Overworked Muses Fuel Art and Misfires

Image from Iron Orchid's collection of web clip art.

1) Bad modern art? Isn't that almost redundant? You betcha. Australia is not immune. Here's the story of the latest Primavera showcase of works by artists under 35. The problem? Sebastian Smee (a fantastic monikker) says:

I desperately wanted to like this show, but I struggled to find a single work that lifted itself above the standard of competent but cloyingly over-determined Year12 art. It is the sort of work that is just one layer of superficial understanding laid on top of another, none of it relating internally or showing the least sign of deepening.

What is going on here? Reading the obligatory artists' statements in the catalogue is akin to scanning the eyes of an android for signs of personality. "The message I express through my paintings is that short-sighted political policies can be dangerous," says one. "My practice investigates mechanisms of fiction and reality through the mediums of performance, video, painting, installation and photography." "My practice illustrates a cultural past inside the global future."

Who are these artists ventriloquising? I know they are all under 35, but do they not think for themselves? Do they not have any sense of a deeper human complexity, of the whole, hair-raising human predicament? Perhaps they do, but it is nowhere articulated in their art.

Though the subject of the show is entirely painting, Smee indicates there is little artistic stretching either technically or thematically for the timeless versus the topical. There's my peeve in T's.

2) Is the way to make it as a writer to sign up for a new online system such as the Next Big Writer site, where you earn the right to have your work reviewed by reviewing others', and quarterly and annual prizes are awarded including publishing? There is also a membership fee required, which I suppose I understand for such a slick, professional site. Will this catapult someone's writing, giving them the market exposure they need? Will the people who could best sell or buy work have free access to the boards of hoards? Will the reviews offer the kind of critique that help someone get published?

I don't know, but I'll watch the progress with interest. I tend to find good writers' groups must achieve a certain alchemy and not all attempts succeed. In my experience, it's more a matter of temperament and intent for the progress of the work than a matter of style matching. Further, I think discussions about what other group members are trying to do within their own projects and each one's strengths and weaknesses as a reader help create a more fruitful conversation. For example, I have readers who are obsessed with text at the word level while others focus on overarching story structure. I get different, useful things from each, and I don't know if I'd understand what they offer so well if we didn't take the chance to sit and talk a bit.

3) Here's another story from the NYT about a possible path to success: pay to share workspace with other writers, maybe network by the microwave. I felt a keen pang when I read about the guy who just sold his novel to Random House. I'm sure it's good and that he worked diligently on it for a long time, but I'm waiting for an agent to get back to me on my manuscript, and it's making me unattractively sensitive to other people's progress.

On the upside, I was quite worried about a dearth of story ideas about a month ago. I now have three fresh, completely disparate ideas in development, generating actual squiggles on pages, as well as another three that I thought I'd be writing by now but which are not baked enough yet. I don't know if any of them will be good enough when finished that I'll ever see them published, or how I'll ever promote a career based on such a mixed bag of work. Sometimes, I'm especially aware of what a silly vocation this is. How almost useless. Yet and still...

Radical Looks and Gayrods. Happy Friday!

These pictures are all from a Hummer forum (say no more), and I like to think exhibit my point about Item 1. The two guys are Mario Lopez and Mark-Paul Gosselaar (who? Zack!) from Saved by the Bell as well as photoshopped Estrada and Hasselhoff.

I comb through so many blogs and articles for the flotsam that composes my aesthetic collage. I do it to spare you having to wade through all the dreck that I subject myself to just to harvest the juicy, squirming bits. My blogging cycle is accumulate, coagulate, disseminate, do it again.
And here it is. Happy Friday!

1) I suppose I should admit now that I read more than a bit of children's/young adult fiction when I think it follows a conceit I'll enjoy. And I think there's a lot of creativity happening in that realm of fiction right now as many "adult" authors put their noses to it. I like the anything-goes looseness of plot movements in younger-targeted fiction and the operating basis of optimism, especially when I need a break from the dark and bleak stuff I read as well.

Anyhoo, getting the bookish item out of the way, G.P. Taylor is an Anglican priest who wrote the children's book Shadowmancer, which I didn't mind, although I didn't adore it as I'd hoped. I learned via mediabistro that Taylor got himself tossed from a school appearance for saying Harry Potter wasn't the only "gay in the village", a reference to Welshman Dafydd, a recurring character on the hilarious comedy show Little Britain which even Yankees can watch on BBCAmerica. I laughed when I read what Taylor said, especially when I thought of the junior-high schoolers reaction to it. He was obviously playing to the crowd, and I thought it sounded more crude and juvenile than judgmental, like calling your friend a "retard". It does, however, bely the image of all Christians as milquetoast vapor queens reaching for their smelling salts as the first four-letter word. Besides, what else do you expect from a former roadie for the Sex Pistols?

2) I don't usually get such items from NRO, but here's the new, for-real, My Scene Bling Bling Barbie. Back in Chicago, I used to frequent a cheap industrial building under the Lake Street El tracks near the Fulton Street Fish Market. It was the kind of place too smelly, decrepit, and dangerous to rent to anyone but bands in need of practice space. In addition to broke and substance-abusing musicians and criminal vagrants, there were usually a few crack whores loitering around, looking to service patrons on their way to and from basketball and hockey games. This toy really takes me back. Now, where's the black Ken doll in the Oldsmobile Calais?

3) In another surprise, I got this fashion tidbit from Michelle Malkin about the new line from French (naturellement) Anticon's new line of Terror Chic. As a person who spent a youthful phase outfitted like a shoplifter as a fashion statement, I can attest that being followed everywhere by security is at the minimum annoying, especially if there's no real threat. I can further say that I believe these outfits will get one noticed on the subway, at the ATM, in the grocery, church, etc. I doubt you'd be ignored anywhere you showed up, and you might get to see a nice array of munitions and baseball bats. However, I would suggest to parents that bankrolling this fashion initiative for your disappointing offspring could end up in a wrongful death lawsuit that will support you in your golden years far better than a no-account loser.

4) It's true, confirms the Straight Dope, the CLOSE DOOR buttons on the majority of elevators don't do anything. Tell your jittery acquaintances.

