I'm trying to get fired up about Governor Christie breaking the law and not paying into my pension fund, but it's an abstract concept that won't affect me until far in the future so it's hard to get as indignant about it as I should (and I'm trying to be proactive and "tweet" my opinion to the proper politicians, but that's a fairly abstract way to protest as well) but meanwhile, I'm banging my way through Rick Perlstein's dense book Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus and learning just how galvanized America was politically in the early sixties; the theme of the book is that it was just as fun and exciting and rebellious to be a conservative as it was to be a liberal civil rights champion, or-- a few years later-- counter-culture hippie . . . everybody was getting radical and the middle of the road (Nelson Rockefeller) was boring (aside from his new woman) . . . Perlstein uses my favorite word (ersatz) to describe the rumored American model town the Soviets built so they could train Communist spies in "indigenous American arts" like sipping sodas at drugstore fountains . . . these were the sorts of things that the John Birch Society was worried about-- if you weren't into communal living, then you might be into building a bomb shelter in your yard-- and though a Communist defector killed Kennedy, he was killed in a city of vehement right-wing lunatics . . . soon after, George Wallace discovered that there were racists in every state, not just Alabama . . . and while Kubrick was satirizing the bomb, intelligent people were having serious discussions about how we might use it and what the death toll might be . . . and people came out in droves to protest, to sit-in, to firebomb, to riot, to root for radical candidates-- very different than the digital protests that happen today; these were wild times, and deserve deserve wild and whirling words, and Perlstein provides them (including, among others, the words "cloture" and "vitiated") and while his works aren't light reading by any stretch (and I recommend using Kindle so you can control the font) they are required reading if you want to understand the political zeitgeist of the sixties and early seventies.
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Showing posts sorted by relevance for query ersatz. Sort by date Show all posts
Dave: Still Learning Stuff?
My students did presentations today about works of art that tackle "the establishment" or a particular system-- racism, colonialism, authoritarianism, capitalism, ageism, sexism, etcetera-- and so from one group I learned that Lababus are the quintessential symbol of rampant consumerism-- they are a collectible "ugly-cute" doll that you buy in a mystery blind box, and there are various rare and secret designs, fueling overconsumption wiht a sociopathic social media marketing campaign . . . and if you don't want to spring for an actual Labubu, then you can buy an ersatz version, a "Lafufu."
A Sight Gag Just For You
You might recall that I permanently damaged my iPod while swimming with it in a waterproof case called an Otterbox-- but I was lucky enough to know a student with an ex-boyfriend who worked at an Apple Store, and, despite the water damage, he set me up with a new iPod, which I did not submerge underwater-- but I still used my old Otterbox to protect the new iPod from rain and sweat, until the Otterbox's head-phone jack broke . . . and now I need a new water-resistant case for my iPod, but until I get one I am using a Ziploc sandwich bag as an ersatz but physically humorous water-proof case, and now I am actually becoming resistant to buying a new case for my iPod because it's so much fun to tell people in the office that I just got a great new water-proof case for my iPod (and most people at least feign some interest because it's a technological subject . . . Katie actually asked if I got an Otterbox) and then once I've built up some interest and drama about my new-fangled waterproof case, I pull out my iPod, in the clear plastic sandwich bag, with the headphones snaking out of the corner, and the people laugh and laugh, and I think to myself: I could have been a great prop comic, just like Carrot Top.
One Movie: Three Ratings
I loved watching Steve Coogan's new road movie, The Trip, but it's tough for me to recommend it to anyone other than Steve Coogan fans; the conceit of this faux-documentary is that Coogan invites his not-so-close friend Steve Brydon-- a Welsh impressionist and actor-- on a journalism assignment in which they will review high-end dining in northern England, but Brydon is an ersatz replacement for Coogan's girlfriend, as they are having a "hiatus," and while much of the film is Coogan and Brydon improvising comedy and impressions, there is also dark undercurrent about age, success, sacrifice, and the value of family in the film . . . but much of it is self-referential Coogan nonsense (Ah-Haaaaaa!) which will only appeal to the Cooganophile . . . and so for Coogan fans I give this movie nine octaves out of ten; for Michael Caine fans I give it seven scallops out of ten; and for non-Cooganites, I give it five little men in a box out of a possible ten little men in a box.
