Here's a question: Has there been one day since September 11, 2001 that the New York Times hasn't mentioned the terrorist attacks? I have no way of verifying this, but I would assume that there hasn't been. Of course, sometimes this is by no fault of their own because, as we are well aware, the Bush Administration's view of history starts and stops with that very day, and they rarely if ever pass up a chance to mention the events of that historic day. Couple this along with the continuing battle over what is going to transpire on Ground Zero, the site where the towers once stood, and you can imagine that it's highly unlikely that you'll find even one instance where there isn't at least one mention of that date.
In what will come across as both an unpopular and unsympathetic stance, I feel that I have reached a saturation point with regards to the events of September 11. I won't go so far as to say that I don't care about the repercussions that are supposedly being felt to this very day, but I greet most of the news with casual indifference and, at times, outright hostility with regards to specific mentionings of its supposed complexity and the continued inability of creative peoples to do it justice. Mostly, I think, the Times is to blame for this continued exploitation, at least for what I'm exposed to on a daily basis. The writers and editors of the paper seem to feel, rightfully so, that there is a sort of collective trauma that still lingers, to some extent, in the city of New York, and the country as a whole, that reverberates continuously, but, like other events, I wonder how much of this is an actual reportage of events and what is simply perceived as being an issue for the Times. It also speaks volumes when you look on a grander scale at how miniscule an event it is when placed alongside tragedies of comparable size in other countries and how those countries have progressed or, if not progressed, at least reached a sort of understanding of the events themselves, which doesn't include invoking it on a daily basis.
The issue of media manipulation is an issue that's been flogged for years now, and I don't intend to inflict an accusation of liberal bias on the Times, but when it appears that September 11 has been stamped, coded, and copyrighted by individuals who utilize it whenever it is necessary to provide a convenient reminder of how much the country has been through, it seems to me that it loses its cache somewhat.
The issue that irks me the most with regards to this continued eulogizing is that the writers for the Times have nearly gone so far as to say that there's no artist currently producing work that can accurately portray the events of September 11 in a manner that do them justice. Writers, artists, filmmakers are all incapable, at least according to the Times, of giving the emotional weight that the day deserves in any form whether it's a novel, painting, or film. I find this not only an insult to the artists themselves but another instance of flagrant exploitation of a day that, true was a horrific day and the first true attack from a foreign invader on our soil, but not so incomprehensible as to push it beyond the ability to be expressed by talented people. To read it from the Times, one is lead to believe that artists have been pondering for years on end on how to appropriately utilize, pay tribute, or properly contextualize the mood that pervaded the country in those hours and days. One is lead to believe that writer's block isn't an adequate enough response and the root cause for the lack of creative output. It never occurs to them that, perhaps just perhaps, no one really wants to utilize this content. Perhaps no one wants to paint themselves into a corner that can't possibly be greeted with anything but wide skepticism and harsh critique. Perhaps there are more interesting subjects out there to plumb the depths of. After the few works that have addressed the issue have been greeted lukewarmly at best, doesn't it occur to them that there really isn't any incentive to invoke the numbers 9/11 if there is absolutely nothing that can be done that will satisfy those that are clamoring for a muted yet overly respectful interpretation? If that isn't the epitome of presenting unjust expectations, I don't know what is.
Recent books have gone lengths to provide specific critiques of how the Times has failed over the years to accurately cover such events as the Holocaust, the development of the atom bomb, lack of healthy skepticism over the Iraq War, and other foreign affairs. To me, this overload of continuous invocation of September 11 and the unceasing declarations of impenetrableness is nothing more than an act of compensation for their lack of coverage of other events. September 11 was not the Holocaust, not on any scale period, and their lack of coverage for whatever reasons, be it political or racial, cannot be made up for by a continuously obsessive invocation of September 11.
My Own Personal 6 a.m. A vast wasteland where word bombs explode with ferocity and provoke rage, sadness, and glee.
Monday, May 23, 2005
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
To add to the list of oddities you'll find here on the streets of Pittsburgh, I walked by, what appeared to be, a wall safe sitting on the sidewalk. Its door opened and resting as if any other piece of detritus. This leads me to wonder two things. One, why is it there in the first place? Two, what was inside?
Monday, April 25, 2005
Hedonism run amuck is about all I can say. A spate of movies, Closer and We Don't Live Here Anymore, and the book I'm currently reading and fighting with all my might not to toss across the room in disgust, Richard Ford's The Sportswriter, paint a pretty bleak picture of the current state of relationships between the sexes. In sum, it appears as if no one is capable of being faithful and infidelity is as acceptable as any other relationship quirk. This is by no means a new thing, and it won't be the last, but it's hard for me to believe that this is how people behave. Married men, especially those who look like Jude Law, have little trouble attracting willing women with whom to commiserate their affairs. Does this type of thing occur as frequently as is suggested by these works? I can't say from either experience or secondhand knowledge. The back and forth between affairs and the continuously boorish behavior on the part of the male aggressors is such a stale and depleted idea that I'm stunned that anyone thinks it's original any longer. Some works on this subject definitely, for lack of a better term, work, like Tom Perrotta's Little Children. I'm not sure what other works are trying to accomplish. Do they want you to hate the characters? Are you supposed to sympathize with anyone? I rarely do, and I don't think I'm wrong in not doing so.
My real problem with Ford's writing is that the main character, Frank Boscombe, is portrayed throughout the majority of the book as a sophisticated man, a writer who not so much failed at his art but rather quit. He's not overly academic, although he was a teacher who couldn't teach, and he seems more like a man who would shun such groups. And he seems to have a poignant wisdom that other characters, who are inevitably much more fallible than him, aspire towards being. In other words, he doesn't seem like a phony, but, in reality, someone you could have a conversation with that wasn't devoid of all intellectual content. But Ford can't sustain this type of character for the entire novel. I've found that what usually occurs is that most novels that tend to strike a nerve in me do so about halfway through, and the complaints are usually minor but nonetheless irritating. Turns of phrase that seem way out of character appear for seemingly no reason. Dialogue that's praised by one review as showing Ford's "extraordinary ear" seems stilted and absurd in points. And finally, a character who showed so much promise early in the novel turns out to be less than noble. His ability to effortlessly bed women while married strikes, what I assume is, both a jealous nerve and an enraged moral superiority complex.
I've never understood how writers of tremendous talent let phrases that are juvenile in nature intrude upon what is already established as being a particular way of thinking for a character. To put it another way, it seems incredibly out of character for words like "boink" and phrases like "drunk as a monkey" to be associated with a character who, like I said above, is already established as being much more sophisticated. Good writers, at least those who I really admire, don't allow this type of error to occur in their works. If a certain tone of writing is established then it stays that way until the end. As for this keen ear for dialogue that Ford is supposed to have, I myself rarely if ever feel the need to end every sentence of a conversation with the name of the person with whom I am speaking. Here's some examples from a single conversation between two characters:
"What are you thinking right now, Frank?"
"It didn't seem idiotic, Walter."
"I'm not putting babies in freezers, am I, Frank?"
"Do you think I've done harm, Frank?"
"I think it doesn't matter, Walter, to tell you the truth."
This conversation goes on for pages and pages. "Walter," "Frank," "Walter," "Frank." What the hell? Who talks like this? Also, who talks in a put on accent? Apparently plenty of people do so for entire conversations and this guy runs into all of them.
Finally, to the women. When they aren't baring their breasts to Frank and begging for an affair, as one character does, they're parading around the bedroom naked. For a character whose marriage crumbled from an affair that didn't happen, which was a refreshing change from the norm, these repeated escapades and flashbacks to previous ones more than make me hate this guy. When does it end? Again, is this real life? And why are these books all the same? John Irving's The World According to Garp may have been the first book to really piss me off in this vein. The men in these books are the aggressors who have some sort of sway over all women and dominate them both intellectually and physically. Apparently, nothing has changed over the years. I'm either incredibly out of the loop, overly sensitive, or jealous beyond belief at the physical prowess portrayed in these works. It's probably a little bit of all of them.
My real problem with Ford's writing is that the main character, Frank Boscombe, is portrayed throughout the majority of the book as a sophisticated man, a writer who not so much failed at his art but rather quit. He's not overly academic, although he was a teacher who couldn't teach, and he seems more like a man who would shun such groups. And he seems to have a poignant wisdom that other characters, who are inevitably much more fallible than him, aspire towards being. In other words, he doesn't seem like a phony, but, in reality, someone you could have a conversation with that wasn't devoid of all intellectual content. But Ford can't sustain this type of character for the entire novel. I've found that what usually occurs is that most novels that tend to strike a nerve in me do so about halfway through, and the complaints are usually minor but nonetheless irritating. Turns of phrase that seem way out of character appear for seemingly no reason. Dialogue that's praised by one review as showing Ford's "extraordinary ear" seems stilted and absurd in points. And finally, a character who showed so much promise early in the novel turns out to be less than noble. His ability to effortlessly bed women while married strikes, what I assume is, both a jealous nerve and an enraged moral superiority complex.
I've never understood how writers of tremendous talent let phrases that are juvenile in nature intrude upon what is already established as being a particular way of thinking for a character. To put it another way, it seems incredibly out of character for words like "boink" and phrases like "drunk as a monkey" to be associated with a character who, like I said above, is already established as being much more sophisticated. Good writers, at least those who I really admire, don't allow this type of error to occur in their works. If a certain tone of writing is established then it stays that way until the end. As for this keen ear for dialogue that Ford is supposed to have, I myself rarely if ever feel the need to end every sentence of a conversation with the name of the person with whom I am speaking. Here's some examples from a single conversation between two characters:
"What are you thinking right now, Frank?"
"It didn't seem idiotic, Walter."
"I'm not putting babies in freezers, am I, Frank?"
"Do you think I've done harm, Frank?"
"I think it doesn't matter, Walter, to tell you the truth."
This conversation goes on for pages and pages. "Walter," "Frank," "Walter," "Frank." What the hell? Who talks like this? Also, who talks in a put on accent? Apparently plenty of people do so for entire conversations and this guy runs into all of them.