5) As I first read in Althouse, schoolgirls in Togo may have to get their heads shaved for school. I was ready to go into full snit until I read the comments section. It's not really a cueball situation so much as a short "natural" which I've found an attractive look since the seventies when it was more popular here. And not only is this requirement common in other African countries, the boys must have short hair, too. Then, when I read about girls skipping school to spend the day in the salon, well, they started to win me over. Get thee to the schoolery ye wanton-haired hussies and larn thee some items for deliverance from endemic poverty and underutilization thine vain and short-sighted Jezebels!

6) Thanks to Drawn! for pointing me to the Hotel Fox in Copenhagen where 21 artists have created 61 rooms as part of Volkswagen's launch of the new Fox. I dislike that the home page calls the designs "whacky" not "wacky", but there is a lot to look at and the room pictures are grouped from X-large on down. It's interesting how many of the artists work with white as the core color as it reflects their backgrounds in 2-D on white paper. Many of the rooms don't look uber-restful, like the one whose bed faces a sort of bog troll topped by the command to SLEEP!, but I liked many of them. I thought Harmony's Helm, looking like a tiled Swedish flag with a golden bull head seemed kind of serene.

More Books, Authors, Morons, and Me

Check Item 4 for image link.

1) Let's get the hottest potato tossed early. So, an imam in Spain wrote a book on how to beat your wife without leaving marks called Women in Islam. For inciting violence against women, (apparently the publishing arm is immune from punishment for disseminating such unlawful incitements) he's been condemned to study the Spanish Constitution, learning that might absorb better methinks if he added the kinesthetic element of education, reciting the articles as he breaks rocks for the next six months. The book in question was published nearly four years ago, so naturally, the next queries must be: Multiple printings? What kind of sales we talking? Are foreign rights still available?

2) Ruth Rendell, whom I missed in her appearance here at Partners In Crime bookstore- next year I will plan better for book release season- is a prolific and talented writer. You could (and likely do) read far worse crime fiction, and in fact, craftwise, hers stands up quite a bit taller than much of the so-called literary fiction. So why the unending snobbery? I dunno. Here's more about her in the NYT.

3) Due to the picture of her allegedly snorting cocaine, Kate Moss has already lost the majority and will perhaps lose all of her modeling/endorsement contracts. Now, she may face arrest upon returning to the UK after her rehab stint in Arizona. Dear friend Sadie Frost reportedly "breaks her silence" with lukewarm platitudes, but some say she's going through her own battle with alcohol anyway. But Kate's defense gets sadder still. Sharon Stone has become her champion, scorning Moss' former employers for not allowing her "to fail, to grow."

Stone seems to misunderstand the purpose of endorsement. It is to maintain or elevate the esteem of the brand through association with those possessed of sympathetic characteristics like beauty, athleticism, wealth. And although models are expected to look as if they have drug habits, it's just too gauche to confirm it outright, and a foolish way to imperil a multi-million dollar career. Shall we sue Burberry for not wanting to oblige Moss' decay by adopting the image of being the fashion house for stupid junkies? It's typical that a Hollywood actor believes "personal growth" is a corporate responsibility and not the employee's own vested interest. If I ever get in serious trouble, send me the lawyers, guns, and money. And slap Sharon Stone with a gag order.

4) The clock is ticking for the beginning of Nanowrimo, pronounced Na-No-RYE-Mo. This spectacular undertaking is National Novel Writing Month, the free, online event where you can pledge to write 50,000 words of a new novel during the month of November. There are online tools to help you track your progress and calculate what's left by daily quota. Message boards connect people by genre and locality, and many metropolitan areas have Municipal Liaisons who organize kick-off parties, progress gatherings, and write-ins if you're interested. The boards are so fully fledged and frequently posted, you may spend your month whining in chorus rather than writing if you like. There are ways to search for other participants who have the same author influences or prefer the same music while writing. There is a large contingent of younger writers, and a separate section for those participating as part of a school project, but there are also plenty of crusty oldsters like me. Nanowrimo takes a lonely, self-directed activity and gives it a sense of urgency and excitement while making it social and interactive to whatever degree you wish. I participated for the first time last year, and although I didn't "win", and most other participants didn't either (haughty sniff), I did write around 30,000 words which was a terrific quantity for me and became usable text in the manuscript I just finished.

Happily, two members of my writers' group here in New York have pledged to participate this year, so we can suffer through the production demands together. I've heard other writers accuse it of gimmickry and being unnecessary for a truly motivated author. Well, I like the communal atmosphere and enthusiasm that relieves the usual solitude. Further, since I revise as I go, I benefit from the experience of having to blaze onward without looking back. Gimmick? Yes. Fun and constructive? Also Yes. And I like the T-shirts, too. I hope I will manage to post my progress on this blog as well as the Nanowrimo boards. If I succeed, there will be many rambling odes to caffeine and inappropriate, but densely textual, dream sequences.

Branded Bookish

This is the cover of Evan Morris' book on the surprises behind
famous brands. Morris is also notably the estimable Word Detective.

Another late post, but not as late as yesterday's. Will it be worth the wait? I'd be a fool to think so.

Here's a two-fer from the Grumpy Old Bookman in case you don't read him daily- shame on you. This is about the travails of a small publisher trying to find a good novel among thousands of author-submitted manuscripts. And as I was retrieving that link, I saw he'd posted today about one of my most favorite authors, Terry Pratchett, as readers may know from here and here. His latest book, Thud!, has been reviewed by Donald Westlake, another author in my top handful of favorites. As GOB opined, "this is an inspired piece of review commissioning." Color me porcine and slop-covered.

UPDATE: Now I've read the review, I totally agree with Westlake, who writes series of his own, and eerily echoes what Pratchett himself said at his NYC signing at B&N. He said (in loose paraphrase) that he was looking at the end of new Discworld books and is being challenged to think beyond that creation, because it's gotten too full to leave enough creative elbow room anymore.

So, now you're thinking I'm just regurgitating bookish items today, but no, here is my original contribution.

