Abuse your illusions

In addition to events in your personal life, this year's Carrier IQ story and revelations about mental illness and its treatment show that everything that seems good is actually bad. And if not actually, then eventually. But that won't change anything.

(Taking the Carrier IQ story to its logical conclusion, in the not-too-distant future we'll have contact lens computer screens. Soon after that, thoughts can be harvested and stored on Google servers. Then thoughts will be stored on a centralized, searchable database. Scary!)

Happy New Year!

A thing about the novella "Train Dreams" by Denis Johnson

Starting around the turn of the century, this fiction novella chronicles the adult life of northwestern laborer Robert Grainier. Denis Johnson's colloquial, often spartan prose endows Grainier and his story with simplicity. At this time the pace of change in life and society was gaining speed but Grainier, for the most part, remains insulated from all that in living his unexamined reclusivity from a woodsy outpost. But he isn't in hiding; in his life Grainier finds love, is found by tragedy; he comes to know the ache of time, the fury of nature; and from the margins he sees innovation and flirts with moral decay. Reading, we aren't driven by the plot or even the characters. Train Dreams feels like a writing exercise and succeeds with the down, diminished beauty of its prose.

Might be looking for more by Denis Johnson.

The current fascination: Cult of Personality

I read articles like today's Time magazine piece "NKorea Calls Kim Jong Un 'Supreme Leader'" and can't help but think all the analysts, pundits, and other talking heads delight in using the word "Leader" in this context. One the one hand, I guess it respects the practice of the North Koreans, but, on the other, it seems only to emphasize their otherness.

Together at any cost

The New York Times interest piece "Navigating Love and Autism" (1) establishes romantic relationships as a normalizing force and (2) documents an effort to normalize autistic people. The story begins with college-aged Kirsten dating a young man who offers her some much needed coaching in the social graces. She chafes under his direction and is soon drawn to another young man, Jack, who shows no interest in such social conventions. Comforted by the lack of expectations each felt from the other, Jack and Kirsten strike up a relationship. Soon, though, she realizes she needs more affection and understanding than her new beau can give. He has Asperger syndrome, and, turns out, she sort of does, too. They push on together, usually either arguing or just keeping one another company. She starts learning to cope and eventually he lets her get a kitten.

We're supposed to assume that being in a troubled relationship is preferable to being alone, and that this couple is to be congratulated even though their partnership is fraught with difficulties. From the article:

The months that followed Jack and Kirsten’s first night together show how daunting it can be for the mindblind to achieve the kind of mutual understanding that so often eludes even nonautistic couples.

The story continues: After establishing a presence on an advice web site for Autistic people, Jack and Kirsten are somehow invited to speak publicly about relationships. Kirsten is quoted as saying  “Parents always ask, ‘Who would like to marry my kid? They’re so weird.' But, like, another weird person, that’s who." The people who approached them for advice feel anxiety about their own relationship prospects.

The message: They may not be happy but at least these autistic people can try to be normal by having a relationship.

Since the earliest diagnoses, the prevailing wisdom has said that people with Aspergers were mostly unable to have meaningful personal relationships. So, now, the general narrative spawning this article and Jack and Kirsten's efforts is supposed to be that "the overarching quest of many (new adults) in this first generation to be identified with Asperger syndrome is the same as many of their nonautistic peers: to find someone to love who will love them back." Before establishing this narrative we might first check whether we share a common definition of love and value the same things in relationships. What we consider a traditional relationship may not be the shoe that fits Kirsten or Jack.

Where does this "quest" come from? Why the anxiety about being alone?

Notes:

• I heard Asperger syndrome won't appear in the next Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (this would be volume five). Instead the diagnosis will fall under the general Autism spectrum.

• The best part of the article comes when the question is put to Jack: Did you ever fear being alone? He answers, “I have no doubt if I wasn’t dating Kirsten I would have a very hard time acquiring a girlfriend that was worthwhile.”

Kai Ryssdal talks like your popular friend

Inspiration

In this culture you often hear of at least two kinds of inspiration: (1) artistic inspiration and (2) personal inspiration.

