Novelist D.J. Taylor complains that the men of letters seen in several literary works over the years can’t make a living today. There are several reasons, of course. I think lack of imagination on the part of media owners is a good reason, but you can’t blame folks for lacking imagination. (via The Literary Saloon)
Islamic Fascism
Jeffrey Herf writes about the new totalitarian movement in the world:
In the last decades of the Cold War, no one was surprised that many American liberals frowned on sharp and vocal criticism of communist regimes and communist ideology. But there is a surprising irony in contemporary Western political and intellectual life. Many liberals, including the Democratic Party leadership, have been reluctant to acknowledge that radical Islam has more in common with fascism than it does with the attack on liberal democracy from the radical Left. Like the fascists from earlier times, radical Islamists attack every component of the liberal tradition: the Enlightenment, the great democratic revolutions, the principle of the separation of religion and state, full equality for women and, in recent decades, for homosexuals, and yes, of course, opposition to anti-Semitism. How strange that Franklin Roosevelt’s armed anti-fascism should live on so strongly in mainstream American conservatism but find few advocates among his American liberal successors.
Norwegian? I never said I was Norwegian. I said I was “a poor vegan.”
This just in: President Obama has also been awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics, in recognition of his intense personal magnetism.
“I do not drink… wine”
Patrick Archbold at Creative Minority Report meditates on vampires and zombies, and the differences between traditional monsters and modern ones.
Come to think of it, even the original zombies show signs of the secularization of our culture. Vampires sought to drink blood, what was then regarded as the life force. Zombies want to eat brains. I think that science and secularization is changing what is craved – in more spiritual times monsters craved blood for its life force – now they crave brains as animals crave meat. As a result they are less scary and more pathetic. Lions and tigers and bears are scary because they can eat you, but they can’t destroy your soul. Secular monsters are boring. I mean vampires aren’t even afraid of holy water and crucifixes anymore. They are clingy and misunderstood. If I want clingy and misunderstood, I will watch a Woody Allen movie. Come to think of it, Woody Allen is scarier than these vampires.
(Tip: View from the Foothills)
I’ve talked about the legend of the vampire before here. The traditional vampire (before the novelists got hold of him) was a miserable, vicious creature, barely sentient, dressed in rags, stinking of corruption, driven by hunger. He resembled a zombie a lot more than Bela Lugosi or Tom Cruise.
The novels and movies changed that. Vampires acquired style and status, the charm of the Exotic Foreigner. With time, they’ve become so cool they’re not even scary anymore (see “Twilight”). So it was necessary to import zombies to do the work vampires wouldn’t do.
But the difference as (Archbold notes) is also spiritual. Both traditional and fictional vampires had an essentially spiritual disorder. Sure, they craved a physical substance–blood–but that was a perversion of the Christian eucharist, like a Black Mass. That’s why crucifixes scared them. Modern vampires (I think Ann Rice who, ironically, is now a Catholic, pioneered this) laugh at crucifixes. Once you reach that level of materialization of the monstrous, the distinction between vampire and zombie is reduced to food preferences and fashion choices.
Today’s monsters are not damned souls, but merely consistent materialists. Scary, yes, but not very exotic.
Modern man looks for the most frightening thing he can imagine, and it turns out to be himself.
Wait, wait, wait. What is this?
I have generated a novel with the help of The Electro-Plasmic Hydrocephalic Genre-fiction Generator 2000.
“In a dystopian Victorian Britain, a young student of metaphysics stumbles across a talking fish which spurs him into conflict with humanity’s selfish nature with the help of a shape-shifting female assassin and her condescending tone, culminating in convulted nonsense that squanders the readers’ goodwill.” My book is entitled, “The Metamechs.”
Wow. I wonder if I can get a celebrity endorsement already. (Thanks to SB)
Publishers, Bring On the Compensation
If you read other lit-blogs–and really, why should you (don’t answer that)–then you likely know that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has announced guidelines which will more-or-less require lit-bloggers to state that the book being reviewed was sent to them as a gift from a loving publisher. Because reviews amount to endorsements, the FTC argues, and those galleys, unedited proofs, and ARCs sent to the blogger, sometimes without blogger consent, amounts to payment. Paid endorsements–dare I sully your eyes with the filthy word advertising–that’s what the FTC is cracking down on.
