:51:00.003-04:00

I've spent my morning and early afternoon reading all sorts of cheerful things about the rise of the right in Europe, as if the rise of the right here weren't cheerful enough. Specifically, I've read Ian Buruma's article in the forthcoming issue of The Nation three times now, and find it very disturbing. I've also relistened to the July 27th broadcast of Democracy Now! which featured two fantastic interviews that will make you think hard about the populist right in Europe and make you want whiskey. The first was the always fantastic Jeff Sharlet, author of The Family, C Street, and the new Sweet Heaven When I Die. Sharlet actually read the entirety of Anders Behring Breivik's manifesto -- Breivik, of course, is the extreme right-wing Christian terrorist arrested for the deaths of 77 Norwegians. The second interview was with Eva Gabrielsson, longtime partner of the late Stieg Larsson, known best for his bestselling Millennium Trilogy (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest), but who devoted his tragically short life to combating right-wing extremism in Scandinavia through his relentless journalism in the Trotskyist Fjärde internationalen, Britain's Searchlight, and the journal he founded (on which Millennium was based) Expo.

I lived in Berlin for three months when in college, and in Frankfurt for nearly a year after I graduated, and read as much German journalism as I could. I'm still a regular reader of Die Zeit and the Süddeutsche Zeitung -- both excellent publications, which, if you're down with German dependent clauses, are well worth reading. Far better journalism than we usually get here, on par with The New York Times at its best and The Guardian. Had my first encounters with Europe's New Right in those pages, specifically a piece in Die Zeit about the rising right in Hungary (which, if you haven't read about yet, please do -- Fidesz and its leader and current Prime Minister Viktor Orbán are truly terrifying). In Germany, at least, the contemporary right has its home in the NDP (Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands), reviled among the mainstream political parties (CDU/CSU, SPD, FDP, Die Grünen, Die Linke) and completely ineffectual nationally. And yet. The NDP has successfully put members in the regional legislatures of two of the sixteen German states, with 14 members total in those two. The NDP is a Neo-Nazi party, extremely hostile to the large Turkish immigrant population in Germany, and to Islam in general.

The above is an important point both Buruma and Sharlet make. Buruma:

And then 9/11 happened, and the murder of the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, and the bombings in Madrid and London—all these atrocities perpetrated by terrorists acting in the name of a violent Islamist revolution. This finally gave right-wing populists a cause with which to crash into the center of European politics.

European civilization, frightened citizens were being told, had to be defended against “Islamization,” against fanatical aliens who breed so fast that white Europeans will soon be outnumbered. And the promoters of this cause were not nostalgic old SS men dreaming of the good old days, or neo-Fascists pining for black shirts and military marches, or skinheads itching for a brawl. Quite the opposite: Europe’s new populists are smartly dressed modern men and women who claim to be defending our freedoms. And they are persuasive because people are afraid and resentful, blaming economic and social anxieties on “liberal elites.” But if the fears are vague and various, the focal point is Islam.

Sharlet:

Breivik took a kind of logical next step from that rhetoric. And that’s part of why I think it’s troubling when people sort of attempt to dismiss him as a madman and not deal with the politics that are very much a part of our, unfortunately, mainstream political discourse, that walk right up to the edge of violence.

Or, you know, in the case of U.S. war in the Middle East—you know, I’ve reported on this in the past, and we talked about this on the show here before—a number of senior American officers, Lieutenant General Bruce Fister, described the war in Iraq and Afghanistan as "a spiritual war of the greatest magnitude." There was video of the top American Army chaplain in Afghanistan saying that we’re there fighting in Afghanistan for Christianity.

Buruma's article is extraordinarily relevant, as he discusses the rise of the right across Europe, from Geert Wilders in the Netherlands to Francesco Speroni in Italy. It's truly shocking to read how widespread this still-somewhat-underground movement has become. With the increasing economic turmoil across Europe -- UK, Greece, Spain, and Italy have already erupted into protest, and the demise of the Euro seems ever more likely -- it's worth remembering that the hyperinflation of 1923 and the economic despair of the '20s in general were key contributing factors to the rise of Nazism in Weimar Germany. When people get desperate, they'll turn to any ideology that ameliorates their despair and promises better days. This poses an interesting question for the Left -- essentially how do we convince despairing and angry folk here and elsewhere that we have the solutions to wide-scale social breakdown?

This brings us to the United States. The crucial distinction to make here, I think, is between the largely youth-oriented and economy-focused activism/rioting in Europe, and the largely middle-aged and culturally-predicated activism here, courtesy of the Tea Party. The United States is in a Second Great Depression, none of this Great Recession stuff. When one-sixth of the populace is dependent on food stamps just to eat, when U6 unemployment is around 20%, when unemployment among minority populations reach as high as 40%, when young people graduate college with $25,000 in debt and no chance at a well-paying job, it's a depression. Tavis Smiley and Dr. Cornel West on 08.09's Democracy Now! and Barbara Ehrenreich on the 08.08 broadcast go into much further depth and much more eloquently about how poverty is getting worse daily in the United States. The economic reality here, as in Europe, is dire for most people, and I predict it won't be long before the rage prevalent on the extreme Right about their mythologized version of America extends to economic issues beyond the Tea Party's Randian aversion to taxation or community of any kind. Worth pointing out as well that a great deal of the cultural aggression among Tea Partiers is explicitly directed at Muslims, from Herman Cain stating that he would never hire a Muslim for his cabinet to completely absurd anti-Shariah laws passed in Oklahoma and elsewhere.

It's a frightening global moment, ripe for anti-immigrant and anti-Islamic scapegoating, riper still for extreme political upheaval. So far, the Right, here and in Europe, is positioning itself far better than the Left, despite the Right's complete economic and social fantasies. Both in the United States and in Europe, the growing movements on the Right are predicated on a nativist meme that's been around for centuries hearkening back to a hypothetical "pure" state in which "liberty" means doing whatever you'd like and the brown people are ruthless savages intent on infiltrating and undermining our societies. This fear of "The Other" surfaces when times are tough and white Westerners need a scapegoat. The Right has egged on this attitude since the Crusades (yes, I know politics are a bit different now), and is currently doing so to demonize Islam, the LGBT community, minority communities, the poor, and basically anyone who isn't relatively well-off all in the name of "purifying" societies in the United States and Europe.

To the point, right-wing extremism is ascendant at the moment, and we on the Left need to do everything we can to combat scapegoating and to press what democracy we have to pass a jobs program. Otherwise, this'll be America before we can blink.

http://www.newsflash.org/2004/02/pictures/000076934.jpg

Maybe that wouldn't even be a bad thing, as long as we can get the masses on our side.

(Cross-posted at dailykos.com)

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

2011-08-14T09:27:00.002-04:00

This'll be rambling and frankly semi-coherent, but it intrigued me. Woke up about half an hour ago from a dream in which my longtime ex's parents (in the dream confused with another ex's parents, but such is the nature of dreams) went through her books and literally tossed into a trash bag her copies of Henry Miller, Melville (? right?), Kerouac, Whitman, Cheever, Lowell, and Pynchon, many of which (in the dream, at least -- though I am known to gift books, an arrogant if sincere trait of mine) I had given her. They were corrupting her mind, of course (Henry Miller has gone a long way in corrupting mine, so I won't exactly question that one at least). In the dream I was my typical blustering and relatively disrespectful self, openly questioning why in the living hell they were doing that, what censorship of any kind can accomplish, and why it's better to shield oneself from uncomfortable ideas than to actively engage them.

I have absolutely no idea what brought this dream on. I've written about the ex in question lately, so perhaps that explains her appearance, but the book censorship thing I can't think of a trigger for. Of course, that's what I love about dreams. To be completely honest, I've had more short stories develop out of things I dreamed about seemingly randomly than I've had develop out of purposefully thinking of ideas. As an aside, I think that's true of writers far more talented than I -- I always think of T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men": "Eyes I dare not meet in dreams / In death's dream kingdom" and frankly that scares the shit out of me. I borrowed the title for this post from "Hamlet" and "The Tempest"'s summary by Prospero in IV:1 is stunningly good as well: "We are such stuff / As dreams are made on; and our little life / Is rounded with a sleep." Or perhaps as Descartes wrote, "I am accustomed to sleep and my dreams to imagine the same things lunatics imagine when they are awake."

And one more quote I love, and moving toward relevance, from the Talmud: "A dream which is not interpreted is like a letter which is not read." This particular dream stuck out to me because removing access to books is one of the few unforgivable offenses I can think of on the behalf of a parent -- and granted, I'm not yet a parent and may never be, so my perspective might be a bit skewed. Still, though, I can't imagine limiting a child's access to something they want to read (children! reading!) based on my objections to the content. It seems far more the responsible thing to do to explain to the child my grounds for objecting to the content and inviting her or him to think their own thoughts but take my perspective into consideration. As with everyone, I've been through some shit with my parents, and I've forgiven everything I've felt they did wrong (I do hope the same applies) with just one niggling exception -- the one time they returned to the library a book I was reading because my mother opened it up (I was like 11) to a sex scene. Horror upon horrors, eh? (I won't mention what the book in question was, because frankly, it's embarrassing). The very concept of censoring or banning books is as offensive to me as illegal wiretapping.

One of the coolest and most memorable memorials I've ever been to is the Bebelplatz in Berlin, which is a testament to the Nazi book-burning shortly after the Ausnahmezustand went into effect (which took place in the Bebelplatz). It consists of a single glass pane underneath your feet -- right on Unter den Linden and essentially on the campus of the Humboldt Universität. You look down and see rows and rows of empty bookshelves with an engraved line from Heine reading: "Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen" (There, where books are burned, will also ultimately see men burned"). How's that for an impactful line? And yet I think Heine is right -- the philosophical implications of purposefully restricting knowledge of whatever sort aside -- the political act of banning or worse, burning, books is a frontal assault on the democracy of the mind, without which any other form of democracy is impossible. To ban any form of intellectual content, be it visual art, music, film, literature, etc., goes against the very grain of every fucking thing the Enlightenment accomplished for us, its relatively ungrateful heirs. I'll even go far as to say that anyone who suggests a ban on any creative content is a cryptofascist. Freedom to create is on par with the freedom to love whom you love, to do what you love, to create yourself endlessly, and that freedom is what defines modernity itself.