Finally, to the women. When they aren't baring their breasts to Frank and begging for an affair, as one character does, they're parading around the bedroom naked. For a character whose marriage crumbled from an affair that didn't happen, which was a refreshing change from the norm, these repeated escapades and flashbacks to previous ones more than make me hate this guy. When does it end? Again, is this real life? And why are these books all the same? John Irving's The World According to Garp may have been the first book to really piss me off in this vein. The men in these books are the aggressors who have some sort of sway over all women and dominate them both intellectually and physically. Apparently, nothing has changed over the years. I'm either incredibly out of the loop, overly sensitive, or jealous beyond belief at the physical prowess portrayed in these works. It's probably a little bit of all of them.
Saturday, April 16, 2005
Can you hear me?
Everyone else does it, so why can't I? Talking on a cell phone in public, that is.
Trying as hard as I might to hold a conversation with Benedict as I boarded a bus, I was greeted not with what I expected, poor reception, but a total inability on my part to focus on the phone conversation I was trying to maintain while at the same time tuning out the peripheral noise from my fellow passengers. It was not meant to be, I guess. The noise level seemed to grow higher and higher as I tried to lean towards the window and away from the sound in an effort to at least hear Benedict and, likewise, have him hear me.
What effectively ended the call was the woman in front of me with her three, yes three, kids, two of which were in a state of almost certain misery while the third, the oldest of the trio, was independent enough to sit across the aisle and cause his own brand of mischief. Their cries drowned out any sound from my phone. Watching the oldest poke the middle one with a pencil in the arm and then proceed to act as if nothing happened, only further enraged me, and I stifled the notion to tell the mother that she should leave her animals at home in cages when she's going out in public.
I told Benedict I'd have to talk to him later, and hung up. Wouldn't you know it, though, as soon as I hung up the bus entered a realm of utter calmness and the sound level tapered off to a minimum level.
Everyone else does it, so why can't I? Talking on a cell phone in public, that is.
Trying as hard as I might to hold a conversation with Benedict as I boarded a bus, I was greeted not with what I expected, poor reception, but a total inability on my part to focus on the phone conversation I was trying to maintain while at the same time tuning out the peripheral noise from my fellow passengers. It was not meant to be, I guess. The noise level seemed to grow higher and higher as I tried to lean towards the window and away from the sound in an effort to at least hear Benedict and, likewise, have him hear me.
What effectively ended the call was the woman in front of me with her three, yes three, kids, two of which were in a state of almost certain misery while the third, the oldest of the trio, was independent enough to sit across the aisle and cause his own brand of mischief. Their cries drowned out any sound from my phone. Watching the oldest poke the middle one with a pencil in the arm and then proceed to act as if nothing happened, only further enraged me, and I stifled the notion to tell the mother that she should leave her animals at home in cages when she's going out in public.
I told Benedict I'd have to talk to him later, and hung up. Wouldn't you know it, though, as soon as I hung up the bus entered a realm of utter calmness and the sound level tapered off to a minimum level.
Saturday, April 02, 2005
What's Mine is Yours and Yours...
Having been a fan and follower of Metallica since high school and also being interested in seeing the dynamics that surround the artistic process, I've been curious to see the highly praised documentary Some Kind of Monster that chronicles the making of their most recent album and, more interestingly, their need for a group therapist. The film itself became secondary to the subject brought up during its course, the war waged by Metallica, in particular drummer Lars Ulrich, against Napster and all those who downloaded their songs. The friend I was watching the film with made it adamantly clear that he thought that the entire process of downloading songs from the internet is a loathsome activity that serves as nothing more than a way to commit robbery against the artists whose work is being distributed around the world for free. I, on the other hand, proceeded to respond with the blanket statement that I just don't care. Upon further reflection, I realize how bad this sounds, and I don't know that I successfully defended my lackadaisical response. I do know that I haven't wavered on that notion.
Honestly, I just can get myself worked up over the fact that artists are "losing" revenues on works that are being distributed by "illegal" means, especially when these artists are big name acts signed to large record labels that have the gall and the audacity to not only charge upwards of twenty dollars for new albums but also claim that they are losing profits due to the downloading craze. The crux of my friend's argument wasn't focused on the big name acts, but on those bands that are struggling to be heard and signed to a record label. Granted, I can see how this can be a problem, but, as I've mentioned before with other forms of artistic expression, I believe that there's always a reason why individuals or groups have a hard time selling their artistic ventures to large conglomerates. The reason being that it's not very good. I don't consider most of the works being published in the book world to be very good, especially the best seller list which is littered with unreadable abominations of the language and insultingly bad gimmicks that pawn themselves off as being postmodern and clever. In my rationale, if the stuff that's getting published is bad, with a few exceptions, then what are the chances that the stuff that isn't getting published is any better? We'll never know, and I know that's the point, but I just don't think we're, or more importantly I, am missing out on much.
As for the lost revenues, the last I knew there was still a highly successful market for the purchase of new products. CD sales haven't been that drastically affected. The reason sales are down, I would argue, is due to the fact that there just aren't that many good artists releasing good music any more. Moby, for example, appears to be the latest artist to have produced one tremendous album followed by a string of losers. His latest release seems to be, if one can glean anything from reviews, a rehash of his previous material and a desperate attempt to remain a significant figure on the pop scene. To address the downloading of materials by unsigned artists, I can't for the life of me imagine that there's much reason to fear that this is driving unsigned acts to switch occupations. Two people downloading tracks in Idaho from a local artist based in Pittsburgh shouldn't make or break any band. What this would have to do with them not being signed at all I haven't the slightest idea.
Friday's Wall Street Journal featured an editorial entitled "Can Justice Scalia Solve the Riddles of the Internet" by Daniel Henninger. Writing on the case before the Supreme Court of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer v. Grokster, Henninger proposes three conundrums that are at the heart of this debate. The first is whether or not the internet has sapped the creative will of artists who apparently are just in it for the money and derive no other form of satisfaction out of their artistic ventures. This is such an absurd notion that it's beyond comment. The second proposes that the internet has effectively eliminated the idea that works are produced for profit and created a complacent populace that sees nothing wrong with the idea that everything should be available for free. This has some merit. It's akin to the notion that everything must be on the internet. Libraries face this everyday, and it's not a phenomenon that's going to be easy to break. Young people raised on the internet see it as the be all to end all resource for everything they need. Books have become secondary if not ignored altogether. That's a problem. The third posits the notion that individuals who commit this crime of downloading see nothing wrong in their actions even when they knowingly will not commit any other types of crimes willingly. This leads into Henninger's main premise that unless we acquire a "moral or at least philosophical commitment to the legitimacy of profit...there's no hope." Henninger paints a picture of starving artists living on Red Bull and Steve Jobs swimming in the millions yielded by his iPods. The idea is about as tear jerking as a mud puddle.
Finally, the idea that artists create art because it's their job came up during the debate. I don't see it that way. If you choose to live your life as a struggling artist, that's your decision. I have neither sympathy nor condemnation for those who do so, but I also feel little towards the notion of the "starving artist" wallowing in obscurity because someone has robbed him or her of their outlet or just hasn't discovered them yet. I love art and I'll support artists that I enjoy, but I won't be forced into some sort of sympathetic symbiotic relationship that condemns either the establishment for not rooting out these special cases or the public for feeding off of their wares without proper compensation. There are more pressing matters in life, and I just don't care enough about this fight to bother.
Having been a fan and follower of Metallica since high school and also being interested in seeing the dynamics that surround the artistic process, I've been curious to see the highly praised documentary Some Kind of Monster that chronicles the making of their most recent album and, more interestingly, their need for a group therapist. The film itself became secondary to the subject brought up during its course, the war waged by Metallica, in particular drummer Lars Ulrich, against Napster and all those who downloaded their songs. The friend I was watching the film with made it adamantly clear that he thought that the entire process of downloading songs from the internet is a loathsome activity that serves as nothing more than a way to commit robbery against the artists whose work is being distributed around the world for free. I, on the other hand, proceeded to respond with the blanket statement that I just don't care. Upon further reflection, I realize how bad this sounds, and I don't know that I successfully defended my lackadaisical response. I do know that I haven't wavered on that notion.
Honestly, I just can get myself worked up over the fact that artists are "losing" revenues on works that are being distributed by "illegal" means, especially when these artists are big name acts signed to large record labels that have the gall and the audacity to not only charge upwards of twenty dollars for new albums but also claim that they are losing profits due to the downloading craze. The crux of my friend's argument wasn't focused on the big name acts, but on those bands that are struggling to be heard and signed to a record label. Granted, I can see how this can be a problem, but, as I've mentioned before with other forms of artistic expression, I believe that there's always a reason why individuals or groups have a hard time selling their artistic ventures to large conglomerates. The reason being that it's not very good. I don't consider most of the works being published in the book world to be very good, especially the best seller list which is littered with unreadable abominations of the language and insultingly bad gimmicks that pawn themselves off as being postmodern and clever. In my rationale, if the stuff that's getting published is bad, with a few exceptions, then what are the chances that the stuff that isn't getting published is any better? We'll never know, and I know that's the point, but I just don't think we're, or more importantly I, am missing out on much.
As for the lost revenues, the last I knew there was still a highly successful market for the purchase of new products. CD sales haven't been that drastically affected. The reason sales are down, I would argue, is due to the fact that there just aren't that many good artists releasing good music any more. Moby, for example, appears to be the latest artist to have produced one tremendous album followed by a string of losers. His latest release seems to be, if one can glean anything from reviews, a rehash of his previous material and a desperate attempt to remain a significant figure on the pop scene. To address the downloading of materials by unsigned artists, I can't for the life of me imagine that there's much reason to fear that this is driving unsigned acts to switch occupations. Two people downloading tracks in Idaho from a local artist based in Pittsburgh shouldn't make or break any band. What this would have to do with them not being signed at all I haven't the slightest idea.