Frank Wilson has harsh words for this, and links to great information on what the FTC is trying to do. In another post, he links to Jen Miller’s fun comments on full disclosure. To summarize, the FTC just wants bloggers to say what they got from a publisher in exchange for the no-doubt glowing review on their prestigious blogs, because, you know, all blog reviews are glowing and most blogs are prestigious. Newspapers don’t have to say anything in their reviews, just bloggers and nefarious social networkers.
What about disclosing what we want to receive from publishers? I will gladly receive full compensation for considering reviews on all manner of books. I am willing to be supplied with enough shiny new books or cash equivalents to open a Brandywine Books Store somewhere on the Interwebs. At least, the FTC says I can, so lets do it and make the world a better place. In return, I will make a variety of stock reviews and blurbs available to the publishers, like these:
- This book has impacted my life since the first day it hit my doorstep.
- I can’t tell you what reading this novel has done for me. Just looking at it makes me say WOW!
- Honestly, I couldn’t put this one down. I ate with it, showered with it, drove around town with it. Truly a sensation!
- I swear this is the best book I’ve read today. Buy two copies and share it with a friend.
There’s a lot more where those came from, so call me, publishers. Write me into your marketing plans. You know a personal, heart-felt endorsement from me will sell more of any book than could be sold without one. Cat fur! It’s a win-win for everyone.
Sorry
I’ve been spending the evening doing computer upgrading. I’ll be back with you tomorrow.
Glorious, American Food
Jerry Weinberger writes about American food culture in City Journal, saying:
But Julia taught us how to master French cooking, not American. American food had to be invented before it could be mastered. And the inventor was another Great Woman, this one on the opposite coast. In 1971, Alice Waters opened Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California. This was the great transformative event in American culinary history. Chez Panisse grew out of Waters’s experience not with the butter and fat of Parisian haute cuisine, but with the foods of Mediterranean Provence (based on olive oil, the fresh fruits of the earth and sea, and the general habit of going to the market with a string bag every day). The principle of Chez Panisse was that food—both animal and vegetable—should be absolutely fresh, and that meant absolutely local. So it’s not quite right to say that Waters had to invent American food; what she did was rediscover and then elaborate on pre-canned, pre-supermarket, pre-tomatoes-all-year-round regional American food.
There’s a good bit in this article showing the need for gospel in our country, from a lack of respect at dinner parties to the layered problems evident in Weinberger’s comments on obesity. Feel free to comment here on anything you read there.
Post-battle post-mortem
Teddy Roosevelt, who used to ride the Dakota prairies, used to promote “the strenuous life.” I tend to think he’d approve of my sojourns in Minot once a year, because they feel pretty strenuous. I get to spend very little time alone, have to relate to people, and fight with swords three times a day. Not to mention the setting up and tearing down of our camp that bookend the event.
On the other hand, Roosevelt despised “hyphenated Americans,” so he’d probably have hated Hostfest altogether.
It makes me laugh–and wince–every time I think of it. There I stood, with blood pouring down my face, feeling my hand swell up to match the exact contours of my battle glove, deciding that I definitely couldn’t do another bout. So what did I tell the audience? I did my little safety speech, about how we’re carefully trained to avoid anyone getting hurt.
My injury did get me out of helping to tear the camp down, so it wasn’t a total loss. Instead one of our members drove me to the emergency room, where I sat watching “Harry Potter and the Chamber Pot of Secrets” on the communal TV until I got in to be X-rayed. As previously reported, it was just a broken blood vessel. Slightly painful and a nuisance, but no biggy. (By the way, I don’t think I have the flu. I seem to have a bad cold.)
Afterwards, Ragnar came and drove me home. He told me he had a sore place on his side, and thought I might have broken one of his ribs.
I said, “Gee, if I broke your rib, and you didn‘t break my hand, that makes me…”
“The winner!” he said.
We both laughed.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I bet that hurts.”
“Oh man,” Ragnar replied, “it sure does.”
The Notebook Links
J. Mark Bertrand, who has detective novels coming out next year, has redesigned his blog home page. I love it. Wouldn’t work for us, of course. No photos of Sissel (among other things).