Let's open with the caveat that I am not an enormous fan of James Patterson and what used to be his fifty invisible book brownies. I find his best set-ups overpromise the middles and especially the ends, but I have enjoyed some of them. Also, it's unlikely I can hurt Patterson et al's feelings, and since he's (they've) reached a level of commercial success of which one as lowly as myself can only dream, he's (they're) ripe for critique. Therefore, I must complain that he (and one now overtly-named collaborator Howard Roughan) dropped product brands and other names without explication into nigh every chapter of Honeymoon. It needled me for several reasons:

1) It makes this reader wonder if it's an attempt to write off luxury goods as business expenses or to solicit freebies.

2) It guarantees the text will age badly. Ever listen to people from generations on either side of yours wax rhapsodic, without explanation, over consumer goods you've never heard of? Interesting? Not usually.

3) If you're not in the know about a contemporary but obscure reference- am I expected to catalog Connecticut's antique merchants or Cinncinnati's ice cream purveyors?- it conveys worse than nothing in that it actually wastes the reader's time with text that doesn't serve the story.

4) Even where I know the brands and references, I find it an inexcusably lazy form of characterization for a novelist. If a foundling's name is Glad, you can tell me he was abandoned in a trash bag, but use proper noun shorthand for effect and sparingly. Only the chronically insipid system of Hollywood describes people like "Mercedes Benz meets Pabst Blue Ribbon".

Oh, but how bad could it have really been, you ask? How egregious? Chapter 2 of Honeymoon is typically tiny. (Don't even get me started on how I feel about books like this with 117 numbered chapters in fewer than 400 pages when many times there's no setting, interval, or POV break as an excuse.) In this dainty 3-page demichapter, 25 brand names dapple the text like pigeon droppings. Here they are, and I'm including localities and famous figures as brands where they're used as descriptive shorthand.

Briarcliff Manor
Westchester
Eleish-Van Breems
New Canaan Antiques
the Silk Purse
the Cellar
Monet
Hudson River School
Thomas Cole
Magritte
George III
J.P. Morgan
Castro
Richard Nixon
New York School of Interior Design
Le Cordon Bleu
Dockers
Polo
Back Bay
Amstel Light
Evian
Smith and Wollensky
Graeter's
Tiffany
Dom Perignon '85
Jack Daniel's

You can practically smell the quality of the prose that would enrobe such a combination. Yeesh.

Technology meets Space in the X-500

I am nothing without Ephemera Now. Check the dastardly, bastardly ecstasy on this kid's face!

I'm posting so late that I wonder if I should bother, but I've been breakin' my back with actual physical labor today. Still, I cannot cheat you of what little toe knuckles of delight I might share.

1) The Google continues its lust for influence by offering free wi-fi to the entire city of San Fran.

2) I have a dear friend- you know who you are- who's been asserting for years that solar phenomena are a huge cause of global warming, moreso than human activity. Here's an article that says they could conservatively be affecting cyclical climate by up to a third.

I've got something entirely different combined with my own original content (gasp) for tomorrow. Sleep sweetly.

It's the Future, Baby, Ready or Not.

Image from a BBCish version of Wiki, h2g2.

Today, I have a lot of collected flotsam to share and a couple shout-outs (hi-hos, big ups, yodelayheehoos) for which I'm grateful.

Thanks, Dr. Sanity, for yesterday's listing in the Carnival of the Insanities.
Thanks, J.D., for today's listing in the Carnival of the Capitalists.

1) I'm still poring through the capitalist goodies, but there was one insanity item that probably rightly belongs in both, a story of human nature misunderstood, an inexcusable failing for a politician whose only demonstrated skill at election is voicing what most people want to hear.

Remember Douglas Adams Hitchhiker's Guide that says Don't Panic in friendly words on the cover, the phrase guaranteed in any serious situation to make you soil yourself in anxiousness? Here's an example from Multiple Mentality about Georgia's governor absolutely positively helping people not to worry about gas supply by telling them all the emergency arrangements to make and proposing school closures (brilliant idea!) to avoid shortages. Result? Oh, you can guess, can't you? As I understand it, most factory workers and hair stylists, doctors and nurses, cooks and store clerks, policemen and firemen, hotel staff and mechanics, florists and shippers (among others) can't telecommute as an option.

2) In a follow up to my post for the Capitalists, Yahoo! has announced its answering salvo to Google's Print Initiative. The Y is working in a consortium called the Open Content Alliance. The difference here is that Yahoo! and its powerful partners are issuing a call for participation, and they will include an author if he or a representative of his work, like the publisher, opts in. Google assumes inclusion unless one opts out which is part of what's causing the kerfuffle.

While the legal organs of authors like this Yahoo! approach, and the article I linked to has positive librarian reaction, I must say that if the Google initiative is allowed to go forward, it has the potential to build an ultimately more useful library if legitimate, deep research is the goal. Yahoo! is vetting their contents and I assume will build a feature-rich and lovely collection of the accepted and acclaimed masterworks in every field. But that's not really where all the great nuggets for future thinkers are buried. Untested hypotheses and unpublicized work, the dusty tomes of little-read journals keep providing, in the context of modern research, inspirations that feed new perspectives. Ideas that were only half-baked, but are now forgotten by heirs and obsolete publishers alike are the planks upon which theses are built. Within the forgotten and barely trafficked (which certainly won't be attentively opted in) are many of the things that scholars adore and find essential about traditional libraries and specialized collections of very, very dead trees.

3) Savvy iPod owner William Bright starts formatting subway maps for free use by other such-equipped commuters at http://www.ipodsubwaymaps.com/. Some transit authorities are so afraid we'll be confused if the maps aren't up-to-the-moment accurate- and of course they've licensed their images for all the graphically subway-related gear we'll all want to purchase- that they've filed the dreaded cease-and-desist. Oh, we modern types haven't learned to cope with the fact that Yahoo! and Mapquest and GPS directions are sometimes not current or incorrect (don't they display accidents and construction projects!?- I confused! Cannot...follow...signs) Some of these bureaus inform us that they're coming out with their own versions of downloadable maps. If you've used local government web applications with their varying degrees of logic, thin interfaces, and paucity of desirable features (yes, implacable NYC transit pdf, I mean you) you'll empathize with my wish they'd leave this guy alone and be happy if his development boosts ridership.