Friday's Wall Street Journal featured an editorial entitled "Can Justice Scalia Solve the Riddles of the Internet" by Daniel Henninger. Writing on the case before the Supreme Court of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer v. Grokster, Henninger proposes three conundrums that are at the heart of this debate. The first is whether or not the internet has sapped the creative will of artists who apparently are just in it for the money and derive no other form of satisfaction out of their artistic ventures. This is such an absurd notion that it's beyond comment. The second proposes that the internet has effectively eliminated the idea that works are produced for profit and created a complacent populace that sees nothing wrong with the idea that everything should be available for free. This has some merit. It's akin to the notion that everything must be on the internet. Libraries face this everyday, and it's not a phenomenon that's going to be easy to break. Young people raised on the internet see it as the be all to end all resource for everything they need. Books have become secondary if not ignored altogether. That's a problem. The third posits the notion that individuals who commit this crime of downloading see nothing wrong in their actions even when they knowingly will not commit any other types of crimes willingly. This leads into Henninger's main premise that unless we acquire a "moral or at least philosophical commitment to the legitimacy of profit...there's no hope." Henninger paints a picture of starving artists living on Red Bull and Steve Jobs swimming in the millions yielded by his iPods. The idea is about as tear jerking as a mud puddle.
Finally, the idea that artists create art because it's their job came up during the debate. I don't see it that way. If you choose to live your life as a struggling artist, that's your decision. I have neither sympathy nor condemnation for those who do so, but I also feel little towards the notion of the "starving artist" wallowing in obscurity because someone has robbed him or her of their outlet or just hasn't discovered them yet. I love art and I'll support artists that I enjoy, but I won't be forced into some sort of sympathetic symbiotic relationship that condemns either the establishment for not rooting out these special cases or the public for feeding off of their wares without proper compensation. There are more pressing matters in life, and I just don't care enough about this fight to bother.
Saturday, March 26, 2005
Coffee Logic
I don't pretend to know much of anything regarding business. I don't have a degree in marketing and nor am I affiliated in any sense of the word with the business community. However, along with many other armchair quarterbacks, every once in awhile something peaks my curiosity enough to question the logistics and the thought processes of particular businesses.
I've written previously about coffeeshops for various reasons, and I'm not sure what causes them to continuously provide fodder for thought. Apparently, they serve as some sort of nexus or ground zero for the testing of marketing ideas that stretch across a wide strata of areas and differing approaches to lure in that ideal customer. I think I've pretty much seen it all when it comes to the diversifying tactics coffeeshop owners employ, and that's saying a lot considering that this medium size big city, Pittsburgh, has a certain finite amount of growth available for burgeoning businesses. Coffeeshops here are abundant. Almost circuslike in their approach, the varying array of enticements offered by coffeeshops seems endless in imagination and tact. I'm not sure how well they are received, and I'd be curious to know how many ventures are abandoned wholeheartedly after a brief trial run without success. There's only so much you can do to attract people, and there's only so much people will be willing to endure in order to obtain a simple cup of coffee. Case in point, one of my favorite shops, the Beehive, went through a radical transformation and expansion scheme that seems to only have as its end purpose the engulfing of the entire city block in which it is located. I was on a forced leave from the shop, but I've since returned to its confines with positive results.
Recently, the Southside Works has begun opening new businesses in an effort to revitalize a once empty, unprofitable chunk of land. The effort, which can only be described as the opening salvo in what promises to be a large scale battle between rival shopping complexes, has yielded one curiosity, two coffeeshops within a block of one another. Sure, on the outset that doesn't seem strange when in this town rival shops are on opposite corners, but what makes this an oddity is that the location itself is on, what I would term, the outskirts of the Southside. There isn't much roadway left before you exit a developed area and enter the forested in-between wasteland that separates the Southside from Homestead. In other words, the location is something that can only sustain itself by continuously feeding its competing retailers to each other. So the two coffeeshops are forced to compete for, what I would assume to be, a limited amount of pedestrian traffic and the business derived from the office inhabitants surrounding the complex, which I don't believe to be that numerous.
Quite possibly, the most puzzling aspect of this is that one shop, Crazy Mocha, which beat its rival, Caribou Coffee, opened first, starts the day at six in the morning! Running past this empty establishment, I couldn't help but wonder who they thought they would be serving at this early of an hour when no other shops close by are open. Residential housing isn't nearby, and the always burdensome aspect of parking seems to rule out anyone stopping in on their way to work. Like I said, I don't claim to understand business, but when this very same chain closes a shop in the heart of the University of Pittsburgh's campus, one has to wonder who is making the decisions here and for what reason. I drink a lot of coffee, but I wouldn't want to have to sell it if my life depended on it based on the backwards logic implied by the strategies employed by the shillers of the bean.
I don't pretend to know much of anything regarding business. I don't have a degree in marketing and nor am I affiliated in any sense of the word with the business community. However, along with many other armchair quarterbacks, every once in awhile something peaks my curiosity enough to question the logistics and the thought processes of particular businesses.
I've written previously about coffeeshops for various reasons, and I'm not sure what causes them to continuously provide fodder for thought. Apparently, they serve as some sort of nexus or ground zero for the testing of marketing ideas that stretch across a wide strata of areas and differing approaches to lure in that ideal customer. I think I've pretty much seen it all when it comes to the diversifying tactics coffeeshop owners employ, and that's saying a lot considering that this medium size big city, Pittsburgh, has a certain finite amount of growth available for burgeoning businesses. Coffeeshops here are abundant. Almost circuslike in their approach, the varying array of enticements offered by coffeeshops seems endless in imagination and tact. I'm not sure how well they are received, and I'd be curious to know how many ventures are abandoned wholeheartedly after a brief trial run without success. There's only so much you can do to attract people, and there's only so much people will be willing to endure in order to obtain a simple cup of coffee. Case in point, one of my favorite shops, the Beehive, went through a radical transformation and expansion scheme that seems to only have as its end purpose the engulfing of the entire city block in which it is located. I was on a forced leave from the shop, but I've since returned to its confines with positive results.
Recently, the Southside Works has begun opening new businesses in an effort to revitalize a once empty, unprofitable chunk of land. The effort, which can only be described as the opening salvo in what promises to be a large scale battle between rival shopping complexes, has yielded one curiosity, two coffeeshops within a block of one another. Sure, on the outset that doesn't seem strange when in this town rival shops are on opposite corners, but what makes this an oddity is that the location itself is on, what I would term, the outskirts of the Southside. There isn't much roadway left before you exit a developed area and enter the forested in-between wasteland that separates the Southside from Homestead. In other words, the location is something that can only sustain itself by continuously feeding its competing retailers to each other. So the two coffeeshops are forced to compete for, what I would assume to be, a limited amount of pedestrian traffic and the business derived from the office inhabitants surrounding the complex, which I don't believe to be that numerous.
Quite possibly, the most puzzling aspect of this is that one shop, Crazy Mocha, which beat its rival, Caribou Coffee, opened first, starts the day at six in the morning! Running past this empty establishment, I couldn't help but wonder who they thought they would be serving at this early of an hour when no other shops close by are open. Residential housing isn't nearby, and the always burdensome aspect of parking seems to rule out anyone stopping in on their way to work. Like I said, I don't claim to understand business, but when this very same chain closes a shop in the heart of the University of Pittsburgh's campus, one has to wonder who is making the decisions here and for what reason. I drink a lot of coffee, but I wouldn't want to have to sell it if my life depended on it based on the backwards logic implied by the strategies employed by the shillers of the bean.
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
"Won't get fooled again"
I'll admit it. I fell for it, and it's one of those insidious pranks that rankles my pride everytime I think about it. Standing on a street corner waiting for the light to change in my favor as a pedestrian, I noticed a quarter on the pavement. Bending over to pick it up, I was shocked to find that it wouldn't move, not an inch. Someone with a really twisted and demented sense of humor had gone to the trouble of gluing the quarter to the sidewalk. Afterwards, my only thought was that my actions, along with countless others I'm sure, had provided this very person with a day's worth of guffawing as he or she peered out of a window from a nearby vantage point.
Having suffered this cruelty once, I've since greeted most such chance occurrences with a healthy sense of skepticism. So, as I was preparing to start my run and nearing my starting point, I happened to notice in a bus shelter a large stack of VHS tapes, perhaps twenty or so stacked in unequal distribution on the pavement and the edge of the shelter's bench. I told myself to keep walking, but I slowed up long enough to catch that written in crude lettering on the spine of one tape was "XXX," a rather awkward way to label a tape which I assumed had it actually contained the type of content the marking is associated with it would be hidden away with all the other materials. Regardless, I just kept moving. Again, the fear crept up inside of me that anyone who took even a moment longer in their curiosity, would be doing nothing more than providing someone with innumerable kicks.
Yesterday, I passed the very same bus shelter. To no surprise of my own, the tapes were all gone, whether they were picked up by city workers or unsuspecting citizens, I'll never know.
I'll admit it. I fell for it, and it's one of those insidious pranks that rankles my pride everytime I think about it. Standing on a street corner waiting for the light to change in my favor as a pedestrian, I noticed a quarter on the pavement. Bending over to pick it up, I was shocked to find that it wouldn't move, not an inch. Someone with a really twisted and demented sense of humor had gone to the trouble of gluing the quarter to the sidewalk. Afterwards, my only thought was that my actions, along with countless others I'm sure, had provided this very person with a day's worth of guffawing as he or she peered out of a window from a nearby vantage point.
Having suffered this cruelty once, I've since greeted most such chance occurrences with a healthy sense of skepticism. So, as I was preparing to start my run and nearing my starting point, I happened to notice in a bus shelter a large stack of VHS tapes, perhaps twenty or so stacked in unequal distribution on the pavement and the edge of the shelter's bench. I told myself to keep walking, but I slowed up long enough to catch that written in crude lettering on the spine of one tape was "XXX," a rather awkward way to label a tape which I assumed had it actually contained the type of content the marking is associated with it would be hidden away with all the other materials. Regardless, I just kept moving. Again, the fear crept up inside of me that anyone who took even a moment longer in their curiosity, would be doing nothing more than providing someone with innumerable kicks.