From Rustic to Resort
Full disclosure: we would have avoided waiting hours in Chilamate for the student protests to dissipate if I wouldn't have been "one hundred percent sure" that the way to Arenal was via Puerto Viejo-- I was a bit turned around in regards to my mental map and did not check Waze-- so by the time we figured out, or I should say my wife and kids figured out, that we were headed the wrong direction it was too late and our route was blocked; but we made it to the Arenal volcano region before dark, the road was smooth, the kids slept, and we stopped at the Iguana Bridge, from which we spotted some iguanas and a colorful Jesus Christ lizard-- they are so bright that when you see them, you exclaim "jesus christ!" And they can also run on top of the water; we experienced some cognitive dissonance when we got to Los Lagos resort, as we had been staying in a ramshackle open air joint that was slowly being engulfed by the rain forest and Los Lagos is an impeccably manicured collection of cabanas climbing Arenal and has several beautiful pools of various temperatures, fed by volcanic hot springs, a bunch of waterslides-- some dangerous and one full of scalding hot water-- a bridge you can jump off, a wet bar in a giant hot pool-- I had a local Costa Rican pale ale called Toro that was delicious and a general upscale family resort vibe; we hiked all around the volcano yesterday, the lesser traveled Peninsula trail down to the lake was particularly excellent, we saw turquoise hummingbirds, Montezuma orondolas, giant magpie jays, the broad billed mot mot, and others we could not identify and then we hiked the main loop to the old lava from 1992 and climbed the the viewpoint where we saw a pitcher plant but could not see the volcano-- apparently , because this is the cloud forest, you rarely see the volcano, though it is looming right above the trail and the resorts; the kids asked a lot of questions and it made me realize I don't have the slightest idea how volcanoes work, this one is still active so you can't get close but I'm not sure if there is lava right inside it or you need a shift in tectonic plates to send some magma out; I will do some research; anyway, after four hours of jungle and lava hiking, we stopped in La Fortuna for a giant meal at the Rainforest Cafe-- a little local joint not to confused with the bigger ersatz Rainforest Bar on the main drag; the food was great and filling, I had the casada lunch plate with tilapia and Alex had the same with steak, casadas are usually around five or six dollars and come with rice, beans and several sides, Catherine had fried plantain chips and guacamole and an empanada and Ian had two empanadas, and the empanadas were huge, three times the size of one at home-- so we have been only eating two meals a day here, both places provided enormous breakfasts with lodging and then we get so stuffed at late lunch that we having been eating dinner; while food isn't dirt cheap here, at the local places it is inexpensive and Imperial beer is always two dollars and we really love the typical meals and no one has had stomach issues-- aside from when I ate a bunch of very spicy pickled peppers from a glass jar-- I will also say that after a long day of hiking, it's really nice to relax in a hot spring fed pool, it's bizarre-- there's a bunch of these resorts on the way to Arenal and they all have infinite hot water; I am also enjoying the AC, but I can't stress how nice the weather is, we haven't worn sunblock yet; also, when Catherine ran out to get our laundry and some coffee, the road was all stopped up so we parked and just above the road, on an exposed branch, was the most active sloth I've ever seen, climbing around, grabbing stuff, all in full view and we finally got a view of the volcano just before dark, the clouds cleared for a moment and the cone was visible, minutes later it was gone, shrouded in gray.
Sometimes It Pays Not To Put Your Balls Back in Their Proper Place
META-Meta-meta
John Scalzi's novel Redshirts begins as a schlocky and ersatz Star Trek style space opera, but if you're familiar with Scalzi's satirical sci-fi humor then the encounters with ice sharks and Borgovian ground worms don't really hold water . . . and the book soon dives into meta-sci-fi, meta-fiction, meta-narrative, meta-characters, meta-plotlines, and the metaphysical . . . I would say that the meat of the book is more fun, it's totally wacky sci-fi (and sci-fi parody) and the three codas are more philosophical (and also-- surprisingly-- a little touching) and if you're a sci-fi fan looking for something fun and funny then this is the book for you (and if you don't know what the title means-- I didn't-- then check out this video . . . but it's a spoiler).
