2010 May | Periscope Depth

From the Blog

May

oh, but ain’t that america

Posted by Perich at 7:00 am

One of the other things I learned when visiting Skaneateles^*, NY for Will and Gina’s wedding was that I would not enjoy living in Skaneateles, NY. It’s just not for me. If I wanted to do anything on a Saturday night other than drink or watch one of the 10 most popular movies in America, I’d be shit out of luck. I could drive half an hour to Syracuse if I wanted to hit up the Barnes & Noble. Or I could take in a show at Syracuse University’s Storch Theatre (oh, look, they’re putting on Cabaret next season! And RENT! Isn’t that just, fuck it, I can’t even feign enthusiasm).

Don’t take the above to mean that I’m making fun of small town America. I’m not. The majority of this country is small towns: thirty to ninety minutes from the nearest metropolis. They’re served by a few high schools, one community college, a string of questionable Chinese restaurants and a Target. If you inherit your dad’s used car dealership you’re something of a big deal. The people who live there aren’t any happier, in the aggregate, than folks who live in big cities. But they aren’t any unhappier either. They deal with the same career frustrations and pregnancy scares that we do. And if I had to live there I would go mad.

Those small towns are just as much a part of America as Boston is. Those people follow the same laws, watch the same TV shows and drive the same cars. But the “America” you’re exposed to at 12:30 in the afternoon in the Walmart in Auburn, NY looks nothing like the “America” you’re exposed to in the Prudential Center Mall in Boston, MA. You might as well be visiting Estonia. And I suspect a lot of the political incoherency that describes the American experiment comes from this disconnect. Blue-staters can’t imagine what it’s like to fear that national health care might be a gateway to fascism. Red-staters can’t imagine what it’s like to champion the civil liberties of suspected terrorists. But both of those are American values.

Of course, the same stores service both these communities: Hess, AT&T Wireless, Old Navy, Starbucks. No matter where you go in this country, you will never be more than a half hour’s drive from a 2-liter bottle of Coca-Cola. Here is wisdom for him that hath understanding.

* Pronounced “Skinny Atlas.”

May

said it ain’t where you’re from; it’s where you’re at

Posted by Perich at 7:00 am

Weddings are wasted on the young. I don’t mean the really young, like J.J’s toddler, who would sprint across the dance floor to give someone a high-five then hide behind his mother’s skirts. But anyone between the ages of seven and seventeen has no business being at a wedding. Unless it’s their own and they’re in a state that tolerates that sort of thing. But the real joy of a wedding comes not from the ceremony or even the rituals following it. It comes from those long hours at the reception, sitting in small circles with a friend at your side and a drink in your hand, saying, Hey, remember when? It’s reflecting on the deep history you have with the married couple, and then realizing with a sigh that all of it is prologue.

Fortunately, I didn’t see any kids between seven and seventeen at Will and Gina’s wedding this past weekend. Gina and Will always meshed in such a way that you had a hard time remembering when they weren’t a couple. The goofy humor, the quiet energy. But, with effort, I was able to remember Will before he met Gina, and those few months before Gina started openly dating Will. That was eight and a half years ago. And yet, seeing them at the front of that church last Saturday, I still recognized the excited look in their eyes. Wow. We made it.

The ceremony, a Catholic mass, spent as much time on Jesus as it did on the happy couple. The DJ’s playlist was probably the same as any other wedding he’ll do this summer. And everyone knows what order the reception rituals come in: introducing the couple, toasts, first dances, cutting the cake, etc. It’s not the ritual that makes the wedding special. You can get the wedding day just right and still end it in bitterness a few years later. Or you can twiddle your thumbs during a grotesque homily^*, fumble with the lighting of special candles, and still come out all right. It’s not about the uniform; it’s about who’s on your team with you.

will-and-gina

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* I don’t use the word “grotesque” lightly. The priest told an inspiring fable about a soldier who was sentenced to death by a court-martial. Told that the sentence would be carried out when the curfew bell rang, the soldier’s wife tied herself to the bell clapper so that no one would hear the signal. When her “cut and bloodied” body was found inside the bell, the sentencing officer solemnly intoned, “Curfew will not be rung today.” I hope the photographer caught the dawning look of horror that washed over the congregation; my digital camera has a pretty small lens.

