Still on lockdown -- still social distancing, still working from home, still desperately looking for excuses to run to the grocery store or fill the gas tank ro get out of the house for any reason at all. Michigan stay-at-home is until May 30th at the soonest.
I am finding ways to stay active and for the moment anyway, my day-to-day activities are still minorly impacted. I'm still employed, which is a saving grace. I'm getting enough exercise -- running, biking, walking, and the odd fitness video. I have been able to get some minor stuff done around the house. Although oddly, no fiction writing. Hmmmm.
I've been doing some pretentious reading. I tried to get into Sartor Resartus by Carlyle, but struggled with his baroque vocabulary and dozen clause sentences. I set it aside but I read enough to know I'd like to get back to it. Now I'm going through Thus Spoke Zarathustra -- Nietszche is all the rage in certain corners of the internet. I do need to mix in some more Maigret of Nero Wolfe to keep my head from exploding.
[TV] Toob Notes
[Rant] Coronatime, Month 2
[Rant] Lucky or Smart
Sunday, May 10, 2020
[TV] Toob Notes
Tiger King
Yeah I got sucked into it like everyone else. Dear God what a festival of dysfunction!
Before I get to the show itself, let me start by saying I don't think exotic animals should be imported or bred for captivity. That said, I'm not sure how I justify that opinion. At some point in human history there were no domesticated animals, that is to say all animals were exotic in a sense. If people like me held sway throughout history there would be no domestication of wolves, and horses would never have been used for transportation. So how do I know that Tiger King and his ilk aren't just on the leading edge of a new human/animal partnership? Another thing is that it's clear that some of the folks in this documentary gain deep satisfaction from caring for these animals, especially the tigers. In my uncertainty, am I in a position to deny them that? What rights non-humans have under natural law is not a settled issue.
Sometimes I wish I could just be like most other people. Form incompletely reasoned opinions based on my gut and decide they are correct and certain then just get on with my life.
Yes, the characters in Tiger King are jaw-droppingly extreme. But perhaps equally impressive is the structure of the series itself. The first episode is just about some crazy weirdo who has a zoo. Then it builds. We see that there is a little subculture of exotic animal zoo keepers and they are all weirdos. Then we see they have a blood feud with a woman who is trying to shut them down. Then we see the woman trying to shut them down has a missing rich husband who was declared dead under suspicious circumstances and she may not be as saintly as she seems. The dead husband's family believes she killed him and her current husband --also wealthy -- is not exactly an alpha male. Then we see keeping exotic pets seems to go hand in hand with -- how to put this precisely? -- uncommon sexual relationships. Then things really start to get wild. There is an accidental suicide, criminals and conmen are everywhere, one of the wierdos clearly has turned his zoo into a cult-ish type organization with a Mason-esque troop of enraptured young girls. The pinnacle is a supposed murder-for-hire plot when at last the the FBI shuts everything down and makes arrests.
Here's the thing: It's all real. It is utterly, outrageously unbelievable but it is all real. Often you can see how a documentarian has manipulated facts to make things seem wild and bombastic, but honestly, it would be hard for me to make any sort of case that these were reasonable people being misrepresented. And I didn't even touch on many of the crazy details like the country songs, and the race for governor, and the boob jobs, and the drug dealers.
Fiction is dead, it cant compete.
Breaking: Nick Cage to play Joe Exotic in a scripted mini-series. Because of course he is. However weird you get, there is always something weirder.
Better Call Saul
This was Kim's season. She had convinced herself that her purpose was to do good. To make compromises to find ways to help the helpless; to defend the noble unwashed that the system is screwing. But after having to brazen her way through some tough, and in one case life-threatening, situations along with seeing the ultimate futility of pro bono. She appears to buy into the crooked life, wholeheartedly. This is Vince Gilligan's stock-in-trade. How events drive decent people down paths they should know better than to go down.
(I say "appears" because there is the outside possibility that she is either testing JImmy or outright conning him. I wouldn't put either past her.)
As far as character development goes, that was really about it for the season. The Jimmy/Mike/Nacho/Gus/Lalo story was strong, but really just a standard drug dealer plotline. No one found new aspects to their life or personality.
Better Call Saul is still a terrific show but it has yet to re-achieve the high point of the Jimmy versus Chuck drama of the first couple of seasons. With one more season to go I honestly wonder if it will. It may, like it's predecessor Breaking Bad just finish its last season as a top quality crime story. Nothing bad about that.
Yeah I got sucked into it like everyone else. Dear God what a festival of dysfunction!
Before I get to the show itself, let me start by saying I don't think exotic animals should be imported or bred for captivity. That said, I'm not sure how I justify that opinion. At some point in human history there were no domesticated animals, that is to say all animals were exotic in a sense. If people like me held sway throughout history there would be no domestication of wolves, and horses would never have been used for transportation. So how do I know that Tiger King and his ilk aren't just on the leading edge of a new human/animal partnership? Another thing is that it's clear that some of the folks in this documentary gain deep satisfaction from caring for these animals, especially the tigers. In my uncertainty, am I in a position to deny them that? What rights non-humans have under natural law is not a settled issue.
Sometimes I wish I could just be like most other people. Form incompletely reasoned opinions based on my gut and decide they are correct and certain then just get on with my life.
Yes, the characters in Tiger King are jaw-droppingly extreme. But perhaps equally impressive is the structure of the series itself. The first episode is just about some crazy weirdo who has a zoo. Then it builds. We see that there is a little subculture of exotic animal zoo keepers and they are all weirdos. Then we see they have a blood feud with a woman who is trying to shut them down. Then we see the woman trying to shut them down has a missing rich husband who was declared dead under suspicious circumstances and she may not be as saintly as she seems. The dead husband's family believes she killed him and her current husband --also wealthy -- is not exactly an alpha male. Then we see keeping exotic pets seems to go hand in hand with -- how to put this precisely? -- uncommon sexual relationships. Then things really start to get wild. There is an accidental suicide, criminals and conmen are everywhere, one of the wierdos clearly has turned his zoo into a cult-ish type organization with a Mason-esque troop of enraptured young girls. The pinnacle is a supposed murder-for-hire plot when at last the the FBI shuts everything down and makes arrests.
Here's the thing: It's all real. It is utterly, outrageously unbelievable but it is all real. Often you can see how a documentarian has manipulated facts to make things seem wild and bombastic, but honestly, it would be hard for me to make any sort of case that these were reasonable people being misrepresented. And I didn't even touch on many of the crazy details like the country songs, and the race for governor, and the boob jobs, and the drug dealers.
Fiction is dead, it cant compete.
Breaking: Nick Cage to play Joe Exotic in a scripted mini-series. Because of course he is. However weird you get, there is always something weirder.
Better Call Saul
This was Kim's season. She had convinced herself that her purpose was to do good. To make compromises to find ways to help the helpless; to defend the noble unwashed that the system is screwing. But after having to brazen her way through some tough, and in one case life-threatening, situations along with seeing the ultimate futility of pro bono. She appears to buy into the crooked life, wholeheartedly. This is Vince Gilligan's stock-in-trade. How events drive decent people down paths they should know better than to go down.
(I say "appears" because there is the outside possibility that she is either testing JImmy or outright conning him. I wouldn't put either past her.)
As far as character development goes, that was really about it for the season. The Jimmy/Mike/Nacho/Gus/Lalo story was strong, but really just a standard drug dealer plotline. No one found new aspects to their life or personality.
Better Call Saul is still a terrific show but it has yet to re-achieve the high point of the Jimmy versus Chuck drama of the first couple of seasons. With one more season to go I honestly wonder if it will. It may, like it's predecessor Breaking Bad just finish its last season as a top quality crime story. Nothing bad about that.
[Covid19, Rant] Coronatime, Month 2
The conflict is between economic disaster and more deaths. That may be slightly hyperbolic, but essentially it's accurate. The bias to this date has been towards preventing more deaths, and that has probably been right, but there will come a point where that changes. It is certain that at some point the shut down will cause irreparable harm. If we don't see that point and react we're going to be in bad shape long after the virus is a fading memory. Financial disasters happen slowly, then all at once.
The truth is nobody knows much of anything. Not politicians, not epidemiologists, not economists. Every theory that is put forward is countered by an equally plausible opposite theory. Every piece of data is confounded by a conflicting piece of data. If you don't see this, you aren't reading widely enough. There is no point where you can guarantee re-opening won't cause an extra death, or ten extra deaths, or a hundred, or a thousand. Whatever point you choose, people will die that wouldn't have otherwise. Any point we re-open will be wrong. It will either be too early or too late.
It's an ugly state of affairs with virtually no certainly in anything, but we won't treat it that way. We won't acknowledge our uncertainty and, because of that, be tolerant of opinions and decisions that run counter to our own. We will do what we always do, build a story in our head based on our biases and assumptions, delude ourselves that it is objectively correct, and accuse anyone who disagrees of being reprehensible. And use our hindsight as a bludgeon later on.
I have my own story.
Here in Michigan the Governor is antagonising everybody. She has assumed emergency powers, keeps things shut, and explains little, just declares her good intentions. If she has her way, next month I will have to eventually write Coronatime, month 8. I don't think she's handling this very well as a point of political practicality, but expressing such an opinion would simply get me lumped in with the armed protestors marching on the capital. Meanwhile her attorney general has accused people who want restrictions lifted of racism. Yep, that's our world (are you a contributor?).