Hero to Zero and Back Again (Sort of)
Get ready for Dave's Self-Esteem Rollercoaster Ride in three acts:
1) last Thursday afternoon, and a cold Thursday afternoon it was, my wife called from her school to report that her car was dead-- totally dead, the vehicle remote wouldn't even lock the doors-- and she wanted me to come jump start the engine, but I told her that it sounded like the battery was kaput and advised her to call AAA-- they replace batteries-- and I said I would come over and wait in the cold for AAA to arrive and she could drive my car back to our warm and cozy home, because I'm a great guy and she had a bit of a cough and some laryngitis and she called me a "hero" and thanked me for waiting . . . and it was very cold and AAA was supposed to arrive within the hour, but that turned to 90 minutes and I was closing in on the two-hour mark, shivering heroically in the car, reading and listening to podcasts, when the AAA truck finally arrived;
2) a stout African-American woman got out of the truck, and I told her the situation-- that the car had just had some bodywork done on it, and perhaps the mechanic left the lights on or something, and I believed the battery was totally dead-- and while I was telling her this, she was looking under the hood, and she jostled one of the battery wires and it sparked and she said, "Looks like this wire is loose" and she grabbed a socket wrench, tightened the screw, everything in the car came to life, and she asked me to put on my brights-- they worked fine-- and I suddenly felt totally dumb and emasculated, if I had checked the battery connections, I would have fixed the car in ten seconds and avoided this whole scenario, and if I had actually tried to jump it, I would have noticed this . . . but the AAA lady was gone before I could even apologize-- I'm sure she sees stupidity like this all the time, and my self-esteem really took a hard hit;
3) until this morning: we had a lock-down drill first period, which is when I'm in the cafeteria, monitoring the late-in seniors-- and the janitor told us all to go into the staff lunchroom, so my students and a study hall from the other side of the cafeteria, and a number of teachers who were on duty in the vicinity all poured into the staff lunchroom and we were standing there awkwardly in the dark, shushing the students, and I asked the lady next to me if the door was locked and she said, "I think so" and I said, "I'd better check" and the door was unlocked so I spun the little locking mechanism and locked the door and moments later the door handle shook-- the security team was checking to make sure all the doors were locked . . . because that's the most important part of a lockdown, that you lock the door . . . and the lady who told me she thought the door was locked reacted as if I actually saved the entire room from a brutally violent massacre, she said,"That was awesome, you locked it right before they tried to get in! It was so close! You should play the lottery today!" and so I had to remind her that it was only a drill, and that I didn't actually save everyone from bloody death (and so I probably didn't deserve to win much in the lottery . . . maybe five dollars) and while I'm the first to admit that this was not a genuine act of heroism, it was certainly an ersatz act of heroism . . . and I also passed a second lockdown drill test, but one I'm not sure I agree with-- after they rattled the door to check the lock, then the security crew knocked-- very crafty-- and we've been told that once the door is locked, we should take a utilitarian stance and not open the door for anyone-- the lives of the many are worth more than the lives of the few, especially if they aren't punctual for the locking of the door . . . and so I didn't fall for this malevolent ruse, I did not open the door, but I think if it was a real lockdown, and a person in danger (or a school-shooter posing as a person in danger) knocked on the door and pleaded for me to open it, I'd probably open the door and take my chances, as it would be hard to leave someone in the lurch just outside the door . . . but that's a dilemma for another day, the important thing here is that I acted (hypothetically) heroically and depressed that little locking mechanism in the nick of time.
