I love this guy. Ever since I discovered him when I was 14, he has provided me with hours of side-splitting laughter. His novels center around either one of two themes: the deconstruction of the national myths or an apocalyptic variation on the Schreber case.
However, it's his essays that I enjoy most. I remember in one of them from the early '70s, he discussed a psychological study that had something to do with the relationship between rich kids and their parents. As a kid who had grown up around some very privileged people, he noted that the focus of the study was absolutely wrong and observed quite wryly. "Psychotherapists seem to know all of the questions, but none of the answers."
In the same essay, he argued that Americans should be encouraged to think more rather than to feel or emote. This is a point he's made in countless other places and he raises it again in this interview:
“Does anyone care what Americans think? They’re the worst-educated people in the First World. They don’t have any thoughts, they have emotional responses, which good advertisers know how to provoke.”
He should have added all we have in America are advertisers and consumers of advertised products. Madison Avenue peddles soap and cars and gadgets, with the same gusto and elan it uses to market political leaders and wars.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Different Voices vs. Conventional Wisdom
I've discovered two different tumblogs, STFU Gays and HomoShame.
Conventional wisdom says that I, as a gay man, should be outraged by these blogs, but actually I'm kind of amused and sympathetic.
I'm amused because I have so little use for what passes as conventional wisdom in the gay community these days. It pushes a political correctness that trumpets diversity so long as this diversity doesn't diverge from its beliefs and thinking.
And I'm sympathetic because conventional wisdom encourages a great many of the flagrant violations of good taste that are so easily lampooned in these blogs. I mean, come on, gay community, if you're going to be sitting ducks, you're going to get shot at.
In other feats of twisted logic, conventional wisdom holds that as a gay person, you're exhibiting self-hatred if you don't want to identify with the heterosexual institutions of marriage and children. Conventional wisdom also seems to maintain that it is good to promulgate hackneyed stereotypes in the public domain because it keeps the heterosexuals comfortable.
I have never subscribed to Conventional Wisdom's newsletter and it's something that I just have no desire to understand. If I were concerned about it, however, maybe I'd be worried that I wasn't straight.
I could leave you with that quote from Voltaire about disagreeing with what you say, etc. But to the owners of these two tumblogs, I just want to say, Rock on.
I could leave you with that quote from Voltaire about disagreeing with what you say, etc. But to the owners of these two tumblogs, I just want to say, Rock on.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Why I don't watch TV
I watched the first 25 minutes or so of SNL tonight and gave up.
The show's writing was like everything else on TV. The commercials are far more cleverly written and entertaining, with better looking performers, than the writing and actors in the actual entertainment. Sad.
And this guy working on the internets had a far better and more accurate spoof of Khadafi at the UN:
I didn't watch it long enough to catch Jenny Slate's F-bomb, but still that's just a big yawn. Who the fuck cares? We hear it every day and in almost any situation. Our ears were deflowered a long time ago. George Carlin's "Seven Little Words" is ancient history. Get with the times, FCC.
The show's writing was like everything else on TV. The commercials are far more cleverly written and entertaining, with better looking performers, than the writing and actors in the actual entertainment. Sad.
And this guy working on the internets had a far better and more accurate spoof of Khadafi at the UN:
I didn't watch it long enough to catch Jenny Slate's F-bomb, but still that's just a big yawn. Who the fuck cares? We hear it every day and in almost any situation. Our ears were deflowered a long time ago. George Carlin's "Seven Little Words" is ancient history. Get with the times, FCC.
Friday, September 25, 2009
From the WTF!? Dept.
Harvard's finances and endowment are in the tank. Google for this if you don't believe me. And yet Harvard's blowing perfectly good money it really doesn't have on this paragon of vacuousness.
Admittedly, I stayed quite stoned throughout the '80s and into the '90s. When I came to, I thought, What's gone on all these years? So I started reading books written by some of the players of the time period.
Perhaps the most repulsive book I encountered was Dame Peggy's What I Saw at the Revolution. She was so condescending when she wrote about the 1984 election and stated that a first time voter could only remember the foibles and impotence of President Carter.
As a first time voter in 1984, I remembered President Carter as the most decent, honest man who had ever sat in the Oval Office in anyone's memory. I also remembered the treachery of the Viet Nam War and the arrogance of Richard Nixon. I had no use for people who wanted to rehabilitate either a pointless war or an obvious crook as good, but misunderstood.
I was also galled how she wanted to simply dismiss the 18th Century Enlightenment as immaterial to our present day country. I couldn't believe a person who would call herself conservative would want to occlude the past so completely.
I was just absolutely amazed at her vapidity and sloppiness. And at the time, I had kind of wished I'd stayed stoned.
I'm still left thinking that when she freaked out over the McGovern Campaign and thought she saw the light, those McGovern supporters should have done Harvard and the rest of us a favor and thrown her underneath the bus.
