(I started writing this a while ago, but then I sold all of the jokes to gypsies, so now I must furnish the entry with new ones.)
An old friend of mine won an Oscar recently, which is excellent, and much like the crafty Ms. Passion, I had an influx of traffic on this here website due to a link on said friend's old blog. Given the, uh, adult nature of the traffic, I am feeling a certain amount of pressure to adopt an intriguing pseudonym like "Lorenzo from Accounting" or "Lunch", and posit scenarios which might better fit the expectations of these new visitors.
I never thought it would happen to me! Despite his incorrect and shameful choice of headgear, the professional affiliation of great service toward our corporation was overwhelming! Together, we searched very much to achieve bare financial milestones established with great knowing by the regional management for whom effortless brilliance of leadership and strategy is infinitely disappointed by our meager abilities and profound inadequacy. But yet we both felt great seriousness toward our professional responsibilities!
There is an article coming in a local newspaper about the travel book, so I am looking forward to that. In the March edition, upon much consideration, we decided to change "Birdgeport" to "Bridgeport" on the map for that part of the city. One bar on the south side closed, so that came out, and a Neapolitan pizza place on the north side went in. But we haven't done anything about the somewhat daffy computer-generated index, which has to be seen to be appreciated.
Reports have it that Cheeta was featured on Episode 350 of This American Life. I haven't listened yet, but I am always excited for the old fellow to get some of the recognition he so richly deserves. His masterwork "Green, Brown, Yellow" recently had its first formal exhibition in my living room during a party, and I think everyone was very impressed. (I should note that I had it framed at The Practical Angle in Chicago and they did a fine job.)
I never thought it would happen to me! I was just sitting there on the mountain, on the lookout for peanuts or old fruit, when...
February 25, 2008
It is not entirely accurate to say that I have been up to my old tricks, for among the tricks were new ones, such as the publication of a goddam book. I have never done that before, and now that my author copies have arrived, it is delightful to see words that I have written in print. The book is a travel guide to the entire city of Chicago; I covered the north side and most of the west, and shared duties on the center of town. It was written with another fellow whose talents complemented my own, under contract to a publisher overseas. The idea was for us to write a book, and then post more or less the entire thing online for people to collaborate upon in wiki-form; whereupon we, as editors, will incorporate any quality submissions received into the text of the book, which is printed on demand whenever someone orders it, ensuring that it is ruthlessly current.
The publishers received some coverage on the blogs last week, most notably on boingboing, where a commenter named JOE had this to say:
"Their Chicago guide is 468 pages? That's not a travel guide, that's a travel novel. You'd spend the majority of your trip reading the beast."
Damn right! Thanks, guy.
So that's what I did with the latter half of 2007, and also the first month of 2008. It was a lot of work, but I am pleased with the finished product. I did rather a lot of writing, of course, and plenty of walking around to find things and telephone calls to confirm other things; two of my photos adorn the cover, and there are a few more scattered throughout the book in black and white. Rogers Park receives an entire chapter, and although travel literature is a form simply not equipped to capture the sweet, savage nature of the old stomping grounds, I did enjoy the chance to write about my ancestral land in guidebook form.
You can buy a copy of my book here; and I leave you with that.
(Obviously, I haven't written an entry for quite a long time. Both my day job and the aforementioned travel guide require sentences that do not wander too far into the labyrinth of alarm and excitement and halfway state that is the mark of my usual prose, so it is kind of enjoyable to stretch out with all of these clauses.)
February 25, 2005
Some people have written to ask if I knew the Killer Japanese Seizure Robots. Actually, I did. I cannot pretend that their English showed much improvement while I was there, but I miss them all the same. I go to their webpage rather often and feel nostalgic, and also epileptic.
Last week, in the midst of discussing my own impending birthday, I delivered a powerful oration on the nature of holidays in North Korea, noting that, as far as I could tell, St. Patrick's Day was the only one that had not been revealed by the North Korean media to be Kim Jong Il-related in origin. Following up on that, we have the following from our sideline reporter, Arden:
I really am as shocked as anyone about the failure in coalescence of Kim Jong Il and St. Patrick's Day. One upside of flunking out of U of I was my opportunity to study "The History of China and Japan" at the substantially less politically correct Parkland College, where you learn things like, "Korea is known as the Ireland of the Orient, because they also have a history of alcoholism." With a shared culture like that, how could these countries not be attending each other's parties?
I thought about that, and I suppose one reason might be the hair issue. We know, from science, that all Irish people look like this, while the government of North Korea has set clear guidelines for hair and attire. How, then, might a drunken North Korean socialist fanatic judge the Irish?
1. The hair of the Irish is too long in the back, and it is unruly. Although men aged over 50 are given allowed two extra centimeters of hair to cover balding, that is clearly intended for use toward comb-overs. Irish people allow their excess hair to spill out of their hats, and it provides no aid towards concealing their baldness.
2. The nappy ends of the hair and beards of Irish people tends to suggest that they do not get a trim once every fifteen days, as prescribed. That leaves them with undue amounts of free time in which to be infiltrated by corrupt capitalist ideas.
3. There are, the North Korean media reports, civic advantages to wearing smart shoes. Irish people, however, choose to wear long, yellow shoes that are pointy and bent upward at the end. By no reasonable measure are the shoes of the Irish smart. In fact, as one representative from the goverment argued, "No matter how good the clothes, if one does not wear tidy shoes, one's personality will be downgraded." It is a sensitive issue, even among fellow drunks, when one's personality has been downgraded.
4. If there is a link between a person's clothes and appearance and their ideological and emotional state, one is hardly encouraged by the inability of the Irish to put their hats on straight. Are Irish people perpetually drunkenly challenging the world to fight because they favor pointy clothing over smoother, less angular ensembles, or do they favor pointy clothing because they are drunkenly challenging the world to fight?
The sad fact is that while North Korea and Ireland may be able to overlook those differences before the wine starts flowing, it is inevitable that, by the end of the night, someone will have accused someone else of falling short of ideals in accordance of a socialist lifestyle, and someone else will suggest loudly that certain parties appear more interested in socialism than girls and are, therefore, gay. None of that is likely to be taken well; fisticuffs will probably ensue. So maybe that's why.
The skill with which I settle things has to be admired.
(news) But U.S. Ambassador Paul Cellucci told reporters Wednesday that he was perplexed over Canada's apparent decision to allow Washington to make decision if a missile was headed toward its territory. "Why would you want to give up sovereignty?" he said. "We don't get it. We think Canada would want to be in the room deciding what to do about an incoming missile that might be heading toward Canada."
Fucking hell! Yes, you might think they would...but they don't. That is the central enigma of the Canadian psyche and I cannot believe we have such a hopeless incompetent as this Paul Cellucci contending with it. The Canadians are going to eat him alive, metaphorically of course, there is no telling what they will actually do, but it is not going to turn out well for any of us. God damn. Get him out of there!
To answer your next question, yes, I am willing to take over as Ambassador to Canada. Holy shit! I will be so good at it.
My life has been quiet for the last week or so. Tonight, I will get my car back. My mother went joy-riding in it a few weeks ago and some guy rammed into the back left corner while it was parked, so his insurance is paying for the entire rear bumper to be re-painted. That's nice, I guess, but there is really no point to having a freshly-painted bumper when you live in the city and park on the street. Like moths to flame, degenerates without any semblance of parallel-parking ability will be hypnotized by its bright, unscarred green, given over to the irrational notion that they have plenty of room to fit their rusted-out Oldsmobile behind my car. I will be lucky if the bumper lasts two days before returning to its previous state, or worse. Really, what's the point? Every time I see one of those stupid gee-whiz-so-fast DSL commercials, I shake my fist. Fuck the internet! Where is my rocket-pack? I was led to believe there would be rocket-packs! I am increasingly irate, and a disturbance even to myself.
There is one more thing that I should mention - you have no idea how thoroughly these entries encapsulate everything that is on my mind at the time they are written, so I can't leave anything out - and that is the death of Hunter S. Thompson, the noted American lion-tamer. It's hard to write anything about Hunter S. Thompson because you must constantly check yourself to be sure you are not trying to write like him; perhaps it's not a problem for the old folks, the hardened professionals, but we young'uns have to watch out for it. You either wind up sounding like a pale, mis-shapen imitation of the man or a colorless version of yourself. (Hunter S. Thompson, Kurt Vonnegut, and Raymond Carver: read them, but not while you are writing anything of your own.)
There have been many tributes, summations, epitaphs and reflections over the last week or so, and nearly all of them have had a palpable self-consciousness about them in some way, shape or form. You can't be unfair about that, though. Nobody was expecting to have to write these things; everyone was caught off guard, and only the worst among us were glad to have the chance. When it comes to memorials for Hunter S. Thompson, all you can really ask is that they leave you with something. Compare, for example, this one, by Alexander Cockburn, to this one, by ESPN writer Eric Neel. One writer is far more skilled than the other, far better-versed in history and politics and literature, and the other is more or less exactly what I wrote about, timidly placing words next to each other until a column has been formed. And the interesting thing is, the first one leaves you with less than cat shit, and the other one leaves you with this:
The only time I ever spent with Hunter Thompson took place on one strange night at his home outside Aspen. I read aloud from his latest book that night -- Hunter liked that kind of thing, liked to hear his words come alive, he said. I held a number of weapons, the names of which I can't even remember, because he would just hand them to you and say, "Here, feel that." (My friend Daniel carried a sword around for more than an hour for fear of offending the good doctor.)
