Vidal Regrets Nothing

[via Denis Dutton]

Gore Vidal, in this interview, plays his role well.

One definition of successful defense mechanisms is an ability to make a joke out of your anger — but the remark has to be funny, so as to make others laugh — or it recharacterizes as a pathology. Vidal's aristocratic, acidic disdain is very entertaining; but you are left feeling no one really quite meets the mark, but Vidal, and no one really matters, but Vidal. No doubt, Vidal would agree. But Vidal is funny in a useful way — the way that critical intelligence can loosen things up. Vidal is also tin foil hat strange: he thinks Bush knew 9/11 was going to happen and did nothing to stop it to enable Bush to proceed with his agenda; using a similar nutcase logic, he thought FDR allowed the Japanese attack and in fact that FDR intentionally provoked it; Vidal was a member of the America First Committee which saw no reason to fight Germany.

The article has more personal detail than I had ever read about this bright and talented and tortured soul. He hated his mother, got along well with his dad, although they disagreed on everything; his maternal grandfather, a politico from the midwest, was really the father figure in his life. His father had an affair with Amelia Earhart but didn't marry her because she was too “boyish”. I suppose this means that tomboy Earhart simply did not adhere to the acceptable gender roles of the time. Vidal had a crush on a young man named Trimble who died in WWII at 20. He never loved another person, he said. He lived, platonically, with Howard Auster, for many years; Vidal clearly had a deep affection for Auster.

Vidal says he hates lying, and he means it. He despised Capote because he felt Capote possessed this trait. He admired the great Tennessee Williams. A good call. I was surprised to learn that Vidal is an autodidact. Vidal's work covers a wide range and has often been estimable.

He is a Zelig, having crossed paths with much of the elite of the 20th and 21st centuries. He said he feels paternalistically toward the Clintons — he means it in an affectionate sense. He is someone who needs to associate with fame to remind himself he is worthy. Maybe to remind himself he is alive — he has always appeared a deeply depressed individual. He gets itchy when someone beneath him, according to his estimate, is in his presence. Like many narcissists whose tenure in the realm of ideas is loosely held, he is amused by real commitment or sincerity, getting a kick out of provocation, and an especial such kick if the figure is universally admired, like Lincoln. Vidal feels diminished if others are affirmed. Insecure as Mailer, he had this to say when asked,

[Interviewer]”Mailer once said that 'Vidal lacks the wound.' What do you think he was referring to: the fact that your grandfather was a senator? Your privileged upbringing?”

“Privileged? You mean more privileged than a fat boy from South Africa,” Vidal snaps [Mailer's father was born in Cape Town] “with a doting mother?”

His book is called I Regret Nothing, with a title so defiantly arrogant, even if ironic, it makes you laugh; his visage on the book cover is challenging, angry and tired, deeply disappointed and yet courageously still ready to do battle.

Sarah Palin, Who Are You?

I have to admit to an enormous interest in Palin. Both as a person as a phenomenon — an unknown thrust on the public stage. It is out of a movie. Mrs. Palin Goes To Washington. Quayle was said to evoke “Who?” when chosen as VP. But he was in the Senate and had written legislation with Kennedy. Palin was in Alaska. The people in her town “were in shock”.

So I've read many of the big media representations, the wiki, watched some tv clips, to get some sense of this woman. Most commentators are taking a wait and see attitude. David Brooks said so far she looks good. Why wait? For what?

First, the look of Biden and Obama in their initial comments on TV about her presented a tableau that was almost funny. They looked as though their dog had just died. Obama was gracious and very winning in his moderate response. Of course, he is watching and waiting as well. But Barack is no longer the prettiest flower in the room. Palin's life story is more down to earth, her life experience more compelling than someone who has been dedicated as has Obama, to his bottomless ambitions. Not that this is a sin, but you want to feel people care about something beyond rhetoric and career.

Palin seems to be motivated to simply do things that will help. She was an active PTA mom, not for effect or advancement, but she sought to help the schools. She caught on to the corruption in Alaska early on and was fighting, really fighting against it. Unlike Obama, and very like McCain, she has stood up to her group. Over and over she challenged authority, no matter where it came from, to assert what she thought was right. Obama had two decades to say to pastor Wright, “Hey, I love some of the people in this congregation and the feeling of belonging, but you are handing out divisiveness and that is not what I am about. Publicly reject Farrakhan, stop the hatemongering about this country, and give us a break with the showboating.” Two decades and not a word from Barack, nor his wife; not a word nor deed to show any concern about his children being exposed to Wright's toxic fumes. When finally asked about it, Obama gave a speech explaining how his white grandmother was a racist and the problem with Wright was that he was old-style. This is only a slight exaggeration of the flaccid, feckless response given by Obama to the public. He condemned Wright under pressure and with reluctance.

