My apologies, but no substantial update today. Ever since my glasses broke last week, reading anything on the computer screen has been getting harder and harder and right now, my head feels like there's a very small horse kicking at the inside of my skull.
Posts currently waiting to be written:
ENTERTAINMENT:
Gaming-related storytelling (and how to pull a game out of the "Combats & Cutscenes" style).
Closed-ended plots and why I find them more compelling than something open-ended (specifically stand-alone books over epic fantasy series, and how much better-paced Lost is now that they know exactly when the show will end.)
Graphic novels, and how I came into the game very late with respect to them.
General "things I like" post to follow the "things I believe" post.
CURRENT EVENTS:
I really want to post about the whole Blagojevich thing now that it's over, but everyone else out on the Nettertubes seems to have done so already.
The experience of the complete clusterf&*# that was the Inauguration (from my standpoint)
And, I'm sure more things that will come up between now and when I can type for more than 5 minutes without a migraine starting.
Hope for me that my optometrist gets replacement frames in.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Credo in... ; or, In which I attempt to define my biases
Wow... no followers on blogspot itself yet, but 5 people who aren't me subscribing to the LJ RSS feed. I should actually try to keep to my planned update schedule.
I plan on, on occasion, commenting here about current events and the like. Before I do so, I feel I should lay out where I'm coming from. I make no claims to writing objectively about politics or anything else, because I do not believe that to be either feasible or desirable. Everything I say will be skewed by the lens of my personal beliefs. In light of that, I think a few statements as to the nature those beliefs are in order.
- I believe that it is the duty of any civilized society to ensure that its people are educated, fed, clothed, sheltered, employed, and healthy. The primary role of government is to see these duties carried out. Government is the method by which society acts upon itself.
- That being said, I believe in individual responsibility. It is NOT society's job to hand you food and money indefinitely if you fail to attempt to work.
- Factual education is the job of the schools, and should never be politicized. Truth is not a democracy, and no vote will invalidate science or validate myth.
- Moral education is the job of the parents. It is YOUR JOB to make sure your kid learns things like manners, respect, kindness, compassion.
- As a corollary to the above: socialization is key to every child's emotional development. This is why I am, most of the time, absolutely opposed to home-schooling. (Yes, I know many areas have home-schooling networks that provide support and socialization. This is an excellent step.) I do, however, recognize it as necessary given the current state of most public school systems. In one episode of "The West Wing", Sam states a fervent belief that "schools should be palaces". I could not agree more.
- Everyone should be taught not just to know, but also to think. Standardized testing in public schools has pushed this out of the classroom, and that dismays me.
- The secondary role of government is the safety and security of its citizens. This is why laws against murder, assault, burglary, fraud, and the like are all important. It is important to note that I do NOT refer to moral health here. The legislation of one group's mores onto another is vile to me. At the moment, this applies primarily to Marriage Equality and to Reproductive Choice, but also covers the teaching of Creationism in science classes and most other "Traditional Values" issues
- As I view government as the tool by which society acts upon itself, I believe that those we elect can and must be role models. I want them to be smarter than me and better than me. I believe that politcal corruption is not "part of the game" but is a sin against the trust we should be able to place in those we choose to govern.
- I believe that the things I want my government to do, from running public schools to maintaining roads to putting out fires, all cost money, and taxes are the only way that money is going to be raised. I believe that income tax should come disproportionately from those who can afford it, and I think that the Estate Tax is this country's best way of keeping some semblance of a meritocracy rather than a hereditary monied class. (Relatedly, anyone who uses the phrase "Death Tax" is summarily ignored from that point forward.)
- Finally, I believe deeply in the experiment that is the United States of America. To borrow a simile from Al Franken, I love America, but not the way that a 4-year-old loves Mommy. This country, through its leaders, can and have and will make poor choices, do wrong things. All I ask for is an ability to recognize those mistakes, and to learn from them.
As I write, more things keep coming to me, but I'm going to leave it at that as it ended up a lot more than I had intended to write tonight.