I was taken on a tour of photographs on the walls (not framed, just tacked up there in little collages), some of the young, fit journalist, some of the baggier, more weathered writer, some of the headlong madman, and all with a half-remembered story. I ate some kind of crackers and cheese and nursed a glass of gin, praying he wouldn't peg me for the lightweight I really am. And for a stretch, I sat next to him on a low-slung leather couch watching the Kings and Lakers go head-to-head in the fourth quarter. Hunter had money on the Lakers. They were winning but not covering, so every missed shout was a wincing blue streak and a chance for him to ask me what the hell they were doing and why wouldn't Kobe feed the Big Daddy?!
Everyone hates on Hunter S. Thompson's Page 2 columns, but I liked them. It was fucking cool when he wrote this, about the 2001 Bears:
"I owe the Bears an apology. I called them "phony," but I was wrong. They are a gang of Assassins and I fear them. They will croak St. Louis in the playoffs."
Even after the Bears got killed in the playoffs, we fans still had that, not the Lombardi Trophy but not that bad either. More than anything else, I liked the Page 2 columns because most of them were evidence that someone to whom I felt a deep sense of gratitude was now enjoying himself with friends watching sports. I liked the Eric Neel column because I wanted to watch football in that room, even though there was no way that it was not going to be awkward as hell for a non-drinker (non-smoker, non-drug user, non-meat eater!) like me. Possibly, I would have been shot. Well, Eric Neel told me what it would have been like, a little.
(Does anyone else remember how, in the days after September 11, 2001, every fucking so-called celebrity in the country solemnly pressed Their Take against our chests, hoping that Theirs would be the One that Was Remembered, that History would Say, This One Commemorated It, This One Defined the Moment? Well, unlike basically all of them, Hunter S. Thompson's column doesn't look like shit when you read it today.)
One thing the man had absolutely mastered as a writer - there were many things, of course, but I'm just going to identify one of them, because this is only a weblog, after all, and you people don't even provide me with an expense account - was the full range of synonyms for the verb 'to say'. Read something he wrote with that in mind. I always enjoyed that about his writing. But, again, be careful about doing it while you're writing something, or you'll wind up having to print out a list from some online dictionary to avoid feeling like a brick-layer every time you settle for 'say'. He opened up one of his books with this quotation from Mark Twain:
The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—’tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.
Yes. That, exactly.
I keep straying. Here is my entry into the eulogy-stakes:
Hunter S. Thompson could tame lions, fierce motherfuckers with sharp teeth. I saw him do it. He's gone now, but you can bet those lions still see him when they go to sleep, here and forevermore.
Mahalo.
January 11, 2005
Today is the same as yesterday, only with snow outside. My project manager is out sick again and she is the only person I have been working with. I called the temp agency to let them know that I am just hanging around here with nothing to do, because I like this company and I do not wish them ill. No problem, said the temp agency, go back tomorrow and get paid some more. And so, my last day lasts another day.
I bought an interesting book called Lenin's Embalmers, written by the son of the doctor who figured out how to preserve Lenin's body for public display and then was in charge of keeping it in near-mint condition for the next thirty years. (Until Stalin, in a reach even by his own standards, charged him with conspiracy and sent him to Siberia.) In the book, there are a couple of photos from right before Lenin's death, when he was recuperating from a series of strokes, and I found the degree to which he looked bat-shit crazy to be rather striking, so I decided to spend some of my idle time trawling through Google to find the most deranged Lenin pictures available on the web. There weren't many, unfortunately. People who created or distributed images of Lenin looking anything less than dignified were generally shot. But you may enjoy these:
Light-bulb Lenin;
Spar'anything Lenin;
Melting Lenin;
And, on the bottom right,
Holiday Lenin.
Which is awesome.
You may also enjoy this statue, although it is from a different, less deranged area of Lenin iconography, namely the 'half-amused and implacable' school. I saw it when I was in Moscow and thought it was great. Most of the collection found here is pretty good stuff, actually.
December 30, 2004
One of the things that I really missed about America was quarters. They are a bomb-ass form of currency and life in other countries is poorer for not having them. The 100 Yen coin in Japan is shaped much like a quarter, but it is dangerous for Americans when the dollar-unit is not represented by a paper bill, because we are not taught to be serious about how we spend our coins, and therefore they can go pretty quickly. Japanese money doesn't involve paper until you get up to 1000 Yen. I have a special fondness for the Y1000 bill, because it features Soseki Natsume, a novelist from the Meiji era whose most famous book was a 650 page epic called I Am A Cat in which the narrator is a cat, written long before college rhet class students were writing stories from the perspective of a spoon. I wound up at Natsume's summer house once, by accident, and found a life-size black-and-white cardboard cut-out of him kneeling on the porch, racking his brain for ideas, and I thought of the words of another of his narrators, Botchan:
"Ever since I was a child, my inherent recklessness has brought me nothing but trouble."
One of my students quoted that to me once, in their own translation.
No! I am talking about quarters. I don't need to tell you why they are good: they make arcades come to life, two of them buy you a can of pop, one of them buys a fine gumball, or at least it should. It's the phone-call coin. I have never felt completely without options as long as I am in possession of a quarter. The fifty-cent piece tried and failed to subordinate the quarter. Any coin that is called a 'piece' is not a coin that I trust. God damn! I found a dime on the street in Osaka once and was understandably perplexed. How can a coin that small expect to compete? On one hand, you could always swindle my brother into swapping a big nickel for a small dime. On the other hand, when you did, you'd earned five extra cents. Way to go. What are you going to get with that? And the little bastard holds a grudge.
When I returned to the USA, I was excited to see the progress that had been made in the State Quarters series since I'd been gone. I used to enjoy a good evening sitting around the fire, talking shit about the quarters of different states. (In case any readers of this webpage have ever thought that it might be fun to hang out with me, that should set you straight about what you could expect.) Ohio has and continues to be the best, as it prominently features a moon-man; Indiana was generally acknowledged as the next best, owing to their use of a giant race-car. The quarter of my current home state, Connecticut, is for shit, which is, in that way, much like the state slogan. But what are you going to do? They elect Joe Lieberman to the Senate here.
As for quarters introducted after I left, everyone knew Illinois was going to go with Lincoln, but at least it was Action Lincoln. Wisconsin probably has a valid claim to best quarter now, which must be something nice to talk about on those cold, wintry nights. The one that interested me the most, however, was Florida:
Has anyone else noticed how interesting that is? I know what they think they're going for with that design, or at least what they think you think they're going for. But has anyone noticed the order of events there? The Spanish galleon is arriving just after the space-ship has left. They are saying that the space-ship was there first. In other words, the Florida quarter argues for a retrograde interpretation of history - either that, or it's suggesting that human beings were planted on the earth by aliens. That's a pretty fucking provocative thesis for a state quarter, especially considering their electoral history.
It is a lazy Thursday afternoon at the consulting company. For all of my bluster about keeping their expectations precisely modulated to ensure the perfect nexus of slack and paycheck, it turns out that I finished the first draft of my project too early, so I had to take an unpaid holiday on Monday until they had the revisions ready. I was much more careful with the revisions, leaving thirty minutes' worth of work to be accomplished today, so that I could not be left at home again while they catch up. This is a nice consulting company, though, and I wish them no harm. I do good work for them. In a show of school spirit that surprised even me, I used orange-and-blue as the dominant color scheme for the presentations I worked on. The presentations are all about building teams and being a leader. Interestingly enough, counter to the notions of some of my colleagues, they do not appear to recommend punching people in the face. I'm wondering if I should just go ahead and put that in there for them. They seem wise, though, and perhaps they do not need my counsel. For example, there are always snacks in the kitchen. They keep a basket stocked with chips, peanuts and chocolate. Why do more businesses not realize that the loyalty earned with free food far outweighs the actual cost to purchase it? If Beelzetron had kept me stocked with cookies they'd have saved a fortune on white-out.
December 22, 2004
I am trying to get my sea legs back with this whole web-page thing. It's been a while. I did my best to keep it current while I was in Japan, but the fact is, to me, weblogs are all about being stuck at work. I don't really understand people who blog from places other than work. What is the motivation? If you weren't chained to a keyboard, only able to half-concentrate among the piercing hum of a hundred office machines, why wouldn't you just go outside and play, or read a book? For all of the goofy talk about digital content revolution, it has always seemed to me that weblogs are just the new media scheme for caged birds to sing. Or talk shit, as the case may be.
Poo-too-weet. There will be new photo galleries added over the next few weeks and they will be tremendously exciting, each bringing vivid illumination to some fascinating corner of the world. Below, you can already find a link to one such visual journey, in which monkeys run wild over a sleepy Japanese suburb and the police are helpless to stop them. There is a story that goes along with that gallery, and now seems like a good time to tell it. The suburb in question is in the northern part of Kyoto, near the mountains. My friends Tianni and Travis lived there. One warm summer night, not long before I left, they had me over to their place for dinner, and we had a grand time. Travis told me that one of his co-workers had talked to someone who claimed to have seen monkeys running through the streets in that area once, a long time ago. The monkeys had come down from the mountains for whatever reason, and then the police had chased them away. We talked about how great it would be if that were true. Monkeys in a city, I thought. Holy shit. When it was time to catch the last train, I walked back to the subway by myself, calling out "monkeys!" along the way in that way that I do when I'm walking around and looking for something I don't really expect to find. (Friends of mine will know the tone of voice.) Then I boarded the train and went home. Tianni had the next day off, so I didn't see her until Tuesday. When she came into work, she pressed her digital camera into my hands without a word. The photo gallery below records what had happened the next morning.
