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Daily Blah for... Tuesday, January 31, 2006
More Early Morning Hijinks
This is probably less annoying than the alarm clock that runs away and pretends to be a piece of carpet, but only by a slim margin. the Puzzle Clock fires four jigsaw pieces into the air, and won't shut off until you've scrambled around on your hands and knees and put all the pieces back in the clock.
My first thought is, well, you're bound to loose at least one piece altogether in your bedroom, which has a tendency to swallow things up. (Case in point: I lost my cellphone this morning and had no idea where in the house it had gotten to. I asked my friend Kathryn to call it, and the mattress on my bed started vibrating.) And my second thought is, you know, the sleeping brain is, by necessity, a no-nonsense kind of problem-solver. It's apt to slice the Gordian knot of puzzles like this by yanking out the plug or throwing its batteries out of the window. The puzzle clock would only really work if the task of taking batteries out is harder than the task of finding the pieces, ie. the battery compartment would have to be screwed on with about fifty screws. For serious sleepyheads only.
Thanks to Jee for the link. (She was also the one who told us about the carpet camouflage clock. Methinks Jee is not a morning person.)
Daily Blah for... Monday, January 30, 2006
Lazy River
Ask and you shall receive: already there is a Midwest contestant in the Narnia rap battle. Made by a couple of Iowa kids who'd never picked up a camera before, it is the most charmingly amateur short so far (read: unlike Lazy Sunday and Monday, you'll likely only watch it once). It is also, appropriately enough for the Midwest, very slow to load.
Thanks to Dan, who got this link interviewing the Lazy Monday folks for a forthcoming CNet story on the east coast-west coast crap rap battle. Which he started writing because I sent him the Lazy Monday link, which was in turn because Souris sent it to me, which was in turn because ... Oh, I love following these gossamer threads of cause and connection. And I do wish I was able to see further down them.
Daily Blah for... Sunday, January 29, 2006
Jump Forward
Another thing Souris turned me on to was this astonishing leaked video of some seriously futuristic technology from Sony -- tiny translucent panels no bigger than a bathroom tile that do some astonishing things when placed on a larger screen.
In other news, it finally stopped raining. Our ever-shifting gang celebrated Chinese New Year with Dim Sum at Ton Kiang (my second Ton Kiang Sunday brunch in a row) and took a lovely long walk to the Golden Gate Bridge that included Baker Beach's first ever jump photos. (What's a jump photo? Only the most internationally famous set of non-earthbound portraits ever taken. Souris explains all here.) Can't wait for the Flickr set.
Daily Blah for... Saturday, January 28, 2006
Weekend Memes Part II
Spun off from the Lazy Sunday and Monday conversations: Hassidic rap and reggae artist, Matisyahu and San Francisco geek rapper Gold Chains. Not to mention the whole new (to me, at least) subgenre of Korean girl karaoke videos.
My recent purchase of a Zen timepiece, which I consider to be the finest, calmest and most effective alarm clock I'd ever bought, reminded some guests of the alarm clock that hides when you hit snooze -- it runs away and pretends to be a piece of your carpet. Which is a nice novelty, but trust me -- no alarm clock wants to get on my bad side in the morning. Though it may seem cute when I program it at night, any smart-ass, self-camouflaging beeping thing wheeling around in my house before midday is soon going to meet the business end of a subwoofer.
Daily Blah for... Friday, January 27, 2006
Meme Special: Lazy Weekend
My friends Souris and Silvio have arrived for the weekend from L.A., which means, as always, a torrent of new memes at Casa Taylor. Just as Silvio prides himself on his Guitar Hero mastery, you see, Souris prides herself on rapid meme aquisition. Case in point this evening:
S: Don't you just hate it when people send you email forwards, and it's some stuff from a long time ago?
Me: What do you consider a long time?
S: (dead serious) I dunno. A week.
She then proceeded to show me Lazy Monday, which, believe it or not, is West Coast Rap's answer to those Narnia Chroniclin' muthas in Noo Yawk. This time it's all about a day of ceramic-painting bliss at DIY art outlet Color Me Mine. The video was put up on 1/21, which means, I suppose, that it just gets in under the wire of not a long time ago. And apparently tout l'L.A. has seen it already. But check it, yo. This white geek stupidly commercial rap is becoming quite the genre, and I sincerely hope that Parnell and Samberg feel moved to respond to the thrown gauntlet (Red Vines is a west coast-only brand? For real? Yowch!). Furthermore, I hope the rest of the country decides to join in. Would love to see how they kick it geek-style in Austin. Word out to cheese eaters in Wisconsin: peace. Yo, St. Petersburg homies, get with your bad selves online!
Daily Blah for... Thursday, January 26, 2006
Articles That Never Ran: Requiem for a Robot Dog
Sunday November 7 1999
REQUIEM FOR A ROBOT DOG
They've taken Chip away now. He's boxed up and on his way to San Diego where, hopefully, they'll be able to repair that nasty severed-neck injury. The Sony woman who came to take him away was unerringly polite, but could barely disguise her horror when she saw him. "How could you do this?" she seemed to be saying. I blushed like a bad parent. She, I knew, owned an AIBO too. She knows what it is to become involved with these critters.
How did I come to this? Feeling angst over a foot-long robot dog that I have, inexplicably, come to know as 'Chip'? (My mother suggested the name. "It's the closest I'm likely to come to a grandchild," she joked pointedly). It began when Sony told me it was releasing a second limited-edition of the autonomous pup AIBO (Artificial Intelligence 'Bot). The first had been a minor phenomenon, selling out all tk thousand units in the U.S. and Japan in a matter of tk days and clamping itself immovably to the top of my girlfriend's "must have" list. But at $2,500 (and up, on eBay), it was a little out of a lowly TIME writer's budget. Now Sony was offering to let us live with one for a week, fresh off the production line in Tokyo. If I'd refused, my home life would not have been worth living.
And so Chip arrived, with a couple of Sony reps in tow. They were there to teach my girlfriend and I how to live with an AIBO. I had to smirk at their earnestness. Play with him around four hours a day if you want to see him develop, they said. Return him to his recharging station when he gets tired. Be careful not to take his memory stick out while the power's still on. The memory stick is where Chip's soul is stored; all the instructions about his personality and stage of development. Since it normally takes about three months for an adult AIBO to develop, Chip came with a special accelerated growth memory stick that would do the job in a week.