Palin is very conservative and many of her views I'm probably not going to agree with. The thing that makes her very winning is that she seems to have some wiggle room. What you want: someone with strong personal beliefs, who walks the walk, but doesn't feel she or he has to impose them, because different people believe different things. That is the big question of course.

The NYT said in one profile that Palin had advocated teaching intelligent design in school. A disaster. But another article indicated that the next day she modified her statement, saying it should not be taught, but it was all right to discuss it. Her feelings about protecting the environment are also in doubt. But her advocacy of a pipeline in Alaska was to deter our dependency on foreign oil. Misguided, but for the right reasons.

Some are obsessed with race and like Obama for that single reason apparently. As a person Palin presents a source of energy, ambiguity (at this point), a funny Fargo accent, a righteous (in the best sense) individual; she appears to want things to be better, not in conventional adherence to liberal or conservative policy positions, but according to her common sense. One Republican in Alaska called Palin a liberal.

Politicians Are Jellyfish

Speaking of politics, here is an article about jellyfish, another brainless, drifting neural network, also without sight, and leaving a stinging sensation if approached too closely, just like politics.

Planning is not their forte. In place of a brain, jellies have a nerve net. Jellyfish are the free-floating relatives of sea anemones and corals, much older than fish, and not much changed for more than 600 million years. They ruled the ocean, in their passive way, when there was almost nothing but ocean. Now they drift into their food or their food drifts into them. The pulsing creates a current that pulls prey within reach.

McCain and Obama in Bizarro World

[via Superman and Bizarro Jerry]

You could construct a Seinfeld Bizarro World about this election. Where everything is the opposite.

It starts with a highly qualified candidate running against someone who really is not ready for primetime. That would be Gore/McCain and Obama/Bush.

Then you take a close election that is decided by a third party. That would be the Supremes for Bush and Pelosi for Obama, demanding superdelegates vote with the party despite many preferring Hillary; in addition, adding to the Democrats self-inflicted bizarro replication of their previous experience: Pelosi and Reed would not allow Florida back into the mix after breaking party rules, even though it was clear that this was too important to play petty martinet given the disenfranchisement of Florida voters in a previous national election. Two winners who won but lost: Gore/Hillary.

You have a maverick, individual thinker who is old, and a relatively young, cut and paste conventional politico on the other end. That would be McCain and Obama.

You have Obama choosing an old Washington hand as VP after decrying that “oldness”. You have McCain choosing an inexperienced hand after decrying that quality. So the election will present the following bizarro choice: an Obama/McCain-old politics replica vs a McCain/Obama-like unknown.

Obama, arguably brighter than McCain, makes the conventional choice for a VP. McCain makes a brilliant choice.

Obama's Convention Speech

The anticipation about Obama's principal strength, his rhetorical skills, on a large stage, was palpable. Could he rock a football stadium? Answer: not really and it doesn't matter. He simply needed to get through it and do okay. He did fine.

This was an aggregated speech; all the individual issues, from different advisors, put together so no segment of the voting public was ignored. It felt aggregated. As language, it was a lame effort. But again, that wasn't really what mattered.

So many of the issues touched upon were of real concern. To get the focus on the middle class. To try and do something about health care and deal a blow to divisiveness. It would be good to get stem cell research going. All the right subjects. Obama hit the nail on the head about the nonsense rhetoric of the Republicans: “the ownership society”. It means you are on your own Obama cogently stated.

Obama's attacks on McCain on the other hand were formulaic. Obama has set up an oldies vs the youngies distinction. Not useful to a politician — a dumb move. Democrats are told to use “old and tired” as modifiers when referring to McCain's policies and subtextually assault him as the old guy. Attacking McCain as Bush II is cynical and untrue. It more diminishes Obama than McCain. The future comes from the past and McCain knows it better than Obama.

Whether Obama's speech well expressed his central theme of unity is dubious. The etiology: Obama is a narcissist who was when younger, as he stated, confused about his racial identity. David Brooks said yesterday that Obama has been talking about unity from his earliest speeches. To Brooks, this indicated a deep commitment to the “idea”. In fact, Obama is simply projecting, as narcissists always do, his interior need; Obama wants to unify his self-conception. There have been few indications that Obama is capable of unifying anything in the public sphere. He is simply presenting himself and saying if you support me then we are unified as a people. A confusion of self with planet earth.