Honestly, if you are not standing on your feet and cheering by the last photograph, I do not know you.
I went to the Mark Twain House on Saturday. Let me tell you, Mark Twain had a fucking awesome house. His wallpaper was 84% better than the best wallpaper I had ever seen before. They had the house all decked out for Christmas, which was nice. The tour guide said they hoped to have the kitchen restored by May, so maybe I'll go back and check out the kitchen.
January 2, 2003
It's 2003. Everything looks different, doesn't it? The sky is aflame, and there are so many more gargoyles eating peoples' faces than there used to be. In any event, I think everyone agrees that we are in the next century now, so at least that particular squabble is over and done with.
I spent a pleasant New Year's Eve at the zoo. They were open late for holiday fun. There were clever light displays, and a festive horn was included in the price of admission. The idea, as I understood it, was for us to make the animals understand somehow that it was New Year's Eve and to get them excited about a fresh start, a clean slate, a new year. The catch, though, which went carefully unmentioned by the ticket-takers, was that most of the animals were clearly accustomed to going to sleep around 5, when the zoo normally closes. Tigers, lions and armadilloes alike took what appeared to be very enjoyable naps. The only animals who really brought the noise were the penguins, who splashed, dived, turned their heads in strange directions and fell over with all of their customary magnificence. Some special mention has to go to the sea lions, though, all but one of whom boycotted the soft-rock laser light show going on above their tank by hiding well out of sight for the entire night.
There was some concern from my date that I might lose my shit when it was discovered that the great apes house was closed for construction and all of the chimps, gorillas, babboons and orangutans were off at another zoo until 2004. I did not lose my shit, which is not to say that I was entirely calm about it, and I chose to imagine all of the monkeys on a cruise together. The smaller primates were still present, fortunately, and most of them gave duly sleepy glances at the revellers while dangling from branches.
The rabbi for whom I work is grimly obsessed with including disdainful remarks about the arbitrary nature of the Gregorian calendar. Last year, he harassed everyone who wished him a Happy New Year with 'hilarious' harangues and historical background on the subject. I think he was disappointed that everyone wised up and didn't say anything to him about it this year, so he sought people out, wished them a Happy New Year and then, whether they acknowledged him or not, harangued them for regarding it as a new year. No one else in the office really knows what he and I do here, as he is more or less renting the space, so they kind of button their lips and take the 'delight' until he is done. I tried to catch him in the act whenever possible so I could tell him to knock it off, but he is a slippery bastard.
On another note, long-time readers will know that I am committed to providing around-the-clock coverage of usage of the term 'slut' in Shakespeare's plays. Let me then refer you to Act 3, Scene 3 of As You Like It, one of his better comedies, and the following exchange:
AUDREY
Well, I am not fair; and therefore I pray the gods make me honest.
TOUCHSTONE
Truly, and to cast away honesty upon a foul slut were to put good meat into an unclean dish.
AUDREY
I am not a slut, though I thank the gods I am foul.
TOUCHSTONE
Well, praised be the gods for thy foulness! sluttishness may come hereafter.
('Foul' in this context means 'without make-up or adornment; as nature made me'.)
Today's amateur psychology poll question: is sluttishness a product of nature or nurture? What would B.F. Skinner say? If this question were to be somehow cross-referenced with the Stanford Prison Experiment, would the result be the greatest prison / education / porn movie ever filmed? (Speculate as to its ranking in a top ten list of the other great prison / education / porn movies of our times.)
December 18, 2002
This morning's train was gentle. Even the raindrops outside were soft, warm. Inside the office, life went to shit, as it occasionally does.
I tried to take a day off on Monday. I had still been planning to go in to work when I awoke, but then I couldn't find my wallet, and though I had some ideas as to where it might be, it wasn't in any of the usual places, so that was too much for my delicate constitution and I called in sick. I had settled in with my cat on the couch to watch a documentary about Darryl Strawberry, and I was just starting to figure out what was up with that guy when the rabbi called. He begged and pleaded and wheezed and begged some more until, finally, I agreed to come in. Ostensibly, I was quite sick, and therefore I was rather annoyed at this brazen disrespect for my ostensible health. He is going on a string of vacations over the next month and a half, and over the weekend, he came up with a bunch of projects that he found splendidly exciting, so he wanted to get two months' worth of work done in four days this week. And the days have been just packed. I want nothing to do with it. My quiet revenge was to spend my few free moments on Monday and Tuesday updating my resume and undergoing the gut-wrenching process of writing a cover letter for a new job. Cover letters are brutal. I cannot write them. Write one I did, though, and when it emerged from the blood and fury of circumstance, it was terrifyingly brilliant and utterly mercenary. I used my lunch hour to walk it over to the library, which is where I was applying.
Today, there was a fuck-ton of cookies in the kitchen. As usual, I was the first to arrive on the scene. It was some kind of a thank-you for hard work. I thought about how hard people had been working, and I decided that they really hadn't been working very hard at all; really, only four people, tops, could be said to have worked hard, in my opinion. So I subtracted four from a fuck-ton and stashed the remainder of the cookies at my desk. I have eaten too many of them.
And now...midnight.
Timon of Motherfucking Athens, Acts Four and Five:
We open..."without the walls of Athens". That's right. Timon of Motherfucking Athens is outside of motherfucking Athens. This violent, disorienting shift provides for the reader a visceral parallel to the wrenching dislocation and betrayal experienced by Timon. If Timon of Motherfucking Athens can stop being of Athens, then what other of our most basic assumptions are counterfeit? The accursed usurers have even robbed the man of his residency. They have robbed the title of its truth. Timon, never without a strategy, comes up with the brilliant idea of taking his revenge by spending entire scenes sitting around and hurling invective at the city walls. Sun Tzu never taught his generals how to deal with such a unique plan of attack, so it's fortunate for the generals of Athens that it really isn't something they have to deal with. Timon reels off some memorable curses:
Lust and liberty
Creep in the minds and marrows of our youth,
That 'gainst the stream of virtue they may strive,
And drown themselves in riot!
Meanwhile, though, the senators of Athens, colossal boobs if ever there were, have managed to offend the charismatic Alcibades, a man with military connections and a faint acquaintance with Timon. Alcibades begins to assemble a popular revolt against the greed of the senators. Word beings to spread about the mistreatment of Timon, who capitalizes on his newfound momentum by eating dirt and continuing to curse the city. This, then, is where the play gets quite good. Apemantus, renowned for showing up at random and harassing people, comes by to visit and gets out-harassed by Timon, who then makes explicit his desire for everyone everywhere to get fucked when a pair of whores arrive with Alcibades. He offers them vast sums of gold if they will agree to give everyone in Athens venereal disease. They consider it. Alcibades tries to get a word in edgewise and mostly fails. He is on his way to sack the city and wants Timon to come along as a figurehead, but when Alcibades admits that the violent murder of everyone in the world is not part of his platform, Timon loses interest. The Poet and the Painter from Act One come by looking to make sport of Timon and pick up any gold he may have. Shakespeare uses them to grind various axes about art, writing and critics. The specific axes are lost to history, but you can tell Shakespeare is getting some pretty good digs in there.
The senators of Athens, now on the verge of being overthrown, send the First and Second Senators out to coax Timon back into the city. (You can tell they are serious because they sent the First and Second Senators, not losers like the Seventh or Twelfth Senators.) Athens, they claim, isn't the same without Timon of. Also, Alcibades is about to beat their asses, and they are hoping that Timon will be their figurehead and help them sway popular opinion on major issues like greed, nobility and being from Athens. In a typically cunning manuever, Timon viciously gets their hopes up and then lets them down, using their presence as a forum to announce his upcoming workshop on hanging oneself from a tree. As instructed, the senators leave. There is a brief scene of the senate taking the news of Timon's refusal poorly, and another brief scene of a soldier discovering the grave of the presumably deceased Timon. In the final scene, Alcibades threatens Athens with utter destruction unless everyone agrees to be nice to each other, and, faced with perhaps the shittiest ultimatum ever issued, the senators cave. Timon is missed by all.
Questions to Consider for Acts Four and Five:
1. How much did it fuck you up to have Timon not being of Athens all of a sudden? Because it fucked me up, that's for sure.
2. Timon's plan of sitting around and talking shit about Athens actually worked. What does that say about the senators?
3. Why does Alcibades bring whores with him on diplomatic visits? Do you think this suggests he will be a better or worse leader than the senators?
4. Do you think the Seventh or the Twelfth Senators would have fared any better with Timon?
5. What kind of careers could Apemantus consider now that his harassment days are done? What kind of industries have a need for his skills? Do you think he would have to systematize the randomness of his harassment in order to meet the changing demands of a competitive e-business marketplace?
6. If comic books have taught us anything, it's that nobody is dead unless you see the body, and even then it's somewhere between 40-50% that the death will stick. With that in mind, which character in this play would you most like to have on your bowling team? Why?