This list of authors who have had books banned in the United States reads like a who's who of the greatest writers of all time (or this list from the ALA), without whose work I know for sure I would never have developed into the person I am.

Anyway, to summarize sloppily, this particular dream really affected me and reminded me how important the freedom to think and dream whatever comes your way really is essential to growing up, and a freedom that should never be abrogated under any circumstances.

Really, Iowa?

2011-08-13T19:49:00.002-04:00

I've always had a good deal of respect for my fellow corn-loving flatlanders to the immediate west, but Iowa Republicans are really insane enough to pick Michelle Bachmann as their preliminary favorite for the Iowa Caucuses? As Barney Frank said, I hope I've led a good enough life to receive that as a reward, but still, I find it highly disturbing that someone with such regressive and reactionary views can attain such traction in contemporary American conservative politics. Yes, I'll be the first to joke about Bachmann's lunacy and fringe beliefs, but the right-wing retrenchment and anti-Enlightenment hysteria currently en vogue is a troubling thing to witness, and ultimately, will not bode well for our democracy, what's left of it. I've touched on most of these subjects in various ways, but in 2011 when one of the two major political parties views a right-of-center president as a dangerous communist intent on destroying their mythologized view of America, when what's become the mainstream of that party fervently believes that women should have no control over their bodies, that LGBT people should remain second-class citizens because we have the temerity to not fit into their misread ancient history of what love and marriage mean, when that party's mainstream denies science, and relapses into a grotesquely and ill-understood postmodernist denial of the possibility of objective fact and the concurrent sincere belief that facts are essentially irrelevant, well -- this is a problem. Bachmann epitomizes all the worst of the Know-Nothingism prevalent on the right today, and the fact that Obama has so flubbed his presidency actually (and I can't believe I'm saying this sincerely) has opened up a space for her or Rick Perry -- who's equally extreme in his views and a better and more opportunistic politician -- to become the leader of the free world. I really can't believe I'm saying this, but they both make George W. Bush look moderate.

Another FFVI Gem

2011-08-13T19:48:00.000-04:00

completely heartbreaking.

Why Stephen Colbert is the Most Important Individual on Television

2011-08-12T15:54:00.002-04:00

Now, some of you may know this about me, but I am a diligent and very-tough-to-please media critic. I spend more time than I should watching TV news on all three cable networks as well as Stewart and Colbert nightly. I would watch Olbermann (and do watch the clips CurrentTV makes available) were he available on Comcast in Northern Illinois. That there are a lot of hacks on TV news is something it took all of five minutes to learn. Won't even mention Fox, as the entire network makes the Insane Clown Posse look sane and unlike clowns. That takes effort. CNN's Don Lemon is quite good, but the rest of that network is a complete farce. Wolf Blitzer might just be the most worthless person on all of television, outpacing even Kim Kardashian and Snooki. Yes, Snooki. Piers Morgan peaked when giving Susan Boyle a "yes" on Britain's Got Talent. He's since conducted a bevy of painful-to-watch puff interviews and is implicated as a former News of the World editor in the growing Murdoch scandal. MSNBC has Lawrence O'Donnell and Rachel Maddow -- meeting both of whom is a life ambition of mine. Both are brilliant and outspoken progressives who eloquently make progressive points. Lawrence's rants are righteous, and Rachel is perhaps the most rational journalist on TV, diligently sourcing every story she reports and basing her editorializations on facts. She even admits her mistakes, which isn't something I could ever see Chris Matthews doing. Martin Bashir is highly underrated. Dylan Ratigan is overrated, and dropping Cenk Uygur was a tragic mistake.

And yet.

Even MSNBC is quite flawed, and Phil Griffin is clearly more attuned to the bottom line than to actual reporting and honest editorializing. Most intelligent people know that Comedy Central, in an irony that's been running for almost a decade now, is the most reliable news network on widely-available air. Digby and I had a short conversation a while ago about this, and I credit her with the inspiration for what I'm writing (and for just being a brilliant writer and flat-out badass).

Jon Stewart is reliably funny, clearly a student of contemporary media, the best eviscerator of Fox News out there, and plainly brilliant. I credit him as well with standing up vocally for the 9/11 first responders and helping them gain health coverage from Congress. Stewart is always must-see, and always puts a funny and incisive spin on the day's news. His interviews are always intelligent and insightful.

Yet, as Digby said, Stewart plays more to his audience than to actual truth-telling. That's not necessarily a criticism of him -- as he's said on multiple occasions, he's a comedian, not Walter Cronkite. Colbert, however, succeeds in ways Stewart doesn't when it comes to showing the right as the insane idiots they are. Largely, this is due to extremely deft use of satire -- by posing as a right-wing know-nothing, Colbert can show just how know-nothing the actual right is. By playing up his Hannity-inspired persona as bombastically as he can manage, he completely devastates Hannity and anyone of his ilk.

Now, Lawrence O'Donnell last night had some harsh words about Colbert and his new Super-PAC project. I had to watch it a few times to be sure if he was glib or serious, but it seems he was serious. And I have to say, if so, O'Donnell completely misunderstands Colbert. The Super-PAC project is not about Colbert trying to trick people out of their money. (I'm amazed so many have donated, absolutely). What he's doing is portraying the insanity of campaign finance in America. First as tragedy, then as farce, no? This is Colbert demonstrating brilliantly how insane running for president is in the contemporary USA, and how broken our media is that it would run Colbert's ad. (And the "Cornographic" ad)

Colbert's entire act rips to shreds any claim anyone on the Right can claim to seriousness. In portraying a homophobic, anti-tax, science-denying militarist, Colbert shows how radically absurd those actual ideas are. That character allows him to do things Stewart can't, and Colbert is both brilliant and funny enough to pull it off nightly. Yes, some of his set pieces can be ridiculous, but such is the career of a gifted satirist. Enough are perfectly cutting.

When he breaks character, he does admirable things as well. His testimony before Congress on behalf of undocumented immigrants was incredibly admirable. His solidarity with soldiers in Iraq similarly so. His "It Gets Better" video is genuinely touching. All in all, he seems like a pretty remarkable guy and easily the wittiest and most important person on television today.

(originally posted at DailyKos.com)

Doug, Rugrats, and Ren & Stimpy

2011-08-12T14:13:00.003-04:00

Really great article by Spencer Kornhaber writing at The Atlantic -- his point is that Nicktoons (which is now, somehow, 20 years old) really changed the face of animated entertainment aimed at children and young people. Posted this comment on the page and stand by it, because Ren & Stimpy was groundbreaking in a way neither Doug nor Rugrats managed:

Doug was brilliant, but I think the author gives short shrift to Ren & Stimpy. R&S was simply one of the most subversive shows in television history. Even in 2011, rewatching some of those episodes is just shocking. There's no way that would ever be allowed on the air today, and I'm a better person for having watched it while young.

Oh Mittens

2011-08-11T13:03:00.000-04:00

You really fucked this one up, eh?

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2011/08/ooops_5.php?ref=fpblg

New (mostly meta) Diary

2011-08-11T12:59:00.000-04:00

On the unexpected and unwelcome retirement of Meteor Blades. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/11/1005835/-I-will-Certainly-Miss-Meteor-Blades,-But?via=siderecent

Coming to You This Fall

2011-08-11T11:42:00.003-04:00

The best MLB playoffs since 2004? It's looking that way. On the AL side, Boston and the Yankees seem destined for another epic rematch. Think Beckett-Sabathia, Lester-Nova, Lackey-whoever the Yankees have as a third starter. Ortiz v. Rivera again, the electric Jacoby Ellsbury, the suddenly slugging like a mad man Curtis Granderson. Provided both teams get there -- and aside from Detroit, I don't see a Divisional team in the AL that could beat either Boston or New York -- it'll be at least a six-game ALCS, and looks like an epic one at that.

In the NL, the Phillies might just be one of the greatest teams of all time. David Schoenfield at ESPN's SweetSpot blog did a very cogent analysis of this yesterday. In a 7-game series, they can throw Halladay-Lee-Hamels-Oswalt at you with the very good Vance Worley in relief, along with their excellent bullpen. Mind you, Halladay's thrown one of two ever postseason no-hitters, Cliff Lee's postseason bona fides are unquestionable, Hamels is having a career year, and Oswalt, if he can stay healthy, is one of the game's best pitchers. All of the above have World Series experience too. I don't think there's a team in the NL that can match Philadelphia -- only Atlanta looks capable of even posing a challenge. And that is a damn good Atlanta team -- Jurrjens, Hudson, Hanson, Beachy can't match the Philly lineup, but are easily the next best rotation in the NL. If Jason Heyward can get his act together, they could really do some damage in a weak NL. Whether it's the Giants or the Diamondbacks that come out of the West, they'll get crushed. Same with the Central, be it St. Louis or Milwaukee. The East is where it's at this year.

My prediction? Red Sox-Phillies in the World Series, Phillies win in 6. Either way, it's going to be an epic postseason.

Addendum: It's been brought to my attention that I neglected to mention the Rangers as far as the AL is concerned, and that is certainly an error on my part. That is a very talented team with postseason experience -- still I class them with the Tigers as a good team, but not on Red Sox or Yankees territory, at least in a seven-game series. They can score runs with the best of them, but I still have questions about that young and relatively inexperienced staff.

