Let the Sun Shine In, Dude. I'd be surprised if all of us weren't New Aquarians (as I am), given the questions. When I turn 35, I hope to be an Autonomous Rebel--dessert first! [whether this should be age based is cause for alarm, methinks; we got categorized with everyone 34 or under!]
Another test for the chronically self-evaluative: 3CS Social Values Survey.
But I'm a New Aquarian? Yecch! And I was so sure I'd wind up a Cosmopolitan Modernist!
Equatorial Mike alerts you to this Slashdot unmasking of the lies of record industry hyenas. Of course, knowing you, you're already on top of it, right?
Gary wrote me the other day with this remark;
"How come I never know what you've had for lunch or how your pants
fit? (I had roast beast on rye with cole slaw and Russian dressing with a blinding
sunset-colored Sobe Orange-Carrot Elixir to wash it down. Yummmmmmmmm!)"
I think he suggests by this that I have been too cerebral, too hi-falutin with my blog entries, too uninterested in the Little Things that Make Up Life. He suggests that I turn to other online journals in order to find examples of the True Purpose of the Blog – which is to set up a little verbal webcam on oneself.
Maybe he didn’t mean that, but I think that if he didn’t he can post here and explain himself.
Anyway, withouth further ado, the recounting of some of my recent doings:
Friday night was my friend Emily’s birthday. She’s an editor at Nerve, a website I really shouldn’t link to while I’m here at the office. It was at some bar in Soho that had a velvet rope outside and another velvet rope inside. There were sofas, and a DJ, who played, strangely enough, some Led Zeppelin while we were there. It was confusing, although not entirely unpleasant. One benefit of really overpriced drinks is that you’re much less likely to end up with a hangover. The next day I went to the cleaners and discovered a jacket I’d thought was long gone from my wardrobe, hanging there with the unclaimed items of clothing. What joy! It’s an ugly old beaten up coat, but I was thrilled to see it again. I felt like I had to apologize to it.
I went running in the cold to make up for all the exercise I haven’t been getting, and felt pretty self-congratulatory afterward. Then Theresa and I met our friends Amy and Mark for dinnner at a newish Brooklyn restaurant called Convivium. Summary: Long, shared tables; very good seafood; prices that are more evidence that the idea that a Brooklyn meal will be cheaper is a disappearing myth. Amy was, as usual, extremely funny. I was mortified to discover myself, as sometimes happens, yawning a lot even though I didn’t feel tired, which made me really self-conscious.
(By the way, I had couscous with mussels, clams, prawns, and some lobsterlike creatures in it. Plus asparagus with aioli (sp?)
Does that happen to other people?
Sunday we saw Sean and Sheri and talked of The Future, Marriage, and Family, and ate Empanadas. Sunday afternoon my company made the move into these new offices -- a different subject for a different time. That night we went to see the Upright Citizens Brigade with my friends Gavin and Jen. I haven’t seen a real improv comedy show for about ten years. It wasn’t bad – some really quick thinkers in the group, and one or two people who are just naturally funny.
I have some thoughts to add about how it did seem to me, though, to be a showcase for the performers’ emotional fixations, which was the most fascinating thing of all.
How’s that for a chronicle of the mundane?
Georgia Schnore contributes Georgia's Top 50, to wit:
1. "Who Let the Dogs Out?"
2. _O Brother Where Art Thou?_ Soundtrack
One can't argue with simplicity.
Unbeknownst to lil' ol' me, in the midst of List-O-Mania, the Super-Prolific Aaron Schnore was boiling it all down to pure essence on the Schnores.com site. But just remember that just because his site has more interesting writing, lovely illustrations, and looks designed and all doesn't mean that it's better than this one.
Actually, it does mean that. I was just checking to see if anyone was actually listening.
A big thanks to Squirrel Bait for leading us all to the Jesus Christ Superstore.
