http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_spaghetti_monster
Monday, August 29, 2005
Sinclair Lewis Novels
Because I think I've finished most of them...
and because I know you all care...
Here is my ranking:
1.Elmer Gantry--womanizing preacher
2. Arrowsmith--idealistic doctor
3. Main Street-- boosters
4. Babbit--more boosters
5. Cass Timberlake--old judge marries young thing
OK, I just looked him up on wikipedia, and I guess I haven't read most of them.
and because I know you all care...
Here is my ranking:
1.Elmer Gantry--womanizing preacher
2. Arrowsmith--idealistic doctor
3. Main Street-- boosters
4. Babbit--more boosters
5. Cass Timberlake--old judge marries young thing
OK, I just looked him up on wikipedia, and I guess I haven't read most of them.
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
On death
I know, kind of a heavy topic. And I'm not thirteen and I don't dress all in black. I left Emily Dickenson behind in college.
I got to thinking about the subject today in the context of my favorite authors. I seem to prefer them dead--probably because I don't have to worry about them saying something really dumb or publishing something really bad. Also, there's something spooky about reading words from a dead person. I'm a pretty firm believer that Art (the real thing with a capital "A") is about communication. So, the writings of dead people are the best shot at communicating with people across the generations.
I got to thinking about the subject today in the context of my favorite authors. I seem to prefer them dead--probably because I don't have to worry about them saying something really dumb or publishing something really bad. Also, there's something spooky about reading words from a dead person. I'm a pretty firm believer that Art (the real thing with a capital "A") is about communication. So, the writings of dead people are the best shot at communicating with people across the generations.
Monday, August 22, 2005
Terrorists and Anarchists
The Economist ran an interesting piece last week comparing today's terrorists with the anarchists of the late 1800s. The similarities are striking.
Given its political bent, the Economist did not go into the striking similarities between the maladaptive government reactions to the anarchists and our current expensive and maladaptive anti-terror policies.
A quick run down:
We now have a very expensive government bureaucracy (with color coding).
We now have a very expensive war/occupation in Iraq (without enough body armor).
We now have fewer civil liberties (because its easier to catch people saying or reading something than bombing something).
With the anarchists, it was a case of a misperceived threat. They were not organized. They liked attention. But they were not going to take over the world any time soon. Freaking out about them probably prolonged their reign of terror.
Having just come off of a colossal misjudgment about the cold war, we should be more cautious in judging threats and less quick to decide that we need to freak out and change everything. Of course with a hotheaded cowboy in the white house, it was sort of inevitable.
Given its political bent, the Economist did not go into the striking similarities between the maladaptive government reactions to the anarchists and our current expensive and maladaptive anti-terror policies.
A quick run down:
We now have a very expensive government bureaucracy (with color coding).
We now have a very expensive war/occupation in Iraq (without enough body armor).
We now have fewer civil liberties (because its easier to catch people saying or reading something than bombing something).
With the anarchists, it was a case of a misperceived threat. They were not organized. They liked attention. But they were not going to take over the world any time soon. Freaking out about them probably prolonged their reign of terror.
Having just come off of a colossal misjudgment about the cold war, we should be more cautious in judging threats and less quick to decide that we need to freak out and change everything. Of course with a hotheaded cowboy in the white house, it was sort of inevitable.
Friday, August 19, 2005
Explosion in Downtown SF
So, this has to be an incredibly random thing. An underground transformer exploded today and blew off several manhole covers and started a store awning on fire. It sounds like the one person who was hurt was hurt pretty badly. She was just walking down the very same street that I walk down everyday and all of a sudden things are on fire and manhole covers are hurling through the air.
Sacrilegious thought for the day: Maybe some people believe in God in order to have someone to blame for this kind of thing.
Sacrilegious thought for the day: Maybe some people believe in God in order to have someone to blame for this kind of thing.
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Why can't anyone from the Clinton administration write?
I'm now 0 for 3 in the category of books written by Clinton administration officials.
Strobe Talbot's "The Russia Hand" was all about Strobe and he didn't even bother to develop his own character.
"I'll be short" by Robert Reich managed to wander in circles for 100 pages (or however long the thing was).