I do know one thing for certain. I will be on the first plane to the first state that legitimately opens up. I shall get a haircut, go to a gym, have food and drink somewhere nice, and not feel the slightest bit guilty. Addenda: Here is the best and clearest scientific assessment of Covid-19 I have seen. If you read this and decide that it confirms what you believed about how we should proceed, you should make every effort to reassess how biased you are.
The truth is nobody knows much of anything. Not politicians, not epidemiologists, not economists. Every theory that is put forward is countered by an equally plausible opposite theory. Every piece of data is confounded by a conflicting piece of data. If you don't see this, you aren't reading widely enough. There is no point where you can guarantee re-opening won't cause an extra death, or ten extra deaths, or a hundred, or a thousand. Whatever point you choose, people will die that wouldn't have otherwise. Any point we re-open will be wrong. It will either be too early or too late.
It's an ugly state of affairs with virtually no certainly in anything, but we won't treat it that way. We won't acknowledge our uncertainty and, because of that, be tolerant of opinions and decisions that run counter to our own. We will do what we always do, build a story in our head based on our biases and assumptions, delude ourselves that it is objectively correct, and accuse anyone who disagrees of being reprehensible. And use our hindsight as a bludgeon later on.
I have my own story.
- I think the lockdown needs to be loosened via targeting. Things like making special arrangements for the most vulnerable but opening things up for the young and healthy. Keeping things tight in highly infected and dense areas but opening things up elsewhere, rather than keep entire States shut down.
- I think we are underestimating the economic cost at the moment for two reasons:
- The economic assistance that was rendered, especially the unemployment increase and the $1200 advance, have done a lot of good but is unsustainable and may be impossible to repeat should this go longer.
- Policy makers are not in any immediate danger financially and so probably don't have the sense of urgency they should have about economic damage.
- I think we need to seriously consider variolation (intentionally infecting healthy volunteers) to build immunity. The soonest estimate I have seen for a vaccine is fall, flattening the curve for that long through lockdown is a recipe for financial disaster for a trivial benefit in mortality reduction.
Here in Michigan the Governor is antagonising everybody. She has assumed emergency powers, keeps things shut, and explains little, just declares her good intentions. If she has her way, next month I will have to eventually write Coronatime, month 8. I don't think she's handling this very well as a point of political practicality, but expressing such an opinion would simply get me lumped in with the armed protestors marching on the capital. Meanwhile her attorney general has accused people who want restrictions lifted of racism. Yep, that's our world (are you a contributor?).
I do know one thing for certain. I will be on the first plane to the first state that legitimately opens up. I shall get a haircut, go to a gym, have food and drink somewhere nice, and not feel the slightest bit guilty. Addenda: Here is the best and clearest scientific assessment of Covid-19 I have seen. If you read this and decide that it confirms what you believed about how we should proceed, you should make every effort to reassess how biased you are.
[Rant] Lucky or Smart
Sorry to go on about Coronavirus, but it's really all that is happening now. There is no issue or concern that is not related to it somehow -- except maybe the murder hornets.
As I mentioned, I am very lucky. The biggest reason for that is I still have my job. I work in software development for a global, Fortune 500 conglomerate. The work is what I would call government/regulatory-adjacent so while there will certainly be a hit to revenue, it will be much smaller than most. I haven't heard anything about possible layoffs and no contractors have been let go (I assume they would be first). The only hint of any problems has been a hiring freeze and gently worded announcements to please try to curtail expenses as much as possible. I suspect what will happen this year is that raises and bonuses will be eliminated for the time being.
Even better, I can work from home in relative comfort. So although my retirement plans took a hit -- when you're 59 you don't have decades to recover -- I really have no urgent money worries. I live in a big house in a comfortable, borderline rural, neighborhood with plenty of space and opportunities to get exercise outdoors. My biggest concerns are that I hate wearing a mask and I can't go to the gym.
Why am I cataloging this? Well, partially because there is really nothing else to write about these days (Yes, I know. I should write fiction.), but mostly because I want to understand what it says about me.
First of all, my current state should make any opinion I have about the need to extend restrictions highly suspect. As a corollary I should be very wary of dismissing the opinions of re-openers because I simply am not having the same experience as them. We might all be in this together, but we are not all in this equally.
But more interesting to me is what it means for me to say "I'm lucky." That is to ask, how much of my relatively happy circumstance is just chance versus will? Have I done smart things and made good decisions to get here, or did I just happen to stumble down a path that is letting me ride this out in comparative comfort?
Much of this hinges on financial security. I had some timely advantages here. First I inadvertently took a long time to graduate from college. But that effectively allowed me to work my way through. I took out a small loan when I was a sophomore, just a couple thousand dollars, but I was able to pay that off before I even graduated. When I was young I benefited from a gift of a car from my grandmother when I graduated college. I was wise enough to choose a Toyota which gave me 9 years of service. So that was nine years at the start of my adult life, when many people are accumulating debt that will hinder them for many years, where I got a head start. Is that luck? In some sense it is. It was not my plan, it just sort of worked out that way, but still it was my nature that allowed me to make the choices for it to happen without letting missteps undermine me. (Is my nature a matter of having good luck? Perhaps.)
This is not to say that everything worked out easily. I have a remarkable inability to find a job when I need one. This surprises people who know me who seem to think I am a pretty solid candidate for work -- I am very thoughtful, relatively diligent, personable when I try to be, though quite introverted. I am not the sort of person you would think to have trouble finding employment, but the two extended stretches of my life where I was unemployed were excruciatingly frustrating. In both cases, after months of effort, I ended up with jobs that I was quite underqualified for just to stay solvent. Does that count as bad luck? Or is it my fault for not playing the networking game and preparing better for interviews and being less, well, introverted. (Is my nature a matter of having bad luck? Perhaps.)
That brings me to the two things that allow me to be as comfortable as I am. One of those lousy jobs directly led the job I currently have and have been at for 27 years. My career advancement has been virtually non-existent, but it has been unwaveringly steady the whole time. My salary has grown equally steadily, and my 401k along with it. I have done nothing stupid with the money. I have mostly invested my savings conventionally. I travelled quite a bit, but never at great expense. Since that initial Toyota I have owned exactly 3 other cars, paid in full at purchase; I have never had a car payment. I purchased a condo which I lived in for 15 years which I recouped 100% at sale (no profit, but still better than renting). Was all that good luck? Again, I didn't pick the company thinking it was a place I could work and financially grow for nearly three decades, but I also didn't job hop around hoping to stumble on an amazing opportunity and a shot at the c-suite. I know folks who did that and are caught out of work now, at the worst time possible. Essentially I inadvertently took a low risk path. Was I lucky to stumble on that path? Probably. Was I wise to appreciate it and stay on it? Also, probably. Was my wisdom the result of my nature? Maybe. (Is my nature a matter of luck? Perhaps.)
Almost certainly, though, the biggest thing that contributed to my financial well-being has been not having a family. Raising children is where the bulk of people spend their money over their lives; many would argue it is the reason for the money to begin with. Though having a family at this exact point in time is a tremendous stressor, not just financially, I suspect very few people are serious thinking that they wish they hadn't started a family because it would be much easier on them right now. Without going into excruciating personal detail, not having a family is definitely the result of my nature. Few people would say someone who's nature drove them to never have a family was lucky, except perhaps in the case of pandemic.
There is no telling if my nature is a matter of luck or not, good or bad.
All this leads me to see this crisis as playing to my strengths. I am able to help out my friends in many ways. Provide some back-up, so to speak; be of value to those who have built up social capital with me. I am not under any tremendous stress (yet). That in itself is a form of luck. The crisis that happened is the crisis I happened to be well prepared for. I'm sure there are other crises that would devastate me and have me at my wit's end. The extent to which my current circumstances are the result of luck I can't say. I can say I am lucky that this crisis was one that I was set for.
So this post was my gut check. Am I doing this right? Acknowledge my good fortune. Support the people I care about as needed. Recognize that most people are living a very different experience than me, and respect that.
Yes, I think I'm doing OK.
As I mentioned, I am very lucky. The biggest reason for that is I still have my job. I work in software development for a global, Fortune 500 conglomerate. The work is what I would call government/regulatory-adjacent so while there will certainly be a hit to revenue, it will be much smaller than most. I haven't heard anything about possible layoffs and no contractors have been let go (I assume they would be first). The only hint of any problems has been a hiring freeze and gently worded announcements to please try to curtail expenses as much as possible. I suspect what will happen this year is that raises and bonuses will be eliminated for the time being.
Even better, I can work from home in relative comfort. So although my retirement plans took a hit -- when you're 59 you don't have decades to recover -- I really have no urgent money worries. I live in a big house in a comfortable, borderline rural, neighborhood with plenty of space and opportunities to get exercise outdoors. My biggest concerns are that I hate wearing a mask and I can't go to the gym.
Why am I cataloging this? Well, partially because there is really nothing else to write about these days (Yes, I know. I should write fiction.), but mostly because I want to understand what it says about me.
First of all, my current state should make any opinion I have about the need to extend restrictions highly suspect. As a corollary I should be very wary of dismissing the opinions of re-openers because I simply am not having the same experience as them. We might all be in this together, but we are not all in this equally.
