Thirty-Four

Yesterday, December 6, The M celebrated his thirty-fourth birthday. It was a quiet celebration with the parents, following a somewhat restrained party on Saturday night. Saturday night's affair was supposed to be bigger, but one of the participants fell off his bed and broke his arm, so owing to swelling and the big ol' arm splint, the crowd convened at the Hub of Western Civilization, where there were drinks and food a-plenty.

N----- R----- was in attendance. She mentioned that last year at The M's birthday bash, she'd had a bit too much to drink and joked (loudly and insistently, enough so that someone else in the bar — a total stranger — yelled from across the room, "Play it cool, M! You're a'right.") about marrying The M and bearing his children. M replied, incredulously, "you were joking??"

She also said she needed to have some food, because she'd need to eat something before she started drinking "or else I'll be spending the night here."

"We've just run out of food."

But seriously.

Turning thirty-four has brought about a reflective mood, and so I'm compelled to write here some of the things I've learned and observed to this point.

Apart from God, friends and family are it. Nothing else matters, nothing else is as important.

Long-time readers will know that this year saw the tragic and untimely death of the husband of a friend of mine. An old and dear friend of mine, but one who I'd lost touch with after her wedding. It had been ten years (almost to the day; terrible and tragic don't even begin to describe it, but I won't be detailed in this forum) since we'd spoken, but in some ways it was like we'd never stopped talking. Except that she's grown, matured, and changed — like the blossoming of a flower. And except that I'd forgotten little tics and mannerisms of hers that are indeed endearing.

The rekindling of that friendship is simply an unqualified good; the circumstances surrounding it were horrible, but it's been beneficial to me, and I am thankful for it. Not least because she's been through terrible adversity, and she still laughs. It's inspiring, uplifting, and amazing. Just to watch her going through the day-by-dayness of it all.

Which leads to two other observations: The first is that you can't plan anything, not really. Because you never know what the future holds. The corollary of that, I guess, is the by-now hackneyed "live for today," because today is all we have.

The second concerns her and her faith. She is a Christian, by all accounts a good one. Her character has always been informed by that fact. But now it strikes me as different than before. It's a thing of beauty to behold.

I have been — and still am — struggling with the role of Christianity in my own life. Watching her, well...I'm moved by it. In an intellectual way, I suppose I understand it, but the experience of it is something else again.

Which, I guess, leads to the nice and tidy conclusion — again, a thing I understand intellectually but struggle with emotionally — that nothing is permanent, nothing should be taken for granted. The only thing that's permanent is God.

I know that. I'm not sure I believe it yet.

And even if I do, I'm not sure that I like the consequences. It's tough, getting rid of your own ego.

More Cool Stuff than I Have Time to Read

http://artsandlettersdaily.com/

Sweeeeeeet.

Before I Lose It, An Anti-Derrida Comment

An interesting article, here. I'm not sure I agree with or understand it, totally. But I have an intense dislike for Derrida; it's a pleasure to read, "This isn't an insight, it's a tautology. Necessarily, every X excludes not-X, else it would not be X."

Or my favorite:

[S]kepticism about the existence of truth and/or absolute value, and our knowledge of either, has been a staple of Western philosophy in one form or another, from the Sophists to Hume to Michael Dummett. The problem with Derrida is that, unlike these other important philosophers, Derrida has no arguments that are both good and original; his case for skepticism is the stuff of bad sophomore-year philosophy papers.

My problem with Derrida is that he, so far as I can see, destroyed the act of reading for its own sake. While I'm not sure that's exactly technically correct — it's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Proofreading, Typesetting, &c

Does it bother anyone but me that people seem to have utterly forgotten the art of proofreading and -- the subject of today's post -- typesetting?

Ever see a sentence like this:

"You're crazy as hell", she said.

Everyone knows -- or at least, The M thinks everyone ought to know -- that the comma after the quotation marks should actually be inside the quote, like this:

"I am not," he replied, more calmly that she had any right to expect.

The comma outside the quotes looks as though it's about to kill itself because it's so freakin' lonely.

I know, I know. Dude, get a life. Don't you have better things to worry about?

Yes, I do.