Yesterday, I passed the very same bus shelter. To no surprise of my own, the tapes were all gone, whether they were picked up by city workers or unsuspecting citizens, I'll never know.
Monday, March 07, 2005
"When the going gets weird..."
I resisted the urge to post immediately on the day that the news broke that Hunter S. Thompson committed suicide for a number of reasons, number one being that it seemed like a poor decision that wouldn't allow the necessary act of reflection. He's someone whose work I enjoy, some of it tremendously so, but I'm of the opinion that the majority of his work has little or no relevance to certain people my age, especially his reporting on politics. Most of the lamentations on Thompson have made a point of saying that his best work was behind him, and there's definitely a case to be made for such an accusation. However, it seems to me that he's been in a funk for quite some time, possibly starting as early as the aftermath of Watergate and Nixon's downfall.
I find that a lot of his work, especially those collections of political writings from the eighties, is nearly unreadable for someone my age that at the time was so far removed from the political process as to make it irrelevant. Most of the characters he's commenting on are faceless to me, even with a profound interest in politics. Nixon was his target, and there seemed to be something, for lack of a better word, magical in the way in which all the events of the sixties and seventies (Nixon, Vietnam, Civil Rights) all coalesced at one time to create a country on the verge of something both sinister and strange. Thompson's best work reflected this uncertainty perfectly, and he was the perfect spokesperson for the counterculture. He seemed like the real deal, not a poseur like Tom Wolfe. With Nixon gone, it seemed as if he lacked a real target for his rage. Even during the eighties with Reagan in power, there seemed to be a real lack of moral corruptness for Thompson to vent on. Bush Sr. just doesn’t seem to warrant much comment at all, positive or negative, and Clinton, obviously, wasn't a target in the least. With the election of our current administration headed by another Bush and fraught with moral corruptness, abuses of power, and tighter than ever restrictions on free speech and civil rights, this seemed like the perfect time for Thompson to return to form firing shotgun blasts at enemies big and small. All the same adjectives that Thompson coined in labeling Nixon a monster could easily apply to Bush and Co.
I don’t actually think that Thompson suffered from a lack of ideas or viable targets. I do believe that his writing was affected, as so many others obviously were, by the events of September 11. Even though he thrived during the period where many, many more lives were lost in another unnecessary war, the events of that day seem much more personal, and the response by our leaders seemed to be greeted both as warranted and overreaching. The type of writing that Thompson uses to skewer his targets may not have been the best way to criticize the government. I’m not advocating the notion that he shouldn’t have written in his trademark style about Bush; in fact, I wished that he would have written more. What I do think is that, and this should come as no surprise, we live in a different time than the seventies. The types of events and the disgust generated at them and the government are definitely similar in vein and intensity, but they’re different somehow. Somehow this isn’t the same as the seventies. Vietnam isn’t equivalent to September 11, and Nixon isn’t equivalent to Bush. In the end, I don’t think Thompson lacked anything relevant to write about or lost his nerve in aiming squarely at the forces that enraged him the most. His death will remain a mystery and the no amount of speculation or criticism will change that fact. Let it be said, that his voice, regardless of intensity and affect, will be missed by many.
I resisted the urge to post immediately on the day that the news broke that Hunter S. Thompson committed suicide for a number of reasons, number one being that it seemed like a poor decision that wouldn't allow the necessary act of reflection. He's someone whose work I enjoy, some of it tremendously so, but I'm of the opinion that the majority of his work has little or no relevance to certain people my age, especially his reporting on politics. Most of the lamentations on Thompson have made a point of saying that his best work was behind him, and there's definitely a case to be made for such an accusation. However, it seems to me that he's been in a funk for quite some time, possibly starting as early as the aftermath of Watergate and Nixon's downfall.
I find that a lot of his work, especially those collections of political writings from the eighties, is nearly unreadable for someone my age that at the time was so far removed from the political process as to make it irrelevant. Most of the characters he's commenting on are faceless to me, even with a profound interest in politics. Nixon was his target, and there seemed to be something, for lack of a better word, magical in the way in which all the events of the sixties and seventies (Nixon, Vietnam, Civil Rights) all coalesced at one time to create a country on the verge of something both sinister and strange. Thompson's best work reflected this uncertainty perfectly, and he was the perfect spokesperson for the counterculture. He seemed like the real deal, not a poseur like Tom Wolfe. With Nixon gone, it seemed as if he lacked a real target for his rage. Even during the eighties with Reagan in power, there seemed to be a real lack of moral corruptness for Thompson to vent on. Bush Sr. just doesn’t seem to warrant much comment at all, positive or negative, and Clinton, obviously, wasn't a target in the least. With the election of our current administration headed by another Bush and fraught with moral corruptness, abuses of power, and tighter than ever restrictions on free speech and civil rights, this seemed like the perfect time for Thompson to return to form firing shotgun blasts at enemies big and small. All the same adjectives that Thompson coined in labeling Nixon a monster could easily apply to Bush and Co.
I don’t actually think that Thompson suffered from a lack of ideas or viable targets. I do believe that his writing was affected, as so many others obviously were, by the events of September 11. Even though he thrived during the period where many, many more lives were lost in another unnecessary war, the events of that day seem much more personal, and the response by our leaders seemed to be greeted both as warranted and overreaching. The type of writing that Thompson uses to skewer his targets may not have been the best way to criticize the government. I’m not advocating the notion that he shouldn’t have written in his trademark style about Bush; in fact, I wished that he would have written more. What I do think is that, and this should come as no surprise, we live in a different time than the seventies. The types of events and the disgust generated at them and the government are definitely similar in vein and intensity, but they’re different somehow. Somehow this isn’t the same as the seventies. Vietnam isn’t equivalent to September 11, and Nixon isn’t equivalent to Bush. In the end, I don’t think Thompson lacked anything relevant to write about or lost his nerve in aiming squarely at the forces that enraged him the most. His death will remain a mystery and the no amount of speculation or criticism will change that fact. Let it be said, that his voice, regardless of intensity and affect, will be missed by many.
Friday, March 04, 2005
News Break
I'm slowly but surely ending my self-imposed embargo on all things related to NPR. I realized several weeks ago that I'd hit the proverbial wall with regards to the news. Between digesting each day's New York Times, whose reading times can vary between thirty minutes to more than an hour, the stream of NPR programs I can hear at work, and all the various other sources of news, I knew it was time for a break. I always seem to regret doing this because I know I'm going to be skimming over important stories that, should they become truly relevant, will leave me with only a cursory understanding. It just so happens that I was in one of those phases where reading books had become the most important thing to me, and I couldn't justify using that time to pour over news stories that increasingly seem to be cut and paste jobs adding reports on new developments to rehashings of older news. As always, I slowly come out of this funk with a renewed interest and start devouring the paper with a renewed sense of urgency and interest.
My problems with NPR stem from a long standing view of mine that they are stridently biased towards devoting vast amounts of time to stories that fit their own agenda, and thus making it increasingly hard for me to listen willingly without feeling manipulated. As with my other funk, I felt that it was time to give NPR another chance. As luck would have it, my decision to turn the dial back to WDUQ just happened to coincide with yet another round of what I call begging, or in their parlance a pledge drive. These pledge drives are what sucks the very life out of listening to the radio. And it's so obvious when they have one going on. The stories seem rushed, the announcers are talking faster, and then out of nowhere here it comes, a pledge solicitation. The most annoying aspect are the lame testimonials and quasi-demands to donate. These are most often associated with Ira Glass, whose pretentious air seems to ooze from his pours through the microphone and out through your speaker. None of these tactics ever make me feel as if I need to pledge.
Finally someone has broken the silence I have suffered in for far too long. A Rant in the current issue of the City Paper hits on so many points and provides such a dead-on critique of the state of DUQ that I wish I could just reproduce the entire column here. To summarize, it seems that Dan Goldberg, a longtime member of DUQ, has grown frustrated by the lack of improvements that result from these increasingly frequent pledge drives. They have apparently picked up some more national content from NPR, but I couldn't tell you what that is, and the local content still sounds the same, as if it were produced in a senior high-school. The most poignant remark Goldberg makes, though, is reserved for DUQ's musical selection that resumes once they've completed their allotment of NPR programming, which he refers to as "all elevator jazz, almost all the time."
Goldberg also makes another observation, which is both the most telling and troubling for stations like DUQ. Anyone with a decent internet connection now has access to many, many stations from around the country whose programming puts DUQ's to shame. Every time I have the chance to listen to the news on my computer at work, I find that I never even think for a moment of connecting to DUQ. Instead, I turn to NJN, a New Jersey station with a steady stream of NPR programming without terrible jazz and professionally produced local content. DUQ, which seems to want to care about the community, can't do so without a more concerted effort to create programming that's worth listening to and making improvements that are noticeable in both content and quality.
I'm slowly but surely ending my self-imposed embargo on all things related to NPR. I realized several weeks ago that I'd hit the proverbial wall with regards to the news. Between digesting each day's New York Times, whose reading times can vary between thirty minutes to more than an hour, the stream of NPR programs I can hear at work, and all the various other sources of news, I knew it was time for a break. I always seem to regret doing this because I know I'm going to be skimming over important stories that, should they become truly relevant, will leave me with only a cursory understanding. It just so happens that I was in one of those phases where reading books had become the most important thing to me, and I couldn't justify using that time to pour over news stories that increasingly seem to be cut and paste jobs adding reports on new developments to rehashings of older news. As always, I slowly come out of this funk with a renewed interest and start devouring the paper with a renewed sense of urgency and interest.
My problems with NPR stem from a long standing view of mine that they are stridently biased towards devoting vast amounts of time to stories that fit their own agenda, and thus making it increasingly hard for me to listen willingly without feeling manipulated. As with my other funk, I felt that it was time to give NPR another chance. As luck would have it, my decision to turn the dial back to WDUQ just happened to coincide with yet another round of what I call begging, or in their parlance a pledge drive. These pledge drives are what sucks the very life out of listening to the radio. And it's so obvious when they have one going on. The stories seem rushed, the announcers are talking faster, and then out of nowhere here it comes, a pledge solicitation. The most annoying aspect are the lame testimonials and quasi-demands to donate. These are most often associated with Ira Glass, whose pretentious air seems to ooze from his pours through the microphone and out through your speaker. None of these tactics ever make me feel as if I need to pledge.
