Four Stars Lost to the Twining Daybreaker

Reality Literature

2004-12-01T16:05:00.000+01:00

After having read the semi-autobiographical Natasha by David Bezmozgis, and now finding myself titillated by Melissa P's controversial semi-autobiographical erotic memoir 100 Strokes of the Brush Before Bed, I have concluded that the semi-autobiography is the literary equivalent of reality television. After all, reality television is about real people confronting unreal situations. So it is with the semi-autobiography, whose practitioners write in the first person about how they would behave in a series of invented and implausible scenarios.

Perhaps this is nothing new. The traditional "first novel" is usually semi-autobiographical. But it seems that more and more I am picking up books written in the first person with the semi-autobiographical tag.

Some might argue that the recent trend of publishing blogs is also a literary reflection of our reality television mindset.

I Didn't Know You Could Spell It That Way

2004-12-01T15:42:00.000+01:00

On page 38 of the December issue of Architectural Record: "The owner . . . professes an almost eery faith in the building."

"Eery"?

Yep. You can spell it that way, says dictionary.com

About 48,000 Google pages come up for the "eery" spelling. About 1,330,000 come up for "eerie."

Slow Death of the American Dream: Part VII

2004-11-10T15:13:00.000+01:00

In the chromosomal arms race between X's vs. Y's, nature has created a society that is very nearly 50% female and 50% male. Over billions of years of sexual evolution guided by ruthlessly efficient gene behavior, the genders of our species lie in nearly perfect balance for perpetuity. So powerful is this balance that breeders have failed to create strains of chickens and dairy cattle that produce a higher level of female to male offspring despite the enormous economic rewards awaiting anyone who does so.

The same unchanging inevitability can be said of the political struggle between Republicans and Democrats in the United States of America. Election 2004 suggests that the citizens of the United States have reached their maximum saturation point. It is very nearly 50/50 between "blue" and "red." Both parties' platforms have been shaped and molded by constant conflict with and competition from the other sides', resulting in the near-perfect 50/50 popular split. These two massive parties wage a war wherein the concession of a mere one or two percentage points to the other side results in a "mandate" for one and a disaster for the other.

Because the balance of power between the two parties hinges on only a percentage point or two, a third party has no possibility of joining the political debate. Third party candidate Ralph Nader found that out in 2004 when his bid to compete with the major parties was thoroughly crushed by Democratic lawsuits filed by party-leaders terrified of the possibility of a 2000 repeat (that was when Nader, as a Green party candidate, might have gained enough votes in Florida to tip that state into Bush's column, assuming of course that "Green" voters would have voted for Al Gore had they not been offered the Nader choice). For a political behemoth like the Democratic National Committee, which commands the attention and political funds of half the country, to file such lawsuits was a simple matter. The tiny Green party was doomed, and in 2008 the Democrats will slap them again.

The Republicans would play the game no differently if, say, the Libertarian party lobbed a viable candidate into the spotlight. Seeing the Democrats' success at keeping Nader off the ballot in 2004 (even if it ultimately made no difference in the final outcome), the Republicans would undoubtedly do the same to any competition that threatened to pull even a single percentage of their electorate's votes, since the loss of a single percentage could be disastrous.

So, thanks to the self-preserving instincts of the two ruling parties, there will never be a competitive third party in the United States. The barriers to entry are too high. By extension, there will never be fundamental change in American politics.

Introverts of the World Unite

2004-11-09T16:26:00.000+01:00

An old item here, from March 2003, but forever relevant: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200303/rauch

I have become increasingly interested in the tyranny of extroversion and its contribution to the decline of Western Civilisation. Is not Bush's victory over Kerry a testimonial to this? I heard a news correspondent say that Kerry did not enjoy campaigning. Whereas Clinton thrived in front of crowds (and Bush seems pretty comfortable when reading from a script to his carefully screened, partisan supporters), Kerry was exhausted by audiences. Kerry's weaknesses (looking at issues from multiple angles, considering the consequences of several different approaches to problem-solving, mulling) seem to me to be classic introverted qualities. The world prefers sunnier leaders, i.e., extroverts.