But more interesting to me is what it means for me to say "I'm lucky." That is to ask, how much of my relatively happy circumstance is just chance versus will? Have I done smart things and made good decisions to get here, or did I just happen to stumble down a path that is letting me ride this out in comparative comfort?
Much of this hinges on financial security. I had some timely advantages here. First I inadvertently took a long time to graduate from college. But that effectively allowed me to work my way through. I took out a small loan when I was a sophomore, just a couple thousand dollars, but I was able to pay that off before I even graduated. When I was young I benefited from a gift of a car from my grandmother when I graduated college. I was wise enough to choose a Toyota which gave me 9 years of service. So that was nine years at the start of my adult life, when many people are accumulating debt that will hinder them for many years, where I got a head start. Is that luck? In some sense it is. It was not my plan, it just sort of worked out that way, but still it was my nature that allowed me to make the choices for it to happen without letting missteps undermine me. (Is my nature a matter of having good luck? Perhaps.)
This is not to say that everything worked out easily. I have a remarkable inability to find a job when I need one. This surprises people who know me who seem to think I am a pretty solid candidate for work -- I am very thoughtful, relatively diligent, personable when I try to be, though quite introverted. I am not the sort of person you would think to have trouble finding employment, but the two extended stretches of my life where I was unemployed were excruciatingly frustrating. In both cases, after months of effort, I ended up with jobs that I was quite underqualified for just to stay solvent. Does that count as bad luck? Or is it my fault for not playing the networking game and preparing better for interviews and being less, well, introverted. (Is my nature a matter of having bad luck? Perhaps.)
That brings me to the two things that allow me to be as comfortable as I am. One of those lousy jobs directly led the job I currently have and have been at for 27 years. My career advancement has been virtually non-existent, but it has been unwaveringly steady the whole time. My salary has grown equally steadily, and my 401k along with it. I have done nothing stupid with the money. I have mostly invested my savings conventionally. I travelled quite a bit, but never at great expense. Since that initial Toyota I have owned exactly 3 other cars, paid in full at purchase; I have never had a car payment. I purchased a condo which I lived in for 15 years which I recouped 100% at sale (no profit, but still better than renting). Was all that good luck? Again, I didn't pick the company thinking it was a place I could work and financially grow for nearly three decades, but I also didn't job hop around hoping to stumble on an amazing opportunity and a shot at the c-suite. I know folks who did that and are caught out of work now, at the worst time possible. Essentially I inadvertently took a low risk path. Was I lucky to stumble on that path? Probably. Was I wise to appreciate it and stay on it? Also, probably. Was my wisdom the result of my nature? Maybe. (Is my nature a matter of luck? Perhaps.)
Almost certainly, though, the biggest thing that contributed to my financial well-being has been not having a family. Raising children is where the bulk of people spend their money over their lives; many would argue it is the reason for the money to begin with. Though having a family at this exact point in time is a tremendous stressor, not just financially, I suspect very few people are serious thinking that they wish they hadn't started a family because it would be much easier on them right now. Without going into excruciating personal detail, not having a family is definitely the result of my nature. Few people would say someone who's nature drove them to never have a family was lucky, except perhaps in the case of pandemic.
There is no telling if my nature is a matter of luck or not, good or bad.
All this leads me to see this crisis as playing to my strengths. I am able to help out my friends in many ways. Provide some back-up, so to speak; be of value to those who have built up social capital with me. I am not under any tremendous stress (yet). That in itself is a form of luck. The crisis that happened is the crisis I happened to be well prepared for. I'm sure there are other crises that would devastate me and have me at my wit's end. The extent to which my current circumstances are the result of luck I can't say. I can say I am lucky that this crisis was one that I was set for.
So this post was my gut check. Am I doing this right? Acknowledge my good fortune. Support the people I care about as needed. Recognize that most people are living a very different experience than me, and respect that.
Yes, I think I'm doing OK.
Sunday, April 05, 2020
The Month That Was - March 2020
On lockdown -- well, on social distancing at least. Working from home, desperately looking for excuses to run to the grocery store or fill the gas tank or get out of the house for any reason at all. Right now, it looks like it'll be like this until May, at the soonest.
My retirement investment account screen has a little meter on it that moves from red to green depending on how well set I am for retirement. A couple of weeks ago it was barely in green, now it's gone far into red. Isn't that wonderful for someone who will turn 60 this year?
On the other hand, maybe I'll get stuff done -- chores, writing, etc. It remains to be seen whether I will be able to be productive. Trying to stay productive and busy is probably the best ambition to have right now.
[Movies] Flick Check: Oscars and Eye Rolls
[Books] Book Look: Spring Snow
[Covid19] Livin' in Coronatime
My retirement investment account screen has a little meter on it that moves from red to green depending on how well set I am for retirement. A couple of weeks ago it was barely in green, now it's gone far into red. Isn't that wonderful for someone who will turn 60 this year?
On the other hand, maybe I'll get stuff done -- chores, writing, etc. It remains to be seen whether I will be able to be productive. Trying to stay productive and busy is probably the best ambition to have right now.
[Movies] Flick Check: Oscars and Eye Rolls
[Books] Book Look: Spring Snow
[Covid19] Livin' in Coronatime
[Movies] Flick Notes: Oscars and Eye Rolls
I used to watch movies all the time and keep up with all the new releases. I gave that up years ago because pretty much all movies were disappointing to me. None of them seemed to be saying or doing anything new. The bulk of them even fail as entertainment. But when you run out of things to do, well... Most of these got some sort of Oscar mentions.
Joker -- Everybody is talking about Jaoquin Phoenix's performance and rightly so. He's a phenomenal actor. The movie itself is gut punch after gut punch. There is no respite. It is brilliantly shot and structured. Visually stunning. It owes a debt to Taxi Driver, obviously. But theme-wise, it's another cruel-world-destroys-a-decent-man story. Nothing wrong with that, other than it makes me roll my eyes. As beautiful as the craftsmanship and acting was, it doesn't strike me as rewatchable.
Ford versus Ferrari -- This is a man's movie. That is to say all the major characters are men and it celebrates traditional masculine roles and attitudes. In that sense it is kin to movies such as The Right Stuff and Master and Commander. Christian Bale gets to play a goofy wildman. Matt Damon (whom I increasingly like) gets to play gruff and homespun. Theme-wise, it's another powerful-people-are-keeping-the-true-believer-down story. Nothing wrong with that, other than it makes me roll my eyes. But it is a lot of fun so it has a high probability of being a rewatch.
JoJo Rabbit -- Part delightful, part depressing. This kid Roman Griffin Davis is the one who should get the best actor award. It starts out to be an irreverent comedy about some Nazi youth in the last days of the Third Reich, if you can believe it, and it's brilliantly funny and touching, even considering the main kid has a goofy version of Adolf Hitler as his imaginary friend. But this is no Hogan's Heroes. We transition into finding a Jew hiding in an attic and a slow descent into tragedy and terror. Yet, oddly, it never feels like a beatdown. It never loses its sense of humor or the humanity of its characters, even the Nazis. A remarkable achievement. Of the movies I've seen lately it's the only one that seems fresh and original, even daring. It doesn't make me roll my eyes, but if I rewatch, I'll turn it off about half way.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood -- Well, that was, um...interesting. The story of a fading Hollywood TV star and his friend and stunt double. They have various highly stylized adventures culminating in a re-imagining of the Manson family massacres, wherein the family, instead of committing the Tate-LaBianca murders, end up trying to kill the TV Star and his stuntman who end up killing the Manson crowd in a most gruesome manner. In a way, this is of a piece with Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds wherein a bunch of badass Jews demolish Nazis -- it's a fantasy of evil served justice that they didn't get in real life. Much could be made of Taratino's self-conscious view of Hollywood as a righteous fantasy machine, and I'm sure pretentious film reviewers will. If the ultimate statement of Once... is unclear, it is still beautifully shot, wonderfully acted, cleverly structured, and rife with points of nostalgia for someone my age, and often utterly mesmerizing. No eye roll. Likely rewatchable.
Icarus -- This won the Documentary Oscar a couple of years back. It is riveting. It begins with a very accomplished amateur cyclist (the documentarian) who decides to pursue a doping regime and document the process as an expose on the ineffectiveness of anti-doping measures. In the course of this he works with, and befriends, a legendary Russian doping master who had worked with Russian Olympic teams. The Russian takes advantage of the opportunity to become a whistleblower in the Russian Olympic doping scandal and things go from interesting to deadly serious as the highest levels of Russian politicians take umbrage and the stakes become mortal. Definitely recommended. Free on Netflix. No eye roll, but there is rarely a reason to rewatch a documentary, maybe doing further reading into the story counts as a rewatch.
Joker -- Everybody is talking about Jaoquin Phoenix's performance and rightly so. He's a phenomenal actor. The movie itself is gut punch after gut punch. There is no respite. It is brilliantly shot and structured. Visually stunning. It owes a debt to Taxi Driver, obviously. But theme-wise, it's another cruel-world-destroys-a-decent-man story. Nothing wrong with that, other than it makes me roll my eyes. As beautiful as the craftsmanship and acting was, it doesn't strike me as rewatchable.
Ford versus Ferrari -- This is a man's movie. That is to say all the major characters are men and it celebrates traditional masculine roles and attitudes. In that sense it is kin to movies such as The Right Stuff and Master and Commander. Christian Bale gets to play a goofy wildman. Matt Damon (whom I increasingly like) gets to play gruff and homespun. Theme-wise, it's another powerful-people-are-keeping-the-true-believer-down story. Nothing wrong with that, other than it makes me roll my eyes. But it is a lot of fun so it has a high probability of being a rewatch.