Quickly go down to your Record Shoppe and buy Suburban Light by The Clientele, because it goes splendidly with the falling snow. Anyone not entirely pleased with their experience in this regard will be treated to a large tea and pastry of their choice.
The world is a beautiful thing, all of the time, sometimes, or at least occaisionally: blackbough.com is the kind of writing-on-the-web that just makes you feel lucky to have found it.
So, I'm an "Experimenter" (big shock!)--along with 5% of the world's pop--and these wise words were offered:
"Don't despair. You're really a good person at heart."
Fortuntately for me, I'm consoled by the fact that "Other EXPERIMENTERS from the entertainment world include: Jodie Foster as Ellie Arroway in Contact, Christopher Lloyd as Doc in Back to the Future, Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Peter O'Toole as T.E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia".
Yes, I've always fancied myself the Indiana Jones of the Social Psychology world (uh, yeah) but when it comes to Christopher Lloyd, I feel more like Reverend Jim.
The test itself seems to be modeled on the Myers-Briggs personality inventory (introvert vs. extravert; sensing vs. perceiving; thinking vs. feeling; and there's one other I forgot). As far as I understand the Myers-Briggs is mostly used to try to place people into professions (like the Strong Interest Inventory where I learned I should be a teacher or an artist or a plumber; okay I can't remember but that was funny to write). From my view of personality theory, it isn't widely respected outside of counseling circles.
Now, as far as personality itself. Personality is all about consistency in behavior--do people express the same traits across situations? It was and is incredibly controversial because judging "consistency" is difficult (who do you ask? how many different situations? what "traits" do you assess?). As far as that last question, consensus has lately revolved around the Big Five (OCEAN is the acronym I use): Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. These five "factors" were derived from an analysis of all the person-focused adjectives in the English dictionary. They hang together fairly well, seem to be predictive of behavior, and researchers are starting to demonstrate that they have some genetic component (in twins studies). Nevertheless, as a social psychologist, I'm required to state that personality dimensions almost always interact with situational features to produce behavior. Thus, when Theresa argues that there may be no such thing as personality, I'm cautiously inclined to agree--after all, people do tend to change in different situations and the consistency you think you see in your friends might be shaped by your presence. Of course, the consistency you think you see in yourself could be faulty too. Hence, the problem in self-report tests like the Family Wonder test I just took. I do take personality seriously, however, despite these caveats--I think there is some there there.
Well, thanks to Gary, the Family Wonder Personality Test has been making the rounds of my workplace. I urge all of you social scientists out there to explain to us whatever kind of outdated personality models are being used to construct the entertaining little summations-of-character the test gives you when you're finished.
A few weeks ago, Theresa and I had a pretty lengthy argument over whether "personality" could be considered to exist at all. Outgunned completely in the knowing-what-I'm-talking-about department in this particular case, I tried to use the same strategy by which Dr. Johnson reportedly responded to Bish. Berkeley (the old kick-the-stone-to-emphasize-its-material-existence-despite-philosophical-wrangling-trick. My version was even more specious -- the word personality must mean, you know, something, or otherwise, like, maybe, um, it would be impossible to distinguish between strangers and loved ones.) And of course you can imagine what followed...I have come to the conclusion that there are actually only two personality types -- those who are happy to leap into arguments where they have absolutely no idea what they're talking about, and those who irritatingly refrain from arguing a point unless they have a reasonably good probability of being right.
Did anyone else see the Skywriting Art over Manhattan today? The wind was a little stiff -- by the time the shapes were done they were probably over Forest Hills. Still, I think I saw a horsie, and one that was either a mouse or a guy with very stubby hands giving everyone the finger.
The guy makes a good point. Acknowledgement: I found this because of a link from kottke.org.
From the AP wire, with regard to th BMA's photo exhibit:
Everton McIntyre, a Pentecostal Christian and a middle school art teacher:
``The Lord's Supper means a lot to me. And her being nude bothers me. Jesus was never nude,'' he
said.
