Something I wrote today

Any readers of Hegel out there? Or London?

"It is not that Buck is really human, or that humans are really animals; I am not interested in drawing easy equivalences. What I am positing is that if Buck can be inserted into humanist equations, like Hegel’s, and remain a dog (or, in other words, if Buck can survive being made a metaphor for the merely human), the possibility for a literary understanding of human/animal relations becomes possible and promising; for if our goal is a different future, posthuman or not, and if that future depends upon reconceptualizing the human, without, on the one hand, falling back on nihilism (in which humans have no value, as such), or on the other, fulfilling the equally terrifying dream of an all-too-human future (in which humans are over-valued, as such), then we must begin to imagine, in our stories, and read into the ones that have already been written, the possibility that becoming human, or becoming animal, might at least avoid the inevitability of one “becoming” only at the expense of the other."

Fighting the future with mustaches

I've been waiting for mustaches to make a comeback, and I think this recent Rolling Stone cover just might help its long awaited return.



I've always been amazed at Brad Pitt's chameleonesque hair. He can go all Legends-of-the-Fall in weeks, shave it for his next film, then appear days later with George Clooney's very fashionable 1950s look.



I wonder if there's some magical Hollywood secret gel that allows celebrities to grow their hair out more quickly than the rest of the plebeian masses.

Anyway. Mustaches: why did they wander in the cultural desert for so long, collecting all kinds of sleazy connotations, like some creep in a windowless van (Michele associates mustaches with child molesters, which pretty much disqualifies me from ever growing one, even though I really really want to)?

I'm also waiting for body hair, in general, to make a comeback. Americans are obsessed with shaving everything, but I just can't keep up; what is it about body hair that so reviles us in one era, while being completely acceptable in others? I mean, Burt Reynolds used to be considered, like, a Greek God or something.



And then a mere 10 to 20 years later, this would completely repel 99% of women.

I think there must be an aesthetics of smoothness that's very active in the human brain--that makes us believe that rounded, consistent shapes are some kind of surface-manifestation of inner purity. I don't think that it's just sexual either. There's evolutionary reasons for why men are attracted to curves--they are supposedly the outer reflection of healthy reproductive capability (or so I read).

Yet, why is it that so much future-oriented design is almost inevitably sleek? For example, take the two robots from Disney's recent movie, Wall-E.



The old design is baroque, gothic, broke-down. The new design is exceedingly simple and egg-like. If you'll recall Terminator 2, the old design, occupied by Arnold Schwarzeneggar's smoothly shaved skin, is nevertheless a collection of intricate humanoid parts on the inside, while the new design is liquid metal.

In addition, if you compare the spaceships in the first three Star Wars films, they are much more complex and labyrinthine than the ships in the latest three.





My question is, why does new always equal smooth? Because in each case I actually prefer the old design, and yet I've always somewhat fetishized the new as well (hence my taste for Modernist literature). With the exception of home design, painting, and literature, in which I certainly prefer modernist straight lines and minimalist flourishes, the clunkier, more gothic-church like design of the "older" models registers more "soul", even if the object rendered is a machine.

So I think there's also something in us that rejects the aesthetic of smoothness at times, and lets us enjoy the sloppy effectiveness of the Millenium Falcon, the simple tasks completed by the squeaky but soulful Wall-E, and the human-in-waiting of the Cyberdyne Systems Model 101.

My next step must be to convince Michele that my desire to grow a mustache simply stems from my yearning to reject the onset of a featureless future that we humans can only seem to envision as a plain free of the scars, blemishes, and accretions that pock reality and erupt through the curvature of our utopias.

Think she'll buy it?

No Excuses

...for the Beavers. If you can't stop simple run plays then you don't deserve to win. It does hurt, but it's almost better that they lost big and not on some last-second field goal. It really seemed like I was watching a different team out there; the offense was fine, even though having Quizz would have given us a run game and might have changed things, just like a couple blown calls could have changed things. But it wasn't close enough for those kinds of excuses to register much validity. You don't give up 700 yards and win a game.

Plus, we've won the last two against the Ducks, so they were kind of due. It looked like the extra week to prepare really helped, given the way they picked apart our defense. And that was no coincidence. The Ducks did not want to lose to us three straight years.

So no Rose Bowl. It was a good season, though, and once again Riley's team over-performed. At the beginning of this season I thought it would be a rebuilding year. I'm just hoping that one of these years we'll be able to put it altogether and make a more dominant run for the Roses, in a year when the Pac-10 is a bit stronger.

Alas, I'll end with a philosophical question. Is there anything else in life comparable to sports, in that it matters so much (to some people at least), but over which you have no control whatsoever? It doesn't matter how hard you cheer or how much your care, what happens on the field will happen regardless of the intensity of your fanhood. I would love not to be a sports fan, but I'm beyond having the luxury of choice in that matter; it sure would save me a lot of time and heartache, especially given the fact that basically all my teams suck, and probably always will.

And I still hate the Ducks. But what fun is sports without an enemy to loathe?

I. HATE. THE. DUCKS.

My friend from the KFO (that is, Klamath Falls, Oregon for my non-Oregonian readers) came down over the weekend to watch the Beavers play the Wildcats. It was a great game, and best of all, we won on a last second field goal.

Now it's Beavers/Ducks, in Corvallis, for the Rose Bowl. I have talked a lot of smack in my lifetime to Ducks fans, and being an Oregonian, there's literally no way that if you're either a Duck or a Beaver, that you can avoid having friends and/or family in the other camp. Usually, I can still get along with them as long as we don't talk football. But this week, those people are not my friends or family: they are simply my enemy.

There are three teams I hate in sports, and which deserve nothing but scorn:

3) the Pittsburgh Steelers (for robbing the Seahawks of a Super Bowl victory)
2) the New York Yankees
1) the Oregon Ducks

I hate the Ducks uniforms and their faux-trendiness, I hate the fact that they think they're god's gift to college football, despite having accomplished very little, I hate the fact that they're not the Beavers. I hate their yuppie fans, and their wannabe yuppie fans.

I. HATE. THE. DUCKS.

Have fun in the Las Vegas Bowl, you pieces of crap.

A few short film reviews

A few films old and new that I've seen recently.

The Candidate (1972)
(I had my class watch this one). Worth seeing for how little politics has changed, if in fact the film's portrayal of campaigning is accurate. And Robert Redford must be Brad Pitt's father. Like George Costanza, I have a staunch record of heterosexuality, but he is a good looking man.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
Capra's best? A film that is great for more than it's idealism--it's very well told, and the acting is thoroughly professional.

Transamerica (2005)
Surprisingly good. Felicity Huffman's Best Actress nod is well deserved.

