Everything I write about lately is death related. These brief thoughts won't be any different. One of these days, I still need to write about JD Salinger's passing, and we lost him nearly a year and a half ago now. At any rate, moving on -
10 years ago today, Douglas Adams passed away. We lost a brilliant, hilarious author, a humanist, activist, an atheist who didn't make the rest of us look bad, and a truly wonderful human being whose life's work only bettered the world. We lost him at the tragically young age of 49 to, of all things, exercise - the stress of something intended to only improve our health and extend our lives can, at times, have the opposite effect. I imagine he would have appreciated the irony.
Cheesy a thought as this is to end on - So long, and thanks for all the laughs. Also, a pity that we'll never know what was going on with the rhino in The Salmon of Doubt.
Showing posts with label Literature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Literature. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Let's Enjoy! The Last Blog Entry of 2008
Before we could realize it (Before it really hit me, anyway, having been under the weather on and off this month. Presently relishing the fact that my voice is still functional.), New Year's Eve crept up on us again. What a year it's been, so much has happened, both good and bad, that Flying Pig tragedy sure was sad, and all those other trite little year-ending statements.
Of course, this is a retrospective post - I'm sure you began reading this expecting that anyway - so we're taking an in-no-way-all-inclusive look back over the events of this year, whether you like it or not.
To try something a little different from last year, I'm just going to toss out a few categories and mention a few things in each (In no particular order) and slap out a little of that newfangled commentary that people love to clog the intertubes up with.
Politics!
- Things got pretty vicious between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton as the last days of the primary season ran down, but after Obama got the nomination, Clinton eventually came around and helped the party to unify a bit more. (Though she was a little late in getting to that.)
- John McCain got the Republican party nomination and a lot of people pushed themselves to pretend they liked him a lot more than they did after spending months tearing him down during the primaries. (And they really didn't have a single non-schmuck candidate during primary season anyway.)
- New York Governor Eliot Spitzer's career quickly sputtered out as he resigned in disgrace over a particular prostitute habit of his. The prostitute in question was treated like a bit of a celebrity and then quickly forgotten. Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis chimed in on the matter of her a few times to remind us all that he's still a rotten human being. (But everyone was already well aware of that.)
- Ted Kennedy went through some truly difficult health problems this year, suffering from a cancerous brain tumor and resulting seizures. Fortunately, he's stable and still certainly active in politics now.
- Former North Carolina Senator, Presidential, and Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards admitted to an affair he'd had with a former campaign worker back in 2006, and like Spitzer, suffered a pretty big public image backlash, causing him to largely withdraw from public politics during the last few months of election season. And unsurprisingly, conservatives have tried to use his failings in his personal life - which are as legitimately criticizable as anyone else's - to undermine his politics, as though character flaws and mistakes in one's personal life suddenly invalidate things like the fight against poverty.
- At the Republican National Convention, John McCain introduced Sarah Palin as his running mate, in an act simply insulting to Americans as a whole, and especially so to American women. It was his "I bet women are so angry over Hillary Clinton not getting the nom that they'll be pissed enough to vote for me based on my personal anti-Hillary Clinton, based on their anatomical similarities!" (I like to imagine this being concluded at a campaign staff meeting wherein someone makes a comment similar to George Tenet's infamous "slam dunk" comment. But with more misogyny.)
- Tom Tomorrow sums up "Joe the Plumber" even better than I could.
- As the last days of the election wound down, things only got nastier by the week. McCain performed exceedingly poorly in all three debates, as did Sarah Palin (Who hoped we'd overlook her complete incompetence on account of her folksy "don'tcha know" ways. Thankfully, more of us were insulted by that implication than won over by her.), and many desperate statements were made. Palin herself pretty much outright started catering to racists. (And entirely unsurprisingly, there was no shortage of racism from conservative-leaning voters during election season, openly using Obama's middle name as a substitute for a particular epithet and looking no less racist for it. Of course, racists generally aren't too bright to begin with. Tends to be prerequisite in the whole racism thing.) Obama tossed plenty of legitimate political criticism back their way in riposte.
- Then in November, we saw the historic Obama/Biden presidential victory along with some much-needed strengthening of the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate. And hey, we managed to elect some pretty good people here in North Carolina too, ousting Elizabeth Dole from the senate and replacing her with Kay Hagan. A nice bit of progress.
- Since his victory, Obama's gone on to make some interesting political choices in the formation of his "team of rivals," committing to strong bipartisan leadership in these tough times, showing that he's in no way the socialist that conservatives who don't understand socialism tried to paint him as. Of course, like many young activists who openly supported him during the election and were hoping to see a dramatic reversal of more of the Bush administration's policies and politics right away - with a sharp political turn to the left that this country is in absolutely sore need of - I'm not entirely happy with all of Obama's decisions. (Including his asking Rick Warren to deliver the inaugural invocation.) But I'm not about to rush to condemn him either. These are complicated times (Aren't they all?), and while this country certainly is in sore need of that aforementioned sharp political turn to the left after these past eight years of regressive neo-conservative leadership, we're also living in a very unstable time, and the American people won't be well served by partisan political bickering at this point. Lasting progress won't likely be most effectively made by swinging from the ridiculously far right to (at least) the center left. (Though that would be a far more ideal place to be overall.) In a country as depressingly stuck in the past as this one can be, lasting change seems to need to be gradual, though introduced and pushed by bold leadership. And this will be an administration that may have that power - they're inheriting disastrous times, but it's at times like these that history is made, and its course changed. Even after we saw awful legislation passed like California's Prop 8, we're still seeing sharp opposition (Including California's Attorney General now as well) and the possibility of the legislation being struck down by the courts, restoring the newly gained right to marriage that California's same sex couples first achieved earlier this year. The Obama team is currently formulating plans for decisive action on the economy as well. (It won't help the deficit, but at this point, we don't have too much room to worry about that these days. That'll be an issue for more stable times.) Suffice to say, my own cynicism aside, I do have quite a bit of hope for this administration, and I'm looking forward to seeing what they accomplish in the coming years.
- From the looks of things, Caroline Kennedy is a strong potential replacement for Hillary Clinton as one of New York's senators as well, since Hillary's leaving to become Obama's Secretary of State. (Certainly an improvement from Condoleezza Rice.) New York Governor David Paterson hasn't made his choice yet, but he's remarked that she could certainly be a good political choice for him. From what she's said on the matter, Kennedy seems like she could be an interesting new figure in the Senate, especially considering her family's political legacy.
- On a more negative side of things, of course, we have Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich's scandal around his having tried to sell Obama's Senate seat, and the recent blocking of his appointment of Roland Burris. (Who probably would've been a fine replacement, not having had anything to do with Blagojevich's efforts to sell the seat, but given the circumstances, it's understandable why any replacement appointee from Blagojevich would be rejected.)
- Dick Cheney himself has now admitted that he's a war criminal by definition, but we're left with the question of whether or not we'll see anything done about it. (The outgoing administration certainly deserves to be held accountable by the law for their criminal activities.) One also has to wonder whether Bush will pardon him before he leaves office in the next few weeks. And just how many pardons will Bush issue? He's already attacked further endangered species and environmental protections in his final days. Bill Clinton's last few days in office were hardly something to be proud of, and in many ways, that'll make seeing how Bush handles his exit all the more interesting, considering how disgraceful his presidency has been.
- Israel and Palestine are back to bombarding each other (The former doing more damage to the latter at this point) after a few Hamas members fired rockets into Israel. It's hard to talk about this conflict, not only because it's so dreadful, but because it seems to be endless. Let's just keep our fingers crossed that they're able to work out another ceasefire soon. The world keeps turning, but some violence just never seems to end. The human race at its most depressing.
Entertainment!
- As tends to happen every year, what with people not exactly being immortal, a bunch of famous people died, including: Heath Ledger, Isaac Hayes, Brad Renfro, Bernie Mac, George Carlin, David Foster Wallace, Gary Gygax, and numerous others. (I'm too lazy to compile a full list, and let's be honest - we're both limited in how much we care to compile or read a list of all the celebrity deaths this year.) Suffice to say, the world certainly lost some more talent.
- The WGA strike was finally resolved in February, allowing the writers to return to work, resuming the usual schedules for shows like The Daily Show, Colbert Report, and Late Night with Conan O'Brien. (All of which were certainly notably affected by the strike.) The strike also spawned a wonderful crossover conflict between Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Conan O'Brien that played out across each of their respective shows. The only primetime shows I keep up with that saw much of a return in the spring were Reaper, The Office, and Scrubs, though. And unfortunately, the strike and the long duration between new episodes of newer series it created likely helped sink some of the newer shows from that fall - including Pushing Daisies, the cancellation of which I'm still lamenting.
- America confused length with writing quality (Yet again) and fell in love with The Dark Knight over the summer. But there were much better superhero offerings. Personally, I don't consider The Dark Knight or the Will Smith vehicle that tried to be a superhero comedy (And ended up being too heavy-handed to really be all that funny or achieve the full potential of the amusing premise.), Hancock to be worth your time. Iron Man was an excellent example of a superhero film with a sociopolitical conscience. (And Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark is a far more enjoyable and relatable multimillionaire character than the grating manchild that Christian Bale's one-note Bruce Wayne amounts to. "Shut up, Alfred! I can do everything!" indeed.) Hellboy II: The Golden Army was simply extremely entertaining with absolutely beautiful artistic direction courtesy of the fantastic Guillermo del Toro. Funny script that works when it tries to take itself seriously without being heavy-handed, and is very funny when it takes that angle as well. The Incredible Hulk was good too - not spectacular, but still well worth seeing if you're a fan of superhero movies.
- Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull finally revived the long-awaited and much-beloved franchise as well, but frankly, it just wasn't very good. If you turn your brain off, you can certainly have fun watching it, but it doesn't live up to its predecessors. (The usual trend from Lucasfilms these days.)
This Guy! (Pretend you care.)
- I've nearly finished 25 of the 28 chapters and the epilogue to my first novel now, after working diligently all year. I'll definitely be finishing it within the first couple of months of 2009 (After countless delays. It's easy to be "nearly done" with a project of this scale for a long time.), and then it'll be all about looking for an agent while working on my second novel and hoping like hell I get lucky and find someone interested in representing me, and that they in turn find a publisher willing to get behind my work.