McCain himself is of great concern. McCain gets it about the nature of the bad players. He knew, right off, that Putin was a “KGB thug” when everyone else was indifferent, or like Bush, feeling Putin's soul. McCain knew the surge was a good idea when Obama was arguing against it. That is, what will make it possible for us to leave Iraq with some sense of order was McCain's grasp of the situation. Obama would have left us internationally humiliated and vulnerable to every thug who saw their chance.

But we aren't sure what McCain is going to do about that clarity. It isn't McCain's judgment, as it is with Obama, but McCain's temperament that concerns you. How hair-trigger is McCain? Is everything going to be main force? In addition, the Supreme Court is becoming an advocacy forum and the judges need to be more centrist. Only Obama would nominate such justices. There are so many reasons you would want Obama as president, except for the man himself, who is really a cipher.

Finally, the Democrats should consult with the Chinese about how to run a fireworks display.

Biden's Politics

Trying to watch the convention is like trying to get into your car through the driver's window. Why do it? But, then again, why not?

Who would have thought Biden would be the one to bring some energy to a flat convention? He is a very attractive candidate. Salt of the earth one person said.

He will no doubt be loyal but his record is more Lieberman like than Pelosi / Reed ideological. This Slate article says that Biden is actually all over the place. But pragmatically so. The writer feels that pragmatic angst may be self-cancelling however…

The interesting thing about [Biden's] prescription for the Middle East is that, in theory, it's not that different from President George W. Bush's. He once said, “I believe President Bush's strong rhetorical support for democracy has made a difference by creating space for and emboldening modernizers and moderates.” Biden would cautiously continue that policy—when circumstances allow. In other words, never. That's the essential difference between Biden and Bush: the measure of practicality they apply to the reforms they both want to see.

Rhythmic Gymnastics and an Olympics Wrap Up

If synchronized sports borders self-parody then rhythmic sports — Olympic rhythmic gymnastics utilizing hoops and small clubs — borders nutbrain cheerleading and Cirque du Soleil gauche theatricality. But it is better. Synchronized sports evokes “huh?” while rhythmic dancing evokes “wow”. The recently aired Olympic rhythmic gymnastics competition, which Russia well-deserved to win, was amazing. The event, a combination of clever choreography, terrific timing and gymnastic flexibility — near ballerina-like — made a valid claim as an athletic event.

While synchronized sports emphasizes the robotic and mechanical, rhythmic sports have a free flowing goofiness. It is, even with the exposure to cheerleading and ironic Blue Man melodrama we get in the Western media, an unfamiliar form. What could be the rules? And if only they could get rid of that smile. Can you imagine a gymnast in the midst of the contortions of the pommel horse locking onto the camera with a big bright smile?

Rhythmic dancing is a sport that should stay female only. Although the Russian choreography was fantastic the sport could still use a final push of real sophistication. A few winter Olympics' back I remember this English policeman (bobbies) who, in his other life, choreographed ice dancing; he then performed his pieces with his partner at the Olympics. The guy was a natural, deeply ingrained with the best of dance: Balanchine, Alvin Ailey, Jerome Robbins. The routines he worked out for the Olympic ice free dancing extended the sport — a high-water mark. Rhythmic gymnastics needs someone like that to extend the form.

It would have been better if there were less showboating on the part of the US basketball team in its victory over Spain. Not the celebration after, but in the midst of the game it felt like every basket was a cause for some vamping. Elite athletes don't need to do that. The Spanish team did themselves proud, playing more like a team than the US. They drove more to the basket, moved the ball around more, but just didn't have the talent of the US. They did make it a game though. The sincerity of the after win celebration will stay with you though. It really meant something to the US team and the audience could share their pleasure in the win. Kobe Bryant's genuine happiness showed a side of him I had never before seen. Made you smile.

The final ceremony with the athletes celebrating as national groups among all the competitors was probably the best vision of nationalism one can have. Pride of origin, but without rancor or challenge. Everyone smiling in the impressive circle of the stadium, waving flags.

The mixed legacy of the host Chinese, able to run without any real hitch, a huge and impressive event. Beautiful ceremonies and tremendous planning rewarded. Like the odd mix of free capitalism and dictatorial control — the Chinese have it working outwardly; but percolating beneath, the repression of dissent, the controlled society, the suppression of other groups; a Potemkin village.