The Other Boleyn Girl (2008)
Natalie Portman. Check. Scarlett Johannson. Check. Then why was this possibly the worst movie ever made? Previews that promised a sexy historical drama, and delivered on none of its promises. Any director who could take these two women, who are thoroughly capable of very solid acting, on top of their uniquely seductive qualities, and create such utterly bland, sexless characters (despite the fact that this story is essentially about sex), needs to find a new job.

Redacted (2008)
Brian de Palma's humble, yet very effective story, based on real events, of a group of American soldiers in Iraq who revenge a buddy being killed in a roadside bomb by arbitrarily raping a young Iraqi girl and killing her family. The film does not pretend to make this a metaphor for the entire war, which is why other Iraq War films have failed to attract much attention (they're ambitious without delivering on their ambition, or offer far too simple answers). This one sets out to tell a very limited story, and its humility ends up being very powerful. The two soldiers who commit the crime are vile, but there are other soldiers in the film, who, while they do not prevent the crime from happening, are haunted by their complicity. Their regret becomes the metaphor through which this film is capable of making larger arguments about the war.

Ed Wood (1994)
Pretty much the kind of fun weirdness one expects from Tim Burton. And Johnny Depp is the best actor in Hollywood. Period.

An American Crime (2007)
Very disturbing and very good. Katherine Keener and a pre-Juno Ellen Page. Another film based on true events. A type of modern day Scarlet Letter, in which a young girl becomes the neighborhood scapegoat, locked in a basement, and tortured by her siblings, neighborhood kids, and her adopted mother, until she dies. Fun for the whole family!

Still waiting to see Oliver Stone's W.

New Day, New Design

I'm feeling a bit more chipper than usual, so I've decided to replace the rather gloomy picture of me taken on a small coastal Maine island, and replaced it with another at the Grand Canyon. There is some continuity, in that I'm gazing outward, which I wanted to preserve. It's brighter, and I've lightened the gray of my page background color so the text is a bit more readable.

Tuesday

The closest thing I've experienced to last Tuesday was when the Beavers played the Ducks in 2001. I was writing for the OSU student newspaper, The Daily Barometer, and had been covering the football team all year. One of the biggest thrills of my life is covering that team--the best team OSU has ever put on the football field--and watching them go nearly undefeated and beat Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl. The Ducks, however, were very good that year. It was Joey Harrington's junior year, and they'd go on to win the Fiesta Bowl the following season. But they had a chance to knock us out of a BCS game that year, and I was very nervous even though I knew we had the superior team. It was a bright, cold day, and I recall walking over, through campus, with my fellow sports writers and absorbing the excitement as fans, alumni, and students swarmed campus, barbecued, tailgated, played touch football, and heckled Ducks fans.

The excitement was tangible that day. As Beavers fans, this was a benighted group who had endured many years of futility, but who also knew, I think, that their team was going to win--not only that, but we were going to beat the Ducks. We finally did, but my heart was in my throat the entire game, and I wasn't allowed to release any of my emotions because I had to sit in the press box the entire game. By the time I had written my story after the game, it was late and I walked home through that beautiful campus, and my roommates and I celebrated.

It wasn't a crazy celebration like I thought it would be, though. We mostly just sat there with smiles and drank some beers. It was one of the best days of my life.

Tuesday was eerily similar. I've known with quite a bit of certainty that Obama was going to win (I also predicted the relatively early call, which meant landslide). One thing the primary campaign taught me was that poll numbers, taken as a whole, are a very good indication of trends, and the poll numbers were very clear. Nevertheless, we hadn't won yet and it was a very nervous day. I was able to reach home by about 2 p.m., and flipped between CNN and MSNBC basically until about 10 p.m. When he won Pennsylvania, Obama's prospects were good, but when he won Ohio, I knew it was over, grabbed a bottle of champagne, popped it open, and toasted myself to victory. It was sweet. For some reason the networks didn't call the race after Ohio went Obama, even though they should have because the math was literally impossible for McCain after that. So, I stuck around with Michele, Ada, and my mother-in-law until the official announcement. Watching the celebration in Chicago made me want to be there in the worst way.

One of my favorite images of the night was when NBC showed Jesse Jackson in the audience. I'm not a huge fan of his--mostly because I think he's a shameless grandstander--but to see him so obviously emotional, with tears streaming down his face, almost as if he could not believe what he was seeing, that really affected me. It affected me mostly because there's so many people out there for whom history is a memory, whereas for me it is only something I've read about in books. I'm truly happiest for people like Jackson, and others like John Lewis, who was being interviewed throughout the night, because they lived the civil rights movement, they were there when King was shot, they've experienced the heartache of discrimination and prejudice. To see them rejoice was my favorite part of the night. I don't know how anyone cannot be affected by that. No matter what you think about Obama, the fact that a black man is president is truly astonishing and worthy of at least a few moments of respect for his accomplishment, and for all the folks who paid the hefty price for that accomplishment.

I felt celebratory, and since Michele had company, she encouraged me to go down and meet some friends at Club Congress, in downtown Tucson. Actually, they were her co-workers and ex-co-workers whom I have become good friends with. I didn't want to miss Obama's acceptance speech, so I hopped in the car and rushed down to Congress after McCain's very gracious concession. I got there just in time to see a group of about a few hundred people watching Obama on the bigscreen, and listening to his voice over the loudspeaker.

The crowd assembled was truly joyous--and I immediately remembered that day in Corvallis when the spirit of goodwill and community was so strong--and I watched President Obama deliver his last speech of the campaign. I stood on a chair in the back of the crowd and looked around at people's faces. I felt proud to be there among them--the type of crowd that put Obama in office--a truly diverse crowd: all colors, all ages...a microcosm of America. I am overwhelmed with pride this week, and I wish Mr. Obama luck in what will be a challenging four, and hopefully, eight years.

Great presidents aren't made in easy times, and these are no easy times.

Finally

A boy's dream

I was reading this today and thought I'd share:

...the late entry of America into Western history meant that out national existence began at precisely the same moment as the novel itself, and that we have no prehistory (except as we attach ourselves to a larger Anglo-Saxon tradition) of Epic or Poetic Tragedy. Even our underlying national mythos is a Pop Myth and our Revolution consequently a Pop Revolution, as compared, for instance, with either the French or Russian Revolutions, which began with ideological disputes and the formulation of high-level manifestoes. Our own War of Independence, on the contrary, began not with abstract ideas at all (though later we composed idological documents to justify a fait accompli), but with a group of quite grown-up men dressing up like Indians and dumping into Boston Harbor that supreme symbol of effete European civilization, British tea. It is an event cued by a boy's dream, only later translated into the Declaration of Independence under the auspices of Thomas Jefferson, himself a small boy in love with gadgets, though he fancied himself a displaced philosophe.

