(THE OFFICIAL START OF THE SUMMER SEASON) NOTES FROM A FRIDAY AFTERNOON
rolling the dice of my
mind.
For your consideration: another curious collection
of thoughts, reactions, and observations that didn't make it into a full-length
post this week. So they're sort of like all the plastic cups and plates and
utensils you buy for a picnic but never get around to using. You just pile 'em
up in the pantry and save 'em until the next time someone comes
over...
• During yesterday's Rose Garden press conference, a bird flew overhead and shat on President Bush's arm. It happened while he was talking about Alberto Gonzales. If there were a little more instant karma in the cosmos, it would have happened while he was talking about Iraq.
• ABC's Ann Compton was the first to report the bird shit tidbit. Of the 100+ reader comments her story has generated, my favorite, courtesy of a poster named Rum Runner, is: Oh, if only elephants could fly.
• That drop of bird shit was the second slimiest thing I saw from yesterday's press conference. The first was when the President responded to a question from NBC's David Gregory by putting the correspondent's kids in the crosshairs. Working himself into a lather about the presence of Al Qaeda in Iraq -- you know, the presence that his own pointless war produced -- the President looked at Mr. Gregory and barked, They are a threat to your children, David! I suppose the President wanted to sound like he was grim and grave and serious. But he just sounded like he was nuts.
• As slimy as that was, and as uncomfortable as it made me (and anyone else with even an ounce of dignity) feel, the slimiest, most uncomfortable thing I saw all week was the report about that selfish, narcissistic 60-year-old in New Jersey who gave birth to twins this week. The woman, Frieda Birnbaum, claims that she's a role model, an empowering example of how much freedom modern women now have. But to me, she's just a rarified kind of maternal idiot, one more grating example of how little concern modern men and women have for anyone or anything but their own outlandish sense of entitlement. And so she's just one more instant gratifier who has yet to learn, much less to comprehend, my favorite mantra: just because you can, that doesn't mean you should.
• Funny how things work in the abandoned storefronts along the information superhighway. One day, one of your favorite internet watering holes closes its doors, and then, less than two weeks later, some opportunistic, carpetbagging gun nuts have swooped in and set up shop. Love? Not so much. Haterade? You bet.
• This may be the worst concert review I've ever read. Really. I'm not kidding. In fact, it may be the worst piece of reviewing or writing or simple, indiscriminate tapping on a keyboard I've ever read in the pages of a major newspaper. Ever. It's truly appalling. And it isn't even a review; it's more like an eclectic recounting, some strange blow-by-blow account of events and observations from the concert, compiled as a series of disconnected thought by someone who seems never to have seen a concert review. Or a newspaper. Or any actual writing. It would be a shame of a diary entry and a sham of a blog post. But as an article in a major metropolitan newspaper, it's a mortification. I'm truly embarrassed for the Post-Gazette.
• If the kid who wrote that review is an intern, then, dear God, they shouldn't let him anywhere near a byline again. At least without a net and an editorial escort. If he's a new hire, then, sweet Jesus, the state of j-schools and writing programs in this country is even worse than I thought. And if, in either case, circulation declines and budget cuts now demand that people like this dilute the PG's once-prodigious talent pool, then I guess newspapers really are about to die.
• One thing helping to keep newspapers alive, or at least on life support, is writing like this. Gabrielle Banks' Portrait of a Feud, the most recent bit of outstanding prose -- I've always been partial, of course, to that Insincerity essay that appeared last December -- to appear on The Next Page of the Sunday Post-Gazette, is great reading from first word to last, but I was especially compelled by its opening line: In some neighborhoods, loyalty is tested and proven through the barrel of a gun. That's some cracker-jack rhythm and diction and syntax. And -- to my eyes and ears, at least -- a perfect sentence.
• And so this seems like a good time to recall one of the many great and memorable distinctions taught to me by Duquesne University's inimitable Professor Albert Labriola: To say that something is perfect is not to say that there is nothing better. It is only to say that the thing can not possibly be improved. Professor Labriola used Milton's Lycidas as his example, but Ms. Banks' opening sentence also ably proves the point. And so further demonstrates the beauty -- and indeed the usefulness -- of the lesson.