Talk of artistic inspiration might sound like, "Beethoven's 5th and 9th Symphonies are his most inspired" or "Beethoven was inspired when he wrote his 9th Symphony". Talk of personal inspiration comes in two flavors: (a) Common personal inspiration and (b) uncommon personal inspiration.

Someone might use common personal inspiration when boosting a child who's performing poorly in school: "You know, Einstein failed classes in school when he was a kid". The inspirational message being driven is something like "You never know what you might be capable of achieving".

Uncommon inspiration stories often explicitly speak of overcoming adversity. For example, you might hear about a promising young athlete who after a car accident is left paralyzed from the waist down. This same young athlete then goes on to be an accomplished musician. Or, the inspiring person may grow up dirt poor or suffer from a mental or cosmetic handicap but accomplish great things nevertheless.

The subject or protagonist in uncommon inspiration stories rarely--maybe never--overcomes adversity because he was inspired by another uncommon inspirational story. Rather, his motivation and ability is unique to who he is. In other words, uncommon inspirational stories usually do not inspire. They serve as stories of interest. But they have a wider cultural effect: These stories create an archetype of a poor, disadvantaged, or disabled person from which we draw expectations about the poor, disadvantaged, or disabled.

(pictures) Mesquite tree

Something about the film "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men"

John Krasinski from the American version of "The Office" wrote, produced, and directed this adaptation of collected short stories by James Foster Wallace. In the film, a female doctoral candidate interviews dozens of men, exploring their hang-ups and modi operandi. But her motivation is not purely academic; recently heartbroken, she hopes to learn some elusive Truth. Unfortunately the dialog in this troubled film is tortured, as soliloquies of armchair psychology are spliced with eye-rolling confessionals. But we find one diamond in the rough--a short but picture perfect performance by Christopher Meloni in which he narrates an encounter with a young, heartbroken woman at the airport, his braggadocio showing a hairline fracture.

Pictures of sorts, again

Validation!

Recently I commented on “You Say You Want a Devolution", Kurt Andersen's article in the current (January 2012) Vanity Fair in which he argues that America has stagnated culturally, as evidenced by 20 or more years of unchanged style and fashion. I've spotted a number of published responses, including "Is 2011 really just 1991?" by Maria Russo in Salon. Of course I cite hers specifically because her thoughts brush elbows with mine, if only briefly, when she echos my guess that what people wear and what they listen to means less now (or at least means something different):

Technology is definitely making lifestyle—and the expense associated with acquiring it—less relevant. (Which is fortunate for those of us who can no longer afford much of one, anyway.) Much of what Andersen prizes from the allegedly more innovative American past is just display. But when your life—public and private, working and leisurely—revolves around a MacBook and an iPhone, and constant, disembodied exchanges of information in placeless cyber realms… well, you don’t need to overturn the Aeron chair, do you? Nor do you need to fixate on the status-symbolism of where you live. Best of all, you don’t need to worry about what you buy and what it says about you, because you may buy very little.

Notes:

• Also, she sounds way too condescending throughout.

In trial's coverage, large issues are ignored

Today The Washington Post included the Associated Press article "Army private’s defense team to make its case over leaked trove of government materials" which briefly sets the stage for the defense team's argument in the military trial of Pfc. Bradley Manning, accused of "releasing a trove of secret information to the WikiLeaks website" and facing 21 charges, including aiding the enemy.

Based on early trial statements, the article says the defense will argue that (1) Manning was of unsound mind and (2) other personnel had access to the machine(s) on which the alleged crimes were committed. Then, later, a contrast within the gallery is made:

A half-dozen buttoned-down, mostly young men and women favoring charcoal-colored suits have come and gone from gallery seats behind the prosecutor’s table, declining to identify themselves to journalists but apparently representing the Justice Department, the CIA or other government agencies. 

Across the room are Manning’s supporters, including a long-haired young man from the Occupy Wall Street movement and a pony-tailed, elderly military veteran wearing a “Free Bradley Manning” T-shirt.

Why does Manning have supporters? And what does the Occupy "movement" have to do with it? Some explanation would have been beneficial; these are not fans of insanity defenses and arguments of reasonable doubt. No, these supporters presumably value transparency and whistleblowing (nevermind whether Manning embodies either). But as such, the story is incomplete. Furthermore, by focusing on the contrast between the suits and long hair, the article gives the impression that Manning's supporters are unserious. Were any of his supporters in suits? Did any of them not have long hair?