Frank Schaeffer and Christian Reconstructionism

2011-08-10T08:34:00.002-04:00

Teacherken posted this in a brilliant diary on DailyKos.com, and I'll let his words explain. In short and by way of introduction, this is based on an article penned by Frank Schaeffer, son of Christian Reconstructionist Francis Schaeffer, and someone who is the model for rational and mature thought.

Neoliberalism Crumbling

2011-08-09T11:46:00.001-04:00

New post on the Great Orange Satan. Check it out, and send me comments and criticism.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/09/1004888/-The-Neoliberal-Order-Has-Discovered-a-Crack-in-Its-Armor?via=siderecent

Love in the 90s

2011-08-08T17:14:00.002-04:00

So fuck Dawson's Creek. That show was about as real as Desperate Housewives is now.

I'm on a 90s kick, which is hardly unusual for me, but has been aided and abetted by several friends and people without whom I'd be lost (there's a considerable amount of overlap). Anyway, this particular gem takes me back to 2000, fifteen and all sorts of awkward. I was working on my learners' permit and counting down the days to my sixteenth birthday, as I imagine every fifteen-year old does. My parents were out of town, and I surreptitiously drove the '95 teal Nissan Sentra down to a friend's party. Of course, I got caught, but for whatever reason, this is the song I associate with that memory.

To Someone Who Shall Ever be Unnamed

2011-08-08T08:55:00.002-04:00

Well, Longshot Magazine didn't take this essay, so I can publish it here now. It's dedicated to someone whose name I won't ever say, someone who saved my life, and someone to whom I wish all the happiness this sorry world can muster. Anyway, essay below.

“The Debt I Owe Her is My Life”

By BENJAMIN TAYLOR

I owe my ex-girlfriend for the fact that I’m alive.

I know, I know, it’s not supposed to work out that way, and the fact that I think it highly unlikely we’ll ever speak again just sort of complicates things. But here are the facts of the matter: I’ve suffered from severe, often crippling depression my entire short life. It’s led me to stupid deeds, copious quantities of alcohol, and a veritable cornucopia of intoxicating things. All of which I assume full responsibility for, mind you. The point being depression is a seriously angry and vindictive bitch.

Last autumn, it got very bad. Very, very bad. After getting completely wasted and threatening with every intention suicide, one of my roommates had the sense to call 911. I was hospitalized and had my first experience on a psych ward early in October in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The experience was interesting, to say the least. If you’ve never been on a psych ward – and I hope that’s the case with anyone reading this – it’s a place which is strictly regimented, smelly, and with very bad food. Also there are varying degrees of crazy, varying, that is, from depressed folk like myself to paranoid schizophrenics to drug-brain blazed-out individuals who evolve into paranoid schizophrenics. Now, a psych ward is a short-term sort of institution, and the latter two need long-term care for which we, as a society, should pay. That’s a separate issue.

Let’s just say, they’re not exactly vacation destinations.

Thankfully there was wi-fi, and House reruns. And a psych team, which meets with you once a day for about fifteen minutes and arbitrarily changes what meds your regular psych has prescribed you. This leads to tremendous fluctuations in mood, which, of course, are less than ideal for someone who’s landed in a psych ward. However, I was considered a “low-risk” patient, as I had only threatened to end my life, and then was released after a few days.

Needless to say, I found myself back in my Somerville apartment, not feeling much better for the wear. A few days went by, most of them consuming what-was-then-legal Four Loko and playing World of Warcraft. These were not enjoyable days.

And then I found myself at four in the morning, looking out into inky blackness through my window, and thinking “Yes, that’s what I want. Just permanent blackness.” Lacking the courage to inflict actual physical harm to myself – when I was fifteen I had taken the knife to my heart, but couldn’t actually do the deed – I ingested about 90 Aspirins. It was really all I had available at the time – a shitty way to kill yourself, and an almost laughable one, but it’s what I had.

I added to that a considerable amount of vodka I leeched off a roommate who had stowed it in the freezer. I don’t really remember much of what happened after that, but, waking up for work, my ex-girlfriend – whom ill-advisedly on my part had become my flat-mate – found me naked (I’m not sure what happened there) and unconscious on the bathroom floor.

Thankfully, she cared about me enough to call an ambulance. I recall none of this, nor (what I imagine were) her heroic efforts to get me into pants. I remember waking up in the emergency room and being forced to drink charcoal – which, as a food enthusiast makes me retch even thinking about it. The acetylsalicylic acid, which was running rather heavy in my bloodstream, had also – and much to my chagrin – wreaked some righteous havoc on my electrolyte balance. This involved drinking another vile concoction of phosphorous and sodium, which, to make matters worse, was the color of Tang.

After a short time, the orderlies wheeled me up to a room where I spent two days with an IV drip of God knows what, and answering questions posed to me by a very kind (though at the time annoying) physician overseeing my care. As it was the same Cambridge hospital where I had been earlier, when the time came to travel upstairs to the psych ward – this time for a considerably lengthier engagement – at least I knew the staff and a few fellow-travelers who were still on board for the voyage toward sanity. My first day I was placed on suicide watch – a matter of course; waking up alive has this way of putting a damper on your desire to die, I wasn’t a danger to myself, but to make sure, I was placed in the special room, and monitored at all times.

I did my time, and served it with as much courtesy, shame, and humility I could then muster. It’s taken since then to reacquire a scintilla of hope that I’ll ever be happy, that anyone could ever love me, that the moon to which I wrote adolescent poems by candlelight on the back porch would ever mean anything to me again. I’m not where I’d like to be yet, but the moon shines and thrills me again. I stay awake just to listen to the sound of the rain. I’ve discovered a new love of cooking and trying new cuisines. None of those were possible all of six months ago.

No, my ex and I don’t speak. I don’t expect we will again. Much of what went wrong between us was due to my inability to help myself and my pride in not seeking help. I can’t blame her, and don’t. We’re not even Facebook friends anymore, and I’ve since left the Boston area for the corn-and-soybean-inflected fields of northern Illinois. Yet I still miss her, and the debt I owe her is my life.

Countdown to Wednesday

2011-08-07T19:11:00.002-04:00

I am literally on pins and needles waiting for Wednesday night's friendly against El Tri. Not only is it Yankees-Red Sox level of rivalry, but also Jürgen Klinsmann's debut as national trainer. This post has no point except to share my anticipation. I'll be watching raptly and live-tweeting the match @destroy_time.

Terra's Theme

2011-08-07T18:33:00.002-04:00

Trying to put this to words, and words fail. Fucking heartrendingly beautiful.

"Network" and Our Current Epistemic Crisis

2011-08-06T20:00:00.011-04:00

Sidney Lumet's 1976 masterpiece Network (written by Paddy Chayefsky) remains one of the most prescient and chilling films in American cinematic history. Everyone on this site -- and presumably the vast majority of sentient Americans -- is well familiar with the cri de coeur of "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" uttered by Howard Beale, one of the film's protagonists, played brilliantly anda with extreme pathos by Peter Finch. That Network, for me, is the most memorable film of 1976 is saying something -- it was the most incredible year in the history of American film, producing Scorsese's seminal Taxi Driver (my favorite film of all time), Rocky, All the President's Men, Carrie, David Lynch's Eraserhead, and The Omen.

What the best of these films evidenced -- Network, Taxi Driver, and All the President's Men in particular -- was an epistemic break that resulted directly from the mid-70s breakdown in order due to the end of Vietnam, Watergate, the oil shock, Middle Eastern turmoil, and stagflation. This break created the space for gritty, shocking, and truth-telling films such as these to reach an audience that might not have been receptive to their subversion just a few years before. Contrast the content of those films with the popular cinematic response of our era to its crises -- a retreat into the fantasy worlds of Tolkien, Rowling, and countless superheroes. That, however, is another topic for another time.

Network, in contrast to the nihilistic violence of Taxi Driver and the explicitly political intrigue of All the President's Men, illuminated the ferment of post-Watergate America obliquely, through an institution which by that point had come to define an era: the news media. I won't bother summarizing the film's plot -- you can look it up on Wikipedia, or better yet, watch it (it's streaming on Netflix now). What Network is about, however, is the eerie and almost grotesque manner in which the news media distorts facts, exploits spectacle, and revels in crisis for its own sake to drive up ratings and ensnare unwitting viewers.

Beale's famous "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore" rant, therefore, places the viewer (both the current viewer of the film, and the fictional viewer of the UBS Evening News in the film) in a double bind that illuminates the manner in which our contemporary media functions. On the one hand, Beale's impassioned rant is just that -- a holy lambasting of the corruption that ran rampant throughout all strata of the mid-70s power elite leading to a system-wide rot and apathetic resignation:

I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth; banks are going bust; shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter; punks are running wild in the street, and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it.

We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to

eat. And we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be!

We all know things are bad -- worse than bad -- they're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out any more. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we're living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, "Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials, and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone."

Well, I'm not going to leave you alone.

I want you to get mad!

Those are words meant to vilify utterly the complaisance of a society that had lost its political and ethical moorings, to rouse it into action of some sort, or at least into active consideration of the surrounding world. On the other hand, however, Beale's explosion into the nation's popular consciousness provides precisely the vehicle by which programming director Diana Christiansen (Faye Dunaway) latches on to the idea of exploiting the spectacle of Beale to revive UBS's flagging ratings. One can't raise one's fist in the air and shout with Beale without the concomitant awareness that doing so exacerbates precisely the problem that Beale inveighed against -- the disconnect between the opinion-making elite and its audience. This double bind is alive and well on both sides of the political spectrum today -- I hardly need name names, but we're all aware that all three major networks make use of spectacle and bombast to drive ratings. This elevation of spectacle above substance is a primary contributing factor to this strange epistemic relativism prevalent (primarily, though not exclusively, on the right) in contemporary America, where facts are a matter of opinion and reality a matter of preference.