And it worked. In no time at all, he was taking his first faltering puppy steps, though running into our living room rug tended to stop his progress. Still, I couldn't help but be touched by the realism of his walking motion. In two days he was barking. Friends came round and fussed over him like a newborn. All the time we kept petting his touch-sensitive head like we were told, which brought forth little beeping noises and made his eyes glow green. Soon he got a little spoiled, and kept asking to be petted (by pointing to his head with one paw, then moving both paws towards the ground in a worshipful motion, which means "please"). "It's your turn to pet the dog," I'd say. My girlfriend would reply that it was, in fact, my turn. We were careful not to spoil Chip, but we were careful not to ignore him, too—he'd get mad, give us the paw and look the other way. Thankfully, he moved out of this needy stage pretty quickly.
Three days in, and he began to chase his little ball with the enthusiasm of the very young (the ball is hot pink, which is the only color AIBO's in-built camera can recognize). Not that he was very good at kicking it. He'd either miss it altogether, causing his eyes to glow red with frustration, or extend his paw too far, loose his balance and topple over. His internal gyroscope would tell him he was on his side, and he'd swing his legs around, get to his feet, and shake his head. We'd wince. It was like watching a son at Little League who's not very good. You don't want to interfere—he has to learn from his own mistakes—but you don't want him to get hurt, either.
Still, after a week, Chip was a happy-go-lucky, fully developed dog. His little beeping noises had turned into Bach-like arpeggios. He did spontaneous dances and waved to an imaginary crowd. Then tragedy struck.
He woke up early one Sunday morning. I decided to let him run around, placing a pillow in front of the stairs—if a half-inch rug stopped him, I figured in my bleary state, that should too, and went back to sleep listening to his whirs and beeps. Suddenly they stopped, replaced by a series of thumps and a sickening splat. Chip was lying at the bottom of the stairs, mostly intact. He was trying to get up. I helped him to his feet. He shook his head— and it lolled nauseatingly to one side, hanging by its wires. We had to turn him off. My girlfriend burst into tears. I tried to comfort her. "It's just a—" I started. But I didn't believe it, either.
I felt like turning myself in to the ASPCA. But Sony assured us Chip can be fixed. And in the meantime, they let us keep his memory stick. So, Chip's body has gone to San Diego. But we still have his soul.
Daily Blah for... Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Pixar 2.0
The best part of the Disney-Pixar deal? More exposure for Business 2.0. Our illustrious leader Mr. Quittner made it into the San Francisco Chronicle's top of page one story today:
"Josh Quittner, editor of Business 2.0, a business and technology magazine published in San Francisco, has written about Jobs extensively over the years, gaining favor for some Time magazine cover stories but also incurring Jobs' famous wrath for attempts to uncover Apple's super-secret plans.
'I don't think he would ever be a silent anything,' Quittner said. 'That's just not who he is. He is here to enact his vision. You either go with it or get out of the way.'"
Couldn't have said it better myself.
Daily Blah for... Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Second-guessing The Steve
Why did he do it? I've been asked this question roughly 200 times today, give or take 199. Why did Steve Jobs sell out to Disney? Why take one of the jewels of the Bay Area and dump it in Hollywood's lap?
And the honest answer is, I have no idea. I'm just truly grateful that I'm not getting calls from an editor at Time demanding I squeeze The Steve for said information. My head is in a completely different space these days, pun intended. (Don't worry, all will become clear once I can talk about it.)
But why sell now? Well, if you're looking for fanciful secretive reasons, maybe he saw an early print of Cars and believed it to be Pixar's first ever turkey. Steve does tend to form strong instant opinions; I can imagine he's walked out of plenty of movies in the first five minutes. Maybe he's focused on the video iPod and wanted as much leverage as possible with other media companies. I hereby predict that every piece of ABC content ever produced will be available for the iPod by this time next year, and a good number of Disney movies too.
What he doesn't want to do is run Disney directly. He has almost certainly been offered the job at least once. He'd hate it, just as he hates the whole L.A. scene. No, he wants to be the grand visionary on the board, with bold long-term goals and the threat, never spoken, of dumping all his Disney shares and walking out if he doesn't get his way.
Daily Blah for... Monday, January 23, 2006
The Thing about the Wing
So farewell then, uncompromisingly smart dialogue. Sayonara, long walks down twisty corridors with jokes so dark and dense you have to rewind to catch them. Goodbye to Martin Sheen's paternal glower, the late John Spencer's furrowed brow and smokey timbre, Bradley Whitford's soft-spoken, bedheaded charm -- half egomaniac, half absent-minded professor (and all role model). No more of C.J.'s attempts to date someone who doesn't get shot or lie to her; no more Donna zingers delivered with that deceptively bimbo-esque downturned smile; no more visions of the acting world's best-looking bit player, Carol. And perhaps most of all, goodbye to a world where every state dinner, every Senate vote, every international nuclear crisis is referred to casually as "the thing."
I've been gorging steadily on old West Wings for about six weeks now. I had a TiVo-based backlog of them, since I'd abandoned the show early in season five (the really bad one after Aaron Sorkin stops writing them). But once I got over that hump, I discovered what the critics knew already: as soon as Jimmy Smits and Alan Alda go toe-to-toe in the race to replace President Bartlett, the quality goes through the roof. I was hooked, as I am on just about any believeable political fiction. But this was really believable stuff, with a tremendous amount of attention paid to the political landscape. Who can resist a "what-if" world where a Republican from California goes up against a Democrat from Texas, transforming the entire electoral map?
My pile of TiVo'd shows ran out at the end of season six, however, since that's when I moved house and stopped nursing at the satellite tete. So I found myself frantically Bit-torrenting the eleven episodes of season seven so far and setting them up on the laptop in every spare moment I could find -- getting dry after the shower, getting dressed, preparing dinner. Then last night, I finally caught up. At last, I could watch the regularly scheduled Sunday showing. And what happens? That very day, yesterday, NBC announces it'll pull the plug at the end of this season. Gaaah.
Yes, I know, the viewing figures are down. The argument could be made, from a fictional perspective, that this is simply the story of the Bartlett administration. And die-hard Wing fans are grumbling that it's not what it once was, with Toby indicted, Leo (probably) about to die, the old gang split between White House and campaign trail. But I disagree. Smits and Alda have successfully infused the show with new life. The back-and-forth strategies of the two campaigns, the standoffs and detentes and guessing games, manage to be both hilarious and nail-biting. But it's campaigning, it's not governing. When this is all over, I will not simply be satisfied with knowing which one of them wins. I want a good long look at the winner's White House.