May

shame, shame, shame on you now, dubya

Posted by Perich at 7:24 am

New piece up on Overthinking It in my continuing series on Overthinking Treme: comparing Bernette and McAlary’s styles of satire:

The most striking thing about that whole scene isn’t the Krewe refusing to be serious. That fits with their aesthetic. The most striking thing is how seriously they refuse to be serious. The vote is humorless (aside from checking in with Cato) and direct. And if the stated purpose of Krewe du Vieux is to champion artistic expression and individuality, why are they shooting down their sub-krewes ideas with a parliamentary vote? What if the Knights of Mondu decide to make a serious acknowledgment of Katrina anyway? Will they get excommunicated?

I put more thought into this one than usual. Let me know if I’m on to something.

May

a huge evergrowing pulsating brain that rules from the centre of the ultraworld

Posted by Perich at 9:27 am

So “Lost” came to an end last night. I’ve never seen minute one of the show, but that’s not going to stop me from commenting on it^*.

Say what you will of the plot twists that don’t go anywhere, the dialogue laden with riddles, and the characters who come and go without warning, “Lost” was at least challenging. Consider science-fiction network TV up to this point: “Star Trek,” “The X-Files,” “V”. If we add basic cable we can consider “Battlestar Galactica” and “Babylon 5.” Four of those five could be described, with charity, as “space laser adventures.” Every week there’s a new threat. Our heroes assemble to defeat it, suffer setbacks, triumph in the end and learn a little something about themselves in the process. Roll credits. “The X-Files” was more circumspect, with its overarching conspiracies, but largely fit the same “monster of the week” template. And the conspiracies boiled down to whodunits: what is the black oil? what happened to Mulder’s sister? etc.

“Lost” broke new ground by introducing mysteries that toyed with the show’s own reality. There wasn’t any safe ground our protagonists could retreat to when the puzzle got too complex. Simply surviving on the island put them into contact with bears, smoke monsters, weird hatches and time travel. None of it made sense. But (at least initially), you could tease out a deeper thread that unified them. They made sense in a way that didn’t make sense. So here, the question wasn’t “What is the Dharma Initiative?” but “Are we dead? Is this an alternate universe?” Very fundamental stuff.^**

“Lost” wasn’t the first show to treat with these questions (see The Prisoner, for one), but it was probably the most popular. It sustained an immense audience for six seasons. By doing that, it opened the door for more challenging science-fiction. And that part’s crucial. Because the best science fiction isn’t just space laser adventures. It’s the weird introspective stuff that makes us evaluate reality and identity from new perspectives. It’s Frank Herbert and Philip K. Dick and Samuel Delaney and Alfred Bester and Octavia Butler and Ursula LeGuin. Science fiction has so much more to offer us. “Lost” showed us a little piece.

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* Seriously, not one minute of it. And that’s not even a conscious choice – that’s a statistical oddity. I managed to see one episode of “The Sopranos” in its entire run – the one where they suspect one of the guys is wearing a wire so they try to take him to a sauna, and also Tony’s been told his kid might have ADD – just by accident. And I’ve seen four or five episodes of “Sex and the City.” While coasting around the channels this weekend in a hotel room, I reeled off an entire episode’s description based on two seconds of dialogue. “Oh, this is the one where Big’s wife chases Carrie out of their apartment, falls down the stairs and chips her teeth.” I think that says more of my memory than of my appreciation for the show. I think. Whatever: Kim Cattrall’s hot and I’m not going to apologize for my tastes.

My point is: for a show to have been on the air for six seasons and reach massive heights of popularity, I ought to have seen at least half of an episode. At least by accident. But I’ve seen more of “Legend of the Seeker” than I have of “Lost.”

** I’m also not Wikipedia’ing “Lost” for the purposes of this article. That’s right: I can blog with half my brain tied behind my back.

May

then we’ll get a chinese and watch TV

Posted by Perich at 7:00 am

Traveling to a wedding in way-upstate NY this weekend. You’re on your own for a few days.