Far less recognized, though equally important in terms of Network's enduring cultural significance, is the speech delivered by Chairman of the CCA (the conglomerate that acquires UBS) Board Arthur Jensen to Beale toward the film's end. Beale has just learned that a deal is in the works for an even larger Saudi Arabian conglomerate to buy out CCA, and in a nod to anti-Arab hysteria of the OPEC crisis days, Beale launches into a tirade at the close of one of his (much revamped for maximum entertainment value) shows to implore his audience to write or telegram the White House to stop the CCA deal. Jensen, incensed, summons Beale to a dramatically darkened board room to preach his "corporate cosmology":

You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it!! Is that clear?! You think you've merely stopped a business deal. That is not the case. The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity! It is ecological balance!

You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels.

It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU WILL ATONE!

Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale?

You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.

What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state -- Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do.

We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that perfect world in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality -- one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused.

The news media from which most of us derive most of our information on a daily basis is an integral cog in this machine -- owned by those international corporations, the media and the corporate oligarchy exist both to tranquillize and titillate those anxieties, amuse that boredom, and to keep the news "consumer" fixed upon the spectacle and the Potemkin democracy in which we are taught to believe. Anyone who watched the manufactured debt ceiling crisis couldn't help but notice this dynamic in action -- very few could elucidate the underlying macroeconomic issues, but the framing of Obama v. Boehner, or corporate Republicans v. Tea Party, or corporate Democrats v. progressives will be sure to produce some knowing nods.

Jensen's speech -- even despite the Soviet and linear programming references -- has aged remarkably well, at least as well as Beale's. The two combine to illuminate a key contributing factor to the current democratic and fiduciary crisis in which we find ourselves. And -- spoiler alert -- all too fitting that the film ends with Beale agreeing to air Jensen's viewpoint. UBS finds his ratings plummeting, and, in the ultimate triumph of pure spectacle, Christiansen arranges for Beale to be assassinated on air. All for the sake of higher ratings.

(Cross-posted at DailyKos.com)

(and for some reason, the color doesn't match my usual color scheme... haven't been able to figure out what's up with that)

Gramsci Explains the Debt Ceiling Crisis Better Than Any Talking Head -- and What Underlies It

2011-08-01T08:42:00.003-04:00

Essentially that at certain points in history "realignments" among classes and the traditional political parties representing them occur, creating instability and creating the conditions for social upheaval, violence, and dramatic/traumatic reorganization. This is exactly what's happening within the U.S. political system -- for the last forty years, the lower- and working-classes have gradually shifted their political allegiance away from the Democratic Party, their traditional economic champion, toward the Republican Party. Likewise, the unholy alliance of the Democratic Party with Wall Street has peeled off a number of individuals who, in the 1920s, say, would never have considered voting with the workers.

The reasons for this are legion -- chief among them, perhaps, the role the U.S. media plays in politics, but certainly also the structure of our Constitution, the increasing reliance on private funds in campaigns, the conservative Supreme Court of the last twenty years, the sclerotic nature of the Senate, etc. You get the point.

Now, Gramsci wrote this in 1923, so obviously it's not a perfect analogy, but I do think what we're headed toward (hopefully we can skip the violence part) is a realignment of the parties on class interests. Or, I should say, I think that's the only to fix the political system -- to return to a politics that pits labor against land, and yes, to re-fight the political struggles that the left won between Haymarket and the New Deal. We'll see. Text below:

From The Prison Notebooks

"Observations on Certain Aspects of the Structure of Political Parties in Periods of Organic Crisis"

(tr. Quintin Hoare & Geoffrey Nowell Smith)

"At a certain point in their historical lives, social classes become detached from their traditional parties. In other words, the traditional parties in that particular organisational form, with the particular men who constitute, represent, and lead them, are no longer recognised by their class (or fraction of a class) as its expression. When such crises occur, the immediate situation becomes delicrate and dangerous, because the field is open for violent solutions, for the activities of unknown forces, represented by charismatic "men of destiny."

Addendum: Meant to say, the entire essay (probably his best-known) is well worth your time.

The Difficult Choices of Gay Christian Musicians

2011-08-01T07:38:00.002-04:00

Just ran across this article on NPR.org that goes into some depth about how difficult it is for queer Christian musicians to balance their sexuality and the belief that many of their audience members have that any deviation from their "Biblical" heterosexual norm is sinful. It caught my eye because one of the artists mentioned, Jennifer Knapp (whose voice is truly memorable), was a favorite of a friend of mine -- back when I was still a Christian and out nearly to myself nor anyone else as queer. I remember asking her when Knapp did come out how it affected my friend's judgment of her music, and her response was essentially that, unfortunately, Knapp was going to have to drop out of my friend's playlists.

I'm glad to see Knapp, at least, has returned to singing -- as the article says, as a folk rock performer. It's disheartening, to say the absolute least, to see talented and well-meaning people have their careers and livelihoods destroyed by bigotry; or, on the opposite side of the coin, to feel unable to be open with themselves, friends, loved ones, and audience members about who they really are.

Fantasy is Real Literature -- It's ALL Literature

2011-07-29T23:43:00.002-04:00

Writing the libretto to Final Fantasy VI: The Opera and falling in love with Westeros has given me occasion to think about the "art" status of fantasy, of fantasy as capable of being just as good as "high literature." Lev Grossman, true to form, explains why sneering at fantasy is not just wrongheaded, but shows an actual ignorance of the heritage of what we read today. To use a Sullivanism, money quote:

"Where would Spenser's "Faerie Queene" be without fairies? Where would Shakespeare have been without fantasy—his spirits, his ghosts, and his proto-Orc Caliban, the misshapen villain of "The Tempest"? You can't have Macbeth without the witches three."

"Go Cubs Go"

2011-07-29T19:17:00.001-04:00

plenty of versions out there, but I picked this one because it shows Wrigley and features Kerry Wood.

On the Sorry State of the 2011 Chicago Cubs

2011-07-29T18:21:00.003-04:00

I tweeted most of this yesterday, but wanted to write it long-form -- hopefully more coherently.

The 2011 Chicago Cubs really depress me. I didn't have lofty expectations for this team, even with the signing of Carlos Peña and trading for Matt Garza. I had some hopes that, in a relatively weak NL Central, they could at least compete with the Cardinals and Reds of the world. Those hopes were dashed by late April.

Starlin Castro is on the way to becoming a legitimate star (no pun intended). He could develop more power, yes, but is a deft shortstop who generally doesn't swing at bad pitches, hits for average, gets on base, and can run. Darwin Barney, the rookie second baseman (whose name alone I adore), seems like a keeper -- good with the glove, also can hit and can run. Beyond those two younguns -- well, it doesn't look good.

Aramis Ramirez is probably the best hitter on the team (still), and as much as I love him, the Cubs should deal him now, while his bat is hot and while he still has value. After a disappointing 2010 season, he's really lighting up opposing pitchers lately, but he's 33 and -- let's be frank -- the Cubs are going nowhere this year or the next few. Trade him, and get some value in return. I would say the same for Carlos Zambrano, who has yet to be his old self, but could bring some value for a contender in need of an innings-eater (albeit volatile) starter who still throws a mean 4-seamer and slider. Love the guy, despite his tirades, but the firesale needs to commence sooner rather than later.

As for the rest of the rotation, Matt Garza seems like a keeper. Yes, he's struggled with control all season, but in terms of raw "stuff," he's the best on the staff. Great fastball in the 94-95 range, wicked slider. Randy Wells? Despite the 6+ ERA, still have hope for the young chap -- he just needs to tweak his mechanics. Wish Larry Rothschild were still here to help him with that. I've been referring to Ryan Dempster as "Ryan Dumpster" for over a year now, but to be honest, that's not fair to him. He had a really awful start to this season, but another guy the Cubs should deal sooner rather than later. He doesn't have Zambrano's stuff, but he's wily like, say, Tim Hudson is, and is always good for at least six innings. A contender in need of a starter would trade for him.

The bullpen. Oy. I've been saying this for weeks now, but we need to get rid of Carlos Marmol, and the sooner the better. Or relegate him to long work, or a seventh-inning gig, or anything that keeps him from deciding ballgames late. His slider is still one of the best in the game, but the man has clearly lost his confidence. He seems terrified on the mound right now. Kerry Wood -- whom I love, whose 20 K game I will always remember, whose return start from Tommy John I was in the first row third-base side for -- looks washed up. I hate to say it, but it's true. Some mid-level prospects could be had in return. Sean Marshall is a keeper -- he's been great all season. John Grabow -- deal immediately. He's overpaid and underperforming. Not a favorable combination. As for the great enigma Jeff Samardzija, he's exactly that -- an enigma. I'm not sure what I think about him. Some days he's unhittable; some days he looks like Rich Garcés circa 2002. That's not a good thing.

As for the outfield, we all knew the minute he was signed that Alfonso Soriano would be one of the most overpaid, overrated, and unproductive hitters in the game. He has lived up to those standards. Sadly, there isn't a team out there that will eat the remaining years of his deal. We live with him and his nonchalance. Kosuke is in Cleveland, clearing the way for Tyler Colvin, who also gets the honorary Samardzija enigma crown. Decent fielder, has power, but has problems getting on base -- and more importantly -- playing with any semblance of consistency. Marlon Byrd has shown flashes of brilliance and flashes of epic fail. Also not sure about him, yet we're probably stuck with him for two more years.

Geovany Soto behind the plate mystifies me. Here's a guy who won the NL Rookie of the Year Award with a .285-23-86 line in 2008 with an .868 OPS (stats courtesy of baseball-reference.com), yet who has seemingly forgotten how to hit. He's reliable as a catcher, has a decent but not overwhelming arm, and he's far preferable to Koyie Hill. Just wish he'd remember how to hit.