This article @ WaPo has a cogent quote from a tourist,

“It's like success at any cost…They're really staging this. It's really choreographed. It's not sustainable.”

It's Biden. It's Biden.

It's Biden, it's Biden. The Hamlet-like angst is over. Obama made a decision. A good one.

The candidate of Change has chosen an old hand, sort of like John McCain, but not as much an independent maverick. Like McCain, Biden has experience of international matters, from years on the Foreign Relations Committee. Like McCain, Biden is someone who knows how to work with the opposition to craft legislation. In many ways, Obama has chosen a McCain look-a-like as his running mate.

Maybe Biden will deliver Pennsylvania, which seems to be the calculation, and provide Obama some substance, which seems more an already fading hope. Or, then again, the distance between Biden's long life's march, many experiences, tragedies, Biden's knowledge of Washington and of the world, and up-close-and-personal awareness of his mortality, will make all the more stark the deficiencies of Obama.

Wiki says,

Biden was given a 100% approval rating from the American Public Health Association (APHA). He supports funding for health care to allow all people access. Biden is opposed to the privatization of Social Security and was given an 89% approval rating from the Alliance for Retired Americans (ARA), reflecting a pro-senior citizen voting record. Voted in support of welfare block grants and supports welfare reform.

This is good. Very good. But,

Biden voted in favor of the invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003.

Biden was forced to change his view, or be subject to a despicable ritual expulsion, spelled Lieberman, and later said it was a mistake. This was a political decision for which he really can't be blamed. Can he?

Mailer and the Spirit of the Times

Norman Mailer was something of a neurotic life force, pulled apart by opposing impulses — the brilliant, talented, nice Jewish boy from Brooklyn and the demands of achieving societal status via macho posturing — the latter was very much a part of his time.

In this piece one of the Times' better writers remembers Mailer's torn self as a prism with which to view current disputes.

There were two Mailers, Irving Howe observed — a “reflective private Norman” and a “noisy public Norman.”

Berman suggests that the meltdown in America caused by the Vietnam war is reminiscent of the spirit of this age.

…here we are, 40 years down the road, and hawks, some of them, are still “smug and self-righteous,” and doves, a good many, are still “evasive of the real problem.”

Berman goes on to point out how the younger Mailer was subtle in his analysis. The “evasive of the real problem” to which Berman refers is the blindness to the real dangers of Communism that were ignored by the Left then and the dangers of defeat in Iraq now. Many on the Left have adopted a crude understanding, implicating America in all that is wrong and the absence of America as all that is necessary to counter evil, which to them is not evil at all, but rather something gone wrong with some folks who just need to be schmoozed and unity will be ours.

The actual outcome of taking rogue regimes such as Iran at their word can be what happened after America pulled out of Vietnam and the alleged “philosophy” of those we were fighting gave way to what they were by nature, non-ideological thugs,

What would happen to Indochina and the rest of the world if Communism were to carry the day in Vietnam? The dove majority, in Mailer’s judgment, “simply refused to face the possibility.” The mass peace movement, its grown-ups, anyway, had compressed a hostility to the war into what he called a “hopeless mélange, somehow firmed, of Pacifism and closet Communism.”…[ the actual outcome of our leaving Vietnam was ] the interim experiences of policy-driven famine and poverty in Vietnam, extreme oppression, “boat people” fleeing for their lives and Cambodian horrors: the Indochinese catastrophes that have still not registered in the consciences of Americans when they are feeling dovish…

Mailer's spirit is worth remembering: he was generous, brilliant, a true if troubled force of nature. Berman's insight about the need for nuance not ideology is a worthy cautionary reminder.

But Is It Art?

There is no amazement here, but it is surprising it doesn't happen all the time with much highly touted modern architecture — the buildings may not be sound structures. These are the buildings designed by high profile (whatz hot) “conceptual” architects which cry “wannabe sculpture”. Many such buildings are not only poor aesthetically, they may also be poorly engineered; designed for the ego of client and architect rather than the public that will use them. Buildings are of a craft — they are functional first and foremost.

The clients are willing to go along with the self-indulgence because they themselves want “signature” buildings. That is, it just has to look different and clients are happy, even if the building might spring leaks. This sort of building is a species of institutional status bling commissioned by clueless committees.

