We are stepping up discussions on where we are going to live one day, partly because more and more I have babies on the brain. My partner in the economist department came to work the other day, taking a break from her mat leave - she's been nursing and hence dropped all her weight and then some, and has stopped dyeing the grey out of her hair because that's meant to be bad for the babe or something. So compared to how she looked last time I saw her, it's like she has a really, really exhausting tapeworm. Her face was happier though.
And the question in my brain is, do we make babies here or somewhere else? The mat leave here is crap compared to Canada but pretty damn good compared to Australia, which is complete crap. But Canada is too cold, and if I have a baby here it will be Belgian. Yeeurgh. Then let's complicate the issue by wondering where to raise the babies. If it's Canada they'll pay through the nose for university and if it's here they'll get free university but it will be crap; in Australia it will be pricey but they have a genius repayment scheme. In Canada, whatever I spawn will have easier access to my people, but in Australia they'd have access to the F-word's people, and my people are so spread out over Canada anyways that they'd only have access to a few of them at a time.
At the moment the F-word and I are both leaning towards Australia to the point of looking at the real estate there but we have years in which to vacillate. No plans to leave Brussels for a good long time, especially now that spring is here, and no plans to get pregnant, as the idea continues to scare me shitless.
domenica, aprile 13, 2008
giovedì, aprile 10, 2008
Shades of grey
Post-modernism is a talking point in our household because the F-word is an artist. To an artist post-modernism means something different from what it meant to me as an academic woman, and what it means to me now as a cultural participant. I think post-modernism is a uselessly, broadly accurate (not to mention ugly) term for a kind of relativism whose absence these days renders any academic or cultural inquiry worthless, and whose presence renders art wankerish.
But when it comes to cultural documents I sit around and read, keep your doubtless clever-ish post-war reinterpretations of everything, and give me a raging Oxbridge maso-queen who thought of women as 'raddled meat' and of Arabs as a society of lazy gorgeous dreaming males whose limbs quivered when they sexlessly, hygienically fucked each other in the sand.
Long way about of saying that so far The Seven Pillars of Wisdom is an absolute lark. I don't know how long I'll continue with it though. 600 more pages to go, when there are so many other books in the world. . . And the bulk of my fascination with it is of the sort I feel when I'm listening to a sauced Englishman blathering about ethnic groups without any restraint borne of modesty or cultural relativism - I can enjoy it for an evening, and after that he's just another liquor-soaked twat who might as well be talking about football teams, and who thinks, if he thinks at all, that post-modernism is a communist tool to rob him of all credibility.
In that blathery sense The Seven Pillars of Wisdom is even better than my old favourite Wilfrid Thesinger - another of those hygienic, 'sexless' types who dug young Arabs and who had an enjoyably terse, funny writing style - because Thesinger seemed to have tried his best to become one of them (living for a long time with the Marsh Arabs in Iraq, who did badly under Saddam Hussein). Whereas, in his writing at least, Lawrence is so awfully English and the Arabs - not to mention the Turks and Jews - are so awfully not. I don't know if he loved them - he's certainly rather crueler than Thesinger about them - and so far he gives the impression that everything good they did was more or less an accident until he came along.
The thing is, books like Seven Pillars are the story of me, of us, as western Anglophones (nobody else reads this blog, do they?) - our identity documents. Post-modernist or not, I can't understand being impatient with or dismissive of these texts or the general Dead White Male canon, or primary sources in general. Incomplete, maybe; but meaningless? Certainly not! We can't invent a post-modernist past when we have such a profoundly pre-modernist history; we can't be revisionists; that's the only thing that's worse than being an asshole in the first place, and it stops us from knowing ourselves. When Lawrence writes that Arabs are incapable of seeing shades of grey, only being capable of seeing black and white, thus 'despising doubt, our modern crown of thorns', it tells us so little about Arabs but so much about us.
But when it comes to cultural documents I sit around and read, keep your doubtless clever-ish post-war reinterpretations of everything, and give me a raging Oxbridge maso-queen who thought of women as 'raddled meat' and of Arabs as a society of lazy gorgeous dreaming males whose limbs quivered when they sexlessly, hygienically fucked each other in the sand.
Long way about of saying that so far The Seven Pillars of Wisdom is an absolute lark. I don't know how long I'll continue with it though. 600 more pages to go, when there are so many other books in the world. . . And the bulk of my fascination with it is of the sort I feel when I'm listening to a sauced Englishman blathering about ethnic groups without any restraint borne of modesty or cultural relativism - I can enjoy it for an evening, and after that he's just another liquor-soaked twat who might as well be talking about football teams, and who thinks, if he thinks at all, that post-modernism is a communist tool to rob him of all credibility.
In that blathery sense The Seven Pillars of Wisdom is even better than my old favourite Wilfrid Thesinger - another of those hygienic, 'sexless' types who dug young Arabs and who had an enjoyably terse, funny writing style - because Thesinger seemed to have tried his best to become one of them (living for a long time with the Marsh Arabs in Iraq, who did badly under Saddam Hussein). Whereas, in his writing at least, Lawrence is so awfully English and the Arabs - not to mention the Turks and Jews - are so awfully not. I don't know if he loved them - he's certainly rather crueler than Thesinger about them - and so far he gives the impression that everything good they did was more or less an accident until he came along.
The thing is, books like Seven Pillars are the story of me, of us, as western Anglophones (nobody else reads this blog, do they?) - our identity documents. Post-modernist or not, I can't understand being impatient with or dismissive of these texts or the general Dead White Male canon, or primary sources in general. Incomplete, maybe; but meaningless? Certainly not! We can't invent a post-modernist past when we have such a profoundly pre-modernist history; we can't be revisionists; that's the only thing that's worse than being an asshole in the first place, and it stops us from knowing ourselves. When Lawrence writes that Arabs are incapable of seeing shades of grey, only being capable of seeing black and white, thus 'despising doubt, our modern crown of thorns', it tells us so little about Arabs but so much about us.
mercoledì, aprile 09, 2008
The Hormone Factor
Home again, thank goodness. It always shocks me how much I miss the F-word when I'm away. The last couple of days of this trip were rendered even more difficult by the onset of ovulation in a male-dominated environment - all these industrial conferences are just swarming man pits. High point of my estrogen-fuelled confusion was the mid-conference 'dinner-in-the-offsite-swanky-restaurant' event, when I was seated next to this attractive west-coast type I'd just met:
West-coast type: So what is it specifically that you do?
Mistress La Spliffe: I'm sorry, did you just ask me what it is I'd like to tell you to do?
Honestly, I totally thought that was what he'd said.
In the end it was a great event - I really enjoyed myself. The city was goddamn magical. And I think I have hit on a way of being social and networky at these events that doesn't make me feel like a massive corporate whore - using Elvis's old trick of being interested works really well; all these people are interesting, as long as I figure out how. Met some very nice people indeed. And had a little time to read, though the hotel's lovely spa seriously ate into my personal brain time. Also all the waiting around in aeroports was done with co-workers - a new and luckily pleasant experience for me. But on the plane ride there, I read Jamaica Inn; I played a bit of hooky during one of the sessions and read The Human Factor; and on the plane ride back, I read the first hundred pages or so of The Seven Pillars of Wisdom.
Not as much time as I'd like to write about them this morning, but must say that The Human Factor is fucking awesome, as close to perfect as any novel I can think of offhand, from the first sentence to the last. I was very fond, as I wrote, of The Quiet American (fantastic narration) and less fond of The Power and the Glory (some good guilt but too much English-dagoishness); The Human Factor is quite different from those. It deals with duty and culpability in a more - adult? - way perhaps, in a less guilty, Catholic way. . . it's hard to say what I mean.
In all three books there's a sort of running thread of the inevitability of guilt and duty, but in The Human Factor it's as though the inevitability has overwhelmed the guilt almost completely. There's something more tired or resigned about it. When I have some downtime today I'll be interested to see when he wrote each. The Human Factor seems more like a book an old man would write and Maurice Castle seems more like an old man's hero. Top notch.
West-coast type: So what is it specifically that you do?
Mistress La Spliffe: I'm sorry, did you just ask me what it is I'd like to tell you to do?
Honestly, I totally thought that was what he'd said.
In the end it was a great event - I really enjoyed myself. The city was goddamn magical. And I think I have hit on a way of being social and networky at these events that doesn't make me feel like a massive corporate whore - using Elvis's old trick of being interested works really well; all these people are interesting, as long as I figure out how. Met some very nice people indeed. And had a little time to read, though the hotel's lovely spa seriously ate into my personal brain time. Also all the waiting around in aeroports was done with co-workers - a new and luckily pleasant experience for me. But on the plane ride there, I read Jamaica Inn; I played a bit of hooky during one of the sessions and read The Human Factor; and on the plane ride back, I read the first hundred pages or so of The Seven Pillars of Wisdom.