Finally someone has broken the silence I have suffered in for far too long. A Rant in the current issue of the City Paper hits on so many points and provides such a dead-on critique of the state of DUQ that I wish I could just reproduce the entire column here. To summarize, it seems that Dan Goldberg, a longtime member of DUQ, has grown frustrated by the lack of improvements that result from these increasingly frequent pledge drives. They have apparently picked up some more national content from NPR, but I couldn't tell you what that is, and the local content still sounds the same, as if it were produced in a senior high-school. The most poignant remark Goldberg makes, though, is reserved for DUQ's musical selection that resumes once they've completed their allotment of NPR programming, which he refers to as "all elevator jazz, almost all the time."
Goldberg also makes another observation, which is both the most telling and troubling for stations like DUQ. Anyone with a decent internet connection now has access to many, many stations from around the country whose programming puts DUQ's to shame. Every time I have the chance to listen to the news on my computer at work, I find that I never even think for a moment of connecting to DUQ. Instead, I turn to NJN, a New Jersey station with a steady stream of NPR programming without terrible jazz and professionally produced local content. DUQ, which seems to want to care about the community, can't do so without a more concerted effort to create programming that's worth listening to and making improvements that are noticeable in both content and quality.
Monday, February 14, 2005
The Continuing War on Bloggers
Today's New York Times features an article prominently placed on the front page of the business section detailing the recent fallout over the resignation of a "top news executive at CNN" due to the diligence of a few bloggers who "broke" a story that wasn't going to be covered by the "mainstream" media. This comes hot on the heels of the "forced" resignation of Dan Rather due to the scandal over President Bush's service records from his time serving in the Air National Guard, again as a result of the efforts of a determined bunch of bloggers to get the story right. For good reason, this is providing warranted attention for such grass-roots initiatives that are having a very real-world affect on matters big and small. As I've written before, there seems to be a sense of overwhelming frustration and, for lack of a better term, outright fear of the power that bloggers have amassed over that past few years. If it's not labeling bloggers as delusional for their far-sightedness and bloated senses of their own self worth, then it's a smear campaign that strives to label the actions of a diligent few comparable to that of a lunatic fringe drowned in political partisanship, or as in the case of this article an "angry mob" or a "lynch mob."
I've never been a huge proponent of blogs, and I still cling to my assertion that most serve little purpose other than to allow the writers to post the most mundane observations and egotistical ramblings that seek to elevate their own self-worth. In this case, though, it seems that these bloggers are legitimately serving a purpose, that being to get stories reported either correctly or covered in the first place. The reason the "mainstream" media seems to feel the need to degrade bloggers as part of a fringe group or quacks with an ideological agenda is that they would, without any sense of pressure, drag out their own investigations and continue their noncoverage of "newsworthy" events because there would be no outside pressure to do so. Any group with newfound power is eager to exploit that fact, and bloggers are no different. This comes from a sense that perhaps the flickering flame of notoriety will be snuffed out before too long, so it better to "burn out than to fade away." Even so, it seems like an unjust response by the "mainstream" media to downgrade the efforts of bloggers who are basking in their newfound status as regulators on the plain. Off the cuff remarks, such as labeling bloggers as part of a "lynch mob" serve no purpose other than to accurately reflect how tenuous a grasp on matters "real" journalists have and betray their own lack of self-confidence in their ability to compete with the masses.
Today's New York Times features an article prominently placed on the front page of the business section detailing the recent fallout over the resignation of a "top news executive at CNN" due to the diligence of a few bloggers who "broke" a story that wasn't going to be covered by the "mainstream" media. This comes hot on the heels of the "forced" resignation of Dan Rather due to the scandal over President Bush's service records from his time serving in the Air National Guard, again as a result of the efforts of a determined bunch of bloggers to get the story right. For good reason, this is providing warranted attention for such grass-roots initiatives that are having a very real-world affect on matters big and small. As I've written before, there seems to be a sense of overwhelming frustration and, for lack of a better term, outright fear of the power that bloggers have amassed over that past few years. If it's not labeling bloggers as delusional for their far-sightedness and bloated senses of their own self worth, then it's a smear campaign that strives to label the actions of a diligent few comparable to that of a lunatic fringe drowned in political partisanship, or as in the case of this article an "angry mob" or a "lynch mob."
I've never been a huge proponent of blogs, and I still cling to my assertion that most serve little purpose other than to allow the writers to post the most mundane observations and egotistical ramblings that seek to elevate their own self-worth. In this case, though, it seems that these bloggers are legitimately serving a purpose, that being to get stories reported either correctly or covered in the first place. The reason the "mainstream" media seems to feel the need to degrade bloggers as part of a fringe group or quacks with an ideological agenda is that they would, without any sense of pressure, drag out their own investigations and continue their noncoverage of "newsworthy" events because there would be no outside pressure to do so. Any group with newfound power is eager to exploit that fact, and bloggers are no different. This comes from a sense that perhaps the flickering flame of notoriety will be snuffed out before too long, so it better to "burn out than to fade away." Even so, it seems like an unjust response by the "mainstream" media to downgrade the efforts of bloggers who are basking in their newfound status as regulators on the plain. Off the cuff remarks, such as labeling bloggers as part of a "lynch mob" serve no purpose other than to accurately reflect how tenuous a grasp on matters "real" journalists have and betray their own lack of self-confidence in their ability to compete with the masses.
Saturday, February 12, 2005
"The 1990s were great because suddenly lonely people had a place where they could all be lonely together while pretending to be fine on the outside. Well, that's what I do in coffee shops. My head may be cyclonic with desperation on the inside, but I've worked damn hard to ensure that I don't look the way I feel. I try to look as if I have a meaningful slot in society." pg. 68
"It has been said by someone far wiser than myself, that nobody is boring who is willing to tell the truth about himself. To narrow this down further, someone equally wise said that the things that make us ashamed are also the things that make us interesting." pg. 141
The above quotes appear in Douglas Coupland's latest uneven novel Eleanor Rigby. I've written about this previously, but the trend seems to be continuing, at least as far as Coupland's writing is concerned, of writers who can't seem to sustain a narrative that doesn't veer off into the outlandish and unbelievable. The book, which is a rather slim 249 pages, serves up an interesting premise at the start and an intriguing narrator, who voices the above observations. The main character, Liz Dunn, is set up as being someone whose life is filled to the brim with an overbearing sense of loneliness and isolation, and it's this quality that I truly related to and made the above quotes, especially the first one, seem very poignant. What happens, though, is that in this very short novel, Coupland hammers this point home beyond necessity. Very few pages go by without some mention of feeling neglected in some form or another. This does little to create a sense of sympathy towards the character. In fact, it works in the reverse affect; this bemoaning of the fact is nothing more than an antithesis to any narcissistic impulse that fuels the egos of the self-absorbed. So, in the end, one could care less about her being a lonely woman whose job is the only ritual in her life that seems to break up the monotonous aspects of consigned isolation.
To add further to the absurdity, the character, surprisingly or perhaps not so much so, has a lot of money. Being a lonely woman who has no need to spend money on herself or others affords her the opportunity to amass a small fortune. Why this grates on my nerves is that Coupland sets up a very believable character but has to add some aspect to her character that takes her out of the realm of believability into the arena of the stock novel character. It's troublesome to go through a novel and bond with a character so much because you can say, "Hey, I've felt exactly like that," only to have it thrown into the wind by some outlandish plot twists that distance you from the character more and more. I frequent coffeeshops, and I assume that this is an accurate portrayal of not only myself but of others who are there as well. Reading this, I was intrigued by the idea of a character who isn't good looking, is overweight, and a loner, but the fact that she's amassed a large fortune and has an absurdly romantic climax put the finishing touches to her life story all but effectively eliminates any sense of camaraderie. I wish writers would just dispense with the feel-good flourishes and just write about life as it is and how it truly flows.
"It has been said by someone far wiser than myself, that nobody is boring who is willing to tell the truth about himself. To narrow this down further, someone equally wise said that the things that make us ashamed are also the things that make us interesting." pg. 141
The above quotes appear in Douglas Coupland's latest uneven novel Eleanor Rigby. I've written about this previously, but the trend seems to be continuing, at least as far as Coupland's writing is concerned, of writers who can't seem to sustain a narrative that doesn't veer off into the outlandish and unbelievable. The book, which is a rather slim 249 pages, serves up an interesting premise at the start and an intriguing narrator, who voices the above observations. The main character, Liz Dunn, is set up as being someone whose life is filled to the brim with an overbearing sense of loneliness and isolation, and it's this quality that I truly related to and made the above quotes, especially the first one, seem very poignant. What happens, though, is that in this very short novel, Coupland hammers this point home beyond necessity. Very few pages go by without some mention of feeling neglected in some form or another. This does little to create a sense of sympathy towards the character. In fact, it works in the reverse affect; this bemoaning of the fact is nothing more than an antithesis to any narcissistic impulse that fuels the egos of the self-absorbed. So, in the end, one could care less about her being a lonely woman whose job is the only ritual in her life that seems to break up the monotonous aspects of consigned isolation.
To add further to the absurdity, the character, surprisingly or perhaps not so much so, has a lot of money. Being a lonely woman who has no need to spend money on herself or others affords her the opportunity to amass a small fortune. Why this grates on my nerves is that Coupland sets up a very believable character but has to add some aspect to her character that takes her out of the realm of believability into the arena of the stock novel character. It's troublesome to go through a novel and bond with a character so much because you can say, "Hey, I've felt exactly like that," only to have it thrown into the wind by some outlandish plot twists that distance you from the character more and more. I frequent coffeeshops, and I assume that this is an accurate portrayal of not only myself but of others who are there as well. Reading this, I was intrigued by the idea of a character who isn't good looking, is overweight, and a loner, but the fact that she's amassed a large fortune and has an absurdly romantic climax put the finishing touches to her life story all but effectively eliminates any sense of camaraderie. I wish writers would just dispense with the feel-good flourishes and just write about life as it is and how it truly flows.