But none of those things seem so pressing at the moment as the problem of the improperly placed comma in a quotation. Especially since that flaw appears everywhere in the otherwise brilliant novel I'm still reading.

What happened to standards?

I mean, of course, pre-Clinton standards. After that guy, there's really no point in having a discussion about standards.

Offensive, Bigoted, etc.

This cartoon is one of the most reprehensible things I've seen in a long, long time.

Which party's the racist one again?

Belated Election Post &c

Wow. I can't believe I haven't posted anything to the Blog since before I left for Knoxville.

The Conference was great. All the papers were good, the food was good, the company pleasant, and the Webmaster's award ( a plaque and a signed Cormac McCarthy book) was a complete suprise.

The Marty Party went off well, too. Lots of folks, lots of food, lots of fun, and a late ending. It's always a good party when the last guests leave at 5 a.m.

I'm still not used to non-daylight savings time. It's gettin' dark way too early here.

I'm also happy that W. won the election. No surprise there, for anyone who's read more than a couple posts here.

I don't much like it that the "referendum on Iraq and the War," once W. won it, became "the moral values election."

And — as to the influence of the fundamentalist/evangelical vote — some of the people looking down their noses at the inbred evangelicals ought to occasionally attend churches; they're public places, after all. I suspect that most of the talking heads who are paid to have opinions haven't ever even been to church in a red state. Some evangelicals are nuts, but most that I've known aren't.

Off to Knoxville

Well, in the morning, I'm off to Knoxville, Tennessee, for the annual Cormac McCarthy Conference. I'll not be presenting a paper this time, but I will be documenting the affair with the new camera. As one of my bosses put it, some folks are curious about what kind of people would attend a Cormac McCarthy Conference.

Here's hoping that the weather will be good and that the fall foliage will be nice. Back on Sunday.

Meet Miss Quentin

This is the first picture I've taken with my digital camera. Well, the first one I'm willing to share, anyway. Say hello to Miss Quentin. 

Nineteen Hours.....

That's how long I was at work Thursday. From 9 a.m. to 3:45 in the morning on Friday.

And back again at 10 a.m. Friday. But I did leave at 2 -- nice short day for the M, who was delirious from lack of sleep. One of my bosses said, "the last time I pulled an all nighter, I was drunk."

Well, I wasn't, so I remember it all too well.

I'm still recovering.

The Mainstreaming of Porn

While I'm still working like crazy this week, this article is worth reading. It's old now, but I think it's probably more relevant now than it was when it was written since its notions, even just a few years out, seem almost quaint.

Not Dead Yet

For those of you who may be following this particular blog, I'm not dead yet. Lots of work at work, together with a month-long succession of parties, has contributed mightily to my not posting here more regularly.

In tech news, I did finally break down and order my first Mac.

In other news, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell continues to be a great book, though I've not had the time I'd like to devote to it.

And one of my very good friends has just up and moved to Nashville.

I finally saw the Robin WIlliams episode of Inside the Actors' Studio. That's made me reconsider going into acting as a profession. Though I believe myself to be a writer at heart.

Bush's lackluster performance in the debate the other night was a little depressing. He's still gonna win the election, though. About a year ago, maybe longer, I told a friend of mine that Bush would get 60% of the popular vote. I stand by that prediction; I just don't see any sort of real groundswell for Kerry between now and the election.

Wrapped in Plastic

After reading several reviews, I went to the local bookstore yesterday to buy a book. This particular book, which runs to about 800 pages, is by a first-time author named Susannah Clarke. It's called Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. I'm very early into the reading of this one, but it's clever, and I'm enjoying it a great deal so far.

It's no doubt going to be a publishing sensation, so remember that you heard it here first.

BUT...despite the apparent goodness of the book, I'm miffed about it. And I'm feeling sort of like I just sinned. Because the book was not browsable at the bookstore. It was sealed, tightly, in clear plastic shrink wrap. Perhaps this was done to protect the white dust jackets, but it's hard to say. I think this is one of those books that will come with either a white or black jacket, so protection from scuffing during shipping may very well be the issue.