Not as much time as I'd like to write about them this morning, but must say that The Human Factor is fucking awesome, as close to perfect as any novel I can think of offhand, from the first sentence to the last. I was very fond, as I wrote, of The Quiet American (fantastic narration) and less fond of The Power and the Glory (some good guilt but too much English-dagoishness); The Human Factor is quite different from those. It deals with duty and culpability in a more - adult? - way perhaps, in a less guilty, Catholic way. . . it's hard to say what I mean.
In all three books there's a sort of running thread of the inevitability of guilt and duty, but in The Human Factor it's as though the inevitability has overwhelmed the guilt almost completely. There's something more tired or resigned about it. When I have some downtime today I'll be interested to see when he wrote each. The Human Factor seems more like a book an old man would write and Maurice Castle seems more like an old man's hero. Top notch.
martedì, aprile 08, 2008
Briefly
I am a networking, gladhanding, business card throwing machine. It's worse for your brain than ecstacy.
lunedì, aprile 07, 2008
Lisbon is a pretty great city. It makes me think of southern Italy without the utter hopelessness, stifling sexism, and filth. Before moving into to a hotel so swanky that the bathrooms in the double rooms have glass walls so you can watch your partner do their business (only the swanky are that pervy, I find), I was staying in a great non-swanky hotel in the Barrio Alto, where people offer you drugs and what feels like the whole city drinks and laughs and chats all night. Lovely. Good to get in that sort of quality time with a couple of my co-workers too, although I forebore to buy drugs in front of them. Must keep some mystique.
But this place is great - cheap, friendly, fun, and really really beautiful in a sun-baked way - and really full of the feeling that everything has been rough but is going to get better and better. Not like the south of Italy. This place feels both more cynical and more optimistic, somehow. Also very different are the women. Much, much more independent than in the south of Italy. Chicken-and-egg question - is that because the men are so much less insufferable? They smile and look up and down instead of catcalling and getting in your fucking way, as in Italy. God, Italian men. But that's a rant for another time. The important thing is it's been war menough for the construction workers here to not wear tps and that's awesome.
But this place is great - cheap, friendly, fun, and really really beautiful in a sun-baked way - and really full of the feeling that everything has been rough but is going to get better and better. Not like the south of Italy. This place feels both more cynical and more optimistic, somehow. Also very different are the women. Much, much more independent than in the south of Italy. Chicken-and-egg question - is that because the men are so much less insufferable? They smile and look up and down instead of catcalling and getting in your fucking way, as in Italy. God, Italian men. But that's a rant for another time. The important thing is it's been war menough for the construction workers here to not wear tps and that's awesome.
giovedì, aprile 03, 2008
Tabula rasa
I've figured out one of the reasons I like Weeds so much - I have a bit of a jones for the actor who plays Nancy's dead husband. Possibly because his more extended appearances on the series to date are two emotionally affecting nooky scenes. Emotionally affecting nooky rocks.
Massively disliking medical drama for reasons I've never fully analyzed, Grey's Anatomy seems like everything I hate about television, but I have seen that actor appear on that show. Absolutely fucked if I can remember where or when. Possibly at the house of a friend who liked Grey's Anatomy, possibly just when flipping channels during a television binge whilst housesitting or visiting North Bay . . . who knows . . . but I remember seeing him, realizing from the Sandra Oh (who is Canadian and respectable because of that movie she did ages ago with Callum Keith Rennie that I liked) that I was watching Grey's Anatomy, and nonetheless forebearing to look away from the television because of how compelling this man was.
I didn't know his character's background, but it got clear fast that he was dying whilst striking up a love connection with the skinny blonde doctor. Puke. And yet I couldn't look away; I believe I watched until the end of the episode. This man is perfect for a certain kind of romantic pathos, which came home to me when I realized he also plays Nancy's dead husband. I think it's because he looks really good, but doesn't look so remarkable that you, or rather me, or rather one, can't transpose one's own emotional sympathies onto him by wondering exactly how shitty it would be if one fell in love with someone who was going to die in a few weeks, or what one would do if your hot husband suddenly expired whilst jogging, leaving you with a huge mortgage, no insurance, not enough batteries for the vibrator, and neighbours who liked weed.
And this sets me to wondering: is this the formula for Hollywood hotness? Looking really good, but not so remarkable, so that they can serve as a blank slate, in a sense, for all the ladies' fantasies and fears and whatnot, so that they can suspend their disbelief as you tell an emotionally devastating tale? Because if I think of the most remarkably gorgeous men who have ever seared my corneas, they have usually been men who I've seen in the flesh or else whose show business careers never quite translate from their stardom in their own country to stardom in the Anglophone world. Easily the most beautiful man I've ever borne witness to was Reinaldo de Souza, a Brazilian dancer I used to teach, who I've struggled to describe here. I haven't been to Brazil but in my dreams it's a place where one in fifty men looks almost that good - I mean, all indications do point to it being a country bursting at the seams with remarkable hotness. And I suppose the most remarkably beautiful man who I've ever seen on film that I can think of this morning is Olivier Martinez, who is only famous for Anglophones now because Kylie Minogue had the aesthetic good sense to date him.
But you take Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Matt Fucking Damon, for heaven's sake . . . if you saw them walking down the street and there were clothes covering those expensive, gym-sculpted bodies, would you look twice? Honestly? Unless you were ovulating and looking at everything twice? Or . . . unless they were 'acting' in a movie with a storyline that played to your most sensitive, archetypes, let's call them? Is this why I'm so into Nancy's dead husband? Or is it his laughing yet sad spaniel eyes? Don't know. Either way:
Puke. Internet television has drawn me in again.
mercoledì, aprile 02, 2008
Weeded
So the F-word has gone on vacation with some friends in Switzerland, which I couldn't join them on due to my approaching trip to Portugal, which means I have a couple of evenings to myself. And what did I do with my evening last night? Catch up on my reading? Corresponding? Calling? Cleaning? Anything? No. Got dangerously high and watched Weeds. As I wrote previously, it had made a good impression on me, but less so on the F-word, so we haven't been watching any more of it - I mean we have sites that stream the Simpsons now, and Four Corners, and stuff. I love the Internet.
Certainly can't argue with the F-word for not being crazy about Weeds. It is a bit silly - certainly in terms of storylines it's hard to maintain suspension of the old disbelief (which is why me smoking the reefer is essential) and every time Kevin Nealon opens his mouth I know I'm more likely to groan than giggle. And as always the product placement annoys me and blah blah blah. But I have a real attachment to the lead character, played by, uhm, that pale chick with the big eyes - you know, Nancy - and to her bitchy friend Celia.
Despite the reefer being essential for the watching, it isn't the reefery subject of the show that has hooked me; I just really like its exploration of suburban life in the States. The reefer in the show just sets up a nice contrast between public and 'secret' personalities that aren't secret. Obviously I don't know anything about suburbs in the States, and hardly know anything about suburbs in Canada, and the consequence of not knowing anything about it is that I can watch Weeds and go 'ooooo, PTA meetings? Range Rovers? Cookie-cutter houses and neighbours you don't like? You have all that money and you spend it on that?', and then get some explanation of it from throwaway lines. Like when Nancy's brother-in-law was trying to get into the pants of his nephew's friend's mum, and telling her he sympathized with her horrible plight living in that suburb where everybody was all emotionally isolated from each other, etc., and she dismissed it by saying 'you do it for the kids.'
I can understand that, I suppose. My own middle-class family used the 'ex. geographically isolated city w. <100,000 inhabitants' strategy to let us grow up in a place where we could run around without being hit by cars - besides Elvis, of course, it was like the poor guy was carrying around an industrial magnet in his pocket. I don't think my parents were so unwise to go for that formula. I was so fucking cripplingly bored in North Bay that I thought to myself I'd never do that to my own children - and I won't. But now the F-word and I are considering eventually moving to an even smaller, more isolated city, in fuckin' Australia. I figure that the sub-tropical weather should make a big difference to the boringness, though. We'll see.
Certainly can't argue with the F-word for not being crazy about Weeds. It is a bit silly - certainly in terms of storylines it's hard to maintain suspension of the old disbelief (which is why me smoking the reefer is essential) and every time Kevin Nealon opens his mouth I know I'm more likely to groan than giggle. And as always the product placement annoys me and blah blah blah. But I have a real attachment to the lead character, played by, uhm, that pale chick with the big eyes - you know, Nancy - and to her bitchy friend Celia.