Monday, January 31, 2005
More Blog Coverage and a New Cause
In my last post, I discussed the possibility that the mainstream media may have some sort of preternatural fear of blogs and blog writers. Since then, the coverage of blogs has expanded from the infrequent vanity piece to, what I would swear is, almost daily features addressing the phenomenon. Last time, I mentioned an article in The New York Times, and they've continued to churn out coverage of blogs with regards to various subjects. Now, Slate, which in and of itself is sort of a blog, has the following article reporting on a conference addressing the importance and impact of blogs.
The article serves little purpose other than to portray those who are advocates of the blog format as delusional, self-centered optimists who are misguided enough to believe their own grandiose propaganda about the format of blogs replacing old school media. Essentially, it advocates a less restrained outlook for the future of blogs, and strives to caution proponents that projecting too high a vision can lead to nothing more than a dismal downfall. In other words, the format can certainly provide a fresh direction for the media to go in, but they should be a tad more restrained in their cocky self elevating prophecies. The format will only go as far as those who are its biggest defenders are willing to keep their expectations modest and not too far flung.
......
Now for something really troubling.
Benedict always told me about different causes that required his attention. Naturally, being a pessimistic jerk, I figured he was spreading himself too thin and adopting absurd calls to action as his own personal crusade. However, now I'm taking a page out of his book.
In what amounts to a forced relocation or an outright shuttering of the proverbial shop doors, the city may be forcing out the street vendors who supply the University of Pittsburgh's students and staff with cheap, tasty, multi-ethnic food. The reason for this has to do with a plan to turn a parking lot into a grassy knoll. This parking lot being the very place where the vendors, literally, set up shop. Where does this leave the vendors? Without a place to put up their sign and open up for business, I'm afraid.
What's a man to do when the chicken teriyaki that he so loves is being threatened? Well, petitions are already out, but there has to be more. More support is needed. A grander effort has to be in the works I am hereby soliciting ideas on how to save the vendors from being pushed out of the parking lot. What can one man do in the face of overwhelming odds? Help me out here, people.
In my last post, I discussed the possibility that the mainstream media may have some sort of preternatural fear of blogs and blog writers. Since then, the coverage of blogs has expanded from the infrequent vanity piece to, what I would swear is, almost daily features addressing the phenomenon. Last time, I mentioned an article in The New York Times, and they've continued to churn out coverage of blogs with regards to various subjects. Now, Slate, which in and of itself is sort of a blog, has the following article reporting on a conference addressing the importance and impact of blogs.
The article serves little purpose other than to portray those who are advocates of the blog format as delusional, self-centered optimists who are misguided enough to believe their own grandiose propaganda about the format of blogs replacing old school media. Essentially, it advocates a less restrained outlook for the future of blogs, and strives to caution proponents that projecting too high a vision can lead to nothing more than a dismal downfall. In other words, the format can certainly provide a fresh direction for the media to go in, but they should be a tad more restrained in their cocky self elevating prophecies. The format will only go as far as those who are its biggest defenders are willing to keep their expectations modest and not too far flung.
......
Now for something really troubling.
Benedict always told me about different causes that required his attention. Naturally, being a pessimistic jerk, I figured he was spreading himself too thin and adopting absurd calls to action as his own personal crusade. However, now I'm taking a page out of his book.
In what amounts to a forced relocation or an outright shuttering of the proverbial shop doors, the city may be forcing out the street vendors who supply the University of Pittsburgh's students and staff with cheap, tasty, multi-ethnic food. The reason for this has to do with a plan to turn a parking lot into a grassy knoll. This parking lot being the very place where the vendors, literally, set up shop. Where does this leave the vendors? Without a place to put up their sign and open up for business, I'm afraid.
What's a man to do when the chicken teriyaki that he so loves is being threatened? Well, petitions are already out, but there has to be more. More support is needed. A grander effort has to be in the works I am hereby soliciting ideas on how to save the vendors from being pushed out of the parking lot. What can one man do in the face of overwhelming odds? Help me out here, people.
Monday, January 03, 2005
Blog Assassination
For all the attention blogs received in the past year and their inherent threat to the news conglomerates, is it any wonder that the mainstream media still isn't sure how to produce an evenhanded report examining any one aspect of them? Recently, blogs have again entered the national consciousness, as they did during the presidential campaign, with their dramatic reporting on the scene, call for donations for relief efforts, and hypothesizing on the causes of the devastating tsunami that is still dominating the headlines. However, as with most fanatical outlets, certain blogs have descended into what one could term the outer realms of conspiracy with partisan based attacks on the exact origins of the tsunami itself. The New York Times has an article in today's edition that "reports" on just this phenomenon.
To give the Times some credit they at least make an effort to balance out the critique with examples of how the process works for the best. The democratic, civilized manner, though, in which bloggers work in order to get the story right is a tad sentimental in its depiction, and one can sense that there's more than a little wild-eyed conspiracy mongering going on that doesn't get its full share of community-based editing. In other words, bloggers are depicted, at least in this article, as a tight-knit group that tries valiantly to make sure that they are taken seriously and that some few lone gunman don't ruin it for everybody. It's an odd form of socialist movement that's rarely seen anywhere else.
The mainstream media clearly still would like the bloggers to stay on the fringes. Fear of losing job security and missing the chance to break the big story because someone without press credentials breaks the story first seems to be the driving source of this subjectivity. What also troubles the media is that they have to hold up the democratic notion that everyone with the means to access the technology should be able to create a forum and add their voice to the masses already established, but this is at odds with their obvious fear that other people, again without press credentials, are sometimes doing the job better than they are. How can you reconcile that?
For all the attention blogs received in the past year and their inherent threat to the news conglomerates, is it any wonder that the mainstream media still isn't sure how to produce an evenhanded report examining any one aspect of them? Recently, blogs have again entered the national consciousness, as they did during the presidential campaign, with their dramatic reporting on the scene, call for donations for relief efforts, and hypothesizing on the causes of the devastating tsunami that is still dominating the headlines. However, as with most fanatical outlets, certain blogs have descended into what one could term the outer realms of conspiracy with partisan based attacks on the exact origins of the tsunami itself. The New York Times has an article in today's edition that "reports" on just this phenomenon.
To give the Times some credit they at least make an effort to balance out the critique with examples of how the process works for the best. The democratic, civilized manner, though, in which bloggers work in order to get the story right is a tad sentimental in its depiction, and one can sense that there's more than a little wild-eyed conspiracy mongering going on that doesn't get its full share of community-based editing. In other words, bloggers are depicted, at least in this article, as a tight-knit group that tries valiantly to make sure that they are taken seriously and that some few lone gunman don't ruin it for everybody. It's an odd form of socialist movement that's rarely seen anywhere else.
The mainstream media clearly still would like the bloggers to stay on the fringes. Fear of losing job security and missing the chance to break the big story because someone without press credentials breaks the story first seems to be the driving source of this subjectivity. What also troubles the media is that they have to hold up the democratic notion that everyone with the means to access the technology should be able to create a forum and add their voice to the masses already established, but this is at odds with their obvious fear that other people, again without press credentials, are sometimes doing the job better than they are. How can you reconcile that?
Friday, December 31, 2004
I really don't feel like I need to add to the chorus surrounding how devastating this year has been on humanity, so I'm not going to write some politically charged tirade. Everyone with an idea of what's really happening in the world and who isn't totally blinded by political allegiances already knows that Iraq is truly a quagmire, the Middle East is as always volatile, and the wrath of a tsunami has a body count that rivals and exceeds many wars. The scope of the disasters seems to be beyond comprehension, yet we're still going to ring in the New Year tonight with fireworks and the whole deal. Many nations have already rung in the year with somber festivities, and I'd like to think that we could and should do the same, but that's highly unlikely. No, what will happen is that the revilers will have their cake and eat it too. But it's not all their fault.
News reports have documented the tremendous amount of money already collected by charities for the relief effort. People are giving, but that's really not enough. To justify cutting lose tonight by having donated to a relief agency seems rather tacky and without class, but that's exactly how our government is behaving. The miniscule sum of money offered by the Bush administration was quickly countered with another higher total amount. In what seems to be a competition between nations to see who can give the higher sum total in relief, the effort has taken on the appearance of a schoolyard shouting match with one student trying to one-up the other with boisterous claims. If I were a card carrying conservative, I might think that these other countries are insensitively trying to drain our country of money when they know full well we can't afford it because of our other ill-advised, although not in this conservative's mind, conquests. However, I'm not, and I'm glad we are spending the money on a worthy cause, but I'm sure some talk-radio has already pounced on this point.
What bothers me, though, is that the example set by our government is being adopted by the citizens themselves. I honestly believe that displays like this are some of the real causes for our other nations to view our country with such hostility. It goes beyond the idea of empire and market exploitation. Lifestyle without consequence has to have a profound impact on ideologies centered around prohibitive living. Or perhaps not. Maybe they could care less that many, many people will be oblivious to the rest of the world for a better portion of the evening. I'm not condemning them for having a good time, not completely, but the events of the past week have to be on the minds of many and rightfully so.
News reports have documented the tremendous amount of money already collected by charities for the relief effort. People are giving, but that's really not enough. To justify cutting lose tonight by having donated to a relief agency seems rather tacky and without class, but that's exactly how our government is behaving. The miniscule sum of money offered by the Bush administration was quickly countered with another higher total amount. In what seems to be a competition between nations to see who can give the higher sum total in relief, the effort has taken on the appearance of a schoolyard shouting match with one student trying to one-up the other with boisterous claims. If I were a card carrying conservative, I might think that these other countries are insensitively trying to drain our country of money when they know full well we can't afford it because of our other ill-advised, although not in this conservative's mind, conquests. However, I'm not, and I'm glad we are spending the money on a worthy cause, but I'm sure some talk-radio has already pounced on this point.