Finally "The Roaring Nineties" by Joseph Stiglitz was too nice by far. Clinton's policies failed but everyone in the administration was nice, earnest, smart, competent and hemmed in by evil Republicans.
It's all very muddleheaded without being remotely idealistic or bleeding heart. Actually a little bit of heart and soul would go a long way towards redeeming any of these books not to mention the Democratic Party.
The tone of these books taken together leads me to believe that the Clinton administration just didn't get it. They sacrificed their principles because the principles weren't based on a deeply felt emotional and intellectual base. They abstractly understood that things like unfair trade agreements and ending welfare would hurt people but they didn't understand it on a human level.
Their inability to understand what might interest an audience is symptomatic of their personal failings and the failure of Clinton and his administration to speak to Americans as individuals.
Strobe Talbot's "The Russia Hand" was all about Strobe and he didn't even bother to develop his own character.
"I'll be short" by Robert Reich managed to wander in circles for 100 pages (or however long the thing was).
Finally "The Roaring Nineties" by Joseph Stiglitz was too nice by far. Clinton's policies failed but everyone in the administration was nice, earnest, smart, competent and hemmed in by evil Republicans.
It's all very muddleheaded without being remotely idealistic or bleeding heart. Actually a little bit of heart and soul would go a long way towards redeeming any of these books not to mention the Democratic Party.
The tone of these books taken together leads me to believe that the Clinton administration just didn't get it. They sacrificed their principles because the principles weren't based on a deeply felt emotional and intellectual base. They abstractly understood that things like unfair trade agreements and ending welfare would hurt people but they didn't understand it on a human level.
Their inability to understand what might interest an audience is symptomatic of their personal failings and the failure of Clinton and his administration to speak to Americans as individuals.
Monday, August 08, 2005
Pondering Puritans
After reading Hellfire Nation, I got to thinking about whether the puritan impulse is a healthy thing and where it should be directed.
By the puritan impulse I mean the impulse to make oneself or society better, purer, more just, closer to perfection. It is a religious impulse, but non-religious people have it too.
Currently, watching the religious right mess up the this country, its hard to see this impulse as a good thing. It seems so misguided for a bunch of people to decide that they have a god-given right to hunt small animals but that women's reproductive lives should be regulated by the state. Another theory might be that they've picked the wrong things to direct their puritan impulse at. Maybe they should be concerned with the personal rather than other people. If they concentrated on perfecting themselves as individuals (and there is plenty of room for that), they could go off into the woods with their pick up trucks and King James Bibles and could stop bothering the rest of us.
Yet, I don't think that about liberals when they exhibit the Puritan impulse. If you spend your whole life perfecting yoga poses and developing vegetarian cooking skills, you haven't made much of an impact on society. Having the noble ideas with no action seems selfish.
So, my thinking on this is massively inconsistent. I don't want everyone to direct their puritan impulses in the same way. The main reason I want conservatives to direct it inwards is because I think they have dangerous ideas.
By the puritan impulse I mean the impulse to make oneself or society better, purer, more just, closer to perfection. It is a religious impulse, but non-religious people have it too.
Currently, watching the religious right mess up the this country, its hard to see this impulse as a good thing. It seems so misguided for a bunch of people to decide that they have a god-given right to hunt small animals but that women's reproductive lives should be regulated by the state. Another theory might be that they've picked the wrong things to direct their puritan impulse at. Maybe they should be concerned with the personal rather than other people. If they concentrated on perfecting themselves as individuals (and there is plenty of room for that), they could go off into the woods with their pick up trucks and King James Bibles and could stop bothering the rest of us.
Yet, I don't think that about liberals when they exhibit the Puritan impulse. If you spend your whole life perfecting yoga poses and developing vegetarian cooking skills, you haven't made much of an impact on society. Having the noble ideas with no action seems selfish.
So, my thinking on this is massively inconsistent. I don't want everyone to direct their puritan impulses in the same way. The main reason I want conservatives to direct it inwards is because I think they have dangerous ideas.
Best depressive coffee guys
Tullys at Market and Sansome.
The whole atmosphere is about getting you in and out without jarring you into awakeness quite yet. Not as friendly as Starbucks. Coffee is not as good as Pete's. But the two coffee guys at Tullys have that elusive quality in coffee guys--I'll call it the friendly but not freaky quality. They neither love nor hate their jobs. They just serve coffee.