Despite the reefer being essential for the watching, it isn't the reefery subject of the show that has hooked me; I just really like its exploration of suburban life in the States. The reefer in the show just sets up a nice contrast between public and 'secret' personalities that aren't secret. Obviously I don't know anything about suburbs in the States, and hardly know anything about suburbs in Canada, and the consequence of not knowing anything about it is that I can watch Weeds and go 'ooooo, PTA meetings? Range Rovers? Cookie-cutter houses and neighbours you don't like? You have all that money and you spend it on that?', and then get some explanation of it from throwaway lines. Like when Nancy's brother-in-law was trying to get into the pants of his nephew's friend's mum, and telling her he sympathized with her horrible plight living in that suburb where everybody was all emotionally isolated from each other, etc., and she dismissed it by saying 'you do it for the kids.'
I can understand that, I suppose. My own middle-class family used the 'ex. geographically isolated city w. <100,000 inhabitants' strategy to let us grow up in a place where we could run around without being hit by cars - besides Elvis, of course, it was like the poor guy was carrying around an industrial magnet in his pocket. I don't think my parents were so unwise to go for that formula. I was so fucking cripplingly bored in North Bay that I thought to myself I'd never do that to my own children - and I won't. But now the F-word and I are considering eventually moving to an even smaller, more isolated city, in fuckin' Australia. I figure that the sub-tropical weather should make a big difference to the boringness, though. We'll see.
martedì, aprile 01, 2008
Dreck in the City
I am slowly figuring out that some of my friends are a pain in my ass (if you're reading this, it's not you - I know who you are!). Friendship is an odd thing, and the love of friends is a lovely thing, but, well . . .
A brief story about Bluebeard. To the average observer Bluebeard was the perfect boyfriend. Gorgeous, rich, charming, attentive, affectionate . . . he was also Bluebeard. My friends loved him and, while I blame myself for everything, obviously, the fact that some of them advised me in very explicit language to keep my claws in there no matter what happened helped encourage me to keep my claws in there no matter what happened. Bluebeard was Bluebeard, but it could all have been done so much better on my end.
Since then I've had a hard time paying any attention at all to anything any of my friends say in terms of advice. Bad and opposite reaction but I do feel that finally one can't take emotional advice from friends. Even the sort of mental health care professionals that I go in for couch their emotional advice in non-advising and extremely personal terms.
Fine. Since coming to that conclusion, friends have no longer been pains in my ass, until recently, and recently only in selective situations. The fact is, being absolutely unwilling to take emotional advice, I'm very uncomfortable giving it. I have a few friends whose whole thing right now is asking for emotional advice. And you know how it feels? It feels like they're trying to vampire emotional advice or attention or something out of me. I'm not talking 'my job makes me stressed, what should I do?' sort of situations; I'm talking personal personal stuff, and not just for one evening over too many drinks, but over days, weeks, months.
I blame Sex and the City. Fuck, I hate that show.
A brief story about Bluebeard. To the average observer Bluebeard was the perfect boyfriend. Gorgeous, rich, charming, attentive, affectionate . . . he was also Bluebeard. My friends loved him and, while I blame myself for everything, obviously, the fact that some of them advised me in very explicit language to keep my claws in there no matter what happened helped encourage me to keep my claws in there no matter what happened. Bluebeard was Bluebeard, but it could all have been done so much better on my end.
Since then I've had a hard time paying any attention at all to anything any of my friends say in terms of advice. Bad and opposite reaction but I do feel that finally one can't take emotional advice from friends. Even the sort of mental health care professionals that I go in for couch their emotional advice in non-advising and extremely personal terms.
Fine. Since coming to that conclusion, friends have no longer been pains in my ass, until recently, and recently only in selective situations. The fact is, being absolutely unwilling to take emotional advice, I'm very uncomfortable giving it. I have a few friends whose whole thing right now is asking for emotional advice. And you know how it feels? It feels like they're trying to vampire emotional advice or attention or something out of me. I'm not talking 'my job makes me stressed, what should I do?' sort of situations; I'm talking personal personal stuff, and not just for one evening over too many drinks, but over days, weeks, months.
I blame Sex and the City. Fuck, I hate that show.
lunedì, marzo 31, 2008
Pizza and satanic pacts
Last night the F-word made pizza, in the sense that he made the crust and everything, and it was so good. God, he's awesome. And then we watched Faust from 1926. It was German so you could see naked tits and kissing in it. All that aside, and this is not just the reefer or pretentiousness talking, it's amazing how well it's stood up. The guy who plays Young Faust is not so much fun to look at, of course, and has had a few too many bratwurst to be as pretty as he should be, but otherwise it was jolly fun to look at. Mephisto was a right creep-o.
It might have been more annoying if it wasn't a silent movie; the actors were pouncing around like they were on stage, which turned out to be appropriate in a silent movie, but if I'd had to hear their great stagey shouts perhaps it would have been worse. I wonder. It must have been a whole, odd industry back then - writing the musical score for silent movies; something much more involved than now when the producers just rent a bunch of crap and it's so remarkable when they manage to get the music more or less right, as in Inland Empire.
Composers must be sad that scores are no longer so important. Now they have to be pretentious and get grants and things. Too bad. I probably would have quite liked Philip Glass if all he did with his unremitting repetitive rhythms was use them to do things like the Dracula score.
It might have been more annoying if it wasn't a silent movie; the actors were pouncing around like they were on stage, which turned out to be appropriate in a silent movie, but if I'd had to hear their great stagey shouts perhaps it would have been worse. I wonder. It must have been a whole, odd industry back then - writing the musical score for silent movies; something much more involved than now when the producers just rent a bunch of crap and it's so remarkable when they manage to get the music more or less right, as in Inland Empire.
Composers must be sad that scores are no longer so important. Now they have to be pretentious and get grants and things. Too bad. I probably would have quite liked Philip Glass if all he did with his unremitting repetitive rhythms was use them to do things like the Dracula score.
domenica, marzo 30, 2008
Daphne Du Maurier vs. the Red Dragon
This was a good weekend - put lots of things in perspective and refreshed my aching brain, made the future more welcoming. Next weekend will be in Portugal. Oh yay. Between times read My Cousin Rachel, another of the Daphne Du Maurier novels my boss loaned to me. I have a very naughty habit of always reading the last page of a novel before I finish the first chapter, and what I like about the stings in Rebecca's tail and this book's tail is that the last page doesn't give anything away. In any case, the twists are the right kind - what you're expecting to a degree, and then also what you're not expecting to a degree, and the reactions to the twist are completely surprising.
Generally, what I liked about Rebecca I liked in My Cousin Rachel too. Certainly not the best written books in the world - some parts needed more trimming than they got - but great pacing otherwise. And the narrative voices of both were great portraits in human weakness and paranoia. Rebecca was stronger in that respect, but the portrait in My Cousin Rachel was more interesting.
Very interesting portrayal of sexuality in both books. I've had a bit of enough of Daphne Du Maurier - I compared Rebecca to roast beef a couple of entries ago, and I'm starting to get leadbelly from all her stodginess; thank god I have those nice astringent Bruce Chatwins waiting in the wings to play the part of the watermelon. But the sexual content alone is enough to make the next book I hit up the last one loaned to me by my boss, Jamaica Inn. There was something that the narrators of Rebecca and My Cousin Rachel had in common - a sort of dismissal of sex and sexuality, a kind of obliviousness to it even when they were having it (very subtly) which is juxtaposed with comparatively extremely highly sexy characters who, in a sense, both cavort to their destruction. But then, the destiny of the two sexual retards is not so glowing either, quite the opposite in fact, so there's no suggestion of some sort of morality tale.
Generally, what I liked about Rebecca I liked in My Cousin Rachel too. Certainly not the best written books in the world - some parts needed more trimming than they got - but great pacing otherwise. And the narrative voices of both were great portraits in human weakness and paranoia. Rebecca was stronger in that respect, but the portrait in My Cousin Rachel was more interesting.
Very interesting portrayal of sexuality in both books. I've had a bit of enough of Daphne Du Maurier - I compared Rebecca to roast beef a couple of entries ago, and I'm starting to get leadbelly from all her stodginess; thank god I have those nice astringent Bruce Chatwins waiting in the wings to play the part of the watermelon. But the sexual content alone is enough to make the next book I hit up the last one loaned to me by my boss, Jamaica Inn. There was something that the narrators of Rebecca and My Cousin Rachel had in common - a sort of dismissal of sex and sexuality, a kind of obliviousness to it even when they were having it (very subtly) which is juxtaposed with comparatively extremely highly sexy characters who, in a sense, both cavort to their destruction. But then, the destiny of the two sexual retards is not so glowing either, quite the opposite in fact, so there's no suggestion of some sort of morality tale.
venerdì, marzo 28, 2008
The Red Dragon complains about the classics
I think South Park might be dead. I watched 'Tonsil Trouble' and was shocked that the only funny bit was the 'Are you sure?' - 'Yes - I'm HIV positive' exchange, which was then played upon until it wasn't even stupid anymore - just a time-eater. . . I don't know what the writing relationship is between Trey Parker and Matt Stone, but from the things I've seen that were written by Trey Parker versus things that were written by both, I'm guessing it has something to do with Matt Stone saying 'okay, that was funny. Now do something else.' The F-word used half an hour of his valuable vacation time to watch the next episode, which was about Britney Spears, and said it was even worse. Sigh. Pretty topical there, guys. BTW, saw Cannibal! The Musical, their student film, awhile ago. Exactly two laughs in 90 or so minutes, but very good ones.