What bothers me, though, is that the example set by our government is being adopted by the citizens themselves. I honestly believe that displays like this are some of the real causes for our other nations to view our country with such hostility. It goes beyond the idea of empire and market exploitation. Lifestyle without consequence has to have a profound impact on ideologies centered around prohibitive living. Or perhaps not. Maybe they could care less that many, many people will be oblivious to the rest of the world for a better portion of the evening. I'm not condemning them for having a good time, not completely, but the events of the past week have to be on the minds of many and rightfully so.
Thursday, December 30, 2004
New Year Dawns
Christmas is over and New Year's Eve is upon us, which will, for all intents and purposes, draw the curtain on what has been, to say the least, a rather lackluster year. Minor achievements in the face of monumental disappointments have served to cast a cloud over 2004, and I for one am ready to greet 2005 as a chance to start off on a new foot.
Let it be said that 2004 wasn't a total wash. I have a lot to be thankful for going into the end of the year and into the next, but what seems to happen, and it's occurred to me that this is just a fact of life, are numerous peaks and valleys, and the valleys seem to always outnumber the peaks. Of course, this could also just be a natural human reaction to adversity. Tough times are just that, tough, and they are so for a reason. You wouldn't have anything to complain about if it was just smooth sailing from the get go. Seriously, the tough times are there for a reason, I suspect, and there's probably something to be said about how one confronts adversity. All that jazz about becoming a better person probably has some sort of truth to it, although it's never obvious when it occurs.
I've never been big on New Year's Resolutions, so, in an effort to set some sort of agenda for myself, here's a few things I'd like to accomplish in 2005.
1. Lose even more weight. It's a cliche, but losing weight has been one of the better things to happen to me in 2004, and I didn't do it by abiding by that Subway crap. A little will power, a changed diet, and a lot of exercise will do.
2. As for exercise, I want to increase my running to around 10 miles a day. Right now, I'm around 8.
3. Continuing what I thought was a phase, I'd like to continue to read nonfiction in an effort to learn about subjects I'm interested in.
4. Speaking of learning, I'd like to take some more classes towards a degree of my choosing. I'm not sure what that would be, but I'm interested in numerous fields.
I'm sure this will keep me busy and occupied in mind, body, and spirit for the better part of 2005.
Christmas is over and New Year's Eve is upon us, which will, for all intents and purposes, draw the curtain on what has been, to say the least, a rather lackluster year. Minor achievements in the face of monumental disappointments have served to cast a cloud over 2004, and I for one am ready to greet 2005 as a chance to start off on a new foot.
Let it be said that 2004 wasn't a total wash. I have a lot to be thankful for going into the end of the year and into the next, but what seems to happen, and it's occurred to me that this is just a fact of life, are numerous peaks and valleys, and the valleys seem to always outnumber the peaks. Of course, this could also just be a natural human reaction to adversity. Tough times are just that, tough, and they are so for a reason. You wouldn't have anything to complain about if it was just smooth sailing from the get go. Seriously, the tough times are there for a reason, I suspect, and there's probably something to be said about how one confronts adversity. All that jazz about becoming a better person probably has some sort of truth to it, although it's never obvious when it occurs.
I've never been big on New Year's Resolutions, so, in an effort to set some sort of agenda for myself, here's a few things I'd like to accomplish in 2005.
1. Lose even more weight. It's a cliche, but losing weight has been one of the better things to happen to me in 2004, and I didn't do it by abiding by that Subway crap. A little will power, a changed diet, and a lot of exercise will do.
2. As for exercise, I want to increase my running to around 10 miles a day. Right now, I'm around 8.
3. Continuing what I thought was a phase, I'd like to continue to read nonfiction in an effort to learn about subjects I'm interested in.
4. Speaking of learning, I'd like to take some more classes towards a degree of my choosing. I'm not sure what that would be, but I'm interested in numerous fields.
I'm sure this will keep me busy and occupied in mind, body, and spirit for the better part of 2005.
Monday, December 20, 2004
Latte Liberal
John McIntire of the Pittsburgh City Paper recently wrote a piece about being labeled a "latte liberal" because of his recent discovery of the addictive powers of Starbucks coffee, particularly their lattes. I don't really care about the issue of being labeled a "latte liberal" because you might frequent a particular establishment that, in McIntire's words, is the coffee shop equivalent of Wal-Mart. If the coffee is good, then it's good, and there's really nothing to be ashamed about by frequenting this particular behemoth.
What I find interesting, and personally agreeable to is the fact that McIntire confesses to being driven to Starbucks for one of the reasons I've given up frequenting the coffee shop I favored, the lack of consistency, a trait that seems to plague many independent coffee shops.
I've had some of the worst coffee I've ever ingested in coffee shops that seem to put more effort into creating an atmosphere in exclusiveness instead of making a decent pot of coffee. These shops are everywhere, and it's of little surprise that they frequently go out of business, such as the shop on the North Side that McIntire refers to in his article. In fact, McIntire confesses to finding this trait amongst the coffee shops that are located in the very neighborhood I live in, the South Side, so he could perhaps be referring to the shop I don't support any longer.
To clarify, along with the consistency issue, I find that another trait can be found among coffee shops that lose their appeal easily, and that's a commitment to remaining independent to some extent, or, at the very least, remaining dedicated to what makes the coffee shop just that, the coffee. When coffee shops expand to areas that seem more suited to restaurants, diners, and even libraries, then you're really not a coffee shop per say any longer. I realize that the nature of business is expansion, but there's something not quite kosher about a shop expanding into areas that aren't, in any conceivable way, designed to generate more money to save a dying establishment. In other words, if the changes are done out of nothing more than simple greed, then the shop loses its focus not only for its main attraction, the coffee, but it also loses that which independent coffee shops strive to acquire more than anything else, street cred. Excluding the minimalist interiors and antiseptic atmosphere, in my mind coffee shops should look like a Starbucks with coffee, some desserts, and nothing else to clutter up the area. Tables to sit at and music playing in the background are also required, but not that inane elevator nonsense that Starbucks cranks in. Again, in other words, Starbucks is the perfect coffee shop design, but it's something only a corporation could come up with and produce on a massive scale. All the sterility of a Kubrick movie adds up to a factory that brews the best coffee that I know of, but I wouldn't sit in one for more than half an hour.
John McIntire of the Pittsburgh City Paper recently wrote a piece about being labeled a "latte liberal" because of his recent discovery of the addictive powers of Starbucks coffee, particularly their lattes. I don't really care about the issue of being labeled a "latte liberal" because you might frequent a particular establishment that, in McIntire's words, is the coffee shop equivalent of Wal-Mart. If the coffee is good, then it's good, and there's really nothing to be ashamed about by frequenting this particular behemoth.
What I find interesting, and personally agreeable to is the fact that McIntire confesses to being driven to Starbucks for one of the reasons I've given up frequenting the coffee shop I favored, the lack of consistency, a trait that seems to plague many independent coffee shops.
I've had some of the worst coffee I've ever ingested in coffee shops that seem to put more effort into creating an atmosphere in exclusiveness instead of making a decent pot of coffee. These shops are everywhere, and it's of little surprise that they frequently go out of business, such as the shop on the North Side that McIntire refers to in his article. In fact, McIntire confesses to finding this trait amongst the coffee shops that are located in the very neighborhood I live in, the South Side, so he could perhaps be referring to the shop I don't support any longer.
To clarify, along with the consistency issue, I find that another trait can be found among coffee shops that lose their appeal easily, and that's a commitment to remaining independent to some extent, or, at the very least, remaining dedicated to what makes the coffee shop just that, the coffee. When coffee shops expand to areas that seem more suited to restaurants, diners, and even libraries, then you're really not a coffee shop per say any longer. I realize that the nature of business is expansion, but there's something not quite kosher about a shop expanding into areas that aren't, in any conceivable way, designed to generate more money to save a dying establishment. In other words, if the changes are done out of nothing more than simple greed, then the shop loses its focus not only for its main attraction, the coffee, but it also loses that which independent coffee shops strive to acquire more than anything else, street cred. Excluding the minimalist interiors and antiseptic atmosphere, in my mind coffee shops should look like a Starbucks with coffee, some desserts, and nothing else to clutter up the area. Tables to sit at and music playing in the background are also required, but not that inane elevator nonsense that Starbucks cranks in. Again, in other words, Starbucks is the perfect coffee shop design, but it's something only a corporation could come up with and produce on a massive scale. All the sterility of a Kubrick movie adds up to a factory that brews the best coffee that I know of, but I wouldn't sit in one for more than half an hour.
Thursday, December 16, 2004
No Respect
I realize that this isn't the time of year to be spreading invectives aimed at the inadequacies of others, but I can't help myself. Over the last few weeks, I've discovered one thing about myself that seems, on the outset, to be nothing more than a characteristic of a narcissistic ego run amuck. Not to mince words, but I have no respect for others, especially those with, what I view to be, tremendous egos and inflated self-images. I have no respect for these people because, not that I think they are dumb per say, they show little or no abilities to understand, appreciate, or discuss any subject matter that seems, to me at least, to be relevant to living in today's world. They have no desire to learn, speak, write, or in any manner pursue anything that even remotely resembles something that requires thought, creativity, or simply improving yourself as a person. I don't understand this disconnect, or even pretend to fathom why you would want to be like that. Is there a reason?
I realize that this isn't the time of year to be spreading invectives aimed at the inadequacies of others, but I can't help myself. Over the last few weeks, I've discovered one thing about myself that seems, on the outset, to be nothing more than a characteristic of a narcissistic ego run amuck. Not to mince words, but I have no respect for others, especially those with, what I view to be, tremendous egos and inflated self-images. I have no respect for these people because, not that I think they are dumb per say, they show little or no abilities to understand, appreciate, or discuss any subject matter that seems, to me at least, to be relevant to living in today's world. They have no desire to learn, speak, write, or in any manner pursue anything that even remotely resembles something that requires thought, creativity, or simply improving yourself as a person. I don't understand this disconnect, or even pretend to fathom why you would want to be like that. Is there a reason?