This is from an old essay by Leslie Fiedler, a prominent literary critic from the 60's and 70's. His Love and Death in the American Novel is one of my favorite pieces of literary criticism, even if its approach is a bit outdated (unfortunately, literary critics often take themselves too seriously, and as a result disqualify themselves from this type of off-the-cuff, if careless, commentary--commentary I find refreshing and permissible since, after all, we are not scientists).

I offer up this excerpt on the eve of another election because it contains a humor that is always dangerous to politics. Put under this light, viewed from this perspective, the mythic image of American history recedes back into a more chaotic reality, in which countries are born on whims and chance, and not necessarily fate or providence.

Whatever happens tomorrow, may we all retain our senses of humor, the most powerful weapon we have to fight off (or point out?) the absurdity of politics, and life.

Wanna take my class?

My course description for English 380 next term:

Section 002 – Schwartz
This course will introduce you to the methods, techniques, and theories associated with analyzing and writing about literature. We’ll deal mainly with three genres: the short story, the poem, and the novel. You’ll become familiar with literary terminology, a selection of basic critical methods—including “close reading”—and we’ll occasionally touch upon the relationship between literature and its contexts, mainly the political and social milieus from which texts originate.

Requirements for the course include a midterm and final, as well as 2-4 medium-length papers and one longer paper (+/- 10 pgs). We’ll read short stories by Faulkner, Joyce, O’Connor, Wright, and Melville; poems by Whitman, Dickinson, Stevens, Toomer, Auden, Yeats, and Keats; and Thomas Pynchon’s first novel, V. (1963)

The Freshman

This might be my last term teaching freshman composition. I just received word I'll be teaching English 380 next term, a class required for the University's English majors. I've taught lit courses before, a summer lit and film course, for example, and I've assisted in a couple larger survey courses, but I've never had the chance to teach my subject area, during the school year, to a group of majors, and design and conduct the course myself.

It's a "literary analysis" class, which is much different from teaching composition almost every term, and cringing three to four times a term when I have to sit down with a stack of 50 papers and wonder why and how some of these students got into college. Once in a while, at least, the writing is so bad that cringes turn into laughs.

I always try to remind myself, however, that these kids are 18. It's difficult for me to remember my exact mindset when I was 18 years old, but I know that the stuff I'm asking them to think and write about, are the exact same things I was not very interested in 12 years ago, either. Man I feel old writing that. I usually just hope I'm able to teach them something. Usually I think I do, but only if they want to learn something. In a class full of business and nursing majors, however, that isn't always the case.

So I'm hoping that teaching majors will at least have the advantages inherent to teaching students who actually want to be in the classroom. Which will mean they'll also have a teacher that wants to be standing in front of them.

PS. On a sidenote, my efforts at becoming more calm are working, for now at least. As anyone reading this blog knows (is anyone actually out there?), I have been pretty obsessively keeping up with the presidential campaign. That is still true, but I've decided that given Obama's poll numbers right now (which are about as good as he can hope them to be), I'm just going to relax on the political posts for awhile so that I can keep my blood pressure down. Let's hope they're mostly accurate, as they mostly were in the primary campaign. Or else, two weeks from now, I might just finally erupt. Serenity now, Sam. Serenity now.

Upcoming post:
A review of Oliver Stone's W.

The New McCarthyism

Hmm. I'm liberal. I work on a college campus = I hate America!

It's the perpetual smile that's so loathsome. She's in congress. How could anyone vote for this person?

A Tribute from the Archive

A Year Ago

Who would I emulate in a crisis?

I've been working on keeping a cooler head about things lately. Something I've noticed about myself in the last five years or so is that I'm sometimes oversensitive and too easy to perceive any potential slight as a more serious attack on me that what it usually is.

Not to sound ridiculous, but this is why I'm so attached to my sports teams, to the novelists I love, my political opinions, and to basically anything else that deserves my loyalty. I don't think I'm going to change this about myself, but I'm trying to be cooler and calmer lately.

It's not that I run around frothing at the mouth--actually those who know me only casually might assume the opposite about me: that I don't show much emotion at all. But while I'm good at hiding my emotions physically, I'm terrible at containing them within myself. When something is bothering me, I lose sleep, I obsess, I seethe.

I don't want to sound too much like a partisan hack here, but the best role model out there for someone like me, who simply needs to calm down and roll with the punches, is Barack Obama. I find it incredible that a politican, and a presidential candidate nonetheless, has been able to inspire me. How long has it been since an American president's demeanor and carriage can be described as laudable and dignified? How long has it been since an American leader behaved like a leader?

The double-edged sword here is that I've become so invested in his candidacy, that the very model of serenity I'm hoping to emulate is the very cause of most of my restlessness lately. The polls are looking good, but this thing is far from over. And I'll be so glad when it's over.

Right now, as a nation in turmoil, we need someone calm, assertive, confident, and capable. For all their disparaging of Obama as a risky choice (now they're just outright calling him a terrorist), Obama is not the risky choice in this campaign. Whatever his ideology, we know this much: the man can take heat. The Clintons threw it at him (Bill still is, indirectly), the right wing's thrown it at him, and now the Barbie Doll from Alaska is throwing it at him.

He's been living in the kitchen for two years, and no matter how hot it gets, he just keeps getting better.

The Debate

I watched last night's debate and I've been digesting the reaction to it all day, via the news sites and blogs I frequent. A few of my own impressions:

1) McCain is a much better debater than he is speechmaker. I was impressed by his breadth of knowledge, at least about international relations and general world history. I thought his rantings about earmarks were laughable, given their relative insiginifance in the larger scheme of things.

2) While McCain's knowledge of the world is impressive, I thought that Obama did not give much ground to him on foreign policy and the Iraq War. I remain impressed that Obama was one of the few prescient ones in 2003 whose first inclination was to question whether Iraq was really a place we needed or wanted to invade.

3) I grew tired of McCain's obvious disdain for Obama. He did not, even once, look him in the face. Not once. He seemed patronizing and contempuous. Obama stayed respectful, as he always does.

4) I was watching the debate on CNN and they have this neat little tracker on the bottom of the screen that gauges audience reaction in real-time. You get to watch the reaction of 35 people to every moment in the debate. When they like something they turn the dial up, and when they don't like what they hear, they turn the dial down. They were evenly splite among Democrates, Republicans, and Independents, and you could watch how each separate group reacted. Anyway, the most intresting thing I noticed was that when one of the candidates went blatantly negative, all trend lines would immediately go down. McCain was far more negative (or, as those sympathetic to him might say, "aggressive") than Obama. Whenever he got snide, the audience generally reacted negatively.

5) I don't think anyone who has already made their mind up will change their minds as a result of the debate. The two basically repeated things they've already said before. However, their body language, their basic demeanor, and their temperaments were on display. Obama was calm and collected. McCain was annoyed and dismissive, as if to say, "how do you even share this stage with me?" Clinton did that too.