As far as Eyesight goes, if you want to use this medium as a way to engage in reality-testing and social support, let me tell you (as someone who has never worn eyeglasses), over the past couple of years, I can say, without qualification, that it's starting to go. Highways signs are the worst. A checkup confirmed that driving glasses might be in order (but not required). I blame it on the computer, but it could be (gasp!) merely age.
Picture Show
Earlier today we went to the Brooklyn Museum of Art’s new exhibition of contemporary African-American photography. It was jammed with people, most of them doubtless brought by our mayor’s recent reprise of his Outrage Concerto, first performed as a response to the BMA “Sensation” show last year. My friend Eric remarked that once he’s no longer Mayor, the museum is going to have to hire Giuliani if they want him to keep doing this great publicity work for them.
Incidentally, if you want to see the pic that Rudy's so excercised about, Nerve has it here.
Given the crowd, however, it’s difficult to say what I thought of the exhibition as a whole – there wasn’t the sense of leisure one would need to capture that. Ultimately, I saw some things, not everything, and as is usual with photography was drawn to the things I was drawn to more for reasons it would be difficult to articulate in terms of aesthetics. (I’ll mention one, which was a photo of a group of three midwestern white kids, who seem to be skinheads – they all have nearly shaven pates, and each has an American flag patch on the shoulder of their jackets. But the one in the center, the one the photographer is paying attention to, is wearing a kind of stylish porkpie hat, pulled rakishly down over his brow, and is about to draw on a cigarette with a half-inch of ash sticking off the end. He gazes into the camera from under the hoods of his eyelids, and he seems for all the world to be copping his pose from some jazzman, emulating a very specific kind of Black Cool. His compatriots, in the background, are ciphers, neither smiling nor scowling, unreadable as to their attitude. But the kid in the center is INTO it. It’s a great picture.)
As for the “Last Supper” staging which drew Mr. G’s ire…it didn’t seem very interesting by comparison to the huge variety of attitudes and techniques on display all around it – but this is, as I say, perhaps a matter of taste.
One curious thing that happened to me while I was there did take up a lot of my attention, and gave me some cause to think. Whether it’s all the recent screen-staring I’ve been doing, or simply that it’s time for me to change my prescription on these damned spectacles, I have been noticing that my eyesight seems less sharp in recent months. At the museum, I was shocked to discover that I had to get quite close to the photos in order to make out the titles and other written details – much closer than I’m used to. I started in on a real anxiety moment – the oh-shit-I’m-going-blind sort of thing. It took quite a little while to relax and remind myself that it’s not a big deal to need stronger glasses. Why, though, right there? Something about the fact of the exhibition being about photography, and therefore about seeing, is suggestive to me; moreover, the fact that it’s about blackness, about seeing through the lens (possibly) of race – and here suddenly my anxiety about physical blindness overtakes me and makes me almost literally shake in my shoes! What is it that I am really worried about not being able to see?
***************
We also saw Traffic this weekend. An interestingly mixed experience – so satisfying in terms of its early approach to the story, in the way the Mexican sequences are filmed, and in the way Benicio Del Toro seemed to embody both ordinariness and heroism at the same time. But… why the flurry of speeches? Why the bad-TV-movie plot about Michael Douglas’s daughter? Why the almost embarrassing lapses in believeability as Douglas goes hunting her down? Or as Catherine Zeta-Jones excercises her mysterious “gift for survival” and manages to go from knowing nothing about her husband’s drug business to bringing Benjamin Bratt state-of-the-art smugglable coke? In the end it wasn’t the afterschool-special didacticism that got me down, it was the shoddiness with which the story played out that left me kind of sour.
Sorry, Mr. Eggers. I guess I should be more grateful to Mr. Soderberg for deigning to make a movie which doesn’t primarily feature Mel Gibson tomahawking the British.