Since the majority of the planet is extroverted, it makes sense that our leaders be extroverted as well. On the other hand, when I see this favouritism towards extroversion applied to virtually all aspects of life (for example, rewarding the "go get 'em tiger" extrovert with a fat starting salary at a corporation because he or she is a "team player," can "network," and "works well with others"), I begin to wonder if we introverts are doomed. Almost every reality television show reinforces the notion that effective extroversion is the key to survival and happiness.

Perhaps IT work was invented by introverts who sought the big bucks of a corporate job while preserving their sacred introverted qualities? Too bad I don't like networks.

I think it is the duty of every introvert out there to emphasize one's introversion. For example, when you would prefer to stay in on a Friday night and read a good book, and your friends wonder why you don't want to go out with them, don't make lame, pathetic sounding excuses. Just say, "I'm an introvert, and we introverts happily read books on Friday night."

Most of all, we shouldn't confine our outspokenness to quasi-anonymous blogs.

Catholicism, Islam, and Theo van Gogh

2004-11-08T18:19:00.000+01:00

John Milton once argued in his Areopagitica for tolerance of all points of view and perspectives--except Catholicism. He argued that Catholicism did not deserve such respect because Catholicism itself was intolerant ("I mean not tolerated popery, and open superstition, which, as it extirpates all religions and civil supremacies, so itself should be extirpate . . .").

This always struck me as a problematic stance, since how can a society be considered truly tolerant if it does not allow intolerant groups to have a voice in it?

In liberal Amsterdam, Islam is the new Catholicism. It is portrayed by its opponents as the intolerant faith that threatens Amsterdam's celebrated tolerance. Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh's death at the hands of an Islamic extremist brings the debate to the fore once again.

Van Gogh's stance is a little trickier than Milton's logical lapse, because it is hard to deny that some Muslim women are subjected to treatment considered unacceptable by the average Westerner. The idiot who murdered Van Gogh only reinforced a hundred-fold the very criticisms Van Gogh made.

I do not know what Van Gogh's opinion was on immigration. Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn was murdered in 2002 in part because of his strong anti-immigration policies, and he was to be the subject of Van Gogh's next film. The link above ("Van Gogh's stance") includes this paragraph: "Van Gogh was also popular and notorious newspaper opinion column writer [sic] who had argued that Islamic culture contradicted Dutch culture and endangered Dutch values, consciously echoing Fortuyn, the maverick anti-immigration campaigner whose murder plunged the country into political crisis in May 2002." But I do not know from this paragraph that Van Gogh was actually anti-immigration, only that he felt the intolerant qualities of Islam were a threat to the tolerant qualities of liberal Holland. Nothing in the paragraph's cited examples of Van Gogh's themes actually reveals that he was anti-immigration. "Consciously echoing" is a very weak link between the two sets of thoughts.

There's a big difference in my mind between being critical of a culture and being anti-immigration. The right to criticise Islam (as well as the right to criticise Van Gogh) should be protected; all debate should be encouraged. However, anti-immigration stances cross a line towards outright racism (the fight for the preservation of Dutch culture seems rather Nazi-ish).

If you know more about Van Gogh's specific views on immigration, please let me know.

Footage from the film that got Van Gogh killed can be seen here.

American Election/Americans

2004-11-04T20:35:00.000+01:00

Hearing the result of the American election makes me realise that I do not know Americans at all. I meet many at the hotel where I work, but they are, of course, a special type of American, with lots of money and already a sort of affected "Europeaness." I suspect most of the Americans who voted for Bush--and I guess that means most Americans--are not like these people at all. I would like to meet these people and study them. I could be a sort of Jane Goodall, because these people are very probably like apes.

Lark Ascending

2004-11-04T18:33:00.000+01:00

This morning, as I prepared for another day of classes, I listened to Hilary Hahn's new CD. It concludes with a piece by Ralph Vaughan Williams called "The Lark Ascending." It is very beautiful, this piece. But I almost started laughing while I listened to it because I realized that every big epic historical movie, like the stuff Miramax makes, has a soundtrack that sounds exactly like Ralph Vaughan Williams's "The Lark Ascending." "The Lark Ascending" seems to be the blueprint for epic, Academy Award nominated film-scores.