January 13, 2005
January 12, 2005
Abomination
When I was watching football last weekend, I saw an advertisement for this hideous thing. I actually yelled out in horror when it came on screen. "Fried egg, crisp bacon, hash brown nuggets, cheese, ketchup and a charbroiled all-beef patty on a sesame-seed bun." I’ve wondered when they would manage to make a sandwich that would incorporate both a cow and a chicken. Every major meat group is represented. It almost seems like a joke, or a test to see just how much Americans will consume. It’s the most sloppily American thing I have ever seen.
Speaking of meat, the Jets won a very cool game and the Mets got Carlos Beltran. I am a happy transplanted NY sports fan. I am a red-blooded American male, but there should be protests against the Breakfast Burger.
January 11, 2005
Links
It doesn’t exactly need mentioning, but I changed the layout of my links. The list was getting way too long. For some people, I didn’t know whether or not to put them as "Writers" or "Blogs." All bloggers are writers to some extent, and a lot of bloggers write other stuff on the side. You don’t need a published book to be a writer. It’s mostly about how people see themselves, and I don’t know how all those bloggers define themselves. I’m probably being too careful. Let me know if any of this makes you want to kill me.
Demons by John Shirley
I dug this book. Somewhere between The Da Vinci Code and Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum (look at me, I figured out how to underline.) The Da Vinci Code is too simplistic while Foucault’s Pendulum is far too academic, even encyclopedic. But I love secret society, spirituality, truth-seeking books. One review called it a mini-masterpiece and I agree with it. Gave me nightmares. Humanity is pretty damned demonic so the cartoonish depiction of demons is not really all that more outlandish than how humans treat each other.
The book is split into two separate novellas, written at different times. I admit that I didn’t finish the second novella. I found myself not liking it and checked the Amazon reviews. Most people said it was tedious compared to the first novella. There’s enough to read without trudging through something. The first novella is worth the price of admission. I linked to John Shirley’s blog on the right to keep tabs on him.
I wrote to John Shirley once, in regards to my other blog, TABOTD. I’ve pretty much abandoned that blog for the time being. I’ve started writing the novel from the beginning. I haven’t thrown anything out, but what’s there is a skeleton. Shirley wrote back a curt reply, "I don’t believe in UFOs," which seemed like a dickhead reply from someone who writes science fiction laced books. He is a good writer, I’ll give him that. I got some pretty cool responses about that blog. Charles Tart, Paul Krassner, and Douglas Rushkoff all wrote back.
I also got David Mitchell’s Number 9 Dream out of the library. I don’t know how far I’m going to make it with this one. It seems like another one of those novels that writes around its subject rather than writing directly. It seems over my head when I want it to be in my head. On page 9 came this sentence: "I act a young man driven by flattery failure into digging a deeper pit." What? Is there a word missing? That’s when I put the novel down. I’m probably not trying hard enough. I checked the reviews on Amazon again and most people said that they loved Mitchell’s writing but couldn’t get through this one. I’m not done with Mitchell by any means. I’d like to try Cloud Atlas or Ghostwritten.
After that I picked up Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. It’s kind of too simplistic in the other direction, but it’s readable. What is it about mainstream, supermarket-type novels that they seem to flow like water and you forget that you’re reading? That’s not always a good thing. I have the same experience with weightier mainstream books like Richard Price’s Freedomland. I’d like to read something by Gaiman so I might just finish this one.
January 10, 2005
Homophobia
I must be a homophobe. As if racial controversy weren’t enough, here comes something else. James from Hot Blog and Relish asked me to put a banner on my site for Love and Protect Life Week with two men sharing a condom. My first reaction was to not want to do it. One, it’s not my style to advertise my support of certain things by wearing ribbons, putting bumper stickers on my car and the like. It feels somewhat related to wearing a brand name like Tommy Hilfiger or Gap emblazoned across your chest--thinking you can be represented by a slogan like "I’m pro-choice and I vote." There’s that great moment from the "Crumb" documentary where R. Crumb is walking around San Francisco and says, "People have become walking advertisements." For some reason, that’s stayed with me most from that movie.
