The Shit List #2

Uh, so the Shit List is, er, not appearing every Friday as promised, but on the strict Whenever We Have Five Things We Hate timetable.

So:

1. People who ask for tomato sauce on their pizza – The essential, historic ingredients of pizza are: bread, tomato sauce, and cheese. Asking for sauce is redundant and repugnant.

2. People who ask for cheese on their pizza – Ditto.

3. People who ask to ask a question – “Can I ask you a question?” “Yes, you may. On second thought, no, fuck you.”

4. People who respond “You just did!” when someone asks to ask a question.

5. Anorexia – This shit has got to stop. Women have enough on their plates with job discrimination, catcalls, and giving birth. Society, I call upon you to see that the complex cultural and interpersonal causes of anorexia are phased out by 2010.

-Keesup & Scrib.

Welcome to S. Becque

Let’s give a warm Scribblerist welcome to our newest guest writer, Ms. S. Becque, late of Paris via the Orient and Mysterious East (cue calliope)! Check out her post below.

Ms. Becque cites David Foster Wallace’s 2005 commencement address to Kenyon College in her post and I want to reiterate: It is, in a word, illuminating. Thanks to her for bringing it to my (our?) attention.

-Scrib.

every day a little death.

so at various points throughout my liberal arts education – always scrambling to read a million pages in this book, meet with that group for a presentation or complete that paper- i would often think of a life not bogged down with the rigors of classes. in my mind it was sort of like summer break but longer. and it would be time in which i could read and think on my own. i would read all of those social science books that looked interesting but i never had time for, a real almost sort of renaissance experience. most of the time at school it felt like i was holding down a nine to five job (four days a week) with the lovely addition of assignments when i got done. in my mind there was an equation that went something like this, working nine to five would keep the same hours of class but eliminate the homework. so more time would be mine.

recently i’ve spent a lot of time thinking about a graduation speech by david foster wallace at kenyon college. [which was originally published in here] there are a lot of things i like about the speech but this is the part i’ve been thinking about the most.

“And I submit that this is what the real, no bullshit value of your liberal arts education is supposed to be about: how to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone day in and day out. That may sound like hyperbole, or abstract nonsense. Let’s get concrete. The plain fact is that you graduating seniors do not yet have any clue what “day in day out” really means. There happen to be whole, large parts of adult American life that nobody talks about in commencement speeches. One such part involves boredom, routine, and petty frustration.

It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive in the adult world day in and day out.“

it’s true. of course i realize now, two months into a boring dead end nine to five job i took for no other reason than making money to pay bills – i had it backwards all along. thinking all day long as your job breeds more thought. while doing mindless tasks all day breeds a sort of banal mindlessness you have to spend your time fighting.

and that equation? part of it is true – and it’s the part i like and makes the other part worthwhile – is that the time not between the hours of nine and five is my time. completely and utterly. nothing from this office comes home with me ever. that means i have a lot of fun, doing what i always wanted to do – living in a cultural capital. to date i’ve gone to readings, shows and a hodgepodge of other events. i get to read what i want, so for the first time i am gorging myself on fiction of my own choosing. fiction which while in school seemed like too much of a luxury can now fill those long subway ride commutes.

of course there is a boring day in and day out quality to a lot of these days. sometimes i feel like i am home for two minutes before i need to go to bed, get up and do it again the next day. fitting time in during the week to run errands, especially as it gets darker earlier is not fun. which means going on the weekends, when the place is packed with parents and children doing the exact same thing. attempting to get cable / internet set up for example, is a huge undertaking of scheduling.

the subject of this post refers to the sondheim song of the same name, every day there is a little death, which i had never factored into my mental equation. i also now see my movies like office space get made and are so well received. it’s also not a good sign when parts of “the office” no longer seem like irony and seem instead to hit a little close to home. turns out you’ve got to think or the death side will slowly win and you will find yourself a living dilbert cartoon. truly a fate worse than death.

-S. Becque

Power of the Blog!

Alex Ross, the New Yorker’s (non-pop/non-Sasha Frere-Jones) music critic, has written about the disseminating effect of the internet on classical music and the intelligence of blogs authored by classical musicians, aficionados, and scribblin’ hacks like him. In the course of his ‘Net wanderings he discovers that, “Not all blogs … were devoted to cataloging continuity errors in the films of George Lucas; a smattering of musicians, composers, and listeners were writing on music with intelligence and verve, reveling in the chance to express ideas that had no other immediate outlet.” Sound familiar?