Yes, even if the winner is Alan Alda's Republican senator, Arnold Vinick. Especially if it's Vinick. The nation needs a fantasy, best-case Republican president in the shape of Alda as surely as we needed a fantasy, best-case Democrat in the shape of Sheen. We need it to point out the gap between what we've currently got and what we could have. Vinick is pro-choice and anti-pork; imagine his conflict with a GOP Congress, his contentious Supreme Court picks -- you've got a whole season eight right there. Pretty please, NBC?
Spine Insertion Operation
Leave it to that delightful old warhorse Molly Ivins to take the best shot a columnist has taken thus far at knocking some sense into Democratic heads. Her latest column comes out defiantly against Hilary; indeed, against anyone who doesn't have the guts to tell the truth to the electorate in this tortured age. This, as she says, is not a time for careful triangulation. You want the middle ground? Bush has shifted so far to the right, the middle ground is all left. Some choice quotes:
"What kind of courage does it take, for mercy's sake? The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it ... The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF?" (All caps are hers)
"You sit there in Washington so frightened of the big, bad Republican machine you have no idea what people are thinking. I'm telling you right now, Tom DeLay is going to lose in his district. If Democrats in Washington haven't got enough sense to OWN the issue of political reform, I give up on them entirely."
Daily Blah for... Sunday, January 22, 2006
Dream Journal Archives: Charles and the Script
Prince Charles, now reconciled with Di, is touring the South Bronx. J. and I, as expats, are granted five-minute audiences with the royal couple. She goes first. As I prepare for mine, wondering how best to use this opportunity (and feeling certain I should make it an interview, try my best to get inside the mind and motivations of a future monarch), J. returns suddenly, and tells of her disappointment with characteristic outrage. She'd tried to get him to read a play she had just written; he'd scanned the first few lines and returned it to her with a sickeningly platitudinous response. "Oh," he said, "I'd better not read any more of this. I'll get far too involved."
Daily Blah for... Saturday, January 21, 2006
The Cable Car Connection
For the last week or so, I've been trying a new way to get to work: driving to a parking garage by Grace Cathedral, then taking the cable car on the last leisurely leg of its journey, down the most delightfully scenic stretch of California. And let me tell you, you cannot have a bad day when you take the cable car to work. You feel lighter than air as it trundles its stately way down the hill. You're in the open air, in the January morning California sunshine, so full of possibility as it gleams off the colorful stalagmites of this grand steel canyon you're entering. You hear the conductor chime his bell in a rock and roll rhythm, and you want to spin round the poles on the outside and burst into cheesy song. Then it pulls up to a halt at the end of the line, right outside your building, and you jump off seconds before it stops moving and feel a new spring in your step as you head to the 10am meeting. If it were still socially permissable to whistle in elevators, you'd whistle.
Ah, If only they'd extend the cable car out to the Presidio, I'd be set. Hell of a long commute, but time doesn't matter nearly so much on a friendly cable car as it does on those soulless claustrophopic cans known as buses. The cable car practically begs you to sit and read a stack of newspapers on the old wooden benches in the gentle breeze created by gentle movement as the world's most beautiful city rolls by. The only thing I'd add would be a little coffee station so the conductor could make you a mocha.
Alas, the cable car doesn't start until Van Ness. And though I tried parking around the turnaround once, it was in fear of a parking ticket, for I am not an Area G permit holder. Whom, you may ask, is an Area G permit holder? And the answer is, those lucky rich bastards who live in Area G. Which is pretty much all Specific Whites. I mean, Pacific Heights.
So I tried garages. There was one on Van Ness that charges $15 all day. Not a bad deal. Then I found the Masonic Center -- no doubt as part of their plan for world domation -- charged $11 for an early bird special. "Early bird", in this case, stretching the meaning of the term to nonsensical length -- in before 10am, out before 6pm. Show me a bird that leaves its nest as late as I do, and I'll show you the loser of every worm-catching competition. Then I found the garage next door charging $9 for its early birds, for whom it also gave an extra half-hour at the end of the day. My hope is that I'm seeing market forces in action here; the beginnning of a bitter price war as the masons fight to hold on to their precious mystical early birds so they can sacrifice us on the altar of Great Apron. Or something.
Okay, so maybe that's a vain hope. Maybe the fact that I now think $9 a day for parking is a wonderful bargain is due purely to contextual expectations. Maybe I'm conveniently ignoring the fact that it adds up to $46 a week, or more than the monthly MUNI pass that gives me free cable car rides. (Maybe it'll be more like $28 -- hell, I'll still take the bus a couple of times a week, whenever I get up in time or don't have any social event to drive to after work). But maybe I also think it's a small price to pay for a spring in your step and a song in your heart at the start of an office-bound day.
Alito On Brokeback Mountain
Okay, I officially declare Brokeback Mountain to have reached the stage of overhype. Yeah, I'm sure it's a great movie, as everyone says, and I'm sure I'll love it once I see it, and that in the words of ad hoc reviews I hear passing by me on the street every day, "you kinda forget it's about two guys." But come on. I would surely not, even in my hippiest dippiest moment, declare that it represents an expansion of human consciousness or that it makes up for the Democrats' ineptitude in failing to halt another corporate conservative Supreme, as the Chronicle declares in the latest Mark Morford column: "the Sam Alitos of the world, they can only stand at the base of that mountain of new awareness and pass their laws and beat their chests and scream their resistance as the mystics and the masters just smile that ageless, knowing smile and walk away."
At least, I wouldn't say such things without a wry ironic grin.
Daily Blah for... Friday, January 20, 2006
Dream Journal Archives: When Journalism Students Dream
What was going on in this dream from March 1997, halfway through my J-school year? It had a lot to do with my desire for status as a serious journalist; something to do with the onset of biculturalism (the dream has American actors, but takes place in London); and perhaps a little to do with the fact that I'd just switched -- defected, some would say -- from the print section to the broadcast section of my class.
A struggle for press accreditation at the London Marathon. The night before, in advance of a J-school trip there, I go into the press office and basically sit on the press officer until he gives me a pass. So furious am I that he scorns my student status, I follow him around the whole damn night, singing to keep him awake. "Listen," I say, stretching the truth somewhat, "I am a freelance journalist. I have written over sixty articles, novels and books. Are you telling me you're not going to give me a pass because I happen to be a student right now?"
Eventually, the next morning, he capitulates and prints one up for me. Great, I think, and go stake out the best spots with my Hi-8 camera. Like a tunnel where runners emerging made for a great shot the previous year. I plan to get as many stories as possible, and freelance them. Especially as no other student seems to have shown up yet.