Saw the rest of Rebecca and it was still pretty good, but not as good as I'd hoped. Leaving Wife No° 2 at Manderley during the visit to Doctor Baker so you could end on a note of suspense and a relieved kiss, instead of closing with the much bleaker car ride, which Laurence Olivier would have done SO WELL - ah shit, it's a pity, is all. Worse, the fucking Hays Code fucked it up - if her death was an accident, half of the emotional interest in the leads goes away. The Hays Code - what a thing. I've always believed that the second recording on every new audiovisual technology is either the inventor saying a naughty word or getting in a visual of someone naked - just one of those things we do, like using a dictionary to look up naughty words as soon as we learn to read. And the Hays Code thrashed back against that instinct so violently for so many years, in the process ruining countless excellent movies. And people still went to see them. How funny! There was simply nothing else.
Saw the rest of Rebecca and it was still pretty good, but not as good as I'd hoped. Leaving Wife No° 2 at Manderley during the visit to Doctor Baker so you could end on a note of suspense and a relieved kiss, instead of closing with the much bleaker car ride, which Laurence Olivier would have done SO WELL - ah shit, it's a pity, is all. Worse, the fucking Hays Code fucked it up - if her death was an accident, half of the emotional interest in the leads goes away. The Hays Code - what a thing. I've always believed that the second recording on every new audiovisual technology is either the inventor saying a naughty word or getting in a visual of someone naked - just one of those things we do, like using a dictionary to look up naughty words as soon as we learn to read. And the Hays Code thrashed back against that instinct so violently for so many years, in the process ruining countless excellent movies. And people still went to see them. How funny! There was simply nothing else.
mercoledì, marzo 26, 2008
The Red Dragon doesn't like extended apologies
Last night an American asked me what part of the States I was from, and he was so embarrassed when I said I was from Canada. It was the embarrassment that made it hard to take. Otherwise, I would have forgotten all about it as I was very high; and let's face it, people from my part of Canada talk like they're from Fargo and Fargo is an American movie, so it's confusing, I understand. But because the poor guy couldn't let it go and was so profuse in his apologies, it rankled a bit as it gave me time to ask myself 'hey, yeah. What part of the States are you from? What kind of a fucking question is that? Not even French people so far up their own assholes that they'll ask what part of France francophones are from' before the whole episode could disappear into billowing clouds of too-strong marijuana. But this guy had just spent the last several months in the Congo and Uganda trying to bring peace to the region so I'll get over it, I'm sure.
Moving on. Got home from getting reefer last night and started watching Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca, with Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, and Judith Anderson being awesome, and Laurence Olivier being stinking gorgeous. When he came out of his dressing room in his housecoat, I nearly fell out of my clothes. Had only watched about half the movie when the F-word arrived home - painful! Because didn't want to ruin it for him. It remains to be seen how it deal with the sensitive bits towards the end but so far this is my favourite Alfred Hitchcock movie. However, I haven't seen all that many, and my favourite had previously been Topaz (if I imagine it with the 'aeroplane' ending) which apparently I am 100% alone in enjoying so much, and certainly in preferring to Saboteur, Rear Window, Vertigo, and The Birds, all of which I thought were at least a little lame.
And now my boss has also lent me My Cousin Rachel and Jamaica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier, and I'm so happy. Okay - Rebecca wasn't the best book in the world - isn't even the best Jane Eyre spinoff in the world (Wide Sargasso Sea is better). But it was a fantastic book to just sink your teeth into and rip through - a real roast beef of a novel, filling and satisfying, so I can't wait for the next ones. Between those two books and the Bruce Chatwins I'm looking forward to all the miserable waiting around in aeroports next Friday - if they make it that long - I have a feeling at least one or two will have to be read before then.
Moving on. Got home from getting reefer last night and started watching Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca, with Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, and Judith Anderson being awesome, and Laurence Olivier being stinking gorgeous. When he came out of his dressing room in his housecoat, I nearly fell out of my clothes. Had only watched about half the movie when the F-word arrived home - painful! Because didn't want to ruin it for him. It remains to be seen how it deal with the sensitive bits towards the end but so far this is my favourite Alfred Hitchcock movie. However, I haven't seen all that many, and my favourite had previously been Topaz (if I imagine it with the 'aeroplane' ending) which apparently I am 100% alone in enjoying so much, and certainly in preferring to Saboteur, Rear Window, Vertigo, and The Birds, all of which I thought were at least a little lame.
And now my boss has also lent me My Cousin Rachel and Jamaica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier, and I'm so happy. Okay - Rebecca wasn't the best book in the world - isn't even the best Jane Eyre spinoff in the world (Wide Sargasso Sea is better). But it was a fantastic book to just sink your teeth into and rip through - a real roast beef of a novel, filling and satisfying, so I can't wait for the next ones. Between those two books and the Bruce Chatwins I'm looking forward to all the miserable waiting around in aeroports next Friday - if they make it that long - I have a feeling at least one or two will have to be read before then.
martedì, marzo 25, 2008
I'm glad I came but just the same I must be going
Now that the last bit of retardation at work has been sorted out, I'm looking forward with baited breath to my trip to Lisbon. Only two of the five days I'm there will demand actual work and that work will mostly involve getting companionably drunk. I enjoyed being in Portugal so much last time - the sun, the frozen drinks, the delicious, delicious, delicious food . . .
I need a thing like this to help me relax; I've hit a point of tension. Luckily the F-word understands, as do several other people, but not everyone does - been getting pissy emails about why I don't call, why I don't email, and they make me want to hit the roof as they're always from people whose lifestyles have less stress built into them. Do they think I like being busy? Do they think I wouldn't rather be being a better friend, and then sitting in a park in a much warmer, sunnier country, smoking a spliff and reading the Bruce Chatwin novel that I've been slowly stumbling through every night before falling into a deep, deep slumber, punctuated only by dreams of bizarre sexual combinations, positions, and locations?
Last night, for example, I dreamt I was sitting in a park watching television with about 200 other people, mostly exchange students at the school I was attending. I thought there was something wrong with the hedges behind the set, so I got up, checked, and saw two Russian couples, one boy-on-boy, the other boy-on-boyish-but-female-little-person.
"Can you please go fuck over there?" I said, pointing to the forest behind where the 200 people were sitting to watch the television. "When you do it behind the TV it's distracting. Also, if you face it from the forest, that way you can fuck and watch TV."
"Liz Phair!" shouted the little person.
"I wanted to like her, but I didn't," I said glumly.
"That's what I like about Canadians," said the man who had been fucking the little person. "They always say what they mean."
"I wish," I said even more glumly. And everybody laughed.
It's times like this I miss my analyst.
I need a thing like this to help me relax; I've hit a point of tension. Luckily the F-word understands, as do several other people, but not everyone does - been getting pissy emails about why I don't call, why I don't email, and they make me want to hit the roof as they're always from people whose lifestyles have less stress built into them. Do they think I like being busy? Do they think I wouldn't rather be being a better friend, and then sitting in a park in a much warmer, sunnier country, smoking a spliff and reading the Bruce Chatwin novel that I've been slowly stumbling through every night before falling into a deep, deep slumber, punctuated only by dreams of bizarre sexual combinations, positions, and locations?
Last night, for example, I dreamt I was sitting in a park watching television with about 200 other people, mostly exchange students at the school I was attending. I thought there was something wrong with the hedges behind the set, so I got up, checked, and saw two Russian couples, one boy-on-boy, the other boy-on-boyish-but-female-little-person.
"Can you please go fuck over there?" I said, pointing to the forest behind where the 200 people were sitting to watch the television. "When you do it behind the TV it's distracting. Also, if you face it from the forest, that way you can fuck and watch TV."
"Liz Phair!" shouted the little person.
"I wanted to like her, but I didn't," I said glumly.
"That's what I like about Canadians," said the man who had been fucking the little person. "They always say what they mean."
"I wish," I said even more glumly. And everybody laughed.
It's times like this I miss my analyst.
lunedì, marzo 24, 2008
Spoiling Rebecca
Woke up this morning at 6:30 and thought, 'good lord, how bright it is. The days are certainly getting longer. I love springtime. Springtime . . . springtime . . . springtime . . .' Got up to bask in my good mood and saw this:
I hate Belgium. I'm starting to not be sure I can stay here long enough to leave with all the tonnes of money I was planning on leaving with. At least the children and the F-word aren't working this week so they can enjoy the white fluffy bullshit. I know it's beautiful but you know what? It was a lot more beautiful in Canada and it was still one of the reasons I left.