"It is absolutely true, though in a very limited sense, that the tailor makes the man. If a man does not dress well in society he cannot be a success. If he commits flagrant errors in costume he will not be invited out very much, of that he can be certain. If he goes to a garden-party in a frock-coat and straw hat, he is condemned more universally than if he had committed some crime. The evidence of the latter would not be upon him for all men to read, as the evidence of his ignorance in social forms is, in his mistaken notions of dress."
Mrs. Humphry ("Madge" of "Truth"), Manners for Men.
Gavin just sent me the following list of 100 singles he loves. For everyone whose been feeling a little constrained by the album-icity of the game so far, check out his refusal to live by My Whimsical Dictates.
"They're singles: fast tempos, cheap thrills, addictive noises. I didn't really have any rules, except to pick the stuff that still made me intensely happy." --Gavin Edwards, right about lunchtime.
Of course you can compare Gavin's singlecentricism to Laura's List. And to save you from scrolling, click here for Art's and Bill's.
Mr. Grim sent me the following contribution to the thread about criticism:
Lethal Eggs
Thanks for pointing to the McSweeney's dialogue. I was as surprised by Lethem's searching inarticulateness as I was by Eggers whiny pusillanimity and thin skin. As you mentioned, there's part of me that agrees with Eggers and that Vonnegut quotation (there's a first). Attacking a novel is like mounting a charge against a hot fudge sundae. The climate is so hostile to the reception of almost any book that needs a critic's attention that the standard critical apparatus of the book community should become more supportive of good work, less dismissive and more constructive. If he doesn't actually say it, Eggers implies an abandonment of aesthetic criteria--that we should celebrate fecundity for fecundity's sake. If there are more Bowie albums out there, better for everyone; more Woody Allen movies, hooray.
If Woody Allen, to take Eggers' example, is criticized for being too prolific, that's an unfortunate transposition of the viewer's disappointment in his newest baddest film onto the myth of process, the time-costing equation of which is inspiration + craft = art. It is a curious vestige of the anti-Victorian Romanticism we reserve only for our artists. If an artist, though, puts out work with a calendrical regularity, we assume a loss of inspiration. The case with Woody Allen is more accurately that his recent movies stopped being any good. Perhaps we shouldn't bemoan him his prolificacy (as I have been guilty of doing), but should just stop seeing his movies. "Celebrity" wasn't soul-shrinkingly bad because it came so close on the heels of "Deconstructiung Harry"; it was bad because it was an arguably misogynistic and lead-footed, mark-missing satire with a lot of recycled and obvious jokes (to begin with). I wouldn't wish that Philip Roth wrote one fewer word in the last forty years, and I especially value everything this decade. His work seems to enrich life and literature (including his own). The confusion in the case of Woody Allen is that it's like a person who is at first charming, then annoying, then miserable, the more you get to know them--you've been too long in his presence. It is inevitable that the worse work will make you reevaluate the better. I know too little about the Dylan canon to chime in on that.
-Gary Morris, sometime Friday morning
_____
Rules, Rules Rules. Oh Bill, we're all on fire with your damn lists!
{To see past Ms. B's top five, click here. I'm trying to save us all some scrolling... --- ed.}
As far as the JL/DE conversation about criticism goes (and I have no idea who JL or DE are, frankly, and I've only read Section 1 as I'm a busy man currently shirking my work):
1. Thus, far, they've assumed that the artists in question are earnest/sincere in their attempts to put forth works of art to the critical consumer. Yet, the most damning criticism usually comes about when artists are perceived as being insincere (i.e., "THE BIG SELL OUT"). That is, Bowie's crappy LPs aren't just bad or boring or not to a particular taste, they ache of bandwagon-jumping or profiteering, which (while perhaps it shouldn't) appears to negate the artwork in the eye of the beholder.