I also was struck with a feeling that homosexuality might creep me out a little bit, somewhere deep that I still can’t avoid. I get uncomfortable when I see two men kissing out in public. But then I thought, I also get uncomfortable when I see a man and a woman kissing in public. It depends how they’re kissing--if it seems like they’re showing off, I get annoyed. Maybe gay men and women are more defensive and self-conscious so it seems like they are parading themselves a bit more. More likely, they are living their lives normally and this has everything to do with my perception. Maybe it’s because gay men tend to find me attractive--I’ve got a boyish thing and look younger than I should--and I’ve been hit on in uncomfortable ways in the past. But then, there’s just as many gay men who find me unattractive and like very masculine men. I have wondered that it must be difficult to maintain a relationship with two men. It’s hard enough maintaining a relationship with one man in a relationship, but men are more aggressive on the whole and two men must lead to some pretty hard fights…
Then I thought I was responding to the anti-gay zeitgeist in America. I have nothing against homosexuality whatsoever. They should get married and have all the rights of anybody else. I remember Dennis Kucinich being asked in a debate, "Should gay people be allowed to marry?" And he answered, quickly, "Of course," with a look of disdain, as if it were obvious--as it should be for every politician. We’re living in the dark ages where gay rights are concerned. Still, it is hard to not feel some pull from the collective will of an entire country. Something that has built up over my 32 years. I have not had many gay friends in my life. But that’s not saying much: I have not had that many friends. More often, I have had omnisexual friends.
Sounds like I’m trying to drum up controversy here, but James sent me an email just as the racial discussion was going on in the "Jung Country" post. This might seem like a lot of bullshit build-up, but no one’s going to argue that I don’t overthink things. Of course, AIDS is a worthy cause and I shouldn’t have hesitated. Happy Love and Protect Life Week :
I also was struck with a feeling that homosexuality might creep me out a little bit, somewhere deep that I still can’t avoid. I get uncomfortable when I see two men kissing out in public. But then I thought, I also get uncomfortable when I see a man and a woman kissing in public. It depends how they’re kissing--if it seems like they’re showing off, I get annoyed. Maybe gay men and women are more defensive and self-conscious so it seems like they are parading themselves a bit more. More likely, they are living their lives normally and this has everything to do with my perception. Maybe it’s because gay men tend to find me attractive--I’ve got a boyish thing and look younger than I should--and I’ve been hit on in uncomfortable ways in the past. But then, there’s just as many gay men who find me unattractive and like very masculine men. I have wondered that it must be difficult to maintain a relationship with two men. It’s hard enough maintaining a relationship with one man in a relationship, but men are more aggressive on the whole and two men must lead to some pretty hard fights…
Then I thought I was responding to the anti-gay zeitgeist in America. I have nothing against homosexuality whatsoever. They should get married and have all the rights of anybody else. I remember Dennis Kucinich being asked in a debate, "Should gay people be allowed to marry?" And he answered, quickly, "Of course," with a look of disdain, as if it were obvious--as it should be for every politician. We’re living in the dark ages where gay rights are concerned. Still, it is hard to not feel some pull from the collective will of an entire country. Something that has built up over my 32 years. I have not had many gay friends in my life. But that’s not saying much: I have not had that many friends. More often, I have had omnisexual friends.
Sounds like I’m trying to drum up controversy here, but James sent me an email just as the racial discussion was going on in the "Jung Country" post. This might seem like a lot of bullshit build-up, but no one’s going to argue that I don’t overthink things. Of course, AIDS is a worthy cause and I shouldn’t have hesitated. Happy Love and Protect Life Week :
January 7, 2005
Blog of the Day
Thanks to Arthur Coddington and the Blog of the Day folks. Crazy to see myself on my Yahoo homepage. All the new people let me know if you like it or hate it here. I’m asking for it.