On the helpfulness of health news

The New York Times article "Journals Asked To Cut Details Of Flu Studies" reports that

a government advisory board is asking scientific journals not to publish details of certain biomedical experiments, for fear that the information could be used by terrorists to create deadly viruses and touch off epidemics.

At first I read this as the story of an unserious government response to a serious problem: the threat of bioterrorism. But more likely it's just bad reporting--unhelpful and uninformative at best, borderline alarmist at worst. The reason is that by emphasizing this one advisory board request, the reporting (similarly appearing in other publications) de-emphasizes other government-coordinated efforts at preventing and monitoring bioterror threats. As a result, the reader comes away thinking that the editors of a few scientific journals play a larger role in the drama of national security than they actually do, and that bioterror is a more imminent threat than it actually is.

Something on the film "Blue Valentine"

"Blue Valentine" unveils the un-summable beginning and end of Cindy and Dean's marriage. Their undoing is rooted in differences between their characters' values. The film articulates these apposed values in two pivotal scenes set before the couple's fated initial meeting.

First, during a discussion between Cindy and her ailing, aged grandmother, the elder recalls her own ill-fitted marriage to a man who didn't appreciate her, then she cautions Cindy not to choose a man who doesn't have regard for her as a person. Cindy asks herself how she can trust her feelings when so many people have bad marriages. This Cindy is practical, pragmatic, and ambitious. Second, during a discussion with his co-workers, Dean colors himself an unapologetic romantic as he laments so many women choosing stable guys with good jobs instead of their true loves, their hearts' desire. This Dean thinks with his heart, not his head.

The couple meets and soon marries, Cindy pregnant with her ex-boyfriend's child and Dean accepting it. We don't see the next eight years of their life, but find them at the other end of those years suddenly facing the irreparable harm done after what was likely a long, slow, almost imperceptible decline. They now live a latent, settled life in the boonies that revolves around their little girl who, like Dean, is sweet but stubborn, with Cindy acting as the stressed working mother and Dean, the resignedly content husband and father. Cindy wanted more for herself, more from Dean and the years. Dean lived the years, taking what comes. Ultimately it is Cindy who discovers her love and their marriage are gone, passed from this life like the dead family dog found on the side of the road.

Something about Christopher Hitchens

For me he fell into that category of people who are impressive but not necessarily admirable. Although I generally disliked the piece as a whole, my favorite passage of his comes from the second installment of "On the Limits of Self-Improvement", his chronicling of a makeover. Here he describes getting a Brazilian wax:

Here’s what happens. You have to spread your knees as far apart as they will go, while keeping your feet together. In this “wide stance” position, which is disconcertingly like waiting to have your Pampers changed, you are painted with hot wax, to which strips are successively attached and then torn away. Not once, but many, many times. I had no idea it would be so excruciating. The combined effect was like being tortured for information that you do not possess, with intervals for a (incidentally very costly) sandpaper handjob. The thing is that, in order to rip, you have to grip. A point of leverage is required: a place that can be firmly gripped and pulled while the skin is tautened. Ms. Turlington doesn’t have this problem. The businesslike Senhora Padilha daubed away, took a purchase on the only available handhold, and then wrenched and wrenched again. The impression of being a huge baby was enhanced by the blizzards of talcum powder that followed each searing application. I swear that several times she soothingly said that I was being a brave little boy … Meanwhile, everything in the general area was fighting to retract itself inside my body.

That's laugh-out-loud funny to me.

Now he's dead so a lot of praise is being thrown his way--not necesarrily at him, but at his talent, wit, and powers of consumption. The best piece written about him ever, though, is this book review called "‘No Bullshit’ Bullshit". It isn't complimentary.

Notes:

I take issue with one point in Stefan Collini's review; he parenthetically writes,

It is interesting to note that Hitchens, loyal to aspects of the Trotskyism he has for the most part abandoned, always says Stalinism where most people would say Communism.

I'm not so sure Hitchens avoided the term "communism" because he had some affinity for it still. Rather, I like to think he recognized that we have never known a pure Communist system that wasn't just a front for a totalitarian government, and so he used (as many pundits do) the name of the fascist who ran the place.