JoJo Rabbit -- Part delightful, part depressing. This kid Roman Griffin Davis is the one who should get the best actor award. It starts out to be an irreverent comedy about some Nazi youth in the last days of the Third Reich, if you can believe it, and it's brilliantly funny and touching, even considering the main kid has a goofy version of Adolf Hitler as his imaginary friend. But this is no Hogan's Heroes. We transition into finding a Jew hiding in an attic and a slow descent into tragedy and terror. Yet, oddly, it never feels like a beatdown. It never loses its sense of humor or the humanity of its characters, even the Nazis. A remarkable achievement. Of the movies I've seen lately it's the only one that seems fresh and original, even daring. It doesn't make me roll my eyes, but if I rewatch, I'll turn it off about half way.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood -- Well, that was, um...interesting. The story of a fading Hollywood TV star and his friend and stunt double. They have various highly stylized adventures culminating in a re-imagining of the Manson family massacres, wherein the family, instead of committing the Tate-LaBianca murders, end up trying to kill the TV Star and his stuntman who end up killing the Manson crowd in a most gruesome manner. In a way, this is of a piece with Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds wherein a bunch of badass Jews demolish Nazis -- it's a fantasy of evil served justice that they didn't get in real life. Much could be made of Taratino's self-conscious view of Hollywood as a righteous fantasy machine, and I'm sure pretentious film reviewers will. If the ultimate statement of Once... is unclear, it is still beautifully shot, wonderfully acted, cleverly structured, and rife with points of nostalgia for someone my age, and often utterly mesmerizing. No eye roll. Likely rewatchable.
Icarus -- This won the Documentary Oscar a couple of years back. It is riveting. It begins with a very accomplished amateur cyclist (the documentarian) who decides to pursue a doping regime and document the process as an expose on the ineffectiveness of anti-doping measures. In the course of this he works with, and befriends, a legendary Russian doping master who had worked with Russian Olympic teams. The Russian takes advantage of the opportunity to become a whistleblower in the Russian Olympic doping scandal and things go from interesting to deadly serious as the highest levels of Russian politicians take umbrage and the stakes become mortal. Definitely recommended. Free on Netflix. No eye roll, but there is rarely a reason to rewatch a documentary, maybe doing further reading into the story counts as a rewatch.
[Books] Book Look: Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima
Book Look: Spring Snow by Yukio Mishima
Mishima is a controversial character, partly because many on what is glibly called the "alt-right" have taken him as a bit of a role model. I leave it as an exercise for the reader if you want to read up on him. Like many reactionaries (that's not a dirty word to me, it's just an accurate description), Mishima looks back to a romanticized time of beauty, valor, and purpose. I am highly skeptical of that since I am old enough to remember a time that some folks think of as romantically idealized and it was no such thing.
Spring Snow is the first of a tetralogy of novels that Mishima meant to be his crowning glory; a sweeping overview of the changes in Japan over the course of a half a century, placing personal stories in the context of the sociopolitical. Authors have tried this many times, usually via a multi-generational family saga. Mishima attempts it by following a single character and his encounters throughout his life with a reincarnated friend who always dies before his/her twentieth birthday. The first death is in Spring Snow and each subsequent novel is a reincarnation.
Spring Snow centers around Kiyo, a diffident, detached, spoiled, 19-year-old son of a "new money" family scion. Kiyo's world is noticeably divided between fashionable attraction for western culture and the traditional imperial worship culture. Also in this mix we have Satoko, the beautiful daughter of a generations-old legitimately aristocratic family, though now fallen on hard times. The new-money and old-blood families have a symbiotic connection for the sake of each other's status. The son and daughter have a great attraction to one another in the juvenile manner of antagonizing each other and denying their feelings. At a time when they are bickering and distant, Satoko finds herself betrothed to a crown prince -- a relative of the Emperor. Like a child demanding a previously ignored toy once it is taken away, Kiyo sees the truth of his feelings and desperately desires her. They begin an illicit affair, cuckolding the crown prince. More star-crossed they could not be.
When Satoko becomes pregnant their affair is discovered. The public exposure of such wanton illicit behavior would be an insult to the Emperor himself and effectively the end of both families, at least as far as their status went. All the bitterness between the two families comes out, but they succeed in minimizing the damage and saving face, though they must scramble, connive, bribe, and lie to do it. In the course of things Satoko gets an abortion and enters a nunnery, never to see Kiyo again. Kiyo's soul is lost, he cannot return to his previous life. He attempts to see Satoko at the nunnery but is denied and falls ill from waiting for her in the cold weather and dies. As I alluded, it's all very tragically Shakespearean.
Throughout it all Mishima bends the narrative to hint at the lost qualities of the past in the face of what might be called cultural progress. In Spring Snow these are fairly subtle and more along the lines of s minor lament for those losses without outright condemnation of the present. My understanding is that this changes in the sequels.
Should you read Spring Snow? It is slow, especially at the start. Mishima does not subscribe to the "grab the reader's attention quickly" philosophy. He writes with a languid elegance that matches well with the overly formal era he is describing. He is absolutely not one to tell a joke. Aesthetics, sensuality, and romanticism dominate his approach. Not a blade of grass flutters without an ornate description. But, if he builds his story and characters slowly, he builds them with care and depth. There were a couple of times during the early chapters when I suspected he was going nowhere with this and nearly gave up, but by the middle of the book I was fully invested. Still, it is for the patient reader (but we all have time these days, don't we?) who has an appreciation of nuance and quiet action. In that sense, it is like Mishima himself: better suited for an earlier time. I am on the fence as to whether to dive into the remaining three novels.
Mishima is a controversial character, partly because many on what is glibly called the "alt-right" have taken him as a bit of a role model. I leave it as an exercise for the reader if you want to read up on him. Like many reactionaries (that's not a dirty word to me, it's just an accurate description), Mishima looks back to a romanticized time of beauty, valor, and purpose. I am highly skeptical of that since I am old enough to remember a time that some folks think of as romantically idealized and it was no such thing.
Spring Snow is the first of a tetralogy of novels that Mishima meant to be his crowning glory; a sweeping overview of the changes in Japan over the course of a half a century, placing personal stories in the context of the sociopolitical. Authors have tried this many times, usually via a multi-generational family saga. Mishima attempts it by following a single character and his encounters throughout his life with a reincarnated friend who always dies before his/her twentieth birthday. The first death is in Spring Snow and each subsequent novel is a reincarnation.
Spring Snow centers around Kiyo, a diffident, detached, spoiled, 19-year-old son of a "new money" family scion. Kiyo's world is noticeably divided between fashionable attraction for western culture and the traditional imperial worship culture. Also in this mix we have Satoko, the beautiful daughter of a generations-old legitimately aristocratic family, though now fallen on hard times. The new-money and old-blood families have a symbiotic connection for the sake of each other's status. The son and daughter have a great attraction to one another in the juvenile manner of antagonizing each other and denying their feelings. At a time when they are bickering and distant, Satoko finds herself betrothed to a crown prince -- a relative of the Emperor. Like a child demanding a previously ignored toy once it is taken away, Kiyo sees the truth of his feelings and desperately desires her. They begin an illicit affair, cuckolding the crown prince. More star-crossed they could not be.
When Satoko becomes pregnant their affair is discovered. The public exposure of such wanton illicit behavior would be an insult to the Emperor himself and effectively the end of both families, at least as far as their status went. All the bitterness between the two families comes out, but they succeed in minimizing the damage and saving face, though they must scramble, connive, bribe, and lie to do it. In the course of things Satoko gets an abortion and enters a nunnery, never to see Kiyo again. Kiyo's soul is lost, he cannot return to his previous life. He attempts to see Satoko at the nunnery but is denied and falls ill from waiting for her in the cold weather and dies. As I alluded, it's all very tragically Shakespearean.
Throughout it all Mishima bends the narrative to hint at the lost qualities of the past in the face of what might be called cultural progress. In Spring Snow these are fairly subtle and more along the lines of s minor lament for those losses without outright condemnation of the present. My understanding is that this changes in the sequels.
Should you read Spring Snow? It is slow, especially at the start. Mishima does not subscribe to the "grab the reader's attention quickly" philosophy. He writes with a languid elegance that matches well with the overly formal era he is describing. He is absolutely not one to tell a joke. Aesthetics, sensuality, and romanticism dominate his approach. Not a blade of grass flutters without an ornate description. But, if he builds his story and characters slowly, he builds them with care and depth. There were a couple of times during the early chapters when I suspected he was going nowhere with this and nearly gave up, but by the middle of the book I was fully invested. Still, it is for the patient reader (but we all have time these days, don't we?) who has an appreciation of nuance and quiet action. In that sense, it is like Mishima himself: better suited for an earlier time. I am on the fence as to whether to dive into the remaining three novels.
[Covid19] Livin' in Coronatime
Well the initial shock is over. I've figured out how to work from home. Food is not a problem. I'm one of those guys who buys toilet paper and paper towels in bulk so I was fully stocked before it started. I can't find sanitizing wipes so those are being used measuredly. The biggest hurt is seeing my retirement savings go from enjoy-the-good-life to think-about-downsizing.