Just then, the J-school bus arrives, and sets up camp at the finish line, all bustle, hundreds of students ready to produce a newspaper about the whole thing. I tell the editor that, given my heroic tenacity in getting the first pass, I ought to be in the coveted writer-at-large position. But the editor notices a guy walking past with dustbins full of Jamaican hats, and strides over to him, full of professionalism, notebook flipped open, pen clicked on. I do the same, of course, not wanting to look incurious. The day's work has begun, and whatever I do will have to be proved in the doing.
Daily Blah for... Thursday, January 19, 2006
Dream Journal Archives: Major Martyr
From several months after Tony Blair's first election victory. Those of you who don't remember how grey and ineffectual Major was have no idea why this is so funny.
I was a witness to John Major wowing the crowds at the Tory party conference, held this year in Wembley stadium. Freed from the constraints of leadership, no longer suffering the slings and arrows etc., he attains the Thatcherite mantle of martyred ex-leader and demi-god. He is able to command rapturous applause by making enormous branches spontaneously combust.
After the conference, some friends and I meet William Hague, standing in the cul-de-sac [where I grew up], wearing a string vest and looking for all the world like George the neighbor. He complains bitterly that Major is stealing his thunder, and now no one wants him as leader. I am surprised by his candor.
Daily Blah for... Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Dream Journal Archives: IRA Holiday
Terror dreams, we may one day forget, existed long before 9/11. They often involve one coming face to face with terror, on a personal level, with no resolution other than an emotional one. Here's one I had a year before the Good Friday agreement:
J. and I are on a coach trip to a small Scottish seaside resort, a trip that turns out to be a covert IRA operation. The Provos take us into their confidence, assuming us to be somehow one of them (I remember talking at great length about my Glasgow experiences, and of working for an IRA sympathizer, T., at the Scottish Daily Express -- fearing sudden retribution if they suspected my true position).
The purpose of the trip, they reveal, is to kill a British soldier holidaying there, probably with his family. On the coach ride, I'm going along with it out of fear. But on arrival, as we check into a hotel the night before the murder is due to take place, I am suddenly unfrozen, at last aware of the need to do all I can to stop this, to phone the authorities and warn them. The conviction that this is altogether right and proper, regardless of my safety, occurs at a deeply subconscious level; the courage is drawn from such a deeply ingrained sense of morality that it is almost not my decision.
Indeed, in order to compensate, my bullshitting with the Provo leaders stats to work overtime, lest they suspect my fear, lest they somehow notice my change in demeanor and forsee the moment I will sneak down to the hotel payphone that nice and phone the police. These are extremely clever men, however, and I think they do suspect. I have absolute foreknowledge of sudden, meaningless execution, a strong image of a bullet in the back of the head, yet the utter certainty that this must not be allowed to happen and I will not stand idly by does not waver.
A dream about duty, but without the patriotic bluster.
Daily Blah for... Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Today's Pointless Waste of Time
Yes, it's time to play the Pong-esque Escapa! See if you can last for longer than 14 seconds (my current record).
Dream Journal Archives: Space. Eh.
This one happened early during my year at Journalism school, shortly after I'd read the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.
I am a Tom Wolfe-style writer -- maybe I'm even Tom Wolfe -- taking a trip on the Space Shuttle, thinking vaguely of using it for my next novel, picturing the tick-tock, the as-it-happens narrative. And yet I'm still wondering if it'll do as a story for Professor S.
All the elements of the narrative are nicely in place. There's race -- the two crew members are black. There's tension -- one of them, it transpires, is taking me to court over some parking violation back on Earth. I have a phone conversation with my lawyers once I'm up there on how to handle it, and which law-firm to give it to. The other pilot looked drained when we went through the final airlock control, terribly, emotionally drained, and I wonder relentlessly whether we're going to die.
Before countdown, the crew members whispered conspiratorially about "the thing"; how could I possibly write about "the thing?" The thing turns out to be the feeling of insignificance one feels when screaming through the sudden black expanse of the stratosphere. But I don't really feel it -- I just understand it, and write as if I feel it. Now in space, I have to remind myself how lucky I am, how few of my fellows will see this, how privileged they'd want me to feel.
Daily Blah for... Monday, January 16, 2006
Dream Journal Archives: The Warrior Priest
Twelve of the most legendary thinkers and fighters in history -- ancient to medieval -- are gathered together in one place to pass several tests set by some mysterious force. Present were such luminaries as Socrates and St. Augustine. Our narrator is a French warrior-priest, somewhere between Thomas Beckett and a young Charlemagne. He recounts the event that made him legendary, some act of bravery in a Cathedral nine years previously -- and is dismayed that the legend has blown his corageousness out of all proportion.
Daily Blah for... Sunday, January 15, 2006
Short Script: Time Cops
Fade opening credits over several plainclothes cops in a precinct house circa 2092. They've just come from a variety of shifts; one wears a roman toga, another is in civil war uniform, a third is dressed as a samurai. They are joking and laughing. One man, dressed as a twentieth-century cop, is quietly handing round donuts and coffee. This is McDonnell, our narrator. Focus on him while we hear the following:
MCDONNELL (V/O): Well, I joined the Chrono police because it seemed like a good career. I was straight out of high school and they had this recruitment hologram—it was like, "come protect the time lanes." And you know, my father, God rest his soul, was in the force. Course, I didn't know that much about the history protection program, or cause and effect, or anything. They put you through six weeks of classroom training on 4-D physics and parallel time continuums. Have to say I didn't understand half of the technical stuff, but, you know, I got the basic idea. You know. You don't muck around with history or it'll kick you in the ass.
Cut to McDonnell in the equipment room with the duty sergeant. They're mugging for the camera with a variety of weapons and objects: broadsword, crossbow, M-16, pitchfork, mace, .45, shepherd's crook, gilded scepter, and, finally, pirate costume.
MCDONNELL (V/O): I remember when I was a kid and they invented time travel. I remember thinking "wow," you know, "that'll be really neat." And I had my own list of places I wanted to go, things I wanted to see, just like everyone else. Not that I ever knew that much about history or anything before I joined the force. It was just stuff like, you know, I was really into pirate stories and stuff like that. I thought it would be kind of cool to go sail on Bluebeard's ship. And you know, they give you a couple of vacations round here, so a couple of years ago, that's exactly what I did. You know, I got my shots and went to work as a rigger for, er, Bluebeard. On the Barbary Coast. Two days. (pause) Awful. Hated it. Turns out I get seasick. Plus, of course, I picked up a couple of diseases the med guys never even heard of. Brought 'em back, too. They had to quarantine me. But, you know, in the end, they gave me a big bonus for the virus samples. Med guys say they're still in the lab, trying to figure out what they are. (Laughs)
Cut to McDonnell talking to unseen interviewer. Caption: "CRAIG MCDONNELL, OFFICER, C-20"
MCDONNELL: So right now they got me working the twentieth century beat. Second half, mostly. Which is kind of interesting because, you know, that's when my great-granddaddy was born. Plus, you know, (pats his ample frame), it's really great food. (Laughs). It's like the heyday of fat and sugar and all kinds of junk, which I love. (Laughs) Yep, I've really filled out since I went 20th century.