She lost.

6) Palin (and McCain) better hope that she does better with Joe Biden than she did with Katie Couric.

7) In the end, people generally see what they want to see in these kinds of things. I'm no exception.

Money; or, how greed is the true ruling party in the U.S.

After eight years of truly unprecedented expansion of presidential powers (see The Military Commissions Act, the Protect America Act, the FISA Amendments Act, the Detainee Treatment Act, and the Patriot Act), is it really surprising that the Bush administration is so keen on now controlling financial markets as well?

(If I were really cynical, I might suggest that Bush would never let the market correct itself, because that might lead to a depression, which would be bad for Republicans during an election year).

The reaction from the Right has been interesting. Some, indeed, are skeptical of the $700 billion bailout plan, justifying their skepticism by citing their "conservative" political ideology. But where were they when the Bush administration justified new law after new law that expanded executive power with the argument that essentially tells us to "trust them"? Trust that they won't abuse their new spying powers; trust that they'll conduct the war soundly despite their lies which led to the war; trust they not turn the "War on Terror" into a justification for torture, etc., etc. Meanwhile, Bush issues "signing statements" that allow him to circumvent any legislation that pertains to the executive branch, he installs Justice Department lawyers who were required to pass ideological litmus tests, he practices political vindictiveness when anyone in the administration is criticized from within the government (his administration's outing of CIA agent Plame), and he regularly stonewalls, or lies to, the media, or just doesn't talk to them (Palin has recently picked up on this tactic, preferring stump speeches to interviews and press conferences).

In sum, whenever Bush has the option between more or less power, he has ALWAYS chosen more.

The reaction from the Left (although I think there isn't really a true "Left" in this country) has been curious as well. Democrats in this country are as culpable for our economic welfare as anyone. Though Phil Gramm [R, and McCain adviser] wrote and sponsored the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which overturned Depression era regulations on the market--which helped to grant banks the type of decision-making power they so abused in the recent decade--several Democratic Senators signed it, as did President Clinton; I'm thoroughly convinced that Democrats are just as beholden to capitalism, in all its good and bad qualities, as Republicans are. It's a complete myth that Democrats are not friendly to business. Clinton, for all the hatred he incites from the Right, made economic decisions based upon a free-market mindset. Now, the economy did well in the 90's (due in part to the "dot.com" boom, which history, not Clinton, was responsible for), but perhaps only now we're experiencing the long-term effects of laissez-faire economic policies.

What's been curious about the past eight years is that, in terms of the the war, and other domestic policies that stem from it (like FISA, which intrudes upon every American's privacy by making warrants obsolete), it has been Democrats (or at least a handful of them) that have been arguing for prudence and governmental restraint. It's been Republicans who have been more than willing to expand government, and its power over citizens, to an extent this country has not seen. I wonder if a Democratic president would have been granted the same powers by a Republican legislature? Probably not. That is why purely Partisan politics is so unhealthy. It's a voluntary abnegation of one's brain--and makes people (in this case Republicans) do things they normally wouldn't do (grant goverment more and more power). Partisanship makes it impossible to hold leaders accountable for their bad decisions.

Now it will be up to Democrats, and a handful of "conservatives", to at least make sure there's some restraint practiced in this bailout.

There really is no ideological consistency left in American politics. Sometimes that's good: you don't want your leaders to be absolutely ruled by any dogma to the point they become so inflexible that all their ideas and decisions are prescribed by some program or philosophy (if that were the case all you'd need is a copy of said program, and anyone could be president). On the other hand, it's getting really hard to tell right from left these days.

Perhaps "bipartisanship" is just a ruse, so that those without any values can cater to what they really care about: money, and those they are beholden to because of money.

The Universal Thump

“and so the universal thump is passed round, and all hands should rub each other’s shoulder-blades, and be content.”

--Moby Dick, Chapter 1 “Loomings”

“Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a stong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship.”

--Moby Dick, Chapter 1 “Loomings”


The writer, and author of Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace, offed himself (I prefer not to use the phrase “committed suicide,” because I think it contains a solemnity that does not always apply to suicide) a few days ago. I have not read his most well-known work, but I hope to get to it when I have time.

I actually own the book and when I went to look for it yesterday, I saw it, somewhat ominously (auspiciously?), next to a Bible I own. I own a few and this is not one I normally look at (prefer KJV). The Bible actually seemed more out of place than Infinite Jest did, since, because I am not a meticulous shelfer, it was resting alongside my other canonical, contemporary novels. Pynchon and DeLillo aren’t too far away; Nabokov lingers nearby.

Anyway, I took it down and read the first few pages. I had known that Wallace received his MFA from the University of Arizona (my current school). But I was delightfully surprised to see immediate references to places in Tucson that I know—the Randolph Sports Complex (where I recently took my dad for a very hot round of golf, and which is right by the Target and In-n-Out that Michele and I frequent). Like Leslie Marmon Silko’s inclusion of Tucson as a setting in her great novel, Almanac of the Dead, it was nice to be able to visualize the inspiration for a novel’s setting. Tucson has a certain lore surrounding it that makes it a conducive place for novelistic settings (it’s also one of DeLillo’s settings in his best novel Underworld).

What is not so delightful is the idea that someone with Wallace’s talent and introspection could not find a reason to live any longer. I mean, I know the reason why; his basic perspective on life is probably closer to Hobbes's "nasty, brutish and short" than any more Romantic explanation. Wallace would likely have added, “and very lonely.” [Actually, not wanting to be too presumptuous about diagnosing Wallace's state of mind or general philosophy of life, I did a little looking, and he’s quoted in his Salon interview declaring, “there is this existential loneliness in the real world. I don't know what you're thinking or what it's like inside you and you don't know what it's like inside me. In fiction I think we can leap over that wall itself in a certain way.”] This was, to a lesser extent I think, Melville’s basic attitude, especially after he received little to no recognition for works of art that he knew were masterpieces, but which so few readers actually understood (luckily, at least, they’d start to understand in the 20th century).

The difference, maybe, is that Melville at least found communion with the writers he loved to read, and the art he created, despite the public’s lack of appreciation. Literature and writing were to Melville what the sea was to Ishmael--what kept him from pistol and ball. [I think they were for Wallace, too, but he also felt that the "redemptive" quality of art was kind of a cliche (see interview)]. In the end, it seems, Wallace found the walls that separate us finally insurmountable, even if he did, for awhile, find his literary endeavors well worthwhile. I wish (for his sake) he could have been more like Pynchon and Beckett, who find an equal amount of absurdity in the world, but instead choose a more comic (but no less serious) demeanor in the face of absurdity. They use their art to mirror absurdity back to itself, so that perhaps whatever sense may be gleaned from life might be captured in the quick shimmer of competing reflections. (An equivalent aural image might be the feedback shriek when a mic is placed next to its amplifying apparatus).