I hope you enjoyed this epic series on William Shakespeare's Timon of Motherfucking Athens. Let it serve as your guide for the play itself; or, better, let it serve as your guide for one of his other thirty-seven plays. Find yourself some Cymbeline, some Coriolanus, some King John. To know is to love. (Actually, Shakespeare wrote thirty-eight other plays if you're feeling Cardenio. But where's that guy from, anyway?)
December 13, 2002
(news) Throughout the 90's, as other teams prepared to move into new stadiums or threatened to leave their city if they didn't get one, the Eagles could not get out of their lease at the Vet and struggled to get financing for a new place. And the Vet fell into disrepair. On Dec. 5, 1998, at the Army-Navy game, 10 West Point cadets plunged 15 feet to the Vet turf after a railing gave way. One cadet, Kevin Galligan of Alabama, broke his neck and sprained his wrist. His dream of fighting for his country as an Army Ranger was ended that day. He's now an investment banker.
Jesus! What strange, hideous power has dominion over this place that swallows up idealistic young cadets and turns them into investment bankers? Demolish it! Scorch the earth on which it stood!
Today, we will tackle Acts Two and Three of Shakespeare's Timon of Motherfucking Athens. If you have not finished your study questions from yesterday, please do so now, because you will be completely lost when we proceed, and this is no time to have egg on your face.
It will surprise no one that, as Act Two opens, we are still in Athens. This is a different part of Athens, though: a place where senators roam, a senatorial preserve. Americans in the audience will no doubt clench their fists, but the ancient Greeks did not rip off the idea of senators from the United States. They came up with it themselves. It turns out that Timon owes the Senator money. In fact, it turns out that Timon owes a lot of people a lot of money. Timon has a problem. When he has money, he uses it to buy presents or host dinners for his friends. He assumes that the debt will never come calling, because to him, there exists a continuum of kindness between friends, not cold record-keeping. Timon also doesn't realize how broke he is, because the Steward, his financial manager, is the quiet, sensitive type. As numerous Servants clamor for their masters' bills to be paid, Apemantus enters and hassles everyone some more. For no clear reason, he is accompanied by a Fool who, like most Shakespearean Fools, needs to shut the fuck up.
Now, given how nice Timon is to everyone, you'd think they could be patient about the debts, or even spot a brother a small loan, right? We're all friends here, right? We're all tight? Well, here comes a ten-ton surprise, because it turns out that their gratitude was all talk. Each generates a lame excuse, even Sempronius, who claims to have known Timon from back in the day. From back in the day! This, truly, is cold. The irony of the fact that these usurers have accepted gifts and valuable cash prizes from Timon and are still holding him liable for debts is not lost on the various Servants; this is rather akin to Bob Barker rigging The Price is Right so his chum can rock the Showcase Showdown and then receiving a cleaning bill for the old-person smell that Bob left in his chum's car. Timon descends into insanity with remarkable speed and efficiency, and announces his plans to hold a 'revenge' dinner for his former friends, an idea which will give anyone who has read Titus Andronicus chills. At the dinner, though, Timon just serves warm water and yells at everybody, and they leave. Great plan, Timon.
Questions to Consider for Acts Two and Three:
1. What the shit, guys?
2. If senators have, historically, been assholes, why do we have them?
3. What, exactly, was Timon looking to accomplish with his dinner plan?
4. How does Shakespeare seem to feel, in general, about usurers?
5. Should you buy things for yourself, or for other people? Illustrate your answer with examples from your own broke-ass checkbook.
6. Having been cynical about human nature from the beginning, does Apemantus now have the right to tear open his shirt, pound his chest and yell "Who's the dog now?" If so, should the Fool reply "You're the man now, dog", or should it be Timon? Discuss.
Extra Credit: Write an imaginary dialogue between Timon of Athens and the Notorious B.I.G. What might they have to talk about? Would Timon agree that mo' money does, indeed, equal mo' problems? What issues, such as "where you're from", are important to both men? If Timon is construed as West Coast, which other crazy old guy from Shakespeare's plays would be most likely to have Timon killed in a drive-by shooting?
Next: The apocalyptic conclusion of Timon of Motherfucking Athens.
December 12, 2002
I have decided to institute an exciting new serial on this webpage wherein I take readers scene-by-scene through Shakespeare's gripping and largely unknown play Timon of Athens, which hip literary scholars know as Timon of Motherfucking Athens. It is the story of Timon, who hails from Athens, and if that premise doesn't get you going, you need to check your head. It's all right there. One of Shakespeare's major problems, of course, is his poor titles; when encountering Hamlet, for example, readers have a pretty good idea who the play is about, but they have no idea where the fuck he is from. He could be from Zanzibar, for all they know. This problem is endemic in Shakespeare's canon, tarnishing otherwise fine works like Macbeth and Julius Caesar. (The best you can say for King Lear is that at least you know what the guy does for a living.) In Timon of Motherfucking Athens, though, we encounter the playwright at the height of his powers, at least as far as titles go. The man is Timon; he is of Athens. We can proceed.
In his introduction, the editor of the fine Arden edition suggests that Timon of Motherfucking Athens may be an unfinished play. Indeed, there is no record of its performance history during Shakespeare's lifetime. The structure is, at points, unsettled, and an unusually large number of the characters go un-named, with anonymous Lords and Servants throughout; also, several plot threads and potentially unifying images are left incomplete, without the typical surety of Shakespeare's touch. Nevertheless, the text and themes are unmistakably Shakespearean. It was included in the First Folio, and its source appears to be North's Plutarch, known to hip literary scholars as Pliznutarch, from which many of his other plays (like Julius Caesar) were drawn.
A note about the text, before we begin: Timon of Motherfucking Athens is the only play in the entirety of Shakespeare's canon to feature the cry, "Hold up, you sluts", and it is therefore tremendously important.
Today, we will tackle Act One. The play opens in Athens, where Timon lives. A poet, a painter, and some other characters stand around and discuss what a splendid guy Timon is. They all agree: Timon is the best. Timon enters. His pal, Ventidius, has been imprisoned. Timon does not stand for that shit; Timon bails him right out. No sooner is Ventidius sprung, though, than controversy erupts over whether Lucillius, one of Timon's servants, should be allowed to marry a posh chick he met on duty. Her father says no, but Timon, noting that the two are in love, cuts right through the class conflict by offering to supply a fat wedding purse. The dad caves. Timon, clearly, is a splendid guy. People try to thank him, but he brushes them off. He is not in it for the gratitude. Apemantus, the mouthy philosopher, shows up and harasses everybody. Timon invites him to dinner. In fact, he invites everyone to dinner. What a guy! The various lords and soldiers arrive to discover that not only is there a ton of food at this dinner...but there are women! Hot, single women! No Shakespearean sausage-fest here. A grand time is had by all, except the mouthy Apemantus, who speaks cynically of human nature and the long-term effects of gratitude.
Questions to Consider for Act One:
1. Where is Timon's house? (Hint: Think Greece.)
2. Does anyone like Timon? If so, who?
3. What the fuck is Apemantus's problem?
4. Are those who are loudest in their thanks necessarily the most thankful?
5. Given that everyone likes him so much, things are probably going to work out well for Timon, right?
6. Why is it fun when there are chicks at a party, as opposed to just a bunch of Lords and Soldiers? Discuss.
Tomorrow: Act Two of Timon of Motherfucking Athens.
August 30, 2002
The History Channel is endlessly frustrating to me. I spend a fair amount of time hollering at it. They'll follow something insightful like a piece on the burning of the great library at Alexandria, calling it 'the most destructive fire in history', with a bit where they take a painting of a king and photoshop a bucket of water into his hand and make it swing back and forth to 'hilariously' illustrate him helping to put the fire out.
I am going away for the weekend. Please watch my stuff.
July 23, 2002
There has been some concern, given my recent bowling scores, that if my current rate of ascent continues, I may turn into a being of pure light some time in the winter of 2003. All that I can say at the present time is that I have considered the issue and will take appropriate steps as they become necessary.
LITERARY CRITICISM IN HELL
Yeah, I'm basically the Vin Diesel of post-Marxist response to Edith Wharton.
A guy here in the office got his green card last week and it has gone straight to his head. Quite the cock of the walk now, that guy. I don't know how he gets any work done with all the time he spends strutting up and down the hall, making pronouncements about my haircut and the quality of the cake he got from a conference room downstairs. They really opened the floodgates with that guy.
June 5, 2002
I am struggling with the early summer crazy, wherein I up and quit my job, claiming that it is the will of nature that I am free, and expect that things will work themselves out as far as money goes. Some readers will recall that I gave in to the early summer crazy in a big way last year, and it did not turn out well. There is no reason to believe that it would turn out any better this year. But the early summer crazy does not listen to reason. A sense of diplomatic immunity sets in, like the bad guys in Lethal Weapon 2. Work gets harder to do. I did not shave this morning, because I am trying to communicate to the world that I am dissatisfied.
Here is some more of the reading list. I meant to include all of the comic books in the first half, but, evidently, I forgot some of them.
