A podcast about books, art & life — not necessarily in that order
This neat post from Virginia Postrel is about a Metropolis writer who recently read Jane Jacobs when examining criticism of the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, which is also discussed in the new issue of New York. Or, as the NYTimes (in bed with the project’s real estate developer) sez, “Rah-rah!”
(I added a link about the project in the blogroll.)
Heading down to Monterey Beach with my brother & his family today! Here are some links to keep you occupied or distracted:
What we talk about when we talk about real estate ads in the NYTimes Magazine.
Interview with Mark Helprin, whose Winter’s Tale I plan to read next year.
Dylan Horrocks on “literary comics”.
A review of The Iconic Building.
Here’s an article on revolutions in bridge-building, accompanied by a gorgeous little slide show.
Last night, we had CMT’s Hee Haw Weekend Marathon on while Amy worked up a dose of Emeril’s spicy tomato glaze. My parents didn’t watch Hee Haw much when I was a kid, although my dad developed an unhealthy attachment to Willie Nelson in the 1980s (unhealthy inasmuch as he really loved that duet with Julio Iglesias). My in-laws asked if I listened to Buck Owens. I told them I never did, but that Amy was pretty broken up when Owens died this year.
I made my first visit to a Wal-Mart yesterday. Where I live (northern NJ) it’s not a huge feat to avoid them; my grocery needs aren’t extensive and the only store I know of nearby is up in Western Samaria (aka Rt. 59 in NY state). Down here, it’s more of a necessity, especially post-Katrina. I took one step inside and Got It: huge, well-lit venue, cleaner than any of the local markets, good selection of food products. And then there’s all the other stuff: a family passed us with a shopping cart filled with food, back-to-school clothing, and a color inkjet printer. Wal-Mart doesn’t carry everything, of course.
In the “efnic food” aisle, we bumped into Amy’s cousin Wade, whom I last saw during his visit to NYC with his wife. He pines to retun to the city.
I always wonder about how different regions see each other. It reminds me of that scene in Annie Hall, when Woody Allen tells Tony Roberts, “Don’t you see? The rest of the country looks upon New York like we’re left-wing, Communist, Jewish, homosexual, pornographers. I think of us that way, sometimes, and I live here!” But Wade really liked visiting, and no one down here’s given me any crap for, um, being who I am. Even if the housepet is a little judgemental.
The news here is focused on yesterday’s six murders — the murder rate is skyrocketing this year — but the top story is that Reggie Bush signed his rookie contract with the Saints. In the Times-Pic, it takes top billling over a misguided idea to build a “Jazz Park” to replicate Chicago’s Millennium Park.
Tonight, we’re staying in New Orleans at the same hotel we stayed in leading up to our wedding. I’m flooded with memories of last March, and so is Amy. We had a little snack (if that’s possible) at Café Du Monde, and reminisced about the end of our wedding evening. I love being in this city, but I have a hard time imagining how it’s going to recover from the disaster last year. I’m glad we did what we could to boost the economy via our friends’ alcohol consumption.
It’s a Sunday afternoon in mid-summer, so it’s kind of dead outside. I was hoping to get some good pictures, but there really isn’t much to see that I haven’t snapped in past trips. We’ll be dining at NOLA tonight, then getting up earlyish to fly home. If I do manage any good pix tonight, you’ll be the first to know.
A trippy, uncategorizable, compelling post about the body, the city, science and art, from Geoff Manaugh at BLDGBLOG.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC raised its “suggested admission” fee to $20. So the NYTimes sent a reporter to see what happens if you give the cashier a couple of quarters:
In truth, there was not much noticeable scorn. There was, instead, that brand of aggressive disregard particular to New York that is sometimes much more effective in evoking shame and extracting money.
On Sunday, George Will offered a tribute to the Interstate Highway System, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this summer:
Eisenhower’s message to Congress advocating the interstate system began, “Our unity as a nation is sustained by free communication of thought and by easy transportation of people and goods.”
No legislator more ardently supported the IHS than the Tennessee Democrat who was chairman of the Senate Public Works subcommittee on roads. His state had benefited handsomely from the greatest federal public works project of the prewar period, the Tennessee Valley Authority, which, by bringing electrification to a large swath of the South, accelerated the closing of the regional development gap that had stubbornly persisted since the Civil War. This senator who did so much to put postwar America on roads suitable to bigger, more powerful cars was Al Gore Sr. His son may consider this marriage of concrete and the internal combustion engine sinful, but Tennessee’s per capita income, which was just 70 percent of the national average in 1956, today is 90 percent.
Meanwhile, a 3-ton slab of concrete fell inside Boston’s Big Dig tunnel, killing a passenger in a car. Evidently, this is not connected to the Big Dig concrete fraud case. But after going $12 billion over budget, you can imagine that corners had to be cut somewhere, right?
Witold Rybczynski has a new slideshow up at Slate, examining the architecture of Denver’s art museum, on the occasion of Liebeskind’s new addition, to be completed in September.