I plan on, on occasion, commenting here about current events and the like. Before I do so, I feel I should lay out where I'm coming from. I make no claims to writing objectively about politics or anything else, because I do not believe that to be either feasible or desirable. Everything I say will be skewed by the lens of my personal beliefs. In light of that, I think a few statements as to the nature those beliefs are in order.
- I believe that it is the duty of any civilized society to ensure that its people are educated, fed, clothed, sheltered, employed, and healthy. The primary role of government is to see these duties carried out. Government is the method by which society acts upon itself.
- That being said, I believe in individual responsibility. It is NOT society's job to hand you food and money indefinitely if you fail to attempt to work.
- Factual education is the job of the schools, and should never be politicized. Truth is not a democracy, and no vote will invalidate science or validate myth.
- Moral education is the job of the parents. It is YOUR JOB to make sure your kid learns things like manners, respect, kindness, compassion.
- As a corollary to the above: socialization is key to every child's emotional development. This is why I am, most of the time, absolutely opposed to home-schooling. (Yes, I know many areas have home-schooling networks that provide support and socialization. This is an excellent step.) I do, however, recognize it as necessary given the current state of most public school systems. In one episode of "The West Wing", Sam states a fervent belief that "schools should be palaces". I could not agree more.
- Everyone should be taught not just to know, but also to think. Standardized testing in public schools has pushed this out of the classroom, and that dismays me.
- The secondary role of government is the safety and security of its citizens. This is why laws against murder, assault, burglary, fraud, and the like are all important. It is important to note that I do NOT refer to moral health here. The legislation of one group's mores onto another is vile to me. At the moment, this applies primarily to Marriage Equality and to Reproductive Choice, but also covers the teaching of Creationism in science classes and most other "Traditional Values" issues
- As I view government as the tool by which society acts upon itself, I believe that those we elect can and must be role models. I want them to be smarter than me and better than me. I believe that politcal corruption is not "part of the game" but is a sin against the trust we should be able to place in those we choose to govern.
- I believe that the things I want my government to do, from running public schools to maintaining roads to putting out fires, all cost money, and taxes are the only way that money is going to be raised. I believe that income tax should come disproportionately from those who can afford it, and I think that the Estate Tax is this country's best way of keeping some semblance of a meritocracy rather than a hereditary monied class. (Relatedly, anyone who uses the phrase "Death Tax" is summarily ignored from that point forward.)
- Finally, I believe deeply in the experiment that is the United States of America. To borrow a simile from Al Franken, I love America, but not the way that a 4-year-old loves Mommy. This country, through its leaders, can and have and will make poor choices, do wrong things. All I ask for is an ability to recognize those mistakes, and to learn from them.
As I write, more things keep coming to me, but I'm going to leave it at that as it ended up a lot more than I had intended to write tonight.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
On geekery and stereotypes; or, In which the other characters stand around, asking "Where's Poochie?"
Aaand my resolution to post daily lasted... 0 days. I will try to ramp up to that schedule, but immediately after that last post the following this happened:
1) I was Technical Director for a regional Science Fiction convention, which...
2) I had to leave 24 hours early because my girlfriend was in a car accident, though that didn't stop us from
3) Going to the inauguration, spending several hours in the Purple Tunnel of Doom andn ot actually making it through security, before
4) Going to the Youth Ball (for certain definitions of "Youth" that includes Demi Moore), and then
5) Coming home to Boston to find that 2/3 of my office had been laid off. (Not me, fortunately, but it's caused an increase in workload and anxiety levels that I just haven't been able to think about posting.)
Anyway... as I said, daily posts will be forthcoming soon. But really, right now I'm strapped as to what to write about that's interesting. The proposed stimulus package? The role of the GOP as "loyal opposition"? The fact that I can't talk about Rod Blagojavich without making his last name sound like a Jerry Lewis exclamation? So yeah, the political world, not so much.
What I WOULD like to talk about today is one of my favorite musical groups, but first, a digression about geekery.