A thing on the book "At Home" by Bill Bryson

In At Home, author Bill Bryson offers an anecdote-rich tour of the modern suburban house. For this purpose he uses his own home, an impressive and well-aged English estate. This is a thick book of historical trivia in which Bryson introduces mostly little-known events and figures who share in the responsibility for our modern daily domestic experience. Bryson skips around the centuries (mostly the last four) and hops between Europe (mostly Western) and the Americas (mostly North).

Some pages in, I began to suspect Bryson of merely using the house as an excuse to assemble and publish a bunch of disparate historical tidbits he culled and collected along the way; oftentimes a story contributed nothing to our understanding of how the modern suburban house took shape.

But this doesn't make the reading any less agreeable. It's a good gift book, something that might liven up a coffee table in a lasting way.

Notes:

• I wouldn't want Bryson to really give me a tour. Not of his home or of a telephone booth or of anything.

The times, they are a-changin'

In the Vanity Fair piece "You Say You Want a Devolution?", Kurt Anderson argues that fashion and design--art, music, movies, television, clothes, cars, etc.--looks much the same as it did 20 years ago. This fashion freeze is our collective response, Anderson offers, to the unparalleled rapidity of change in other areas such as economics and technology.

It's an interesting thesis. Well argued and written, too. But to totally buy into his idea, you have to share Anderson's vision: Anderson sees fashion as a collective bundle of popular trends, and the evolution of these trends looks something like a line on a graph surging upward as trends continue evolving. Over the last 20 years, though, that line has leveled off, according to his view.

This picture needs complicating, so I suggest an alternative model.

First, sticking with our graph: I think fashion includes at least a few lines, not just one, that have historically surged upward. And rather than leveling off, I see these lines splintering over last 20 years--even more so the last ten--as social groups subdivide into ever smaller subcultures of like-minded people.

While most of these lines keep trending upward over time, in my splintered model there could indeed exist some mainstream line hovering between and below these subcultures--a mainline that appears to level off and soldier on. But rather than see this grouping as having stagnated, it could be they just dropped their fidelity to fashion altogether. In this sense, their line simply stops. For them--the designers and the consumers--fashion has moved from the aesthetic realm to the political. (Note that fashion continues to demarcate affiliations.)

What the mainstream wears and what they listen to means less (or at least means something different) to them now than it did 20 years ago. So, for example, if you wore a new pair of Nike sneakers in 1993, you were saying something: Nike was synonymous with Michael Jordan and basketball supremacy, and the label was expensive so a new pair of kicks was a sign of status. If you're wearing a new pair of Nike shoes today, it's probably because your old ones wore out. More likely you wear New Balance because you've chosen comfort and practicality--the politics of personal choice--over glamour and status--the fidelity to fashion.

Anderson too briefly discusses changes in how we consume fashion. He's right here, of course, but doesn't take it far enough. He says,

The only thing that has changed fundamentally and dramatically about stylish objects (computerized gadgets aside) during the last 20 years is the same thing that’s changed fundamentally and dramatically about movies and books and music—how they’re produced and distributed, not how they look and feel and sound, not what they are.

Yes, technologically production, distribution, and consumption has changed. But these facets have changed in meaning, too. How and what we make and consume is now a political matter: Toyota Prius or Hummer? File sharing and torrents or iTunes? Walmart, Whole Foods, or local?

-Other Notes:

• Anderson noted the tendency towards nostalgia one minute and then pointed to the outright freeze on design the next. This muddled his point. But his words ring clearly when he hypothesizes about the institutional and market forces at work.

• Certainly not all but many successful artists (designers, trend setters) from all fields in every age have kept an eye on the past. Designers and architects who worked in the Georgian period of the 18th century drew from the Classical Age just as their descendants in the age of Art Deco did in the 1930s.

• In the 1990's we referenced the 1970's. Right now (2011) the 1980's seem popular; the post-hippie feel of the Grunge era has been replaced by the post-New Wave kids of today.

• There is nothing totally new under the sun.
  