- I also got published for the first time this fall, in The Raleigh Quarterly's second issue. (I can't plug my absurd little comedy piece there enough. For a newly published author, I'm turning into quite the self-promoting whore already. ... HAVE I MENTIONED THAT I LIKE TO WRITE WORDS?!)
- Once I get a writing sample in the mail, I'll have my one grad school application for 2009 out too. (To UMass Amherst. The other schools I planned on attempting required three recommendation letters. Frankly, given that I'm not so great at keeping in touch with professors, I was astonished that I managed to get the two I needed for UMass.) No idea if I'll have much of a real shot at getting in, but I'm giving it a shot anyway, since getting to go to school there and focus on my writing full time for a few years would be amazing.
(My life is exciting.)
Just for some pop culture stuff as well, my top 5 picks in several categories for things I've seen, read, and played this year.
Video Games
#1) Opoona (Wii) - An absolutely tremendous, relaxing mix of a science fiction old school role-playing game with a life simulation about contributing to society. I haven't had this much fun with an RPG since EarthBound on the SNES. Easily one of the most underrated games of 2008. Fantastic soundtrack, and vast sci-fi city environments that're wonderful to get lost and immersed in. One of the only RPGs I've ever seen that's gone out of its way to make appreciation of a variety of the world's unique art movements and pieces a part of the gameplay.
#2) Moero! Nekketsu Rhythm Damashii Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2 (DS) - The sequel to the popular comical rhythm/music game in Japan that was reimagined by the same developer here in the west as Elite Beat Agents a couple of years ago. More great Japanese pop and rock songs, lovable characters, and tremendously fun and challenging music gameplay. A definite favorite acquisition from the yearly Animazement convention here in the Triangle, from an import gaming vendor.
#3) Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World (Wii) - The long-awaited sequel to the Gamecube's original hit Tales of Symphonia. A good mix of RPG story with frenetic combat and enjoyable character writing (Though the two leads start out a little grating.) make for another of the strongest games in the genre this year.
#4) No More Heroes (Wii) - Suda 51's stylistic follow-up to the brilliant Killer7, amongst the few truly great M-rated games on the market. Where Killer7 focused on being insanely surreal and psychological in its framing, laden with political commentary about America and Japan, No More Heroes doesn't take itself nearly as seriously, playing out as an effective parody and criticism of games like the Grand Theft Auto series, while being one of the bloodiest video games ever made. The strong arcadey hack and slash gameplay makes the game a lot of fun, but the writing and phenomenal cast of characters - like Killer7's - make No More Heroes a game absolutely not to miss.
#5) Animal Crossing: City Folk (Wii) - Effectively fusing the best elements of the previous entries in the series on the DS and Gamecube, and coating that with a new level of polish with a bunch of additional content easily made City Folk the best game in the Animal Crossing series to date. Lots of fun character interaction, relaxing daily life sim gameplay, fantastic new features and variety to character dialogue, and the introduction of Wii Speak voice chat and the Wii Speak Channel make this game one that belongs in every Wii owner's library.
Honorable Mentions: (Wii) Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon, Baroque, Okami, Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, Endless Ocean, Dewy's Adventure, Mega Man 9, Ys Book I & II, Art Style: Orbient, Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People, Endless Ocean. (DS) Etrian Odyssey II, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice For All.
Movie Picks (Another top 5)
#1) The Fall - A visually breathtaking masterpiece of modern cinema. A remake of Yo Ho Ho, a 1981 Bulgarian film. The Fall tells a simple, but conceptually classic tale of a suffering stuntman telling a little girl fantastic stories through fantasy sequences, drawing on the characters and actors from their hospital. As the stuntman has the girl bring him medication with which to commit suicide, things start to take a tragic turn. Tarsem Singh knows that film is a visual medium and shows it in incredible ways with this film. The Fall is, in many ways, what great filmmaking is all about. It's hard to rank my favorite first time viewings of 2008, but this gets #1, in the end. (The cast is led by the fantastic Lee Pace as well, of Wonderfalls and Pushing Daisies.)
#2) Dolls - This devastating 2002 Takeshi Kitano film is very close to perfection in many regards. It requires a little patience, and a bit of appreciation for Japanese Bunraku puppet theater. (The first 10 or so minutes of the film consists of such a performance.) But the three stories running parallel will eviscerate your heart with their ferocity. Kitano doesn't hold back with these stories, and the film is an absolute feast for the eyes and ears, with its incredible cinematography, use of color, and last Joe Hisashi score for a Kitano film.
#3) Funky Forest: The First Contact - This collaboration between Katsuhito Ishii (The Taste of Tea, Sharkskin Man and Peach Hip Girl, Party7) and two other Japanese directors is one of the strangest, most absolutely surreal works of comedy cinema I've ever seen. It's mindblowing, absolutely random, and there is nothing else quite like it. And you'd have to have no sense of humor not to laugh at this one. One of the funniest and most creative films I've seen in years - effectively a cinematic mix tape.
#4) Once - A beautiful, simple love story with an incredible soundtrack. The music makes the movie in so many ways. Glen Hansard's enjoyable, and Marketa Irglova makes a strong impression. Another film for lovers.
#5) Persepolis - Marjane Satrapi's uniquely presented animated adaptation of her graphic novel tells the story of her youth between Iran and France, and the cultural changes occurring in Iran at the time. A superbly done and thoroughly entertaining film with a powerful and memorable story to tell, without being too melodramatic or heavy-handed - it's a life, animated. Satrapi's story is something everyone should watch, considering the distorted cultural perceptions most Americans have of Iran and its history these days. (It's all well and good to despite Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It's something else to get into that "bomb bomb bomb Iran" state of mind where you forget about the actual people of the nation and their suffering under their turbulent political changes.)
Honorable Mentions: Snow Cake, Leon, Chungking Express, Paprika, Wall-E.
Literature Picks (Top 5)
#1) The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami - I'm still reading this at the present. At just over 600 pages, the story separated into 3 separate "books" within the novel, it's not exactly light reading. But upon reading it, it's easy to see why this is the novel that really made Murakami's readerbase explode globally. Ridiculously good, insanely elaborate storytelling.
#2) After Dark by Haruki Murakami - A more recent Murakami novel, which I read back in January. In terms of closure and completeness in the story, it's one of Murakami's weaker works, as it leaves you with far more questions than answers, and only really gives you some small semblance of closure with one of its main characters. But the book more than makes up for its shortcomings with its brevity - the passing of a single night - extremely likable cast, magical late night Tokyo atmosphere, and complete break from Murakami's usual protagonist archetype, voice, and storytelling style. After Dark leaves you wanting a lot more - the story feels woefully incomplete, but what's there feels like a fantastic experiment in breaking from his usual approach to writing, and what we get is excellent. It's easy to fall in love with this book, so it ranks highly on my 2008 reading list.
#3) The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut - The story of Malachi Constant's voyage across the solar system is absolutely captivating literature. One best experienced for what it is - Vonnegut was no lightweight with science fiction like this, writing literary sci-fi full of meaning here, as opposed to the usual pulp that the genre's crammed full of. (Like most fiction genres. In many ways, the literary world sustains itself on pulp - while it grows in meaningful directions with literary fiction. ... And somehow that aside made me feel really pretentious for a second there.)
#4) Villa Incognito by Tom Robbins - One of Robbins' more recent novels, and in particular, a post-9/11 one. (And no doubt amongst the first books to contain references to the attacks in humor. Gutsy stuff.) The story itself follows the animal spirit Tanuki, one of everyone's favorite mischief-making Japanese animal levels, and one of his human descendants generations later. (Tanuki got down with whoever he felt like getting down with.) The present, the story follows three Vietnam MIAs as well, and their efforts to avoid capture by the US government. As you'd expect from Robbins, much strangeness ensues, coupled with meaningful reflections on humanity and our world. A very fun read.
#5) Coyote Blue by Christopher Moore - Moore's second novel, from back in the '90s. A strong step up from Practical Demonkeeping, his debut work, and a thoroughly entertaining tale of a Crow tribe man running from his past and his true self. When his spirit animal god, Coyote, suddenly shows up in his life and starts wreaking havoc - as well as helping him find himself and happiness - Moore brings even more wackiness to southern California. Also an extremely fun read.
There you have it, another (Hopefully more coherent) Spiral Reverie look back at 2008. Here's to the upcoming year of (Hopefully) grad school, publishing (In finishing my first novel and at least beginning my agent hunt then.), and far more productivity as a blogger. And also to producing more content that might someday draw readers here. (Maybe.)
Have a good New Year's, everybody.
Of course, this is a retrospective post - I'm sure you began reading this expecting that anyway - so we're taking an in-no-way-all-inclusive look back over the events of this year, whether you like it or not.
To try something a little different from last year, I'm just going to toss out a few categories and mention a few things in each (In no particular order) and slap out a little of that newfangled commentary that people love to clog the intertubes up with.
Politics!
- Things got pretty vicious between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton as the last days of the primary season ran down, but after Obama got the nomination, Clinton eventually came around and helped the party to unify a bit more. (Though she was a little late in getting to that.)
- John McCain got the Republican party nomination and a lot of people pushed themselves to pretend they liked him a lot more than they did after spending months tearing him down during the primaries. (And they really didn't have a single non-schmuck candidate during primary season anyway.)
- New York Governor Eliot Spitzer's career quickly sputtered out as he resigned in disgrace over a particular prostitute habit of his. The prostitute in question was treated like a bit of a celebrity and then quickly forgotten. Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis chimed in on the matter of her a few times to remind us all that he's still a rotten human being. (But everyone was already well aware of that.)
- Ted Kennedy went through some truly difficult health problems this year, suffering from a cancerous brain tumor and resulting seizures. Fortunately, he's stable and still certainly active in politics now.
- Former North Carolina Senator, Presidential, and Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards admitted to an affair he'd had with a former campaign worker back in 2006, and like Spitzer, suffered a pretty big public image backlash, causing him to largely withdraw from public politics during the last few months of election season. And unsurprisingly, conservatives have tried to use his failings in his personal life - which are as legitimately criticizable as anyone else's - to undermine his politics, as though character flaws and mistakes in one's personal life suddenly invalidate things like the fight against poverty.