You see, I am an unabashed geek. I do not try to hide the fact that I adore science fiction, roleplaying games, music that isn't Top 40, NPR, Da Vinci's Notebook, Moxy Fruvous, Buffy, politics, House, Doctor Who, Jonathan Coulton, Lost, Stephen Fry, Broadway musicals, or comic books. What I may possibly have going for me is that while many geeks have depth, I have breadth. I can't, for the most part, quote Doctor Who serials by title. I can't necessarily tell you who sings lead on "Internet Porn", and I certainly can't tell you what page the Saving Throw tables were on in the 2nd edition AD&D Player's Handbook. What I CAN do is have an engaging conversation that ranges across more than one topic. I did not realize that this qualifies as a "skill" until I watched a young man's attempt at chatting up a woman based on the book she was reading on the train. This attempt went well... for about 10 minutes, until the conversation veered off from his area of geekdom, and he completely lost interest.
Anyway... where was I going with this? Oh yes... multi-geeking, which segues into Paul and Storm.
This line of thought stems from a weird confluence of my various geeketypes that occurred last night. I was listening to the latest episode of "Paul and Storm Talk About Some Stuff for Five to Ten Minutes (on Average)". Not only were they discussing the vast variety of geeks (the “panoply of geeks”, as they put it) who were attending their shows, but they then digressed into a brief discussion of Stephen Fry and his podcasts (sorry, “podgrams”), and the fact that the man can do amazing things with the English language. This is only a few weeks after they made reference to the musical “1776” and the song “But, Mr. Adams” in their podcast, triggering my inner Broadway geek. (I say “inner Broadway geek” only the thick shell of “outer Broadway geek” is more concerned with shows written this decade.)
The reason for this whole digression, therefore, was the confluence of various facets of my geekiness coming together in one place, with my favorite geek musicians making reference to my favorite British television/literary personality AND to a musical that is very near to my heart… And then this led me to a rare moment of self-knowledge. I realized that I have been buying into the geek stereotype just as much as anyone else. By assuming that the range of topics I’m able to “geek out” on makes me special (code, of course, for “better”), I assume that the majority of geeks are people with one laser-focused area of interest and non-existent social skills outside of like-minded folks. This stereotype is the reason media coverage of Star Trek conventions only ever shows the people in uniforms/make-up. Having spent last week an a fairly huge fan convention, I should be able to recognize that this is not true, and that the vast majority of people I have encountered in these situations are, to put it as briefly as I can, intellectually voracious. We take in vast amounts of information about the things that interest us, and the things that interest us tend to coincide because they’re the things that tend to provide the level of intellectual stimulation that we require from the things that we are passionate about.
Wow... that was longer than I intended it to be.
Anyway… Paul and Storm. They are the two still-performing members of a group called Da Vinci’s Notebook. DVN was the group that brought us some of my favorite comedy songs, like “Enormous Penis”, “Internet Porn”, “Another Irish Drinking Song”, and “Title of the Song”. I was first exposed to them in 2003 at the Phi Mu Alpha national convention. While waiting for a midnight event to start, a group of guys started singing the songs I mentioned above (and, it being a music fraternity, did so by ear and with as close to spot-on harmonies as possible). I was hooked. I went home and got my hands on as many of their songs as I could.
A few years later, I was working one night while my girlfriend went to a Jonathan Coulton show in Somerville, MA. When I came home, she rushed to play a song for me that she had bought from iTunes. That song, “Your Love Is”, had been played that night by JoCo’s opening act, Paul and Storm. This song, for those who have not heard it, includes such metaphors as “Your love is smallpox”, “Your love is a giant redwood falling on a family of deer”, and my personal favorite, “Your love is Christopher Walken.” At that point, I did what any self-respecting geek would: I turned to the font of all human knowledge, Wikipedia. I found out the band’s connection to DVN, and immediately went to their website to check out if they had any music available. Fortunately, they had ALL their songs available to stream from the site. I spent several hours laughing before going on iTunes and buying all of the albums they then had available. Some good stuff, a very low percentage of songs I don’t care for, and a VERY high percentage of really great comedy.