January 6, 2005
Jung Country
(via Posthuman Blues)
This man writes so I don’t have to. A Jungian analysis of George Bush by Paul Levy. There is something beyond normal bad about George Bush. He represents a general human spiritual and intellectual crisis, best typified by American aggression and basic stupidity. Anyway, let the man talk. From his very long article:
"One good thing I can say about President Bush is that he's gotten me interested in politics. Before he came to office, I was mainly interested in spiritual matters, and considered politics a 'distraction.' There was something playing out through George W. Bush as president, though, that not only caught my attention but strongly triggered something in me. In his campaign he promised us a foreign policy with humility, yet his actions seemed so arrogant, so full of hubris. I sensed a deep underlying incongruity, as if some unfinished psychological process was unconsciously enacting itself through him…The truth now needs to be uttered. George W. Bush is ill. He has a psycho-spiritual dis-ease of the soul, a sickness that is endemic to our culture and symptomatic of the times we live in. It’s an illness that has been with us since time immemorial. Because it’s an illness that's in the soul of all of humanity, it pervades the field and is in all of us in potential at any moment, which makes it especially hard to diagnose…In much the same way that a child's psychology cannot be understood without looking at the family system he or she is a part of, George Bush does not exist in isolation. We can view Bush and his entire Administration (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Ashcroft, Powell, Wolfowitz, etc), as well as the corporate, military industrial complex that they are co-dependently enmeshed with, the media that they control, the voters that support them, and ourselves as well, as interconnected parts of a whole system, or a 'field.' Instead of relating to any part of this field as an isolated entity, it’s important to contemplate the entire interdependent field as the 'medium' though which malignant egophrenia manifests and propagates itself. ME disease is a field phenomenon, and needs to be contemplated as such. Bush's sickness is our own."
This man writes so I don’t have to. A Jungian analysis of George Bush by Paul Levy. There is something beyond normal bad about George Bush. He represents a general human spiritual and intellectual crisis, best typified by American aggression and basic stupidity. Anyway, let the man talk. From his very long article:
"One good thing I can say about President Bush is that he's gotten me interested in politics. Before he came to office, I was mainly interested in spiritual matters, and considered politics a 'distraction.' There was something playing out through George W. Bush as president, though, that not only caught my attention but strongly triggered something in me. In his campaign he promised us a foreign policy with humility, yet his actions seemed so arrogant, so full of hubris. I sensed a deep underlying incongruity, as if some unfinished psychological process was unconsciously enacting itself through him…The truth now needs to be uttered. George W. Bush is ill. He has a psycho-spiritual dis-ease of the soul, a sickness that is endemic to our culture and symptomatic of the times we live in. It’s an illness that has been with us since time immemorial. Because it’s an illness that's in the soul of all of humanity, it pervades the field and is in all of us in potential at any moment, which makes it especially hard to diagnose…In much the same way that a child's psychology cannot be understood without looking at the family system he or she is a part of, George Bush does not exist in isolation. We can view Bush and his entire Administration (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Ashcroft, Powell, Wolfowitz, etc), as well as the corporate, military industrial complex that they are co-dependently enmeshed with, the media that they control, the voters that support them, and ourselves as well, as interconnected parts of a whole system, or a 'field.' Instead of relating to any part of this field as an isolated entity, it’s important to contemplate the entire interdependent field as the 'medium' though which malignant egophrenia manifests and propagates itself. ME disease is a field phenomenon, and needs to be contemplated as such. Bush's sickness is our own."
January 5, 2005
Antiques Roadshow
Watched some of "Antiques Roadshow" last night. It was a greatest hits show where they showed the most valuable antiques. Everything was worth over $100,000. I used to like this show a lot more before I was struck with a form of dirt poverty. If not poverty, then hitting .500 every month. Good for baseball, bad for recreation. Now it’s sort of insulting to see a spoon that’s worth $300,000. It’s nice to see that people appreciate old, well-crafted things, but a spoon shouldn’t be worth more than my life. I admit that I always wish for a big pay-off: I’m American, and I’m slightly disappointed when the number’s low.