I guess something like this isn’t too unprecedented. Artists almost have to be basically dissatisfied with the world, or else they wouldn’t try to remake it. Writers with even much more talent than Wallace, like Virginia Woolf, have also found recourse in places like the bottom of a river. Kurt Cobain and Ernest Hemingway found the end of a shotgun. So it goes.

That provides little comfort. But I suppose Wallace wasn’t trying to comfort anyone.

I did some searching for interviews he had given and I found a couple. A transcript of one he did for Salon, and his live interview with Charlie Rose. In the interview with Rose he talks about going to see David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, and how it changed his perspective on art and what art can do and what makes a great artist. This connection was somewhat eerie since I’ve been thinking a lot about Lynch’s work lately. He probably watched Blue Velvet (at The Loft?) at a theatre I frequent. Michele and I just finished watching Twin Peaks, and I’ve recently watched Eraserhead, Dune, and Inland Empire. (There’s nothing too coincidental about this, since Lynch’s audience is certainly not that limited. But still.). Wallace talks to Rose about what he believes to be Lynch’s primary aesthetic—the confluence of the grotesque and banal. Lynch did not invent this aesthetic, by any means, (I think it’s a vital aspect of Flannery O’Connor’s work), but he probably did use it more provocatively than anyone ever has, and certainly to an extent much more profound than any film director.

Wallace also taught quite a bit later in his career, and he addresses the difficulties of teaching writing to young people who are, on a certain level, illiterate: not in the sense that they can’t read, but that they don’t read (and he is surprisingly non-judgmental about that fact). He also touches on what it’s like to be a writer—how when he’s writing, his schedule usually consists of writing for an hour, and then spending the following eight hours worrying about not writing. Working on my diss, I can completely sympathize with this feeling of dread that writing produces. The fatigue and strain of constantly questioning yourself.

Anyway, here is the video. It’s interesting even if you have no idea who he is.

Coda #1: The interview ends at about the half-hour mark. His final words in the interview are definitely not auspicious, and definitely are ominous: "attention and respect doesn't really change anything...I don'treally have a brass ring and I'm kind of open to suggestions about what one chases...I haven't found any satisfactory new ones, but I'm not getting ready to jump off a building or anything."

Coda #2: Knowing that I won’t get to Infinite Jest for awhile, I still wanted to read something by Wallace, and remembered an article he wrote for Harper’s that I knew I had sitting around somewhere. Luckily at this time all my Harper’s dating back to 2001 are in the same stack. (This is why I keep them around, Michele).

I highly recommend it for anyone interested in understanding his general perspective on language, his humor and wit, and his absolute mastery of English (in all its various forms and dialects).

http://www.harpers.org/media/pdf/dfw/HarpersMagazine-2001-04-0070913.pdf

His traces will survive him, even if they do not lessen the sadness his death evokes.

Socialism for the Rich

When huge banks like Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and Bear Sterns, who are run by people who make exponentially more money than the average American citizen, and when enormous institutions like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which are inextricably enfolded within this very same banking industry, suddenly go flop as the result of terribly irresponsible and greedy business decisions, they are more than happy to let the government come to the rescue.

They are quick to accuse any regulating gesture as socialist; yet when they're in trouble they are fully willing to submit themselves to the Federal Reserve, and to accept American tax dollars so that at least some of their investors might get some of their money back.

And these are the people that some want to handle social security and our health care industry?

In W's words, "Wall Street got drunk." Hm. Perhaps, then, more sober heads are needed these days.

One side, and the other

It's been nice sharing my office with Ada. When I have her in the crib, her vision is now good enough to where she can see me at my desk. I made this origami mobile for her before she was born.

Lies and Scare Tactics

After a nice day working on my diss and teaching, keeping my mind off politics, I have to end the day like this.

This is what the McCain campaign now resorts to: they have no arguments (did you see their convention? it was all biography!), and so they resort not just to distortion (that happens in any election cycle), but to straight up LIES. Does this ad purport that Obama actually supports teaching sex education to kindergartners? They incite the "culture wars," because folks, they got nothing else.

The truth: part of Obama's legislation promoted the importance of teaching young children about the difference between a "good touch" and a "bad touch." In other words, it promoted teaching kids, obviously in a delicate manner, how to avoid becoming a victim of sexual abuse!

And is Sarah Palin, who likely also "supports this message," really one to be lecturing Americans on how to teach children sex education?

Ha!

I want to meet the idiot who watches an ad like this and actually swallows it whole.

What I appreciate about the Obama campaign is that, even during the primaries when the Clintons used a defeat-at-all-cost strategy, and even when the McCain campaign flat-out lies about him, he has never resorted to anything like this. Surely McCain is not without honor, but his campaign is a circus freakshow masquerading as a political campaign. Obama does not employ people like Karl Rove, his minion, or his vile political philosophy. These Sophists reborn will get what's coming to them--the same thing the Clintons got for all their effort to exploit Obama's non-whiteness: a resounding defeat.

Melville '08

I'm going to avoid the Palin saga. If you're reading this blog regularly, you can probably predict my reaction anyway...besides, one of my favorite bloggers, Andrew Sullivan, has it covered (link on the right).

After all, this blog purports to be interested in politics AND literature, and I haven't posted anything about the latter at all.

I was reading Melville's Mardi today, the novel he wrote just before Moby Dick. Mardi is kind of a warm-up for Melville--not a great novel, but you can definitely see his talent ripening, before it finally comes to fruition in 1850.

A passage like this is typical of Melville's later style, which is built upon occasional interruptions of the plot to allow his narrator to soliloquize. This kind of interruption--which is a kind of editorializing--is left behind in the twentieth century novel (and poetry) when the idea that showing is superior to telling, becomes the aesthetic norm. Yet, I can't help but appreciate passages like these:

"But how fleeting our joys. Storms follow bright dawnings.--Long memories of short-lived scenes, sad thoughts of joyous hours--how common are ye to all mankind. When happy, do we pause and say--'Lo, thy felicity, my soul?' No: happiness seldom seems happiness, except when looked back upon from woes. A flowery landscape, you must come out of, to behold."

This passage speaks to my own introspection. Being someone (writing a diss) who is forced to spend a lot of time with his thoughts, I sometimes think back upon times when I've been most happy. I think this passage has it right: true happiness is rarely a conscious state of mind. You only realize happiness long after the fact. This must be true in some respects, since to focus in on your own happiness would automatically mean that you're less attuned to the moment that's actually making you happy.

I can think of some exceptions though. I'm consciously happy when I spend time with Ada. Another example: after I returned from my honeymoon with Michele, I knew that I had just spent one of the happiest weeks in my life. So maybe the above passage isn't universal, even though I think it's generally true.

