Books at the NYT

We stopped subscribing to the NYT a year or so ago. It wasn't anything in particular, more a weariness with the Times. The careerist, Yuppie, materialistic, status-driven conformism of the Times became oppressive, although no particular candidate comes to mind as emblematic of the dreariness.

We still get the Times' email notifications of new articles and periodically dip in to see how much they have changed. Not much is the answer. But what the Times lacks in depth it makes up for in enthusiastic scope. Here are some reviews in the book review section that were interesting and a few comments:

This review, Artist Apple Cart, of a book about the death of modernism is particularly dreary. Here is what the reviewer says,

Mr. Gay’s enthusiasms and his insights are unevenly distributed. On painting, especially 19th-century painting, he rarely rises above banality. Edvard Munch, a second-rater by most estimations, gets promoted to the first rank, largely because his psychological obsessions dovetail with Mr. Gay’s Freudianism.

Peter Gay is a scholar of the first order. The reviewer's objection seems to be that there is “nothing new” in Gay's book. This criticism from a reviewer who says Edvard Munch is a “second-rater by most estimations”. That is, a great artist, currently out of favor in the rectory of received notions, is therefore dismissible.

This review by George Johnson of a book by Watson was entertaining. Watson's obsessive (mental) skirt-chasing becomes a hilarious refrain in the piece.

This review of a book criticizing Tocqueville seemed to suffer from an author's confusion.

This review of a book satirizing Steve Jobs was itself pretty funny.

Finally, the net being the web, one of these links led (somehow) to this piece by Hitchens. At the conclusion Hitchens offers a series of suggestions that anyone running for president should adopt.

Hitchens proposes (edited so this entry doesn't become overly long — read the whole thing),

1. An end to one-way multiculturalism and to the cultural masochism that goes with it. … Now, though, all manner of antisocial practices find themselves validated in the name of religion, and mullahs have begun to issue threats even against non-Muslims for criticism of Islam. This creeping Islamism must cease at once, and those responsible must feel the full weight of the law. Meanwhile, we should insist on reciprocity at all times. We should not allow a single Saudi dollar to pay for propaganda within the U.S., for example, until Saudi Arabia also permits Jewish and Christian and secular practices…

2. A strong, open alliance with India on all fronts, from the military to the political and economic, backed by an extensive cultural exchange program, to demonstrate solidarity with the other great multiethnic democracy under attack from Muslim fascism. A hugely enlarged quota for qualified Indian immigrants and a reduction in quotas from Pakistan and other nations where fundamentalism dominates.

3. A similarly forward approach to Nigeria, São Tomé and Príncipe, and the other countries of Western Africa that are under attack by jihadists and are also the location of vast potential oil reserves, whose proper development could help emancipate the local populations from poverty and ourselves from dependence on Middle Eastern oil.

4. A declaration at the UN of our solidarity with the right of the Kurdish people of Iraq and elsewhere to self-determination as well as a further declaration by Congress that in no circumstance will Muslim forces who have fought on our side, from the Kurds to the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, find themselves friendless, unarmed, or abandoned…

5. Energetic support for all the opposition forces in Iran and in the Iranian diaspora. A public offer from the United States, disseminated widely in the Persian language, of help for a reformed Iran on all matters, including peaceful nuclear energy, and of assistance in protecting Iran from the catastrophic earthquake that seismologists predict in its immediate future. … These concerns might help shift the currently ossified terms of the argument and put us again on the side of an internal reform movement within Iran and its large and talented diaspora.

6. Unconditional solidarity, backed with force and the relevant UN resolutions, with an independent and multi-confessional Lebanon.

7. A commitment to buy Afghanistan’s opium crop and to keep the profits out of the hands of the warlords and Talibanists, until such time as the country’s agriculture— especially its once-famous vines—has been replanted and restored. We can use the product in the interim for the manufacture of much-needed analgesics for our own market and apply the profits to the reconstruction of Afghanistan.

8. We should, of course, be scrupulous on principle about stirring up interethnic tensions. But we should remind those states that are less scrupulous—Iran, Pakistan, and Syria swiftly come to mind—that we know that they, too, have restless minorities and that they should not make trouble in Afghanistan, Lebanon, or Iraq without bearing this in mind…

Woody Allen

Woody Allen says, “Rather than live on in the hearts and minds of my fellow man, I’d prefer to live on in my apartment.”

For me “Woody Allen says” makes me stop and listen carefully, because Allen's wit is such a pleasure. In this NYT piece, a review of a book of conversations with Woody, there are a few others:

I’m a firm believer that when you’re dead, naming a street after you doesn’t help your metabolism.

I’d like to make a great film provided it doesn’t conflict with my dinner reservation.

The reviewer notes that, “We learn that [Allen's] favorites of his own films are “The Purple Rose of Cairo,” “Match Point” and “Husbands and Wives”… with “Stardust Memories” and “Zelig” ranking a notch below.” Woody Allen is clueless as to the nature of his own wonderful talents. Allen says he doesn't understand the affection people feel for his greatest movie, “Annie Hall”. That movie's combination of romantic melancholy, its insights into the way couples are special with one another, Allen's balance and understanding of people in the midst of trying to get along, seems unavailable to the very creator of this highly influential movie.