Ultimate Marvel Team-Up
Brian Michael Bendis, various
Whenever Marvel publishes something with 'Ultimate' in the title, it means that the story takes place early in the superhero's career, making it easier to follow for readers new to the title in question. Hence, although Spider-Man has known Wolverine, the Hulk and Iron Man since back in the day, in this book, he is meeting them for the first time. The problem with comic titles that are solely dedicated to team-ups is that nothing of any significance for either character is allowed to happen in them. The characters' editors want the important stuff to go down in the character's own book, so everyone involved has to be exactly the same at the end as they were in the beginning. Therefore, even the best team-up title stories are like the ones here: good writing, and enjoyable while you're reading them, but fairly hard to remember once you're done. Still, good reading, even if I just can't get with this new Hulk that they're pushing.
Victor Hugo: A Biography
Graham Robb
Victor Hugo liked the ladies. He also liked to write poetry, and he seems to have been more or less okay with himself, too. Hugo got to do all of the things writers want: have a lot of sex, live in comfortable wealth, get exiled in a dispute with a dictator where, later, you get to say "I told you so", become acclaimed as the greatest writer alive before you've even written your masterpiece, return to your homeland, most of which is named after you, and inspire millions of Vietnamese to worship you as a god over a century after your death. (Come on, Vietnam. Love me.) This, then, is a massive biography. In the introduction, the author makes a pretty solid case for its necessity, as well as its primacy among English-language biographies of Hugo. He covers everything without exhausting anything, which is mostly good but occasionally bad (e.g. relatively scant material on Les Miserables, which will replace the Bible in the life of any child of mine). The prose is clean, with the occasional wry sense of humor, and the text plays to the reader's intelligence, using a few references and comparisons that all of ten people worldwide might catch (myself not included). And there's some exemplary material on the sorry state of the English translations of Hugo's work. An interesting book, even simply as a historical overview of France in the 1800s.
The Secret Paris of the 30s
Brassai
I have a sentimental thing going on with Brassai. (Where does one apply to be a one-name guy? I don't want to be one, but I have to wonder whether you're allowed to up and start referring to yourself by one name, or if there is an approval process.) During my Lost Weekend in London last year ('lost' in the literal sense: I spent more or less the entire weekend lost, because I was on my own, and I am a useless navigator), there was an exhibition of his work at the Hayward Gallery, and though I had to rush through because I'd spent too much time at the Goya exhibit upstairs and the museum was closing, I liked what I saw. Most of his photographs fall into two categories: stolen moments, ones that seem completely unconscious that they are being captured on film, be they couples in an embrace or the never-before photographed view at night from the alcoves of Notre Dame de Paris; and working-men, bemused that they are being photographed, giving blithe grins to the camera. This collection, accompanied by a good running essay by the photographer about his adventures while taking the photos, starts out with those two types. Inevitably, though, somewhere around the midway point, the whores come in, and once he starts on the whores, he never gets off them, so the second half is mostly Parisian whores just hanging around in various settings.
A Walking Tour of the Shambles
Neil Gaiman, Gene Wolfe
Limited-run book that I picked up at a book-signing that the good Mr. Gaiman did in Evanston. (Mr. Wolfe might have been there, too.) It's a guidebook to "a mythical neighborhood in Chicago that survived the Great Chicago Fire in 1871". 'Mythical' means that the neighborhood doesn't exist, in the more precise sense of the verb, although they do a good job of situating it in a part of the city where it may as well exist, because no one's entirely clear what goes on over there. It's a slight volume, clearly written for fun, and best read in short bursts rather than straight through. There are a few bits that get the character of the city right on, and a few that are completely off (a 'Terribly Strange Bed'? I am the only man in Chicago who conjugates 'terrible' that way, and even I don't do it very often), and most just seem like nifty ideas that the authors had stored up and could apply to any, well, mythical neighborhood. Ultimately, it comes off as an entire book's work of background details from a Gaiman (or Wolfe) book.
All Families are Psychotic: A Novel
Douglas Coupland
The odd, terrible title notwithstanding, this is really quite a good book. For whatever reason, beginning with his last book, Miss Wyoming, Coupland went on this 'mature' bender, signalled by odd press releases referring to Miss Wyoming as his "first novel", implying that the previous books were some other, presumably lesser form of literature - a distinction whose necessity was lost on me, and which made me worry about where Coupland's head was at. Included in the move seems to have been the decision to remove his own voice from his work, which means no first-person narratives and a deliberate avoidance of characters who could be taken as author surrogates. I liked Miss Wyoming well enough, but he seems much more at ease with the "mature" imperative in this one, for whatever that's worth. There's a wide range of characters, and many of them get complex, nuanced renderings even as they cause trouble and gripe at each other. (Some do just remain background sketches, and I wouldn't be conscious of that if it weren't for the 'mature' thing.) The plot revolves around a family - not terribly dissimilar from one of the suburban Vancouver bunches of his previous books, but sped up a bit - who get wrapped up, in a sort of innocent manner, with diseases, drugs, black-market cloning and other bits of chaos, while waiting for one of their members, a flipper-baby astronaut, to blast off in Florida. The story stays grounded, never slipping into crassness, and balances genuine emotional resonance with a sense that nearly anything can happen, which makes the book hard to put down. And it's unconfined by genre, with a ballsy bit of magical realism slipping in when you least expect it. Funny, unpretentious, with some beautiful observations along the way - I liked it a lot.
Animal Man
Grant Morrison, Chas Truog
DC published a handful of titles in the latter half of the 80s that became widely acclaimed mature classics, much to their own surprise: Doom Patrol and Swamp Thing, for example, and, improbably, Animal Man, the story of a guy who can absorb the abilities of any animal that happens to be nearby. Like the previously mentioned pair of titles, the first few issues of Animal Man are odd to read in light of where the book wound up (loosely, animal rights and the existence of a benevolent god). The art is fairly plain, and the writing hasn't quite shaken off the general superhero dictum of its origin. Still, these issues hold up very well, and it adds up to a fairly great book. Grant Morrison is, at present, the most overinflated writer in comics, but this comes from an era where the parabola connecting his ambition to his ability made quite a nice shape. Highly recommended.
Long Day's Journey into Night
Eugene O'Neill
Oh, the Irish, and their whiskey, and their mothers.
Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72
Hunter S. Thompson
Approximately 85% serious, smart-as-fuck political writing, and 15% pure crazy. I really admire Thompson's commitment to the total derangement of the senses. I take a lot of shit for my consistently underanged senses, and, like a postcard from the North to the South Pole, I feel a kinship with the guy. (Which he probably wouldn't share. But he's a doctor of pharmacology, and I'm just some guy, so my options are limited about what I take.) Written in monthly installments as the campaign was developing, the book constitutes a strong case for the significance of the 1972 campaign to the nature of politics today. Nixon lurks in the background as a figure of pure evil, making only occasional (yet utterly perfect and memorable) appearances; the Democratic candidates were all more willing to grant press access, so there's much more material on them - and, if you're interested in the pure mechanics of a grass-roots campaign, how the primaries work, the emotions that go into the superhuman effort of selling someone to an entire country, this is great reading. There is also a running paranoid streak regarding George McGovern's press secretary that belongs on any list of the funniest shit ever. It's odd to think that the pieces were written for Rolling Stone. The candidates were all trying to court "the youth vote". What major publication, considered to be in touch with "the youth", would try to get them interested in politics with intelligent writing? Bygone era.
Batman: Dark Victory
Jeph Loeb, Tim Sale
Fucking phenomenal graphic novel; sequel to The Long Halloween, but not overly reliant on knowledge of its predecessor. There's a pretty good mystery along the way, but the main joy, for me, came from seeing the characters used so well. I mean, they made The Calendar Man cool. That is a remarkable achievement. As an old school Batman fan, I love seeing the Joker and Two-Face interact with each other. Neither character is to be fucked with under any circumstances, but for different reasons, and Loeb knows those reasons. This is the stretch, early in Batman's history, where Robin arrives and where the mobsters of Gotham become extinct, overtaken by the supervillains. I'm a huge fan of Tim Sale's art, and this is the best work he's done - there are several layouts that you have to stop and stare at. He has an immaculate understanding of the unique advantages of the comics medium, and uses it to the fullest. Towering stuff.
The Inhumans
Paul Jenkins, Jae Lee
Quite excellent graphic novel starring Marvel's Inhumans, of whom I only have foggy memories from back in the day. Jenkins, another one of the best writers in comics today, reimagines them as an entire civilization with a lush, suggestively detailed yet accessible back story. I've never liked Jae Lee's art very much, and there are a few parts of this series that I think someone else could have handled better, but it doesn't by any means ruin the story, which revolves around wariness of humans (I can relate) and problems caused by the machinations of Portugese mercenaries and evil geniuses (again, I can relate). The civilization itself is the lead character, with most of the individual Inhumans (other than the lead pair) staying in the background, and it's a great creation, with overtones of ancient Greece and the movie Metropolis. Definitely a unique piece of comics art, and worth reading.
Plays: 2
Dario Fo
Referenced by Dave Eggers in a blurb on the back of The Onion's Dispatches from the Tenth Circle collection as being "maybe" the only superior to the Onion as "the most consistently perfect and excoriating social commentary we have". That is nonsense, and should be decried as such. Dario Fo is not as funny as The Onion. In Can't Pay? Won't Pay!, included here, the social commentary sits outside the action in the form of occasional monologues that bring the play's slapstick to a grinding halt. In his later plays, although agenda and action are better integrated, the agenda still comes first and tangibly determines the form of everything that comes after. Eggers' determination to have the world know that he is down with Fo is not Fo's fault, of course. I suspect that I'd worship him if I'd been born in Italy, and that seeing Fo's travelling company perform these plays is a vital part of the charm. They all seem like they'd be a lot of fun to produce, too. So, nothing against Dario Fo. These plays are pretty good. I just want to see The Onion paid some respect as literature.