In any case, going to a bookstore to buy a book, even one you know you're going to buy, is usually a very tactile experience. The pleasure of browsing through a book, reading its jacket copy, and sampling at random from the (in this case) novel shouldn't be difficult or impossible. You should be able to hold the book in your hands, to thumb through it, look at the copyright page (if you're a collecting sort and interested in editions and the like). You should be able to feel the type on the pages and smell that new-book smell wafting up at you when you leaf through the pages.

None of that was present in this case, because the book was wrapped in plastic, sealed up as if it contained vulgar or prurient material, as if the publishers didn't really want anyone to actually read the book.

I could have removed the plastic wrap, I'm sure. But part of me rebels at the notion of opening something I haven't yet purchased. Besides, what is one then to do with the small wad of thick crinkled plastic?

The book as commodity. What's the point of going to a bookstore if you can't look at a book before you buy it?

Books. Wrapped in plastic. Harumph.

President's Remarks to the Unity Journalists of Color Convention

President's Remarks to the Unity Journalists of Color Convention:

Now in terms of the balance between running down intelligence and bringing people to justice obviously is — we need to be very sensitive on that. Lackawanna, for example, was a — there was a cell there. And it created a lot of nervousness in the community, because the FBI skillfully ferreted out intelligence that indicated that these people were in communication with terrorist networks. And I thought they handled the case very well, but at the time there was a lot of nervousness. People said, well, I may be next — but they weren't next, because it was just a focused, targeted investigation. And, by the way, some were then incarcerated and told their stories, and it turned out the intelligence was accurate intelligence.

I post the above because SadPunk has re-opened the subject of "sensitive" war. I looked for the speech he mentioned, and I believe it's this one — and I believe it's this quote.

Funny, Funny, Funny

A friend of mine sent me the following.

The Washington Post's Style Invitational [also here — I could spend days reading this kind of stuff] once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. Here are the 2003 winners:

1. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

2. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

3. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

4. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.

5. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.

6. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray painted very, very high.

7. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

8. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

9. Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.

10. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

11. Karmageddon: It's like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.

12. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

13. Glibido: All talk and no action.

14. Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

15. Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

16. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

17. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a grub in the fruit you're eating.

And the pick of the literature:

18. Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an asshole.

Between Books

Oh my. Finished Everything is Illuminated last evening. What a ride.

One of my favorite passages:

Every widow wakes one morning, perhaps after years of pure and unwavering grieving, to realize she slept a good night's sleep, and will be able to eat breakfast, and doesn't hear her husband's ghost all the time, but only some of the time. Her grief is replaced with a useful sadness. Every parent who has lost a child finds a way to laugh again. The timbre begins to fade. The edge dulls. The hurt lessens. Every love is carved from loss. Mine was. Yours is. Your grear-great-great-grandchildren's will be. But we learn to live in that love.

That's excerpted from a larger passage, which I won't quote here. That's not all — just a small sample.

So-Called "Baby" Carrots

VivaLaLesley disputes my information about baby carrots. The following is taken from Cooks Illustrated's E-Notes, April 2001.

"BABY" CARROTS

While researching our story on roasted carrots [. . .] we learned that the popular bagged "baby" carrots in the supermarket qualify as "babies" in terms of size only. The diminutive carrots are pared-down versions of a special variety bred for extra sweetness and color. The large carrots are forced through a machine that peels and trims them down to their perfect little size.

Books, Books, and More Books

Yes, Everything is Illuminated continues to be great — so great that I don't want to write here because I'd rather read.

However, I've been thinking about this particular subject for a while now and wanted to at least get started. I like lists, though they can be maddeningly frustrating sometimes. Here, then, are ten books I love — these books are on this list not only because I love them, but because they were world-changing as only a few books can be in any given lifetime. Order is not especially significant here; these are off the top of my head.

• Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis. It's a close race between several C.S. Lewis books, as I adored the Chronicles of Narnia when I was only a boy. Recently having reread them, I discovered that they're even better than I remembered they were. Also on the short-list from C.S. Lewis are The Abolition of Man and The Screwtape Letters. But Mere Christianity wins out because of the luminous quality of its prose and because of my peculiar reaction to reading it. I was raised Church of Christ and went to private Church of Christ school. So I took Bible classes nearly every day until I was 18 or so. They were quite in depth, and yet encountering Lewis in Mere Christianity when I was 18 was life-changing — "oh, now I see what all the fuss is about!"