Something on Tom Perrotta's novel The Leftovers

With somewhere around 30 pages left, Perrotta's books usually end with a flurry of page turning, a race to what happens. Not so with The Leftovers. But what The Leftovers lacks in action, it makes up for with meaning and emotion. I've read every Perrotta book and although this one ranks low, his low is still high.

The story picks up shortly after a mysterious happening likened to the rapture in which half the Earth's population vanished in an instant, and in the quiet aftermath we watch a cast of characters deal with the loss best they can. One facet of loss that interested me was that of identity. The subtraction of so many peers seemed to leave people wanting for their own identities, as if they were only who they were with everyone else around to verify it. This suggests we're all social constructions.

Also missing are the identities of the vanished, most of whom are unsurprisingly canonized, honored at small parades, days of remembrance and the like. Likewise, relationships are recreated in the minds of the rememberers. One of the novel's characters, a teenaged girl named Jill, lost a childhood friend-turned-acquaintance but, in the friend's absence, the two girls are recast as best friends who were much more alike and much closer and more dear to each other than they had ever been before the rapture.

I don't know that identity was an issue Perrotta intentionally explored. Anyway, good book.

Race and politics

The Los Angeles Times article "One black woman's personal mission to reelect Obama" uses a couple of big economic facts to say that blacks remain faithful to the President despite their worsening economic condition. The facts lack context, however, and this larger premise is a tremendous over-simplification and it's short-sighted.

The piece profiles grassroots Obama booster Gerri Hall, a retired black woman in Flint, MI. Note the difference in values that emerges at the outset when the article comments on changes since Hall's youth:

Fifty years later, there is a black man in the White House and Hall is firmly rooted in the middle class, with a nice home in a leafy neighborhood, a pension from her 30-year job at General Motors and enough savings to help her grown son buy a starter place of his own. 

"Things have definitely gotten better," she allows, "in terms of tolerance and coexistence and people getting along."

Note that the author speaks in economic terms, whereas Hall refers to social progress. The article reflects market-oriented values, but its subject, social values.

Then the article posits that black Americans see themselves reflected in Obama as he battles Republicans: "The sentiment may explain why Obama still enjoys commanding support among African Americans, even though blacks have suffered the worst of the deep recession that soured so many others on the incumbent." And again a few paragraphs later:

The statistics are grim. The poverty rate for African American children has increased under Obama, along with black joblessness. Nationally, black unemployment was 15.5% in November, almost twice the overall rate. For black teenagers it was just under 40%. 

Even so, African Americans remain far more upbeat than the rest of the country.

The article assumes--or, more likely, plays along with the assumption--that what happens during a President's term is attributable to him. Next, the black unemployment rate is given without any historical context. What was the unemployment rate for blacks under Bush? Under Clinton? What role does Congress play in all this?

Another misdirect comes on the heels of the previous quote. The article text says:

An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll done with theGrio.com, a black-oriented website, found that 49% of African Americans felt the country was on the right track, compared with nearly 3 in 4 overall who felt otherwise. Most African Americans blamed congressional Republicans, rather than Obama, for the country's economic ills.

The article treats the tendency to blame congressional Republicans ambiguously; one could read this as a feature exclusive to the black community. What is the overall trend? Could this be a party issue rather than a race issue?

This article dumbs down the whole discussion. The author is owing to black allegiance or camaraderie what's more likely long-term developments of political power relations within areas ranging from economics to social status, and education to faith.

Continuing on the unemployment argument, the article states: "Unemployment is officially 16.5% in Flint, where fortunes soared and, for the last several decades, plummeted with the near collapse of the auto industry." Has the auto industry really collapsed? What role does outsourcing in this industry play in local (and national) unemployment? And what are the politics behind that?

The point isn't that the writer hasn't done his job. It's that readers must evaluate what they read.

I did read one line I liked for its well-writteness: "To this day, Hall has the manner of one accustomed to being in charge: her diction precise, her dress fastidious and her case for Obama outlined in PowerPoint and carefully sorted fact sheets."