There, then, is my updated reading list. Why do I read so much? I have long accepted that people are going to try to kill me, one way or another; I simply want to make absolutely sure that their reasoning has nothing to do with me not reading enough books, just in case, because I have control over that, if nothing else. There does not seem to be much of a link. But I am not absolutely sure, so I must press on.
May 31, 2002
That last entry was, I think, my first written with impaired faculties and no memory the next day. (I was sick, and it was 3 or 4 a.m. Why I felt compelled right then to write something and upload it, I don't know.) As a result, I did not give much thought to the Ottoman Empire war veterans on Memorial Day. Sorry. I am thinking about them now. Are there any left? Are they allowed to get together with veterans of wars fought by other defunct countries? This world can be lonely sometimes.
Today is my last day as the Ombudsman. It has been a blistering week and I have not enjoyed it. Everybody's a goddam insult comic fresh off a week at the Catskills, man, and I'm handcuffed to say a word in response. My self-discipline is good, but I wasn't planning to waste it on this.
Here is about half of my recent reading list. I'll do the other half later.
Ultimate Spider-Man, Vols. 1 and 2
Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Bagley
Ace re-telling of Spider-Man's origin and beginnings, rebooting events to begin in more or less present times. (As a rule, even the hippest of comic book writers are about two years behind the curve when they work pop culture into their stories, and attempts to use hip youth lingo tend to make the baby Jesus cry.) Great as the Spider-Man movie was, this has an even tighter and more effective plotline for introducing all the major players and bringing them all together. Mark Bagley is a good artist and looks like my uncle Joe, so I have nothing but positive feelings for that guy. If you liked the movie and want more Spidey, these are what to get. (Vol. 1 runs parallel to the movie, more or less. Vol. 2 is uncharted territory. It features, in an encounter between Spider-Man and the Kingpin, one of the single greatest jokes in the history of the medium.)
Revenge of the Green Goblin
Roger Stern, Ron Frenz
Fairly useless story in which the Green Goblin, having escaped death through the aid of some hooded acolytes, strikes at Spider-Man where he is most vulnerable, through his toothpaste. Not bad or anything, but unremarkable and vaguely irritating. (Uses the original Spider-Man continuity, wherein all of the issues published since his first appearance in the 60s are part of his history - essentially, this is the older, experienced Spider-Man.)
Amazing Spider-Man: Coming Home
J. Michael Straczynski, John Romita Jr.
Pretty good story in which an unbeatable vampire dickhead hunts Spider-Man, who is depressed because his wife recently left him. Am I the only person who remembers Kraven? The unbeatable vampire dickhead reminded me of Kraven. Anyway, Straczynski was the creator of Babylon 5, which I have never seen, and writes a good fight scene. John Romita Jr. is a great guy, and does some lovely things with page layouts. Peter spends a fair amount of time reflecting on his youth (when he's not getting beaten up by the vampire dickhead), and it's not heavily wrapped up in past issues (other than the basic fact that Peter was dumped), so it serves as a nice ten-years-on from the movie.
Superman: No Limits!
Various
Fairly good collection, with a few really good stories and a couple of bland ones, though it's hampered by moronic sequencing of the individual issues - the most interesting subplot gets put on hold for 48 pages at a time because it was running in Action Comics but not Superman or The Adventures of Superman, issues from all of which are included here. And there's a bizarre Superman Does Beowulf in Virtual Reality With Wonder Woman For Eighty Years story that throws everything off. For the most part, though, it's a solid choice if you just want to read some Superman, because it isn't overly steeped in plot details from older issues. (Although Superman For All Seasons, occasionally available in proper bookstores, is the shit as far as Superman goes.)
Green Arrow: Quiver
Kevin Smith, Phil Hester
Kevin Smith's comics writing is better than his film writing. Not a single one of the criticisms usually leveled against his films can be legitimately applied to his comics, and every one of the films' strengths remains present in them. He's not terribly prolific, but for a few years, he has been going from character to character, spending 8-10 issues on him, and effortlessly making the character cool again. Which is quite nice of him to do. His work on Green Arrow rates a notch below Daredevil, his other major project, because Daredevil is from Marvel Comics, and Green Arrow is from DC, and while I am a DC loyalist at heart, DC has spent much of the last decade fucking up most of their characters with convoluted plotlines and cynical attempts to recreate the surge of publicity they got for (temporarily) killing Robin and Superman by killing, in 'shocking' fashion, almost all of other ex-Super Friends. (A new low was reached when they killed Aquaman last year. Surprisingly enough, CNN was not on the scene.) Smith, therefore, had to undo several years worth of shitty stories to make Green Arrow useable again. (The difference is that the stories preceding his on Daredevil were just flat - he could focus on telling his own story right from the start.) He pulled it off, though, and managed the impressive task of making the untangling of bad stories into a good one, so he deserves all respect. And, like the brief appearance of Spider-Man in Daredevil, Smith writes a short Batman and Superman pairing that, in a word, rules.
N.B. Some readers may have noticed that I am omitting the names of the inkers on the various comics I have been mentioning. This is because I am hoping to lure an angry letter out of an inker.
Banner
Brian Azzarello, Richard Corben
Competently written but basically unremarkable story that doesn't do much other than to announce This Is How We're Doing The Hulk Now. It's not his origin, but not much seems to have happened since then, so it doesn't require much prior knowledge other than who Doc Samson is. (He's this guy.) The faintly Robert Crumb-esque art is an odd choice and doesn't catch the raw power of the Hulk very well. I've always been fond of Dale Keown's Hulk for that.
I'm glad that's been settled. Y'all was probably freaking out. Why y'all be bugging? One of the great mysteries of the world.
April 23, 2002
And now, I will attempt to win back your love. These departures, they are not my fault. They are the fault of military action in the Middle East. I am not saying that an increased workload for me is worse than, say, people dying, or even people starving or getting sick or having their homes blown up, all of those things are absolutely worse than a lot of work for me to do, but, all the same, I would like it to be taken into consideration by the powers that be in Israel and elsewhere that I did not sign on for this, this was not part of the agreement when I took the job, and if you do not make peace, I will quit, just as soon as I find another job, because I'm not doing that unemployment shit again.
(news) Powell talked for about 45 minutes in the meeting with Arafat and sent a "very clear message,'' said the official, "that the bombing had to stop.'' Powell stressed the point throughout the meeting, the official said. Little progress was made. The Palestinians served their guests chocolate cake, which was brought by the Norwegian ambassador a few days ago and saved so they could serve it with a bit of coffee.
I noticed that bit of news last week buried deep in a page five Sun-Times article. Now, of course, the Powell mission is over and failed. But how can the Palestinians' sincerity be doubted when they put all that effort into making sure that, even though they weren't being allowed out of their headquarters, there would be dessert when the visitors arrived? They even risked pissing off the Norwegians by claiming to be full and not in the mood for cake (or however else they explained not eating any of the cake while the Norwegians were around). The chocolate cake, for me, is the smoking gun of the peace process.
Sometimes, on major issues, I just get determined to have a viewpoint that no one else does.
The rabbi had surgery on his leg last night, leaving me with less work to do and, more importantly, the excuse that I've been waiting for to start calling him 'Pegleg'. I figure he'll love it.
I've been meaning to head over to the Mies In America exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art and start fights with people. Just walk up to someone and say, "Less sure is more, huh?", and if they agree, give them a nice cockpunch.
Here are some more of the books I have been reading:
The Hero With A Thousand Faces
Joseph Campbell
Camp-dogg's famous comparative study of myths from a vast array of pre-modern civilizations and their relation to Freud, Jung and the collective unconscious. I can't take Freud seriously, and I think the book is at its weakest when it leans heavily on him to explain the development of ancient religious myths. There's also a labored, fawning explanation of Buddhism that stops the book's momentum cold, and a streak of new-agey All-God yammering. But, for the most part, it's a pretty good book. The prose is fine, and it provides a nifty cross-sectional introduction of ancient myths other than the Greco-Roman hits. In my experience, knowing those sorts of things comes in handy during the strangest times. Campbell's outline of the quest of the hero (and its variations) is also useful. Whether it's an ancient script that exists in the collective unconscious of humanity or not, it does serve as a guide to the bare mechanics of a number of stories that have resonated with readers / listeners for thousands of years, and it's handy to play with or play off while writing something of your own, either for dramatic or comedic effect.
Three to See the King
Magnus Mills
Bearing in mind that I thought his first two books were brilliant - does two equal a bias? - I thought this one was screaming genius. I laughed out loud on the train, a deep sense of tranquility came over me while reading, etc. Magnus Mills is a bus driver in England. His stories feel like the result of a lot of time spent on public transportation at off hours. (That may be too wrapped up in how I feel about a lifetime of public transportation to mean something to anyone else, though.) His narrators are completely reasonable people who accept their world and think in one sentence at a time about it, but wind up surrounded by other people, who are not reasonable, and wind up drawn into strange versions of hell, which is far funnier in practice than it perhaps sounds here.