Well, moving on with my fucking existence. This weekend I read Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca, which my boss had lent me. I like her - she has good taste and our department functions better than most at our corporation, which I'm finding out to my unending stress these days. Anyhoo, I read Rebecca and now I'm going to spoil it. If you haven't read it, I suggest you stop reading this and do, because it's definitely worth reading for the suspense. Okay, you've been warned.
I've heard Rebecca was partly inspired by what could measurably be my favourite novel, Jane Eyre. I think 'partly' is putting it mildly. I can see Daphne Du Maurier sitting at her nice little pigeon-holey writing desk, like the one in Mandersley's morning room, asking herself a four part question: "What would Jane Eyre be like if
a) it was moved into the early 20th century
b) Mrs. Rochester was a slutty bitch instead of a slutty lunatic
c) Mr. Rochester was post-Victorian instead of pre-Victorian
d) Jane Eyre was spineless to the point of semi-idiocy?"
And the answer is essentially Rebecca. That's not to knock Rebecca - I liked it. But it is to testify a bit to the greatness of Jane Eyre - that it's rich enough to bear a spin-off like Rebecca, and also like the Wide Sargasso Sea (Mrs. Rochester's post-feminist backstory, a cracking good read as well).
I liked the pacing of Rebecca a lot - there were moments of real tension, real fear; certainly a different style from Jane Eyre, whose heroine-narrator was too strong to communicate panic to us. The nameless narrator of Rebecca was fluttery, ghostly by comparison, and finally, after she finds out about the murder of her predecessor, far less steely in her morality. Nothing bad can happen to Jane Eyre in the end, we think, she's too strong and conscious of her own mind - she knows how to beat back the pre-marital advances of her horndog fiancé without alienating him, and she has the wherewithal to walk away from love and happiness when it will pose to much of a challenge to her fundamental self.
Not Rebecca's narrator. The difference between them is that Jane Eyre breaks and tames her loving, nasty Bluebeard, while Rebecca's narrator is only grateful to be loved by him. So there is much more vulnerability to her, and we read in the anticipation that something fucking horrible is going to happen any second. Especially as the character of Mrs. Danvers, the housekeeper, and the equivalent of Jane Eyre's Mrs. Fairfax, is so venomous and great.
Well, moving on with my fucking existence. This weekend I read Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca, which my boss had lent me. I like her - she has good taste and our department functions better than most at our corporation, which I'm finding out to my unending stress these days. Anyhoo, I read Rebecca and now I'm going to spoil it. If you haven't read it, I suggest you stop reading this and do, because it's definitely worth reading for the suspense. Okay, you've been warned.
I've heard Rebecca was partly inspired by what could measurably be my favourite novel, Jane Eyre. I think 'partly' is putting it mildly. I can see Daphne Du Maurier sitting at her nice little pigeon-holey writing desk, like the one in Mandersley's morning room, asking herself a four part question: "What would Jane Eyre be like if
a) it was moved into the early 20th century
b) Mrs. Rochester was a slutty bitch instead of a slutty lunatic
c) Mr. Rochester was post-Victorian instead of pre-Victorian
d) Jane Eyre was spineless to the point of semi-idiocy?"
And the answer is essentially Rebecca. That's not to knock Rebecca - I liked it. But it is to testify a bit to the greatness of Jane Eyre - that it's rich enough to bear a spin-off like Rebecca, and also like the Wide Sargasso Sea (Mrs. Rochester's post-feminist backstory, a cracking good read as well).
I liked the pacing of Rebecca a lot - there were moments of real tension, real fear; certainly a different style from Jane Eyre, whose heroine-narrator was too strong to communicate panic to us. The nameless narrator of Rebecca was fluttery, ghostly by comparison, and finally, after she finds out about the murder of her predecessor, far less steely in her morality. Nothing bad can happen to Jane Eyre in the end, we think, she's too strong and conscious of her own mind - she knows how to beat back the pre-marital advances of her horndog fiancé without alienating him, and she has the wherewithal to walk away from love and happiness when it will pose to much of a challenge to her fundamental self.
Not Rebecca's narrator. The difference between them is that Jane Eyre breaks and tames her loving, nasty Bluebeard, while Rebecca's narrator is only grateful to be loved by him. So there is much more vulnerability to her, and we read in the anticipation that something fucking horrible is going to happen any second. Especially as the character of Mrs. Danvers, the housekeeper, and the equivalent of Jane Eyre's Mrs. Fairfax, is so venomous and great.
The first born is dead
Feeling Gothic at an almost 14-year-old clip for two reasons: crippling (though short-term)stupidity at work, and the fact that there was a hard nasty frost last night, nipping springtime in the bud. Thank fuck I don't have to go to work today. In the meantime, I'm gonna meme it. I know it's kinda disturbingly referential to ideas I hate about 'cultural evolution', but the Hipster Pit made me do it.
1. I can't believe I've never barbequed stuff.
2. Every time I think about the way I treated everybody during my three-year lost weekend I still cringe. Maybe there's a way to combine hedonism and kindness but I did not find it.
3. I wish I'd thanked Samia for being my personal apparition of the Virgin when I had the chance.
Samia was the woman who lived next to me several years ago, when I was young and tender, and when I had this shitty little mouse-ridden apartment in a shitty building in the second-shittiest neighborhood of the 20th arrondisement of Paris. My flat in its entirety was about 14 square metres. To contextualize that for the imperialists out there, that's the size of a standard entrance hall in a suburban North American home. My bed folded out from a mock chest of drawers. There were only two good things about that shitty place: knowing that there were hundreds of thousands of people in the Île-de-France who were living in shittier places, and the credibility that came with such a lousy address when I was flirting with bobos - 'you living in a neighborhood like that, it's not Betty from Manhattan letting Daddy pay for her flat in the Kart-year Latay. Ha ha ha ha.' Yes. Now give me your marijuana, you smug post-colonial shitheel. God, I hate the French sometimes.
So besides me and Samia, who I think was Algerian, everybody in the building was French blue-collar-to-unemployed, and they all thought Samia was crazy. Not sure why. She was pretty loud and when I was home I could hear her bellowing on the phone in a couple of different languages. She was a cleaner for the SNCF so she worked irregular hours and was liable to phone-bellowing in the wee hours, but I was hardly ever around, so she was fine as far as I was concerned.
One night that I was around, the building next to ours caught fire and we all had to evacuate because there was the risk of explosion and because there were flames shooting out the windows three feet away. While we were waiting for the firemen to say it was safe to return, I turned down an offer to go for a drink with the fat bipolar alcoholic who lived downstairs, who I suspected of beating his wife, and went for a drink with the girl who lived across the hall from him instead.
After that the fat bipolar alcoholic was my sworn enemy, which I found out about a week later when I left the front door of the building unlocked while picking something up from my flat. I heard him quietly cursing, so I called down from my landing that I was on my way right back out. He answered with a torrent of vile abuse - I can't remember what he said but nobody had ever spoken to me like that before, and certainly not at that volume. It was absolutely paralyzing. I stood there on the landing, frozen, trembling, not knowing what to do.
Samia suddenly opened her door and said to me calmly: 'you know he's crazy, right?' I trembled and nodded. 'Are you on your way out?' I continued to tremble and nod, and Samia said, 'I'm going to stand right here. I'm going to stand right here and watch and listen. Don't be afraid. Nothing's going to happen. I'll be right here.' I trembled and nodded some more, and then left, looking back up the stairs halfway down, to see her standing on the landing, saying 'I'm right here.'
So I continued on my way and although the fat bipolar alcoholic remained abusive after that, I didn't pay much attention. And since then generally speaking I've been rather tougher, which is all to the good, considering that I rounded off the 20th arrondisement experience by moving in with Bluebeard, in an equally shitty part of the 18th no less. But for the rest of the time I lived there I would snap at people if they called Samia crazy, and we stopped to talk more, and I gave her a big bunch of flowers that one of the men I really wished I could fuck that year had given me and that made me sneeze.
But in my fishbelly emotional retardation I never found a way to tell her how grateful I was at the way her calm, kind words had stopped me from pissing myself. I hope she knew. I hope she's a millionaire now. I hope only good things happened to her from that point on.
4. I've never felt so out of place as when I was at that last conference and realized that I was in a hall, and an industry, full of goddamn parasitic three-peice suited gangsters. It actually made me miss television execs for a moment.