2. This of course is irrelevant to judgments that a particular Dylan LP, on which he has appeared to expend creative energy, is less good than another one. That _does_ become a more subjective affair and the email discussion focuses more narrowly on that (at least in section one). I see nothing wrong with trying to critically analyze the strengths and weaknesses of a particular work of art, in comparison to other artists or the particular artist's own past output or even some gold standard. The point would seem to be that critics themselves lay their expectations and preferences on the line. I mean do you really trust a movie review by Joel Siegel? Hasn't the educated consumer learned to discriminate Vincent Canby from Amy Taubin? I guess I agree that the critic's appraisal, in written form, should be seen as creative output in and of itself, laced with unseemly hidden motivations, value judgments, half-baked ideas, and brilliant moments that may exceed the artwork under discussion. These are the same qualities that might exist in the original artwork (at least according to a particular critic). In my eyes, there's no detaching the singer from the song.
3. As far as the Narcissism of Infinite Difference (was that it?)--there's a modern social psychological theory called the Self-Evaluation Maintenance model that suggests that, when similar others perform well on tasks that are important to our own identity, we suffer. When they succeed in areas that are not important to us, we can laud them. Sounds like envy but it has more to do with ego-threat in this view.
That's all for now--in re-reading Bill's comment, I realize I probably should have read the later sections before writing. But in reaction to Bill: I don't believe of criticism in the form of a Platonic ideal (e.g., "disinterested Arnoldean standard"?) but believe that the critic's self (whether through experience, taste, learning, personality, grudges, whatever) will always be represented and to attempt to hide these things is shameful. That said, I don't believe that critics need to wear their influences on their sleeves--CAVEAT EMPTOR, my friends.
Art
Here's Elvis Costello's stupid list of 500 LPs (from Vanity Fair):
http://www.elvis-costello.com/homepage/articles/t-z/vanity_fair.001101a.html
He broke all of the rules we set for ourselves (includes jazz, classical, soundtracks).
I own a paltry 38 out of 500 (7.6%) but in my defense, I don't currently own any Elvis Costello.
I DO think Putin is kind of funny. At least existentially funny, a sort of cruel ironic joke -- ex-KGB chief takes over the post-Soviet state, cracks down on "oligarchs." And Mike, whatever your defense of Kathi(e?) Lee Gifford might be, it's no excuse for her exploiting all those poor people at Carnival Cruise Lines.
I was poking around on Plastic (which I want to write about a bit more, maybe later today) and found a -- now somewhat stale -- thread about this E-mail conversation about criticism between Jonathan Lethem and Dave Eggers which was published/posted in McSweeny's. It's a longish back-and-forth concerning what Eggers more aggressively defines as a sort of widespread critical irresponsibility, a self-serving need on the part of critics -- both professional and amateur -- to dispense judgement without consideration for the essential and indisputable value of any creative act. Eggers sees the Critic (and again, he includes the nonprofessional) who Seeks to Pan as part of an epidemic of ego-driven bad faith. He makes a passionate argument for the notion that our whole approach, as a community, to art/music/letters is fucked up by the desire to dismiss.
And he makes some interesting points. Lethem, in turn, makes a number of really thought-provoking observations which I won't try to summarize here. I'll mention that I think that in the conversation he seems more attuned to digging away at the core of why this issue generates heat, and he pulls together some very rich possibilities -- and constructs along the way a shrewd analysis of Eggers's line of reasoning.
There's a lot in the discussion that I found really engaging and somewhat provoking at the same time. For example, while Eggers is mounting what amounts to a campaign against negative evaluations, one of the writers on Plastic was quick to point out that Eggers doesn't seem to accord criticism the same status as he does other kinds of writing -- his distrust of critics and their writing, his sense that they "stand between the writer and the reader" condemns criticism to a kind of shadow existence.