- At the Republican National Convention, John McCain introduced Sarah Palin as his running mate, in an act simply insulting to Americans as a whole, and especially so to American women. It was his "I bet women are so angry over Hillary Clinton not getting the nom that they'll be pissed enough to vote for me based on my personal anti-Hillary Clinton, based on their anatomical similarities!" (I like to imagine this being concluded at a campaign staff meeting wherein someone makes a comment similar to George Tenet's infamous "slam dunk" comment. But with more misogyny.)
- Tom Tomorrow sums up "Joe the Plumber" even better than I could.
- As the last days of the election wound down, things only got nastier by the week. McCain performed exceedingly poorly in all three debates, as did Sarah Palin (Who hoped we'd overlook her complete incompetence on account of her folksy "don'tcha know" ways. Thankfully, more of us were insulted by that implication than won over by her.), and many desperate statements were made. Palin herself pretty much outright started catering to racists. (And entirely unsurprisingly, there was no shortage of racism from conservative-leaning voters during election season, openly using Obama's middle name as a substitute for a particular epithet and looking no less racist for it. Of course, racists generally aren't too bright to begin with. Tends to be prerequisite in the whole racism thing.) Obama tossed plenty of legitimate political criticism back their way in riposte.
- Then in November, we saw the historic Obama/Biden presidential victory along with some much-needed strengthening of the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate. And hey, we managed to elect some pretty good people here in North Carolina too, ousting Elizabeth Dole from the senate and replacing her with Kay Hagan. A nice bit of progress.
- Since his victory, Obama's gone on to make some interesting political choices in the formation of his "team of rivals," committing to strong bipartisan leadership in these tough times, showing that he's in no way the socialist that conservatives who don't understand socialism tried to paint him as. Of course, like many young activists who openly supported him during the election and were hoping to see a dramatic reversal of more of the Bush administration's policies and politics right away - with a sharp political turn to the left that this country is in absolutely sore need of - I'm not entirely happy with all of Obama's decisions. (Including his asking Rick Warren to deliver the inaugural invocation.) But I'm not about to rush to condemn him either. These are complicated times (Aren't they all?), and while this country certainly is in sore need of that aforementioned sharp political turn to the left after these past eight years of regressive neo-conservative leadership, we're also living in a very unstable time, and the American people won't be well served by partisan political bickering at this point. Lasting progress won't likely be most effectively made by swinging from the ridiculously far right to (at least) the center left. (Though that would be a far more ideal place to be overall.) In a country as depressingly stuck in the past as this one can be, lasting change seems to need to be gradual, though introduced and pushed by bold leadership. And this will be an administration that may have that power - they're inheriting disastrous times, but it's at times like these that history is made, and its course changed. Even after we saw awful legislation passed like California's Prop 8, we're still seeing sharp opposition (Including California's Attorney General now as well) and the possibility of the legislation being struck down by the courts, restoring the newly gained right to marriage that California's same sex couples first achieved earlier this year. The Obama team is currently formulating plans for decisive action on the economy as well. (It won't help the deficit, but at this point, we don't have too much room to worry about that these days. That'll be an issue for more stable times.) Suffice to say, my own cynicism aside, I do have quite a bit of hope for this administration, and I'm looking forward to seeing what they accomplish in the coming years.
- From the looks of things, Caroline Kennedy is a strong potential replacement for Hillary Clinton as one of New York's senators as well, since Hillary's leaving to become Obama's Secretary of State. (Certainly an improvement from Condoleezza Rice.) New York Governor David Paterson hasn't made his choice yet, but he's remarked that she could certainly be a good political choice for him. From what she's said on the matter, Kennedy seems like she could be an interesting new figure in the Senate, especially considering her family's political legacy.
- On a more negative side of things, of course, we have Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich's scandal around his having tried to sell Obama's Senate seat, and the recent blocking of his appointment of Roland Burris. (Who probably would've been a fine replacement, not having had anything to do with Blagojevich's efforts to sell the seat, but given the circumstances, it's understandable why any replacement appointee from Blagojevich would be rejected.)
- Dick Cheney himself has now admitted that he's a war criminal by definition, but we're left with the question of whether or not we'll see anything done about it. (The outgoing administration certainly deserves to be held accountable by the law for their criminal activities.) One also has to wonder whether Bush will pardon him before he leaves office in the next few weeks. And just how many pardons will Bush issue? He's already attacked further endangered species and environmental protections in his final days. Bill Clinton's last few days in office were hardly something to be proud of, and in many ways, that'll make seeing how Bush handles his exit all the more interesting, considering how disgraceful his presidency has been.
- Israel and Palestine are back to bombarding each other (The former doing more damage to the latter at this point) after a few Hamas members fired rockets into Israel. It's hard to talk about this conflict, not only because it's so dreadful, but because it seems to be endless. Let's just keep our fingers crossed that they're able to work out another ceasefire soon. The world keeps turning, but some violence just never seems to end. The human race at its most depressing.
Entertainment!
- As tends to happen every year, what with people not exactly being immortal, a bunch of famous people died, including: Heath Ledger, Isaac Hayes, Brad Renfro, Bernie Mac, George Carlin, David Foster Wallace, Gary Gygax, and numerous others. (I'm too lazy to compile a full list, and let's be honest - we're both limited in how much we care to compile or read a list of all the celebrity deaths this year.) Suffice to say, the world certainly lost some more talent.
- The WGA strike was finally resolved in February, allowing the writers to return to work, resuming the usual schedules for shows like The Daily Show, Colbert Report, and Late Night with Conan O'Brien. (All of which were certainly notably affected by the strike.) The strike also spawned a wonderful crossover conflict between Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and Conan O'Brien that played out across each of their respective shows. The only primetime shows I keep up with that saw much of a return in the spring were Reaper, The Office, and Scrubs, though. And unfortunately, the strike and the long duration between new episodes of newer series it created likely helped sink some of the newer shows from that fall - including Pushing Daisies, the cancellation of which I'm still lamenting.
- America confused length with writing quality (Yet again) and fell in love with The Dark Knight over the summer. But there were much better superhero offerings. Personally, I don't consider The Dark Knight or the Will Smith vehicle that tried to be a superhero comedy (And ended up being too heavy-handed to really be all that funny or achieve the full potential of the amusing premise.), Hancock to be worth your time. Iron Man was an excellent example of a superhero film with a sociopolitical conscience. (And Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark is a far more enjoyable and relatable multimillionaire character than the grating manchild that Christian Bale's one-note Bruce Wayne amounts to. "Shut up, Alfred! I can do everything!" indeed.) Hellboy II: The Golden Army was simply extremely entertaining with absolutely beautiful artistic direction courtesy of the fantastic Guillermo del Toro. Funny script that works when it tries to take itself seriously without being heavy-handed, and is very funny when it takes that angle as well. The Incredible Hulk was good too - not spectacular, but still well worth seeing if you're a fan of superhero movies.
- Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull finally revived the long-awaited and much-beloved franchise as well, but frankly, it just wasn't very good. If you turn your brain off, you can certainly have fun watching it, but it doesn't live up to its predecessors. (The usual trend from Lucasfilms these days.)
This Guy! (Pretend you care.)
- I've nearly finished 25 of the 28 chapters and the epilogue to my first novel now, after working diligently all year. I'll definitely be finishing it within the first couple of months of 2009 (After countless delays. It's easy to be "nearly done" with a project of this scale for a long time.), and then it'll be all about looking for an agent while working on my second novel and hoping like hell I get lucky and find someone interested in representing me, and that they in turn find a publisher willing to get behind my work.
- I also got published for the first time this fall, in The Raleigh Quarterly's second issue. (I can't plug my absurd little comedy piece there enough. For a newly published author, I'm turning into quite the self-promoting whore already. ... HAVE I MENTIONED THAT I LIKE TO WRITE WORDS?!)
- Once I get a writing sample in the mail, I'll have my one grad school application for 2009 out too. (To UMass Amherst. The other schools I planned on attempting required three recommendation letters. Frankly, given that I'm not so great at keeping in touch with professors, I was astonished that I managed to get the two I needed for UMass.) No idea if I'll have much of a real shot at getting in, but I'm giving it a shot anyway, since getting to go to school there and focus on my writing full time for a few years would be amazing.
(My life is exciting.)
Just for some pop culture stuff as well, my top 5 picks in several categories for things I've seen, read, and played this year.
Video Games
#1) Opoona (Wii) - An absolutely tremendous, relaxing mix of a science fiction old school role-playing game with a life simulation about contributing to society. I haven't had this much fun with an RPG since EarthBound on the SNES. Easily one of the most underrated games of 2008. Fantastic soundtrack, and vast sci-fi city environments that're wonderful to get lost and immersed in. One of the only RPGs I've ever seen that's gone out of its way to make appreciation of a variety of the world's unique art movements and pieces a part of the gameplay.
#2) Moero! Nekketsu Rhythm Damashii Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan 2 (DS) - The sequel to the popular comical rhythm/music game in Japan that was reimagined by the same developer here in the west as Elite Beat Agents a couple of years ago. More great Japanese pop and rock songs, lovable characters, and tremendously fun and challenging music gameplay. A definite favorite acquisition from the yearly Animazement convention here in the Triangle, from an import gaming vendor.
#3) Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World (Wii) - The long-awaited sequel to the Gamecube's original hit Tales of Symphonia. A good mix of RPG story with frenetic combat and enjoyable character writing (Though the two leads start out a little grating.) make for another of the strongest games in the genre this year.
#4) No More Heroes (Wii) - Suda 51's stylistic follow-up to the brilliant Killer7, amongst the few truly great M-rated games on the market. Where Killer7 focused on being insanely surreal and psychological in its framing, laden with political commentary about America and Japan, No More Heroes doesn't take itself nearly as seriously, playing out as an effective parody and criticism of games like the Grand Theft Auto series, while being one of the bloodiest video games ever made. The strong arcadey hack and slash gameplay makes the game a lot of fun, but the writing and phenomenal cast of characters - like Killer7's - make No More Heroes a game absolutely not to miss.
#5) Animal Crossing: City Folk (Wii) - Effectively fusing the best elements of the previous entries in the series on the DS and Gamecube, and coating that with a new level of polish with a bunch of additional content easily made City Folk the best game in the Animal Crossing series to date. Lots of fun character interaction, relaxing daily life sim gameplay, fantastic new features and variety to character dialogue, and the introduction of Wii Speak voice chat and the Wii Speak Channel make this game one that belongs in every Wii owner's library.