I wrote an essay on metaphors, and how teachers never tell you that the whole point of using a metaphor is that a reader is not supposed to catch you at it, but it got boring at the end, so I deleted it. The point was that Magnus Mills does great things with metaphors: the Incredibly Obvious Metaphor that's funny because of the air of smug cleverness that hangs around the practice of metaphors, and the Insufficient Materials Metaphor, where you use something ridiculously simple, like a darts game, to suggest something immense, like communism or the Bible. And by the end, you realize that none of the metaphors fit exactly, that this is its own full, odd and unique thing, and you smile, or at least I did.
Jim Jarmusch: Interviews
Various
The films of Jim Jarmusch are great. As this collection demonstrates, he is occasionally interviewed by pretentious bastards, but not always. You may have heard his name and associated it in a vague way with static, boring Important Films By Men Who Have Seen Many European Films And Hollywood Won't Show Them, The Bastards. But don't. His films are crazy, funny, smart. They are about and for wild men. "Down By Law" is amongst the greatest shit ever. The very invocation of Ghost Dog's name speaks volumes. Yes, see the movies. This book is okay.
Sweet Thursday
John Steinbeck
Sequel to Cannery Row, which would go on the same list of Greatest Shit Ever as "Down By Law". This one is a single straight-line narrative, more or less, which puts a restriction on the number of characters that can be involved and the schemes they can hatch, and it doesn't have the Fell Straight From Heaven, Perfectly-Formed air that "Cannery Row" did for me, but it's still pretty great. A few characters are gone, and the rest have aged, and no one is as sure of himself as they used to be. It's incredibly funny, full of brilliantly observed characters and dedicated ultimately to beauty and love and all that good stuff, humanist at its core in that it tells an honest, unsentimental story about how people can live together and care for each other without religion or politics ever coming into it.
I've always been confused about why Steinbeck used those clumsy metaphors in "The Grapes of Wrath", because his other writing really suggests that he'd know better.
Also, I have read a whole lot of Spider-man in preparation for the upcoming film.
April 3, 2002
Here is a thought for the makers of robots: the simulation of consciousness is a fine and interesting goal, but I think that many people would be satisfied to have someone to play catch with.
I did not work today. I will not work tomorrow. I received the lowest power bill of my life today, less than half of last month's total, twenty-two percent lower than last March, when I was gone for a full week at the beginning of the month. I was unduly perplexed. I don't know what was different about my life last month. The power bill will sit around for a couple of weeks until I am tired of seeing it, and then I will pay it.
A pair of overdue book reviews:
A Death In The Family
James Agee
Not the landmark storyline in Batman from 1988 wherein the Joker killed Robin, but, rather, the only novel by James Agee, who was known for his work with photographer Walker Evans on populist Dust Bowl journalism in the 1940s and his film criticism, which served as a model for the genre in that he was devoted to finding overlooked beauty and championing films of value without wallowing in intellectual self-indulgence or easy swipes at so-called Hollywood product that are, themselves, as shallow as that which they claim to critique. (Or, more succinctly, Jonathan Rosenbaum.) But let me get back to Batman for a moment. It's an interesting historical note that, although the Death of Robin storyline had a major impact upon comics for years to come and shattered sales records over the course of four issues, it really sucked. There were three good pages: one single panel with Lady Shiva early on, and two pages with Superman in the last issue. The rest were unbelievably bad, devolving to a point wherein Iran nominates Joker as its envoy to the United Nations just to irk Batman. I mean, holy shit. The novel by James Agee, on the other hand, is good. He belonged to that school of classic American writers in the first half of the last century who had a lot of talent, drank a lot, and died early. I don't agree with the editors of this volume that Agee was "basically done" with the book when he died, but it is more or less complete. It's a meticulous, careful study of the love a family feels for each other and then grief, as felt by characters of three ages. (The small boy, Rufus, especially gets me. He reminds me quite a lot of the boy from Joseph Heller's Something Happened. Man, I'm always reading these books that wreck me. Everyone else on the train reads Harry Potter.) Agee's roots in populist journalism ensure that the book is never sentimental or morbid, and the characters' voices are perfectly heard. And the essential humanism (vs. religion) at the heart of the book goes down nicely with types like me. Undeniably brilliant. Not a barrel of laughs, though.
The Dark Knight Strikes Again #2
Frank Miller, Lynn Varley
Not the landmark storyline involving Batman in 1986 wherein a brilliant psychological portrait of an aging hero was drawn, but, rather, the sequel to that storyline, 16 years later, and, sadly, significantly less good. There is just nothing compelling about this series, no vision, just a lot of sound and babble and flailing about for effect. By the end, it doesn't even seem as though Frank Miller can lay out a page any more. Was Klaus Janson the real talent behind The Dark Knight Returns? Well, no, probably not. But, man, has Miller ever lost the plot with this one.
I have seen some commercials for the trip to Antactica contest, and I have not yet won it, so I am now changing my strategy, which is to request that everybody signs up for the contest and just plans to have me along. You will like me. I am a real charmer when I have to be.
March 20, 2002
I didn't have to work last night, so I take back everything nasty I said. I got no problem with that guy. I just stayed at my desk when everyone else got up to leave at 4:15, and no one asked why I wasn't going, and I went home at 5 as usual. As I was leaving, the rabbi said that I should be careful, because it was wet outside. Does he think I am soap?
I ordered a lomo last week. Let me rephrase that in the correct syntax: I ordered a lomo!! ahhahahahaha!! Now I am only waiting for it to arrive. It is due today, or tomorrow. Lomo is the insane genius of cameras. Sometimes they fall apart, and you grow tired of the lomo's antics, and want to give up on it. (This is what I have heard.) But sometimes you make the lomo to dance. (This is also what I have heard.) Lomo is for stealth. No flash is required. Lomo can take pictures in any light. Its pictures have the incredible. But sometimes it up and falls apart. Lomo is the raving mad Dostoevsky camera. Sometimes you are to the lomo, go! You drink and you gamble and you are so bad! But then the lomo is good. (I have heard this.)
I work at a Jewish place of employment, although I am not myself Jewish, and therefore I have a bunch of time off for Passover. I wanted to go somewhere, but nothing has come together, so I will probably do some prime sitting around instead. Or I'll go take a vacation in the kitchen. I don't know. One thing that is going on during that time is author Irvine Welsh's promised appearance at the Metro here in Chicago. Columbia College told lies before, and I hate them for it, but this is claimed to be true:
Thursday, March 28 Columbia College Fiction Writing Department Presents... "TROUBLEMAKERS: LITERARY ROCK & ROLL" featuring readings by IRVINE WELSH JOHN MCNALLY JOE MENO followed by a one-hour DJ set by IRVINE WELSH Tickets: FREE! All Ages Doors: 7pm / Show: 7:30pm
So there's that. I'll go, and if they are lying again, I will do much the same as I did before, which is to complain.
My cats have this crazy new thing to contend with. I went ahead with my plan, as stated yesterday, to buy a big tree thing for them to climb on. It's pretty neat. There are three tall, mid-sized logs that stand straight up from a carpeted base, and nestled between the logs are three cradles, which are also carpeted, and presumably comfortable. The highest cradle is about even with my neck. At the base is a hut where the cats can have some privacy. My mother says they are called 'kitty condos', but I am not a big believer in private ownership of land, so I call it a 'kitty collectivized recreational installation'.
These are all very domestic things to write about.
I should explain the tap dancing reference from a few days ago. They mentioned that I can tap dance in the bio used to announce my hiring in the company newslatter, because it's on my resume, and the bio was taken straight from my resume. I can sort of tap dance. I have a pair of tap shoes that fit, and I can make a plausible clickety-clack with them. I learned how to tap dance for a musical I was in during high school. I went to an all-boys school, and nearby was an all-girls school, so theater kids who didn't mind the long walk would swap schools and get better parts that way. The girls' theater department was also streets ahead of ours, both in quality and in fun. (And in...the ladies.) We did "42nd Street" one year, and because I was a personable fellow, and because no one else could dance either (but were, for the most part, better singers), I wound up being the featured male tap dancer in most of the musical numbers. I never stopped being bewildered to find myself in the situation, much like I am with my current situation, and the one before this, and the one before this, but I did my best, and the show was a huge success. At the cast gag awards, I was named "Best Pseudo-Dancer", because although I made every movement more or less perfectly, my feet almost never touched the ground. (The female dancers were loud enough. No one can tell when you screw up tap-dancing if you don't make a sound.) I left it on my resume, at the very bottom, because hiring directors love to notice it during interviews. I'd be fairly fucked if asked to tap at a company event, though. Like a soap-man in "Singin' in the Rain".
March 19, 2002
I hit my head on the bottom corner of my kitchen cabinet on Thursday. It hurt. There was a fairly large gash above my eyebrow, so I put a bandage over it. I was still wearing the bandage when I went to work the next day. I resolved to have a different explanation for every single person who asked about it, and I was pretty excited about the challenge. But no one asked.