5. Reading about Heather Mills and the Sarkozyland dramas is my guiltiest pleasure.
6. I hope my parents knows how grateful I am for everything.
7. In my darkest hours, I secretly blame no-account men for my dysfunction.
8. Literacy changed my life forever. As did the first time I clapped eyes on the F-word.
And as part of my personal quest to have the idea of 'memes' permanently abandon the 'memepool' or 'memeplex' or whatever bullshit bullshit social/cultural evolutionists are calling the collective consciousness now, I'm passing this on to no-one. Take that, Richard Dawkins.
1. I can't believe I've never barbequed stuff.
2. Every time I think about the way I treated everybody during my three-year lost weekend I still cringe. Maybe there's a way to combine hedonism and kindness but I did not find it.
3. I wish I'd thanked Samia for being my personal apparition of the Virgin when I had the chance.
Samia was the woman who lived next to me several years ago, when I was young and tender, and when I had this shitty little mouse-ridden apartment in a shitty building in the second-shittiest neighborhood of the 20th arrondisement of Paris. My flat in its entirety was about 14 square metres. To contextualize that for the imperialists out there, that's the size of a standard entrance hall in a suburban North American home. My bed folded out from a mock chest of drawers. There were only two good things about that shitty place: knowing that there were hundreds of thousands of people in the Île-de-France who were living in shittier places, and the credibility that came with such a lousy address when I was flirting with bobos - 'you living in a neighborhood like that, it's not Betty from Manhattan letting Daddy pay for her flat in the Kart-year Latay. Ha ha ha ha.' Yes. Now give me your marijuana, you smug post-colonial shitheel. God, I hate the French sometimes.
So besides me and Samia, who I think was Algerian, everybody in the building was French blue-collar-to-unemployed, and they all thought Samia was crazy. Not sure why. She was pretty loud and when I was home I could hear her bellowing on the phone in a couple of different languages. She was a cleaner for the SNCF so she worked irregular hours and was liable to phone-bellowing in the wee hours, but I was hardly ever around, so she was fine as far as I was concerned.
One night that I was around, the building next to ours caught fire and we all had to evacuate because there was the risk of explosion and because there were flames shooting out the windows three feet away. While we were waiting for the firemen to say it was safe to return, I turned down an offer to go for a drink with the fat bipolar alcoholic who lived downstairs, who I suspected of beating his wife, and went for a drink with the girl who lived across the hall from him instead.
After that the fat bipolar alcoholic was my sworn enemy, which I found out about a week later when I left the front door of the building unlocked while picking something up from my flat. I heard him quietly cursing, so I called down from my landing that I was on my way right back out. He answered with a torrent of vile abuse - I can't remember what he said but nobody had ever spoken to me like that before, and certainly not at that volume. It was absolutely paralyzing. I stood there on the landing, frozen, trembling, not knowing what to do.
Samia suddenly opened her door and said to me calmly: 'you know he's crazy, right?' I trembled and nodded. 'Are you on your way out?' I continued to tremble and nod, and Samia said, 'I'm going to stand right here. I'm going to stand right here and watch and listen. Don't be afraid. Nothing's going to happen. I'll be right here.' I trembled and nodded some more, and then left, looking back up the stairs halfway down, to see her standing on the landing, saying 'I'm right here.'
So I continued on my way and although the fat bipolar alcoholic remained abusive after that, I didn't pay much attention. And since then generally speaking I've been rather tougher, which is all to the good, considering that I rounded off the 20th arrondisement experience by moving in with Bluebeard, in an equally shitty part of the 18th no less. But for the rest of the time I lived there I would snap at people if they called Samia crazy, and we stopped to talk more, and I gave her a big bunch of flowers that one of the men I really wished I could fuck that year had given me and that made me sneeze.
But in my fishbelly emotional retardation I never found a way to tell her how grateful I was at the way her calm, kind words had stopped me from pissing myself. I hope she knew. I hope she's a millionaire now. I hope only good things happened to her from that point on.
4. I've never felt so out of place as when I was at that last conference and realized that I was in a hall, and an industry, full of goddamn parasitic three-peice suited gangsters. It actually made me miss television execs for a moment.
5. Reading about Heather Mills and the Sarkozyland dramas is my guiltiest pleasure.
6. I hope my parents knows how grateful I am for everything.
7. In my darkest hours, I secretly blame no-account men for my dysfunction.
8. Literacy changed my life forever. As did the first time I clapped eyes on the F-word.
And as part of my personal quest to have the idea of 'memes' permanently abandon the 'memepool' or 'memeplex' or whatever bullshit bullshit social/cultural evolutionists are calling the collective consciousness now, I'm passing this on to no-one. Take that, Richard Dawkins.
giovedì, marzo 20, 2008
The death of my favorite litigant-in-person
I was sorry to learn that Paul Scofield died yesterday, adding another item to my list of regretting-I-didn't-dos, namely, that I didn't get to see him act in person. Here follows the rest of the list of things I regret I didn't do:
-See Screamin' Jay Hawkins perform in person
-See Otis Redding perform in person
-Screw that blond guy in York
-Be Serge Gainsbourg's (well-paid) psychoanalyst
-Live in Copenhagen for the year between highschool and undergrad
I think that's about it, these days. The shortness of the list may reflect hubris but probably only reflects the fact that I'm young yet.
And seriously, Paul Scofield as Thomas More in A Man For All Seasons has to be one of the best things ever. The almost ridiculous comparison between that fucking tour de force and Charlton Heston's turn in the 1988 film actually does a latter a favour by making it seem like high comedy - Bright Eyes from Planet of the Apes travelling back in time to Tudor England - instead of just shitty. Also, the Paul Scofield version has one of those entertainment cues that make me cry automatically-like. The point where he tells Wendy Hiller that she must understand why he's doing what he's doing is guaranteed to sqeeze a few tears out of my steely macho eyes. So is:
-'Grandma's Hands' by Bill Withers
-The bit in the Iliad where Hector says bye to Andromache
-The sight of Tom Hanks crying
-The sight of Will Smith crying
-'Try a Little Tenderness' by Otis Redding
-See Screamin' Jay Hawkins perform in person
-See Otis Redding perform in person
-Screw that blond guy in York
-Be Serge Gainsbourg's (well-paid) psychoanalyst
-Live in Copenhagen for the year between highschool and undergrad
I think that's about it, these days. The shortness of the list may reflect hubris but probably only reflects the fact that I'm young yet.
And seriously, Paul Scofield as Thomas More in A Man For All Seasons has to be one of the best things ever. The almost ridiculous comparison between that fucking tour de force and Charlton Heston's turn in the 1988 film actually does a latter a favour by making it seem like high comedy - Bright Eyes from Planet of the Apes travelling back in time to Tudor England - instead of just shitty. Also, the Paul Scofield version has one of those entertainment cues that make me cry automatically-like. The point where he tells Wendy Hiller that she must understand why he's doing what he's doing is guaranteed to sqeeze a few tears out of my steely macho eyes. So is:
-'Grandma's Hands' by Bill Withers
-The bit in the Iliad where Hector says bye to Andromache
-The sight of Tom Hanks crying
-The sight of Will Smith crying
-'Try a Little Tenderness' by Otis Redding
mercoledì, marzo 19, 2008
God Save the Queen (and Us from Ourselves, While You're In a Saving Mood)
Oh, fiddle-dee-dee. Do you mean that British youth didn't spring spontaneously as fully-formed drunken destructive nihilistic assholes from their mothers' wombs, like one of God's more capricious racial punishments in the Old Testament? That perhaps they had adult role models in terms of becoming drunken destructive nihilistic assholes? That perhaps their main fault is being drunken destructive nihilistic assholes in their own cities instead of travelling abroad and subjecting browner people to their charms, like their parents and grandparents?
Dear me. I was all set to buy a Mosquito for our stoop in case any English youths accidentally stumbled on to the Eurostar and blundered their drunken destructive nihilistic assoholic way to my neighborhood, but now it looks as though I'll have to get a gun.
I know I rib on Americans a lot, and the French, and Belgians when it's not Lent (four more days until Easter and I can start again! Wheeeeee!), but the British, that paler, richer half of my genetic and cultural heritage, never fail to fascinate me, nor most other Europeans. While Italians and French content themselves with typical linguistic uncreativity to calling them 'Roast Beefs', Germans have thought up the much more descriptive name 'Inselaffen', or 'Island Monkeys'. Although it only indirectly touches on notions of the British caste system that oppresses its own natives in a way other European countries only oppress browner people that they considered furriners, I feel it sums up to a tee the British notion that there is something subhuman and deeply unaccountable about themselves, as nicely written up in this rant by Philip Hensher.