Honorable Mentions: (Wii) Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon, Baroque, Okami, Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, Endless Ocean, Dewy's Adventure, Mega Man 9, Ys Book I & II, Art Style: Orbient, Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People, Endless Ocean. (DS) Etrian Odyssey II, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice For All.
Movie Picks (Another top 5)
#1) The Fall - A visually breathtaking masterpiece of modern cinema. A remake of Yo Ho Ho, a 1981 Bulgarian film. The Fall tells a simple, but conceptually classic tale of a suffering stuntman telling a little girl fantastic stories through fantasy sequences, drawing on the characters and actors from their hospital. As the stuntman has the girl bring him medication with which to commit suicide, things start to take a tragic turn. Tarsem Singh knows that film is a visual medium and shows it in incredible ways with this film. The Fall is, in many ways, what great filmmaking is all about. It's hard to rank my favorite first time viewings of 2008, but this gets #1, in the end. (The cast is led by the fantastic Lee Pace as well, of Wonderfalls and Pushing Daisies.)
#2) Dolls - This devastating 2002 Takeshi Kitano film is very close to perfection in many regards. It requires a little patience, and a bit of appreciation for Japanese Bunraku puppet theater. (The first 10 or so minutes of the film consists of such a performance.) But the three stories running parallel will eviscerate your heart with their ferocity. Kitano doesn't hold back with these stories, and the film is an absolute feast for the eyes and ears, with its incredible cinematography, use of color, and last Joe Hisashi score for a Kitano film.
#3) Funky Forest: The First Contact - This collaboration between Katsuhito Ishii (The Taste of Tea, Sharkskin Man and Peach Hip Girl, Party7) and two other Japanese directors is one of the strangest, most absolutely surreal works of comedy cinema I've ever seen. It's mindblowing, absolutely random, and there is nothing else quite like it. And you'd have to have no sense of humor not to laugh at this one. One of the funniest and most creative films I've seen in years - effectively a cinematic mix tape.
#4) Once - A beautiful, simple love story with an incredible soundtrack. The music makes the movie in so many ways. Glen Hansard's enjoyable, and Marketa Irglova makes a strong impression. Another film for lovers.
#5) Persepolis - Marjane Satrapi's uniquely presented animated adaptation of her graphic novel tells the story of her youth between Iran and France, and the cultural changes occurring in Iran at the time. A superbly done and thoroughly entertaining film with a powerful and memorable story to tell, without being too melodramatic or heavy-handed - it's a life, animated. Satrapi's story is something everyone should watch, considering the distorted cultural perceptions most Americans have of Iran and its history these days. (It's all well and good to despite Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It's something else to get into that "bomb bomb bomb Iran" state of mind where you forget about the actual people of the nation and their suffering under their turbulent political changes.)
Honorable Mentions: Snow Cake, Leon, Chungking Express, Paprika, Wall-E.
Literature Picks (Top 5)
#1) The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami - I'm still reading this at the present. At just over 600 pages, the story separated into 3 separate "books" within the novel, it's not exactly light reading. But upon reading it, it's easy to see why this is the novel that really made Murakami's readerbase explode globally. Ridiculously good, insanely elaborate storytelling.
#2) After Dark by Haruki Murakami - A more recent Murakami novel, which I read back in January. In terms of closure and completeness in the story, it's one of Murakami's weaker works, as it leaves you with far more questions than answers, and only really gives you some small semblance of closure with one of its main characters. But the book more than makes up for its shortcomings with its brevity - the passing of a single night - extremely likable cast, magical late night Tokyo atmosphere, and complete break from Murakami's usual protagonist archetype, voice, and storytelling style. After Dark leaves you wanting a lot more - the story feels woefully incomplete, but what's there feels like a fantastic experiment in breaking from his usual approach to writing, and what we get is excellent. It's easy to fall in love with this book, so it ranks highly on my 2008 reading list.
#3) The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut - The story of Malachi Constant's voyage across the solar system is absolutely captivating literature. One best experienced for what it is - Vonnegut was no lightweight with science fiction like this, writing literary sci-fi full of meaning here, as opposed to the usual pulp that the genre's crammed full of. (Like most fiction genres. In many ways, the literary world sustains itself on pulp - while it grows in meaningful directions with literary fiction. ... And somehow that aside made me feel really pretentious for a second there.)
#4) Villa Incognito by Tom Robbins - One of Robbins' more recent novels, and in particular, a post-9/11 one. (And no doubt amongst the first books to contain references to the attacks in humor. Gutsy stuff.) The story itself follows the animal spirit Tanuki, one of everyone's favorite mischief-making Japanese animal levels, and one of his human descendants generations later. (Tanuki got down with whoever he felt like getting down with.) The present, the story follows three Vietnam MIAs as well, and their efforts to avoid capture by the US government. As you'd expect from Robbins, much strangeness ensues, coupled with meaningful reflections on humanity and our world. A very fun read.
#5) Coyote Blue by Christopher Moore - Moore's second novel, from back in the '90s. A strong step up from Practical Demonkeeping, his debut work, and a thoroughly entertaining tale of a Crow tribe man running from his past and his true self. When his spirit animal god, Coyote, suddenly shows up in his life and starts wreaking havoc - as well as helping him find himself and happiness - Moore brings even more wackiness to southern California. Also an extremely fun read.
There you have it, another (Hopefully more coherent) Spiral Reverie look back at 2008. Here's to the upcoming year of (Hopefully) grad school, publishing (In finishing my first novel and at least beginning my agent hunt then.), and far more productivity as a blogger. And also to producing more content that might someday draw readers here. (Maybe.)
Have a good New Year's, everybody.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Let's Reading!
Yeah, so I said I intended to write another entry or two earlier this month prior to the Raleigh Quarterly's next issue went up with my short story. Technically, their fall issue isn't up yet, anyway, but I was focused on other things as usual. (Project 27 Days has 20 of its 28 chapters complete now, and these last 8 are already mostly complete, so I'm still on schedule to hopefully finish by the end of this month, in time to shift focus to grad school applications and an agent hunt in October.)
I'm here now, anyway, for whatever it counts. In focusing on my literary work, I've been running low on good blogging ideas as usual for a while - not having been intending to swamp you with political or even more video gaming entries. (Though more of both are certainly coming later this year.) It'd be nice to appeal to those who've come for some of the other categories I haven't blogged about in ages, but I'm still blanking great odd comedy ideas for many of these things at this point. Hopefully I'll get to some more later this fall as I shift back to focusing on blogging more once the novel's finished.
For now?
As a soon-to-be-published new author and aspiring novelist about to finish his first novel, I haven't done any "what I've read lately" sorts of posts. So I figure it's about time I did so.
This time?
The books I've read this year at a glance, with some general thoughts and commentary. Exciting, no? Of course it is.
Practical Demonkeeping by Christopher Moore. This was Christopher Moore's debut novel, first published back in 1992. Practical Demonkeeping tells the story of a young man named Travis who stopped aging back in the earlier 1900s after accidentally summoning a giant lizard demon from hell named Catch to be his servant, gaining effective immortality in the process. The story follows Travis and Catch's arrival in the fictitious Californian town of Pine Cove - along with the lives of numerous characters there - as Catch begins wreaking havoc while Travis continues for his search for a means to get rid of the demon. As a result, of course, the residents of Pine Cove's lives are turned upside down. It's a very funny, light read, and a solid introduction to Moore's writing. It might be a little over the top ridiculous for some, but it's well worth reading, and certainly great in how it pokes fun at supernatural thrillers that take themselves far too seriously - as Moore's works often do. He's certainly a highly enjoyable author worth keeping an eye on, someone to read if you're looking to laugh.
After Dark by Haruki Murakami. After Dark focuses on the unusual events that unfold over a single Tokyo night between two sisters. The elder, Eri, sleeps through the night while being drawn into menacing and surreal circumstances, leaving the reader as a sort of unusual second person unidentified disembodied figure simply observing the ordeal she undergoes. (It's hard to describe it beyond that without dropping any spoilers. Given that this is Murakami we're talking about here, if you're familiar with him, you can imagine how strange it is.) The younger, Mari, spends the night reading in a Denny's and finds herself interrupted repeatedly by an old acquaintance, a battered Chinese prostitute, and a tough woman who ran an area love hotel. While she interacts with these characters, something sinister quietly unfolds in the background. Frankly, this one isn't one of Murakami's stronger works for many reasons. His usual recurring themes of alienation and loneliness are present, but in many ways, it's a lighter story than he usually tells - despite the darker undercurrents. A great deal of the background events are never explained and many things don't completely add up. You're left with far more questions than answers, and the story does feel somewhat incomplete as a result. The ending is effective, however, and the night is full of wonderment and incredible atmosphere. The interactions between Mari and the other characters carry the book, with all the brilliant, enjoyable conversation you'd expect from Murakami. Overall, while it won't knock your socks off like you'd expect from one of his novels, it'll keep you thinking, and leave you with a lot of pleasant feelings. It's well worth reading, as you'll greatly enjoy the time you spend with these characters, as short as the novel itself is. Quality magic realism, as Murakami has produced much of. Murakami's still easily one of my favorite authors.
The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut. An author known for his dark, comical stories, Vonnegut's The Sirens of Titan is no different, and certainly a very memorable work of literature, both as a work of science fiction and social commentary. The book tells the story of Malachi Constant, an extraordinarily lucky bastard living his life hedonistically, enjoying his riches and fame. After a meeting with the chronosynclastic infundibulated (A rather difficult to explain absurd phenomenon that keeps Rumfoord and his dog traveling back and forth across space.) Winston Niles Rumfoord, who forecasts a trip across the galaxy for Constant, ending with him married to Rumfoord's wife on Titan, Constant's life falls apart. Soon enough, he finds himself somewhere else, as someone else, and begins a journey to find himself again as he's trained to fight on the Martian side in an upcoming invasion of Earth. To say anymore beyond that would be to drop too many spoilers, of course, but the story only gets stranger and more enthralling from there. As usual in Vonnegut's work, Constant's tale is full of kindness towards and criticism of humanity. A sort of idealistic cynicism still appreciating the beauty of the world and people amidst their innumerable uglinesses, all handled with a sense of humor. Funny, heartfelt, and both warm and cold, The Sirens of Titan says a great deal about people, and about life's many ironies and largely accidental nature. There are good ideas about love within the plot as well, and the meaning of life itself. Vonnegut's one of the few authors who could tackle issues such as these and come away with something so powerful and affecting, all while wrapping these ideas and themes up in a relatively pulp sci-fi core plot outline. A highly recommended read.