…soon after its completion in spring 2004, the center's outdoor amphitheater began to crack due to drainage problems, the suit says. Snow and ice cascaded dangerously from window boxes and other projecting roof areas, blocking emergency exits and damaging other parts of the building, according to the suit. Mold grew on the center's brick exterior, the suit says, and there were persistent leaks throughout the building…The suit says it cost MIT more than $1.5 million to hire another company to rebuild the amphitheater, with new bricks, seats, and a new drainage system.

This goes not only for university structures, but business and museum structures as well — in fact, especially the latter. Many museums are terrible showplaces for art — take a walk through the Guggenheim; Frank Lloyd Wright's apotheosis of himself — art, public, urban context, be damned.

Former Boston University president John Silber wrote a book called, “Architecture of the Absurd: How 'Genius' Disfigured a Practical Art.”

The Olympics: A Miscellany

Miscellaneous observations about the Olympics thus far:

• There should be no sporting event that requires the modifier “synchronized”.
• You can't be the “world's greatest athlete” by winning a heap of swimming medals.
• The camera is focusing in too tight in the awards ceremonies.
• How did volleyball get to be an Olympic event? How about tetherball as well?
• Most sports are boring to watch. Especially water sports.
• On the hot meter, so far, the Chinese female divers are the clear winner. However, in the clips for upcoming events, there may be some contenders in track and field.
• China was able to clear the polluted air, somewhat, by simply shutting down, or severely delimiting, all industry, building, and auto/commuter activity. The tension between “green” and economic growth never more evident. It is interesting they were able to make a dent — the toxic fumes diminished.
• Listing “medals won” is a truly hollow enterprise.
• Gymnastics should have 18 rather than 16 as the entry level age for competition. It should actually be enforced — the way they are finally trying to do with performance enhancing drugs.

Fallows On Political Rhetoric

This exhaustive article by James Fallows about the rhetoricians called politicians and the media provocateurs called journalists covers an awful lot of ground, but its conclusion, that Obama is “thoughtful”, seems on the face of it untrue. Obama has again and again gone with the flow, speaking to whatever group is in front of him in ways that go beyond the usual ingratiations of politicians, into a characterless slide. What is presented though in Obama's fastidious declamations, which are reminiscent of parson McGovern's manner, is that Obama is a fud.

Much of the public wants Obama to win and doesn't care or care to pay attention. They are just tired of the Republicans and want to give Democrats a chance and if Obama is the cipher, so be it. It does matter though. Obama's tanking his opportunity to explain his long relationship with pastor Wright devalued him enormously. He never really recovered. It was his Rubicon. Obama is an ordinary and somewhat cynical politician; I don't know what thoughtfulness can mean if the person doing the thinking is manipulating rather than speaking from core values.

Fallows lists his worst offenders — the questions that should never be asked in a debate by the moderator:

1. The will you pledge tonight question, which is always about something no responsible politician could ever flat-out promise to do.
2. The gotcha question, involving any change of policy.
3. The loaded hypothetical question, which assumes factors that can’t be known.
4. The raise your hand question, for reasons of intellectual vulgarity and personal rudeness…
5. The lightning round, in which the candidates have 30 seconds to address a point.

The media self-congratultion inherent in the apotheosis of Tim Russert after his untimely death never obscured what James Fallows points out — that Russert was the worst offender.

To be fair to Fallows, an excellent journalist, the article presents pro and con on most of the issues considered. I did think though that this point Fallows makes about Obama had particular weight:

Whenever he talked about certain topics, including China, it seemed to me that [Obama] was reading from cue cards (“manipulating their currency,” etc.) rather than expressing policies he had thought through. The policies he has made his own—on race, Iraq, constitutional issues, family values—are subtly or dramatically different from the Democratic orthodoxy…

Of the debates, I thought Charlie Gibson was the only moderator to ask Obama questions that really challenged him. For this ABC met with herd attack, and for all I know, may have taken it to heart, ignoring their own honorable performance. Narcissists like Obama don't like to be questioned seriously. It's unfair.

There Will Be Blood

After trudging through There Will Be Blood you want to get even. The best you can do is sort it out.

The story is supposed to be about greed. The point: greed is evil and leads to no good end. Not evil in the Shakespearean sense, where character accrues to fool action. Rather, greed is evil because that makes the audience feel smugly superior to the characters; the characters are ciphers to show us what the moviemakers apparently think is an epiphany but seem to think the audience hasn't figured out for itself. No doubt Day-Lewis is a great actor and Paul Dano deserved immense credit for a hopeless part. But only Hollywood could think it is being serious when it burbles, like the La Brea Tar Pits percolating sludge, this melodramatic confusion.