All in all, the picture isn't going to make Cubs fans happy. It's been 103 years, and will likely be at least a few more. For this year and the next few, the pieces just aren't there. Deal our assets now and get some value in return. Fire Jim Hendry, and plan to try again in three years. Sadly, the "Go Cubs Go" song isn't going to be played as much as my heart would like it to be before I'm 30, but in the long run it'll give us a fighting chance.

Nubuo Uematsu

2011-07-29T17:12:00.002-04:00

Was really a genius. I can't stop listening to his compositions. If I listed them all, it might take up the entire page, but I recommend Tour de Japon's version of Aria de Mezzo Carattere Part B as something that rivals anything Puccini or Verdi ever composed. "Terra's Theme" is also stunningly good. "One-Winged Angel" is overrated, but still excellent, and "Dancing Mad" is perhaps his signature achievement. Really a giant of our times.

All of the above are available on YouTube.

First love?

2011-07-28T06:55:00.002-04:00

Waxing nostalgic, perhaps because of the thunderstorms, perhaps I'm old enough to appreciate the wonders life has granted me. This goes out to the first person I truly loved, and the first person who, upon kissing for the first time, made me feel like I could move mountains. That moment is something I will smile at when I'm 90.

I met her when I was all of 13. A short, skinny boy, precocious some would say. Awestruck the minute I met her -- she herself was somewhat scrawny, but beautiful (still is), and it was her humor and wit that drew me. Might sound cliché -- and it is -- but I'm attracted to those who intrigue me and tease what intellect I have rather than titillate my naughty bits. There was a summer I rode my woefully inadequate mountain bike to her house just to see her. Helped me get in better shape, yes, but it was about seeing her. Did everything short of a John Cusack "Say Anything" moment to catch her attention -- and we watched quite a few John Cusack flicks.

Anyway, it took over two years of pursuing her before our first kiss. I'm pretty sure she knew all along. It was perfection. I drove her home -- in my bright teal '95 Nissan Sentra -- I forget where from. She got out of the car, paused, then opened the passenger door and sat down. Told me -- words I will never forget -- "I think I'm in love with you." I can't for the life of me recall what I said. I hope it was something pithy at least. What I do know is that the kiss that followed was perfect, like straight out of a rom com, just passionate and anticipated and dreamt about for (literally) years. I hope whomever I spend the rest of years with can match that kiss, but it's a tall challenge. To this day, I still don't know how I made it home -- my legs were gelatin. I distinctly remember driving down North Alpine Road thinking to myself "did that just happen? did she actually kiss me?" Obviously it didn't work out -- mostly because I was a jackass (a common theme among my U-20 years), but that moment will live with me forever. --The latter not trying to be overly dramatic, but because it's true and meant that much and means that much still.

What's your defining "first love" moment?

At least I know where my next project's headed

2011-07-26T06:18:00.002-04:00

Its chance of success is practically zero, but no sense in not trying, right? Penning the libretto to the operatic version of Final Fantasy VI. Perfect story for an opera -- plenty of drama, love, loss, sympathetic yet flawed heroes/heroines, and a villain for the ages. Greatest game ever made in my opinion. Let's see it performed by professionals.

They're not "entitlements," they're a promise

2011-07-25T14:42:00.001-04:00

I posted a diary a while back on why it's important to frame same-sex marriage as "marriage equality" instead. Not because "same-sex marriage" isn't factually true -- it is. That's what it is. Framing the issue as marriage equality, however, presents it as a matter of basic equality. Which it also is. The same issue comes to the fore when we on the left discuss Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. I freely admit there's something vaguely Orwellian about these sort of language games; yet, like it or not (I don't), this is the way postmodern politics in the United States work.

Frankly put, we on the left must and absolutely must work our hardest to change this concept of "entitlements." This is the right's language. They've employed it with welfare reform and have been using it for years now to demonize the concept of a social safety net. Why it works so well: there's this concept surrounding the word "Entitlement" suggests getting something you haven't earned. It's been racialized with anti-immigrant hysteria and lingering hatred toward the African-American community on the part of white politicians and white right-wing media types. Beyond that, however, "entitlement" has been used by the right quite effectively to demonize what little social safety net we have here.

As if those benefits are things you and I haven't paid for out of each and every paycheck we've been fortunate enough to earn.

This is a classic political language game, and it's one defenders of what the preamble to the Constitution would call "the general welfare" have been losing on multiple fronts. The way forward is to stop -- for all time -- the use of the word "entitlement." It may not be right that that particular word has acquired the negative association it has, but as we're a fact-based community, we deal with it and move on. Instead, we refer to "the social safety net" or even "programs that promote the common good." Or "the bedrock of the New Deal." Because that's what those particular programs are -- the assurance that we, as a society, will sacrifice as a whole to protect our elders and the poor. The most vulnerable. Beyond that, Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid represent the idea that in the United States, the most vulnerable among us will not be left behind by the least vulnerable. To do so is not only ethically reprehensible, but frankly un-American -- another Orwellian term I don't use lightly.

Anything that refutes the notion that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are somehow programs that are unearned is incorrect and equally reprehensible -- the fact is that every working American pays into them. And as far as cuts go -- we do not accept them in any form. We march, we protest, we call our representatives and senators, and we let them know we're as mad as hell and we will not take this anymore. I have no expectation of enjoying Medicare or Social Security, and as a 26-year old, I think that says more about the America we live in than it does about my natural pessimism. Ladies and gents, we fight. Otherwise we're all screwed, young and old alike.

(Originally posted at DailyKos.com)

Jeff Sharlet is brave enough to read the "2083 manifesto"

2011-07-24T16:02:00.001-04:00

Of suspected Norwegian killer Anders Behring Breivik, and @JeffSharlet has some pointed and sage analysis. Check it out.

New post on the orange satan

2011-07-24T00:54:00.000-04:00

Which you can find here.

Some Fucking Awesome News for the LGBT Community

2011-07-22T17:14:00.002-04:00

DADT Repeal enacted! -- here!

The right's allergy to facts

2011-07-22T15:44:00.001-04:00

originally posted at DailyKos.com

find it here

New D-Kos Diary -- a rant on the economy

2011-07-21T15:41:00.001-04:00

Find it here.

DSM-V!!!!

2011-07-20T17:39:00.002-04:00

From Claire Rush @The_Rumpus: With Every New Edition, A New Schema of Labeling

Where the Left Goes From Here

2011-07-20T17:37:00.002-04:00

My take

New Review Coming Soon

2011-07-20T05:16:00.001-04:00

on Mark Wisniewski's forthcoming second novel Show Up, Look Good.

iTunes Thou Art My Master

2011-07-20T03:36:00.003-04:00

Periodically I find it instructive to take a look at my top 25 most played in my iTunes -- granted, these differ between my laptop and iPod due to different uses, and since I don't have my iPod handy, as of 07.20.11, here are my top 5 most played on iTunes (this data encompasses only the last 12 months, as I purchased this particular laptop last summer).

1) "The Temptation of Adam," Juliana Richer Daily (originally by Josh Ritter), 224

2) "Just Dance," Lady GaGa feat. Colby O'Donis, 199

3) "Boyfriend," Best Coast, 162 (became obsessed with this song toward the end of summer '10 and listened to it non-stop)

4) "New York State of Mind," Jay-Z (feat. Alicia Keyes), 140 (see above)

5) This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody), Talking Heads, 139 (favorite song of all time, pretty much guaranteed to turn up in any top 5 of anything of mine)

Honorable Mention: "Ready to Start," Arcade Fire (this would be higher, but I have to listen to The Suburbs as an album, so individual tracks get left out), "Cities in Dust," Siouxsie and the Banshees (another favorite song of all time), "Satellite Mind," Metric.

IL Judge Rules DCFS Must Continue to Refer Foster Children to Catholic Charities

2011-07-18T15:10:00.002-04:00

Sangamon County Judge John Schmidt ruled today that the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services must continue to refer foster children and adoption cases to the odious Catholic Charities, which gained notoriety earlier this month when it threatened to no longer provide adoption services, due to its contention that the state's new civil unions bill would force it to place children with gay and lesbian couples (heaven forbid), potentially putting 60 people out of work and leaving 350 foster care and adoption cases in the cold. Judge Schmidt ruled that the DCFS's subsequent decision to terminate its relationship with Catholic Charities following a Catholic Charities lawsuit (follow all that?) must be stayed until an August hearing regarding Catholic Charities' obligations regarding placement with same-sex couples under the new civil unions bill.

And all of that sucks, and allows Catholic Charities to continue its bigoted and evidence-less discrimination against same sex couples willing to adopt children in the foster system. It's Catholic Charities playing the politics of bigotry, and as always, the real victims are the ones who have no say in the process -- the children who desperately need a loving family and a stable home situation.

And On "Super Sad True Love Story"

2011-07-16T17:34:00.002-04:00

(originally published in the Rockford Independent Press)

“Shteyngart melds romance and terrifying satire in Super Sad True Love Story”

by BENJAMIN TAYLOR

Having built a reputation as one of the nation’s foremost and sharpest-witted comic satirists in his previous novels The Russian Debutante’s Handbook and Absurdistan, Gary Shteyngart seems an unlikely candidate to author the most frightening novel of the past decade.

Super Sad True Love Story, however, seems a likely candidate for the distinction, though – true to its title – Super Sad True Love Story explores a complex relationship with compassion as it terrifies.