Ever since then (and this was over a year ago now), the most common playlist on my iPod is a shuffle of about 3 dozen of their songs. I highly recommend anyone go to their site and check them out. Their podcast is well worth listening to, as well. Their live shows are amazing (though occasionally long on banter, a fact that is as much the audience’s fault as it is the band’s) and if you can catch the double bill of them with Jonathan Coulton, you’re in for a major treat.
What is it that I like about Paul and Storm? Well, partly it’s their wit, partly it’s the fact that they can cover just about any genre or specific artist (and Storm’s Randy Newman impression is absolutely dead-on). They hit all the major geek touchstones (Pirates? Check.) Mostly, it’s the fact that they play songs that are what I would write if I had any talent at writing music, and the kind of songs that I love to perform.
I was all set to list my favorite songs by them, but they seem to have already done so. Check out this post for their "greatest hits". I will add five songs to that list, however, that you should listen to (I actually prefer them to, for example, "Hip Shop" or "Strip Club Daddy")
- The Captain's Wife's Lament (or, as Paul puts it live, one shitty pun for a minute and ten seconds.)
- Me Make Fire, a Song Fu entry that I adore
- Nugget Man, which is proof that they can take ANY CONCEPT and make it amusing
- Tonight I'm A Parrothead, which demonstrates their ability to absolutely nail whatever genre or artist they're going for. (Well, over and above the Randy Newman parodies.)
- The Ballad of Eddie Praeger. (See note on Tonight I'm A Parrothead, and add on that it's also REALLY IMPRESSIVE from a musical standpoint.)
One final note: if you haven’t, check out Masters of Song Fu. It’s like Iron Chef for song-writing (mostly comedy song-writing) and features some fantastic artists, including Paul and Storm, Jonathan Coulton, and the RiffTones (the guys behind MST3K). Some really brilliant stuff, including a bunch of the songs by the amateur “Challengers”.
1) I was Technical Director for a regional Science Fiction convention, which...
2) I had to leave 24 hours early because my girlfriend was in a car accident, though that didn't stop us from
3) Going to the inauguration, spending several hours in the Purple Tunnel of Doom andn ot actually making it through security, before
4) Going to the Youth Ball (for certain definitions of "Youth" that includes Demi Moore), and then
5) Coming home to Boston to find that 2/3 of my office had been laid off. (Not me, fortunately, but it's caused an increase in workload and anxiety levels that I just haven't been able to think about posting.)
Anyway... as I said, daily posts will be forthcoming soon. But really, right now I'm strapped as to what to write about that's interesting. The proposed stimulus package? The role of the GOP as "loyal opposition"? The fact that I can't talk about Rod Blagojavich without making his last name sound like a Jerry Lewis exclamation? So yeah, the political world, not so much.
What I WOULD like to talk about today is one of my favorite musical groups, but first, a digression about geekery.
You see, I am an unabashed geek. I do not try to hide the fact that I adore science fiction, roleplaying games, music that isn't Top 40, NPR, Da Vinci's Notebook, Moxy Fruvous, Buffy, politics, House, Doctor Who, Jonathan Coulton, Lost, Stephen Fry, Broadway musicals, or comic books. What I may possibly have going for me is that while many geeks have depth, I have breadth. I can't, for the most part, quote Doctor Who serials by title. I can't necessarily tell you who sings lead on "Internet Porn", and I certainly can't tell you what page the Saving Throw tables were on in the 2nd edition AD&D Player's Handbook. What I CAN do is have an engaging conversation that ranges across more than one topic. I did not realize that this qualifies as a "skill" until I watched a young man's attempt at chatting up a woman based on the book she was reading on the train. This attempt went well... for about 10 minutes, until the conversation veered off from his area of geekdom, and he completely lost interest.
Anyway... where was I going with this? Oh yes... multi-geeking, which segues into Paul and Storm.