4) In what I find appropriate reactions to the current oil and gas situation, as opposed to harmful, knee-jerk legislative fiats that make things worse and not just in the short-term, airlines are cutting flights and Oklahoma is asking Congress to streamline bureaucracy so they can build a new refinery.

5) I haven't yet decided how I feel about the promised Singularity, Ray Kurzweil's much buzzed and blogged-about moment when human technological progress transcends biology, representing an irrevocable rupture in human history. However, it definitely seems that things like these biological robots that can build themselves and correct their mistakes keep stepping closer toward that horizon.

Against Hypersensitivity not Religion

From the Agricultural Department of my home state. To all the pigs who've given all they had for my sustenance and well-being, you have my respect and thanks.

Can you explain how banning Piglet on a tissue dispenser, or any ban in fact, demonstrates tolerance? It's just the beginning says Lost Budgie. In fact, here are books considered anti-Muslim in parts of Britain, not because they mention the religion or demean its tenets, but because pigs are present: The Three Little Pigs, Charlottes Web, Babe - The Sheep-pig, Cars and Trucks and Things That Go, Olivia Saves the Circus, Animal Farm. This isn't a new trend either. Some years ago, a collection of porcelain pigs was forcibly seized from a British woman's front room window sill while she was threatened with prosecution.

I'd never stop you from creating or displaying an image oppositional, even hostile, to my faith though I might comment if I found it uncreative or bad art. I don't get the vapors at the mere sight of something against my preferences or beliefs. That intestinal fortitude is implicit in civility, maturity, and sanity.

Not because I want to "piss off Moslems", but because sane people have to defy the histrionic who insist that their emotional grievances should trump logic, liberty, and law, I'm showing my pig!

The Intellectually Right May Still Be Luddites

Perhaps I disclose an editorial preference with this image from Picture Book, an "online resource for children's illustrators, publishers, and book lovers", a motto nervy enough to imply the dead-tree and digital spheres aren't inherently oppositional.

Here's a quickie round-up having to do with that anxiety-ridden first date between established content and new disseminating technology. Of course, a couple of these stories represent the hate-at-first sight phenomenon, but new technological capacities keep challenging how people think about the content accessed by them.

Google's Print Initiative has been scanning books into its databases to create an enormous online library. The Authors Guild's agin' it, saying authors won't be properly compensated and copyrights will be violated. Google disagrees. Emmett Tyrell wonders how we'll know if the content is intact, and the Grumpy Old Bookman thinks that we ought to let development flow and allow new markets to emerge.

I hope the print media is smarter than the record companies that fought the download trend for at least a decade, hauled 13-year olds into court, and assisted crippling their industry further while still managing at least to satisfyingly bilk the musical artists of their share, you'll be pleased to know. It seemed impossible for them to understand their young customers might like new ways of experiencing and receiving musical content, and the ones that could provide would make profits- hello iTunes.

I hope writers prove smarter, and push for more than protections from progress, and instead advance new thinking about how to be appropriately compensated in the digital realm. The key is solid, comprehensive access as much as trustworthy content, and that's the only hint I'll give.

If I Close My Eyes Forever...

Gruesome but fake pic courtesy of Samurai Appliance Repair Man.

Most of today's posts are things that make me want to scratch my head at a minimum, but more likely bang it against something, not in the supercool rockin' way, but the self-inflicted concussion to allow me the sweet relief of unconsciousness kind of way.

First, however, Instapundit posted a round up of the reviews from the Serenity screening that I first mentioned here, and they were pretty positive. Now onto the crazy stuff.

2) Woman sitting on parkbench in NYC ticketed for not having children. Goal: reduction in creepy child-molesters targeting playgrounds, a terrifying possibility played up to support any sort of intrusion in gross denial of its actual probability. Effect: Another regulation, restriction, penalty and excuse for officers to harass someone about her personal life.

The Parks department explanation, which doesn't somehow comfort me, is that the cops aren't supposed to follow the letter of the law (oh no, why would we assume that?), but use their "common sense." In other words, this is another case for cops to become further habituated to ignoring laws or deciding unevenly to hammer the offenders. For the accused, however, once you're in the legal system, what's in black and white is what you can be held to by a thorny judge or prosecutor. Technicalities are the coursing splinters that pass for blood in the heart of the modern court. Is this really what we want? Regulations that aren't meant to be applied and restrictions on where you can sit in public? You know, I bet a clever criminal could find a way to put drugs or something into the playground water fountains to hurt a child or dummy their parent/caregiver so as to take advantage. We should probably segregate those as well.

3) David Cronenberg uses directing a racy scene as an excuse to make Viggo Mortensen, Maria Bello, and the film crew watch him have sex with his wife. Thanks, Defamer, I'll never sleep again without nighty-night head trauma.

4) Michelle Malkin pointed to this story from the always one-step-ahead Brussels Journal about the first trio civilly united in the Netherlands. Two of these people were already married before inviting a second woman around who abandoned her husband to cheat with the swinging crew. Apparently, eternal love ensued. The groom is reported to have said they want to take their marriage obligations seriously: “to be honest and open with each other and not philander.” Why yes, of course.

Peeping Tom, Religious Police, or Citizen Journalist?

This machine coos back. More here.

1) The British bellwethers, the cabbies, don't seem to know about blogging or podcasting in great numbers and confuse it with "dogging", calling up your friends to spy on people having sex in not-so private locations.

2) A British hospital bans "cooing" at babies as it offends their sacrosanct privacy.

3) The L.A. Times admits that the coverage during Katrina got overheated with unsupported rumors of deevolutionary descent into post-apocalyptic animalism. I hate the Times-Picayune's editor's defense that newsies were more likely to believe it because of the race of the people involved. What about the possibility that the media was willing to pimp the most outrageous stories (I grant the hapless PD Chief and Mayor pimped them, too) without video or on-site substantiation because it suited their salacious agenda? And what happens to Dan Rather's back pats about one of TV news' "finest moments" where they were "speaking truth to power" now? Other blogs I like have made this point, but I read theirs after I'd planned to make it, too, so I'm not crediting. This is simultaneous epiphany.