To tide you over, here’s some much needed common sense about vitamins:

everyone in our society with the exception of those on extreme diets or with other extreme conditions is already getting enough vitamins to avoid deficiency states. And with two exceptions, there is to date no evidence that taking vitamins in excess of what is needed is helpful (though there is substantial evidence that several of them are harmful in large amounts). The exceptions are niacin, which can be used in high dose to lower cholesterol and LDL cholesterol (“bad cholesterol”), and folic acid, which, when taken by women at the time of conception and the first weeks to early months of pregnancy in moderately high dosage, will decrease the likelihood of neural tube defects (a particularly terrible group of birth defects) from 1/10,000 to about 1/50,000, with no toxicity.

[...]

There is no proven benefit to taking excess amounts of any other vitamin. For the group of vitamins that are soluble in water, most of them, amounts in excess of need are rapidly eliminated, usually in the urine – some have said it is like pissing away money. In general, we do not store these vitamins, and with those we do store, once the storage is filled, any additional amounts are eliminated. Fat soluble vitamins (A, D, E, and K) we can store in various places, but that is actually worse, since these can build up to levels causing problems (particularly vitamins A and D).

(And that includes Vitamin C, for those of you still taking Airborne)

Tiger Beatdown provides some pro-level Overthink on Beyonce’s latest video:

The fun part is that, after all that, after all that effort and humiliation, it doesn’t work? After all that? That’s why Beyonce’s indignation and anger in this video is perfect. She’s throwing a tantrum, almost, throwing things around and flouncing on the floor, as if to say, WHAT THE FUCK?? YOU DON’T WANT THIS? I did everything I was supposed to do, I cleaned and cooked and pranced and paraded around in bustiers and wore extremely sexy makeup! And still! Nothing? I played by the rules and the rules were A BIG LIE.

Which is basically what it’s like to be a modern woman. We perform femininity, and not only does it not succeeding in bringing about the desired result, I think it’s actually counter-productive to our real goals. Particularly when we’re talking about relationships—lots of people really do want love, and close and serious romantic connections, and femininity is supposed to help us be lovable and desirable. And sure, it might help in attracting a man, but the culture of performative femininity actually makes it less likely that men will regard us as complete human beings, thus making it almost impossible for us to have real emotional intimacy with them, the kind that comes from being able to regard each other as equals.

And finally (I think Ilkka passed this one on), a theory on why New York works. In case you ever wondered why someone would want to live in the noisiest, smelliest, most expensive city in the U.S.

Housing is so tiny and cramped that virtually nobody can stand to be at home for any extended period of time. Going anywhere (e.g. actually getting in your car, if you have one, and going somewhere?) is a huge pain in the ass. Hence, 12-14 hour days in the office don’t seem so bad – they actually provide a respite.

This factor feeds on itself, of course: The more the no-quality-of-life factor works for business, the more business thrives here; the more business thrives here, the more businesses (and people who want to be associated with big business) want to be located here; the more everyone wants to be located here, the higher the price of housing gets; the higher the price of housing gets, the less quality-of-life people can afford; and the less quality-of-life people can afford, the more they just want to stay at the office …

May

if you can’t convince him I guess it’s not cheating

Posted by Perich at 9:09 am

I’ve been writing “seriously” – sitting down and working on a novel on a schedule – for about three years now. But I’ve never tried rewriting until recently (my third manuscript). This isn’t too bad. No one should try to sell their first novel. But it’s such a different process from writing that it’s like I’m learning to walk again. Writing is easy: you sit down for an hour, string words together, marvel at your own eloquence, log off once the timer goes DING and eat a cookie. I’m surprised more people don’t try it.

But rewriting is hard. Rewriting is like coaching your gifted 7-year-old at baseball. You love him, so you keep at it. But you have to be firm. You also have to be a good coach and keep drilling him on the fundamentals. But you can’t smother him or he’ll never grow. And you can’t call it quits just because he starts pouting. And as the clock rolls around to hour #2 of batting practice, you start wondering if maybe you’re pushing him too hard. Am I investing too much in his success at this one sport?, you think. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if he weren’t a baseball prodigy, right? But then he shows you some flash of athletic brilliance and you know you have to keep at it. For his sake. He’ll thank you some day, if he still wants to talk to you.

One of the great things about the Kindle is that you can download a sample of any book they sell for free. This sample usually covers the first chapter or two for a modern thriller (the genre I write in). Coincidentally, this is about as much as an agent or editor wants to see before asking for the rest of the manuscript. So, at the advice of three different people from Muse and the Marketplace, I downloaded the first two chapters of Harlan Coben’s Tell No One. Man. People talk about economy of language and tight pacing but he’s got it down. In the first two chapters, we’ve met and fallen in love with the protagonist’s wife, only to see her get mysteriously murdered. Then we meet the protagonist’s friends, whom we suspect will be his allies in investigating some new mystery. And we get a hook to draw us in further.