This line of thought stems from a weird confluence of my various geeketypes that occurred last night. I was listening to the latest episode of "Paul and Storm Talk About Some Stuff for Five to Ten Minutes (on Average)". Not only were they discussing the vast variety of geeks (the “panoply of geeks”, as they put it) who were attending their shows, but they then digressed into a brief discussion of Stephen Fry and his podcasts (sorry, “podgrams”), and the fact that the man can do amazing things with the English language. This is only a few weeks after they made reference to the musical “1776” and the song “But, Mr. Adams” in their podcast, triggering my inner Broadway geek. (I say “inner Broadway geek” only the thick shell of “outer Broadway geek” is more concerned with shows written this decade.)
The reason for this whole digression, therefore, was the confluence of various facets of my geekiness coming together in one place, with my favorite geek musicians making reference to my favorite British television/literary personality AND to a musical that is very near to my heart… And then this led me to a rare moment of self-knowledge. I realized that I have been buying into the geek stereotype just as much as anyone else. By assuming that the range of topics I’m able to “geek out” on makes me special (code, of course, for “better”), I assume that the majority of geeks are people with one laser-focused area of interest and non-existent social skills outside of like-minded folks. This stereotype is the reason media coverage of Star Trek conventions only ever shows the people in uniforms/make-up. Having spent last week an a fairly huge fan convention, I should be able to recognize that this is not true, and that the vast majority of people I have encountered in these situations are, to put it as briefly as I can, intellectually voracious. We take in vast amounts of information about the things that interest us, and the things that interest us tend to coincide because they’re the things that tend to provide the level of intellectual stimulation that we require from the things that we are passionate about.
Wow... that was longer than I intended it to be.
Anyway… Paul and Storm. They are the two still-performing members of a group called Da Vinci’s Notebook. DVN was the group that brought us some of my favorite comedy songs, like “Enormous Penis”, “Internet Porn”, “Another Irish Drinking Song”, and “Title of the Song”. I was first exposed to them in 2003 at the Phi Mu Alpha national convention. While waiting for a midnight event to start, a group of guys started singing the songs I mentioned above (and, it being a music fraternity, did so by ear and with as close to spot-on harmonies as possible). I was hooked. I went home and got my hands on as many of their songs as I could.
A few years later, I was working one night while my girlfriend went to a Jonathan Coulton show in Somerville, MA. When I came home, she rushed to play a song for me that she had bought from iTunes. That song, “Your Love Is”, had been played that night by JoCo’s opening act, Paul and Storm. This song, for those who have not heard it, includes such metaphors as “Your love is smallpox”, “Your love is a giant redwood falling on a family of deer”, and my personal favorite, “Your love is Christopher Walken.” At that point, I did what any self-respecting geek would: I turned to the font of all human knowledge, Wikipedia. I found out the band’s connection to DVN, and immediately went to their website to check out if they had any music available. Fortunately, they had ALL their songs available to stream from the site. I spent several hours laughing before going on iTunes and buying all of the albums they then had available. Some good stuff, a very low percentage of songs I don’t care for, and a VERY high percentage of really great comedy.
Ever since then (and this was over a year ago now), the most common playlist on my iPod is a shuffle of about 3 dozen of their songs. I highly recommend anyone go to their site and check them out. Their podcast is well worth listening to, as well. Their live shows are amazing (though occasionally long on banter, a fact that is as much the audience’s fault as it is the band’s) and if you can catch the double bill of them with Jonathan Coulton, you’re in for a major treat.
What is it that I like about Paul and Storm? Well, partly it’s their wit, partly it’s the fact that they can cover just about any genre or specific artist (and Storm’s Randy Newman impression is absolutely dead-on). They hit all the major geek touchstones (Pirates? Check.) Mostly, it’s the fact that they play songs that are what I would write if I had any talent at writing music, and the kind of songs that I love to perform.
I was all set to list my favorite songs by them, but they seem to have already done so. Check out this post for their "greatest hits". I will add five songs to that list, however, that you should listen to (I actually prefer them to, for example, "Hip Shop" or "Strip Club Daddy")
- The Captain's Wife's Lament (or, as Paul puts it live, one shitty pun for a minute and ten seconds.)