When I look back upon the time Michele and I spent in Tennessee, for example, we had some difficult times that I wouldn't qualify as "happy." We were constantly broke, we had just gotten married and moved to a place far, far away from home. There were challenges to overcome. But when I look back upon that time as a whole, I do regard it as a "happy" time for us. Though we struggled, we were living in the moment and growing stronger and more mature together. I think these are the types of moments, or extended moments, Melville is writing about here--the kind that need some time to ferment before thier true significance can be enjoyed.

Part of me also responds to this passage on an academic level. Happiness, like most abstract ideas, has a cultural history. The word "happy" derives from the Old English word "hap," which is closer to the idea of having good fortune. The way Melville uses the word, and how we conceive of "happiness" now, can be dated back to the mid 16th-century, but it really only becomes culturally commonplace until the 19th (the OED, of course, is my source for this info).

This more contemporary inflection of "happiness" is a human invention, and if one were in a cynical mood, one might suggest it's over-pursued in our contemporary culture. Actually, one need not be cynical to at least conjecture that our culture purports to know the source of happiness (if not, why the centrality of the self-help craze?), not realizing that its offering up golden calves.

The thing I love about literature is that passages like these are relatable on a personal level; but they can also be dissected beyond the self.

This next passage contemplates, not happiness, but mourning, and different types of sadness. Once again, one can see how emotionally astute Melville has become at this point in his career, and how lyrical. Its theme of sadness contrasts nicely with the passage above:

"Misery became a memory. The keen pang a deep vibration. The remembrance seemed the thing remembered; though bowed with sadness. There are thoughts that lie and glitter deep: tearful pearls beneath life's sea, that surges still, and rolls sunlit, whatever it may hide. Common woes, like fluids, mix all round. Not so with that other grief. Some mourners load the air with lamentations; but the loudest notes are struck from hollows. Their tears flow fast: but the deep spring only wells."

Melville compares two types of sadness--the common kind, which eventually dissipate into the swirl of life and memory, and the deeper kind--the kinds that we don't as readily forget. One could conceive of all types of metaphors for this difference. But Melville chooses to draw upon the image of a pearl swirling around at the bottom of an ocean. It's a perfect image. The pearl is small amid the ocean, but its made of strong material and persists. It's hidden, but it's also distinct. It's buried, but it endures amid lesser sadness. Most importantly, the pearl is a beautiful object, one to seek after and cherish. Not all mourning should be dismissed or forgotten. When placed alongside happiness, in the cycle of human emotions, the two play off, counteract, and ultimately compliment one another.

Cynical Idealist?

I've been thinking a lot about why I have so much emotionally invested in Obama's possible presidency. I think I knew all along, but I've been slow to admit it to myself. I read or heard somewhere, I can't remember, that it's pretty much been proven that most people vote for those whom they feel are most like them. Now, this seems awfully solipsistic, and also illogical. Just because someone isn't like you doesn't mean they can't be a good leader.

But when I'm really honest with myself, I know that I like Obama because more than any other politician, pretty much ever, I feel akin to his experiences. Of course, he' black, and I'm not. However, beyond that, for many years before he entered politics, he was a scholar of law. I define myself, at least professionally, as a scholar. His three favorite authors are Faulkner, Melville, and and Phillip Roth. Talk about going 3-for-3. In Dreams From My Father, his very well-written memoir, he talks about reading Invisible Man, and Malcolm X's autobiography--and several other books that have stirred me as well, and meant quite a bit to me over the years.

His wife's name is Michelle, he has young daughters, he's lived all over the place, and he's simply and obviously more attuned to my generation. I also agree with him on most (not all) of his policies and general beliefs about political and governmental issues. But part of my enthusiasm for him also stems, I think, from two other things: my early fascination with hip-hop culture, which many suburban white boys have experienced, and Obama's non-militaristic background. Let me be clear here: I have nothing against the military. I have many relatives who fought for the U.S. in WWII and Vietnam.

Yet, I think part of the reason that Iraq has been bungled is that this country often commits the error of confusing means and ends. What I mean is that our attitude toward the military, which is encapsulated by the common "Support the Troops" sentiment, promulgates the idea that we enter wars so that our heroes can exercise their god-given right to valor. For example, anyone who questions the Iraq War is often assumed as having not "supported the troops," as if this is the only thing that matters when evaluating our foreign policy. We get into wars to exercise foreign policy objectives, not to justify our already having sent troops to the battlefield. The argument that we would be somehow disservicing our troops if we were to get out of Iraq ASAP, suggests that the experience troops have, and their self-perception, and our perception of their heroism, is tantamount to why we went their in the first place. Sadly, though, our administration doesn't have a clue as to what exactly they want...a free Iraq? Palestine was also "given" a democracy and they elected Hamas. What if the Iraqis elect someone we don't like? Will it be a failed enterprise? Will a "free Iraq" really "change" the middle east? Maybe, but how could anyone answer that with the assurance necessary to send our troops to war, especially when Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11? That's a huge price to pay, and risk to take, for something you're merely guessing will turn out ok. If a war cannot be justified, you don't keep troops into the battlefield just to save face. You bring them home, cede that you've erred, and ask for forgiveness. If only we lived in that kind of world.

Call me an idealist. I've always considered myself a cynic and a skeptic, but lately I've realized that there's an idealism in me which has played a significant role in why I am so invested in this campaign, and which leads me to give Obama the benefit of the doubt when I disagree with him or when he shows weakness. I hope in the end that my enthusiasm for his candidacy will be justified by history and not simply by my own identification with him.

Even Sandy's and Danny's summer ended

My summer is officially over. Tuesday I start back to teaching class, and more importantly, begin my newly disciplined and streamlined schedule in which I finish the first chapter of my diss this term.

I'm very habitual and live by my routines. Alas, malaise, much like I imagine a very addictive drug, is the easiest habit to acquire, and has overgrown my day-to-day this summer like a bad weed. Granted, much of that was spent with my new daughter, so I really don't regret my do-nothingness. Nevertheless, I must thwart summer's complacency with different and better habits.

That means less TV (and football season is starting, too!). Less time online. Less sleeping generally. More time writing. Hopefully not less time with Ada and Michele. Overall, less fun.

For, malaise, contrary to its connations of rottedness and decadence, can also be a tempting wellspring of, maybe not joy, but certainly a deceiving contentment. Even further reason to rekindle my ambition, lest I become permanently mired in a bog I only thought had been a fountainhead.

Here's to summer, and back to life.

Thankful for the Chicken

My summer home with Ada, regardless of the time I've not spent writing my dissertation, has seen at least one of my skills improve. Given that Michele normally comes home at least somewhat, if not very tired, and that she just wants to hold and feed Ada anyway, dinner has become my responsibility. So I've perfected my barbecuing skills, really learned how to cook both pork and beef roasts, and basically focused on all the little things that make a complete, nourishing, healthy, and interesting meal.