I still have my job and I should be one of the last to go if layoffs start. A while ago my company started contracting for developers rather than hiring full-time employees. You would hope the contractors go first if things get bad. That's kind of the point. I resisted the move to contractors originally, but now I am chastised.
I am absolutely one of the lucky ones. My biggest problem for now is not being able to go to the gym.
I'm left to question what the future holds. Short term we have at least a month more on lockdown. Detroit is in a bad way and so anywhere nearby will probably suffer along with it as far as ongoing restrictions. Honestly, if Michigan lags anywhere in the country in returning to normal, I plan to hop a plane to Normalsville ASAP. All I need is a wifi connection.
It's the uncertainty and lack of control that induces anxiety, and uncertainty and lack of control is pretty much all we have now. The only thing that would help at this point would be knowing the endgame, which nobody knows. So I might as well spill my expectations since they are as good as anyone's.
I think before it's all said and done, about half the population can count on getting infected, but I want to be careful with statistics. Right now folks are putting the death rate at a little over 2% of the infected. So if half the population gets it that means 1% of the population will die, right (3.5 million in the U.S.)? Well, no. Right now that 2+% is based on the the number of people who were sick enough, and lucky enough, to be tested. We have no idea how many people have been infected as it is generally accepted that for most people this could be passed off as a mild cold, and that many are asymptomatic entirely. So, no, I don't think 1% of the population will die from this. The Oxford Centre for Evidence-based Medicine now estimates somewhere between .1% and .26%. That's optimistic, I think (but so am I). It's still a huge number, though. If I am right about half the population getting infected, that still calcs out to about 400,000 fatalities in the U.S. Roughly the same as WW2, or about 12 years of annual traffic deaths.
Another gut punch is that we may not be able to do anything about it beyond some minor mitigation. Once someone is sick enough to need urgent hospitalization (read: a ventilator), I have seen 10-30% chances of survival statistics, even if they get the care and equipment they need. Most of us don't need to panic for our own sake. The bulk of the fatalities will be for the elderly and health compromised. Even so, the bulk of us should brace for potential loss of family or friends. Barring the discovery of an effective treatment or a vaccine, all the social distancing in the world will just smooth the pain. Uncertainty and lack of control.
No one has ever successfully created a vaccine for a coronavirus (the flu is not a coronavirus). That sounds bad, but it's not 1918, or even 2002 anymore. This virus has had its genetic structure turned inside out in every way imaginable. Bill Gates and others have thrown billions at the problem. If it is possible to find a vaccine quickly, someone will, but I don't think the odds are with it. That's not to say some treatment won't be found to mitigate the symptoms and enable more recoveries. We have other new weapons in our arsenal such as 3-D printing respirator parts, near instant and constant communication, fewer lifelong smokers, and better hygiene policies in general. And we still have a potential arrow in our quiver called variolation. Variolation is when you infect likely survivors (volunteers, of course) with a very mild dose of the virus; just enough to develop immunity without inordinate risk of fatality. This was used effectively against smallpox as long ago as the 1700s. You build up enough immunity across the population to effectively drop the wildfire like spread of the virus if not stop it outright. Socio-politically we aren't there although I wonder if we should be.
Anyway, I expect to get it. I don't expect to die. And I really hope taking good care of myself physically over all these years has paid off in a comparatively strong immune system for a 59-year-old. (59 and a half, but who's counting?) That is the story I'm sticking to, anyway.
But what is the process for getting the world back to normal? Well, the federal government has offered guidelines which, as I read them, roughly come down to "If you go two weeks without an increase in the death rate, then you can think about gradually easing restrictions." Sounds reasonable and fairly neutral -- it doesn't make any reference to plans and schemes, it just looks to see if whatever you are doing is working. It does leave open the question of neighboring geography. If Detroit remains a hotspot but the rest of Michigan is under control, how long should Mackinac Island remain closed? Or if Indiana eases restrictions will there be mass visitation from the Chicago or Cinicinnati or Louisville that knocks them back down? These are going to be tricky decisions that have to be made with talking heads on the news shows trying to trap and embarrass the decision makers, typing hands on social media screeching about epic fails everywhere, and dirt-bag lawyers looking for any angle for a class action case.
I suspect we'll get back to normal when people fear the restrictions more than the virus. Right now there is a broad sense of community and urge to sacrifice for the common good. That will slowly dwindle as the unemployment rolls grow and economic recovery slips further and further into the future. A good clue will be what happens when white collar workers (like me) start to get laid off en masse. A lot of righteous tunes will change and suddenly the opinion that these restrictions may not be the panacea they are cracked up to be will start to gain prominence.
So I have no great insights or answers. I can build narratives where everything works out great and also where it doesn't, and I have no idea which is right. One thing I am reading here and there is how, once this is over, people will be a lot more grateful for their everyday lives. Not me. If there is one behavior I have been able to practice in recent decades it is gratitude for what I have. At least, that leaves me with no regrets about not appreciating my life before the plague. I am grateful for my gratitude.
One last thought on looking ahead: Many people are looking to the 1918 flu pandemic as a comparable. I don't know how accurate that is. It's a very different world. But I will point out that what followed that plague was 9 years of one of the greatest booms in history called The Roaring Twenties. That roar went far beyond just the economy. Once we get through this, things could get lit up in here, is what I'm saying.
I still have my job and I should be one of the last to go if layoffs start. A while ago my company started contracting for developers rather than hiring full-time employees. You would hope the contractors go first if things get bad. That's kind of the point. I resisted the move to contractors originally, but now I am chastised.
I am absolutely one of the lucky ones. My biggest problem for now is not being able to go to the gym.
I'm left to question what the future holds. Short term we have at least a month more on lockdown. Detroit is in a bad way and so anywhere nearby will probably suffer along with it as far as ongoing restrictions. Honestly, if Michigan lags anywhere in the country in returning to normal, I plan to hop a plane to Normalsville ASAP. All I need is a wifi connection.
It's the uncertainty and lack of control that induces anxiety, and uncertainty and lack of control is pretty much all we have now. The only thing that would help at this point would be knowing the endgame, which nobody knows. So I might as well spill my expectations since they are as good as anyone's.
I think before it's all said and done, about half the population can count on getting infected, but I want to be careful with statistics. Right now folks are putting the death rate at a little over 2% of the infected. So if half the population gets it that means 1% of the population will die, right (3.5 million in the U.S.)? Well, no. Right now that 2+% is based on the the number of people who were sick enough, and lucky enough, to be tested. We have no idea how many people have been infected as it is generally accepted that for most people this could be passed off as a mild cold, and that many are asymptomatic entirely. So, no, I don't think 1% of the population will die from this. The Oxford Centre for Evidence-based Medicine now estimates somewhere between .1% and .26%. That's optimistic, I think (but so am I). It's still a huge number, though. If I am right about half the population getting infected, that still calcs out to about 400,000 fatalities in the U.S. Roughly the same as WW2, or about 12 years of annual traffic deaths.
Another gut punch is that we may not be able to do anything about it beyond some minor mitigation. Once someone is sick enough to need urgent hospitalization (read: a ventilator), I have seen 10-30% chances of survival statistics, even if they get the care and equipment they need. Most of us don't need to panic for our own sake. The bulk of the fatalities will be for the elderly and health compromised. Even so, the bulk of us should brace for potential loss of family or friends. Barring the discovery of an effective treatment or a vaccine, all the social distancing in the world will just smooth the pain. Uncertainty and lack of control.
No one has ever successfully created a vaccine for a coronavirus (the flu is not a coronavirus). That sounds bad, but it's not 1918, or even 2002 anymore. This virus has had its genetic structure turned inside out in every way imaginable. Bill Gates and others have thrown billions at the problem. If it is possible to find a vaccine quickly, someone will, but I don't think the odds are with it. That's not to say some treatment won't be found to mitigate the symptoms and enable more recoveries. We have other new weapons in our arsenal such as 3-D printing respirator parts, near instant and constant communication, fewer lifelong smokers, and better hygiene policies in general. And we still have a potential arrow in our quiver called variolation. Variolation is when you infect likely survivors (volunteers, of course) with a very mild dose of the virus; just enough to develop immunity without inordinate risk of fatality. This was used effectively against smallpox as long ago as the 1700s. You build up enough immunity across the population to effectively drop the wildfire like spread of the virus if not stop it outright. Socio-politically we aren't there although I wonder if we should be.
Anyway, I expect to get it. I don't expect to die. And I really hope taking good care of myself physically over all these years has paid off in a comparatively strong immune system for a 59-year-old. (59 and a half, but who's counting?) That is the story I'm sticking to, anyway.
But what is the process for getting the world back to normal? Well, the federal government has offered guidelines which, as I read them, roughly come down to "If you go two weeks without an increase in the death rate, then you can think about gradually easing restrictions." Sounds reasonable and fairly neutral -- it doesn't make any reference to plans and schemes, it just looks to see if whatever you are doing is working. It does leave open the question of neighboring geography. If Detroit remains a hotspot but the rest of Michigan is under control, how long should Mackinac Island remain closed? Or if Indiana eases restrictions will there be mass visitation from the Chicago or Cinicinnati or Louisville that knocks them back down? These are going to be tricky decisions that have to be made with talking heads on the news shows trying to trap and embarrass the decision makers, typing hands on social media screeching about epic fails everywhere, and dirt-bag lawyers looking for any angle for a class action case.