4) The fantastic Religious Policeman blog began in memory of 15 schoolgirls who died because the religious police wouldn't allow them to escape a burning building while the girls weren't wearing the correct abaya coverage to go outside. The firemen weren't allowed to help them because of their sinful state. Better they should burn in life than go to hell. In this post, the RP takes us on a tour of the real Saudi religious police website and their lists of forbidden items. You'd think it was the most wicked satire if you didn't know it was true.

Too Many Celebrities for My Liking, Yessiree

Image from here.

As numerous (and dare I suggest redundant) as the piercings in this man's face, so are the crowded constellations of stars demanding worship from the wage-slave just trying to get through a 33-hour week.

If you hadn't heard about the Oprah contretemp at the Hermes store in Paris, here's the scoop. The O felt snubbed by an employee who wouldn't let her and her companions (posse, entourage, minions, whatever) come in near closing time to begin shopping. This employee claimed not to know who the O was, and since we know that's not possible or permitted, the O knew her skin color was the most likely explanation.

After bullhorning the issue, she invited the president of Hermes America onto her show to prostrate himself and grovel for her forgiveness. She then extended her multimillion-dollar mitt of reconciliation, and consented to allow her hordes of hausfraus to continue patronizing the brand. The scene as recounted to me by someone who'd heard about it sounded distasteful. Even hardened media types who saw it seemed to sense it was an embarrassment Oprah inflicted upon herself topping anything one lowly store clerk or even assistant retail manager could achieve.

Here's the thing. In Europe, they don't like overtime, staying late, etc. They're famous for it. In France, they're also well-known for thinking they're "superior to everyone else". If you look or act less than French or have a less-than-native accent (quite apart from the obvious barbarism of speaking English in Paris), the inferior one is you. The couture and design houses require very wealthy and sadly brutish Yankee customers to maintain their etaliers, but they don't necessarily know (or want to know) every American who's made enough newly-risen dough to have an entourage. And neither do I. You could toss me in a shark tank of any-hued celebrities from television shows I don't watch or the band du microsecond, and I'd have no clue who they were as I repeatedly denied their outraged assertions of preference in my race to the surface. And I recognize even fewer foreign celebrities.

EDITORS NOTE: If Americans didn't lather the hindquarters of the heavily photographed and dubiously talented, perhaps U.S. celebrities wouldn't be so shocked by less than obsequious receptions in supposedly civilized foreign ports. Of course, if they'd really travel abroad, they'd find the kind of servitude and slavish devotion their little selves require easy and cheap to come by in the "developing world". For pennies and an ear of corn, you can have all the little people running at your beck and call you want. So many you won't be able to remember all their funny-sounding names. Enough to use as human ash trays and footstools All for you. So you may feel benevolent and important. END NOTE.

So Oprah the gazillionaire swings her considerable influence to castigate a company president, who is arguably beneath her, in vengeance for the activities of a peon, of course beneath her in every measure of personhood that matters. Grace is an antiquated discipline of consideration and generosity which can feel uncomfortable in practice, even painful. Its facility is enhanced through its exercise, but try to bestow it without training, and you're likely to cramp up. That's why modern celebrities avoid it, and hire stunt staff (assistants, reps, publicists) to be ingratiating for them. Sadly, many of these bright young things also fail, and now grace is less common than conversational Esperanto.

Though this O fiasco happened a couple of weeks ago, I was inspired to post on it belatedly by this new story with its whiff of familarity. Kanye West, who displayed his own selfish charmlessness during a telethon, was recently "snubbed" by a British club. Apparently, he will not be retaliating through lawsuit or as is more common (in every sense) by rapping them into submission for their misdeeds. But he's not as rich and famous as Oprah. Yet.

Maxwell Smart Agent Eighty-Sixed

The shamefully apt title fairly writes itself, no?
There were perhaps other things worth posting today, but none more important to me than this. I loved Get Smart in nontrivial amounts. Nice tribute article at MSNBC.

It is a credit to the man's professionalism as a trouper how many Don Adams with shoe phone pix there are to choose from. I liked this one posted at the Popular Culture Appreciation Society.

I am not making any predictions, and I am not smug in my sense of foreboding, but our recent bereavement of Gilligan and now Maxwell Smart must surely count as two of a kind. I deeply fear that Barney Fife may follow too closely for my liking. Oh, Heavenly Chorus of Comedy, take not Mr. Limpet and Mr. Chicken from us. Not yet, please.

Cherrypicking Better Blogs

Image from Japanese calendar here.

This'll be another mixed link dump, but big so it'll last you. Lately stories aren't gelling around any one topic for me, and I haven't been blazing blog trails. Is this a legit way to post? Scavenging other blogs for pre-chewed morsels? On with the clutter...

1) I, too, found it fascinating that the people on JetBlue flight 292 saw their peril on their seatback televisions where they watched coverage of what might have been their own dooms. McCannta calls it a post-postmodern moment. (hat tip: Michelle Malkin)

2) Mickey Kaus of Slate suspects the reason the NYT isn't bragging yet about the numbers of subscribers to its new premium service is that there aren't enough to impress, and the first week was supposed to be the strongest. Is MoDo hating the new strategy, and will she be the first over the wall that I mentioned here and here? (hat tip: Instapundit)

NOTE: I know it's lame for punified little me to credit gigundous blogs when they link stories. They don't need the extra traffic, and it makes me look like I read nothing else. However, I have this niggling honor thing in the base of my skull that makes me do it, so just ignore, please.

3) Vodkapundit highlights this article where France is doing something in favor of liberty (for a change) by helping foreign bloggers stay anonymous and dodge the censors. San Francisco's Electronic Frontier Foundation has apparently been publishing something similar, but not so much for avoiding physical oppression, but avoiding the pointy-haired one, Dilbertwise.