As opposed to the story, the movie itself is about Daniel Day-Lewis. A shameless set piece for a great actor in which to indulge his every shade of shouting and guttural noisemaking. Day-Lewis is our greatest actor but that doesn't spare him the responsibility of making good choices. I don't think there could have been a satisfying ending, but the shapeless self-parody of an ending they settled upon became funny too soon. You wanted it to end first, then laugh.

The only thing interesting was the trivia. According to The Wiki Upton Sinclair (whose book Oil! was part inspiration for the movie) was a socialist and Sinclair Lewis (also a muckraker) worked at his socialist commune called Helicon Home Colony. Sinclair Lewis later wrote a book portraying Upton Sinclair as a fascist sympathizer. Sometimes relationships don't last.

In Sinclair Lewis' novel, It Can't Happen Here, Upton Sinclair is depicted as an eccentric and a supporter of fascism out of opportunistic motives, who is rewarded for his support of an American fascist government by being made ambassador to the United Kingdom.

If only wikipedia had explained that falling out — it might have made a good movie.

Olympic Art

Some miscellaneous notes circling the Olympics:

Sometimes in the arts there is a desire to mimic the popular culture, mostly to gain audience for a self-marginalizing (via ideology) artworld. Shock works were done for awhile in mid-20th century western art, sometimes malingering under the heading of irony, actually a far more sophisticated strategy, and recently an attempt was made to mimic Shock-Jocks with juvenile rule breaking pieces. But the pop culture is better at shock and the manipulation of technology.

This wonderfully done commercial for United Airlines shown frequently during the Olympics isn't art, but it is artfully, beautifully done. ( This link opens the movie file itself. ) There are many “multi-media” works in museums that don't come close to the cleverness and sophistication of this piece.

Here is a link to a handsome site dedicated to Remembering Tibet during the Olympic games.

Finally, here is a link to an article about the incredible LZR Speedo swimsuit.

… already eight records in swimming have tumbled. Some are not just falling, but being broken by improbable margins. In the men's 4×100m relay, for instance, the record was smashed by an astounding four seconds. In April, at the world championships in Manchester England, eight more records were broken.

All these record-breaking swimmers had one thing in common. They were wearing Speedo's new swimsuit, the “Fastskin” LZR Racer.

The LZR Racer breathes high tech. Speedo designed the suit with input from NASA, ran tests on more than 100 different fabrics, and conducted body scans of world-class swimmers. The ultra-thin suit material repels water, reduces muscle oscillations, and lowers hydrodynamic drag by up to 10%. The individual panels are ultrasonically welded together, rather than stitched. Speedo even claims it increases a swimmer's oxygen efficiency. It can take 30 minutes for a swimmer to struggle into it and, once on, shoehorns the body into a more aerodynamic shape.

You have to wonder why they don't develop a techno-figleaf for the private parts and spray the swimsuit on the entire athlete.

Orwell's Blog

George Orwell's diaries are being presented online as a blog, 70 years later, to the day.

In the introduction to the blog they say you may see something of the face of the acute Orwell in the entries that follow, as Orwell himself noted about the impression one has of the person behind any strong creative work. Orwell is quoted,

Orwell wrote of what he saw in Dickens: ‘He is laughing, with a touch of anger in his laughter, but no triumph, no malignity. It is the face of a man who is always fighting against something, but who fights in the open and is not frightened, the face of a man who is generously angry — in other words, of a nineteenth-century liberal, a free intelligence, a type hated with equal hatred by all the smelly little orthodoxies which are now contending for our souls.’

“All the smelly little orthodoxies which are now contending for our souls.” There you go.

No Country For Old Men

Just saw No Country For Old Men. It's a grim if interesting movie. They were trying for the mythic quality of great westerns. It is set in 1980s west Texas with the landscape playing a major role. It is a chase movie, a psychological thriller, a bit of a monster movie, and something of a downer; given the genre mix this is not a surprise. Movies can have down subject matter but return something in catharsis. This movie did not.

Movie making is a team sport and the chemistry was excellent. The casting was perfect. The direction and marriage of all the crafts that go into making a good movie were there. The best part was the dialog, which had the dark mad humor of modern life percolating underneath and had the added benefit of spinning mysterious things off, associations that played as grace notes, using a laconic Texas drawl as the instrument.