1) last Thursday afternoon, and a cold Thursday afternoon it was, my wife called from her school to report that her car was dead-- totally dead, the vehicle remote wouldn't even lock the doors-- and she wanted me to come jump start the engine, but I told her that it sounded like the battery was kaput and advised her to call AAA-- they replace batteries-- and I said I would come over and wait in the cold for AAA to arrive and she could drive my car back to our warm and cozy home, because I'm a great guy and she had a bit of a cough and some laryngitis and she called me a "hero" and thanked me for waiting . . . and it was very cold and AAA was supposed to arrive within the hour, but that turned to 90 minutes and I was closing in on the two-hour mark, shivering heroically in the car, reading and listening to podcasts, when the AAA truck finally arrived;
2) a stout African-American woman got out of the truck, and I told her the situation-- that the car had just had some bodywork done on it, and perhaps the mechanic left the lights on or something, and I believed the battery was totally dead-- and while I was telling her this, she was looking under the hood, and she jostled one of the battery wires and it sparked and she said, "Looks like this wire is loose" and she grabbed a socket wrench, tightened the screw, everything in the car came to life, and she asked me to put on my brights-- they worked fine-- and I suddenly felt totally dumb and emasculated, if I had checked the battery connections, I would have fixed the car in ten seconds and avoided this whole scenario, and if I had actually tried to jump it, I would have noticed this . . . but the AAA lady was gone before I could even apologize-- I'm sure she sees stupidity like this all the time, and my self-esteem really took a hard hit;
3) until this morning: we had a lock-down drill first period, which is when I'm in the cafeteria, monitoring the late-in seniors-- and the janitor told us all to go into the staff lunchroom, so my students and a study hall from the other side of the cafeteria, and a number of teachers who were on duty in the vicinity all poured into the staff lunchroom and we were standing there awkwardly in the dark, shushing the students, and I asked the lady next to me if the door was locked and she said, "I think so" and I said, "I'd better check" and the door was unlocked so I spun the little locking mechanism and locked the door and moments later the door handle shook-- the security team was checking to make sure all the doors were locked . . . because that's the most important part of a lockdown, that you lock the door . . . and the lady who told me she thought the door was locked reacted as if I actually saved the entire room from a brutally violent massacre, she said,"That was awesome, you locked it right before they tried to get in! It was so close! You should play the lottery today!" and so I had to remind her that it was only a drill, and that I didn't actually save everyone from bloody death (and so I probably didn't deserve to win much in the lottery . . . maybe five dollars) and while I'm the first to admit that this was not a genuine act of heroism, it was certainly an ersatz act of heroism . . . and I also passed a second lockdown drill test, but one I'm not sure I agree with-- after they rattled the door to check the lock, then the security crew knocked-- very crafty-- and we've been told that once the door is locked, we should take a utilitarian stance and not open the door for anyone-- the lives of the many are worth more than the lives of the few, especially if they aren't punctual for the locking of the door . . . and so I didn't fall for this malevolent ruse, I did not open the door, but I think if it was a real lockdown, and a person in danger (or a school-shooter posing as a person in danger) knocked on the door and pleaded for me to open it, I'd probably open the door and take my chances, as it would be hard to leave someone in the lurch just outside the door . . . but that's a dilemma for another day, the important thing here is that I acted (hypothetically) heroically and depressed that little locking mechanism in the nick of time.
Five Years Of Sentence of Dave!
I have been writing this blog for so long, that I can't really remember much that happened before its inception (I refer to these events as pre-Sentence of Dave) and along the way I have evolved my style from its simple and clutter free roots to my current prolix bombasticity . . . my syntax has gone from grammatically correct to convoluted elliptical absurdity, and my diction -- which was once precise -- now often includes superfluous lexical garbage, such as repeated usage of the word ersatz and repeated misusage of the word miracle . . . and all this time, my dedicated fans have stuck with me, and so I would like to offer my sincerest thanks . . . I hope I can wring five more years of material out of the theme "Dave" . . . more fragmented logic and half-baked ideas, more awkward moments, more useless opinionated capsule reviews . . . I'd like to thank all the guys at Gheorghe:The Blog for inspiring this "spin-off" and especially Zman for his diligent and persistent commenting over here; and I'd like to thank my wife, children, and colleagues, both for providing material and for pointing out when I have done something really stupid, which is always the best content of all.
The Whole Truth And Nothing But . . .
A few days ago there was some skepticism about the veracity of one of my sentences, which one of my readers claimed was an ersatz version of"The Pina Colada Song," and while I will swear on my left testicle (it's genitalia week) that the story is the whole truth and nothing but the truth, according to cognitive scientist Dan Ariely in his new book The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty, my readers are certainly in the right to question my accuracy -- as numerous experiments have shown that the more creative a person is, the more likely they are to stretch the truth, and even to outright cheat, but no correlation has been found between intelligence and cheating -- and I'm the first to admit that I am more creative than I am intelligent; I see this hypothesis in effect with my two children: Ian, the more creative guy (who Zman called "a young Crash Davis") is an inveterate and incorrigible cheater at all things, while Alex -- who scored perfect on the math section of the NJ ASK and is plowing through Lord of the Rings-- is a rule follower (or at least attempts to be a rule follower) and he is driven insane by Ian's loose moral compass . . . you can't let Ian near the bank in Monopoly, he's never hit a shot in tennis that was "out," and I have told him repeatedly that if he cheated at cards in the Old West, they would have shot him).