Whether you like this sort of mannered architecture is a matter of taste. Frank Gehry’s swirlings and churnings have always seemed lighthearted and whimsical, buoyed by an endearing take-it-or-leave-it quality. Libeskind’s forms strike me as aggressive. Standing in front of his building is like being buttonholed by someone shouting insistently in your face: And this! And this! And this!
I hope my “Denver correspondent” (that means you, Craig) will provide some comments on this.
(I really need to get around to reading his City Life sometime this summer, but it’s The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril for me right now, followed by Gilead.)
Since finishing that Robert Moses book last week, it’s been kinda tough for me to start another book. It’s as if I’m caught in its wake. I spent the last few days catching up on some long-form comics, like Eddie Campbell’s The Fate of the Artist, which I’m afraid left me flat. Compared to his most recent collection, After the Snooter, it was a distinct let-down.
I’ve also been catching up on magazines. Amy & I went on a subscription binge a few months ago, and now I’ve got the Virginia Quarterly Review and Foreign Affairs to beat me into submission.
Yesterday, unable to settle on a new book to read, I decided to go back and reread one of my favorites, Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia. (If you’re interested, there’s a neat piece in the Guardian about Stoppard’s new play, Rock ‘n’ Roll. It sounds pretty neat to me.)
What brought me back to Arcadia was the weird realization that, if you asked me what my favorite novel is, I would have no answer for you. Arcadia was a fave of mine upon a time, and it still resonates for me. In fact, if I had been immensely talented, it’s probably the piece I would have tried to write, given my interest in its subjects (chaos mathematics, the mistakes of history, English letters).
I can tell you what my favorite movie, my favorite comic, and my favorite record are (Miller’s Crossing, Little Italy and Stop Making Sense), but I’d have a devil of a time deciding on a favorite novel.
It’s not for lack of trying (here’s that list of all the books I’ve finished since 1989, when I started college). But there’ve been so many phases, and so many directions I’ve taken, that it’s really difficult for me to settle on a single novel. When I think of what I might have answered in years past (Gravity’s Rainbow, Tropic of Cancer, The Recognitions, Pale Fire, Invisible Cities, Going Native, Anna, Portnoy, Gatsby, Lolita, “Marcel”) I wonder what each answer tells me, and what changed that struck them from the top rank. (Fortunately, the “novel” requirement knocks out the Athenians, Homer, and Shakespeare, and that Arcadia. And if I have to pick a non-fiction book, it’d either be Ron Rosenbaum’s essays or that book on Robert Moses.)
For a moment, I tried to convince myself that it was somehow a universal problem afflicting our age, but I’m pretty sure it’s just me. Maybe I’ve oversatured myself with these books. Maybe I’ve simply become too fluid, or disconnected from the influences I thought I had. Maybe I need to — or already have — circumscribed my life in ways that keep some books from mattering so much to me.
Nowadays, I’m wondering if All the King’s Men is the book that speaks to me the most, or if it’s Gould’s Book of Fish. I’d better keep looking.
You, meanwhile, need to tell me what your favorite novel is, and what it means to you.
Fun article at the Washington Post on the differences between Marvel & DC comics. I was a Marvel geek throughout my youth, as I found the DC books to be way too square.
DC, back then: It’s your kid brother, wacked out on Pop-Tarts, still in his underpants at 10 a.m., insisting on “Super Friends” over “Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space.” Thinks he’s Batman at night, thinks he’s Aquaman in the tub. It’s make-believe, make-believe, make-believe. A hot dog is not a death ray, now sit down and eat. And who used all of the red and orange crayons? And why is Robin always in here naked with my Barbies?
Marvel, back then: It’s your big sister’s boyfriend, already 18 and “kind of different, but nice,” your mother observes, although he rides a motorcycle with no helmet. He draws an Incredible Hulk for you on a sheet of paper, and that’s it, you’re hooked, he’s a god. From him you learn about Ghost Rider and Conan the Barbarian and Silver Surfer. He listens to Rush.
DC, back then: Shlockarific television! “Batman” in the ’60s (Ka-pow! Wham!), “The New Adventures of Wonder Woman” in the ’70s. The toys, the cartoons, the read-along storybook LPs.
Marvel, back then: Put out a comic book starring the rock band Kiss.
DC: “Sgt. Rock.”
Marvel: “Doctor Strange.”
But look at DC now: It has become a retreat for grown-ups who’ve had it with the Marvel characters’ endless angst. When you weary of 22-year-old mutants, Batman can seem comfortably adult. Superman feels right. Green Lantern is a terribly interesting idea, a meditation on burden. Wonder Woman and Aquaman are filled with what seems like literature and history.
And look at Marvel now: After decades of fawning over bad-boy Wolverine, everyone started paying a lot more attention to Captain America. He kind of rocks, in a way you never knew, and so does Iron Man. For years nobody except total Marvelheads read “Iron Man.” The World Trade Center collapsed and Marvel took it personally, bub, and started drawing firefighters and cops more. Started drawing flags and sunsets. Had a moment.
All hail Tom Spurgeon for linking to this.
Tom also posted a link about the American Library Association’s annual meeting, which was the first major event to be held in New Orleans since the flood. The report is written by a comics/pop culture site, but the content isn’t geek-specific.