• I already made this point over a year ago, but Bill Maher got around to it with typical, economical gusto last Friday night, so I can't resist giving him space with which to make it again... NEW RULE: Cruise ships have to be renamed "floating death traps." If you friends could see you now, they'd turn away in horror as sharks devour your carcass and develop some strange virus that no one has ever heard of.
• That is, of course, if the ship doesn't capsize, sink, or catch fire first.
• An interesting feature at Slate.com today asks writers to reveal what font they compose in and why. Courier was the most popular choice, either for its echoes of typewriters lost or its simple lack of pretension. (Suggesting that you use a font because it lacks pretension seems awfully pretentious to me. But I digress...) I learned to type on a great old manual typewriter, and all of my early short stories and poems and just general noodlings flowed through it, but the sight of Courier on a computer monitor makes me blanch; it's too thin and reedy and just not substantial enough for my eye. For years, I composed in Times, which gave me a classic typeface look and feel while still seeming to belong on my screen. But since I began this blog, I've composed almost exclusively in Verdana. That's the font -- neat, clean, readable -- I decided to use for TWM online, so I figured I should employ a little what-you-see-is-what-you-get strategy and compose in it too. TWM re-defined and re-energized my writing, so this font -- and even the iBlog software, in which I now compose all of my rough drafts, even those not meant for the site -- has, in the last two-and-a-half years, come to define the look and feel of my writing.
• TWM Quotation of the Week goes to record producer Noah Snyder, who, in the great new Warren Zevon biography, describes what happened to the amplifier through which Bruce Springsteen played his transcendent Disorder in the House guitar solos: The amp died. It was like Sir Galahad at the moment he finds the Grail. There was nothing left for the amp to do -- it had achieved the highest state of amp-dom and went right up to God.
• This afternoon at Borders, I saw Bernie Goldberg's book, 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America, remaindered at $3.99. And I thought: All they have to do is drop the price another $10, and they'll be selling it for what it's worth.
• Which is still a hell of a lot more than that God-awful new American Idol song, This is My Now, is worth. Wasn't the whole point of this year's songwriting competition to produce a good -- or at least decent -- song for the finale? Instead, after 100,000 entries and millions of online votes, we get maybe the worst original song in American Idol history. It killed Blake's chances of winning, made eventual winner Smiley McGiggles cry, and sent everyone at home with even a modicum of taste or self-respect scrambling for ear plugs and antacids. If that song really was America's choice, then it's at least a minor miracle that Sanjaya didn't win the whole competition. If he'd sung that treacle-fest at the end of the finale, that crazy little crying girl may have exploded.
• Speaking of season finales in which people may (and do) explode... Bravo and Amen! to the brilliant cast and crew of LOST for delivering an amazing piece of work on Wednesday night. (Out of respect for the DVR crowd, there will be no spoilers here; you can keep reading without worry.) I'm still not sure how I feel about that game-changing ending -- it gives us plenty to think about for the next eight months, that's for sure -- and I suppose only time and a few dozen more episodes will tell. But one thing's for certain: that's the twist that will forever define the show's legacy. It either sets a course to confirm LOST's eternal, mind-blowing greatness, or it sorely over-reaches and so launches its shark-jumping demise. For now, I'm betting on the former. If only because I'm still reveling in a string of cracklingly great episodes that led to a season finale as good, as taut, as powerful as any season finale of any show I've ever seen.
• And yet, it's only a matter of time before casual fans and vacuous viewers start complaining that the episode didn't answer any big questions. To which I say: accept it, or move on. Because you're criticizing LOST for what you want it to be, not for what it is. What it is is a great, sweeping, epic novel of a tv series. And you don't demand all the answers, all the solutions to all of the stories and all of the mysteries, halfway through a novel. You enjoy the ride and the read. You want characters to develop and relationships to build, you want the plot to move forward and the story to deliver compelling tension or action or revelations along the way -- in all three seasons, LOST consistently delivered them all -- and you want the resolution, when it finally comes (you know, at the end of the book), to be rich and rewarding and worthy of all that has come before. I still don't know if that's going to happen. But so far, just past the halfway point of a consistently rewarding and intellectually challenging series, I could not possibly be more pleased. Or more satisfied. Or more deliciously teased. And that, for now, is the point...
