Yeah, yeah: make with the links.
Continue reading “Unrequired Reading: Mar. 30, 2007”
Response and responsibilities
For a month or two, Slate has been running excerpts from Clive James’ new book, Cultural Amnesia
I thought the Terry Gilliam one went off the rails a bit, pursuing a discussion of torture that probably could have been written without including Gilliam’s masterpiece, but it’s still an engaging essay. With a number of the other essays, James appears to be pursuing the question of artists’ responsibilities in the world, vis a vis the political tumult of the 20th century. (It’s not only about artists, but they seem well represented in the 110 profiles the book contains.)
Thus, the discussion of Borges has to get at his relationship with Argentina’s junta, while the take-no-prisoners profile of Sartre posted today questions the nature of JP’s resistance during the war as well as his avoidance of the truth about the Soviet Union. (It also touches on the subject of the necessity of bad writing, a favorite topic of mine.)
The excerpt that I enjoyed the most — I haven’t read them all — is the one discussing Rilke and Brecht, even though I haven’t read much of Rilke beyond his poetry and know nothing of Brecht’s work. The essay contrasts Rilke’s art-for-art’s-sake with Brecht’s art-as-politics, and finds Brecht wanting. (Okay, it finds Brecht a noxious scumbag.) But James goes on to make an interesting and subtle point about the relation between the artist — particularly the ‘word artist’ — and his beliefs, and perhaps between the artist and the audience.
Give it a read (and go check out some of the others) and let me know what you think.
Blood, fire, gravity
I gave blood after work on Monday. Since I do a double red cell donation, it’s a longer process than a standard single-unit of whole blood, typically around 35 minutes on the bed. I tried to read, but there was too much activity for me to focus on my book, so I was resigned to watching the local TV news.
Between reports about cell phone facial treatments at a spa (evidently, talking on your cell phone constantly can give you zits, not tumors) and the bizarre accidental death of a retired cop (in his old precinct house, “cleaning his gun”) was a piece about Sunday’s 96th anniversary memorial for the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. The report was as sad as you’d expect, with a litany of the horrors and the number of dead women. When it wrapped, I noticed that the entire in-studio news-team was female, which makes some sorta point about advances in the last 96 years, but I’m not sure what.
The news report also brought up something I meant to write about a few years ago. In 2005, Amy & I watched Ric Burns’ New York documentary series on DVD. We enjoyed it plenty, even if Amy did drift off to sleep during some parts (it was weekend viewing, back before she moved in, so the combo of exhausting work-weeks and the soothingness of David Ogden Stiers’ voice took its toll). I learned a ton about the history of the city, particularly from the Robert Moses chapter, which relies heavily on the work of Robert Caro, a featured speaker throughout much of the documentary and possessor of one of the most seriously old-school websites ever.
Oy, with the flippant avoidance!
See, what I’m trying to write about is another aspect of 9/11, and I know that’s likely to cause you to tune out and go find some other blog to help you cruise through your workday. So, to make things easier for you, I’ll put the rest of this post under a “more” jump, so you can pretend you didn’t notice that and thought I was done writing.
Continue reading “Blood, fire, gravity”
Trip
If you haven’t read the comics of Jim Woodring, your consciousness has probably not been adjusted into a position that will enable you to appreciate the spring tour of Pupshaw & Pupshaw.
Please read The Frank Book
U.S. Pharmacopeia
A month ago, I mentioned the amazing tox breakdown from Gerald Levert’s autopsy. I felt like Steve Howe really let us down by only having meth in his system when he flipped his truck last year.
Fortunately, the Anna Nicole Smith tox report came out yesterday, and it’s restored my faith in drug-abusing celebrities:
- Chloral hydrate: A drug typically used in hospitals for pre- and postsurgery patients struggling to sleep or in great pain
- Diphendydramine: Over-the-counter Benadryl cures itching, sneezing and other allergy-related symptoms.
- Clonazepam: Prescription Klonopin is used to treat seizures and panic- and anxiety-related disorders.
- Diazepam: Prescription Valium is used as a sedative for panic- and anxiety-related disorders.
- Nordiazepam: Metabolized Valium
- Temazepam: Prescription Restoril is a sleep aide commonly used in hospitals.
- Oxazepam: Prescription Serax is used as a sedative for panic- and anxiety-related disorders.
- Lorazepam: Prescription Ativan is used as a sedative for panic- and anxiety-related disorders.
Evidently, some of this stuff was being injested because of a painful abscess in her butt, the result of . . . intramuscular injection of HGH or B12 for “longevity” treatments! Well played!
Who gets to be Merry Man?
Official VM buddy Paul Di Filippo has joined (and helped launch) a new blog: The Inferior 4!
His co-conspirators include Liz Hand, Paul Witcover and Lucius Shepard! Of the three, I’ve only read work by Shepard before, but I’m sure they’ll provide some entertaining posts, so check ’em out!
(Oh, and here’s the ref for the name of their blog)
Monday Morning Montaigne: Of Cannibalism
This week’s essay was Of Cannibals, which raised all sorts of expectations. Unfortunately, Montaigne’s depictions of man-eating tribes in Brazil (or ‘Antarctic France’) were pretty much in the “noble savage” mode. On the plus side, he never went into a rant about how Europe needs to bring them religion. If anything, he seemed pretty envious of the stories he heard about life among the Indians.
