Artist Makoto Fujimura asks, “Has the concept of the ‘American Dream’ changed since the events of September 11, 2011?”
Weekend condition
Loren Eaton, at I Saw Lightning Fall, recommends an article by Danny Bowes on the Noir roots of Cyberpunk:
In the end, what noir and cyberpunk share is a simultaneous, paradoxical status as distinctly past-tense forms that nonetheless keep popping up everywhere in subsequent art. … Fittingly, as each was widely criticized — and exalted — as valuing style over substance, the lasting impact of noir and cyberpunk (connecting the two as one entity, since there is no cyberpunk without noir) is greatest in the visual arts and cinema. For in the shadows lies danger and mystery. Sex and power. The simultaneous thrill and fear of confronting death. Noir, and all its descendants, including cyberpunk, is the shadow.
Our friend Ori Pomerantz directed me to this video of “The Vikings” by Depeche Mode.
Mostly historically accurate, but the music is oddly inconsistent with the themes, it seems to me. Maybe that’s because I’m old.
In any case, I think the contrast clearly shows the superiority of my book trailer, which I link here simply for purposes of instruction:
This weekend–the state fair, with a friend. Sadly, he’s a guy.
Hope your weekend is good. Especially if you live on the southeast coast.
NJ School Takes Book Off Reading List; Outcry Ensues
Here’s the news straight from the publisher:
On August 24, 2011, a New Jersey school district announced that it was removing from it’s summer reading list the novel Norwegian Wood
by Haruki Murakami, published by Vintage Books in 2000. Citing objections from parents about inappropriate language and graphic sex, the school board withdrew its original approval of the novel, which had been placed on the list by its own committee of area teachers, librarians, and school administrators.
In response to this action, Knopf has issued the following statement: Continue reading NJ School Takes Book Off Reading List; Outcry Ensues
The eternal sunshine of a feckless mind
Christ Healing the Paralytic at the Pool of Bethesda, by Murillo.
I started committing poetry tonight (that’s a reference to the Norwegian movie, Elling, which I’ve reviewed here), but I stopped myself before it was too late.
I had this idea for a poem. I was contemplating the injustices of life, and it occurred to me (hardly an original idea) that sometimes injustices might be more just than we think. If I lack something in my life that I think I ought to have (can’t imagine what), the denial may be a mercy. Perhaps the responsibilities and concomitant sorrows that go with the blessings would be too much for me to handle.
I thought of writing a poem about the healing of the lame man at the pool of Bethesda (John 5:1-15), and imagined there was another lame man there, who did not get healed. He is very bitter about being overlooked. But then (I imagine) years later he sees the man who did get healed, having become an active disciple of Jesus, stoned to death under the Herodian persecution.
But then I thought, that’s too simplistic. I don’t really believe everything levels out that way. And even if it did, it would still be a kind of condemnation on the one who was not healed, saying that God knew he didn’t have the courage and character to suffer for Christ.
The actuality is, these questions are way too big for me. Any solution I could generate, however complex and comprehensive, wouldn’t come close to divine wisdom.
So my job is just not to be bitter.
I’m working on that.
In a possibly related story, I saw this article (via Instapundit) which discusses the ethical debate scientists are waging, over whether memory-suppressing drugs, if they could be perfected, would be medically defensible.
I’ll have to admit it—if they could come up with a way to target specific memories, I’d be very much inclined to take the treatment.
But I have trouble imagining a drug that would be specific enough to remove just the right bits, rifle-style, rather than taking out big chunks like a shotgun.
I feel less stupid now, if that's possible
You may or may not recall (it’s seared, seared into my memory) my recent post in which I highly recommended the novel The Last of the Vikings, available on Kindle. I had to hurriedly post a correction once I had downloaded it myself and discovered that it was an entirely different (and to all appearances much inferior) English book.
I now think I see whence the problem arose. The first listing of the book I saw on Amazon was not the listing I linked, but this one, which very specifically identifies it as Johan Bojer’s book on fishing in the Lofoten Islands. I bought it today and checked it, just to make sure. Nope. Same old English novel. Now I have two copies on my Kindle.
I suppose there’s some mechanism for requesting a refund, but it’s a little late in the day to start standing up for myself now.
My publisher, Nordskog Publishing, has now posted my book trailer on their web site, here. Scroll down to the bottom of the page. It’s also on their page for West Oversea if you want to bore in and see it there too, for some reason.
Le Mot Juste: The Right Word
Mark Bertrand discovers just the right way to express his distaste for Stieg Larsson’s novels in a review of a book by another author.
Thurber Prize for American Humor
The finalists for this year’s Thurber Prize have been announced. It’s nothing earth-shattering. That was yesterday.
As solid as our political system
Library of Congress
Washington had to shut down for a few minutes today, and the stock market soared. Coincidence?
Actually, that wasn’t an earthquake. That was the economy settling.
(Cue rimshot.)
Fog by Amy Clampitt
“…houses
reverting into the lost
and forgotten; granite
subsumed, a rumor
in a mumble of ocean.”
Read all of Amy Clampitt’s poem, “Fog.” Perhaps this doesn’t describe your day or what you could have seen this morning. My area is bright and sunny, high of 93. This quiet moment is what I wanted after the last post.
Get Your Political Quotient
Political scientist Tim Groseclose has a book on media bias in which he has tried to quantify and measure political leaning in politicians and voters. His book, Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind
Mr. Groseclose says he didn’t want to write just another book claiming to expose bias among reporters and broadcasters. He wanted a scientific book that proposed solutions. Among those solutions is determining your own political quotient. On his website, you can take a 40-question quiz based on congressional roll-call votes in 2009 to see what your PQ is and how it compares to other politicians. This is not an easy quiz. The first two questions are a bit deep in the weeds, but I trudged through them to get a 7.7 PQ.
Even though this is all fairly interesting, I doubt it will change many minds. I hate thinking so cynically, but how many of us think about our civil responsibilities at all? Maybe a book like David Mamet’s The Secret Knowledge
And yet the Christian in me still holds on to the hope that even this can get better. Maybe I can’t help believing America is exceptional in this way, that all of us really can have liberty and justice.