Another way

There is a moment I remember, her nose in the honeysuckle bush down the alley and the world falling away in a rush. Over the years when I'd get frustrated with one thing or another, I'd remember that--our short walk to the doughnut shop in Summer 2011, or maybe remember some other such blessing and be born again. It was in that first year of marriage I realized she didn't make magic; she was magic. Not me, I didn't think. I kept after myself about being close with my son and her. She was always better at the loving and it never did get harder for her the way it did me. But when I'd finally get around to talking out loud about something like that, some burden, she could help me come around, and then I would sometimes go out to the patio or garage, off to be alone a minute, and let my eyes burn with how grateful I was she's there. Life had the magic of goodness with her.

Pictures of sorts

Something on the film W

Left-leaning critics of George W. Bush tend to fall into one of two camps: Those who view the man as evil and those who view him as a puppet ne'er-do-well. Oliver Stone's film "W" agrees with the latter view, depicting the 43rd President as an over-confident and devout man driven by his need for approval. This angle of the W story is a familiar narrative--that of a son always seeking his father's approval. To be the man his father could admire, W believes he must appear in control. The role of "the decider" becomes crucial.

The film feels a little canned, but that may be part of the point: Bush is not an exceptional man, nor is his story at its core. What was extraordinary was the consequences of the group-think so pervasive in his cabinet, seized upon and steered by Vice President Cheney--the unassuming villain in this film, always lurking at the edges.

By combining an uncomplicated character study of George W. Bush with a cohesive narrative of his tenure, the film is useful for giving critics a shared interpretation of the events that transpired between 2001 and 2007. The film reviews I read when "W" premiered were pretty consistent and accurate in voicing surprise at Stone's restrained depiction of the younger Bush, revealing a deeply flawed man who found his own direction rather than a one-dimensional villain or straw man. The film attributes W's formidable initial political successes to his religious conversion, brought on suddenly after a physical and mental collapse during a very hungover three mile jog. His failures come as a result of his gullibility and insecurities.

Stone uses a thematic metaphor in the film--the baseball pop fly: the movie Bush often dreams of fielding a high fly ball in center field and then basking in the the praise and adoration of a cheering crowd. In the film's last scene, Bush, dreaming again, backs up to make the play on the pop-up, but the ball never comes down, leaving a confused Bush staring into the quiet stadium lights, wondering how the winning moment and adulation eluded him.

Adult contemporary

Recently the New York Magazine article "Indie Grown-Ups: Are Wilco and Feist our adult contemporary music?" turned a critical eye on a few prominent indie rock artists, describing, for example, Feist's recent album as merely "gusty singsong melodies about finding clarity by the oceanside delivered over cozy acoustic arrangement". The author's larger point was this:

These acts, intentionally or not, have won; they’ve taken a lower-sales, lower-budget version of the type of trip Sting once took, from a post-punk upstart to an adult staple.

Later he indicts labels for having aided and abetted this trend, grooming innocuous sounds from the likes of Feist, Wilco, Radiohead, and Bon Iver to create a new generation's equivalent of adult contemporary.

Although written in response to a different New York Magazine article, The AV Club piece "What makes music boring?" reinterprets this critique by distilling and elaborating on the "cozy" quality described above, this time using the language of boredom:

In a sense, all music is boring. The same, however, can’t be said about “boring” music. “Boring” is its own genre. It is a code word that instantly conjures artists with clearly definable attributes. “Boring” music is slow to mid-tempo, mellow, melodic, pretty in a melancholy way, catchy, poppy, and rooted in traditional forms. It is popular (or popular-ish). It is tasteful, well-played, and meticulously produced. (Or it might sound like it was recorded in somebody’s bedroom under the influence of weed and Sega Genesis.) It is “easy to like”—or more specifically, “easy for white people to like” (“white people” being a sub-group of white people singled out by other white people). It is critically acclaimed (perhaps the most critically acclaimed music there is), and yet music critics relish taking “boring” musical artists down a peg more than any other kind of artist.

This critique to me seems easy to argue, which is to say I don't disagree. But it just isn't particularly insightful. Both articles essentially make this analogy:

• Adult Contemporary is to pop music genres as Feist is to indie music.

This analogy extends easily:

• Adult Contemporary is to pop music genres as Poison is to glam metal/hard rock.

It can even extend to other discussions:

• Adult Contemporary is to pop music genres as scones are to sweets.

And the articles aren't more controversial because they take on indie music--indie music has no exclusive claim to coolness. My comment on glam metal and scones means more. It took more imagination.