You Can't Just Ask People Why They're White
I am a fan of Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcasts, and in an episode about the Spanish-American War he calls Teddy Roosevelt "a heavily imperialistic, racist version of Peter Pan . . . always leading a troop of kids on an adventure" and that Roosevelt "would make Archie Bunker look like a liberal" BUT Carlin points out that you've got to "grade racism on a curve" because racism was such a pervasive part of society . . . and so I think people should go easy on Megyn Kelly -- while she does claim that a fictional character based upon a saint who was either Greek or Turkish was actually white -- she doesn't want to perpetuate any violence against ersatz non-white fictional versions of the icon, and while she is rather vehement about Jesus being white, when he most certainly swarthy and Middle-Eastern in complexion, and was probably even darker brown than Arabs are now (since there was no sunblock back then and he walked around outside a lot) but in the grand scheme of racism, desiring long dead religious figures and icons of greed and consumerism to look exactly as you look isn't such a big sin . . . so with the curve I'll give Megyn Kelly a C-, more for being stupid than actually being racist.
Battle Royale > The Hunger Games (Book) > The Hunger Games (Film)
If you feel the need to see a bunch of teenagers slaughtering each other in an organized contest, then watch renowned Japanese director Kinji Fukasaka's stylized and beautifully ludicrous Battle Royale rather than The Hunger Games-- an ersatz version if I've ever seen one; while Battle Royale whips through plot-arcs and violence effortlessly, elegantly and humorously characterizing the teenagers before they are killed in beautifully graphic scenes of blood and mayhem, The Hunger Games stays very close to its main subjects-- Katniss and Peeta-- much of the camera-work is done in the faux-documentary Blair Witch-style . . . but the film ignores what the book did well: the deft characterization of the other tributes-- most notably the fox-faced girl; it ignores the survival aspects of both living in District 12 and living in The Hunger Games arena . . . the hunting, gathering, camping, and sleeping in trees, and it glosses over the tactics and strategy the game-- including the best sub-plot of all: whether Peeta really loves Katniss and vice-versa, or if the romance is only a strategy to gain sponsorship . . . also annoying: the kids always look fresh-faced, made-up and coiffed, even deep into the games . . . after Katniss sleeps on a pile of leaves for two days, comatose because she was stung by poisonous wasps, she awakes scrubbed and clean, looking like she just got a facial, and her caretaker, Rue, looks the same-- no mud and grit and dirt-- even when Rue dies, she is cute and unblemished . . . and I should also warn you that the acting and the dialogue are both extremely cheesy . . . but I shouldn't complain, the movie is for teenagers, not adults, and I watched it just so I could have something in common culturally with my students (who are going to stick me with a pair of scissors when I give them my review, but even if the movie is for teens, it shouldn't defy physics . . . how can you outrun those "muttation" dogs in a straight race, and there is no attempt to explain them-- unlike the book, in which they are genetically created from each dead competitor and resemble their human counterpart . . . in the movie, a lady generates one on a 3-D computer screen and then the creation instantly springs from the earth, fully formed and alive, and I would think if this miraculous technology existed then the Capitol Panem would have no use for fish and coal and whatever else they get from the 12 districts, as they would be gods that could create anything from nothing and I'm very disappointed that Roger Ebert gave this poor excuse of a movie three stars-- although most critics were in his camp-- but there are a few voices of reason on Rotten Tomatoes that noticed the many shortcomings of the film, especially David Denby, and I'm glad for that, because if my wife and Denby hadn't agreed that the movie sucked, then I might have doubted my sanity).