4) Althouse mentioned this NYT story about the huge strollers that obstruct and bulldoze the pedestrian throughways around here. The photos used are not good examples of prime offenders, as her commenters noticed. However, her comments section also shows how people go from zero to extreme hyperbole when they think their children or style of parenting are being questioned. This is a super touchy subject here on the island, especially during the day when the double-wide strollers roam in packs barely herded by mothers and nannies simultaneously yelling into their cell phones, lacing dog leashes onto their handles, throwing out offhand scraps of baby talk to placate the kids, and generally forming a menace either oblivious or confrontational to anyone around them. I didn't even find the article that negative, but Althouse's commenters who were parents felt differently. This is a real social divide with hard feelings on both sides, but I'm not sure there's any way around it. Non-parents just have to suck up the bad attitudes, frazzlement, and harsh judgment of the rest- no one will acknowledge your equal rights, so save your heat for other battles.

5) The irreplaceable Lileks riffs on modern art after reading a book about Michaelangelo and another about Grant Wood. The whole thing is worthwhile, and includes his hilarious visual examples of the points below. He notes:

Well, some styles deserved to be ranked over others. Perhaps Spanish isn’t superior to Italian, but a language that has 16 tenses and 2 million words is superior to one that has only the present tense and 1500 nouns, because it is capable of expressing more, and expressing it with greater detail and precision. This is why Shakespeare is superior to a knock-knock joke...In any case, Raphael could do Albers, but I am quite certain Albers could not do Raphael, anymore than John Lennon could score a symphony. Complexity and sophistication count for something; if they didn’t, you’d hire the man who designed the Port-A-Potty to design your dream house. Hey, it has walls and a hole.

These last two items I discovered on my lonesome, and I was so frightened by it that I nearly wet me-self. But I flap along unsteadily, a lone birdy kicked from the cozy nest to present my own trifling trophies of fool's gold to you.

6) People need to consider the consequences of taxing their ears at all times without the recovery of quietude. The little hairlike cilia inside the ear vibrate to translate sound, and if they're on the audio equivalent of triple espresso 24/7, they lose their ability to respond sensitively to highs and lows. This is a hot topic for me since I'm an auditory learner principally, but even after rocking the big amps of noise for many years, I still have unusually good hearing. I overhear way too many conversations, and I can hear a dog bite down on something the wrong texture for food from an adjoining room, but I also find much of the prevalent public wallpaper of music and media noise disturbing. I also find poor sound quality like nasty buzz and hiss almost painful. I credit the preservation of my post-rock hearing to the occasional earplug that cut the highest frequencies, and that I intermittently jam on the wall of silence and give the ears a rest. In Manhattan, even the silence is full of sound.

7) Does today's wacky kicker qualify me for a theme a la guinea-pig redux (item 9)? This Reuters article is about the lengths people will go to manfacture unique oddities for the Guinness World Book of Records. Sooty, the Welsh guinea pig received Valentines from 206 admirers.

coffee, Coffee, COFFEE!

Image from Ephemera Now

How do I love thee? So much that's it's a cruel joke that as I write this post, I'm drinking green tea, having run out of my fave beans (any beans) yesterday. Last year, I joined a coffee group which is supported by SCAA, the Specialty Coffee Association of America. I went to the first meeting, because I lova the java, but I learned so much about how it's grown and how to taste it and the amount of precision that the savvy apply to roasting and grinding and brewing. Are there gadgets and gauges and Felix Ungerlike levels of persnicketiness, you ask? Heck, yeah. As tweaky as you like it.

But as I began learning more about the vast international trade, I thought it would also be the perfect setting for a suspense novel. There have been recent historical novels like The Coffee Trader by David Liss and a mystery about a coffee shop owner called Uncommon Grounds by Sandra Balzo. (The world of coffee is much like the world of hair salons in which the puns get heavily recycled for ecological reasons.) However, there's nothing quite like what I'm plotting, so if you guess don't steal it, you lilylivered codswallow.

The volunteer consumer liaison (or some title like that) for the SCAA coffee group has her own coffeecentric blog named bread coffee chocolate yoga after her many enthusiasms. It was that blog that pointed to this great Guardian article that gives an overview of the trip from bush to cup. The article also shows why it's nicer to drink coffee when you know where it came from. Not only will it not be part of an ever-morphing blend that shifts varying levels of less pleasant beans into the mix as prices dictate, it will undoubtedly taste better and will help promote reasonable pricing to the farmers and pickers.

This isn't just a warm fuzzy thing, although I encourage you to feel good about yourself for drinking fine coffee. It's more like finding a wine or a cheese you like- anything where the region and consistency of ingredients make a difference to the outcome. Coffee's still a world where you can sell the silo-sized generic cans at the grocery without disclosing what's in them specifically. When each growing area's uniqueness of flavor isn't prized (or even acknowledged), prices fall, and the blenders swap in whatever's cheapest from wherever. This pits coffee farmers in a race to the bottom for prices. But what about the quality then, the taste?

Certified cuppers can verify where beans came from based on their complex taste and aroma signatures. I'm no expert, but I've now tasted enough different "single-origin" coffees to know they differ widely and that I enjoy some more than others. I know I could tell an Ethiopian Yrgacheffe (spelled right) from a Sumatran. A Stilton cheese has to be to be labeled that way, so does a Bordeaux, but for the biggest selling coffee blends, you don't get to know what's going to be inside.

Now, I purchase single- origin coffees and careful blends from a nice local roaster , but not just because I want to help profits get back to the source by creating a stronger market for coffee by origin. No, No- benevolence isn't usually enough of a reason large numbers of people to pay a little more, and it isn't necessary here. The free market can help people simply through a larger exposure to the divinely wonderful indulgence of drinking MAGNIFICENT COFFEE!

Raymond Carver, Shakespeare, and the Velveteen Rabbit

There are updates on several recent stories and new stuff. So much that if I don't crank it out thoughtlessly, I'll be too intimidated by the amount I've accumulated.

1) The NYT fights back. John Tabin reports they're asking their syndication partners to put the op-ed columnists behind their own pay walls, so there'll be no freebie peeks from other papers that carry them. The partners are complying. Congratulations, NYT, you've put your columnists in a tower, dug a moat, and erected spiky bits around that. Certainly, we'll all find it worth paying through the nose or running the gauntlet to get to them. Which columnist will start his/her own blog first to reconnect with lost readership?