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams. When people think Douglas Adams, they usually tend to think of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Comparatively one of his lesser known series, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency is a strong start to Dirk Gently's comical adventures. Quite dark at times, amidst the absurdity, the story focuses on the abrupt murder of the president of an up and comic software company, Gordon Way, in the middle of the night. The earlier half of the book focuses largely on his demise, a mysterious time-traveler, and his employee Richard MacDuff's (The story's main protagonist) interactions with various people, including an old college professor and his girlfriend, Way's sister Susan. Seemingly unrelated events begin to connect as holistic detective Dirk Gently himself shows up halfway through the story and he and Richard embark on a wild journey to unravel the unlikely series of events behind the death of Gordon Way. And as you'd expect from Adams, it's a compelling, absurd, and highly enjoyable literary romp. I actually hadn't read any of Adams' works since I read the first Hitchhikers' Guide book when I was a kid (I hope to reread it eventually, along with the rest of the series, as I'd no doubt appreciate them even more now as an adult.), and at first, I was taken aback by the relatively slow pacing of the plot and the lack of clear interconnection between the events in the earlier half of the book, leaving me rather unsure of what to make of the story at that point. But once Gently showed up and things began to click together, the book became near-impossible to put down. If you're familiar with Adams' work - as all fans of science fiction and absurdist lit should be - you know this is one not to miss. I picked up the sequel, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul recently as well, so I should be reading that soon enough.
The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami. I just finished this collection of 17 Murakami short stories the other day. They're all varied in length, some a good 30-40some pages, others only a handful or two. An eclectic mix overall, some more humorous, some more dramatic, and some just absurd, the collection's a good sampling of enjoyable Murakami stories that'd be a solid introduction for anyone new to his work, an excellent way to get a feel for the way he writes, his sorts of characters and stories. "Sleep" reminded me a bit of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper," which I read a couple of years ago in a Politics and Culture in Literature course I took in my last year of college. Both dealt with mental illness in focal female characters - in the case of Murakami's "Sleep," telling the story of a housewife who stops sleeping and begins to convince herself she no longer needs to sleep, as she spirals downwards. "The Dancing Dwarf" tells a surreal - and at times menacing - story of a dwarf that appears in an elephant factory worker's dreams that takes some horrifying turns by its conclusion. "A Slow Boat to China" tells several stories of a single character's cross-cultural experiences in interacting with Chinese people - an especially interesting read if you're aware of the history of Japan's interactions with the other cultures of Asia. And these are but a few of the odd tales that make up The Elephant Vanishes.
I'm not sure what I'm going to read next, but I'm thinking I'll probably sit down with Tom Robbins' Villa Incognito, the last remaining novel from those I got for Xmas last year. Of his works, I've only read his excellent Skinny Legs and All before. (Which was also part of the Politics and Culture in Literature course curriculum. It was a thoroughly enjoyable course, to say the least, full of good literature, movies, and discussion.)
At any rate, not a dud to be found in this batch of books. They're all well worth reading, and personally highly recommended it. I'll no doubt do more of these entries in the future discussing other books I've read and will have read by then as well. For those of you looking for good book recommendations, I hope this proved to be of some help to you, anyway. And here's to writing more entries of substance in here soon.
I'm here now, anyway, for whatever it counts. In focusing on my literary work, I've been running low on good blogging ideas as usual for a while - not having been intending to swamp you with political or even more video gaming entries. (Though more of both are certainly coming later this year.) It'd be nice to appeal to those who've come for some of the other categories I haven't blogged about in ages, but I'm still blanking great odd comedy ideas for many of these things at this point. Hopefully I'll get to some more later this fall as I shift back to focusing on blogging more once the novel's finished.
For now?
As a soon-to-be-published new author and aspiring novelist about to finish his first novel, I haven't done any "what I've read lately" sorts of posts. So I figure it's about time I did so.
This time?
The books I've read this year at a glance, with some general thoughts and commentary. Exciting, no? Of course it is.
Practical Demonkeeping by Christopher Moore. This was Christopher Moore's debut novel, first published back in 1992. Practical Demonkeeping tells the story of a young man named Travis who stopped aging back in the earlier 1900s after accidentally summoning a giant lizard demon from hell named Catch to be his servant, gaining effective immortality in the process. The story follows Travis and Catch's arrival in the fictitious Californian town of Pine Cove - along with the lives of numerous characters there - as Catch begins wreaking havoc while Travis continues for his search for a means to get rid of the demon. As a result, of course, the residents of Pine Cove's lives are turned upside down. It's a very funny, light read, and a solid introduction to Moore's writing. It might be a little over the top ridiculous for some, but it's well worth reading, and certainly great in how it pokes fun at supernatural thrillers that take themselves far too seriously - as Moore's works often do. He's certainly a highly enjoyable author worth keeping an eye on, someone to read if you're looking to laugh.
After Dark by Haruki Murakami. After Dark focuses on the unusual events that unfold over a single Tokyo night between two sisters. The elder, Eri, sleeps through the night while being drawn into menacing and surreal circumstances, leaving the reader as a sort of unusual second person unidentified disembodied figure simply observing the ordeal she undergoes. (It's hard to describe it beyond that without dropping any spoilers. Given that this is Murakami we're talking about here, if you're familiar with him, you can imagine how strange it is.) The younger, Mari, spends the night reading in a Denny's and finds herself interrupted repeatedly by an old acquaintance, a battered Chinese prostitute, and a tough woman who ran an area love hotel. While she interacts with these characters, something sinister quietly unfolds in the background. Frankly, this one isn't one of Murakami's stronger works for many reasons. His usual recurring themes of alienation and loneliness are present, but in many ways, it's a lighter story than he usually tells - despite the darker undercurrents. A great deal of the background events are never explained and many things don't completely add up. You're left with far more questions than answers, and the story does feel somewhat incomplete as a result. The ending is effective, however, and the night is full of wonderment and incredible atmosphere. The interactions between Mari and the other characters carry the book, with all the brilliant, enjoyable conversation you'd expect from Murakami. Overall, while it won't knock your socks off like you'd expect from one of his novels, it'll keep you thinking, and leave you with a lot of pleasant feelings. It's well worth reading, as you'll greatly enjoy the time you spend with these characters, as short as the novel itself is. Quality magic realism, as Murakami has produced much of. Murakami's still easily one of my favorite authors.
The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut. An author known for his dark, comical stories, Vonnegut's The Sirens of Titan is no different, and certainly a very memorable work of literature, both as a work of science fiction and social commentary. The book tells the story of Malachi Constant, an extraordinarily lucky bastard living his life hedonistically, enjoying his riches and fame. After a meeting with the chronosynclastic infundibulated (A rather difficult to explain absurd phenomenon that keeps Rumfoord and his dog traveling back and forth across space.) Winston Niles Rumfoord, who forecasts a trip across the galaxy for Constant, ending with him married to Rumfoord's wife on Titan, Constant's life falls apart. Soon enough, he finds himself somewhere else, as someone else, and begins a journey to find himself again as he's trained to fight on the Martian side in an upcoming invasion of Earth. To say anymore beyond that would be to drop too many spoilers, of course, but the story only gets stranger and more enthralling from there. As usual in Vonnegut's work, Constant's tale is full of kindness towards and criticism of humanity. A sort of idealistic cynicism still appreciating the beauty of the world and people amidst their innumerable uglinesses, all handled with a sense of humor. Funny, heartfelt, and both warm and cold, The Sirens of Titan says a great deal about people, and about life's many ironies and largely accidental nature. There are good ideas about love within the plot as well, and the meaning of life itself. Vonnegut's one of the few authors who could tackle issues such as these and come away with something so powerful and affecting, all while wrapping these ideas and themes up in a relatively pulp sci-fi core plot outline. A highly recommended read.
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams. When people think Douglas Adams, they usually tend to think of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Comparatively one of his lesser known series, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency is a strong start to Dirk Gently's comical adventures. Quite dark at times, amidst the absurdity, the story focuses on the abrupt murder of the president of an up and comic software company, Gordon Way, in the middle of the night. The earlier half of the book focuses largely on his demise, a mysterious time-traveler, and his employee Richard MacDuff's (The story's main protagonist) interactions with various people, including an old college professor and his girlfriend, Way's sister Susan. Seemingly unrelated events begin to connect as holistic detective Dirk Gently himself shows up halfway through the story and he and Richard embark on a wild journey to unravel the unlikely series of events behind the death of Gordon Way. And as you'd expect from Adams, it's a compelling, absurd, and highly enjoyable literary romp. I actually hadn't read any of Adams' works since I read the first Hitchhikers' Guide book when I was a kid (I hope to reread it eventually, along with the rest of the series, as I'd no doubt appreciate them even more now as an adult.), and at first, I was taken aback by the relatively slow pacing of the plot and the lack of clear interconnection between the events in the earlier half of the book, leaving me rather unsure of what to make of the story at that point. But once Gently showed up and things began to click together, the book became near-impossible to put down. If you're familiar with Adams' work - as all fans of science fiction and absurdist lit should be - you know this is one not to miss. I picked up the sequel, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul recently as well, so I should be reading that soon enough.
The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami. I just finished this collection of 17 Murakami short stories the other day. They're all varied in length, some a good 30-40some pages, others only a handful or two. An eclectic mix overall, some more humorous, some more dramatic, and some just absurd, the collection's a good sampling of enjoyable Murakami stories that'd be a solid introduction for anyone new to his work, an excellent way to get a feel for the way he writes, his sorts of characters and stories. "Sleep" reminded me a bit of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper," which I read a couple of years ago in a Politics and Culture in Literature course I took in my last year of college. Both dealt with mental illness in focal female characters - in the case of Murakami's "Sleep," telling the story of a housewife who stops sleeping and begins to convince herself she no longer needs to sleep, as she spirals downwards. "The Dancing Dwarf" tells a surreal - and at times menacing - story of a dwarf that appears in an elephant factory worker's dreams that takes some horrifying turns by its conclusion. "A Slow Boat to China" tells several stories of a single character's cross-cultural experiences in interacting with Chinese people - an especially interesting read if you're aware of the history of Japan's interactions with the other cultures of Asia. And these are but a few of the odd tales that make up The Elephant Vanishes.