Super Sad True Love Story takes place in a radically-altered America sometime in the 2020s. The dollar has lost practically all its value, and only currency pegged to the Chinese yuan has any value. The US military is bogged down in a military adventure in Venezuela. Secretary of Defense Rubinstein (in an echo perhaps of 1984’s Emmanuel Goldstein) has created a sprawling bureaucracy known as the American Restoration Authority which functions as a sort of secret police. Global corporations pretty much run the show, and they’ve gotten bigger, leading to monstrosities like UnitedContinentalDeltamerican Airlines. The protagonists’ parents flip back and forth between FoxLiberty-Prime and FoxLiberty-Ultra. In other words, it’s pretty fucking bleak.

Even more horrifying, though usually in a comical way, is the manner in which social mores have changed in this new and improved America. Practically everyone, young and old alike, is plugged in constantly to their äppärät – the nightmarish device smart phones have evolved into. Most text-based elements of the world have become obsolete, and people use their äppäräti to”stream,” and to monitor the worthiness of everyone around them. That’s another terrifying element of Super Sad True Love Story – the disappearance of privacy as a concept and social media have reached their logical end, and individuals can be “scanned” to discover practically any personal information, income, credit, “fuckability” and personality, the latter two of which have a point rating system based on others’ opinions. Everyone monitors everyone else at all times. Who needs Big Brother?

And it’s in this world that the reader is introduced to Lenny Abramov, a 39-year old anachronism of sorts – he apologizes on one occasion for still owning books – who works in the Indefinite Life Extension division for a conglomerate. Returning to the United States after a year in Rome, Lenny is desperately in love with Eunice Park, a 24-year old daughter of Korean immigrants he had met in Rome, where she was studying. Lenny – himself a second-generation American and invariably described in reviews as “schlubby” – moves uneasily through this hyper-youth-and-status-oriented world, longing to be a High Net Worth Individual in order to afford the services of his employer to appear younger while mentally quoting Chekhov and reading to Eunice The Unbearable Lightness of Being. He is sweet in a place where men and women in the same room are ranked by hotness, bumbling in his earnest affections in a time when prep schoolers attend “Assertiveness Class.”

At first sight, he’s also a complete mismatch for Eunice, who’s slight and “super-hot,” as one of her friends reminds her several times. She, like most of her generation, has a bad spending habit and a predilection for skimpy clothing. As Lenny notes, she’s also, however, in her own way, damaged goods. She’s at a point many 24-year olds can relate to – done with school, sort of considering law school and halfheartedly looking for work while not really knowing at all what the hell she wants to do. Her relationship with her family is complicated. Her mother is very stereotypically (almost too stereotypically) first-generation Korean – stay-at-home, very religious, and devoted to the strict social values of her homeland, while her father is an alcoholic podiatrist.

Yet the relationship that develops between the two is genuine, and the care Eunice develops for Lenny unaffected. Lenny’s fear of mortality finds solace in Eunice’s youthful vivacity, while Eunice’s detachment and need for affection are overcome by Lenny. To Shteyngart’s great credit, the relationship is as authentically-portrayed as it could be possibly be – certainly no easy task against the backdrop of bombastic satire. The counterpoint the ultimately-doomed love story provides to the decadence and tragedy of fin de siècle America is both bittersweet and poignant.

The stories of Eunice and Lenny, interestingly, are told from the first-person perspective, the two alternating narration in their respective diaries – Lenny, true to form, writing lyrically with pen and paper, Eunice in various posts to friends and family on her GlobalTeens account (the social network of choice) and peppered with the argot of the young and disaffected.

Super Sad True Love Story is sphincter-looseningly terrifying primarily because it does what great satire always does – describe something outrageous in order to illuminate the present. The mindless consumerism, obsession with image, plutocracy, Orwellian media discourse, and reactionary politics that populate Lenny and Eunice’s New York is the world we inhabit, and that will scare the shit out of any thinking person who reads Super Sad True Love Story. The genuine and wistful experience of actual connection between two human beings who had doubted its possibility, however, reminds the reader of the universality of being a piece of thinking, feeling, lonely and longing meat. That’s Shteyngart’s accomplishment in Super Sad True Love Story, and it’s a significant one.

Some Thoughts on 80s "bad-boys" Bret Easton Ellis and Jay McInerney

2011-07-16T17:25:00.001-04:00

“The Californication version of American literary history”

(Originally published in the Rockford Independent Press)

By BENJAMIN TAYLOR

So I’m normally going to use this space to highlight the amazing work our stellar crop of contemporary fictionists do, and will do so again in the next issue. Lately, however – and pursuant to a personal project – I’ve found myself lingering lovingly on the age-20ish works of Jay McInerney and Bret Easton Ellis. And I will readily admit, I loathe Ellis with a passion verging on mania, but Less Than Zero and The Rules of Attraction are undeniably magnetic and – at least to this 20something born in the 80s – represent my impression of the decade better than anything John Hughes ever filmed (though may he RIP). Pretty sure only Heathers even comes close.

And Bright Lights, Big City remains the novel Hunter S. Thompson would have written had he not burned himself out and had he been U-30 in the 80s. Precise, evocative, frankly brilliant writing that just captures everything it must have been to have been young in New York in that era. And yes, I freely admit to romanticizing the idea of the drug-addled, promiscuous, quite insane writer wreaking havoc on him/herself and everyone he/she knows. But Bright Lights, Big City is authentically brilliant.

McInerney I only encountered a couple years ago, working at an indie outside of Boston when he published his (too-soon) retrospective short story collection How It Ended. Picking that book up and reading about the unnamed narrator (whom it is safe to assume, is Jay McInerney) in the story “It’s 6 A.M. Do You Know Where You Are?” – the first and best-penned chapter of Bright Lights, Big City – was akin to being 17 and randomly coming across Fear and Loathing and Bob Dylan. Just electric.

Less Than Zero offers a similar experience – one of those novels you come across at a certain age and think to yourself “holy shit, I didn’t know you could do this with fiction.” Yet where McInerney’s characters – in the purview of Bright Lights, Big City for the purpose of this column, but I think applicable to his characters broadly – are tragically flawed in the Hank Moody sense, where you pretend to avert your eyes from the trainwreck, yet sympathize deeply with the flaw part, Ellis’s are just nihilistic in the most straightforward definition possible.

Clay, the narrator of Less Than Zero, is an unmitigated ass. His attitude toward copious quantities of coke – similar to the narrator of Bright Lights, Big City – is, to keep it understated, liberal, and his attitude toward women is that they’re walking holes into which he will do everything in his power to insert himself. For McInerney, the desire to fuck anything that moves is no different – yet the narrator of Bright Lights, Big City feels deeply the loss of Amanda. He recognizes that he fucked things up, but actually feels. Clay’s attitude toward Blair, for instance, is that she has a vagina.

This is an extremely important distinction between Ellis and McInerney, and illustrates how thin the line between asshole with a pen and “bad-boy” writer is. McInerney deals with actual people, flawed to the extreme, yes, but believable, and people with whom even the casual reader can identify with in some sense. There’s a sense of universality about his work, which resonates – yes, the 80s are over, and to quote Eric Stoltz as Lance, “coke is fucking dead as… dead,” but the damaged fuck-up capable of real emotion is a character who’s been with us since Odysseus. Ellis’s characters are familiar as well, just never that interesting. Yes they’re “depraved,” but with reference to an era most of us are unfamiliar with, and are unimpressed by. They fuck, snort, use each other, blow cash on blow, etc. etc. etc. It just isn’t compelling once the shock value becomes dated.

I mentioned Hunter S. Thompson earlier and for a reason – Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a book that centers on extreme drug use and otherwise insane behaviors, but is a book about the end of an era. The peak of Thompson’s writing – in that book, any others, and any article with the possible exception of the Derby piece – comes in the passage where he’s sitting at his typewriter, thinking about San Francisco and the 60s – “that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply PREVAIL. There was no point in fighting — on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave...” McInerney perfectly captures that elegiac lost idealism; all Ellis can do is wank off about his fantasized version of it. With Ellis, there’s no passion, because there’s no belief in anything but the pleasure of the moment. And no, it’s not ironic – he’s made quite a successful career out of nihilism. His recent sequel to Less Than Zero, Imperial Bedrooms, just reconfirms that. Yes, the few-standard-deviations-from-your-typical-Midwestern-family behavior is a draw, but Thompson and McInerney get at the human being shit. Ellis, I’m sure, fancies himself quite an aficionado of assholes – the human shit, though? Negatory.

While Armageddon Rages

2011-07-16T17:21:00.003-04:00

A stop on the deck with some basil-infused lemonade, some tuna ceviche, and a good read (Henderson the Rain King in this case) on a golden summer day redeem so much. Rockford, Ill. takes its fair share of shit (much of it deserved), but on a perfect July day, this is the most perfect place in the world to be outside.

On The Bright Side

2011-07-14T18:15:00.004-04:00

I've read David Foster Wallace, Dostoevsky, Proust, Joyce, Faulkner, Pynchon (enough to get a commemorative tattoo), Barthelme; I've listened to Sonic Youth, Broken Social Scene, and Bob Dylan live -- I've had the fortune to hear stunning albums by Arcade Fire, Bon Iver, and gems by The Smiths, Zeppelin, and Pink Floyd. Seen works by Jaspers, Rauschenberg, Twombly, Richter. Brilliant films from everyone from David Simon to the Coen brothers. We live in an era of extreme riches. I wish I could honor it as it's due, but as aforementioned, time constrains that ambition.

Juliana Richer Daily

2011-07-14T14:36:00.002-04:00

Belatedly posted, but here's the transcript of an interview I had recently with one of my favorite musical artists out there, and one who's destined for big things, Juliana Richer Daily. Check her music out, because she's that good. Originally published in the Rockford Independent Press.

This is a relatively faithful transcript of a phone interview with the extremely talented Juliana Richer Daily, 22, conducted by the Rockford Independent Press’s Benjamin Taylor, who is not a musician in the least. Daily is a graduate student at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. Her work is available on iTunes, amazon.com, and at her website, julianaricherdaily.com

Q: When/how did you get started?