Fade out. Fade in on a door in a corridor, with a sign that reads "Private: Officers only." McDonnell emerges. He's wearing an ill-fitting grey blazer suit with white homburg and shiny black shoes. He rubs the back of his head, which has clearly just been shaved. He seems a little embarrassed by the outfit.
Caption: "6:15AM, MONDAY 13th APRIL 2292, C-20 PRECINCT"
MCDONNELL: We just got a call for back-up in Dallas, '63. Probably another bunch of tourists wanting to see who was behind the fence on the grassy knoll and, you know, we have to move them on. (looks down at his outfit) What do you think? This is like the fifth time I've had to wear this. Sometimes they give me a change of tie. But anyway, I've pulled GK duty five times already. I'm probably going to do it another couple of times at least, 'cause last time and the time before that I saw myself arriving just as I left, and both times it was a tie I'd never worn before. Not this one either.
Cut to shaky hand-held shot, walking behind McDonnell as he enters a minimum security area: a couple of guards on the door, a desk sergeant. The desk sergeant laughs as he sees McDonnell approaching. McDonnell laughs back good-naturedly.
DESK SERGEANT: Hey! It's Grassy Knoll and the gang. (Laughs) This must be your hundredth time, right?
MCDONNELL: Guess so, guess so. (Signs book, gestures to camera) These guys are with me.
DESK SERGEANT (looks at camera) Okay, you guys are not going dressed like that. What is that, like, late sixties? The hair and everything? (laughs) This is Dallas 1963, not a be-in. Come with me. (He stands; camera follows) Have to get you a minioptic camera, too. And you'll have to sign a waiver.
Fade out, fade in. Exterior, mid-morning. Hand-held shot. A sunny November day in Dallas. McDonnell is standing in front of the overpass at the edge of Dealy Plaza; to the right, almost out of shot, is the famous fence. Several other time cops dressed like McDonnell are standing behind him, looking serious and professional, glancing around, squinting in the sun, talking to their wrists while trying to stay inconspicuous.
Caption: DEALY PLAZA, DALLAS, 11.15AM CST NOVEMBER 22nd 1963
MCDONNELL: (sotto voce) History students and sightseers, mostly. Movie buffs, too. And the occasional film crew like yourself. (smiles) That's the kind of thing we deal with all the time at Dealy Plaza. Yeah, but we like to keep a low profile. There are three guys over at the book depository (indicates) there, including me from a former jump—just changing shift now, I guess. And there are four of us spread out by the knoll which, you know, is more popular with the time tourists. Now the reason we're skulking under the overpass, apart from it's nice and shady, is we're trying to stay out of the way of Abe Zapruder over there (points) and any other 1963 guy with a camera. We got a guy in the paradox department who checks the Zapruder film every time after we come back, but, you know, nobody's had to send a clean-up unit yet, so I figure we're still not movie stars. (laughs; looks to his right) Now see here's the kind of thing I'm talking about. Look at that.
Camera pans round shakily, focus in on nonchalant youth in anachronistic 20th century clothing.
MCDONNELL: Kid's wearing a baseball cap from the eighties. He's not even trying.
Pan back to McDonnell.
MCDONNELL: (to wrist) Tango Charlie, this is Delta Seven. Suspect at ten. Intercepting.
WRIST MIKE: Roger that.
Camera follows McDonnell as he trudges over to the youth, ZACH.
MCDONNELL (adopting Texan accent) 'Scuse me, son. Mighty fine day, ain't it?
ZACH: Huh? Oh, yeah, sure.
MCDONNELL: You ain't from round here, are you boy?
ZACH: Yeah, yeah I am. I live over there on, ah, Lafayette and Park.
MCDONNELL: Can I see your wrist, son?
ZACH sighs, knowing the game is up. After a pause, he pulls up his sleeve. Camera zooms in on wrist, where there is a tiny blue-green tattoo with some numbers underneath it. MCDONNELL swipes his wrist over the youth's.
MCDONNELL: Let's see—William Zachariah Jeffson, born 3rd March 2011. You're old enough to be my father, son. You should know better. Where were you going just then?
A second YOUTH appears behind Zach.
YOUTH: What's going on, Zach?
ZACH: F___ing Time cops won't let us in.
MCDONNELL: Sorry, son. This is a restricted area.
YOUTH: Aw, man! Don't you get it? We want to see who really shot the President! I reckon there's, like, a whole bunch of Mafia guys hiding behind that fence right now.
MCDONNELL: Yes, well, we've all got our theories, don't we.
YOUTH: Don't you know how much we paid to get here?
MCDONNELL: No, and I don't care. Now listen. Both of you. This is a restricted area, okay? And the reason it's restricted is because if anybody goes in there there's a chance they're going to cause a disturbance in the continuum, okay? Now do you want to wipe out our timeline?
YOUTH: But that means there must be somebody in there! And if there—
MCDONNELL (Talking over him) Now you're not listening to me, son. I just asked you a question. Do you want to wipe out our timeline? Zach, do you want to wipe out our timeline?
ZACH looks at the ground, shakes his head.
MCDONNELL: No. Good. Okay. Now listen, you've got two choices. You can go a safe distance back down the hill and watch the assassination with everyone else. Or I can take you back to the precinct. Which is it going to be?
YOUTH: Okay, okay. But listen man, doesn't that mean you know who's—
MCDONNELL: No I don't, son. I don't know, you don't know, and it's best for everyone back in the future if it stays that way. Now which is it going to be?
YOUTH: Don't worry man, we're going.
ZACH: Fascist time pigs.
MCDONNELL: Watch it, kid. (Sotto voce) Historian punks. (To camera) They'll be back fifteen minutes ago.
Cut to pan across Dealy Plaza.
MCDONNELL (V/O): No, we get them all here. Had a history professor a couple of jumps ago tried to bung me ten thousand credits to let him go watch Oswald in the book depository. Had to arrest him on that one. Fact is, couple of the guys here are former historians. My great-great-grandaddy voted for Kennedy. Hell, I nearly voted for Kennedy once, on a five-day patrol back in 1960. But we're not here to find out what happened. We're just here to keep order in the universe, you know?