Let Them Eat Squid
I am in the middle of reading a rather depressing book called The Ocean of Life: The Fate of Man and the Sea, and so far, the theme is that the oceans are depleted-- humans have always pulled an incredible bounty from the sea and that has declined precipitously of late . . . and because we always reset the baseline, we can't even imagine how many fish were in the sea before our own time, unless we take an empirically scientific approach, as Loren McClenachan did with the shifting baseline of fish in the Florida Keys . . . this is not a fun study to read (nor is it amusing to look at the photos . . . but that's the story) and things are only getting worse . . . because of over-fishing of sardines and other filter feeders, and the resultant unchecked algal blooms and sulfuric up-swellings, and the warming of the top layer of the ocean-- a product of global warming-- which causes greater sequestration of oceanic layers and less mixing of the oxygen-deprived middle layer of water and the much warmer nutrient-rich upper layers, the ocean is a much less hospitable for large delicious finned fish and they are becoming more and more rare . . . but while big fish (and aquatic mammals) are on the decline, one of the few big animals that can survive in this ugly environment is the seven-foot, rather-intelligent, rather-vicious Humboldt squid, and this fearsome creature is edible, and so we may not be able to enjoy tuna and mahi-mahi and Chilean sea bass and cod, but we may still have some ersatz seafood on our table, nonetheless: slabs of chewy calamari . . . unless, of course, we make some serious regulatory changes in how much carbon we pump into the atmosphere and how much we harvest from the oceans-- but certainly America, in voting for Donald Trump, has expressed a disinterest in any of this (or perhaps even a malevolent skepticism that any of this science actually exists and holds water) and so when the price of fish skyrockets and there is nothing left to haul in except ten-tentacled suction beasts, we must assume that the powers that be will simply say: "Let them eat squid."
Dear People Who Still Read Books
Dear Readers,
I'd like to give my highest recommendation for Julie Schumacher's novel Dear Committee Members (and while I know that's not saying much, as I realize that I spit out "must see" and "must read" endorsements like a demented Pez dispenser . . . has anyone watched Detectorists yet?) and I'm not espousing this novel simply because it's written from the point-of-view of an irate Creative Writing and English professor who might have a heart of gold (or maybe silver or brass . . . but a good heart nonetheless) who resides in a building that is decrepit in a department that is undermanned and underfunded (while the sciences and economics departments are showered with praise, money, and facilities) nor am I enamored-- as a Creative Writing teacher might be-- by Schumacher's use of the epistolary form: the novel is written entirely through Professor Jay Fitger's rambling, candid, sincere and sometimes confessional letters of recommendation-- and he is called on to write many many letters, for a variety of students, colleagues, graduates, etc. and he uses them to try to have some control over a future which dismays him more and more . . . anyway, the main reason I am recommending this book is it is very very funny . . . I've been doing a lot of heavy reading and listening lately, and this book was a breath of fresh air, a gem and a prize-- it took me two days to read . . . if you remember Richard Russo's Straight Man fondly, you will love this novel even more, and Schumacher has just published a sequel, which has good reviews, so I'm sure I'll read that as well-- anyway, I'll end this LOR with some random lines from Fitger's letters so you can peruse the tone and decide if you want to take a break from partisan politics, Supreme Court hearings, immigration snafus, and heinous weather events . . .
Bombastically Yours,
Dave
The reading and writing of fiction both requires and instills empathy—the insertion of oneself into the life of another.
Be reassured: the literature student has learned to inquire, to question, to interpret, to critique, to compare, to research, to argue, to sift, to analyze, to shape, to express. His intellect can be put to broad use. The computer major, by contrast, is a technician—a plumber clutching a single, albeit shining, box of tools.
Literature has served me faithfully (no pun intended) as an ersatz religion, and I would wager that the pursuit of the ineffable via aesthetics in various forms has saved
(Ms. Frame faithfully taking minutes) during which a senior colleague, out of his mind over the issue of punctuation in the department’s mission statement, threatened to “take a dump” (there was a pun on the word “colon” which I won’t belabor here)
My own writing interests me less than it used to; and while I know that to teach and to mentor is truly a calling, on a day-to-day basis I often find myself overwhelmed by the needs of my students—who seem to trust in an influence I no longer have, and in a knowledge of which, increasingly, I am uncertain—and by the university’s mindless adherence to bureaucratic demands.
you should choose from the smaller and more disadvantaged units—Indigenous Studies or Hindi/Urdu, or some similarly besieged program, one of whose members, like a teenage virgin leaping into the bubbling mouth of a volcano, will sacrifice him- or herself in exchange for a chance that the larger community be allowed to survive.