I'm enjoying the Independent at the moment, by the way, and regretting I didn't switch from the Guardian long, long ago. And the round of being fascinated with the British that I'm currently in sprang from reading another rant in the Independent about how having CCTV cameras everywhere is actually okay. I feel there's something wrong with people being filmed, their movements being recorded, even if it is in public spaces, without certain guarantees about how that footage will be used and kept - deeply wrong. And yet Johann Hari makes a good point. Could he make a good point if he was writing in other countries? I don't know. And hence, the fascination with the British.
Dear me. I was all set to buy a Mosquito for our stoop in case any English youths accidentally stumbled on to the Eurostar and blundered their drunken destructive nihilistic assoholic way to my neighborhood, but now it looks as though I'll have to get a gun.
I know I rib on Americans a lot, and the French, and Belgians when it's not Lent (four more days until Easter and I can start again! Wheeeeee!), but the British, that paler, richer half of my genetic and cultural heritage, never fail to fascinate me, nor most other Europeans. While Italians and French content themselves with typical linguistic uncreativity to calling them 'Roast Beefs', Germans have thought up the much more descriptive name 'Inselaffen', or 'Island Monkeys'. Although it only indirectly touches on notions of the British caste system that oppresses its own natives in a way other European countries only oppress browner people that they considered furriners, I feel it sums up to a tee the British notion that there is something subhuman and deeply unaccountable about themselves, as nicely written up in this rant by Philip Hensher.
I'm enjoying the Independent at the moment, by the way, and regretting I didn't switch from the Guardian long, long ago. And the round of being fascinated with the British that I'm currently in sprang from reading another rant in the Independent about how having CCTV cameras everywhere is actually okay. I feel there's something wrong with people being filmed, their movements being recorded, even if it is in public spaces, without certain guarantees about how that footage will be used and kept - deeply wrong. And yet Johann Hari makes a good point. Could he make a good point if he was writing in other countries? I don't know. And hence, the fascination with the British.
martedì, marzo 18, 2008
Reading television
Last night I finished reading Guns, Germs, and Steel, and then I watched most of it, after Hilts let me know it existed in television form. I know that points to an obsession with the book or with Jared Diamond, but nobody has replaced Steven Mithen in my pop-science affections. The thing is that the F-word is on a huge Russia kick at the moment and about to wade into the Gulag Archipelago, and he reads slowly so he'll be in there forever, but he was jealous that I was reading Guns, Germs, and Steel, so I figured if the documentary was halfway decent it'd get the points across to him without him having to break his Russia run.
Also, I was curious to see how it had been televised. The last documentary vs. pop science book thing I'd experienced was The Root of All Evil? vs. The God Delusion, and while I found a great deal to dislike about both it was interesting to see that the book looked like it had been lifted from the documentary. The book had all the same interviews and subjective Dawkinsian experiences, with a few absolutely unsatisfactory caveats inserted about how pantheistic and polytheistic religions were basically the same as Judeo-Christianity so it was alright that he ignored them - the documentary went to no such trouble. The book was just a tarted-up version of the documentary - a bit counter intuitive, but interesting.
Guns, Germs, and Steel was the more expected opposite; the documentary was certainly a dumbed-down version of the book, to the degree that even though I wasn't crazy about the book I'll still advise the F-word to read it when he gets out of the Gulag. The book was interesting and a little annoying, and the documentary was less interesting and more annoying. The thing is, I have a hard time with the concept of cultural evolution (I think I came to Guns, Germs, and Steel too fast after reading the way way better Full House, by Stephen Gould, a man who was convincingly hostile to applying evolutionary terms to culture) and I think Diamond equated technological advancement with cultural evolution. And I think his eagerness to make that equation made him make mistakes like unnecessarily glossing over things that weakened, though didn't contradict, his big picture, such as the fact that syphilis almost certainly spread from the Americas to Eurasia.
It just wasn't necessary for him to put his arguments in terms of cultural evolution, though I imagine it made the book easier to write, and probably read. It's a simpler, more graspable version of the world, simpler to structure an argument around the central pillar that we're all in a race towards one semi-inevitable destination that any given group of humans would have got to first giving the right tools, but it's also kind of bullshit. All post-modernism aside. It just doesn't make any sense unless you're somehow religious.
The second problem I had with Guns, Germs, and Steel is perhaps a personal failing, but the thing is no pop science writer has ever convinced me that modern hunter gatherers are so easily comparable to prehistoric hunter gatherers. Come on, they're honestly not going to think up any new stories in 60,000 years? Or a different, increasingly useful spirituality? Eat a wider range of foods as they build up social knowledge about what doesn't make you die? Treat each other differently? Can we really compare prehistoric hunter gatherers so unhesitatingly with modern-ish ones just because their technology was similar? I think about the Tasmanians a lot in this context because back in the mists of undergrad anthropology time I studied the tiny bit Europeans wrote down about their religious beliefs before their extinction. The religion was fascinating, and different from the other hunter-gathering populations I was comparing them to. And then there's the massive headfuck of Dreamtime in mainland Australia. I don't know. I just find it hard to believe that the people the Europeans found there were culturally similar to people 60,000 years ago. It just seems like a way to simplify matters and permit yourself to read waaaaay too much into the archaeological record.
Anyhoo. The most interesting thing about watching the documentary back to back with reading the book is the sudden realization that complaints about Jared Diamond and GG&S, as explained in this typically craptastic New York Times article Hilts drew my attention to, are in great part based on the documentary rather than book (that Eurocentricism thing especially), or indirectly based on the sort of notions of innate racial superiority whose debunking was the best part of GG&S - frankly, you can't imply that European choices, rather than geographic determinism, are what let Europeans be so internationally dominant without also implying that innate European superiority is what let Europeans be so dominant. Calling them assholes while you make that connection doesn't make it any less racist.
Also, I agree that he oversimplifies unnescessarily - see above. But at the same time, dude, it's pop science. Yuppies like me read it to relax in the evening, and maybe teenagers read it and it makes them interested enough in anthropology that they study it in university. Great - you've got another enrollment, more funding for your department, and now you can spend the next four years convincing the kid how boring and finicky real anthropology is. Stop looking the gift horse in the mouth, for fuck's sake. But that touches on some future post about what I feel like the role of pop science is and now I have to go meet deadline for an industry magazine that is not pop or science-y at all.
Oh, and by the way:
"No one visits Stonehenge, she noted, and asks whatever happened to the English."
Yes they do, you stupid American fuck. Holy shit, what's wrong with these people? She's a fucking associate professor, for god's sake, and she trots out a fucking moronicity like that for an international newspaper. Jeebus. Fucking. Fuck.
Also, I was curious to see how it had been televised. The last documentary vs. pop science book thing I'd experienced was The Root of All Evil? vs. The God Delusion, and while I found a great deal to dislike about both it was interesting to see that the book looked like it had been lifted from the documentary. The book had all the same interviews and subjective Dawkinsian experiences, with a few absolutely unsatisfactory caveats inserted about how pantheistic and polytheistic religions were basically the same as Judeo-Christianity so it was alright that he ignored them - the documentary went to no such trouble. The book was just a tarted-up version of the documentary - a bit counter intuitive, but interesting.
Guns, Germs, and Steel was the more expected opposite; the documentary was certainly a dumbed-down version of the book, to the degree that even though I wasn't crazy about the book I'll still advise the F-word to read it when he gets out of the Gulag. The book was interesting and a little annoying, and the documentary was less interesting and more annoying. The thing is, I have a hard time with the concept of cultural evolution (I think I came to Guns, Germs, and Steel too fast after reading the way way better Full House, by Stephen Gould, a man who was convincingly hostile to applying evolutionary terms to culture) and I think Diamond equated technological advancement with cultural evolution. And I think his eagerness to make that equation made him make mistakes like unnecessarily glossing over things that weakened, though didn't contradict, his big picture, such as the fact that syphilis almost certainly spread from the Americas to Eurasia.
It just wasn't necessary for him to put his arguments in terms of cultural evolution, though I imagine it made the book easier to write, and probably read. It's a simpler, more graspable version of the world, simpler to structure an argument around the central pillar that we're all in a race towards one semi-inevitable destination that any given group of humans would have got to first giving the right tools, but it's also kind of bullshit. All post-modernism aside. It just doesn't make any sense unless you're somehow religious.
The second problem I had with Guns, Germs, and Steel is perhaps a personal failing, but the thing is no pop science writer has ever convinced me that modern hunter gatherers are so easily comparable to prehistoric hunter gatherers. Come on, they're honestly not going to think up any new stories in 60,000 years? Or a different, increasingly useful spirituality? Eat a wider range of foods as they build up social knowledge about what doesn't make you die? Treat each other differently? Can we really compare prehistoric hunter gatherers so unhesitatingly with modern-ish ones just because their technology was similar? I think about the Tasmanians a lot in this context because back in the mists of undergrad anthropology time I studied the tiny bit Europeans wrote down about their religious beliefs before their extinction. The religion was fascinating, and different from the other hunter-gathering populations I was comparing them to. And then there's the massive headfuck of Dreamtime in mainland Australia. I don't know. I just find it hard to believe that the people the Europeans found there were culturally similar to people 60,000 years ago. It just seems like a way to simplify matters and permit yourself to read waaaaay too much into the archaeological record.