Most credit should probably be given to Cormac McCarthy for the fact it held together, although the actors gave all the credit to the Coen brothers. Surprise. Maybe it was the Coen's who were solely responsible for the excellent dialog and not McCarthy. The Coen brothers didn't mention McCarthy much in the accompanying documentary.

There may be spoilers in the following…

The interpretation of the Bardem character as “the devil” by one of the actors didn't quite seem right to me. And since no one else offered a satisfying exegesis, here is mine:

The Bardem character, the psychopathic killer, without affect or sense of humor; without a human based logic, but with a logic nevertheless, was death incarnate. Tommy Lee Jones' character described him as a ghost, but there was a cold inevitability in Bardem's character that suggested a lack of moral agency unlike the devil whose choices are an eternal undoing; Bardem's character was “egoless” as the Scottish actress in the movie suggested — again suggesting the ruthless enterprise of cold death. The movie portrayed the irreconcilable nature of death's dialog with the living, the unfair randomness of it. Bardem could not be caught, and overmatched Tommy Lee Jones, because no one catches death. It catches you.

The Tommy Lee Jones character said he could never find belief. At the end, it seemed clear he knew he would be found and killed and there was nothing he could do about it. And there would be no inner peace for the man who had no inner resource.

The Olympics: The Opening Ceremonies

An easily damaged sense of honor can be perilous for all concerned. There was much that was of concern for China: world wide protests and an off-putting ethos of unbridled capitalist competitiveness; dubious political and international actions. Viewers were left with ambivalence about China bringing all enterprise to a halt to clean up the presentation, like the host who tosses the mess into the closet before the party goers arrive. Seeking to achieve international recognition on that tightrope makes you hold your breath. Not to mention that many in the West detest nationalism.

There is an upside to nationalism however…and if you like spectacles…The opening ceremony is said to have meant so much to China. It showed in its scope and the enormous investment of energy and resources. The money was on the screen — nothing wasted. The last time a government sought to impress at the Olympics to this extent was in mid-20th century Europe; the point was to express the power of a deranged German government. Superiority was the message. China was not interested in that arrogant message. Rather the Chinese have sought to impress and gain approval.

The scale of the opening ceremonies was balanced with a graphical beauty — it was a deeply visual presentation; they did not go Las Vegas gaudy, but rather this was Julie Taymor with heft and focus: there was a subtle, muted, comprehensive visual sense. The traditional costumes were beautiful — especially those grading grey to white ancient costumes. Those dancer-acrobats “performing” and simultaneously creating an ink painting was so clever and restrained — it was reminiscent on a larger scale of the film of Picasso drawing in the air with light.

Notes:

• The Chinese anthem sounded, at least in its orchestration, like France's La Marseillaise.
• One can't help but note: Every one of the Chinese women, dressed in red, carrying placards identifying individual delegations, was striking. A seemingly endless stream of beauty.
• The early appearance of children in ethnic costume representing the many cultures of China had enormous appeal.

Spectacles are corks bobbing on the sea of a society. The opening ceremony was disciplined, brilliantly executed. Now if China can just do something about Tibet and Burma; can just loosen up their society and provide their people with more than economic freedoms — something that looks like they get it — then we really got something.

From Elections to Season 6 of Curb Your Enthusiasm

Now that the political season has gotten to the grim part, where nothing is discussed and it becomes a personality/slogan focused attack fest, Obama saying McCain is Bush, a flat out lie, and McCain portrays Obama as the fairy tale Bill Clinton asserted, we decided to rent Season 6 of Curb Your Enthusiasm. If Obama had actually followed through and engaged in a series of cross-country debates, as both candidates had agreed, it might have been a truly interesting and useful presidential election season.

Curb Your Enthusiasm has always been uneven but Season 6 unusually so. From a great episode in the middle of the season to real clunkers involving therapists. However, the whole season was worth the finale, directed by Larry Charles, brilliantly. The ending was a real surprise — absolutely perfect. Seamlessly Larry David was able to take a cynical, slightly annoying, often uncomfortable to watch show, and turn it around, with wit and a roundness the show had yet to attain. The final montage was an entire season in itself. Do another season Larry.

The bonus features have a very funny outtake video and an HBO documentary that has the usual “oh he is so great” showbiz stuff, but also interesting snippets about David. David said his mother had said to him, “You are not so special”, which caused the audience to laugh — out of the momentum of a live interview before an audience. But it wasn't funny. It did make David, for a change, a sympathetic figure.