There is a RabbiTech fundraising event tonight and I am afraid that I will have to work there. The rabbi and I are the only people in this office who do not work on fundraising. He gives the fundraising people ideas from time to time, and I write those ideas out for him, but for the most part, he has his own agenda, and I follow along. Since I sit among the fundraising people, though, I seem to be classified - when it's convenient - as one of them, and there was a mass email a couple weeks ago saying that all of the fundraising people have to work the event. So, I don't know. We'll see what happens. I will get nasty if I have to go. The event is a stand-up comedy show ($100 seats) by Martin Short. I don't much like Martin Short. He is Robin Williams minus "Dead Poets Society", "The Fisher King", "Good Will Hunting", the legendary early coke-fueled stand-up and improv with Jonathan Winters; when you take that away, all that's left is crafted and crusty "impressions", spitting and spluttering as a punchline and gay hairdressers. All technique, no heart. Probably a nice guy who has no idea he's inconveniencing me. I am capable of getting nasty.
After work today, I was planning to buy a big tree thing for my cats to climb on. Although they never seem to mind, I've always felt bad that they can't go outside, so I thought they might like a big thing to climb. Seems reasonable. I'd like a big thing to climb. I already know there's nothing on the ceiling, though.
I keep forgetting to update my reading list. It's been several weeks now. I will try to catch up now.
What A Carve Up!
Jonathan Coe
Ah! A great book. Thom Yorke referenced it in an interview during the OK Computer era, and it had been floating somewhere in the middle of my list ever since. The reference is slightly misleading, though. It doesn't read like the sort of book that the "character" of OK Computer would have written. The similarity is in what they both react against, the pigs, the sense of outrage that reaches a point where it can't be articulated and then spirals off into something compelling and strange (Radiohead) or hilarious (Coe). (And, with equal power, sad.) The book is about a fantastically evil family, brilliant creations all, and the downtrodden author who pursues them. It's one of those quintessentially British novels where people do horrible things to each other and the reader is trusted to understand that even though what has just happened is very funny, it is also horrible, and you should take appropriate measures with both reactions, which won't interfere with each other. (Americans don't seem to get that level of trust very often from their art.) Gobs of self-assured talent are evident and the story is endlessly inventive. Highly recommended.
Cloudsplitter
Russell Banks
Terrifically long (750+ pgs) book "by" Owen Brown, son of John Brown, rabid abolitionist who led a bloody armed insurrection against slavery before the Civil War. This is one of those books that was more interesting when I wasn't reading it. The relationships - of Owen to his father, and to some of the figures surrounding his father - had all of the complexity and chaotic architecture of ones you'd recognize from real life, but I didn't have any immediate reaction to them until later, when I thought about what I'd read earlier that day or week - which isn't a bad thing, of course, but makes a massive book like this tough going. Most interesting to me (and expertly handled here) were all of the differences in abolitionist theology in pre-Civil War America and the practical, how-to details on showing up somewhere and setting up a home and livelihood. The exciting bits - the insurrection - don't arrive until 600 pages in, and many details that would have been interesting are left out for commitment to the character's limited perspective. I think, for my purposes, I would have been better off with a straight history (rather than historical fiction like this).
Antony and Cleopatra
William Shakespeare
Shakespeare dashes off another brilliant one. I have a degree in literature, which means that I've read a fuck-ton of Shakespeare in academic settings, and he still manages to surprise me. Antony and Cleopatra, two of the greatest lovers of all time, right? So, the easy move is to show them in love, at the height of their passion, etc, and you can show off how well you write romantic poetry. Shakespeare, though, introduces them when they're just past ecstasy, and they're starting to realize that they are bound to each other, and they're clawing and clinging at the same time. The academic interest is in the question of Antony's responsibility to take up his position in Rome or linger with Cleopatra, but the real interest, for me, is the morning after for the two lovers, and as the Antony contends with the younger Octavian, the feeling of age dawning, of trying to get it back. So, another great one for the Big Dog.
The Human Stain
Philip Roth
I have avoided mentioning Philip Roth and Woody Allen around the rabbi because I don't want to hear him do a routine on the whole New York Jewish Intellectuals Who Don't Practice The Religion scene. I'd give the rabbi enough credit to possibly like some Woody Allen films, although it's also quite possible that he doesn't. Either way, avoidance seems the best tactic. This is a good book. Like his previous book, I Married A Communist, this one is fueled by a profound outrage that is very mature yet no less electricifying. That one was about how politics need to leave art the fuck alone because there's so much more to art than politics, and this one is about how academic theorists need to leave humans the fuck alone because there's so much more to humans than academic labels. The phrase he uses is "the ecstasy of sanctimony", and I think anyone who's ever been victim of it will recognize it right away, so you can gauge your interest based on that.
City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America
Donald Miller
Pretty damn good history of Chicago from the first arrival of Europeans in the region to the end of the World's Fair in 1893, taking the city from nothing to insane mudhole to its peak. The author puts a great deal of effort into his descriptions - the surreally disgusting slums, the ludicrous difficulty of making the land in Chicago practical for building and living - and the effort fits together quite nicely with his style of constructing history through well-chosen anecdotes about the common people involved. (Or, proletarian in a useful way. There's a tendency in some populist histories to reject the Great Man Theory of history, wherein history is understood as being moved exclusively by the actions of a few famous people, so thoroughly that it becomes willfully blind to the inescapably major impact of said few famous people.) The focus of the book is on the nuts and bolts of the simple fact of how Chicago was built at each stage of its development, and he gets that across very well. He also does a pretty good job of identifying the major figures (businessmen like George Pullman, architects like Louis Sullivan) and giving them full portraits without stopping the narrative momentum cold. There are a handful of slow patches, but that's to be expected in a history this size, and they're not many. Highly recommended if you're interested in the topic. The only weakness would be the uninspired selection of photographs.
Something Like an Autobiography
Akira Kurosawa
Wonderful! I like Akira Kurosawa's films quite a bit, but this book is worth reading even if you've never seen one. Unlike the standard artist autobiography, Kurosawa ends right before the point in his life where he becomes famous worldwide for Rashomon. Instead, the book is divided between two lovingly and brilliantly re-created halves: his childhood growing up in Meiji Japan, as the country made the transition (in a very short amount of time) from the feudal samurai era to the modern one, and then the story of the fledgling Japanese film industry, trying to stay afloat and find purpose, identity, etc. There are several incredibly funny bits, and even some eyes-water-over poignant ones, all written without apparent ego or calculation. He had an incredible memory for details and brief anecdotes that give a sense of the entire situation. Highly recommended.
Kurosawa
Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto
Having written one of my theses in this field - deconstructionist film criticism - I feel qualified to say that it is not necessarily bad to state that the intention of your book is "to problematize dominant interpretive frameworks", as long as the phrase "for me to poop on" follows in quick succession. Sadly, no one told Yoshimoto. His joyless book is now being pooped on.
March 26, 1998
I really have to go somewhere one of these spring breaks. low (read: complete lack of) income or not. since the "have your parents pay for marc's vacation too!" fund never really worked out, I remain Illinois-bound for the 20th straight year. how unfestive and generally uncool of me to be without a financial support network. alright. enough class-based whining. I had been planning on doing something irrational like driving to South Dakota, but the Cradle moves no more. next year. so it goes, so it goes.
as far as my spring breaks go, it's been just fine though. I went to Chicago for the weekend and came back with a cat. Thunder is an 8 year old male tabby. he likes long walks down the hall, licking plates by candlelight, and aspires to rid the world of bugs. he also likes to wrestle with me and usually wins. we both lived at my mother's apartment, he having been my little brother's cat, and we both developed a general sense of dissatisfaction there and since my mother is moving into a condo of gold this summer he seized the opportunity to leave and move in with me. (I'm not sure if he knows yet that I need him to pay this month's rent.)
out of fairness to Chuck, though, since Chuck takes a lot of crap from me, here is a list of reasons why Chuck was a better roommate:
- Chuck did not take baths in public.
- Chuck did not lick the inside of the container of Cheez Wiz/Eazy Cheeze without eating it.
- Chuck slept on top of his bed, not underneath it.
- Chuck preferred to use his head for material science homework instead of bumping my head.
- Chuck did not jump up onto furniture. he didn't make many sudden movements in general.
as I write this, Thunder is contemplating a leap unto the final frontier: the microwave, atop the refrigeraor. and he just backed off, headed for some more cheez wiz (why haven't I put that away yet?).
watched a bit of the Oscars. they turned out alright, I suppose. I added a quick summary to the end of the Oscars rant, now in the Archives. (since they went so utterly unpublicized, I figured you'd need my page to find out the results.)
these local church TV commercials are unfair. it is impossible to express in writing exactly how funny they are. I just saw one that began like an anti-drunk driving ad (guy on a respirator), but at the last second veered off with a flashback to the guy telling his friend that he "didn't have time for all of that Jesus stuff". then, in the present, he dies! then he wakes up and it turns out it was all a dream! wowza! I almost rushed out of the door to the Harvest Church, but then I continued to sit on the couch and things turned out the same.
new Busta Rhymes video is pretty cool.
hey Katy, don't read past this line until after you've written your review of "Girlfriend in a Coma".
ok. so, I bought Douglas Coupland's above-mentioned book, his latest. purchases like this are why I do not eat much or go anywhere. I did wait a week, though, which is something. anyway, here is a quick capsule of my feelings on it:
I was blown away by it. due to work and diverted focus, I hadn't finished an entire novel since last summer. I read the first 20 pages of this on the day I bought it and stayed up the entire night reading the next 280 some pages. I couldn't put it down. the characters were drawn with an emotional depth deeper than anything he's ever achieved before, and the novel simultaneously rooted itself strikingly vividly in a period of