2) Michael Fumento, who's all over the FDA/Big Pharma beat, is reporting the resumption of sales of the MS wonder drug, Tysabri. If I incur a life-threatening, life-altering degenerative condition, and there's something with a chance to help me and I'm willing to accept the risks, I don't care if you Black Box the label, put a skull and crossbones on it, make the pharmacist pinky-swear me not to sue, but LET ME HAVE IT!

(UPDATE: Michael Fumento is a discredited creep. Your humble author still agrees with the conclusions he draws because of my own experience as a human and from working in the field. However, I must alert you that this link may be dead, as this man was, quite unfortunately, a paid mouthpiece.)

3) In other news from Townhall, though this story is published across the blogosphere, bloggers who promise to write something (anything) about the new Joss Whedon film Serenity are being invited to advance screenings. If you're available (unfortunately I am pre-booked on NYC's screening date for something I'm actually paying to attend), you can use this form to register. I'm a Whedon fan, a scifi fan, and I love me some free movies. Plus, there's the balmy flattery of being approched as a legitimate opiner and not a freaky crank. There've been a lot of alternative marketing strategies attempted lately, like the free DVD previews of Stealth given away at Circuit City. My understanding is that Stealth wasn't much of a movie- I hope this one doesn't disappoint. I still think a good film with any kind of distribution sells itself. We'll see if this hop-skip over traditional media pays off with the good buzz they want. I look forward to the reviews.

4) Here's a WSJ freebie article reviewing hand-cranking radios and chargers if the last few weeks have you thinking about your own emergency kit. Besides, who doesn't love a new gadget?

5) In 1981, Raymond Carver wrote this essay on what attracted him to the short story form. It's good with lots of harvestable quotes from other authors. (hat tip: Arts & Letters Daily)

6) For years now, I've been scratching my own head at the unthinking, nodding agreement among many that all cultural manifestations are equally valuable and worthy. Here's a graphic reminder of how the stricter elements of the Muslim world under sharia treat gays on the days they don't stone or hang them. Women don't get it any better. Sweet, really, love it. Try to imagine the Berkeley, California or even the Backwater, America city council making a ruling like this and see if it ain't a misfit. And don't talk to me about occasional incidents which have regrettfully occurred, but which are criminal acts and widely condemened. To make an apt comparision, you'll have to find me a local municipality with endemic, institutionalized, and celebrated brutality without recourse. Why aren't the majority of prominent gay and women's advocacy voices speaking out night and day? I can't begin to explain that.

7) Was Shakespeare a dissident Catholic who infused biting political commentary into his work? Once the scholars hash over it for a bit, we'll see if they agree. Then again, do they ever?

8) 10 years from now, this titanic wool bunny, dubiously labeled (today) as art will be as smelly a monument to mildew, vermin, mold, and insect life as you're likely to see in all of Italy, including youth hostels. And there will still be a decade of pink pestilence to go...

Puppy's in a Cona

I know, I know, it's serious.

I didn't go to the Gaiman signing, and will have to settle for reading a non-uniquely dedicated copy of his latest, because my very finely inbred Boston Terrier had another eye problem. No usual tomato redness, corneal dystrophy, ulcer, or cyst, this new irritation included a never before seen phenomenon: a rheumy blue cast over his whole right eye- the one with the most other troubles if you must know. In our attempts to keep him from blindness and maintain the cuteness standard to which we've become accustomed, I ran him to the vet's and spent the evening supervising his 6 different eyedrop administrations and looking for improvement.

E voila- today the red is gone. The rheum remains, and I have hope that this is another temporary and correctable, though expensive and surely uncomfortable, ailment caused by the chronic instability of the opticus bostonian.

People around the blogosphere are talking (typing) about the New York Times who this week put its op-ed columnists behind a premium subscription wall, thus guaranteeing- to most bloggy minds- that they will dwindle into insignificance. I dislike Krugman who distorts facts and Dowd who doesn't use them and to whose acclaimed wit I am sadly immune. I find Rich boringly predictable and unthoughtful in his opinions, too, though I often like Kristof and Brooks and sometimes Friedman and Tierney and very occasionally Herbert. But I will care for none of them when I can no longer read them or share them for less than 50 bucks per annum. Of course, John Tabin is doing what he can to help defray costs.

As I've said to friends and other unlucky listeners, I'd happily put serious cash on the barrelhead for a site where I could get trustworthy facts. Other online commenters echo the sentiment.

Vodkapundit on the newly announced (synchronous?) 500 job cuts from the NYT: Opinions are cheap. Everybody has one and, as the blogosphere has shown, it doesn't take any superhuman skill to express an opinion in a readable way. Reporting is expensive. Not everyone has the time to go out and find stories. Not everyone can afford a research staff. Not everyone has the skill to develop and maintain useful contacts... But is it really in their best interest to wring extra money out of Maureen Dowd, if they're going to cut back on the reporters who do the only work there worth paying for? Read the whole thing.

Instapundit Glenn Reynolds in a radio interview with Hugh Hewitt posted on RadioBlogger (how's that for new media confluence?) said: I think...the New York Times thinks it's going to make money selling op-eds, but hard news reporting is the killer at [app] for news media organizations. If they want to come up with opinion, they're competing with guys like me, and we can kick Paul Krugman's butt any day. If they do hard news gathering, and they actually report what's happening, and they report it straight and fast, they can go toe to toe with blogs pretty darn well.

The conversation began with discussion of Katrina and the preparations for Rita, not only in Louisiana but in Houston where evacuations are beginning. Hugh points out how the Houston Chronicle has tooled up its blog apparatus which combined with a round-up page of important information and links and its interactive forums will provide real time, on-the-scene usefulness rather than the canned videos we all weary of seeing and the fatuous talking heads providing traumatized commentary. The Chronicle will be my first stop for updates, but that's after my storm novena (no pun intended) that Rita be persuaded to amend her wickedness for a different course and a milder aspect.