I'd like to give my highest recommendation for Julie Schumacher's novel Dear Committee Members (and while I know that's not saying much, as I realize that I spit out "must see" and "must read" endorsements like a demented Pez dispenser . . . has anyone watched Detectorists yet?) and I'm not espousing this novel simply because it's written from the point-of-view of an irate Creative Writing and English professor who might have a heart of gold (or maybe silver or brass . . . but a good heart nonetheless) who resides in a building that is decrepit in a department that is undermanned and underfunded (while the sciences and economics departments are showered with praise, money, and facilities) nor am I enamored-- as a Creative Writing teacher might be-- by Schumacher's use of the epistolary form: the novel is written entirely through Professor Jay Fitger's rambling, candid, sincere and sometimes confessional letters of recommendation-- and he is called on to write many many letters, for a variety of students, colleagues, graduates, etc. and he uses them to try to have some control over a future which dismays him more and more . . . anyway, the main reason I am recommending this book is it is very very funny . . . I've been doing a lot of heavy reading and listening lately, and this book was a breath of fresh air, a gem and a prize-- it took me two days to read . . . if you remember Richard Russo's Straight Man fondly, you will love this novel even more, and Schumacher has just published a sequel, which has good reviews, so I'm sure I'll read that as well-- anyway, I'll end this LOR with some random lines from Fitger's letters so you can peruse the tone and decide if you want to take a break from partisan politics, Supreme Court hearings, immigration snafus, and heinous weather events . . .
Bombastically Yours,
Dave
The reading and writing of fiction both requires and instills empathy—the insertion of oneself into the life of another.
Be reassured: the literature student has learned to inquire, to question, to interpret, to critique, to compare, to research, to argue, to sift, to analyze, to shape, to express. His intellect can be put to broad use. The computer major, by contrast, is a technician—a plumber clutching a single, albeit shining, box of tools.
Literature has served me faithfully (no pun intended) as an ersatz religion, and I would wager that the pursuit of the ineffable via aesthetics in various forms has saved
(Ms. Frame faithfully taking minutes) during which a senior colleague, out of his mind over the issue of punctuation in the department’s mission statement, threatened to “take a dump” (there was a pun on the word “colon” which I won’t belabor here)
My own writing interests me less than it used to; and while I know that to teach and to mentor is truly a calling, on a day-to-day basis I often find myself overwhelmed by the needs of my students—who seem to trust in an influence I no longer have, and in a knowledge of which, increasingly, I am uncertain—and by the university’s mindless adherence to bureaucratic demands.
you should choose from the smaller and more disadvantaged units—Indigenous Studies or Hindi/Urdu, or some similarly besieged program, one of whose members, like a teenage virgin leaping into the bubbling mouth of a volcano, will sacrifice him- or herself in exchange for a chance that the larger community be allowed to survive.
These Are A Few Of William Gibson's Favorite Things
Science fiction writer William Gibson once said, "The future is already here-- it's just unevenly distributed," and the characters in his new novel zero history definitely live in the positive agglomeration of the futuristic present . . . rhenium darts, penguin shaped floating surveillance drones, and ekranoplans are all de rigueur in this universe; in fact, things, especially fashionable things linked to the military, play a more important role than people in the book, which makes the novel hard to follow . . . the people are bystanders to the fashion, technology, intrigue, and marketing that surrounds them . . . and, appropriately, people in the book are constantly "Googling" things because they are beyond their ken, and they are worried that their knowledge of these secret, obscure, often technological things might be ersatz, and meanwhile, in my less futuristic present, I was Googling things in the book as well, to see if they were real or not: I'm glad I finished the book, I've read everything William Gibson has written and I don't want to stop now, but this is the weakest effort in the "present-future" trilogy (the other two are Pattern Recognition and Spook Country).