• The Crossing, by Cormac McCarthy. Absolutely one of the finest novels I've ever read. Other contenders from McCarthy include Blood Meridian and All the Pretty Horses (my first McCarthy novel, and so in some ways always the best), but The Crossing wins because of its sheer power. Reading it was like being run over by a train. Repeatedly. In a good way. I've never ever been so wrung out by a book.


• Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, by Annie Dillard. Friends of mine mock me for loving such a hippie book as this one, and suggest that I ought to shut up and read Walden. But this book is practically unique in my experience; it's a book about nature and God and death and life and all the other big issues. Somehow it's also about little things, specific things, and the human quest for understanding, knowledge, enlightenment, and maybe even perfection. Its prose is marvelously light but multifaceted like a poem; you think you're done with an image and then it returns in a new light where it can be seen differently. I have encountered few books as perfect as this one in my reading life.


• The Years of Lyndon Johnson, by Robert A. Caro. I've never read a biography of anyone else that even comes close. Magesterial. LBJ rises up from the pages of these three volumes and breathes, shouts, berates, rejoices, struggles, steals, lies, cheats, and gets his way in his very own fashion. You may not like him, but he's never ever boring. Three volumes here, and Caro's not done yet. I for one can't wait for volume four.


• The Civil War: A Narrative, by Shelby Foote. Dated, maybe, but for flat-out great storytelling, it can't be beat. A beautiful, tragic, and epic book. One of the crowning literary achievements of the twentieth century in any form.

Those are the books I knew would be on the list when I started. Now, I'm going to have to do some thinking to flesh out the ten.

Everything is Illuminated

A good friend recommended that I read Jonathan Safran Foer's first novel, Everything is Illuminated. Having just started the book — I've read about five pages — I am already compelled to mention it here.

It's not thus far an easy book to explain, but it is hilarious; the first part of the book is narrated by a Ukranian translator writing in English, and the effect is riotous. A sample:

Many girls want to be carnal with me in many good arrangements, notwithstanding the Inebriated Kangaroo, the Gorky Tickle, and the Unyielding Zookeeper. If you want to know why so many girls want to be with me, it is because I am a very premium person to be with. I am homely, and also severely funny, and these are winning things. But nonetheless, I know many people who dig rapid cars and famous discotheques.

I'd like to quote more, but to do so would be to give away too much — I'll simply say that this book, so far, is inventive, original, and one of the funniest things I've read in years.

CNN.com - Cheney blasts Kerry over 'sensitive war' remark - Aug 12, 2004

CNN.com - Cheney blasts Kerry over 'sensitive war' remark - Aug 12, 2004:

The Kerry campaign Thursday said that the senator's comment was being 'taken out of context' and the 'meaning twisted' by the Bush/Cheney campaign.

Kerry spokesman Phil Singer told CNN the Democratic candidate was referring to cooperation with allies. President Bush himself, Singer said, used the word 'sensitive' in a similar context in March 2001, when he said the United States should be 'sensitive about expressing our power and influence.

Since nobody over at the Kerry campaign has posted this speech, it's difficult to say, based on the one sentence, whether Singer's correct or not. But, based on the one sentence, "fight" does not equal "cooperation with allies." Yeah, Kerry mentions allies in the same sentence, but that's about all.

CNN.com - Cheneys Go After Kerry - Aug 11, 2004

CNN.com - Cheneys Go After Kerry - Aug 11, 2004:

[Mrs. Cheney] was responding to an audience question about Kerry's remarks last week to the Unity 2004 conference in which he said, "I believe I can fight a more effective, more thoughtful, more strategic, more proactive, more sensitive war on terror that reaches out to other nations and brings them to our side."

I have looked for the rest of that speech, the one Kerry gave to Unity 2004, but it's not posted online — at least, not at the John Kerry site. And not at the Unity 2004 site.

The reason I've gone to the trouble of posting that quote is that Kerry campaign staffers are now practically denying that he said it. Grammatically, there's no question that "more sensitive" there modifies "fight."

I'll post an example from Kerry's folks soon.