But that said, I can't dismiss his case either, and he comes up with a couple of damning examples of the ways in which the critics goals often seem preset -- so that a critic who just hates a genre can write a vituperative essay condemning recent examples, with no honest intention of supplying that "disinterested" Arnoldean standard, which I still in some sense value (despite whatever suspicions of such terms I imbibed in grad school). Moreover, I'm quite impressed with the point of view that Lethem brings to the discussion, because I think he's very accurate about the inner struggle that we (at least I) feel between appreciation and the desire/need to assert the self in response to -- even in defense of -- the "plenitude" of created things.
I want to go on about this -- but not in a completely rambling fashion, which this already seems to be succumbing to. So I'll reutrn to this later. And of course I'm curious to know what others think.
Alexander Putin is less funny than Kathy Lee Crosby. So there.
One of the beauties of using AOL's instant messenger is the news ticker that comes with it. This incredible service provides you with up-to-the-minute headlines so that you won't miss things like this vital breaking story. The headline alone is worth your time, but don't stop there. This is jam-packed with rich, informative content. And the sidebar headlines are the whipped cream on this infotainment shortcake!
Is there anyone in the universe less funny than Kathy Griffin?
I have no place to post on web, currently, so here's my stupid list of 50+ LPs in ongoing heavy rotation:
{Gentle Reader, I have moved Art's Illuminating list to this new location. But you can come right back here. I figured the lists take up a little too much space on this page. And if you want to add your own contribution, either post it or email it to me. Thanks. -- B.T.}
uh, i'm sure i left something out
I promised Matt and Sean that I'd make up this stupid list of albums some time ago. And now I have. Send objections and corrections to me here and I'll find some way to abase myself before your better judgement.
The amazing Sandie Freedman recommended to me Anne Carson's terrific novel-in-verse The Autobiography of Red, and I hereby pass on the news to anyone who bothers to keep up with this. The story is something of a queer Bildungsroman, something of a reworking of an odd classical text (Carson is, I think, a Classicist as well) by the poet Stesichoros; more to the point, the language throughout is sort of insinuatingly beautiful, but the story flows along almost effortlessly.
Sandie sez that the recommendation came via Ariela in Montreal...credit where it's due. One of my New Year's Resolutions was to Read More Poetry; if you made a similar one, here's an excellent place to start.
The Human Stain
(a bit of the text somehow went missing when I posted this before. apologies for the incoherence)
You can't tell very well from looking at the smallish version on their homepage, but the current Village Voice uses as its Valentine-themed visual a disheveled bed...with a really appealing, um, discoloration in the middle. There's nothing more romantic than some rumpled linens and the liquid evidence of how they got rumpled.
I'm getting squeamish in my old age, I'm sure of it.
By the way, speaking of the latest Voice, Richard Goldstein manages to lob a grenade at Nader at the end of a piece castigating the Democrats for folding on the Ashcroft nomination. Now, I've recently been forced to admit that those who see Nader as perhaps reckless in his campaign (in the sense that he quite knowingly pursued Gore voters in battleground states and had some reason to suspect that his successes would significantly increase the chance of a Bush victory)have some good arguments on their side.
But to saddle Nader with the Demos folding on the Ashcroft nomination makes no sense -- Nader's whole point is that the Democratic party has for some time now been consistently happy to sell out the Left whenever convenient.
So now the Democrats PROVE HIM RIGHT on this -- and he's to blame? Amazing.
Honestly the Last Christian Site I'll List
In a way I'm sorry I wasted your time with the action figures mentioned below, because the ChildCare Action Project (CAP) makes some of the most fascinating reading I've come across on the web. It employs a systematic "Analysis Model" to provide informative, detailed breakdowns of the level of immorality in contemporary films. This almost exceeds camp value in its dedication to a kind of thorough moral dissection (in strictly evangelical Christian terms, mind you) of the current product of Hollywood. Is it hilarious? You bet. But it's not quite dismissable, either. Both chilling in the intensity of its vision, and almost admirable in its unwillingness to be "fooled" by ANYTHING.
Well, almost admirable.