I suspect we'll get back to normal when people fear the restrictions more than the virus. Right now there is a broad sense of community and urge to sacrifice for the common good. That will slowly dwindle as the unemployment rolls grow and economic recovery slips further and further into the future. A good clue will be what happens when white collar workers (like me) start to get laid off en masse. A lot of righteous tunes will change and suddenly the opinion that these restrictions may not be the panacea they are cracked up to be will start to gain prominence.
So I have no great insights or answers. I can build narratives where everything works out great and also where it doesn't, and I have no idea which is right. One thing I am reading here and there is how, once this is over, people will be a lot more grateful for their everyday lives. Not me. If there is one behavior I have been able to practice in recent decades it is gratitude for what I have. At least, that leaves me with no regrets about not appreciating my life before the plague. I am grateful for my gratitude.
One last thought on looking ahead: Many people are looking to the 1918 flu pandemic as a comparable. I don't know how accurate that is. It's a very different world. But I will point out that what followed that plague was 9 years of one of the greatest booms in history called The Roaring Twenties. That roar went far beyond just the economy. Once we get through this, things could get lit up in here, is what I'm saying.
Monday, March 02, 2020
The Month That Was - February 2020
'Twas was the month the Coronavirus grew from a curiosity across the Pacific to OMG the world is going to end. As of right now, the best response anyone has come up with is wash your hands a lot, but I wouldn't be surprised if inoculation are announced sooner than we think. I mean pretty much every virologist in the world is looking at this now. In the meantime -- I planning on getting it at some point. Folks in my age group are looking at about a 2% fatality rate -- better than anything you'll find in Vegas. I also have to hope that being physically fit pays off in the strengthened immune system it is supposed to provide. Meanwhile the stock market is taking a hit and, if I live, I hope to buy at the bottom.
[Rant] OK Boomers
[Movies] Flick Check: Midnight in Paris
[Books] Book Look: First and Last Men
[Baseball] Houston Asterisks
[Rant] OK Boomers
[Movies] Flick Check: Midnight in Paris
[Books] Book Look: First and Last Men
[Baseball] Houston Asterisks
[Rant] OK Boomers
I was born in 1960. That makes me a late Boomer, assuming your definition follows the standard of "born between 1946 and 1964". My father served in WW2 and my mom was in the Waves, so the appellation fits.
Almost every claim everyone makes about Boomers is correct. We have had the cushiest birth in history, a notion first popularized in the deeply annoying movie, The Big Chill. The worst economic times we've ever seen was in 2009, now termed the Great Recession, which folks before us would have laughed at and which I took advantage of to buy a house at the bottom of the market.
We have done so well with money over the course of our lives that mass culture has been forced to follow us into old age. Have you noticed that Magnum P.I. and Hawaii 5-0 have been rebooted on TV? The most successful movie franchise of all time is based on comic books I remember from my tween years. How about the dinosaurs of Classic Rock still dominating the airwaves and raking in concert dollars?
We've also managed to preside over the gutting and degradation of just about every one of the institutions that supported us on our way to the top. If I were cynical I would call that pulling the ladder up behind us. Yes, Gen X takes some blame for this too, but they were just copying us.
About the only accusation that isn't true is that we've "ruined the planet". This is objectively false. By any broad measure the environment is better than it's ever been.
Wait! It gets better. The past few years have brought massive advances in the battles against cancer and Alzheimer's. That means most of us are probably going to live well beyond 80 and many of us will see triple digits. I have to laugh when I hear young people talk about Medicare for All. You're going to end up with half your meager paychecks going to cover our medical bills while we sit around and gripe about how you are ruining everything.
OK boomer? Not just OK, I'm doin' great.
Almost every claim everyone makes about Boomers is correct. We have had the cushiest birth in history, a notion first popularized in the deeply annoying movie, The Big Chill. The worst economic times we've ever seen was in 2009, now termed the Great Recession, which folks before us would have laughed at and which I took advantage of to buy a house at the bottom of the market.
We have done so well with money over the course of our lives that mass culture has been forced to follow us into old age. Have you noticed that Magnum P.I. and Hawaii 5-0 have been rebooted on TV? The most successful movie franchise of all time is based on comic books I remember from my tween years. How about the dinosaurs of Classic Rock still dominating the airwaves and raking in concert dollars?
We've also managed to preside over the gutting and degradation of just about every one of the institutions that supported us on our way to the top. If I were cynical I would call that pulling the ladder up behind us. Yes, Gen X takes some blame for this too, but they were just copying us.
About the only accusation that isn't true is that we've "ruined the planet". This is objectively false. By any broad measure the environment is better than it's ever been.
Wait! It gets better. The past few years have brought massive advances in the battles against cancer and Alzheimer's. That means most of us are probably going to live well beyond 80 and many of us will see triple digits. I have to laugh when I hear young people talk about Medicare for All. You're going to end up with half your meager paychecks going to cover our medical bills while we sit around and gripe about how you are ruining everything.
OK boomer? Not just OK, I'm doin' great.
[Movies] Flick Check: Midnight in Paris
It's been a long time since I saw a Woody Allen movie. I needn't recap the personal reputational crash he's experienced over the past decade or so (I remain agnostic as to its validity). Perhaps I should develop a policy on how to approach art by troublesome artists. Or perhaps I should chew glass.
Midnight in Paris is one of his magical-realist comedies. Set in modern day Paris, a writer engaged to an awful woman finds himself transported each night to the Paris of the 20s. He meets Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Picasso, Dali, and a host of others. During the course of these adventures he comes to realize a) how awful his fiance is and b) how he can't live in a romanticized past. It's all very light-hearted, romantic, and delightful.
Although his main character is still basically Woody Allen, thankfully he stopped trying to play himself as the romantic lead. I think his last shot at that was shortly after the turn of the century, which was about 20 years too late. Here he gives the role to Owen Wilson who does a great job of playing Woody Allen, but more subtly and thoughtfully.
Yes, it's a standard Woody Allen comedy. If you hate those, you'll hate this. Also, although the moral of the story is to live in the present, you'd be hard pressed to get the most out of it unless you were aware of some of the personalities from the 20s, otherwise you'll miss a lot of the clever portrayals. I especially liked Adrien Brody's Dali. If you're OK with Woody Allen and have a passing awareness of the personalities from Paris in the 1920s you'll, like me, find it a fine piece of light entertainment -- sweet and engaging. It's promptly paced and deftly filmed. It won the Oscar for best original screenplay. What more could you want?
Midnight in Paris is one of his magical-realist comedies. Set in modern day Paris, a writer engaged to an awful woman finds himself transported each night to the Paris of the 20s. He meets Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Picasso, Dali, and a host of others. During the course of these adventures he comes to realize a) how awful his fiance is and b) how he can't live in a romanticized past. It's all very light-hearted, romantic, and delightful.
Although his main character is still basically Woody Allen, thankfully he stopped trying to play himself as the romantic lead. I think his last shot at that was shortly after the turn of the century, which was about 20 years too late. Here he gives the role to Owen Wilson who does a great job of playing Woody Allen, but more subtly and thoughtfully.
Yes, it's a standard Woody Allen comedy. If you hate those, you'll hate this. Also, although the moral of the story is to live in the present, you'd be hard pressed to get the most out of it unless you were aware of some of the personalities from the 20s, otherwise you'll miss a lot of the clever portrayals. I especially liked Adrien Brody's Dali. If you're OK with Woody Allen and have a passing awareness of the personalities from Paris in the 1920s you'll, like me, find it a fine piece of light entertainment -- sweet and engaging. It's promptly paced and deftly filmed. It won the Oscar for best original screenplay. What more could you want?
[Books] Book Look: First and Last Men, by Olaf Stapledon
The best word I can think of to describe Last and First Men is "intriguing". It is a "future history", a book -- written in 1930 -- that imagines the upcoming two billion years of man's development. It contains many fascinating ideas, along with a fair amount of silly fantasy. In broad strokes, Stapledon foresees humanity as forever moving through eras of rising from savagery, building civilizations of various stripe, only to eventually descend yet again, either through folly or mishap. It is essentially a manifestation of Stapledon's personal cosmology. As such, it's hard to call it an artistic work, it is more a work arm-chair philosophy, although a very accomplished one.
We start out roughly in 1930, just after WW1 and naturally we are treated to all the socio-political credences of the time -- that value of the League of Nations, for example -- including a fairly poor image of the United States, which eventually destroys Europe via chemical warfare, leaving the US and China to effectively divide the world. So maybe right for the wrong reasons. In time the First Men -- that's us, Homo Sapiens -- achieves a single world government, heavily religious, and in time destroys the world through something along the lines of an uncontrolled nuclear reaction, leaving mere remnants which descend into barbarism. What follows is the evolution of the species through various forms, seventeen more incarnations in all, the 18th being the Last Men. After 10 million years the Second Men emerge -- a new species. They build a great civilization which perishes in a seemingly endless mutually destructive war with Martians. The Third Men are experts at biological manipulation and end up creating Fourth Men, the species that eventually replaces them. Earth becomes uninhabitable for the Fifth Men so they must terraform Venus and wipe out an pre-existing sentient species there for their own survival. The Eighth Men face destruction as the Sun expands and thus create the Ninth Men, specifically designed to inhabit the planet Neptune, which will be in the habitable zone of the expanded Sun. Starting over from scratch, the Neptunians evolve through a number of species, gaining a hive mind capability and eventually the ability to send their consciousness back through time to earlier men. By the time they hit the 18th species, they are as close to perfect as can be imagined, containing the best of all that came before them. And still they are to be destroyed in an astronomical cataclysm. They manage to send viral seed out into the galaxy before they are destroyed and the End of Man finally comes after two billion years.