- Me Make Fire, a Song Fu entry that I adore
- Nugget Man, which is proof that they can take ANY CONCEPT and make it amusing
- Tonight I'm A Parrothead, which demonstrates their ability to absolutely nail whatever genre or artist they're going for. (Well, over and above the Randy Newman parodies.)
- The Ballad of Eddie Praeger. (See note on Tonight I'm A Parrothead, and add on that it's also REALLY IMPRESSIVE from a musical standpoint.)
One final note: if you haven’t, check out Masters of Song Fu. It’s like Iron Chef for song-writing (mostly comedy song-writing) and features some fantastic artists, including Paul and Storm, Jonathan Coulton, and the RiffTones (the guys behind MST3K). Some really brilliant stuff, including a bunch of the songs by the amateur “Challengers”.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
In which I try to explain the blog's title, with digressions
What exactly, I can hear you asking, does “A Mirror and a Hammer” mean? Or, rather, I’m sure I would hear you asking if anyone read this less-than-12-hours-old blog.
In order to give the full story, I need to provide a little background. Don’t worry, it all leads somewhere relevant. There is a show that is, if not my favorite television show, than at least in the top 3. Like so many other shows I love, it airs in the UK. UNLIKE so many other shows I love, it does not then air in the US if you just wait long enough. The name of this show is QI. It is hosted by the incomparable Stephen Fry, a man described as having "a brain the size of Kent". The format of the show is ostensibly that of a quiz show. Points, however, are not awarded merely for CORRECT answers, they are awarded for INTERESTING answers or, in many cases, for interesting things that come up in the conversations following each question. (Points are deducted for giving obvious answers that "everyone knows" are correct but which are not.)
By the way... you can usually find episodes of QI on YouTube, though the full episodes are usually pulled down after a few months as they're not actually posted by the BBC.
So, QI is one of my favorite shows. It's brilliant, funny, and should be brought to BBC America, or at least have the DVDs released as Region 1. But anyway...
This Christmas, I made gift-buying easy for my mother. I set up an Amazon Wish List. My friends, if you truly love someone, you will do this for them. Put enough on it so that they can pick something out and you can still say that thought went into it, set it so that it doesn't tell you what's been purchased during the month of December/your birthday/your anniversary, and send out the link to all and sundry who would otherwise spend hours at the mall trying to find parking running from store to store listening to mall Christmas music trying to find the perfect gift trying to remember if you mentioned you wanted this or that and how much should you really spend and AAAAAAAHHHHH!!!
Sorry. Better now. SO! Amazon Wish List for Christmas. Yes.
One of the books on there was Advanced Banter, the QI book of quotations. Not quotations from the show, just general quotations, spanning Plato to Lenny Bruce to W. I could never sit down and read something like this straight through so once in a while, when I feel the urge, I flip to a random page and scan a few quotations. Usually this is good for a chuckle; occasionally something will make me stop and think. One day, just before New Year's, there were two quotes that brought me up short. They have spend the last week and a half wandering around my brain and, in the process, have fused into a sort of lens through which any memories, feelings, or ideas that bubble up into my conscious mind have been viewed through. They are:
“There'll be two dates on your tombstone and all your friends will read 'em, but all that's gonna matter is that little dash between 'em” ~Kevin Welch
and
"Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it" - Bertolt Brecht
And so, when it came time to name this blog, it was fairly inevitable that I would name it with a reference to one of those quotes. My first thought was "That Little Dash." Then I thought about it and that's what my old LJ was: an account of the little dash that will one day appear on my headstone, and a usually boring account at that. That's not what I want to do here. (If I'm to be totally honest, the final nail on the coffin for that name came when I found out it was already taken. D'oh!) I don't want to write about my day, my life. I want to write about my WORLD. I want to hold a mirror up to the world and show you a new light, a new angle. I want... well, there's really no good metaphor for the hammer in blog terms. "I want to weild my words like a hammer that reshapes your brain"? Too gruesome, not to mention reminiscent of They Might Be Giants lyrics.