The Artsy, The Scary, The Corrupt

Scary Corrupt Clown mask available here


The NYT still does arts right.
1) Moscow Cat Theatre comes to Tribeca.
2) More metalheads that aren't meatheads.
3) Clarinetist accompanies bird songs, and the birds jam along.

Canadians are scaring me.
4) A silent tectonic event is shifting Vancouver island and seismologists think it may signal a massive earthquake, The Big One.

No matter how low you've fallen, some snake-bellied subterranean will try to steal from you.
5) There's tremendous fraud and waste in disaster payouts.
6) New Jersey arrested this Katrina scammer.
7) Mugabe says Zimbabweans aren't starving, they're just corn-loving finicky eaters.

I have so many stories I could link that contradict this, one about people reduced to eating whatever they find and the rates of starvation, about farmers enthusiastically using USAID programs to grow traditional, drought-resistant small grains like sorghum and millet, about hungry children with a life expectancy in their thirties, but why should I argue? The real Mugabe is as contemptible and ridiculous as any satirical dictator one could write. Sadly, it's not just two-dimensional squiggles this guy's killing.

I'm Up to Here with Gaiman!

I don't know Steve or Cheryl and didn't attend the 2003 nuptials in Missouri, but it's what I got when I typed "up to here" into Google images. I'd feel less conflicted about using you, my many-tentacled Googie darling, if you'd stop caving to The Party in Beijing. Anyway, this pic shows my frustration level with well-known writers that I'd jealously despise except for my admiration and enjoyment, dammit. Enough already, Gaiman. Coffee Break Time! Take Pratchett with you!


I hadn't intended to become merely a tout site (not to be confused with tout de suite) for authors who are arguably way better than I am and inarguably more successful.

But Fall is book season, and the new releases are thicker on the ground than lost leaves, at least here in Manhattan where bookstores' dead trees vastly outnumber the living variety. This provides much to desire and acquire, more to read over the winter, and many events to attend.

Today's news is Gaiman (again) who also has a busy and well-read blog that's way better than mine. His new book is Anansi Boys which follows up with the world created in American Gods that I so adored. Since I'm going to his signing tomorrow, I thought I'd highlight this auction he spearheaded to support free speech for writers and artists. His participation (in addition to other barely-known authors like Stephen King, Michael Chabon, Nora Roberts, Lemony Snicket, and John Grisham) have made this eBay character sell-off a success for the First Amendment Project.

On a side note, can you explain to me why the wired-up MSNBC posts this web story about an online auction without including links to either the auction or the organization? Even a rube like me can (and did) provide that service as part of the complete information package. Just asking.

UPDATE: Can you believe it's after 5pm, and I missed that today is Talk Like a Pirate Day?! Avast ye, seadogs, time's a wastin'.

Doonan and Gaiman, Static and Psychics. Nano!

1) Two days ago, I got the iPod nano as a surprise, bonus birthday gift. It is so very sleek and so very tiny. I'd been reading and watching promos about it, but I was actually shocked anew as I opened the smallish box and saw the much, much smaller device inside. I half-filled it with about 500 songs, and carried it with me yesterday. During my travels, I arrived at a place with painfully static-buzzed radio, and I could've (should've) used it. But I forgot I had it with me. Is it because it's so darn small, or because I'm not indoctrinated by the all pod- everyone pod culture yet? I'm trying to drink the Kool-Aid, but I haven't quite...Here's more on the nanostic greatness by the David Pogue of the NYT and the associated geeky video shows a few new ways to use it.

2) I wonder whether Doonan's contract is up for renegotiation, because he is everywhere. Here are his latest musings on the five fashion books one must own. His digs at today's glamour sadcats bring joy to my stone-cold heart.

3) Speaking of dressing, this Australian man paired the wrong fabrics and created a static charge of 40,000 volts that ignited a carpet fire.

4) Turns out that the Hollywood version of Beowulf I feared is being co-written by Neil Gaiman. Though I find that a more hopeful sign than the fact Robert Zemeckis is producing, perhaps not even Gaiman, interviewed here, can outmaneuver the Left Coast's inexorable lust for creating predictably insipid stories told poorly. (hat tip: Grumpy Old Bookman)

5) Reuters reports that an Italian psychic led authorites to a missing woman whose body was found in a lake. Did she merely persist in the most logical inference after others gave up, or was her inspiration something more? We don't yet have iron-clad corroboration of anyone solving these cases in modern times with any vision more specific than "she's near water", the kind of suggestion which is later interpreted to mean a lake, a pool, a rain gutter or damp basement as circumstances require. It interesting though. I hope she can find more missing people for the families now contacting her for help. Then we'd really have some proof to dig into.

Compared to Pratchett's, My Prose is Deathless

Here for more of Paul Kidby's Discworld Art.

but last night, I skipped it to see Terry Pratchett at Barnes and Noble on the West Side. What I'd expected to be a signing was in fact a "happening" where he spoke a bit, took questions, and then signed like a machine I'm sure he wished he were allowed to use.

I was early enough to get a seat, and the people around me were pleasant geeks of all ages, including the children who are fans of his Wee Free Men and Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents. If you're not a fan yet, it's not too late. You'll find satire of almost any large subject amid the wordplay and slapstick. In fact, there's a guide to the parodies at the website above diplaying topics for mockery within the various books.

The cat-loving Death is one of my favorite recurring characters, especially accompaied by the eyeball-lusting raven, his horse Binky, and Death of Rats. I also favor the sweeper and history monk Lu-Tze and Susan Sto Helit with special regard, but not one of Pratchett's 33 Discworld books (which have been transmuted into games, musical theatre, non-musical theatre, and collectible stamps and figurines) is without laughs and deep, stabby japes at something or other that deserves them.

Pratchett was wry and funny in person, which was pleasant given that I no longer expect writers to be good off paper. However, it was also depressing for those of us (me) who already feel hack-like by comparison. I don't know if he's truly happy, but he seemed content enough. Up close, he was tidy-looking and clean-smelling as he signed my book, nothing there to console myself with.

Thanks for continuing to write, Mr. Pratchett. But think about becoming less prolific and cultivating bad B.O. just to give the rest of us a break, okay?