Whew. As I read that, it sounds awfully trite, but it's not. It's really a springboard for observations about the nature of humanity. When species come into conflict it is often for reasons of class or narcissism. Aesthetic sensibilities and art persist in almost every species in some form or other, as does spirituality and prophetry, often intermingling. We find species suffering from collective guilt, which is not surprising for an author for whom WW1 is a recent affair. Sexuality remains and gets weird, and if you know anything about sexuality in the 1930s, that won't surprise you either. The Fifth Men are so thoroughly automated that their lives consist mostly of leisure (sound familiar?) bring a whole new raft of issues. Collective consciousness is explored as is atomic energy. Stapledon's take on human nature persists to the very end.
Still it is limited in ways. There are virtually no individuals and so no character arcs; I suppose you could say it is a biography of man so there is the arc of humanity. And like all science fiction, it cannot separate itself entirely from the concerns of the day in the time of the author's life. Still Stapledon does better than most at that. Even without individuals the book is humanistic.
A greater shortcoming is that Stapledon does go on. I often say most books could be trimmed by 30% with no loss to the reader. In Last and First Men it's probably over 50%. Descriptions get overly involved and repetitive. He writes with good style, but often it feels like he's spewing content to no end. This may be part and parcel without having character arcs to provide constraints.
Should you read Last and First Men. Probably not. It is really only for folks who might like to dwell on the nature of humanity and hyman motivation. Compared to traditional fiction, it is a setting without a plot. It is too ambling to be philosophy, to broad to be hard sci-fi, and too fantastic to be predictive. Still, like I said, it is intriguing. Though I spent more time thinking about what to think of it, than of the content itself.
We start out roughly in 1930, just after WW1 and naturally we are treated to all the socio-political credences of the time -- that value of the League of Nations, for example -- including a fairly poor image of the United States, which eventually destroys Europe via chemical warfare, leaving the US and China to effectively divide the world. So maybe right for the wrong reasons. In time the First Men -- that's us, Homo Sapiens -- achieves a single world government, heavily religious, and in time destroys the world through something along the lines of an uncontrolled nuclear reaction, leaving mere remnants which descend into barbarism. What follows is the evolution of the species through various forms, seventeen more incarnations in all, the 18th being the Last Men. After 10 million years the Second Men emerge -- a new species. They build a great civilization which perishes in a seemingly endless mutually destructive war with Martians. The Third Men are experts at biological manipulation and end up creating Fourth Men, the species that eventually replaces them. Earth becomes uninhabitable for the Fifth Men so they must terraform Venus and wipe out an pre-existing sentient species there for their own survival. The Eighth Men face destruction as the Sun expands and thus create the Ninth Men, specifically designed to inhabit the planet Neptune, which will be in the habitable zone of the expanded Sun. Starting over from scratch, the Neptunians evolve through a number of species, gaining a hive mind capability and eventually the ability to send their consciousness back through time to earlier men. By the time they hit the 18th species, they are as close to perfect as can be imagined, containing the best of all that came before them. And still they are to be destroyed in an astronomical cataclysm. They manage to send viral seed out into the galaxy before they are destroyed and the End of Man finally comes after two billion years.
Whew. As I read that, it sounds awfully trite, but it's not. It's really a springboard for observations about the nature of humanity. When species come into conflict it is often for reasons of class or narcissism. Aesthetic sensibilities and art persist in almost every species in some form or other, as does spirituality and prophetry, often intermingling. We find species suffering from collective guilt, which is not surprising for an author for whom WW1 is a recent affair. Sexuality remains and gets weird, and if you know anything about sexuality in the 1930s, that won't surprise you either. The Fifth Men are so thoroughly automated that their lives consist mostly of leisure (sound familiar?) bring a whole new raft of issues. Collective consciousness is explored as is atomic energy. Stapledon's take on human nature persists to the very end.
Still it is limited in ways. There are virtually no individuals and so no character arcs; I suppose you could say it is a biography of man so there is the arc of humanity. And like all science fiction, it cannot separate itself entirely from the concerns of the day in the time of the author's life. Still Stapledon does better than most at that. Even without individuals the book is humanistic.
A greater shortcoming is that Stapledon does go on. I often say most books could be trimmed by 30% with no loss to the reader. In Last and First Men it's probably over 50%. Descriptions get overly involved and repetitive. He writes with good style, but often it feels like he's spewing content to no end. This may be part and parcel without having character arcs to provide constraints.
Should you read Last and First Men. Probably not. It is really only for folks who might like to dwell on the nature of humanity and hyman motivation. Compared to traditional fiction, it is a setting without a plot. It is too ambling to be philosophy, to broad to be hard sci-fi, and too fantastic to be predictive. Still, like I said, it is intriguing. Though I spent more time thinking about what to think of it, than of the content itself.
[Baseball] Houston Asterisks
I have to imagine there are a lot of broken hearts in Houston. As you know I adopted the Astros as my fan-away-from-home team when I started spending time in Houston and going to the games. My proper team is, and will always be, the Tigers so at least I am somewhat insulated from the fallout from the cheating scandal -- although not the slightest bit insulated from 98 losses in '17 and '18 and 114 (!) losses last year.
Well, at least they were honest losses.
Nope, that doesn't help.
Anyway, in case you haven't been paying attention, the Astros were revealed to be blatantly cheating via illegal sign-stealing during their 2017 World Series victory year. Naturally, once word got out, accusations, some highly speculative, compounded. Indignation spiralled, not all of it self-serving. I won't recap everything here.
What is going to be fascinating to me is what happens going forward. The MLB players are complaining that the punishment wasn't enough; that the Series and other awards should be stripped and maybe even rewarded to offended parties. Pitchers who got sent down to the minors after poor showings against the Astros are now martyrs. Pete Rose applied for reinstatement claiming his transgressions weren't as bad. The new Astros manager has asked MLB to take steps to protect the Astros from physical retaliation, both on- and off-field, when they are on the road. Honestly, the Astros might be grateful for the coronavirus as a distraction.
One thing is for sure, as we saw with the steroid scandal, everyone involved is tainted for life. The Astros organization has probably a decade before it recovers, in reputation, competitiveness, and financially. Much depends on how their fans react. If there is a chill in the air in Houston towards the Astros, that points to a long time until recovery. Most of the current players will have to have moved on before things begin to normalize. Would you buy a jersey with the name of a known, admitted cheater on it? You might cheer their achievements but would you pay top dollar for a box seat? (Contrarianism: If you are dedicated to the Astros for life, now might be a good time to purchase season tickets. They may never be cheaper.)
The Astros players may never recover. Have a bad year and everyone will think it's because you stopped cheating. Have a great year and everyone will be suspicious that something shady is going on. Endorsements will plummet. Your wikipedia page will be riddled with references to the scandal. And should you be good enough to be considered for the Hall of Fame, don't hold your breath. Worse this will affect your family right along with you.
Maybe it would have been kinder for MLB to strip them of their prizes and suspend the players. They could have at least claimed to have paid their debt and maybe started with a clean slate. As of now they are doomed to be walking asterisks.
Well, at least they were honest losses.
Nope, that doesn't help.
Anyway, in case you haven't been paying attention, the Astros were revealed to be blatantly cheating via illegal sign-stealing during their 2017 World Series victory year. Naturally, once word got out, accusations, some highly speculative, compounded. Indignation spiralled, not all of it self-serving. I won't recap everything here.
What is going to be fascinating to me is what happens going forward. The MLB players are complaining that the punishment wasn't enough; that the Series and other awards should be stripped and maybe even rewarded to offended parties. Pitchers who got sent down to the minors after poor showings against the Astros are now martyrs. Pete Rose applied for reinstatement claiming his transgressions weren't as bad. The new Astros manager has asked MLB to take steps to protect the Astros from physical retaliation, both on- and off-field, when they are on the road. Honestly, the Astros might be grateful for the coronavirus as a distraction.
One thing is for sure, as we saw with the steroid scandal, everyone involved is tainted for life. The Astros organization has probably a decade before it recovers, in reputation, competitiveness, and financially. Much depends on how their fans react. If there is a chill in the air in Houston towards the Astros, that points to a long time until recovery. Most of the current players will have to have moved on before things begin to normalize. Would you buy a jersey with the name of a known, admitted cheater on it? You might cheer their achievements but would you pay top dollar for a box seat? (Contrarianism: If you are dedicated to the Astros for life, now might be a good time to purchase season tickets. They may never be cheaper.)
The Astros players may never recover. Have a bad year and everyone will think it's because you stopped cheating. Have a great year and everyone will be suspicious that something shady is going on. Endorsements will plummet. Your wikipedia page will be riddled with references to the scandal. And should you be good enough to be considered for the Hall of Fame, don't hold your breath. Worse this will affect your family right along with you.
Maybe it would have been kinder for MLB to strip them of their prizes and suspend the players. They could have at least claimed to have paid their debt and maybe started with a clean slate. As of now they are doomed to be walking asterisks.