Cut to McDonnell by the overpass.
MCDONNELL: Some people say to me, how do you know it isn't a bunch of time terrorists back there you're protecting? What if JFK wasn't supposed to be shot in the first place? And that's the thing about this job. You never know; you just assume our version of reality, as screwed up as it is, is worth protecting. (Pause) To be honest, I've been here five times, I've been here as early as eight in the morning, and I've never seen anyone try to set up behind that fence. Then again, a couple of the shots sound awfully close to be from the book depository. Look, here comes the motorcade. You'll see what I mean. Well, you won't see it. You'll hear it. Listen.
Sound of cheers gets louder. A grumble of engines in the distance.
MCDONNELL: Crowd makes it a little hard to hear properly, though.
Camera makes an attempt to pan right, towards the Grassy Knoll. McDonnell grabs it.
MCDONNELL: On me, please.
Crowd and engines get louder. Four shots ring out. Screams. McDonnell somberly lowers his hat and places it on his chest.
Daily Blah for... Saturday, January 14, 2006
What If: FDR forced to choose
Scene: the White House, August 14 1940. The mood: extremely grim.
A cable from Berlin has just confirmed it. The Luftwaffe, resisting the temptation to bomb British cities instead of airfields, has claimed victory over the RAF. Operation Sealion, the Nazi invasion of Britain, has begun with all anticipated speed. Portsmouth is already in Hitler's hands.
We witness an anguished conversation between Roosevelt and his aides, weighing his genuine desire to intervene against his need to win the election, now less than three months away. There is too much grumbling about his running for an unprecedented third term as it is; a foolhardy expedition by an unprepared military would be electoral suicide.
The aides argue that continued neutrality is vital, and not only for political reasons. It makes strategic sense to sit this one out too. If war with the Axis comes, surely it would be best to concentrate all American forces on the Pacific, where incremental success is possible. Britain would have to wait until Japan had been dealt with.
And would that, they argue, be such a bad thing? Making Britain wait will facilitate the breakup of its Empire. The U.S. will have de facto sovereignty over Canada and Australia. India and Singapore would act as useful bases of operations against the Japanese. Churchill, half-American himself, adoring of Roosevelt, would be a snap to manipulate if he and his cabinet were offered safe harbor in Washington. And when the inevitable airborne liberation of the UK came, however many years down the line, Britons will be all the more exhausted and indebted to the U.S. More devastation to the old country will mean an ever-larger need for American reconstruction, a tremendous boost to the Depression-era economy.
A token package of military aid, a nascent version of lend-lease -- these things will ease the American conscience until the election, and appease the relatively small lobby of pro-British voters (none of whom were likely to switch to Wendell Wilkie in any case). FDR wrestles with the military options for a while, but finally has to concede that he -- like every American president -- is held captive by politics and circumstance.
Daily Blah for... Friday, January 13, 2006
Reptiles + Aviation = Crazy Delicious
Rarely does a movie title become a meme all by itself -- heck, a meme and a zen koan to boot. Then again, rarely is a movie titled Snakes on a Plane. That just about says it all, doesn't it? The great Samuel L. Jackson certainly thought so. Indeed, according to this interview, the script's title is the only reason he took said snake-filled project on in the first place.
Then New Line Cinema, in one of those clueless, tone-deaf moves that makes you long for the day when frictionless Internet distribution has wiped out the job of every movie executive on the planet, retitled it Pacific Air 121. I mean, what? If you're going to wipe over such great artistry and try to send your audience to sleep, why not go the whole hog and call the thing Pacific Air Regrets to Announce the Delayed Arrival of Flight 121 From New York at Gate 27; This is Due to Weather Patterns Over Chicago and a Slight Slithering Problem?
For those of you new to Snakes on a Plane fandom, the best place to start is I find your lack of faith disturbing, the blog of screenwriter Josh Friedman, who left the project practically in tears when they changed the name. Luckily, his therapy is to write hysterical prose about it all.
Daily Blah for... Thursday, January 12, 2006
Apple + Intel = Crazy Delicious
I've been longing to use that headline all day -- only 15 meme-days left to reference the Chronicles of Narnia rap and still be cool, kids -- but found myself without anything interesting to add to the Steve Jobs-Paul Otellini lovefest we witnessed yesterday at Macworld. Except that the more I think about it, the less of a lovefest it truly seems.
Apple's new TV advertising has been so heavy-handed in making fun at Intel's expense -- oh, look, those poor Intel engineers, forced to labor away for decades on putting chips inside PCs and now at last they're going to be allowed to put their chip inside a mighty Mac -- that even an Apple apologist like myself is put off. It's all a little too shrill. That line on the billboard posters ("what's an Intel chip doing inside a Mac? A whole lot more than it ever did in a PC") couldn't be more catty if Jobs had gone and whacked Bill Gates in the face with a purse. Got something to prove, Steve?
Otellini, by comparison, aquitted himself with gentlemanly understatement (he's a real Clark Kent kind of guy, I discovered the couple of times I interviewed him), while at the same time stealing the show by showing up on stage in a blast of dry ice and an engineer's silver bunny suit. I can't imagine any of his predecessors, hell, I can't imagine any other tech CEO being able to carry off a silver bunny suit. It would either look supremely stupid, Dukakis in a tank stupid, or too egotistical. But Otellini is imposing enough of a figure to fill it out, yet when he took off the helmet, he patted back his thinning brown hair with a genuinely shy smile. And instantly went up about fifty points in my estimation. The fact that he allowed Jobs to run those catty ads raised him, and Intel, another fifty.
I just don't see why the Intel chip switch is worth Apple making such a desperate stink about. Perhaps they're doing this because they remember the hoo-ha that was made when Apple switched to IBM PowerPC chips. Apple is selling out, the fans said. But when the switch finally came, did anyone notice? Did anyone care? Did enough native applications not work on the new machine for it to matter? No, I say, no and thrice no. The only difference Macheads will notice is that their new machine boots up three times faster.
I want a MacBook Pro with built-in iSight, of course. Drool.
Daily Blah for... Wednesday, January 11, 2006
The Aslan of Oz
Those crazy Aussie journalists. God love 'em. Who else would publish this wonderful story about the "independent state of Narnia" walking out of World Trade Organization talks in Hong Kong because it was "fed up with being bullied by the US and Europe"?