Sunday, December 05, 2004
Real vs. Fake
Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I watched the movie High Fidelity with a friend of mine. Having seen the movie previously along with reading the novel, I was familiar with the content of the story and the characteristics of its main characters, but hadn't dealt with or thought about either in quite some time. Anyone familiar with either the novel or the film knows that it concerns characters in a record store that are more than condescending towards customers who don't appear to be in the know. This very aspect led to a discussion about the treatment patrons receive in two different kinds of settings, the highly specialized, non-chain affiliated establishment versus those belonging to a gigantic conglomerate of retail outlets.
In the former, you run the risk of being labeled and treated as an outsider, someone who isn't in the know and doesn't really appreciate the most important aspects of whatever particular subject area is in discussion, mostly music, books, films, or comic books. But at the same time, you will most likely get an honest response to your inquiries. There's really no chance that you'll get a false opinion on the subject at hand. In the latter establishment, you run the risk of being pandered to for nothing more than a sale's commission. You really don't know whether the salesperson's opinion of the material is genuine or not. Have you ever noticed that in these chainstores, nothing is really bad? All books are pretty entertaining, most music is pretty good, and many, many films are tremendous. Where does the salespitch end and the real personality of the worker start? I'd say it's almost impossible to know.
So what's worse, being lied to or being treated with condescension?
Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I watched the movie High Fidelity with a friend of mine. Having seen the movie previously along with reading the novel, I was familiar with the content of the story and the characteristics of its main characters, but hadn't dealt with or thought about either in quite some time. Anyone familiar with either the novel or the film knows that it concerns characters in a record store that are more than condescending towards customers who don't appear to be in the know. This very aspect led to a discussion about the treatment patrons receive in two different kinds of settings, the highly specialized, non-chain affiliated establishment versus those belonging to a gigantic conglomerate of retail outlets.
In the former, you run the risk of being labeled and treated as an outsider, someone who isn't in the know and doesn't really appreciate the most important aspects of whatever particular subject area is in discussion, mostly music, books, films, or comic books. But at the same time, you will most likely get an honest response to your inquiries. There's really no chance that you'll get a false opinion on the subject at hand. In the latter establishment, you run the risk of being pandered to for nothing more than a sale's commission. You really don't know whether the salesperson's opinion of the material is genuine or not. Have you ever noticed that in these chainstores, nothing is really bad? All books are pretty entertaining, most music is pretty good, and many, many films are tremendous. Where does the salespitch end and the real personality of the worker start? I'd say it's almost impossible to know.
So what's worse, being lied to or being treated with condescension?
Saturday, November 27, 2004
Cliched Writing
In what may sound insensitive and without any real basis for speculation, I'm forced to admit that, along with many other literary devices and narrative subjects, the story of child abuse and neglect has entered the realm of the cliche, or at least for me it has. Stereotyping abuse is harsh and an obvious problem when it comes to gauging one's own sense of priorities and the amount of sympathy any given story may breed within one's self. However, I feel that the story of abused children has become a rote process that can be, and perhaps is, recreated by writers and others who have never experienced the phenomenon firsthand in any way, shape or form. I feel that I could, if given the chance, create a plausible character or scenario in which abuse occurs, and have all the trademark occurrences in place to make that sound, at least somewhat, credible in nature, if not wholly believable from start to finish.
The only reason that I felt the need to remark this way is due to my initial experience to a certain writer's work who has become somewhat of a cult figure due to his writings on the subject of abuse, which he has been a victim of. J.T. Leroy has become somewhat of a celebrity author in a day and age where authors who are celebrities seem few and far between. Many artists have become enamored by Leroy's prose that centers primarily around the abuse inflicted upon him by his mother and his desperate fall into the life of a male prostitute. I know, you can almost see the cliches coming before you even start.
After reading a profile on Leroy in The New York Times, I felt that I should give his works a try. In what has to be a record even for me, I couldn't get through the first two pages. The book in question is actually a set of loosely connected short stories entitled The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things. The prose is good, no question, but the story itself is terrible. Reading about neglected children, while never entertaining, should at least try to move beyond the shocking recollections of abuse itself, and Leroy's writing doesn't do that. I read the first few pages with skepticism and finally disgust, not at the actions of the characters but by the predictability of what was happening and what would probably happen next, which wasn't at all something I cared to continue reading to find out.
In treating any type of harsh subject, authors need to move beyond simply recounting the harsh descriptions of unimaginable horror and atrocities beyond comprehension. Any book on the Holocaust, for example, that strives to do more than just recount the horrors of the Nazi regime's actions does so by digging deeper into the psyches of the actors involved. What these works don't do is simply catalog the atrocities themselves. Simply do so would be at the risk of rendering something that's beyond cliche into a cliche. Unfortunately, writers like Leroy don't know that this is a risk, and they continue to write in a way that renders their histories into stereotypes that seem stamped out with the same cookie-cutter approach. Emotionally provocative writing is probably the hardest effect to achieve, but it takes a special writer to do that and avoid rendering their experiences into simply unemotional recollections.
In what may sound insensitive and without any real basis for speculation, I'm forced to admit that, along with many other literary devices and narrative subjects, the story of child abuse and neglect has entered the realm of the cliche, or at least for me it has. Stereotyping abuse is harsh and an obvious problem when it comes to gauging one's own sense of priorities and the amount of sympathy any given story may breed within one's self. However, I feel that the story of abused children has become a rote process that can be, and perhaps is, recreated by writers and others who have never experienced the phenomenon firsthand in any way, shape or form. I feel that I could, if given the chance, create a plausible character or scenario in which abuse occurs, and have all the trademark occurrences in place to make that sound, at least somewhat, credible in nature, if not wholly believable from start to finish.
The only reason that I felt the need to remark this way is due to my initial experience to a certain writer's work who has become somewhat of a cult figure due to his writings on the subject of abuse, which he has been a victim of. J.T. Leroy has become somewhat of a celebrity author in a day and age where authors who are celebrities seem few and far between. Many artists have become enamored by Leroy's prose that centers primarily around the abuse inflicted upon him by his mother and his desperate fall into the life of a male prostitute. I know, you can almost see the cliches coming before you even start.
After reading a profile on Leroy in The New York Times, I felt that I should give his works a try. In what has to be a record even for me, I couldn't get through the first two pages. The book in question is actually a set of loosely connected short stories entitled The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things. The prose is good, no question, but the story itself is terrible. Reading about neglected children, while never entertaining, should at least try to move beyond the shocking recollections of abuse itself, and Leroy's writing doesn't do that. I read the first few pages with skepticism and finally disgust, not at the actions of the characters but by the predictability of what was happening and what would probably happen next, which wasn't at all something I cared to continue reading to find out.
In treating any type of harsh subject, authors need to move beyond simply recounting the harsh descriptions of unimaginable horror and atrocities beyond comprehension. Any book on the Holocaust, for example, that strives to do more than just recount the horrors of the Nazi regime's actions does so by digging deeper into the psyches of the actors involved. What these works don't do is simply catalog the atrocities themselves. Simply do so would be at the risk of rendering something that's beyond cliche into a cliche. Unfortunately, writers like Leroy don't know that this is a risk, and they continue to write in a way that renders their histories into stereotypes that seem stamped out with the same cookie-cutter approach. Emotionally provocative writing is probably the hardest effect to achieve, but it takes a special writer to do that and avoid rendering their experiences into simply unemotional recollections.
Monday, November 22, 2004
Lull
It's not that I don't have anything to write about anymore. No, in fact, I'm sure there's just tons of subjects that I could write about, but I'm just not into it right now. Right now, I'm more interested in reading and using the internet for the educational purposes that it's purportedly supposed to be for. Seriously. Tonight, for instance, I researched coffee, specifically coffee grinders. My passion for coffee is evolving, and I feel that it's high time to find out the intricacies involved in brewing a "perfect" cup.
One thing that has bothered me in recent days is the media's newfound attention to blogs and blog writers. It's almost embarrassing how much you can sense the disdain the "true" media holds for blogs, and, funny enough, I can see their point. Just to name one example, the recent election seems to have been accepted by one and all except for a few rabblerousers on the internet. Demanding recounts in Ohio and manufacturing reasons for the possibility of another "stolen" election victory by Bush have replaced the intensity which led up to the election itself. Flogging a dead issue is now easier than ever, and these amateur pundits are doing more harm than good. I'd rather not be a part of it myself, and that's why I've refrained from discussing it in general. But the possibility remains that I'm also just somewhat ashamed to blathering on myself about the miasma of events here. Or maybe I just think it's lost its cache. Who knows. I'll continue to rest for a time and see which way the smoke blows in the future.
It's not that I don't have anything to write about anymore. No, in fact, I'm sure there's just tons of subjects that I could write about, but I'm just not into it right now. Right now, I'm more interested in reading and using the internet for the educational purposes that it's purportedly supposed to be for. Seriously. Tonight, for instance, I researched coffee, specifically coffee grinders. My passion for coffee is evolving, and I feel that it's high time to find out the intricacies involved in brewing a "perfect" cup.
One thing that has bothered me in recent days is the media's newfound attention to blogs and blog writers. It's almost embarrassing how much you can sense the disdain the "true" media holds for blogs, and, funny enough, I can see their point. Just to name one example, the recent election seems to have been accepted by one and all except for a few rabblerousers on the internet. Demanding recounts in Ohio and manufacturing reasons for the possibility of another "stolen" election victory by Bush have replaced the intensity which led up to the election itself. Flogging a dead issue is now easier than ever, and these amateur pundits are doing more harm than good. I'd rather not be a part of it myself, and that's why I've refrained from discussing it in general. But the possibility remains that I'm also just somewhat ashamed to blathering on myself about the miasma of events here. Or maybe I just think it's lost its cache. Who knows. I'll continue to rest for a time and see which way the smoke blows in the future.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)