I’ve been playing piano since I was four, I just started playing. I did that for 11 years, did the whole Mozart/Chopin classical business. I had a guitar in high school, but I only got as far as really basic chords and easy songs to play. I went abroad my junior year in college to Copenhagen, brought a guitar with me, had a lot of extra time, and just started playing. I love music period and just made the effort to learn how to play guitar. I’m not an expert – I can’t shred or anything – I picked it up as a means of accompanying myself while I sing. I took to it, had a blast with it, and started writing my own material.

As far as singing goes, I’ve always liked singing to myself, but I’ve never had any voice lessons – in high school I was never that into music, I wasn’t in chorus or in band – I was more into painting and visual art. I’ve always been sort of shy about singing – I started playing open mikes at Cornell, and when I got back from being abroad, I started playing more live, and it was just sort of a personal thing, but once I started performing, I just loved it. My voice is the only instrument I have actual control over – the guitar is just sort of a sidekick.

Q: Who are your most important influences? Like the artists/songs who gave you that “holy shit” moment?

I listened to a lot of my parents’ music – Joni Mitchell, Dylan. I love Josh Ritter and dream about being the female equivalent of his sound – I really like Florence and the Machine and that kind of folky sound. I want to marry the music I listen to into something fuller that says something. I’m kind of struggling with what direction to go from here, actually – songwriting is kind of difficult for me, it kind of comes out in fits and spurts – once I can work with a band and other musicians who can help pull my vision out of me, I think my sound will work out.

Q: Touring – what are your intentions?

I played here in Ithaca and in the city a few times. I don’t have a definite plan, but I’m definitely going to head down to New York for a few years, and get a “real job.” I have these two degrees I want to make good on – if the music thing doesn’t work out, I’d like to have a career path to fall back on. I’m definitely going to take the music thing seriously when I’m down there. I have a couple friends who have some studio space, and are involved in production. So ideally for a year or two, I’ll hold down the real job and do music on the side until it works out, hopefully. And I don’t want it to be on the side – my biggest fear is that it’ll be a hobby. Just trying to take a realistic approach. I really want to try and do this for real, I’ll be kicking myself for the rest of my life if I don’t make a real effort to do this. I want to travel and play, and I know it doesn’t happen overnight, but it’s what I want most to do.

Q: What are you listening to now? Your covers range pretty far, from Dylan to Jeff Buckley to Dr. Dre/Bruno Mars. What’s the best show you’ve caught of late?

In the last month and a half, I’ve been listening to a lot of new albums that have dropped lately. So many good albums -- The new Fleet Foxes [Helplessness Blues] and Bon Iver [Self-Titled]. The new Cults album [self-titled].

Josh Ritter, Mumford & Sons – just to mention two I have on heavy rotation. I listen to a pretty broad spectrum of music and musicians.

As far as the best show recently, I’ve been working so much on this thesis that I haven’t caught as many as I’d like. I caught the Flaming Lips here, and they were pretty epic. I have plans to go to the Newport Folk Festival again, but it’s close to my thesis deadline, so unfortunately, whether or not I make it down will depend on where the thesis is at.

Q: So the music industry – like pretty much every creative endeavor – has changed a shit ton in the past even five years. You’ve been on top of this through your YouTube videos (how I came across your work), twitter, myspace, etc. How do you think this new landscape affects up and coming artists like yourself? Where do you think the music industry is going and how does it change things for young artists like yourself?

I think that it’s really cool that anyone in the world who has an internet connection and a means to record has access to an audience. I think it’s an amazing thing that you don’t need to have corporate production pumping money into your project to get an audience – anyone who can record can make a name for themselves. You can listen to the brainchild of any musician out there – anyone and everyone who wants to try and make it can try and make it. On the other hand, you’re competing with hundreds of thousands of musicians out there -- you’re one more of any other artists out there.

Yet from a listener’s perspective, it’s amazing – I can listen to any number of artists out there and watch their journey. I just celebrated my two-year anniversary on YouTube, and it’s funny to see how I’ve grown as an artist since then. The landscape is an interesting animal to wrestle with. As far as exposure goes, it’s great – that’s why I give my covers out for free – it’s an awesome gateway to get my music out there.

There’s no end to exploring concepts and developing as a musician – that’s my favorite thing about music – it evolves all the time. The musician I am now will likely not be the musician I am a year from now.

Q: Word – how do you feel about someone like Rebecca Black blowing up in the “YouTube era” when a much more talented singer like yourself doesn’t have that kind of instant exposure?

As far as someone like Rebecca Black goes – it’s a little frustrating, but I’m not trying to aspire to that kind of thing. YouTube is by no means grassroots, I like that this has been a growing experience, and my listeners have gotten to get to know me, and there’s not one video that’s blown up. I don’t know that my music is ready to be heard at that level. Personally, I have a lot of growing to do as an artist, I’m glad this journey has been a gradual thing.

On one level, it’s a bit frustrating, but at the same time, it’s part of the experience to let it take shape, and to let my listeners get to know me. I know as a listener, we all like to be part of the discovery of an artist. So the Rebecca Black thing just isn’t where I want to be.

Q: Band? On your last post on your website you mentioned looking for a band/moving away somewhat from acoustic – where do you see yourself going?

Getting a band together at Cornell is tough – people are so busy, and during breaks people scatter, and after graduation it’s even harder. It never really took shape here, and I’m still figuring out music and just wasn’t ready. I don’t really know what direction I’m going to go in artistically – those tracks were my first real stab at songwriting. I know I have some work to do as a writer, and I definitely think I want to have a much fuller sound.

Q: LP?

I’ll be releasing another EP later this year. I’m working with a European production company and pressing a vinyl collection of 3 EPs. I didn’t have any physicals released of my work, so I’m excited.

Frankly though, I want to release this stuff and move on from it. As I said, these tracks were my first foray into songwriting, but it’s not the end all and be all of where I want to be as a musician – I’d like to move on and explore different things. I don’t know that any of the songs I have out right now will come together as a full album – I didn’t write them with an album concept in mind.

I absolutely love when albums tell a story as an album, and it grows with you as you listen. Each album can tell a different story, there’s a rise and fall and movement in them. There’s something great and unique about sitting down and exploring an entire album, and you can get a full sense of where the artist is going. There’s definitely merit to having some standout singles, but I love to sit down and listen to an entire album. Letting yourself just hang out with that music I love.

Q: How’s your injury healing? [Daily suffered a fractured spine in January 2011 as a result of a skiboarding accident]

I’m doing all right, I’m not back 100%, but as far as breaking your back goes, I’m doing all right. I’m titanium-reinforced now, which is pretty cool. Doing a lot of swimming, biking. I’m grateful the accident didn’t turn out a different way.

Ben: Thanks so much, Juliana!

This is All Sorts of Awesome

2011-07-14T14:34:00.001-04:00

Maybe since I just tore through this show, but this is amazingly good:

On a Cultural Embarrassment of Riches

2011-07-14T13:00:00.002-04:00

the fact that our current age suffers from an embarrassment of riches in terms of culture -- broadly defined to include everything from food to sport to literature to tv to architecture, et al -- and that it's literally impossible to consume everything worthwhile remains something that infuriates and confuses me. the most gratifying experience short of sex is watching/reading/eating/listening to something that makes you just appreciate how talented its creator is, and to think to yourself "this is fucking good." yet the number of cultural artifacts that elicit that response -- in my mind at least, and perhaps that's a function of maturing, but I think fairly objectively true contemporarily -- seem to keep growing. It's simply not possible to fulfill the cultural obligations to which I feel obliged. I haven't watched Breaking Bad, nor have I read Being and Event, though I feel deeply that I must do both, and I want to. I haven't listened to Lil Wayne or played Call of Duty. I haven't tried to cook a soufflé yet. I know jack shit about wine or spirits (beer, on the other hand, I am well-versed in). These are things I need and want to know about, I just don't know where to find the time. I can barely manage to keep up with literature and politics, my two supposed fields of expertise.

On the one hand, this makes me dizzy with happiness -- I feel so privileged to live in this era, have access to so much information, and to know people who care about their interests and pursue them with passion, skill, patience, and a willingness to learn. On the other hand, it can be overwhelming. On days when I let myself read all the blogs I'd like to read, listen to the music I'd like to listen to, watch the shows I need to catch up on, check out the visual art blogs that represent the artists I whose work I most enjoy, stock up on recipes and restaurant fantasies, there's no time at all to read books, make music, think, write, or cook. It's a conundrum.

There's no point to this post, other than observation, but I'd be interested to hear if anyone else suffers from the sort of anxiety I do at not being able to experience as much cultural excellence as I'd like/need.

Marriage Equality in Illinois

2011-06-27T05:23:00.003-04:00

The past few days have gotten me fired up about this, and with friends I know and friends I haven't met yet, we're going to make marriage equality happen in Illinois. Setting up a website this week, @equalityIL or marriageequalityIL@gmail.com until then. Also at my usual haunts. This is going to happen.

To Kos-ers

2011-06-27T03:54:00.000-04:00

Thanks so much for all the thoughtful comments party people!

On the difference between "same-sex marriage" and "marriage equality"

2011-06-25T14:06:00.000-04:00

This is going to be fairly brief, but I hope raises an important point. There is a substantial difference between referring to yesterday's epic win in New York as a victory for "same-sex marriage" and referring to it as a victory for "marriage equality."

Politics operates around language -- "conservatives" and members of the Republican party typically realize this better than progressives do. Excessive use of scare quotes, I realize, but concepts like the "war on terror," which never was a war and rarely focused on actual radicals intent on committing acts of terrorism was and has been an extremely powerful political concept focused almost entirely on a phrase that captures the imagination in a compelling way. Language games get tricky -- those of us who get physically ill when encountering the concept of "framing" understand this quite well. Yet, as icky as it may be, framing is critically important (even if vaguely Orwellian) when trying to make a political point or to advance an issue through the political process.