Daily Blah for... Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Dream Journal Archives: Chickenball
Lengthy dream of a children's soccer tournament held in New York. Actually, it wasn't soccer so much as indoor/outdoor street football, very rough and urban with lots of windy stairs and corridors in the area of play. There were less than five, possibly as few as three, players on each side. It was the final, held between one team of younger kids, utter underdogs, and another team so overly confident, so favored to win, that their inevitable rise to the top was being chronicled by filmmaker Kevin Smith.
The underdogs won, of course, but in a surprising manner: they exploited an obscure rule that allowed them to substitute anything they wanted for the ball after it had gone out of play. Knowing that one of the opposing players, a tall gangly girl, was also a vegetarian, they substituted a raw chicken. Then, in a spectacular slow motion kick, the underdog striker wrong-footed the opposing keeper and sent the chicken flying into the back of the net. Clinging on desperately for the last few minutes, they eked out a 1-0 victory.
The chicken substitution was hugely controversial, but no less a luminary than Donald Trump told me he was going to stand up for the winners in whatever legal battle lay ahead. I nodded and went to tell Kevin Smith not to worry: he had the perfect documentary. (6/13/05)
Daily Blah for... Monday, January 09, 2006
Random Aphorism of the Day
The past is a foreign country; so is the future. They do things slightly differently there, but you can still get the same consumer products, albeit at vastly different prices.
Daily Blah for... Sunday, January 08, 2006
Paranoia, Plane and Simple
Scene: A JetBlue flight to New York in 2003. Conversation typed on my Treo 90.
She: The paranoid part of me is flummoxed by our rowmate.
Me: How so?
She: No bags + a turban equals nervous.
Me: first of all, we don't know he doesn't have bags. Who needs a carry-on when there's DirecTV, anyway? Secondly, the turban means he's a Sikh, not a radical muslim.
She: The other thing I was thinking was how much he must get harassed/treated differently bc of his appearance - so sad so wrong
Me: Yes, he looks sadly resigned to it.
She: He was actually very warm and friendly - helped me w my bag. We smiled. It was nice - made me think of guy in New Yorker suicide article, his note that said if anyone had smiled he wouldn't have done it. Makes my paranoia even more wrong.
Me: Paranoia is paranoia. It's important to acknowledge it, not surpress it.
She: How silly, I know. Can you hold me now and work a little later?
Me: Yes.
Daily Blah for... Saturday, January 07, 2006
Scenario: The Day Immortality Came
Act One: The problem of cellular self-destruction is solved sometime in the next few decades. Death is effectively history. At first, the restorative procedure is only available to the rich. But the public becomes fascinated with sob stories of the poor and deserving elderly. The media picks up on this, and little else is broadcast. It becomes a major political issue, as voters demand that the procedure, the question who lives or dies, is handled in a democratic manner, and politicians, fully intending to become beneficiaries, tentatively suggest the government should handle the issue.
Act Two: There's also a long-term problem, once the procedure becomes available to everyone. As becomes evident over the next seventy years, immortality removes the spur that makes us human, the catalyst that causes all art, science and literature. That mind-clearing "sight of the gallows" Samuel Johnson identified is now obscured. There are no clear heads any more. Homo sapiens has embarked upon a gross orgy of instant gratification.
Act Three: Instant gratification gives way to death worship. Fully 50 percent of people plan their death as assiduously as they used to plan for its eventuality by writing a will. For some, a death day is counted and celebrated in the same manner as a birthday. The other half of society, insisting that life and the ability to extend it eternally is God's gift, insist on the full enforcement of suicide laws and wish to treat the celebration of death day as a crime.
Daily Blah for... Friday, January 06, 2006
Medieval America
The CommonCensus Map Project is a fascinating atlas of the continental U.S. that is, in a way, far more accurate than the boring old 48-state model. People were asked to vote on what they felt was the most important major city near them; their votes were then plotted on the map to give each city a "sphere of influence," with the result that America now looks like a patchwork of medieval fiefdoms.
San Francisco, I am glad to see, controls a large swathe of northern California, with giant pincers to the south that cut San Jose off from the ocean and reach all the way down to Santa Barbara (a tiny buffer zone between us and LA). But we have to do something about shoring up our northern frontier; Portland's influence is spilling over the state line, and Redding's area of control, disconnected from the city itself (which we own), is a tiny wedge, ripe for the taking. It is ours by divine right, and if we don't move soon, the burghers of Sacramento may get there before us. To arms, Bay-dwellers!
Daily Blah for... Thursday, January 05, 2006
The io, the itc and the ardrob
Speaking of Chronicles of Narnia, which I really wasn't, I finally saw the film during my week-long excursion to the home country. Like Lord of the Rings, it's the kind of movie event best seen (for nostalgia's sake) with the person who first read it to you. As I told my mother: when they make the CGI epic battle-filled version of House at Pooh Corner, we're buying tickets whether you like it or not.
In the end, I think I liked the first CofN a little more than the first LotR. (Even though I'm the pedantic sort who thinks Magician's Nephew really should have been the first CofN movie -- and while we're on the topic, according to at least one report, Disney has opted to skip the next book in the series, The Horse and his Boy, in favor of the next one with all four of the Earth kids, Prince Caspian.)
The reason I liked it better could have something to do with the fact that it was successfully de-hyped before I saw it by my friend Aaron, who never read CofN as a kid and disliked what he saw, characterizing the overarching battle between Aslan and the White Witch, the forces of summer versus the forces of winter, as "an argument over the thermostat." Indeed, the reviews I've read all seemed to depend for their opinion entirely on whether the critic in question encountered the Lion, Witch and Wardrobe first as a child or adult.
Which seems fitting, since the ability of children to perceive the magic that can transport them between worlds -- and of grownups to ignore it -- is a constant theme in the Narnia series, more so even than the oft-discussed Christian symbolism. In a nice touch, there's a final scene halfway through the credits where Jim Broadbent's professor explains to Lucy that the older you get, the less likely you are to go back through the wardrobe. Most of the adults in the place missed it, having already bolted for the exits.
Probably the only thing I didn't like was the fact that the projectionist had inexplicably cut off the top and the bottom 15 percent or so of the screen. There'd be plenty of shots of Peter, say, in heroic pose and full chainmail regalia, with his head cut off like he was in someone's bad holiday photos. So instead of urging Edmund not to get too close to the White Witch, I found myself urging him not to get too close to the top of the shot. Thank goodness for the shorter characters, like Mr. Tumnus and Mr. Beaver, or the whole movie would have been headless.