So that's the story behind this blog's title. I'm setting another goal for myself here and now: every day, Monday - Friday (life-permitting), I will write something about whatever is going on in the news, politics, art, something... if there is nothing going on that particularly strikes me, I will open that book of quotations, find a quote, and talk about it.
~JMS
In order to give the full story, I need to provide a little background. Don’t worry, it all leads somewhere relevant. There is a show that is, if not my favorite television show, than at least in the top 3. Like so many other shows I love, it airs in the UK. UNLIKE so many other shows I love, it does not then air in the US if you just wait long enough. The name of this show is QI. It is hosted by the incomparable Stephen Fry, a man described as having "a brain the size of Kent". The format of the show is ostensibly that of a quiz show. Points, however, are not awarded merely for CORRECT answers, they are awarded for INTERESTING answers or, in many cases, for interesting things that come up in the conversations following each question. (Points are deducted for giving obvious answers that "everyone knows" are correct but which are not.)
By the way... you can usually find episodes of QI on YouTube, though the full episodes are usually pulled down after a few months as they're not actually posted by the BBC.
So, QI is one of my favorite shows. It's brilliant, funny, and should be brought to BBC America, or at least have the DVDs released as Region 1. But anyway...
This Christmas, I made gift-buying easy for my mother. I set up an Amazon Wish List. My friends, if you truly love someone, you will do this for them. Put enough on it so that they can pick something out and you can still say that thought went into it, set it so that it doesn't tell you what's been purchased during the month of December/your birthday/your anniversary, and send out the link to all and sundry who would otherwise spend hours at the mall trying to find parking running from store to store listening to mall Christmas music trying to find the perfect gift trying to remember if you mentioned you wanted this or that and how much should you really spend and AAAAAAAHHHHH!!!
Sorry. Better now. SO! Amazon Wish List for Christmas. Yes.
One of the books on there was Advanced Banter, the QI book of quotations. Not quotations from the show, just general quotations, spanning Plato to Lenny Bruce to W. I could never sit down and read something like this straight through so once in a while, when I feel the urge, I flip to a random page and scan a few quotations. Usually this is good for a chuckle; occasionally something will make me stop and think. One day, just before New Year's, there were two quotes that brought me up short. They have spend the last week and a half wandering around my brain and, in the process, have fused into a sort of lens through which any memories, feelings, or ideas that bubble up into my conscious mind have been viewed through. They are:
“There'll be two dates on your tombstone and all your friends will read 'em, but all that's gonna matter is that little dash between 'em” ~Kevin Welch
and
"Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it" - Bertolt Brecht
And so, when it came time to name this blog, it was fairly inevitable that I would name it with a reference to one of those quotes. My first thought was "That Little Dash." Then I thought about it and that's what my old LJ was: an account of the little dash that will one day appear on my headstone, and a usually boring account at that. That's not what I want to do here. (If I'm to be totally honest, the final nail on the coffin for that name came when I found out it was already taken. D'oh!) I don't want to write about my day, my life. I want to write about my WORLD. I want to hold a mirror up to the world and show you a new light, a new angle. I want... well, there's really no good metaphor for the hammer in blog terms. "I want to weild my words like a hammer that reshapes your brain"? Too gruesome, not to mention reminiscent of They Might Be Giants lyrics.
So that's the story behind this blog's title. I'm setting another goal for myself here and now: every day, Monday - Friday (life-permitting), I will write something about whatever is going on in the news, politics, art, something... if there is nothing going on that particularly strikes me, I will open that book of quotations, find a quote, and talk about it.
~JMS
Friday, January 9, 2009
In which I discuss Books 1 & 2 of 2009: Anathem and Why We Suck
To start off this new site on a (somewhat pedestrian) note... I'm continuing an experiment that I did on-and-off on my LJ for the last couple years (and which many many friends have done to much greater effect): I'm going to attempt to keep track of what I've read. Since it's a new year, what better time to start counting? I've set myself a (hopefully low) goal of 75 books in 2009. And whattayaknow? I've already finished two.