Read Ross here.

ps – Ross mentions a blog by a concert pianist named Jeremy Denk. I moseyed on over and checked it and it was rather good. This Dink fellow might just have something writerly goin’ on.

pps – Doesn’t Denk kinda look like the pilot from Firefly? Think about it – have you ever seen them in the same place at once?

Beginning a Story: Wizards in the Military

What is the best way to begin a story? My teachers have always recommended writing several beginnings until you find the right one. One professor claimed he wrote over 30 versions of a story before it felt right (I’m skeptical). The point, however, is valid.

For the past few days, I’ve been thinking about this concept:

A. Wizards (and magic in general)

B. The Military

A+B. Wizards used in the military

I don’t know if there is a worthwhile story lurking here, but I want to try. The idea is to render the narrative in a straight-forward, realistic way and let the two conflicting worlds interact. I suppose my inspiration is part Stranger in a Strange Land and part A Modest Proposal; Cultural criticism cloaked in SciFi.

To put it another way, what would happen magic had a practical application in combat? Would dragons replace Bradley APCs? Instead of fighting house by house to clear a neighborhood, why not send in a witch to cast a spell of immobilization and then collect the insurgents, frozen mid-motion, like lawn statues?

A disclaimer: I am a geek, but not a magic-savvy geek. My knowledge extends to the Harry Potter movies and Naruto, which is magic of a sort. I apologize to all military types and all magic types. This is just an exercise.

Here goes.

1. The first documented use of Standardized Governmental Magic (SGM) was in Los Angeles during the 2010 Riots, in which a full 15 percent of the city was lost to fire. In a pilot program with Los Angeles SWAT, five wizards and five mages were deployed to disarm rioters and control fires, particularly in the Watts district of the city.

2. No one knows exactly when the government first started using magic for military purposes. There are photos from the 2010 Riots in Los Angeles that show wizards in camouflage and flack jackets, surrounded by a protective ring of riot police, casting water spells to repel the crowds and extinguish the fires and burned for 16 days; it rained black water and ash for three weeks.

3. I was one of the first. They came for me one night at the barracks of the 351 in Virginia. We had just finished dinner in the mess hall, a long, low cinder block building painted stray dog gray, when two men in suits tapped me on the shoulder.

“Seargent Craig?” The man who spoke was enormous – one of those giants the service finds in a cornfield in Iowa. He had a quiet face and corporal’s stripes and smelled like the generic lemon detergent used by the base’s laundry service. His companion was a civilian, dressed in a charcoal gray suit that was too big for him, and he seemed delicate – ill matched to his mammoth escort.

“Sir?” I said, starting to get up.

“Follow me.”

I followed.

…more to come.

Well! This is the question: how best to convey the important information in a quick, entertaining, and (hopefully) stylistic way? I’m frustrated. The first two are flat and the second perhaps too self-conscious.

More later.

“In Rainbows” Roundup: The Best Criticism So Far

As expected, there are a lot of well-paid music critics making a lot of noise about Radiohead’s release of “In Rainbows.” NME’s supposed “Office Blog” called the drum track on 15 Step “electro-tribal.” What does that even mean?

Find the good stuff:

Democracy Arsenal on the politics of Radiohead releases: “Because they, these five musicians from Oxford, are providing something new, something which aims, at least in intent, to restructure reality and to provide us an alternative.”

Hiphop Music Dot Com with a track-by-track breakdown: I’m not sure I agree with everything, but I like the line: “Bodysnatchers – Ummmm, hell yes. This track is hard as f*%k. Melody reminds me a bit of “Within You Without You.” Or what that song would sound like if the Beatles were HARD AS F*%K.”

ZME Music Dot Com with another review, captures my mood this morning: “Got up earlier then usual this morning, but the sudden lack of sleep has been complemented by the explosion of energy with which “In Rainbows” hit me.”

One blogger suggested a World Radiohead Day, saying: “I’m envisioning a planet of office workers listening to In Rainbows in their cubicles at the exact same time.”

Blog on you shiny bloggers – who needs “informal” commentary from Rolling Stone or NME? Our commentary is in the spirit of the release itself – radically democratic and individual.

Radiohead’s “In Rainbows” – First Listen

They have done it. And in the rush and joy of the first listen, the first 5 tracks are the finest I’ve ever heard from the band.

Thanks to Itunes, my tracks are out of order, actually. Since I use a Shuffle, I can only give general impressions. I do, however, have “15 Step” cued as the first track.

15 Step – Excellent synthesis of electronic beats and a head bopping guitar riff. How could anyone not like this track? It wanders, too, but in a good way. Brilliant opener.