Not to make too much of an obsession out of Funny Christian Stuff, but you really, really, really should look at this site. The only problem I can see is that all the kids are going to be fighting over the Goliath doll.
Also, can you mix and match figures from the different "Heritage Series'?"
Through the ceiling scraps of Dick Wolf's mighty oo-vruh, in the form of Angie Harmon's scratchety protests to Sam Waterson, come floating down like flakes of fake snow which drift down to the stage from among the lights. The cat is scratchety too: she whines and mewl-purrs. Neither of us know (knows?) exactly what we want.
It's addressed to you, silly. Go ahead and read...A LETTER FROM GOD.
Apparently, he's not only a Jealous God, he's passive-aggressive too.
You may not know whether to laugh or cry as you read this article about the views of the new FCC Chairman, the son of Gen. Colin Powell. Important: read far enough to get to the bit about the "Mercedes Divide." He doesn't mean to be "completely flip" about it.
Thanks to Equatorial Mike for the tip.
While I'm thinking about it, everyone who loves to speculate about human behavior should check out Mike Green's elegant dissection of the famous problem of the Prisoner's dilemma. It's a perfect little tutorial on the subject.
The Washington Post is running this story about the Association of American Publishers' attack on libraries' use of digital documents. The article leaves rather open the question of what the publishers really want, but it certainly stomps on the whole Information Wants to Be Free idea. While I can't blame underpaid editors and authors for wanting to make sure that they get their slice of the digital pie, I get the feeling that this might also represent a move by the big media guns (TimeWarner etc) who are busily consolidating what we used to call publishing into its own more aggressive idea of a "content-based revenue stream."
Of course, maybe I'm way off base on this, and the libraries really are ripping off publishers. Somebody enlighten me.
Can't tell your Poxy from your Pearl? Unsure how to refer to your afternoon Ritalin/Talwin cocktail among the chemically savvy? No need to feel unhip or at a loss for words -- the executive branch has come to your rescue. Now you'll never run the risk of asking for Skee when you just want some good old methylenedioxymethamphetamine.
Ah, my friends, my labors -- though they are of course characteristic of a demigod-like strength of character -- are so suffused with the pleasure of reaching out to you that I care not what stresses and strains upon my creative sinews they bring.
The name "Wombat File" is simply happy coincidence with your reference in Australia, Art, though your resettling there did perhaps unearth my long-held fascination with my childhood idea of the wombat, which pictured an animal jointly characterized by cuddly furriness and exotic monstrosity. I was probably confusing wombats (which are interesting but not at all what I thought they were like) with platypi (platypuses?). "Wombat File" was the name I used a number of years ago for a writing journal. Mostly, I just like the sound of it.
I'm keen, incidentally, to read more about all things Victorian and bush-dwelling in the wilds of South.
Finally, while I respect your desire to see more "team play" on these pages, I can only assure you that our fellow contributors are merely gathering their energies, saving up the gleanings of many a day, that they might burst forth like Mighty Wombats onto this page.
BILL--your efforts to keep the blog alive are HERCULEAN; where is the rest of the "team"? I apologize for my absence--busy, busy, but also doing some "bushwalking". Did not see a WOMBAT (but saw one at the zoo--was name chosen with regard to Oz at all?) but did see KOALA (took several hours to spot him high in the tops of the eucalyptus trees and really, during the day, these critters are quite boring; we made noise and he looked up and scratched his ear!) and KANGAROO (huge "mob" of long-legged hopping deer--one with joey in pouch! Did not care that we came near) and WALLABY (small 'roos who seem to travel solo, more curious). So much for the fauna on my trip to WESTERN VICTORIA. And doesn't that adjective, Victorian, just conjur up images of repressed sexuality? Weird connections are activated in my brain, hearing it everyday makes my life absurd.
more later.
The snow outside is fuzzing lovely in the streetlights. Almost worth passing through the muck to get home.