Masterful stuff. And it inspired me to get back to work.

May

I know I won’t be leaving here with you

Posted by Perich at 7:00 am

I drove up to New Hampshire this past weekend for a bachelor party at Indian Head Resort. At first I thought the name was just morbid (“it’s just past Settler’s Corpse; if you hit Gangrenous Amputation, you’ve gone too far”) but then I realized what it meant. Oh. Now that the Old Man of the Mountain has crumbled^*, Indian Head has a monopoly on geological features which sort of resemble a human profile. That, plus moose, is New Hampshire’s chief source of revenue.

The beer sampler.

I had just missed out on ziplining by the time I arrived, but I rendezvoused with the crew at Woodstock Station in North Woodstock, NH. The menu serves nothing but meat and potatoes fare: nachos covered with pulled pork, baked potato skins drizzled with sour cream, etc. “There’s nothing on this menu I don’t want to eat,” Bobby observed. One of our guests was served a two-and-a-half pound burger, which came with a knife through its center and a small side of mashed. “You don’t want to attack that all at once,” I advised. “That was Hitler’s mistake, going into Russia.” I picked the analogy because of the burger’s size, not because Mike reminded me of the Fuhrer. Also, I’d had two of the restaurant’s delicious local brews – the Pemi Pale Ale and an Oatmeal Stout – on a light stomach.

The rest of the crew filtered in while we ate, DJ coming last. True to form, he had a driving anecdote to share. “I had to get off 93 early,” he explained, “because I passed a cop going the other way. I was going fast enough that he hit his lights. So I took the first exit I could find.” DJ has a history of saying the wrong thing to cops, so I couldn’t fault his logic. The waitress overheard this anecdote and confirmed that DJ had done the right thing. “The cops have a saying around here: ‘come on vacation, leave on probation.’ ” This would have shocked or confused me before I read Arrest-Proof Yourself; now, such behavior among traffic cops doesn’t shock me. See also the recent NYPD roll call recordings (aired in the Village Voice) that document arrest quotas.

“DJ,” I said. “Don’t get arrested!”

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* Not to be confused with the founder of the hashishin.

May

’cause the free wind is blowing through your hair

Posted by Perich at 7:00 am

I feel self-conscious about driving an Audi because I do it so rarely. Here’s a German-engineered sedan, an affordable machine with all-wheel drive meant to cruise European straightaways, and I drive it exactly three times a week to jiu-jitsu. Boston and its surrounding cities (Brookline, Cambridge, Somerville) discourage car ownership, to the point of ticketing cars for parking on public streets during a “snow emergency” when not a single flake fell. I’m fortunate enough to live and work within 5 minutes of subway stations. So a car that wants nothing more than to vault me across the country at 85 MPH sits in the parking lot behind my building, gathering sun-flecks and dreaming of the Nürburgring.

But I still pay the price: on Wednesday, I drove to the nearest dealer for some mandatory (and free) service. An unexpected bonus to owning a nicer car is that the dealership service areas tend to be nicer, too. The Audi service lobby had muted lighting, soft carpeting and a paint scheme that did not assault the eye. The tables were stacked with copies of Cigar Aficionado, Wine Spectator and Frilly Rugs That You’d Beat Your Child If He Spilled Fanta On It Quarterly. The staff put a higher premium on customer service than any dealer I’ve ever been to. They asked politely for documents and spoke in clear tones.

On Saturday I got to give the Audi what she wanted. I took I-93 north for two hours, passing out of Massachusetts, through Concord, NH and into the White Mountains. The last half hour in particular is gorgeous country. You see mountains rolling like an unmade bed. If you could scoop Boston up by the edges, like a napkin, and lay it across the hills, you could see the entire city at once: that’s how panoramic your vista is. Traffic was light and the weather was cool and open. The Audi handled perfectly, accelerating with a quiet hum and whipping around every curve in the hillside. I didn’t drop below 75 unless I wanted to.