But hell, I’m a Communist (in theory). A rug worth $500,000? It’s fine if you want to put it in a museum, but almighty there are people suffering right now and overvaluing a rug seems primitively trivial. In Thailand/Indonesia the problem isn’t about the number of dead, but the number of survivors, people who have lost family. Now children are being raped and sold into slavery from refugee camps. Terrible, incomprehensible, fuck. For those America haters out there, Hitler wasn’t American, Pol Pot wasn’t American. Iraq sucks but it doesn’t actually compare to some of the things that have happened on this planet. Which isn’t a lesson in moral relativity--if it’s not AS bad, it doesn’t matter. Just to suggest that America’s getting most of the blame now, but abuse is not an American problem, it’s a human problem. That’s a pretty patriotic sentiment from someone who thinks America actually is the problem. We are a rich country, we could do a lot more than we are with our money. We have a lot more $300,000 spoons.
On a lighter note, in Paris I used to watch the British version of "Antiques Roadshow," as well as the British version of the show "Trading Spaces." Kids would have their rooms redesigned and call it, "Brilliant." You have to trust a child who says "Brilliant." I also watched a show called "Ready, Steady, Cook" where two cooks are given household food like a can of tuna fish, a potato, and a bottle of ketchup and they compete to make a gourmet meal out of it. I loved that show. They should bring it here. I love watching anything made from scratch. I’ve watched a lot of "This Old House" and cooking shows in my life. Not speaking the language in Paris, I was grateful to hear some English. This led me to watching some very bad American shows. I thought these were shows that were too terrible to make it in the States and so were being given a second life in Europe. I was very surprised when I came back to find that "Ally McBeal" was actually popular.
But hell, I’m a Communist (in theory). A rug worth $500,000? It’s fine if you want to put it in a museum, but almighty there are people suffering right now and overvaluing a rug seems primitively trivial. In Thailand/Indonesia the problem isn’t about the number of dead, but the number of survivors, people who have lost family. Now children are being raped and sold into slavery from refugee camps. Terrible, incomprehensible, fuck. For those America haters out there, Hitler wasn’t American, Pol Pot wasn’t American. Iraq sucks but it doesn’t actually compare to some of the things that have happened on this planet. Which isn’t a lesson in moral relativity--if it’s not AS bad, it doesn’t matter. Just to suggest that America’s getting most of the blame now, but abuse is not an American problem, it’s a human problem. That’s a pretty patriotic sentiment from someone who thinks America actually is the problem. We are a rich country, we could do a lot more than we are with our money. We have a lot more $300,000 spoons.
On a lighter note, in Paris I used to watch the British version of "Antiques Roadshow," as well as the British version of the show "Trading Spaces." Kids would have their rooms redesigned and call it, "Brilliant." You have to trust a child who says "Brilliant." I also watched a show called "Ready, Steady, Cook" where two cooks are given household food like a can of tuna fish, a potato, and a bottle of ketchup and they compete to make a gourmet meal out of it. I loved that show. They should bring it here. I love watching anything made from scratch. I’ve watched a lot of "This Old House" and cooking shows in my life. Not speaking the language in Paris, I was grateful to hear some English. This led me to watching some very bad American shows. I thought these were shows that were too terrible to make it in the States and so were being given a second life in Europe. I was very surprised when I came back to find that "Ally McBeal" was actually popular.
January 4, 2005
Block
This picture used to be on my desktop because I believe in things. UFOs are real, Goddammit. Or as it said on a Minutemen record, "Dreams are real, motherfucker." Maybe that was a Black Flag record. Either way, it was Raymond Pettibon. Last night my daughter picked up an old Black Flag "My War" tape saying "Ringo, Ringo, Ringo," about the little Hitler character with a knife, if you know it. Here it is:
She probably shouldn’t be playing with little Hitler characters. Nice that she has a crush on Ringo Starr.
Anyway, I got nothing. Nothing to write about. No subject. I could write some movie reviews but I don’t wanna. State of the world. No. New Year beginning slowly…All right, I wrote some sentences, I feel better.
January 3, 2005
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