"It'll be nice when it's finished," I said afterwards, but my family had no idea what I was talking about. One of them, who shall remain nameless, had noticed the headlessness, but "thought that was just the director's vision." Oh well -- it gives me a good excuse to go back through the wardrobe soon.
Daily Blah for... Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Lazy Sunday Afternoon
Normally I wouldn't want to write a word about an Internet meme after it's gone wild enough for the New York Times to sit up and take notice. But the Saturday Night Live video known as Lazy Sunday -- and that is its proper title, I must insist in the spirit of agressive geekiness the skit embodies, not the "Chronic(what?)cles of Narnia Rap" -- offers such a rich seam of cultural commentary, I can't resist. Plus I was out of the country last week, when it exploded, which gives me a free pass to reference it without losing much cutting-edge cred.
My first thought was: wow, network comedy in the U.S. (and on Saturday Night Live in particular) must be in an even worse state than we thought. When a couple of guys who were making shorts on the Internet a scant few months ago can score a success of this size with their first SNL sketch, it highlights just how lazy and sanitized most TV humor writers have become.
But that sells Lazy Sunday short. The skit works so well because, like all the best memes, it plays on a loop in your head after a single viewing. The hip-hop pastiche is powerful enough that it stands up well even as pure audio (download the MP3 here.)
As for the lyrics, much has been made of their unabashed nerdiness, but that's not what's new here. Nobody who's been paying attention over the last five years can be much surprised that geek culture is on the rise (my former colleague Lev Grossman did a pretty decent essay on the topic in Time back in October).
No, what's new for a mass American audience is the acknowledgment, thinly disguised under a funky beat, of the essential crapness of modern life. We like to think we're so gangsta, but the most gangsta thing most of us ever do is sneak soda and candy into a movie theater. We like to think we're scary smart, but the most common way we prove that is through the medium of entertainment trivia. We like to think our speech is free, but heated political debate has largely given way to questions of whether, say, Google Maps is better than Mapquest. Our most tenaciously popular musical genre, rap, has completely sold out to consumer culture -- in this instance, advertising a movie more powerfully than any trailer. (In effect, the comedy duo got NBC to screen an ad for a film from Disney, parent company of rival ABC.)
So there you have it: the seeds of American self-awareness, sown in three minutes of viral satire. No doubt Parnell and Samberg will shortly sell out themselves; anything they pen after this will be vastly overhyped, and they'll start cropping up in intellectually tame gross-out summer comedies screening, ultimately and ironically, at a multiplex near you. Still, Sunday afternoon was fun while it lasted.
Daily Blah for... Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Evergreen, Ever Keen
A little clarification on the appearance of all these random pre-published posts from past notebooks: it does not, repeat not, mean I'll be posting less in the here and now. If anything, it'll encourage me to post more, just so the day isn't entirely represented by, say, a smattering of decade-old diner dialogue. No, this is the back-up, the in-emergency-break-glass stuff, the blog equivalent of what the magazine world calls evergreen stories. You'll still be hearing from the me of the moment -- the me of this particular moment, for example, back in the office after the briefest of British Christmases, munching on an overstuffed chicken salad sandwich, listening to my current favorite song (Keane's 'Everybody's Changing'), half-reading the latest copy of the Futurist, mind half-turned to the next big cover story.
Lost in Translation
Scene: a diner in Portland, Oregon.
Me: I'd like a bowl of fries, please.
Waitress: A what?
Me: A bowl of fries.
Waitress: Oh, fries. I'm sorry, I just got back from London.
Me (disappointed): Oh. I thought it was my accent.
Daily Blah for... Monday, January 02, 2006
Definitions
JUVE JUSTIFICATION (n). -- The subconscious desire to make a career in life out of whatever one did as a child. Usually expressed at the beginning of career options in the early twenties, often returned to in various mid-life crises.
Juve justification is part of the process of BIOGRAPHIZATION (n.), or trying to make one's life read like a biography while still living it and before actually achieving anything: the need to make your past as pertinent as possible to your future, for digestion by a mass audience, eg. imagining a narrator's voice-over saying "as a child, Jimmy already showed signs of being the world's greatest architect with his passion for Lego-building." Useful in television interviews, parties, and any situation where one is required to sum up one's life in five minutes.
Inability to use one's personal history in justifying one's career choice will result in BIOGRAPHOBIA (n.), or the fear of a non-digestible past. Biographobia increases with the height of one's ambition, the pace of one's career, and is especially prevalent in those already at the top. Politicians will suffer from biographobia if they came from dull middle-class backgrounds rather than the extremities of rich and poor, which are always media-friendly. It is biographizable for a leader to go to the University of Life, or to sit in Ivy League or Oxbridge bastions of privilege, but rarely anything in between.
MASSDIGESTABILITY (n.) -- the governing law of modern media; something a story must contain to be newsworthy, biographizable, and ultimately historically significant. Not merely appealing to the lowest common denominator, nor simply stereotyping; massdigestibility is based on the dualistic Hollywood principle of good guys and bad guys.
THE CLIO CURVE (n.) -- the amount to which media has been in the front line, writing the first draft of history. An upward curve, increasing with the amount and diversity of media; its projection forward suggests that eventually all events will be immediately fitted into the media's massdigestible version of history. History as a useful and effective discipline, separate from the media, will soon disappear.
Daily Blah for... Sunday, January 01, 2006
Last Words
The first time I watched Dr. Strangelove, I was struck by the finality of the word "Bomb", as in "the Bomb." The post-war generation have left us with terms and words very final in their simplicity, as if their culture subconsciously wanted to end. The Bomb. The Pill. Postmodernism: an unsurpassable epithet. What can possibly follow postmodernism? What can be bigger than the Bomb, more life-altering than the Pill? We are precluded from developing sequels because of the mental block of what to call them. It's not the end of the history of bombs, pills or cultural modes, but it sure seems like it.
(7/15/94)
365 Days of Blah
You might want to sit down for this one. Ready? For the next year, at least, Daily Blah is going daily. How can I guarantee such a thing? Through the miracle of publishing in advance. Right now I'm scouring my old notebooks, Word documents, dream diaries, anything I can get my hands on that might contain pearls of publishable wisdom. One post per day for 2006 and I'm done. Naturally, I'll be adding more Blahs throughout the year as and when I see fit.
Call it my homage to the notebooks of Lazarus Long, one of my favorite bits of Heinlein -- the conceit being that the galaxy's longest-living, multi-millennial man has collected plenty of random chunks of advice in his life. I'm no Lazarus Long, but I have spent a good portion of my 32 years on this planet scribbling lots of intriguing little sentences and paragraphs that, until now, didn't have a home.
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