The tracks run from crunchy and catchy, like an (actually) good song from the Sonic Hedgehog demo, to transcendent. I can’t stop thinking, in the absence of any other coherent faith, “this is my religion.”

On the way to work I was grinning and moving like a guy who’s got a new crush. I wanted to go from person to person in the subway car like a missionary – “Bless you brother, the new Radiohead is out. No, no, you can donate what you want. Yes, please give it a listen.” It’s as if Radiohead knew what I needed to hear and made it.

There is something deeply kinetic about these tracks – there’s a new energy underneath this album, something I have gotten only in limited doses from them before – it’s closest to the groove in “Citizen Insane” or the jam at the end of “Go To Sleep” but it lasts for entire songs. Brilliant, excellent. There aren’t words to match the music.

Military and CopSpeak: Jeff Barnett Explains

I’ve often remarked (read: mocked) on the way cops and servicemen use bloated, strange language to express relatively simply concepts. Cops are the worst. For example:

CopSpeak: At that time, we affected entry to the residence in order to secure the premises and manage the developing crisis situation that was developing. I made contact with the suspect in question and applied force in order to neutralize the then-current threat.

Translation: Things were getting violent so we broke down the door. I beaned the bad guy on the head with my Mag Light to stop him from gutting me with a Ginsu knife. Those fuckers are sharp, you know.

When it comes to the military, I understand the purpose of specialized language. Everyone needs to be on the same page in a fight – lives could be lost in a simple misunderstanding. In fact, I think MilitarySpeak is kinda cool – “Roger that Tango Fox, Hellfire over and out.” (That’s cool, right?)

Jeff Barnett is an Iraq veteran who has recently returned to civilian life and is blogging about his readjustment. He also writes for the Home Fires blog at the NY Times. I particularly enjoyed his post on the disconnect between military and civilian language, “Of Marine Language” (Originally published on the Home Fires blog at New York Times Select site on June 26th, 2007). He spins an excellent narrative about how Marine language expresses a more orderly, hierarchical, and precise reality than CivilianSpeak.

Columbus (Was A Bastard) Day

My teachers lied to me. Throughout grade school, Columbus Day was celebrated, picture books were read, and Dixie cups of Sprite and trail mix were enjoyed. Christopher Columbus was little more than a benevolent, cartoonish Italian. “Hey!” We would say to each other, “Gee! What a great guy, for discovering our country and all!”

No one bothered to mention that Christopher Columbus was a greedy, genocidal maniac.

It wasn’t until AP U.S. History in high school that I was told the truth: Columbus’ legacy is a trail of dead and enslaved that winds through the Caribbean. My teacher had us read, in addition to our “primary” text, Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, and as Matt Damon says in Good Will Hunting, “that book … knocked [me] on [my] ass.” Read some of Zinn’s work on Columbus here.

Shame on you teachers. You knew better. Every nation has, and needs, national myths, but when good historical research shows such a legend to be patently, offensively false, should we still have a national holiday in its memory?

Perhaps we should celebrate Pre-History Day and have school children reenact the harrowing journey across the land bridge from Asia. Or maybe we could inaugurate Native Americans Were Here First But Now They Are Third-Class Citizens Confined To Small Parcels of Poor Land Day.

I think the latter speaks for itself.

The Shit List #1

Each Friday, Keesup & I will bring you, our loyal readers, a list of things we hate for your amusement and catharsis. Feel free to respond with things that you hate.

This week’s Shit List:

1. David Schwimmer – You will never work again, Ross, and thank God for that.

2. People Who Name Their Children After Themselves – This is unacceptable for several reasons, chief among them a) the parents couldn’t be bothered to think of a name for their child. Sheer laziness. Also, b) the ego! What makes you, you parent, think that you deserve to be memorialized in the name of your child? You actually kind of sucked. Finally, c) it’s as if a family is hoping the son (this only happens with sons, right?) will be a slightly improved copy of the father. Example: “Richard Jard Dinkle IV is just like his father! Without the alcoholism or fatness, of course.”

3. Dust – Where does it come from? And it just settles on everything.

4. The Mets – The Mets are pretty much always on our shit list. But this week is special, as they participated in an collapse that coincided with the Phillie’s 13-4 run, managing to cough up the division on the last day of the season and miss the playoffs. What will the Yankees fans’ garbage men do now that they have no team to follow?

5. Blackwater USA – If Jesus can forgive these guys, I might have to rethink my stance on Jesus.

Regards,

Keesup & Scrib.