A podcast about books, art & life — not necessarily in that order
Academics have long argued whether Gottfried Wilhelm “Choco” Leibniz stole the idea for calculus tasty cookies from Isaac “Fig” Newton, or vice versa:
When choosing between these two, I think it’s less important to worry about UK vs. Prussian pride, and more important to keep in mind that the FDA has some pretty gross standards for permissible levels of insect heads in fig paste.
See the whole Lost in the Supermarket series
What I’m reading: The Montaigne. The Clive James.
What I’m listening to: Soul Mining
What I’m watching: It was movie-watching week for me! Monday: Charlie Wilson’s War (the Steve Martin strength of the opening scenes didn’t carry through, sadly, but it was pretty entertaining), Tuesday: The King of Comedy (my favorite Scorsese/Deniro movie), Wednesday: Quick Change (I was transfixed by the c. 1990 version of NYC, and also by Geena Davis), Thursday: Human Nature (with the weirdly talented Miranda Otto) and Annie Hall (it’s been almost a year! This time, I really focused on the amazing job done by Diane Keaton). Oh, and there was some football game.
What I’m drinking: Miller’s (Westbourne Strength) and Q Tonic, and a bunch of Yuengling & Killian’s.
What Rufus is up to: Praying for springtime. I can tell.
Where I’m going: No plans. Got any ideas?
What I’m happy about: Getting down to Philadelphia this weekend to see my pal Drake for a celebration of the 10th anniversary of his horrendous beating (that is, a celebration that he’s survived the experience).
What I’m sad about: Everything he lost.
What I’m pondering: Whether to help Drake out by becoming a trustee for him.
With Of the disadvantage of greatness (pp. 849-853), Montaigne counters Mel Brooks’ wisdom that “it’s good to be the king.” M. concedes that the actions and effects of kings are awesome, but the tradeoff is that they’ll never have a measure of themselves because of the deference of their subjects.
See, in M.’s childhood, his mates always took it easy on him in athletic events, because it wasn’t worth it to totally trounce him. Similarly, he says, princes will never know what they’re worth, because their subjects will do anything to let them win.
(Of course, you could try to “speak truth to power,” but as M. reminds us, “For Dionysisus, because he could not match Philoxenus in poetry, and Plato in prose, condemned the one to the quarries and sent the other to be sold as a slave on the island of Aegina.”)
M. extends this thought to Homer’s treatment of the vulnerability of the gods. He contends that Homer allows Venus (Aphrodite) to be wounded in battle in the Iliad because this “endows her with courage and boldness, qualities not found in those who are exempt from danger.” He writes:
The gods are made to angry, to fear, to flee, to be jealous, sorrowful, and passionate, in order to honor them with virtues which among us are built of these imperfections. He who does not share the risk and difficulty can claim no involvement in the honor and pleasure that follow hazardous actions. It is a pity to have so much power that everything gives way to you. Your fortune repels society and companionship too far from you; it plants you too far apart.
The passage reminded me of our Seattle trip two years ago, when I met up with a friend from grad school. He’d had some serious mental problems in recent years, mainly due to autoimmune problems. The conversation we had still haunts me.
At one point, I asked him about the Iliad, his favorite book. I was rereading it, and I asked him about the meaning of the gods in the poem. I always tried to reconcile the idea of them as “extensions of the psyche” with their overt actions within the battles. I don’t know if I really thought about the idea that they were imbued with flaws and vulnerabilities in order to magnify their greatness. I think I’d been coming at the problem from the other direction, the idea that the greatness of the heroes was in their inhuman qualities, with Achilles foredoom as the apex of this concept.
I mean, I knew that the characters’ humanity was critical to understanding them, but I never thought about transferring that principle to the gods. So this short essay by M. may re-launch me to Troy, along with the 1,000 ships.
Mark Cuban reminds us that he’s a tech geek at heart by exploring the Bernie Madoff case from the angle of the computer system Madoff used to generate his fraudulent transactions. It’s a fun post, and hey, his thesis is more sensible and responsible than when Ron Rosenbaum went kinda bonkers after the Theresa Duncan / Jeremy Blake suicides in 2007.
I was going to put this Michael Bierut post among the week’s Unrequired Reading, but I thought it deserved its own entry. It’s all about the notebooks that Bierut has used for the past 26 years. He’s up to #85.
As anyone who knows me can imagine, I find this sorta thing fascinating. I love looking behind the curtain and seeing the processes and tools behind work. It’s the same reason that I enjoyed the Wrap-Up Show on Howard Stern (before Rufus chewed through the antenna cable of my Sirius unit in a fit of pique and left me radioless).
While he does explore his work process, Bierut also manages to discuss the significance of the notebooks as notebooks, without treating them as dreaded Art Objects. His stories of Never Leave a Notebook Behind reminded me of the brunches I spent with Chip Delany, who would invariably bust out one of his cheap spiral-bound notebooks to jot something down in mid-conversation. They were as much a part of him as his trademark Santa-beard.
I’ve never been good at note-taking. I do keep a pocket-sized Moleskine notebook in my Bag of Tricks, but rarely take it out anymore. I bring a second one with me to trade shows so that I can appear to be interested when companies give me long technical descriptions of their new products. At the office, I use notepads of employees who were fired. I find it kinda funny to take notes on phone conversations and write to-do lists on pages that bear the names of magazines that were shut down five years ago.
Still, it’s an effort for me to keep a piece of paper and a pen nearby when I’m reading those Montaigne essays. I do write down a line here or there in the Notepad of my iPhone, but they only seem smart at the time. I’m more likely to write down the beginnings of a post here in WordPress and save it as a draft. That way, there’s even less evidence of what my thought processes are.
But I digress (which is what you came here for; admit it); go read Bierut’s post nowish!
I’ve never read anything by John Irving, either.
(I could go on with this series forever! Esp. around Nobel time!)
I never read anything by John Updike — who died of lung cancer today at 76 — either. I hear those Rabbit novels are supposed to be good. Any recommendations?
It’s against the law here in NJ to sell alcohol in supermarkets, so this installment is technically a cheat. Still, the liquor store happens to be right next to the supermarket, and hey, it’s my blog.
I saw this out of the corner of my eye —
— and was impressed that someone would target an Irish stout toward people headed into Rumspringa.
Then I realized that it read “BEAMISH” and not “BE AMISH”.
See the whole Lost in the Supermarket series
I have not read a single one of these books.
(I’m also convinced that no one’s actually read all of 2666