1) Anathem by Neal Stephenson
I really enjoyed this book. As one of my co-workers put it, "Depending on your concept of quantum mechanics, it can really be defined as anywhere from fantasy to hard SF." I've never read any Stephenson before, so I can't speak to all of the reviews on Amazon saying that it's not as good as Snow Crash or any of his other books. I can see where some readers felt that the book was about 300 pages too long, but I actually enjoyed the parts where others felt "bogged down". Maybe I'm just a philosophy/physics dork. OK, I definitely am, but maybe that's the explanation for why I enjoyed this book so much. A world in which science has retreated to monasteries and much of the exposition is done as part of thought-experiments, in such a way that you have to infer the history and situation of the plot from the givens of the experiments? How would I NOT love this? I enjoyed reading a book that I had to put it down to actually try to work out some of the concepts that it was working with... HAD to figure them out because I knew they'd be important. I'm going to move on to some of his older stuff next, I think.
2) Why We Suck by Dr. Denis Leary
Yes, Denis Leary is a doctor. Reproduced his doctorate in the book and everything. This was a quick read... started it last night, finished it at work today. It's helpful to have spent several months listening to his No Cure For Cancer non-stop for several months around the time I was 11 or 12. He's a very rhythmic comic, and the ways that he plays with rhythm through punctuation (or the lack thereof), repetition, and even formatting are... interesting is the best word I'm coming up with. Hit-or-miss, but enough on the "hit" side that I'd recommend the book. I certainly don't agree with everything he says, but a lot of it reflects a common sense that I can really get behind. There's one chapter in particular that talks about why sending your kids to school, rather than home-schooling, is a good idea and frankly, I've known enough socially stunted home-schoolers to know that he has a point. I'm thinking of passing this book to my girlfriend next, since it perfectly espouses her attitude toward children, which includes a fierce hatred for the parents suffering from "precious little snowflake" syndrome.
1) Anathem by Neal Stephenson
I really enjoyed this book. As one of my co-workers put it, "Depending on your concept of quantum mechanics, it can really be defined as anywhere from fantasy to hard SF." I've never read any Stephenson before, so I can't speak to all of the reviews on Amazon saying that it's not as good as Snow Crash or any of his other books. I can see where some readers felt that the book was about 300 pages too long, but I actually enjoyed the parts where others felt "bogged down". Maybe I'm just a philosophy/physics dork. OK, I definitely am, but maybe that's the explanation for why I enjoyed this book so much. A world in which science has retreated to monasteries and much of the exposition is done as part of thought-experiments, in such a way that you have to infer the history and situation of the plot from the givens of the experiments? How would I NOT love this? I enjoyed reading a book that I had to put it down to actually try to work out some of the concepts that it was working with... HAD to figure them out because I knew they'd be important. I'm going to move on to some of his older stuff next, I think.
2) Why We Suck by Dr. Denis Leary
Yes, Denis Leary is a doctor. Reproduced his doctorate in the book and everything. This was a quick read... started it last night, finished it at work today. It's helpful to have spent several months listening to his No Cure For Cancer non-stop for several months around the time I was 11 or 12. He's a very rhythmic comic, and the ways that he plays with rhythm through punctuation (or the lack thereof), repetition, and even formatting are... interesting is the best word I'm coming up with. Hit-or-miss, but enough on the "hit" side that I'd recommend the book. I certainly don't agree with everything he says, but a lot of it reflects a common sense that I can really get behind. There's one chapter in particular that talks about why sending your kids to school, rather than home-schooling, is a good idea and frankly, I've known enough socially stunted home-schoolers to know that he has a point. I'm thinking of passing this book to my girlfriend next, since it perfectly espouses her attitude toward children, which includes a fierce hatred for the parents suffering from "precious little snowflake" syndrome.
New blog!
Well, with the recent fracas over at Livejournal, I decided it was time to start a new blog on a different site. I hope people read and enjoy. I promise to avoid angst and to try to be thoughtful and occasionally thought-provoking.
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