Anyhoo. The most interesting thing about watching the documentary back to back with reading the book is the sudden realization that complaints about Jared Diamond and GG&S, as explained in this typically craptastic New York Times article Hilts drew my attention to, are in great part based on the documentary rather than book (that Eurocentricism thing especially), or indirectly based on the sort of notions of innate racial superiority whose debunking was the best part of GG&S - frankly, you can't imply that European choices, rather than geographic determinism, are what let Europeans be so internationally dominant without also implying that innate European superiority is what let Europeans be so dominant. Calling them assholes while you make that connection doesn't make it any less racist.
Also, I agree that he oversimplifies unnescessarily - see above. But at the same time, dude, it's pop science. Yuppies like me read it to relax in the evening, and maybe teenagers read it and it makes them interested enough in anthropology that they study it in university. Great - you've got another enrollment, more funding for your department, and now you can spend the next four years convincing the kid how boring and finicky real anthropology is. Stop looking the gift horse in the mouth, for fuck's sake. But that touches on some future post about what I feel like the role of pop science is and now I have to go meet deadline for an industry magazine that is not pop or science-y at all.
Oh, and by the way:
"No one visits Stonehenge, she noted, and asks whatever happened to the English."
Yes they do, you stupid American fuck. Holy shit, what's wrong with these people? She's a fucking associate professor, for god's sake, and she trots out a fucking moronicity like that for an international newspaper. Jeebus. Fucking. Fuck.
Cry, the Beloved Penguin
So at the moment I'm reading Guns, Germs, and Steel, as I found it for Euro O.50 at the Oxfam bookshop here. God, I love that bookshop. They have no idea how much Anglos in Brussels would be prepared to pay for books. I should tell them, really, because it all goes to a good cause, but I'm having a hard time giving up the possibility of getting a new copy of Heart of Darkness every time I need one for a mere Euro 0.25.
As far as a book goes I'm not crazy about but it's full of facts that I didn't know and that are so neat. For example, did you know a key barrier to the domestication of the zebra was that, unlike horsies, they can follow the trajectory of a lasso as it sails through the air and then dodge it, so they were almost impossible to catch unharmed? Neat. And of course some of his ideas are also interesting. For example, he goes on a bit about the role of literacy as a way to monopolize rather than simply preserve knowledge - in that one small class is literate, and therefore has access to written information that the illiterate classes can't hope to access reliably or first hand.
That got me thinking about lawyers and about how the legal systems of most countries are so inaccessible to the defendants and accusers who use them. It's rather frightening, the degree to which a largely legally illiterate population trusts its fortunes to a small legal class who we believe has access to all this legal literature and jargon and history we can't possibly understand.
So today I'd like to say bravo to this crazy chick who managed to get £10 million more than her estranged husband was offering even though she sacked her lawyers mid-trial and represented her own fantasistic ass. The outcome probably says more about the clarity of UK divorce laws than about her competence, but nonetheless, what a gutsy move. Now she has £10 million more than she might have had, that she can devote to ruining the livelihood of our East Coast natives, because baby seals are cuter than the Canadian aboriginal population.
Just remember, beeyatch, those cute little pups grow up to eat the cutest animals of all:
As far as a book goes I'm not crazy about but it's full of facts that I didn't know and that are so neat. For example, did you know a key barrier to the domestication of the zebra was that, unlike horsies, they can follow the trajectory of a lasso as it sails through the air and then dodge it, so they were almost impossible to catch unharmed? Neat. And of course some of his ideas are also interesting. For example, he goes on a bit about the role of literacy as a way to monopolize rather than simply preserve knowledge - in that one small class is literate, and therefore has access to written information that the illiterate classes can't hope to access reliably or first hand.
That got me thinking about lawyers and about how the legal systems of most countries are so inaccessible to the defendants and accusers who use them. It's rather frightening, the degree to which a largely legally illiterate population trusts its fortunes to a small legal class who we believe has access to all this legal literature and jargon and history we can't possibly understand.
So today I'd like to say bravo to this crazy chick who managed to get £10 million more than her estranged husband was offering even though she sacked her lawyers mid-trial and represented her own fantasistic ass. The outcome probably says more about the clarity of UK divorce laws than about her competence, but nonetheless, what a gutsy move. Now she has £10 million more than she might have had, that she can devote to ruining the livelihood of our East Coast natives, because baby seals are cuter than the Canadian aboriginal population.
Just remember, beeyatch, those cute little pups grow up to eat the cutest animals of all:
lunedì, marzo 17, 2008
For love or money money money money money money money money money money money
I'm sick. I blame stress; the past two weeks have been fucking busy and life in general busy. Last night I realized that I owe everybody a phone call, visit, or email - that I've been neglecting everything. I suppose I could stop blogging and instead devote that half-hour each morning to being better at keeping in touch, but blogging is a luxury that's become a necessity for me - a place to sneeze out all the crap in my head, that's more optional for other people to read than a communiqué addressed directly to them. It organizes me, brain-wise. And yet, since it's public it doesn't become a self-perpetuating self-examination circle about my relationships or the people I don't like or the things I hate about myself. Because frankly, I'm afraid of boring you all.
Of course there's not much to sneeze out today blog-wise, and there is a strong risk of boring you all, as my cold has crowded all the thoughts out of my brain. Consequently the most exciting thing I can write is that I bought a fantastic super snuggly bathrobe in Düsseldorf last week and this weekend I've been breaking it in, and today I will continue breaking it in - a tough job but it must be done. On the topic of shopping, I'm very excited about the catastrophic plunge of the dollar which looks set to continue as the Fed debates another Super Interest Rate Cut. If this keeps up, I'm buying a fucking MacBook Pro in New York in October! Finally! It means I'll have 'made it', as those things are what yuppies who are scared to drive buy instead of an Audi.
There's talk now about a European interest rate cut to make the euro a little cheaper, and I can definitely understand it. I know from work that the shitty dollar is really hurting some businesses here even as it helps others. The thing is, the European Central Bank is shit-scared of inflation for a reason. In the U.S., and Canada too, inflation hurts old people with savings the most, and nobody in the powerful classes cares about them except in the eight months before a general election. But in Europe, it'd hurt the state coffers the most, as they have social safety nets for the old people, the unemployed, university students, et cetera . . . there's a reason besides wanting to look more competent than those pesky Americans that governments here don't want life to get more expensive. So I think I may indeed get to have my MacBook Pro this fall. Except, of course, I work for a U.S.-based company, and our central accounting is in dollars. Eep. All I can say is thank Jeebus they'd have to fire me in a socialististic country where everybody gets a golden parachute.
You see what I meant in the first paragraph? I don't want to write about how crises in international fiscal policy may or may not lead to me getting a MacBook Pro without people feeling like they don't have to read what I write. Thank you for the airtime, Blogspot.
Of course there's not much to sneeze out today blog-wise, and there is a strong risk of boring you all, as my cold has crowded all the thoughts out of my brain. Consequently the most exciting thing I can write is that I bought a fantastic super snuggly bathrobe in Düsseldorf last week and this weekend I've been breaking it in, and today I will continue breaking it in - a tough job but it must be done. On the topic of shopping, I'm very excited about the catastrophic plunge of the dollar which looks set to continue as the Fed debates another Super Interest Rate Cut. If this keeps up, I'm buying a fucking MacBook Pro in New York in October! Finally! It means I'll have 'made it', as those things are what yuppies who are scared to drive buy instead of an Audi.
There's talk now about a European interest rate cut to make the euro a little cheaper, and I can definitely understand it. I know from work that the shitty dollar is really hurting some businesses here even as it helps others. The thing is, the European Central Bank is shit-scared of inflation for a reason. In the U.S., and Canada too, inflation hurts old people with savings the most, and nobody in the powerful classes cares about them except in the eight months before a general election. But in Europe, it'd hurt the state coffers the most, as they have social safety nets for the old people, the unemployed, university students, et cetera . . . there's a reason besides wanting to look more competent than those pesky Americans that governments here don't want life to get more expensive. So I think I may indeed get to have my MacBook Pro this fall. Except, of course, I work for a U.S.-based company, and our central accounting is in dollars. Eep. All I can say is thank Jeebus they'd have to fire me in a socialististic country where everybody gets a golden parachute.
You see what I meant in the first paragraph? I don't want to write about how crises in international fiscal policy may or may not lead to me getting a MacBook Pro without people feeling like they don't have to read what I write. Thank you for the airtime, Blogspot.
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