Steve Martin and Larry David are not imaginable without Woody Allen. Steve Martin in particular seems to have modeled his career on Woody Allen, from Martin's 1991 “L.A. Story” to his ambitions expressed in writing for the New Yorker. The influence of “Seinfeld” is still with us, as witness any TV schedule. Jason Alexander said he first modeled George's character on Woody Allen. “Curb Your Enthusiasm” is a minor tributary of Allen's wide ranging wit. Woody Allen hasn't lost his cultural influence at all — it is just carried on by many others.

More Woody from a Google search:

• As the poet said, 'Only God can make a tree' — probably because it's so hard to figure out how to get the bark on.
• I am at two with nature.
• I can't listen to that much Wagner. I start getting the urge to conquer Poland.
• I don't want to achieve immortality through my work… I want to achieve it through not dying.
• I tended to place my wife under a pedestal.
• I took a speed reading course and read 'War and Peace' in twenty minutes. It involves Russia.
• I was thrown out of college for cheating on the metaphysics exam; I looked into the soul of the boy sitting next to me.
• If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name in a Swiss bank.
• It is impossible to experience one's death objectively and still carry a tune.
• It is impossible to travel faster than the speed of light, and certainly not desirable, as one's hat keeps blowing off.
• It seemed the world was divided into good and bad people. The good ones slept better… while the bad ones seemed to enjoy the waking hours much more.
• Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable.
• Most of the time I don't have much fun. The rest of the time I don't have any fun at all.
• My one regret in life is that I am not someone else.
• Students achieving Oneness will move on to Twoness.

Dumb Jeopardy

One of the fantastic things about organized sports is that the rules often aggregate to increase the drama. Sometimes those rules seem uncanny in their ability to increase the fun of the game. Even the shape of a football or length between bases in baseball makes for small dramas on standard plays. That cleverness at rule-making stops at the TV game show Jeopardy.

Jeopardy is a show with the dumbest rules of any game show on TV. They have just completed a contest of previous champions. A player that was behind three days running won at the end simply because the rules are so poorly crafted. In fact, in the finale tonight, the player with the lowest score was the only one to answer a tough question correctly — and still lost — remaining in last place. And the player who was clearly the strongest bet poorly and lost because of the bet.

The Final Jeopardy question itself is no different in kind than other questions, although the game rides on the correct answer. The wild card of the final bet diminishes the whole enterprise of the show, diminishing the value of the player's knowledge. The player who won had three times won because of betting errors of other players or quirks in the rules. Add to that a schoolmarmish host who comically appears to think he is suave, and even more comically appears to think snideness is equivalent to wit, and you have a show that is popular but far from as good as it could be. Dumb rules for a wannabe smart show.

Mailer's Death

Norman Mailer's death seems to be generating a lot of comment on the net — mostly about the man. No surprise there, Mailer's narcissism trumped his talents, considerable as those talents were.

Mailer encouraged controversy. A drama queen of literature, he needed turmoil to focus his energy and distract him from whatever he was trying to avoid. Maybe it was that he was a nice Jewish boy from Brooklyn who didn't want to be bullied, so he adopted a pugnacious exterior, which like all macho display indicates insecurity; the contrail of Mailer's posturing muddied the clarity necessary for creation and the sanity necessary for making judgments in living a life. Both the macho posing and Mailer's careerist self-definition of the writer's enterprise as a contest betrayed a conventional mind and conformist's spirit. Perhaps that was the fascination of his inner struggle — Mailer's variant of the artist's struggle for freedom. A struggle in which there is no real “winning”.

Mailer gave great interview. Like Oscar Wilde, an exhibitionist at heart, Mailer was at his best posing in a public forum. The interview format allowed Mailer's agile mind a large space to fill. He was able to be speculative and considered, his delight in precise and surprising language on high display. Mailer's seriousness and expansive reach, his generosity of spirit and human warmth were fully available in these media venues.

In all the discussion that will follow of his disjointed ideas, Mailer's finely wrought mind and nuanced language will be lost. Mailer had a deep feeling for language — a great gift. Wanting to be the great American novelist, Mailer's talent became an expression of his need rather than a stage to frame the big ideas he sought.

Mailer's problems were finally larger than his gift; but Mailer was far more naturally gifted than many of those currently esteemed in the arts. Mailer was a fearless soul, magnetically attracted to challenge, extending the form of the novel and essay with the restless dissatisfaction of the true artist; Mailer's life and work expressed the freedom of American culture and (sometimes glorious) excess of the American spirit.

Snowball's Mom

Here is a second video about Snowball the dancing cockatoo. This time we hear from Snowball's mom.

Steven Pinker

In this review of a book by Steven Pinker Christine Kenneally tells you a lot about the complexities of language. By implication in this review, and to some extent in her podcast discussion she indicates that Noam Chomsky's effect on language study stifled other useful approaches.

In particular, Pinker views language as an evolutionary phenomenon, not solely an artifact of mechanistic biological “deep structure”. One fascinating idea of Pinker's is that words exist in conceptual families.