I realize that posting links to other people's blogs threatens to create something of an ingrown toenail out of the whole endeavor. But Erica's is impressive and a pleasure to visit. She'll kick your ass!
Saturday evening we found ourselves making a brief visit to the Metropolitan Museum and wound up wandering over to the Temple of Dendur which I blush to confess I've never checked out in any of my trips to the museum.
I can't decide whether I was more struck by the museum's setting of the temple -- in this atrium-like space with one wall entirely of windows, which reminded me chiefly of Dulles Airport in Washington, DC -- or with the fact that the temple sports a fascinating array of scratched in travellers' grafitti, dating back to at least the 1820s, from what I can see. The history of boorishness preserved lovingly: I'm of half a mind to go looking to see what monographs there are on Grand-Tour-Making-Boobs Tagging the Wonders of the Ancient World.
If you've never been in there at night, please go -- the way the temple (and everyone milling through the floodlit space) reflects off of the slanting window-wall, as the moving lights of Saturday night cut through somewhere in the depths of the image, is worth the effort.
I realize I bore most of you with my unceasing praise for Tom the Dancing Bug, but I just came across a copy of this old edition of Super Fun Pak Comics and was re-amazed at the 2-panel Sam Shepard summary. Just go look at it. It'll just take a sec.
Jessica brought into the office the most amazing and disturbing toy today. Apparently she bought it at a convenience store…it’s a variant on the “stress-relieving” squeeze toy concept: a partially opaque plastic enevelope, covered with nubbly protrusions, containing twelve multicolored silicone or rubber-like balls, each the size of a large gumball. The whole thing is sort of a lumpy ellipsoidal sphere. The balls seem to be in some kind of viscous substance, so that when you squeeze the whole deal they slide about rather evocatively – it’s like handling a rubber glove which has been filled with eyeballs.
Needless to say it evokes all kinds of fascinatingly disgusted interest from everyone it’s introduced to. Has anyone else seen one of these things? Who makes them? What are they called? Where can I invest?
This site represents all that I feel slightly ashamed about being fascinated by. But I dare you not to be transfixed by this weblog, "A personal site about the trials of living in New York and trying to get a Broadway show." Learn all about Hump Day, stressing out, people with tiny hands who major in sign language, and Kiss Kiss Bears from Hallmark. You'll be a different person afterward. And you'll never worry about overuse of exclamation points again.
Alibris just came through again with a great find -- an out-of-print collection of Cordwainer Smith stories. I've been pining to reread "Scanners Live in Vain!"; and "The Game of Rat and Dragon" is required cat-lover-reading: it turns out that human travel through interstellar space is threatened by psychic monsters. Only brave space-cats can save us! Hooray!
A revealing if sad essay. As usual, I'm (probably) the last to know. Proof that being profiled in The New Yorker does not make your business a success.
Bad Day At Blog Rock
Anyway, here's hoping that something good happens for Ev and Pyra. This is a great service, and deserves to survive.
Boy Suspended for Pointing Chicken
I suppose that if the chicken finger had included an orange plastic tip, it would have been OK.
Although it is probably, from a practical standpoint, less harmful than the defunding of family planning clinics in the 3rd world or ensuring that the layabout children of the Uberrich get their inheritances protected from the IRS -- I find Bush's appeal to more "faith-based" charities exactly the kind of thing that makes me almost more exhausted than outraged. How can you fight this kind of thing without seeming like a cynic or a doctrinaire atheist?I always had the notion that implicit in the whole separation-of-church-and-state was an unpsoken value that creating just civil society didn't require some sort of religious backing: that a commitment to the religious multiplicity of the country meant that our leadership would be comfortable remaining with relationship to churches and the like. I know that you're laughing at me, but I feel attached to the notion of a secular, civil society, and I have a feeling that it's currently among the things being openly sneered at by the triumphant Right, and for some reason I take that particularly personally.
Bush To Push Faith - Based Initiative