• During yesterday's Rose Garden press conference, a bird flew overhead and shat on President Bush's arm. It happened while he was talking about Alberto Gonzales. If there were a little more instant karma in the cosmos, it would have happened while he was talking about Iraq.
• ABC's Ann Compton was the first to report the bird shit tidbit. Of the 100+ reader comments her story has generated, my favorite, courtesy of a poster named Rum Runner, is: Oh, if only elephants could fly.
• That drop of bird shit was the second slimiest thing I saw from yesterday's press conference. The first was when the President responded to a question from NBC's David Gregory by putting the correspondent's kids in the crosshairs. Working himself into a lather about the presence of Al Qaeda in Iraq -- you know, the presence that his own pointless war produced -- the President looked at Mr. Gregory and barked, They are a threat to your children, David! I suppose the President wanted to sound like he was grim and grave and serious. But he just sounded like he was nuts.
• As slimy as that was, and as uncomfortable as it made me (and anyone else with even an ounce of dignity) feel, the slimiest, most uncomfortable thing I saw all week was the report about that selfish, narcissistic 60-year-old in New Jersey who gave birth to twins this week. The woman, Frieda Birnbaum, claims that she's a role model, an empowering example of how much freedom modern women now have. But to me, she's just a rarified kind of maternal idiot, one more grating example of how little concern modern men and women have for anyone or anything but their own outlandish sense of entitlement. And so she's just one more instant gratifier who has yet to learn, much less to comprehend, my favorite mantra: just because you can, that doesn't mean you should.
• Funny how things work in the abandoned storefronts along the information superhighway. One day, one of your favorite internet watering holes closes its doors, and then, less than two weeks later, some opportunistic, carpetbagging gun nuts have swooped in and set up shop. Love? Not so much. Haterade? You bet.
• This may be the worst concert review I've ever read. Really. I'm not kidding. In fact, it may be the worst piece of reviewing or writing or simple, indiscriminate tapping on a keyboard I've ever read in the pages of a major newspaper. Ever. It's truly appalling. And it isn't even a review; it's more like an eclectic recounting, some strange blow-by-blow account of events and observations from the concert, compiled as a series of disconnected thought by someone who seems never to have seen a concert review. Or a newspaper. Or any actual writing. It would be a shame of a diary entry and a sham of a blog post. But as an article in a major metropolitan newspaper, it's a mortification. I'm truly embarrassed for the Post-Gazette.
• If the kid who wrote that review is an intern, then, dear God, they shouldn't let him anywhere near a byline again. At least without a net and an editorial escort. If he's a new hire, then, sweet Jesus, the state of j-schools and writing programs in this country is even worse than I thought. And if, in either case, circulation declines and budget cuts now demand that people like this dilute the PG's once-prodigious talent pool, then I guess newspapers really are about to die.
• One thing helping to keep newspapers alive, or at least on life support, is writing like this. Gabrielle Banks' Portrait of a Feud, the most recent bit of outstanding prose -- I've always been partial, of course, to that Insincerity essay that appeared last December -- to appear on The Next Page of the Sunday Post-Gazette, is great reading from first word to last, but I was especially compelled by its opening line: In some neighborhoods, loyalty is tested and proven through the barrel of a gun. That's some cracker-jack rhythm and diction and syntax. And -- to my eyes and ears, at least -- a perfect sentence.
• And so this seems like a good time to recall one of the many great and memorable distinctions taught to me by Duquesne University's inimitable Professor Albert Labriola: To say that something is perfect is not to say that there is nothing better. It is only to say that the thing can not possibly be improved. Professor Labriola used Milton's Lycidas as his example, but Ms. Banks' opening sentence also ably proves the point. And so further demonstrates the beauty -- and indeed the usefulness -- of the lesson.
• I already made this point over a year ago, but Bill Maher got around to it with typical, economical gusto last Friday night, so I can't resist giving him space with which to make it again... NEW RULE: Cruise ships have to be renamed "floating death traps." If you friends could see you now, they'd turn away in horror as sharks devour your carcass and develop some strange virus that no one has ever heard of.