The Coming Years Are Going To Be Trouble
Dave's Take on East Coast Comicon
If you've never been to Comicon, I can save you the trouble: imagine the Route 1 Flea Market (the one in Kevin Smith's movie Mallrats) inside a warehouse--but remove the delicious barrel pickles and the arcade-- and now add a bunch of ersatz superheroes and a few stormtroopers; while I found this to be a bit over-stimulating, my children and their two friends loved it, and they all swear they are going to next year's event in costumes . . . and I guess if you're a kid, what's not to love: there's comic books, plastic junk, toys, weapons, posters, merch, and lots of adults dressed as Deadpool; for those of you hoping to make a pilgrimage, the Route 1 Flea Market is long gone, it was razed twenty years ago and replaced by a movie multiplex, and this multiplex often features movies about superheroes . . . but in the movies, the superheroes never seem to hang around en masse in flea markets.
Sometimes You Need a Moon Safari
For once Google Play Music recommended exactly what I desired-- though I had no clue that I desired this thing-- an album by the French electronica band Air called Moon Safari; I especially love the first track: "la femme d'argent" . . . and while there doesn't seem to be any straightforward way to translate this song title from French (it seems to mean "silver woman" or "woman of silver" or a "gold digger" or perhaps something less insidious) but since I don't know French, I'm going to pretend the song is eponymous with the album, because this song took me on a moon safari: I was walking the dog in the park and the next thing I knew, I was on the moon, wearing a pith helmet, which is just what I needed, because I couldn't listen to any more election podcast shit . . . and usually Google Play Music just recommends some ersatz band in place of the last thing you listened to, e.g. you like Lemon Jelly . . . so why don't you listen to Mr. Scruff (this is an actual example, and I did NOT take Google Play Music up on the offer to listen to Mr. Scruff) and perhaps the algorithm is slowly learning my taste more and more, and there will be excellent recommendation in my future (unless my wife and kids get on it and sabotage all my carefully cultivated selections).
Unresolutions for 2011
I am proud to say that I successfully complied with my 2010 Resolution-- not once did I create an ersatz Yogi Berra quotation in 2010 . . . so I have kicked that habit; for 2011, I am going to pay homage to the great Geoff Dyer (who wrote the ultimate un-book, Out of Sheer Rage, which is ostensibly a biography of D.H. Lawrence, but actually a treatise on procrastination and motivation; he never actually writes the biography-- although it is found in the BIO section of the library) and instead of resolving to do things this year, I am resolving to not do things, and Geoff Dyer put this better than me in this passage-- you should read the whole thing-- but if you're lazy, he essentially boils it down to this aphorism: Not being interested in the theatre provides me with more happiness than all the things I am interested in put together . . . and so here is my list of things that I resolve to remain "not interested in" for the year of 2011:
1) The theater (expensive, time-consuming, and it's for old people);
2) Golf (ditto);
3) The NHL;
4) Reality TV (even Jersey Shore);
5) The phrases "It is what it is," and "You know what I mean";
6) Tron nostalgia;
7) Going to PTO meetings (thanks Catherine!);
8) Baking;
9) Organizing the crawl space (thanks Catherine!);
10) Oprah's Book Club.
1) The theater (expensive, time-consuming, and it's for old people);
2) Golf (ditto);
3) The NHL;
4) Reality TV (even Jersey Shore);
5) The phrases "It is what it is," and "You know what I mean";
6) Tron nostalgia;
7) Going to PTO meetings (thanks Catherine!);
8) Baking;
9) Organizing the crawl space (thanks Catherine!);
10) Oprah's Book Club.
Who's Writing This? Does It Matter?
A few days ago, my wife helped me install a little thesaurus app that works inside Google Chrome-- so that I can simply right-click on a word and it will give me several (various?) synonyms for any word that I type . . . and I am wondering if this makes my writing more Dave-like . . . because I won't settle for an ersatz (artificial?) word and instead I'll find the exact (precise?) word that my consciousness is searching (grasping?) for-- in other words, the thesaurus will be a cognitive tool that will allow me finer-grained, more nuanced access to my thoughts, treating my readers to the most Dave-like experience possible; on the other hand, there is the possibility that right-clicking on all these words is going to make my writing half-Dave/half-Cyborg . . . if the little app plants suggestions in my brain that wouldn't have come up otherwise, then you'll actually be reading a collaboration between Dave and a computer . . . either way, there's one thing that's certain: it's still going to be a bunch of tangential drivel.
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