John Legend's beautiful rendition of “You Don't Know Me” in the final episode is only topped by this version by the great Ray Charles.

We Are The World

Six Degrees from Kevin Bacon is true for all of humankind. Scientists were precise in a very large sampling, determining how connected we are: “They found that the average length was 6.6 steps and that 78 percent of the pairs could be connected in seven hops or less.”

The database covered all of the Microsoft Messenger instant-messaging network in June 2006, or roughly half the world's instant-messaging traffic at that time, researchers said…”To me, it was pretty shocking. What we're seeing suggests there may be a social connectivity constant for humanity,” said…a Microsoft researcher…”People have had this suspicion that we are really close. But we are showing on a very large scale that this idea goes beyond folklore.”

The researchers didn't explain how we could act on this affirmation of our common humanity.

Fun LHC

DId I mean Run-D.M.C.? No, really, it is not a typo, I meant Fun LHC. It's a YouTube vid, it's a phenom.

Well, what it is, is, as Bill Clinton would say, a science writer rapping, with a bunch of scientists dancing(?) on site in the background, about the new Large Hadron Collider about to go online and maybe discover the Higgs boson (which is not a bad name for a rap group) — or not — or maybe the LHC will create a black hole that will swallow the universe. Well, some are afraid of that, but probably not. It would be a funny end though — neither Eliot's bang, nor whimper, not fire nor ice as Frost postulated, but an idea that Mel Brooks might propose: a sucking sound you wouldn't believe vacuuming away this vale of tears.

This Large Hadron Collider rap, written by a clever science writer and “performed” by some of the scientists involved, is surprisingly informative.

You can go to the above link at YouTube or see it here:

Here is a link to the full text of the rap online

A snip:

We see asteroids and planets, stars galore
We know a black hole resides at each galaxy’s core
But even all that matter cannot explain
What holds all these stars together – something else remains
This dark matter interacts only through gravity
And how do you catch a particle there’s no way to see
Take it back to the conservation of energy
And the particles appear, clear as can be

Obama's Sister Soljah Moment

Obama couldn't script things better. He is currently running in the general election, no longer playing to the Democrats alone, and there are doubts about him. He has got the nomination but what does he need? Rejecting someone laying claim to his values via identity politics, to show Obama serves no defined constituency. Obama needs to show he is for the country. Obama needs a Sister Souljah moment. If Hillary were in his place identity politics is probably all we would hear (judging by the way she ran her campaign when things got rocky) but Obama with some troubling slips has been pretty good about leaving race off the table. (The counter argument being that it percolates there without comment and need not be mentioned to achieve pc criticality.)

So Obama appears in Florida and behind him a demonstration about something (it was a brief TV clip) - some complaint by a black group claiming Obama isn't sensitive to their needs as blacks. Obama has them removed but allows an emotional question; he responds, don't vote for me if you don't like me. The partisan crowd might be silenced by confusion as to correctness: what to do? They applaud Obama's response. Perfect. All of it. The timing. The response. The calculation of a permitted interchange. The guy was born under a lucky star. Let's just hope some of that luck rubs off on the country after, in all probability, he is elected. Luck is a fragile reed in the uncertain gusts of history.

Words, Words, Words: Reading the OED

The editors of the NYT Book Review made a wise choice of reviewer in this review by Nicholson Baker of a book about someone who set to reading the OED from beginning to end.

Baker's fastidious wit and the appealing subject of words, magical words — defining the elusive complexity of experience — is a perfect fit. From what Baker says, the author Ammon Shea, is himself very funny.

The author says, “I feel as though I am eating the alphabet,” to which Baker comments: “This is the 'Super Size Me' of lexicography.”

Acnestis — the part of an animal’s back that the animal can’t reach to scratch… bespawl — to splatter with saliva…deipnophobia, the fear of dinner parties… kankedort, an awkward situation….There’s hypergelast (a person who won’t stop laughing), lant (to add urine to ale to give it more kick), obmutescence (willful speechlessness) and ploiter (to work to little purpose).

Words are so grounded in the day to day but seek to contain the metaphysical; words are unique, yet common in what they observe; words are acute with etymologically witty associations and so deeply connected to our common heritage; words sometimes reach to insight in defining the amorphous — and even higher still at times, in pointing to the poetical mystery of things.

They say each word is at first a stroke of genius.