Last Friday I pulled out our Betty Crocker cookbook, a gift given to Michele by her grandmother, and flipped through the "Soups" section. But a few things about this cookbook. It looks about fifty years old, its target audience is definitely the female "homemaker" of the 1950s, and its sexism is so quaint its now funny. For example, in the opening section called "Kitchen Know How," the advice reads: "Every morning before breakfast, comb hair, apply makeup and a dash of cologne. Does wonders for your morale and your family's, too! Think pleasant thoughts while working and a chore will become a 'labor of love.'" Hey, I'm all for combing hair and the occasional dash of cologne, but not even Ada wants to see me in makeup.

But Betty's book's datedness is also its strength. Its comprehensiveness challenges the idea behind the more contemporary cookbooks, which are now almost exclusively specialized. The Betty Crocker cookbook does not promote a certain "lifestyle"; it assumes a certain unanimity among its audience, and its recipes are thoroughly mid-century American: by that I mean that any reference to foreign methods or ingredients--and there are many--are subsumed into a uniform blandness.

And yet there are so many great recipes. I decided on the Mulligatawny, a thick, curry-flavored soup that mixes some fairly incongruous ingredients: onion, carrot, apple, celery, chicken, green pepper, cloves, mace, curry and consomme. I even made the consomme myself earlier in the day. I cooked a chicken, harvested all the meat and made about 10 quarts of broth, most of which I froze and will use later.

I felt like I was enacting a cliche (which is probably true) about the relationship Native Americans had with the animals they hunted. They respected them by not wasting them. For some reason it felt better that I was getting so much out of just one chicken. Enough meat for two meals, and enough consomme for probably three different soups. I've thought about vegetarianism before, but I do not have the will to surrender the pleasure of tasty meats. It would be a serious sacrifice that I'm just not willing to make.

What does feel good is that I know that this particular chicken was not wasted. It reminded me of Marx and one of his many astute critiques of capitalism--that it separates product from the worker, and the manufacturing process from the consumer, which in turn results in the illusion that goods appear magically, out of nowhere. By emphasizing ends, and not means, this process encourages a free-floating consumerism which is disastrous for its cancelling of origins. There's always more where that came from, is the idea.

And yet it seems that we're slowly figuring out that this kind of mentality is not sustainable. At least some of us are. Animals, obviously, are not morally equivalent to humans. Otherwise, I would not eat them. But that does not mean that the human/animal relationship need be devoid of morality altogether. While some may see hypocrisy in this position, I think there's a clear difference between animals we raise for our own consumption, and wild animals we hunt merely for our pleasure. I don't understand people who hunt cougars or bears or other mammals that, if they're not on the endangered list already, will be soon. I think that livestock, when treated "humanely" (isn't there even some irony in using this word?) serve a moral purpose, and might even claim more usefulness than many humans, since at least they provide sustenance to other beings.

The chicken we ate gave his life so that three people could eat several meals. While I don't think I'll ever become a vegetarian, I was thankful for the chicken. I respected him by eating all of him, and by culling, even from his carcass, the flavors that will enliven meals to come.

The Aesthetics of Greatness

I've watched more of this Olympics than I had planned on, mostly for two reasons: Michael Phelps, the world's best swimmer, and Misty May-Treanor, the world's best, and hottest, beach volleyball player. As a sports fan, I'm mostly a total homer--I usually only watch the teams that I'm invested in (Seahawks, Beavers, Mariners), but I'm also attracted to greatness: the type of athlete that dominates not just because of athletic ability, but through will, determination, and killer instinct.

Phelps has it. Tiger has it. Jordan had it. The new Olympic "Redeem Team" is very talented, and of course will win the gold this year. Upon watching some of the highlights, I think that both Kobe and LeBron will probably, in the end, rack up better career statistics than Jordan; one might even argue that physically, their talent matches Jordan's. They're both winners, and they're both fun to watch (beside the fact that I still cringe when considering Kobe's Colorado incident).

Yet, the reason why Kobe and LeBron will never be Jordan, and never ultimately compare to Jordan's greatness is not because of statistics or longevity or even championships. It's that, while Kobe and LeBron are indeed entertaining, they do not exhibit the physical grace Jordan did.

Jordan played a very stylized game of basketball. The way he moved, the proportions of his body, the way he carried himself while in flight, the way he walked down the court, his perfect jump-shot: he exuded effortlessness, even nonchalance, all while dominating. I'm not sure if that's a fair measure of greatness. But aesthetics remain an unrecognized, and un-theorized aspect of American sports. What made Jordan the greatest was that, like Ali did for the ring (and for so many other aspects of American culture), Jordan did for the court: he made dominance, determination, and push-to-the-limit physical exertion look, well, cool (in the Miles Davis sense of the word). I think of it as the ability to sustain a fundamental irony: coolness is normally synonomous with leisure, relaxation, and maintaining the appearance of remaining aloof from the type of anxieties and annoyances that usually impact the rest of us mortals. What Jordan does is to fuse that type of coolness with an intensity which would seem to be its opposite.


Anyone who plays basketball now retains traces of Jordan in their movements, but there's only one Real McCoy.

More Torture; Edwards, etc.

So now we learn that they're using coffin-sized boxes to hold detainess for up to 12 hours at a time at Gitmo. Know who used coffin-sized boxes on their prisoners? Nazis at Auschwitz.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/08/07/segregation.boxes/index.html

Many construe criticism of our government's torture methods, such as waterboarding, as overly-sensitive swooning for people who want to kill us. But you know what? It's not about them, it's about us. If Bush wants to lecture China on human rights abuses, which he did yesterday, then we should not abuse human rights either. Under this administration we have lost all moral high ground.

The Edwards story just broke as well. 1.) Did he actually think this wouldn't have come out if he had won the nomination?; 2.) I'm glad that he didn't win because it would have sunk him; 3.) Given the timing, he must have been two-timing his wife while she was being diagnosed with very serious cancer. Classy.

I'm so glad Obama has none of this type of baggage. I'm tired of that kind of soap opera, which we got enough of during the Clinton years.

1.20.09*

I was reading a piece by Thomas Frank today at Salon,

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/08/07/frank_wrecking/

and after what has become a daily ritual for about the last two years--reading about how corrupt our government is--my chest knotted up, blood rushed into my face, my teeth clinched. Thank God for term limits.

Anyway, this passage captures something I've been mulling over for some time: if conservatives pretend to be so suspicious of government, why are they so eager claim its mantle?