In fact, even their cannibalism was just part of their warrior culture. As soon as they found that the Portuguese had a more sadistic way of killing their enemies, he tells us, the natives started abandoning their cannibalism:
They saw the Portuguese, who had joined forces with their adversaries, inflict a different kind of death on them when they took them prisoner, which was to bury them up to the waist, shoot the rest of their body full of arrows, and afterward hang them. They thought that these people from the other world, being men who had sown the knowledge of many vices among their neighbors and were much greater masters than themselves in every sort of wickedness, did not adopt this sort of vengeance without some reason, and that it must be more painful than their own; so they began to give up their old method and to follow this one.
He immediately follows with this caveat:
I am not sorry that we notice the barbarous horror of such acts [the cannibalism], but I am heartily sorry that, judging their faults rightly, we should be so blind to our own.
Which is to say, he doesn’t consider the Indian form of cannibalism — treating prisoners hospitably for a few months before killing them, roasting them, eating them and “send[ing] some pieces to their absent friends” — as bad as European practices of torturing people to death.
This actually heads ’round to the point that Montaigne makes at the beginning of this essay, and throughout a number of essays: that we’re really not in a position to judge anything:
I think there is nothing barbarous and savage in that nation, from what I have been told, except that each man calls barbarism whatever is not in his own practice; for indeed it seems we have no other test of truth and reason than the example and pattern of the opinions and customs of the country we live in. There is always the perfect religion, the perfect government, the perfect and accomplished manners in all things.
Instead, he figures, the “natural way” of life is better, less corrupted by our laws. Unfortunately, I had enough of this during my undergrad years at Hampshire to take it very seriously. Or, as M. puts it:
All this is not too bad — but what’s the use? They don’t wear breeches.
College whoops
I’ve learned a ton from reading Charley Rosen’s basketball columns, particularly his single-game analyses. He’s got a mailbag up this week, and it includes a vituperative response to the “NCAA or NBA” question:
Although I do not always agree with your opinions, I respect them because you seem to know a lot about the actual substance of the game. I know a few people who say that the NBA is not good basketball, and that college ball is much better in regard to defense and team work. They believe that college basketball is played the right way as compared to the showmanship that’s the mainstay of the NBA game. It seems that the college game is more focused on teamwork, while the NBA highlights individual stars. Is the college game really better?  Luke Ford, Minerva, Ohio
No, no, a thousand times no!
The college game is sloppy and the “amateur” players are prone to making innumerable mistakes. Which is why 20-point leads often vanish in a few minutes.
The defense seems to be good in the collegiate ranks only because the overall offense is so poor. Which is why the likes of J.J. Reddick and Adam Morrison struggle so much to score when they come to the NBA. And why so many of the NCAA’s scoring-average leaders in recent years can’t even play in the NBA: Ruben Douglas, Jason Conley, Ronnie McCollum, Alvin Young, Charles Jones, Kevin Granger, Greg Guy, Brett Roberts, Kevin Bradshaw, and so on.
The preponderance of zone defenses in NCAA competition assures that too many players never really learn how to play straight-up defense. Inferior (to the NBA) ball-handling, passing, ball-catching skills, footwork and overall creativity are additional reasons for college defenses appearing to be better than they really are. Which is why the primary difficulty for virtually every NBA rookie is playing defense.
And don’t mistake passing per se for teamwork. The truth is that most college offenses are so poorly constructed (especially against zones) that multiple passes are necessary to find an open shot or to create space in which a designated scorer can operate. In fact, teamwork is much more critical, and much more subtle — the execution of plays, defensive rotations — in the NBA.
It’s economics that pressures the NBA to focus on individuals rather than on teams. Whereas the best college players remain “amateurs” for one or two seasons, NBA stars are around for a decade or more. Add in the fact that playoff teams in the NBA annually play three times as many games every season as do NCAA qualifiers, and pro hoopers’ recognizability is understandably greater. That translates into commercial opportunities, also millions of dollars in player-jerseys, autographed balls, bobbleheads and similar trinkets.
The NBA game has a huge advantage in player talent, offensive and defensive prowess, coaching, officiating and the overall quality of performance in every aspect but one. The only advantage the college game enjoys is the consistent enthusiasm of its players. And this is true only because some veteran NBA players on basement-dwelling teams will take an occasional game off late in the season.
The worst NBA team would trounce the NCAA champs by upwards of 30 points.
Considering I just watched UNC completely melt down and miss 20 of its final 22 shots in its loss to Georgetown, I’m inclined to give some credence to Rosen’s take on this. That said, I think players take a lot more than the “occasional game off late in the season.”
Box me in
I don’t do much car-blogging. I’ve never been a gearhead, and I’ve never believed that I “should be driving” a fancy sportscar or luxury sedan. I drive a Honda Element.
Or, as BusinessWeek put it in its review of the new Asian street gang version of the Element, I drive a “boxy trucklet,” the “automotive equivalent of a cardboard box on wheels,” a “cube-on-wheels” “with aerodynamics only slightly better than a concrete slab.”
Which is to say: guilty as charged.
Parking as a bloodsport
George Will on anger exhibitionism:
The politics of disdain — e.g., Howard Dean’s judgment that Republicans are “brain dead” and “a lot of them never made an honest living in their lives” — derails politics by defining opponents as beyond the reach of reason. The anger directed at Bush today, like that directed at Clinton during his presidency, luxuriates in its own vehemence.