I'm not sure what I'm going to read next, but I'm thinking I'll probably sit down with Tom Robbins' Villa Incognito, the last remaining novel from those I got for Xmas last year. Of his works, I've only read his excellent Skinny Legs and All before. (Which was also part of the Politics and Culture in Literature course curriculum. It was a thoroughly enjoyable course, to say the least, full of good literature, movies, and discussion.)
At any rate, not a dud to be found in this batch of books. They're all well worth reading, and personally highly recommended it. I'll no doubt do more of these entries in the future discussing other books I've read and will have read by then as well. For those of you looking for good book recommendations, I hope this proved to be of some help to you, anyway. And here's to writing more entries of substance in here soon.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
This Educational Experience brought to you by Corporate America
This one probably won't be too long, but with the personal concern it draws, there was no not writing on this subject.
Everything in this world is a commodity, there is nothing that lacks monetary value. Health care, food, seal pelts, first love, you, I, education. We're all commodities - walking, talking crates full of crap to slap a price tag on, to buy and sell until you're frothing at the mouth on some internet forum about how Ron Paul should be president - all of us. At least, this is what the hardcore libertarians would have us believe. Pretty crazy, right? Stripping all real meaning out of life and society and dumbing us down until we're nothing but commodities, products unto ourselves, and life is nothing more than a series of sales and purchases. Property rights are #1! These philosophies are essentially advocating a life of shallow materialism and nothing more. The market dictates what is right and wrong - the market dictates everything that matters, all that you see and seem. Bow down and worship at the altar of free market capitalism. Read Ayn Rand and accept Objectivism as your personal M.O. in this world, and look down your nose at anybody who disagrees with this approach to life - they just don't understand. (Somewhere along the way, you're also going to have to pretend that the market actually cares about individuals, and that it isn't going to essentially cannibalize the lower classes while favoring the wealthy and giving corporations near-absolute control in society. If your opinions and views don't conform with what the free market dictates - you're wrong.)
Fortunately, most people aren't quite that bad. (Rand's philosophy of glorifying selfishness, greed, and general self-absorption as admirable traits - beloved as it is by libertarians, with how much it has in common with their politics - has a hard time catching on, as much as its message could potentially thrive in modern America, in large part thanks to the fact that she was an incredibly bad writer. I may not even be published yet - and looking at all the garbage that gets published every year, publishing isn't a definite barometer of quality of writing - or particularly overconfident or egotistical in regards to my writing (As much as this satirically intended comment is going to make it seem otherwise - if I had more faith in people's ability to pick up on satire when they read it, I wouldn't feel the need for this disclaimer in the midst of this over-long parenthetical aside.), I can say with confidence that even I can write more interesting and compelling stories than Rand. My interests don't lie in writing brain-numbing two-dimensional literary rants with flat characters and plotlines conceived solely to push an entirely hollow philosophy - that effectively serves to glorify some of the worst traits people often possess - through strawman arguments and a simple "I'm right, everyone else is wrong" approach. It's intellectually and humanistically disingenuous, after all - not to mention downright insulting to anybody you're trying to sell on your philosophy as an adult capable of thinking for themselves.)
And as such, people like Ron Paul, though worshiped by half the internet, are mocked by the rest. You won't win friends by trying to argue that we're all commodities - especially when historically, this is something we as a species tend to strongly disagree with these days, slavery not exactly being looked well upon historically (Except by white supremacists, anyway, and theirs is not a perspective that holds any positive value in the modern world.) - nor trying to argue that rights we tend to appreciate should be commodified as well. (It's hard to take a political group seriously when you've seen its members trying to seriously argue against the FDA on the grounds that "We should have the right to eat whatever we want, no matter how unhealthy! Let the market decide which foods are manufactured in unsanitary conditions and which medications will kill us!" When the right to clog your arteries with trans-fats is a concern, your politics are not exactly relevant to the real world the rest of us live in. Especially considering that if asked, most people would no doubt say they'd prefer to eat healthier to begin with, so long as the food tasted good. I'm not entirely sure what it is that gives extreme conservatives the fetish you see here and there for attacking public health.) Health care should not be about money (If you ask the average American whether they'd like inexpensive to free, quality health care without bringing up that dirty, dirty word "socialism" that the right likes to associate with the "evils" of the world," you'd get pretty much the same response from everybody. Medical bills are a leading cause of bankruptcy for a reason, after all.), public education should not be privatized and commodified either (Education is a right, and absolutely necessary in order to maintain a true, modern society - a society which does not value education and intelligence is doomed to fall. To make education a privilege is to cultivate a society where intelligence is vilified - and intellectualism is looked down on far too often here in America as is, thanks to the right (See: the entire Bush/Gore election) - and ultimately create a society that cannot sustain itself in a meaningful fashion. A populace to be manipulated.), and the environment is not a commodity either - you can harvest all those natural resources you want, but they're all limited, and the more you do, the more you strip away at the core of our planet in the sole interest of corporate profits. These politics and this philosophy tie well into the typical conservative stance of "If you care about the environment, you're a dirty socialist hippie and destroying our nation." Something we see broadly between both the libertarians and Republicans - despite the libertarians' efforts to often paint themselves as socially liberal and economically conservative, Ron Paul himself is basically an extreme Republican who's only popular because he wants to pull out of Iraq. (After all, why vote for a candidate who'd at least try to start undoing some of the Bush administration's damage in addition to withdrawing from the Middle East - where our "surge" has failed, and it is impossible to achieve the "victory" the administration continues to insist that we can, with the military outright kowtowing to far right interests, politicized as it has become, taboo as I know it is to say of the military - when you can just vote for an anti-war Republican? He's a doctor!)
Socially commodifying politics are not liberal as they paint them, either - they're simply a matter of, once again, the free market!!! Like having that whole right of choice, ladies? You won't get a say anymore if enough loud conservative groups get the public to agree to ban it in your area. (Fun Fact: According to libertarians, local governments should handle everything and the nation should be effectively split into a series of commodified city-states rather than a unified nation where any one thing is universal beyond money. Why agree on universal rights, even if they're controversial, when we can just let locals decide on them? Don't like gays or black people? Get a lobby together and pressure your local government to throw them out! Mmm, that's good free market oppression!) In a commodified society, corporate interests are king. In an obsessively capitalist society (When we aren't even as free market capitalist as we like to pretend - we just like to give tax breaks and extra helping hands to major corporations thanks to groups like the tobacco lobby. Why support improved, more-leftist economic policies mixing aspects of the free market and a controlled economy to help farmers and small businesses while entering trade agreements that benefit the world's poor when we can give badmouth leftist economic ideas while using many of these same ideas in the worst way imaginable - through corrupt trade agreements and giving handouts to the already-massively-successful corporations who don't need them?), with such interests ruling, the interests of the people are marginalized - you get a playing field groomed for a conservative wet dream to flourish. (Except said dreams are not compatible with reality and would lead to widespread poverty and far deeper problems tearing the nation apart from the inside, the likes of which would put even the Great Depression to shame.) Civil rights? Personal freedoms? Unionization/Workers' rights? These are not conservative values. The potential for groups to lobby for local legal gay marriage does not a liberal stance on social values make. And contrary to Randian philosophy and libertarian politics, no, not everything of value in life can be obtained by working hard and making money. (Even if you're working long, abusive hours and the pay is terrible. You should feel lucky to be employed, striking is a communist move! If you don't like your job, find a means to improve your market value so someone else will employ you! ... I feel dead inside after writing that sentence, and I've read enough serious arguments to that end online before as is.)
At any rate, getting to the point, my alma mater the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, is known for making bad, conservative decisions that certainly don't favor the students. (Even in the last month of my final semester in Spring '07, they attempted to get every student they could on campus to install software to scan their computers for mp3s to report directly to the RIAA - essentially telling students, yes, "Do us a favor and turn yourselves in to the RIAA, we're not particularly interested in sticking up for you, and we don't care if you graduate, so hey, bring some lawsuits on yourself!" The majority of the RIAA's targets have been college students who aren't in much of a position to put up a legal defense to their painfully gray-area legal bullying, and UNCC does not particularly care for their students over a corrupt recording industry organization's efforts to attack students, outright assisting them. In addition to this, they allowed the RIAA to begin monitoring the entire student network from then on, annihilating what privacy there was in students' internet connections then, in order to keep an eye for mp3 downloads on the off-chance that they could find someone pirating music, as commonplace as that still is, and as overexaggerated as the RIAA's claims of mp3 piracy-related losses are.) The latest in these decisions amounts to letting the school's curriculum be bought by corporate interests - in this case, specifically, BB&T corp. - with the agreement to push and forcibly incorporate Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged into the curriculum as required reading for students. (Several other universities agreed to the same contemptible deal.) No matter how you look at it, it's entirely academically unethical and a failure in responsibly respecting students' academic freedoms and interests in lieu of being paid to push a specific agenda. Of all the ways a university could look to raise money, this would be amongst the worst. (And UNCC has a history of not exactly using their money all that well, no less. I'd like to be able to look back on my alma mater and have nothing but praise for it like you're expected to, but that would be dishonest of me - the dorms were veritable ratholes, and the quality of food on campus was abysmal. I could go to a cafeteria in my freshman year, back when Sodexho still ran the dining services in 2002-2003, and actually not feel sick after eating there. Later in 2003, from then on, they switched over to Chartwells (No doubt in a costcutting move, they don't exactly have a glowing reputation across the country.), at which point, there were no more meals in the cafeteria that would make one think "I'm glad I ate that." The only welcomed additions to dining in the remainder of my time there were sushi on campus and this small Chinese place in the Student Activity Center, where I ended up getting lunches from regularly. UNCC does not have a track record, though, of making decisions in the interests of the student body - not in their health, in the switch to Chartwells and the stink students raised over that, not in their living conditions, considering how bad the dorms were, and sure as hell not their rights either, looking at their interactions with the RIAA. This Ayn Rand decision is yet another in a long line of fuck-yous they've handed down to their students. That said, as much as the UNCC administration and handling of things disgusts me, I can't tear down every aspect of the school - there's a lot of good programs, interesting courses, and respectable professors there, so while the administration has earned naught but my ire, I do look back on my five years there thinking positively in regards to having taken many worthwhile and interesting courses and learned from many professors I think well of.)