The whole atmosphere is about getting you in and out without jarring you into awakeness quite yet. Not as friendly as Starbucks. Coffee is not as good as Pete's. But the two coffee guys at Tullys have that elusive quality in coffee guys--I'll call it the friendly but not freaky quality. They neither love nor hate their jobs. They just serve coffee.
Thursday, August 04, 2005
Things I saw at 24 hour fitness Part III
A girl on a treadmill who would get off every 5 minutes or so and hit the control panel...with her fist...hard....
Monday, August 01, 2005
Cheesy Books
So this weekend I managed to go through more than a book a day starting with a Pearl S. Buck novel about a quarter Chinese kid growing up in Vermont, The Patron Saint of Liars by Ann Patchett (good, but Bel Canto was better) and The Secret Life of Bees which everyone went on and on about but it seems like just a cheap and unbelievable version of To Kill a Mockingbird.
These books will all be easily and gratefully forgotten in a few years because the characters are fundamentally unbelievable and shallow. I don't even know why I read this stuff other than I have to read something and I get weirdly sucked in to finishing these books to see if they are going to get any better (See review of Ha Jin's War Trash--It didn't get any better for the record.)
So here's the thing. Nobody was ever motivated by just one thing unless they are crazy. If your character is going to be motivated by just one thing it should probably be something like revenge and not something like an inexplicable desire to lie (The Patron Saint of Liars) or an equally inexplicable desire to take your black nanny to a town your mother (who you accidentally shot and killed) may have visited in order to escape white racists who your nanny (again without reason) threw a spitoon at (which she wasn't even carrying until the moment she threw it). This is (and I'm not even kidding) the premise of the Secret Life of Bees.
And yet I'm sucked in. I think its the desire to see if anyone can redeem these godawful plots and these unbelievable characters. It never happens. If an author thinks that telling a really great whopper is enough to motivate someone for 20+ years that author is not going to be able to get her character out of the mess she created.
And here's another rant--If you, as an author, have chosen an interesting subject, you should try to live up to it. For example, Middlesex is about a hermaphrodite and yet I was bored. Same problem with the Virgin Suicides--teenage girls offing themselves right and left and yet I'm not entertained. Oh and the Confession of Max Tivoli. The man lives backwards and manages to seduce a woman three times while going from an old man to a young man and yet I came away with the impression that his real misfortune was to be born such a godawful whiner.
Geek Love is the one book I can think of that had a gimmick and is truly great. Can anyone think of another one?
These books will all be easily and gratefully forgotten in a few years because the characters are fundamentally unbelievable and shallow. I don't even know why I read this stuff other than I have to read something and I get weirdly sucked in to finishing these books to see if they are going to get any better (See review of Ha Jin's War Trash--It didn't get any better for the record.)
So here's the thing. Nobody was ever motivated by just one thing unless they are crazy. If your character is going to be motivated by just one thing it should probably be something like revenge and not something like an inexplicable desire to lie (The Patron Saint of Liars) or an equally inexplicable desire to take your black nanny to a town your mother (who you accidentally shot and killed) may have visited in order to escape white racists who your nanny (again without reason) threw a spitoon at (which she wasn't even carrying until the moment she threw it). This is (and I'm not even kidding) the premise of the Secret Life of Bees.
And yet I'm sucked in. I think its the desire to see if anyone can redeem these godawful plots and these unbelievable characters. It never happens. If an author thinks that telling a really great whopper is enough to motivate someone for 20+ years that author is not going to be able to get her character out of the mess she created.
And here's another rant--If you, as an author, have chosen an interesting subject, you should try to live up to it. For example, Middlesex is about a hermaphrodite and yet I was bored. Same problem with the Virgin Suicides--teenage girls offing themselves right and left and yet I'm not entertained. Oh and the Confession of Max Tivoli. The man lives backwards and manages to seduce a woman three times while going from an old man to a young man and yet I came away with the impression that his real misfortune was to be born such a godawful whiner.
Geek Love is the one book I can think of that had a gimmick and is truly great. Can anyone think of another one?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)