May

o pilot of the storm that leaves no trace, like thoughts inside a dream

Posted by Perich at 7:00 am

The Book of the New Sun: The greatest science fiction novel I have ever read. Very likely the greatest science fiction novel of the 20th century.

Lots of critics praise Infinite Jest for the depth of its characters, the details of its uncertain future, the use of archaic language and the unique voice of its unreliable narrator. But Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun, a tetralogy meant to be read as a single novel, is better at all of these things and an easier read besides. In fact, I’d say Wolfe’s accomplishment was greater. Writing about a precocious tennis prodigy when you’re a precocious tennis prodigy yourself isn’t cheating per se, but it’s like the illusionist explaining his trick. The mystery is gone; the craft is obvious. But Wolfe has invented a world out of nothing, given it tens of thousands of years of detailed history, and invited us to poke into every corner. The illusion stands up to scrutiny on all levels.

And of course it’s an entertaining yarn. On one level, The Book of the New Sun is your typical fantasy picaresque. A young man (Severian), for whom a great destiny is promised, sets out from the guild that raised him on a series of adventures. He encounters comical and treacherous companions along the way, discovers a potent artifact, falls in love, suffers and triumphs. Yes, yes, of course. A few complications: Severian is an apprentice torturer, learning the arts of excruciation. He lives in a city so vast that you can spend days traveling to exit it, and in a society so complex that many people don’t believe his guild exists. His story is told with language so archaic that it makes a world full of humans look alien (exiled by a master carnifex, he dons a fuligin cloak and joins the optimates wandering the city, storing relics in the sabretache at his belt). To top it all off, Severian’s the most unreliable narrator in the history of the genre.

A few words on reliability: Severian claims, about once per chapter, to have eidetic recall. And yet he elides over key details (e.g., the exact nature of his relationship with the Chatelaine Thecla) until long after their moments have passed. Scenes of tremendous import pass him by (e.g., the feast at the camp of the Vodalarii in Book Two); he is oblivious to their meaning or blithely accepts whatever he’s told. He describes how passionately he loves every woman he sleeps with, as if he were a Don Juan and not a teenager recently freed from guild servitude. Severian’s memoir introduces improbable events with off-hand remarks, glosses over substantial stretches of time with little warning and is non-linear. It’s not for the weak.

James Joyce apocryphally said of Finnegan’s Wake that “it took me a lifetime to write it; it ought to take you a lifetime to read it.” The Book of the New Sun won, or was nominated for, every major award the science fiction community can offer: the World Fantasy Award, the British Science Fiction Award, the Nebula, the Locus, the Hugo and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award. It is as far ahead of the ray-guns-and-rocket-ships engineering pr0n that passes for science fiction as the space shuttle is ahead of the trireme. It is literature, and it is more literary than what many consider literature. I definitely have to re-read it at least once more and could see myself reading it again every year. But it’s not for everyone. It is (as Severian warns us at the end of each section) no easy journey.

May

you are my angel

Posted by Perich at 9:17 am

I had my doubts about Massive Attack as a live show: would people just stand around, swaying, while two guys stood on stage with synthesizers and 808s? Fortunately, that was not the case: last night’s show at House of Blues flipped my mind. I’d go so far as to say that Massive Attack is better live than they are on your stereo. A lot of the tracks off of Heligoland, which sounded flat when I previewed them, filled me with awe when they cranked the bass and started the light show.

Though I’m not old, I may be getting too old for concerts. My knees and hamstrings ached after three hours of standing. When I saw a cloud of tangy smoke rising from the audience during “Angel,” my only thought was: really? you’re throwing away a $40 concert ticket because you can’t bother toking up before you get here? In a standing-room-only indoor crowd, with spotlights pointing out your smoke trail for the world to see, security will always find you. Always. But the chief sign that I’m getting too old for concerts: my ears no longer ring. I can crowd the stage at Ted Leo, or stand under a giant bank of speakers for Massive Attack, and transition to the night with no difficulty. I’ve lost all the hearing that I’m ever going to.

The light board behind the band flashed Howard Zinn quotes, statistics about the availability of fresh water in Yemen and occasional exhortations to Arizona (specifically, “what the fuck Arizona”). To which, yeah, but whose country popularized the phrase “libel tourism“? Take the beam out of thy own security cameras before poking at the mote in ours.

Pics forthcoming; check back here for updates.