Admittedly, I stayed quite stoned throughout the '80s and into the '90s. When I came to, I thought, What's gone on all these years? So I started reading books written by some of the players of the time period.
Perhaps the most repulsive book I encountered was Dame Peggy's What I Saw at the Revolution. She was so condescending when she wrote about the 1984 election and stated that a first time voter could only remember the foibles and impotence of President Carter.
As a first time voter in 1984, I remembered President Carter as the most decent, honest man who had ever sat in the Oval Office in anyone's memory. I also remembered the treachery of the Viet Nam War and the arrogance of Richard Nixon. I had no use for people who wanted to rehabilitate either a pointless war or an obvious crook as good, but misunderstood.
I was also galled how she wanted to simply dismiss the 18th Century Enlightenment as immaterial to our present day country. I couldn't believe a person who would call herself conservative would want to occlude the past so completely.
I was just absolutely amazed at her vapidity and sloppiness. And at the time, I had kind of wished I'd stayed stoned.
I'm still left thinking that when she freaked out over the McGovern Campaign and thought she saw the light, those McGovern supporters should have done Harvard and the rest of us a favor and thrown her underneath the bus.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
This was interesting. Actually, the comments were the interesting part. I have no use for Updike and I do like some of the essays I've read by David Foster Wallace. But various twentysomething guys defending their hero by whining like 15 year old girls is not attractive.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Going to the Big City
Today I rode with my uncle as he took my Dad up to the doctor in Indianapolis, about 2 hours from where I live.
For the most part, my uncle is a real straight arrow, but sometime he frightens me. He enjoys driving for long stretches by steering the wheel with his knees. No hands involved.
I've known a few old hippies, who could drive with their knees. They could take a sip off their beer, puff on a cigarette AND simultaneously roll a joint. They were even more frightening than my uncle, but at least they were going to get me stoned.
For the most part, my uncle is a real straight arrow, but sometime he frightens me. He enjoys driving for long stretches by steering the wheel with his knees. No hands involved.
I've known a few old hippies, who could drive with their knees. They could take a sip off their beer, puff on a cigarette AND simultaneously roll a joint. They were even more frightening than my uncle, but at least they were going to get me stoned.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Climate change also causes earthquakes
Last week the Benfield Hazard Research Centre made a presentation, Climate Forcing of Geological and Geomorphological Hazards.
This presentation discusses a whole range of possible seismic and geological events due to climate change. However, I want to focus on one working hypothesis. It holds that glaciers and polar ice caps hold tectonic plates into place. As the ice melts, these plates begin to move around more freely, causing more and more earthquakes.
I first saw this suggestion making the rounds of the environmental websites after the May 2008 earthquake in China. The epicenter was located just over the mountains from the glaciers of the Tibetan Plateau, glaciers that are rapidly disappearing.
What's interesting is that this presentation is not made by a bunch of treehugging hippies or conspiracy theorists. The Benfield Hazard Research Centre is an academic consortium that examines possible risks and income losses for the insurance industry. Chicken Littles and bleeding hearts they are not.
This presentation discusses a whole range of possible seismic and geological events due to climate change. However, I want to focus on one working hypothesis. It holds that glaciers and polar ice caps hold tectonic plates into place. As the ice melts, these plates begin to move around more freely, causing more and more earthquakes.
I first saw this suggestion making the rounds of the environmental websites after the May 2008 earthquake in China. The epicenter was located just over the mountains from the glaciers of the Tibetan Plateau, glaciers that are rapidly disappearing.
What's interesting is that this presentation is not made by a bunch of treehugging hippies or conspiracy theorists. The Benfield Hazard Research Centre is an academic consortium that examines possible risks and income losses for the insurance industry. Chicken Littles and bleeding hearts they are not.
Test Post
I'm bummed.
In the last real job I had for seven years, I drove an average of 100,000 miles a year. I always liked point out to HR that this was the equivalent of circumnavigating the globe at the equator almost 3 1/3 times a year.
I absolutely loved it. I have always loved getting behind the wheel of a car and simply GOING. For me, the need for motion is as elemental and basic as the need to breathe. There's something positively primitive and vital about it, almost the way a hunter-gatherer needs to wonder the landscape simply to stay alive.
But I have not had access to a car since February and I have not been able to drive, so you'll have to understand that I am very bummed.
In the last real job I had for seven years, I drove an average of 100,000 miles a year. I always liked point out to HR that this was the equivalent of circumnavigating the globe at the equator almost 3 1/3 times a year.
I absolutely loved it. I have always loved getting behind the wheel of a car and simply GOING. For me, the need for motion is as elemental and basic as the need to breathe. There's something positively primitive and vital about it, almost the way a hunter-gatherer needs to wonder the landscape simply to stay alive.
But I have not had access to a car since February and I have not been able to drive, so you'll have to understand that I am very bummed.
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