“…verbs fall into natural groupings based on broad categories of meaning. Linguists recently discovered…that many verbs hang out in invisible cliques, again based on concepts like space, or force, or motion. Of at least 85 such verb sets in English, one involves what happens when a collection of objects is distributed over a surface (blot, bombard, dapple, riddle, speckle). In another group, the verbs all describe what happens when little bits of stuff are sent in every direction (bestrew, scatter, seed, sow, strew). Yet another lot describes something that is being expelled from inside something else (emit, excrete, expectorate, secrete, spew, spit, etc.).”

I think Emerson said something like “Each word is at first a stroke of genius”, that is, an insight about reality which is then named and given an objective status. The study of language is the study of the inner life of the species, containing our history and manners and deepest secrets — the many frameworks we use to describe what we experience.

Paul Potts and Oprah

I'm pretty sure I linked to this before when I saw the story on a TV magazine show, but Oprah just had Paul Potts on her show celebrating YouTube success stories, so why not again link to this touching video?

Once again I was moved.

It is first the success of someone who had not had a chance to do what he was born to do, being given that chance and rising to the occasion. It was Paul's shy manner — and “then you did that” as Simon Callow said — the song of true worth. It was emblematic of the human spirit overflowing the cage of social status and received appearance, emerging from the depths, full bore, an instance opera is uniquely able to frame. It was the shots of the audience first shocked at the wonderful voice, then moved, then standing as one in an ovation. Like a movie come full to life. Better than a movie.

Pay Teachers More Than CEOs

I've been again this year watching the Filippenko astronomy lectures at Berkeley. After the 2006 series you might think you had seen the course, been there done that, but so much is changing in this golden age of astronomy and cosmology, and Filippenko is such a great teacher, there is good reason to watch again.

If anything, Filippenko has gotten better. If there is a gold standard for a society it is the great teachers. Great teachers pass on our human heritage, the culture, the knowledge, the resonant past, acting as a bridge to the future and ensuring the best of the society continues forward. They are like runners carrying hope. These 18 year old kids taking the Berkeley course will carry the wonder and enthusiasm about the cosmos with them the rest of their lives thanks to Filippenko. Or at least some of them will, if they cash in the chance for a better life an education affords.

After watching many university lecture podcasts it becomes apparent that like a parent with a toddler who begins to talk to adults with the same simplified syntax and rhythms, teachers are prone to play to the energetic, shallow enterprise of youth. Filippenko could probably moderate the showy demos, the Go Bears group membership cookies and the “rocks songs which relate to astronomy” beginning the lectures — but really so what? Filippenko is a human being, as easily impressed as impressive, as needy of being liked as any performer. He just happens to finish off the tally with intelligence, warmth, humor and enormous skills as a teacher; the blessing of a teacher who cares that his students get it.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
George Santayana (“Life of Reason”)

And what the heck, how about some more from Santayana, we do love quotations:

• “Sanity is a madness put to good uses.”
• “There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval.”
• “Fanaticism consists in redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim.”
• “Oaths are the fossils of piety.”
• “People who feel themselves to be exiles in this world are mightily inclined to believe themselves citizens of another.”
• “The world is perpetual caricature of itself; at every moment it is the mockery of what it is pretending to be.”
• “The highest form of vanity is love of fame.”
• “The young man who has not wept is a savage, and the old man who will not laugh is a fool.”
• “My old age judges more charitably and thinks better of mankind than my youth ever did.”

Hillary, Barack, Debate

In an earlier debate, when Obama said he would “talk to everyone” — Iran included, he was criticized for giving away the store and being inexperienced. Later, rather than say he misunderstood the question or some other cover, and then offering a more moderate statement, he slammed Hillary for her vote on the war. A cheapshot deflection in this context — demagogic rather than presidential. To some extent Barack discredited himself more in his followup than in the foolishly self-congratulatory statement about his putative “openness”.

Hillary had a tough time in the last debate and predictably, for the Democrats, intoned the wilting flower persona, a poor woman assailed by those mean men. The strong feminist turns to politically correct jelly. The fact that front runners are always criticized by their opponents seems to have escaped her notice, or perhaps (cynically) not. Obama had a legitimate point when he said that he never pulled the race card when he was attacked by so many of the candidates in previous debates.

The self-discrediting statement, made the day after, is more telling than these candidates know, although the original instance (Obama's fake “let's have a meeting” and Hillary's “I'll do two different things”) gives serious pause as well. Frankly, Hillary comes out far worse in all this — the victim Hillary will never sell as a strong leader with this slippery, identity politics display.

As an aside, the press has been promoting Hillary's all woman advisor group as a positive. Leave aside the way the press would play an all African American advisor group for Obama, or all Christian group advising a Republican candidate; you have to ask yourself: which recent president had a bad case of talking only to those who supported him?

Isn't that what the Democrats most criticized? — Bush's unilateral mentality. Isn't that why we don't have a national health care plan? — Hillary's inability to negotiate or take into account opposing views? How does an all woman advisory group indicate that she has learned anything?