The Ayn Rand Institute (Institute of Me! Me! Me! Me! Me!) is playing this deal up as something to be praised - claiming value in Rand's absolutist ethics. The very concept of absolutism in something like ethics is laughable and utterly intellectually dishonest. Absolutism in all its forms amounts to one thing - dumbing down and oversimplifying everything as so to avoid having to think. The "hey, how 'bout that black and white?" take on things. And the field of ethics is absolutely one of the last fields where absolutism has a place. In my final semester, I actually took an ethics course myself - which made me regret not studying philosophy further, I may look into some philosophy courses when I make it into grad school - in which we looked at many, many different types of ethics and philosophies. (And what's more fun than wrapping your brain around Kant's Deontology and defining the categorical imperative on exams?) There were plenty of somewhat-absolutistic philosophies, sure, but they were far more well thought out than Rand's. And many more philosophies properly took all the gray areas in life into account, which made it hard to make any kind of absolute ethical judgment calls - these philosophies, of course, are far more compatible with reality, as life isn't and never will be black and white. Rand's philosophy, however, is so poorly developed and two-dimensional strawman argument-centric that it's practically a mockery of legitimate philosophy. Objectivism is in and of itself a philosophy that thrives on glorifying the worst in humanity. It figures that only now when the libertarians are louder than ever on the internet - when again, it isn't the average person whom free-market capitalism works in favor of - and with Rand's books' sales slumping even more than ever (Rightly so.) that corporations would seek to wedge Rand's self-righteous anti-free thought (When Rand speaks of "rational" thought, she tends to mean "this is how I frame my way of thinking - think like me or you're wrong.") literary masturbation into public education. Some schools get it, given Yale professor Harold Bloom's (Not even so astute, given how obvious it is) observation that Rand "could not write her way out of a paper bag." Not to mention that - as I've harped on many times here - her ideas were far too shallow to build a course around. (Let alone a real, meaningful philosophy. Objectivism is just a means by which selfish, self-interested individuals can rationalize their behavior without feeling guilty. Real altruism is almost unheard of in this world, but as little faith in humanity as I have - most of us at least have some capacity for caring for others over ourselves. This is a trait that should never stop being valued.)
BB&T should be publicly criticized, and universities reprimanded for this. To set this precedent in commodifying education, these schools' academic integrity itself is undermined, and it's a blatant betrayal of the student body. (Again, in no way the first time at UNCC.) It's bad literature, it's bad philosophy, and it holds no real academic value. There's no meaningful discussion stirred up by Rand's ideas - just the same old argument of selfishness versus generosity, "I want to feel good about looking out for number one" versus "I'd rather put others over myself and care about people." A fundamental argument of human nature, but by no means one we need to be debating in our schools - the day we start seeing self-absorption praised or accepted as a potentially good quality, we're in trouble. And with this precedent set in higher education, it's always certainly possible that we'll start seeing Rand's "literature" pushed into public education as well - to be read by far more impressionable teenagers who in many cases may not technically be capable of reasoning enough to know better than to believe in Rand's, to be vulgar, bullshit. (The human brain doesn't really reach its full development capacity until the early twenties, after all. It would essentially be proselytizing the youth in many cases.)
Of course, this is by no means the first and in no way the only incident we're seeing of corporate interests pushing themselves on schools. However, this stands out in that it's an attempt at pushing in moral and ethical propaganda on the students, as opposed to merely making them use one piece of software or another, or study one thing or another they focus on.
In short, not cool, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, not cool. Year after year, you continue to sell out your academic and intellectual integrity. You want to be #3 in North Carolina, behind Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill, so desperately? Fucking over your students and pulling stunts like this will not accomplish this. All you will do is damage your own reputation and integrity while making alumni like myself ashamed to be associated. Corporate interests are not student interests. As long as corporate interests remain a major priority to you guys up there on top, you will not be a respectable university. Either students come first, or they aren't a real priority at all. There's a reason people go to college, after all. (Hint: It's not just about getting stupid-drunk every night, banging a few loose people and starting a VD collection, then dropping out like the media plays it up as. Many of us do actually value our educations and want to learn. Letting a corporation set a curriculum is anti-education.) Having had plenty of good professors at UNCC, I have just enough faith in them that at least a few of them, I'd hope, would inform their students about why they're being forced to read Ayn Rand, and ultimately help to tear Objectivism apart in the classroom.
Unfortunately, when we're seeing schools stoop to things like this for money - public universities, no less - it says something again about where education is in our country, as public services go.
Hey, it ended up being longer than I thought. Fancy that. Once you get me going on a political tangent, it's hard to shut me up. (Here's hoping the rant didn't make any of your brains bleed.)
Everything in this world is a commodity, there is nothing that lacks monetary value. Health care, food, seal pelts, first love, you, I, education. We're all commodities - walking, talking crates full of crap to slap a price tag on, to buy and sell until you're frothing at the mouth on some internet forum about how Ron Paul should be president - all of us. At least, this is what the hardcore libertarians would have us believe. Pretty crazy, right? Stripping all real meaning out of life and society and dumbing us down until we're nothing but commodities, products unto ourselves, and life is nothing more than a series of sales and purchases. Property rights are #1! These philosophies are essentially advocating a life of shallow materialism and nothing more. The market dictates what is right and wrong - the market dictates everything that matters, all that you see and seem. Bow down and worship at the altar of free market capitalism. Read Ayn Rand and accept Objectivism as your personal M.O. in this world, and look down your nose at anybody who disagrees with this approach to life - they just don't understand. (Somewhere along the way, you're also going to have to pretend that the market actually cares about individuals, and that it isn't going to essentially cannibalize the lower classes while favoring the wealthy and giving corporations near-absolute control in society. If your opinions and views don't conform with what the free market dictates - you're wrong.)
Fortunately, most people aren't quite that bad. (Rand's philosophy of glorifying selfishness, greed, and general self-absorption as admirable traits - beloved as it is by libertarians, with how much it has in common with their politics - has a hard time catching on, as much as its message could potentially thrive in modern America, in large part thanks to the fact that she was an incredibly bad writer. I may not even be published yet - and looking at all the garbage that gets published every year, publishing isn't a definite barometer of quality of writing - or particularly overconfident or egotistical in regards to my writing (As much as this satirically intended comment is going to make it seem otherwise - if I had more faith in people's ability to pick up on satire when they read it, I wouldn't feel the need for this disclaimer in the midst of this over-long parenthetical aside.), I can say with confidence that even I can write more interesting and compelling stories than Rand. My interests don't lie in writing brain-numbing two-dimensional literary rants with flat characters and plotlines conceived solely to push an entirely hollow philosophy - that effectively serves to glorify some of the worst traits people often possess - through strawman arguments and a simple "I'm right, everyone else is wrong" approach. It's intellectually and humanistically disingenuous, after all - not to mention downright insulting to anybody you're trying to sell on your philosophy as an adult capable of thinking for themselves.)
And as such, people like Ron Paul, though worshiped by half the internet, are mocked by the rest. You won't win friends by trying to argue that we're all commodities - especially when historically, this is something we as a species tend to strongly disagree with these days, slavery not exactly being looked well upon historically (Except by white supremacists, anyway, and theirs is not a perspective that holds any positive value in the modern world.) - nor trying to argue that rights we tend to appreciate should be commodified as well. (It's hard to take a political group seriously when you've seen its members trying to seriously argue against the FDA on the grounds that "We should have the right to eat whatever we want, no matter how unhealthy! Let the market decide which foods are manufactured in unsanitary conditions and which medications will kill us!" When the right to clog your arteries with trans-fats is a concern, your politics are not exactly relevant to the real world the rest of us live in. Especially considering that if asked, most people would no doubt say they'd prefer to eat healthier to begin with, so long as the food tasted good. I'm not entirely sure what it is that gives extreme conservatives the fetish you see here and there for attacking public health.) Health care should not be about money (If you ask the average American whether they'd like inexpensive to free, quality health care without bringing up that dirty, dirty word "socialism" that the right likes to associate with the "evils" of the world," you'd get pretty much the same response from everybody. Medical bills are a leading cause of bankruptcy for a reason, after all.), public education should not be privatized and commodified either (Education is a right, and absolutely necessary in order to maintain a true, modern society - a society which does not value education and intelligence is doomed to fall. To make education a privilege is to cultivate a society where intelligence is vilified - and intellectualism is looked down on far too often here in America as is, thanks to the right (See: the entire Bush/Gore election) - and ultimately create a society that cannot sustain itself in a meaningful fashion. A populace to be manipulated.), and the environment is not a commodity either - you can harvest all those natural resources you want, but they're all limited, and the more you do, the more you strip away at the core of our planet in the sole interest of corporate profits. These politics and this philosophy tie well into the typical conservative stance of "If you care about the environment, you're a dirty socialist hippie and destroying our nation." Something we see broadly between both the libertarians and Republicans - despite the libertarians' efforts to often paint themselves as socially liberal and economically conservative, Ron Paul himself is basically an extreme Republican who's only popular because he wants to pull out of Iraq. (After all, why vote for a candidate who'd at least try to start undoing some of the Bush administration's damage in addition to withdrawing from the Middle East - where our "surge" has failed, and it is impossible to achieve the "victory" the administration continues to insist that we can, with the military outright kowtowing to far right interests, politicized as it has become, taboo as I know it is to say of the military - when you can just vote for an anti-war Republican? He's a doctor!)
Socially commodifying politics are not liberal as they paint them, either - they're simply a matter of, once again, the free market!!! Like having that whole right of choice, ladies? You won't get a say anymore if enough loud conservative groups get the public to agree to ban it in your area. (Fun Fact: According to libertarians, local governments should handle everything and the nation should be effectively split into a series of commodified city-states rather than a unified nation where any one thing is universal beyond money. Why agree on universal rights, even if they're controversial, when we can just let locals decide on them? Don't like gays or black people? Get a lobby together and pressure your local government to throw them out! Mmm, that's good free market oppression!) In a commodified society, corporate interests are king. In an obsessively capitalist society (When we aren't even as free market capitalist as we like to pretend - we just like to give tax breaks and extra helping hands to major corporations thanks to groups like the tobacco lobby. Why support improved, more-leftist economic policies mixing aspects of the free market and a controlled economy to help farmers and small businesses while entering trade agreements that benefit the world's poor when we can give badmouth leftist economic ideas while using many of these same ideas in the worst way imaginable - through corrupt trade agreements and giving handouts to the already-massively-successful corporations who don't need them?), with such interests ruling, the interests of the people are marginalized - you get a playing field groomed for a conservative wet dream to flourish. (Except said dreams are not compatible with reality and would lead to widespread poverty and far deeper problems tearing the nation apart from the inside, the likes of which would put even the Great Depression to shame.) Civil rights? Personal freedoms? Unionization/Workers' rights? These are not conservative values. The potential for groups to lobby for local legal gay marriage does not a liberal stance on social values make. And contrary to Randian philosophy and libertarian politics, no, not everything of value in life can be obtained by working hard and making money. (Even if you're working long, abusive hours and the pay is terrible. You should feel lucky to be employed, striking is a communist move! If you don't like your job, find a means to improve your market value so someone else will employ you! ... I feel dead inside after writing that sentence, and I've read enough serious arguments to that end online before as is.)