"Yes, today's conservatives have disgraced themselves, but they have not strayed from the teaching of their forefathers or the great ideas of their movement. When conservatives appoint the opponents of government agencies to head those government agencies; when they auction their official services to the purveyor of the most lavish "golf weekend"; when they mulct millions from groups with business before Congress; when they dynamite the Treasury and sabotage the regulatory process and force government shutdowns -- in short, when they treat government with contempt -- they are running true to form. They have not done these awful things because they are bad conservatives; they have done them because they are good conservatives, because these unsavory deeds follow naturally from the core doctrines of the conservative tradition."

A real conservative might answer that conservatives enter government in order to keep it small--but if government is measured in terms of how much we spend (a very good, but not the only measure), then it's been liberals actually, and not conservatives who have balanced the federal budget in the last 30 years. It's conservatives who have launched us into a foreign policy that requires an exponential expansion of the federal government, and which has forced us to borrow literally trillions of dollars from China. It's conservatives, who are supposed to know what they're doing in the field of business, who have presided over one of the worst financial collapses in American history. So if they fail at governance, and fail at free enterprise, why do we continue to vote for them?

Today's conservativism seems to thrive on, what for most of us, would appear to be a contradiction: even if conservatives fail at government, they can still claim they've succeeded by pointing out that government doesn't work anyway--that it fails because it's meant to fail. They stay in power by pretending to care about socially conservative causes, or by pretending to be religious, and yet their policies often run counter to the economic well-being of the people who normally vote for them (this is a basic version of Frank's thesis in his book, What's the Matter with Kansas?). Like Larry Craig and Mark Foley, they'll rail vociferously against gay marriage, all the while soliciting gay sex in public bathrooms and sending naughty text messages to underage boys. They'll pay lip-service to anti-abortion causes, and yet have never seriously challenged Roe v. Wade.

I began to veer away from conservativism when I oberved, around 2002-03, that conservativism in action bears very little resemblance to its philosophy. I started making these observations when it was clear that our Iraq adventure was based on a foundation of lies--lies worse than Nixon ever told. And I became very angry about those lies.

But perhaps incompetence is rooted in conservatism; its contempt for government seems to go hand-in-hand with a contempt for American citizens, who are incessantly force-fed lie after lie, and a contempt for truth itself.

----
*1.20.09 is, of course, Bush and his cronies last day. (Thanks to Becky for '08/'08 correction).

On Favre and Ledger

Two of the most prominent sports/entertainment stories this summer have been Heath Ledger's performance in The Dark Knight and Brett Favre's non-retirement. Is there a more perfect example of fate's sick sense of irony that when Ledger died, he was effectively denied (or denied himself?) the chance for a graceful exit, while Favre, when given the perfect chance for a well-deserved and celebrated adieu, instead insists upon simply being annoying?

I have no problem with players playing as long as they want; but for the past three years, Favre has insisted that he's retiring, and then finally come back. Last year, he stated very plainly that he was definitely retiring. And now he's everywhere again.

On the other hand, there's Ledger, whose Joker completely overcame what was already a pretty wonderful version of Batman. I would go so far as to say that his Joker is the film's protraganist, in the same unintended way that, about 350 year ago, John Milton's Satan became the hero of Paradise Lost. Christian Bale is a delightful and talented actor, but in comparison to Ledger, his Batman came off as churlish, arrogant, and even tyrannical (especially given his penchant for ubiquitous surveillance a la the Bush regime), only a certain part of which I think was dictated by the director and script.*

I highly recommend this film, and like most important films during this decade, it will surely be classified by history as "post-9/11" (but what isn't classified as "post 9/11" these days?).

Ledger and Favre are also interesting for a different reason: they are icons for early twenty-first century American manhood/masculinity. It's been a staple of every Sunday for the last fifteen years, to hear the fawning of the nation's collective sportswriters and commentators over how boyish and fun and manly Brett Favre is.

Why is it acceptable for mainstream American men to openly express their man-crushes on Brett Favre and to regale over his fun-loving boyishness (often celebrated for his love of the risky, inadvisable throw), while for the same people Ledger's performance in Brokeback Mountain, which represented a true professional risk, produces so much squeamishness? And yet, what Ledger accomplished for American culture in that role was to show that "manliness" isn't as simple as enacting a few telling characteristics. Manliness, at its best, contains strength and warmth, substance instead of empty posturing.

Favre is undeniably talented, and was very fun to watch. But Ledger is the man.
________

*Bale's and Ledger's talent can also be compared in they Bob Dylan pseudo-biopic I'm Not There.

*NFL quaterbacks must fit into one of the three following categories: 1) cerebral/professional (Peyton Manning, Steve Young), 2) hunky and perfect (Tom Brady, Joe Namath), 3) boyish and free-wheeling (Brett Favre, Terry Bradshaw).

Why I'm blogging

As I wrote in "about sam-plings" (to the right), I started this blog so that I can get into a regular habit of writing, which I need to be more disciplined about since I'm currently writing my dissertation. It's the final step--and by far the most difficult--I'll take in my graduate career before I finally get my PhD and hopefully, a tenure-track job.

Writing a dissertation is almost equivalent to writing a book (it's roughly the same length as the average book)--but not just any book. My readers are four very smart people who have all published widely-read books themselves (at least in lit crit circles); in addition, I'm writing about literature, which means I'm writing about writing. Lastly, the authors and texts I write about are ones that I care about and deeply respect.

All this has led to a reluctance to write. I've been researching and reading on my topic for over a year now, but that's the fun and easy part. Concocting and designing arguments that have not already been proffered before--that's what has me frozen at the moment. It's not really a crisis of confidence--I haven't gotten this far without a certain amount of confidence in my ideas and my ability to analyze--but that at this point I think I'm expecting too much out of myself. The first step is just to get my ideas on paper. I can always revise.

As far as this blog goes, I will rarely touch on my diss. A couple models that I'm following are Andrew Sullivan's (he writes for The Atlantic), and my friend and teacher, Charlie Bertsch's blog. What I appreciate about Sullivan's blog is his radical openness to other people's ideas and to critiques of his own positions. He's a conservative (in the old-fashioned sense--suspicious of collective action and government intervention), which means I disagree with him quite a bit. But I tend not to read blogs by people who I know I will agree with, because I can always predict their position. Sullivan constantly surprises me with fresh takes that are well-argued and unpredictable. He also has a knack for staying on top of important cultural trends.

What I appreciate about my friend Charlie's blog is that 1) they're very smart 2) he covers a wonderful variety of topics (everything from music to his daughter to sports) 3) he's very honest without being solipsistic.

Anyhow, I hope that what I imagine will be a very small readership of this blog, at first, will eventually grow. If not, I'm glad to write to family and friends. In the least, I hope it functions as a way for people who I care about to get to know me better. Most of my posts will be brief, but occasionally, I'll take time to write longer, more involved posts (once a week?).