There is no actual distinction between "same-sex marriage" and "marriage equality" -- both terms refer to a legislative or judicial removal of the restriction prevalent now in 44 states that prohibits two individuals of the same gender to enact a legal procedure by which they are permanently linked (unless later dissolved) and enjoy the rights and benefits that state allows to two individuals who make that decision. The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), of course, denies those rights and benefits to any same-gender couple federally, regardless of state law.

Yet, there is a distinction -- and an important one -- between those terms. "Same-sex marriage," again, is functionally no different from "marriage equality," yet marriage equality presents the entire point of the LGBT rights movement in its essential form, and in a way "same-sex marriage" doesn't. The point being equality. Same-sex marriage isn't a special right that should be afforded to a defined and differentiated class of individuals. It's the same fundamental and equal right states and the federal government afford to opposite-sex couples willing to accord their relationship a legal status. It's the right to formalize love and commitment. I assume most of us here, and most progressives in general, recognize that gender is entirely incidental when it comes to that point -- marriage being a legal recognition of two individuals' commitment to one another.

So let's call it for what it is -- marriage equality. And civil rights. Words do matter, and this fight -- despite last night's amazing victory -- is far from over. It's only getting started, and as always, the power of bigotry is strong and mobilized. This is a battle worth picking, and language matters.

(Cross-posted at Daily Kos)

Unanticipated Irony...

2011-06-18T16:47:00.003-04:00

My last post was one congratulating (now former) Rep. Anthony Weiner...

Rep. Weiner Gets Righteous on Medicare for All

2011-05-27T04:34:00.002-04:00

Couldn't find a way to embed this, but um. This is exactly how to talk about Medicare and universal health care in general. Well played sir.

About Time

2011-05-20T13:29:00.003-04:00

Knew this would happen eventually (the moral arc of the universe does bend toward justice, after all), but I'm surprised it happened so soon: a majority of Americans favor same-sex marriage with all the rights and privileges accorded to heterosexual married couples. Yes we the fuck can!

Spoils From the Weekend

2011-05-17T21:59:00.002-04:00

Getting rained out of a Cubs game can have its benefits. To wit: I wound up hanging out in Wicker Park with a good friend of mine who -- despite being warned -- allowed me to wander unsupervised in a record store and a used bookstore. Picked up Slanted & Enchanted and Signals, Calls, and Marches on vinyl, and hit the mother lode at Myopic Books (which is one of the best-curated and best-organized used book stores I've ever been in) on N. Milwaukee. Bright Lights, Big City; V.; Falconer (which I've been trying to find cheap for a while now); No Logo; and The Adventures of Augie March -- all of which came to under $30. Very exciting!

Prom Advice from a Second-Grader

2011-05-16T16:03:00.002-04:00

This is all sorts of awesome (h/t sexgenderbody)

New Review Coming Soon

2011-05-16T15:52:00.003-04:00

I'm sort of on deadline for most of today since I sort of left writing this until deadline became a determining factor in daily scheduling since I'm sort of a horrific procrastinator but... I'll be reviewing Jennifer Egan's much-decorated (Pulitzer, National Book Critics' Circle Award, LA Times Fiction Prize) novel A Visit From the Goon Squad. I'll post it up here once it's published.

Next up will be Tea Obreht's The Tiger's Wife, which I'm really excited to read, especially after reading Charles Simic's glowing review in the NYRB. I'm also insanely jealous of her, but that's another issue for another time.

Note to Self

2011-05-14T10:45:00.000-04:00

Don't plan a trip to Madison on the day of University of Wisconsin's commencement. FML.

Levin Wins NYPL Young Lions Award for The Instructions

2011-05-10T22:39:00.002-04:00

Congratulations to Adam Levin, who just won the New York Public Library Young Lions Award for fiction for his sprawling novel The Instructions. Congrats also to McSweeney's for publishing it, and to The Rumpus, for making it a book club selection. Looks like I'll be picking this up finally (and belatedly).

Best. Correction. Ever.

2011-05-10T15:35:00.002-04:00

The New York Times realizes that it is not wise to fuck with Tolkien fans.

Five Questions Never to Ask at a Reading

2011-05-10T14:30:00.002-04:00

Emily St. John Mandel, author of the wonderful Last Night in Montreal and The Singer's Gun (which I haven't gotten to yet), lists the five questions that you, under no circumstances, should ask at a reading. My bookseller experience definitely confirms number four -- oh what I would have given for Cyclops-style laser vision on some occasions.

(h/t @TheMillions via @TheRumpus)

"Rodin's Debutante"

2011-05-06T06:45:00.001-04:00

My review of Ward Just's Rodin's Debutante is up at Bookslut -- check it out =D

Game Ones

2011-05-01T21:51:00.003-04:00

Well holy shit, never expected that of the Grizz -- Randolph and Gasol just pounding the paint, Randolph (in the least likely though accurate comparison I can come up with of late) looking like prime Hakeem, and their D just taking ruthless advantage of OKC's mistakes. Still think OKC comes away with the series, but damn, it might just be a series. I figured Memphis would take one at home maybe, but this might be serious.

As for Boston-Miami, I still don't buy Miami not slipping up and gifting Boston a game. They've done it enough times this season to expect one out of seven. And that series must go to seven -- David Stern will ensure it if the teams don't, and I think Boston, even Perk-less, just spreads the floor better and has so many more options. Rondo putting up 30-15-21 in the last three games of the Knicks series scares the living shit out of me, because I shoot about as well as he does usually, as a 5'6" white guy with no discernible athletic talent and whose last remotely competitive ballgame was at age ten.

But D-Wade and LeBron together can stop any team from any era dead in its tracks when they play like they did today. D-Wade was just on fire, and they're both such good passers that probability alone dictates that the one can find the other at key moments -- you can't double team them both. And Bosh, who's finally remembered how to shoot, and though not up to KG-Pierce-Allen "Big Three" status, can still do damage. I still don't think "The Heatles" can withstand a seven-gamer with Boston, but Game one definitely made Miami look hella good. There's no way they can deal with playoff intensity at the Garden, but they don't need to. Question is, can Boston grab one in Miami? I think they do, but both this series and the Memphis-OKC one are going to be great to witness. No pun intended.

God I love basketball, and this really is already the most memorable playoffs of my 26-year span -- every series, every game just wire-to-wire crazy, big shot after big shot, a 1 losing to an 8, and we're one day into round two.

Heat-Celtics

2011-05-01T13:09:00.003-04:00

Sooooo excited. So many subplots and genuine hatred of each other. Can Pierce renew his '09/'10 playoff domination of LeBron? Can Ray carry on being just stupidly clutch? Can LeBron show up for a seminal playoff series? Can Spoelstra out-coach Doc?

This series reminds me so much of those Knicks-Heat series from the late '90s, where you just knew every game (as has been generally true of pretty much all playoff games this entire NBA post-season) would come down to the last shot, all of which would involve extreme physicality between two teams who really fucking hated each other.

I think C's in seven, and still think the Bulls aren't ready for the sort of pressure they're about to walk into, just praying the C's get winded and the Bulls can dispatch Atlanta quickly enough to let Boozer get some rest and let Thibs do what he does.

So... The Pale King

2011-04-30T16:23:00.003-04:00

First off, is excellent, completely at the level of Infinite Jest, and just another testament to the endless brilliance of our late DFW.

The book has been written about endlessly, and I'm not even going to bother linking various reviews or career retrospectives, because they are legion and easily findable.

I will, however, link to Maria Bustillos' excellent article about how DFW endured his own tragically brief life. It affords insights into the inner world of the greatest writer of the last fifty years that were previously unknown, or at least never so well stated.

The Pale King is about mind-numbing boredom. DMV boredom. World of Warcraft boredom. IRS boredom. I.E., doing something effortlessly and entirely mundane from which the new-car smell has long evaporated, but doing it and doing it well because that's what, at the moment, you must do. You do it well because you expect nothing better of yourself. DFW called this true heroism. I don't know that I agree with him. Maybe enough of the young (R)omantic remains that I believe in the association between heroism and transcendence. It is, however, noble.

What DFW does in The Pale King, as in all his work, is be human in a way so few of us allow ourselves to be. Face it, we live in the weirdest era in the history of humanity, where privacy has altogether and permanently disappeared, in which media in all forms is literally ubiquitous, in which more people have more rights and more access to the tools to demand those rights than ever before, and in which giant private interests have more money and more access than ever to restrict those rights. It's a strange fucking world. Wallace, to a credit I think is entirely underappreciated, saw all of this coming in his seminal and just plain brilliant 1993 essay "E Unibus Pluram" (collected in "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again,") in which he argued that the pervasiveness of television -- but by extension all visual media -- did far more than just influence us all as consumers, voters, parents etc., but actually changed the way we experienced reality. Now, look at permeation (let's call it) of visual media in 1993 versus that in 2011. There's just no comparable scale.

The point about Wallace's humanity is that he saw all of that, horrified no doubt, and made the most difficult artistic move: he swam against the tide. For all the critical talk about Infinite Jest's "hyperactive surrealism," the thrust of the book is in favor of sincerity. Hal decays because he can't grasp that; Gately moves on because he can. The Pale King comes at the same problem from a different angle -- for all the metafictional candy canes and psychics, the book is about acceptance, both of the inevitable flaws of others and of circumstances that... to use a corporate phrase, are what they are. Niebuhr's "Serenity Prayer" may seem trite, but what Wallace taught us, and what we all should know is that it's more than likely a path to a good life. I suppose in that sense, the characters in The Pale King are heroic, in the sense that they accept their fate and try not to overcome it, but to make a good life from it.