• That is, of course, if the ship doesn't capsize, sink, or catch fire first.
• An interesting feature at Slate.com today asks writers to reveal what font they compose in and why. Courier was the most popular choice, either for its echoes of typewriters lost or its simple lack of pretension. (Suggesting that you use a font because it lacks pretension seems awfully pretentious to me. But I digress...) I learned to type on a great old manual typewriter, and all of my early short stories and poems and just general noodlings flowed through it, but the sight of Courier on a computer monitor makes me blanch; it's too thin and reedy and just not substantial enough for my eye. For years, I composed in Times, which gave me a classic typeface look and feel while still seeming to belong on my screen. But since I began this blog, I've composed almost exclusively in Verdana. That's the font -- neat, clean, readable -- I decided to use for TWM online, so I figured I should employ a little what-you-see-is-what-you-get strategy and compose in it too. TWM re-defined and re-energized my writing, so this font -- and even the iBlog software, in which I now compose all of my rough drafts, even those not meant for the site -- has, in the last two-and-a-half years, come to define the look and feel of my writing.
• TWM Quotation of the Week goes to record producer Noah Snyder, who, in the great new Warren Zevon biography, describes what happened to the amplifier through which Bruce Springsteen played his transcendent Disorder in the House guitar solos: The amp died. It was like Sir Galahad at the moment he finds the Grail. There was nothing left for the amp to do -- it had achieved the highest state of amp-dom and went right up to God.
• This afternoon at Borders, I saw Bernie Goldberg's book, 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America, remaindered at $3.99. And I thought: All they have to do is drop the price another $10, and they'll be selling it for what it's worth.
• Which is still a hell of a lot more than that God-awful new American Idol song, This is My Now, is worth. Wasn't the whole point of this year's songwriting competition to produce a good -- or at least decent -- song for the finale? Instead, after 100,000 entries and millions of online votes, we get maybe the worst original song in American Idol history. It killed Blake's chances of winning, made eventual winner Smiley McGiggles cry, and sent everyone at home with even a modicum of taste or self-respect scrambling for ear plugs and antacids. If that song really was America's choice, then it's at least a minor miracle that Sanjaya didn't win the whole competition. If he'd sung that treacle-fest at the end of the finale, that crazy little crying girl may have exploded.
• Speaking of season finales in which people may (and do) explode... Bravo and Amen! to the brilliant cast and crew of LOST for delivering an amazing piece of work on Wednesday night. (Out of respect for the DVR crowd, there will be no spoilers here; you can keep reading without worry.) I'm still not sure how I feel about that game-changing ending -- it gives us plenty to think about for the next eight months, that's for sure -- and I suppose only time and a few dozen more episodes will tell. But one thing's for certain: that's the twist that will forever define the show's legacy. It either sets a course to confirm LOST's eternal, mind-blowing greatness, or it sorely over-reaches and so launches its shark-jumping demise. For now, I'm betting on the former. If only because I'm still reveling in a string of cracklingly great episodes that led to a season finale as good, as taut, as powerful as any season finale of any show I've ever seen.
• And yet, it's only a matter of time before casual fans and vacuous viewers start complaining that the episode didn't answer any big questions. To which I say: accept it, or move on. Because you're criticizing LOST for what you want it to be, not for what it is. What it is is a great, sweeping, epic novel of a tv series. And you don't demand all the answers, all the solutions to all of the stories and all of the mysteries, halfway through a novel. You enjoy the ride and the read. You want characters to develop and relationships to build, you want the plot to move forward and the story to deliver compelling tension or action or revelations along the way -- in all three seasons, LOST consistently delivered them all -- and you want the resolution, when it finally comes (you know, at the end of the book), to be rich and rewarding and worthy of all that has come before. I still don't know if that's going to happen. But so far, just past the halfway point of a consistently rewarding and intellectually challenging series, I could not possibly be more pleased. Or more satisfied. Or more deliciously teased. And that, for now, is the point...
Posted: Fri - May 25, 2007 at 02:41 PM
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Published On: Jan 16, 2009 04:50 PM
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Published On: Jan 16, 2009 04:50 PM