At any rate, getting to the point, my alma mater the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, is known for making bad, conservative decisions that certainly don't favor the students. (Even in the last month of my final semester in Spring '07, they attempted to get every student they could on campus to install software to scan their computers for mp3s to report directly to the RIAA - essentially telling students, yes, "Do us a favor and turn yourselves in to the RIAA, we're not particularly interested in sticking up for you, and we don't care if you graduate, so hey, bring some lawsuits on yourself!" The majority of the RIAA's targets have been college students who aren't in much of a position to put up a legal defense to their painfully gray-area legal bullying, and UNCC does not particularly care for their students over a corrupt recording industry organization's efforts to attack students, outright assisting them. In addition to this, they allowed the RIAA to begin monitoring the entire student network from then on, annihilating what privacy there was in students' internet connections then, in order to keep an eye for mp3 downloads on the off-chance that they could find someone pirating music, as commonplace as that still is, and as overexaggerated as the RIAA's claims of mp3 piracy-related losses are.) The latest in these decisions amounts to letting the school's curriculum be bought by corporate interests - in this case, specifically, BB&T corp. - with the agreement to push and forcibly incorporate Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged into the curriculum as required reading for students. (Several other universities agreed to the same contemptible deal.) No matter how you look at it, it's entirely academically unethical and a failure in responsibly respecting students' academic freedoms and interests in lieu of being paid to push a specific agenda. Of all the ways a university could look to raise money, this would be amongst the worst. (And UNCC has a history of not exactly using their money all that well, no less. I'd like to be able to look back on my alma mater and have nothing but praise for it like you're expected to, but that would be dishonest of me - the dorms were veritable ratholes, and the quality of food on campus was abysmal. I could go to a cafeteria in my freshman year, back when Sodexho still ran the dining services in 2002-2003, and actually not feel sick after eating there. Later in 2003, from then on, they switched over to Chartwells (No doubt in a costcutting move, they don't exactly have a glowing reputation across the country.), at which point, there were no more meals in the cafeteria that would make one think "I'm glad I ate that." The only welcomed additions to dining in the remainder of my time there were sushi on campus and this small Chinese place in the Student Activity Center, where I ended up getting lunches from regularly. UNCC does not have a track record, though, of making decisions in the interests of the student body - not in their health, in the switch to Chartwells and the stink students raised over that, not in their living conditions, considering how bad the dorms were, and sure as hell not their rights either, looking at their interactions with the RIAA. This Ayn Rand decision is yet another in a long line of fuck-yous they've handed down to their students. That said, as much as the UNCC administration and handling of things disgusts me, I can't tear down every aspect of the school - there's a lot of good programs, interesting courses, and respectable professors there, so while the administration has earned naught but my ire, I do look back on my five years there thinking positively in regards to having taken many worthwhile and interesting courses and learned from many professors I think well of.)
The Ayn Rand Institute (Institute of Me! Me! Me! Me! Me!) is playing this deal up as something to be praised - claiming value in Rand's absolutist ethics. The very concept of absolutism in something like ethics is laughable and utterly intellectually dishonest. Absolutism in all its forms amounts to one thing - dumbing down and oversimplifying everything as so to avoid having to think. The "hey, how 'bout that black and white?" take on things. And the field of ethics is absolutely one of the last fields where absolutism has a place. In my final semester, I actually took an ethics course myself - which made me regret not studying philosophy further, I may look into some philosophy courses when I make it into grad school - in which we looked at many, many different types of ethics and philosophies. (And what's more fun than wrapping your brain around Kant's Deontology and defining the categorical imperative on exams?) There were plenty of somewhat-absolutistic philosophies, sure, but they were far more well thought out than Rand's. And many more philosophies properly took all the gray areas in life into account, which made it hard to make any kind of absolute ethical judgment calls - these philosophies, of course, are far more compatible with reality, as life isn't and never will be black and white. Rand's philosophy, however, is so poorly developed and two-dimensional strawman argument-centric that it's practically a mockery of legitimate philosophy. Objectivism is in and of itself a philosophy that thrives on glorifying the worst in humanity. It figures that only now when the libertarians are louder than ever on the internet - when again, it isn't the average person whom free-market capitalism works in favor of - and with Rand's books' sales slumping even more than ever (Rightly so.) that corporations would seek to wedge Rand's self-righteous anti-free thought (When Rand speaks of "rational" thought, she tends to mean "this is how I frame my way of thinking - think like me or you're wrong.") literary masturbation into public education. Some schools get it, given Yale professor Harold Bloom's (Not even so astute, given how obvious it is) observation that Rand "could not write her way out of a paper bag." Not to mention that - as I've harped on many times here - her ideas were far too shallow to build a course around. (Let alone a real, meaningful philosophy. Objectivism is just a means by which selfish, self-interested individuals can rationalize their behavior without feeling guilty. Real altruism is almost unheard of in this world, but as little faith in humanity as I have - most of us at least have some capacity for caring for others over ourselves. This is a trait that should never stop being valued.)
BB&T should be publicly criticized, and universities reprimanded for this. To set this precedent in commodifying education, these schools' academic integrity itself is undermined, and it's a blatant betrayal of the student body. (Again, in no way the first time at UNCC.) It's bad literature, it's bad philosophy, and it holds no real academic value. There's no meaningful discussion stirred up by Rand's ideas - just the same old argument of selfishness versus generosity, "I want to feel good about looking out for number one" versus "I'd rather put others over myself and care about people." A fundamental argument of human nature, but by no means one we need to be debating in our schools - the day we start seeing self-absorption praised or accepted as a potentially good quality, we're in trouble. And with this precedent set in higher education, it's always certainly possible that we'll start seeing Rand's "literature" pushed into public education as well - to be read by far more impressionable teenagers who in many cases may not technically be capable of reasoning enough to know better than to believe in Rand's, to be vulgar, bullshit. (The human brain doesn't really reach its full development capacity until the early twenties, after all. It would essentially be proselytizing the youth in many cases.)
Of course, this is by no means the first and in no way the only incident we're seeing of corporate interests pushing themselves on schools. However, this stands out in that it's an attempt at pushing in moral and ethical propaganda on the students, as opposed to merely making them use one piece of software or another, or study one thing or another they focus on.
In short, not cool, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, not cool. Year after year, you continue to sell out your academic and intellectual integrity. You want to be #3 in North Carolina, behind Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill, so desperately? Fucking over your students and pulling stunts like this will not accomplish this. All you will do is damage your own reputation and integrity while making alumni like myself ashamed to be associated. Corporate interests are not student interests. As long as corporate interests remain a major priority to you guys up there on top, you will not be a respectable university. Either students come first, or they aren't a real priority at all. There's a reason people go to college, after all. (Hint: It's not just about getting stupid-drunk every night, banging a few loose people and starting a VD collection, then dropping out like the media plays it up as. Many of us do actually value our educations and want to learn. Letting a corporation set a curriculum is anti-education.) Having had plenty of good professors at UNCC, I have just enough faith in them that at least a few of them, I'd hope, would inform their students about why they're being forced to read Ayn Rand, and ultimately help to tear Objectivism apart in the classroom.
Unfortunately, when we're seeing schools stoop to things like this for money - public universities, no less - it says something again about where education is in our country, as public services go.
Hey, it ended up being longer than I thought. Fancy that. Once you get me going on a political tangent, it's hard to shut me up. (Here's hoping the rant didn't make any of your brains bleed.)
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt.
This blog still isn't exactly active yet. Project 27 Days is coming along, though. The first draft should be done within the next two months. With good editing - and hopefully, some luck in finding an agent and publisher - maybe I'm setting a goal of getting it on shelves by somewhere in the large window of this Autumn through next Spring. A lofty goal I'm setting there, I know, but what shot do I have if I don't try to really nail something down and keep myself as motivated and determined as possible? It'll be something worth reading when I'm through with it. I'll be making sure of that.
Anyway, onward to the point of this post. Kurt Vonnegut. Fantastic author, top notch humorist, and one hell of a guy. One of my personal literary heroes, and a big influence. And as everyone knows by now, he passed away the other day. Obviously, I never knew the guy or even came close to it, just having read a few of his books - and planning on reading the rest - so it's frankly difficult to find appropriate words to really say what needs to be said. But the literary world just took a major loss, and he is one who will not be forgotten by all who enjoy writing that captures the human spirit, bitch-slaps us when we've got it coming - as we so often do - and gives us something to all laugh at together. In effect, through all the writing he's produced, like old Billy Pilgrim, through his literature Kurt Vonnegut Jr. himself has become unstuck in time, to be remembered and enjoyed by all, human and Tralfamadorian alike.
Not much of a eulogy, but -
So it goes.
Anyway, onward to the point of this post. Kurt Vonnegut. Fantastic author, top notch humorist, and one hell of a guy. One of my personal literary heroes, and a big influence. And as everyone knows by now, he passed away the other day. Obviously, I never knew the guy or even came close to it, just having read a few of his books - and planning on reading the rest - so it's frankly difficult to find appropriate words to really say what needs to be said. But the literary world just took a major loss, and he is one who will not be forgotten by all who enjoy writing that captures the human spirit, bitch-slaps us when we've got it coming - as we so often do - and gives us something to all laugh at together. In effect, through all the writing he's produced, like old Billy Pilgrim, through his literature Kurt Vonnegut Jr. himself has become unstuck in time, to be remembered and enjoyed by all, human and Tralfamadorian alike.
Not much of a eulogy, but -
So it goes.
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