Friday, February 07, 2020
The Month That Was - January 2020
So long 20-teens, eh? I don't know what to make of them. Whether it's a matter of my age or of a stagnating popular culture, I don't see it as much differentiated from the previous decade.
Ten years ago I posted about finishing a revision of what would be my third novel Misspent Youth; a book review of Cloud Atlas; a visit I made to the Greenbrier resort in West Virginia; an appreciation of John Hughes who had just died; some observations about purchasing a new car; and a link to Mr. Plinkett's now infamous seven-part take down of the Phantom Menace (before Disney took him down for copyright infringement).
None of it would be out of place today. I just finished a second revision of my next book, tentatively entitled The Hawk Sahib; the status of my reading is below; my car is doing fine although getting a little obsolete, it'll be a few years before it's that time again; I still make random cultural observations.
Perhaps I'm the one stagnating. Or perhaps I just like my life the way it is.
[Music, Rant] Background Music
[Ann Arbor, Rant] Waiting for Weed
[Books] What I've Been Reading
[Movies] Flick Notes
Ten years ago I posted about finishing a revision of what would be my third novel Misspent Youth; a book review of Cloud Atlas; a visit I made to the Greenbrier resort in West Virginia; an appreciation of John Hughes who had just died; some observations about purchasing a new car; and a link to Mr. Plinkett's now infamous seven-part take down of the Phantom Menace (before Disney took him down for copyright infringement).
None of it would be out of place today. I just finished a second revision of my next book, tentatively entitled The Hawk Sahib; the status of my reading is below; my car is doing fine although getting a little obsolete, it'll be a few years before it's that time again; I still make random cultural observations.
Perhaps I'm the one stagnating. Or perhaps I just like my life the way it is.
[Music, Rant] Background Music
[Ann Arbor, Rant] Waiting for Weed
[Books] What I've Been Reading
[Movies] Flick Notes
[Music, Rant] Background Music
I never truly listen to music anymore. Oh I have music on very often, but almost always to accompany some other activity. When driving I cycle through my XM presets. At the gym I have Amazon Music playlists. Running I have my little SanDisk on shuffle. Before bed I usually troll Ted Gioia's annual 100 best lists to find something to read by. About the closest I come to paying close attention to music is when a band on Austin City Limits catches my ear (recently Cage the Elephant).
It was not always so throughout my teens and early twenties I often spent time with headphones on just focusedly listening to music. And while it's easy to pass this off as a change of aging, it's also possible that there was more to it.
The tone of this article is annoying, but it's basically correct. The thesis is that 1980, the year of London Calling by The Clash and The River by Bruce Springsteen, was the end of rock and roll as a cultural force. This is very hard to disagree with. To be clear, I don't mean the end of rock music, nor do I mean the end of good rock music. Good rock and roll is being made to this day. It's hard to find, but it's out there. I mean the end of it as a vibrant cultural force. The end of it really mattering in any way.
40 years ago -- dead longer than alive. It was a great run: 1955-1980. What cultural relevance that remained in music went to Rap and Hip-Hop. Now even that has long passed its era of importance. Music has virtually no cultural weight at all.
What was lost in 1980 -- what best selling music no longer has -- was a certain sense of authenticity. Musicians formed or self-organized into bands that played proper musical instruments. It was probably mostly a pretense of authenticity, but at least it was honored. The kid with a guitar shows talent and makes it. As weird and hedonistic as the rock musicians could be, they also kept in touch with the fantasy.
Everything since has pretty much eschewed the image of organic success. Rappers, boy bands, American Idols, howling diva twerk-bots, have all fully embraced their own manufacturing. They are the products of marketing formulas as much as talent, if not moreso, and they don't try to hide it.
Of course, I always have to qualify my opinions these days because I am as susceptible as anyone my age to yelling at clouds. Kids, and some adults, still get enthusiastic about music. It still sells, especially if it is attached to a Disney animated film. (I should qualify that: it still reaches a large audience, whether it "sells" depends how you view streaming revenue.) But I just don't think it means as much to them as it did to us. In my adolescence I could put on a LP and a pair of headphones and find the strength to live in hope for one more day. Today they put in their earbuds and dream of the Tik Tok likes their lip synch will bring.
Good for them. Maybe they don't need music for hope. Maybe they have something better. Maybe -- almost certainly -- I really just miss the ability to feel that sort of life-giving enthusiasm for something. Wisdom exacts a toll that nostalgia can't replenish.
It was not always so throughout my teens and early twenties I often spent time with headphones on just focusedly listening to music. And while it's easy to pass this off as a change of aging, it's also possible that there was more to it.
The tone of this article is annoying, but it's basically correct. The thesis is that 1980, the year of London Calling by The Clash and The River by Bruce Springsteen, was the end of rock and roll as a cultural force. This is very hard to disagree with. To be clear, I don't mean the end of rock music, nor do I mean the end of good rock music. Good rock and roll is being made to this day. It's hard to find, but it's out there. I mean the end of it as a vibrant cultural force. The end of it really mattering in any way.
40 years ago -- dead longer than alive. It was a great run: 1955-1980. What cultural relevance that remained in music went to Rap and Hip-Hop. Now even that has long passed its era of importance. Music has virtually no cultural weight at all.
What was lost in 1980 -- what best selling music no longer has -- was a certain sense of authenticity. Musicians formed or self-organized into bands that played proper musical instruments. It was probably mostly a pretense of authenticity, but at least it was honored. The kid with a guitar shows talent and makes it. As weird and hedonistic as the rock musicians could be, they also kept in touch with the fantasy.
Everything since has pretty much eschewed the image of organic success. Rappers, boy bands, American Idols, howling diva twerk-bots, have all fully embraced their own manufacturing. They are the products of marketing formulas as much as talent, if not moreso, and they don't try to hide it.
Of course, I always have to qualify my opinions these days because I am as susceptible as anyone my age to yelling at clouds. Kids, and some adults, still get enthusiastic about music. It still sells, especially if it is attached to a Disney animated film. (I should qualify that: it still reaches a large audience, whether it "sells" depends how you view streaming revenue.) But I just don't think it means as much to them as it did to us. In my adolescence I could put on a LP and a pair of headphones and find the strength to live in hope for one more day. Today they put in their earbuds and dream of the Tik Tok likes their lip synch will bring.
Good for them. Maybe they don't need music for hope. Maybe they have something better. Maybe -- almost certainly -- I really just miss the ability to feel that sort of life-giving enthusiasm for something. Wisdom exacts a toll that nostalgia can't replenish.
[Ann Arbor, Rant] Waiting for Weed
Michigan okayed recreational sale of marijuana. Here is a list of places where you can buy it. You may notice, it's rather Ann Arbor-heavy. This is perhaps not surprising for the town that has hosted the Hash Bash for nearly half a century. It is the place that for years and years had a $5 fine for possession of pot since the early '70s, only raising it to $25 in the '90s, presumably for the sake of covering the administrative costs of writing tickets more than deterrence. So yes, Ann Arbor has half a dozen or so pot shops -- more than double any other Michigan city.
Upon legalization, many cities rushed to pass laws forbidding pot shops. Others left the door open and just shot down any application. This has triggered two reactions; a silly one: cities that allow weed shops complaining about cities that deny weed shops still getting a share of the revenue, and a natural one: people driving hours to get to their nearest shop then finding enormous lines. There is one near my gym, which may be the closest one to Detroit, that has had lines outside around the block in the dead of a Michigan winter. (Note -- shortly after I wrote this two more opened up closed to Detroit and the lines have dwindled.) Folks love their weed. Another reaction is copious complaints about how this legal weed is waaaay overpriced. For the moment, supply-and-demand may force some people back to the behoodied folks on Eight Mile.
More interesting is the fact that it is still a federal crime. So even though the State of Michigan is OK with it, any involvement with it is technically an opportunity for the Feds to get you. As a result, it is for the moment an entirely cash business. And I don't just mean the customers have to hit the ATM before a visit. I mean the dispensaries, which take in tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars a week, in cash, can't even put it in the bank. I honestly don't know to what extent this reaches. Do they have to pay their rent in cash? Do the employees get paid in cash? How do they secure all that cash from theft?
Note: the reason cash businesses are a problem is because of 9/11, which begat the Patriot Act, which made it no longer acceptable to do business transactions without verifying first that the party you are doing business with is on the up-and-up. So a bank can longer set up an account with a business without first verifying they are legal, or a payroll service can't take on a client without a background check. Personally, I think the downstream effects of the Patriot Act have yet to be fully realized or appreciated.
It's a bizarre situation. Metaphorical mattresses must be stuffed with currency at this point and something somewhere is going to have to give. Unfortunately, it's probably going to have to be through a "test case" where the Feds arrest some poor schmuck and he gets to be the sacrificial lamb while the lawyers sort everything out. Who imagined recreation could be so complicated? The behoodied guy on Eight Mile is looking better.
Addendum: Now we have the first attempt at making hallucinogens legal in Ann Arbor. Reach for that star.
Upon legalization, many cities rushed to pass laws forbidding pot shops. Others left the door open and just shot down any application. This has triggered two reactions; a silly one: cities that allow weed shops complaining about cities that deny weed shops still getting a share of the revenue, and a natural one: people driving hours to get to their nearest shop then finding enormous lines. There is one near my gym, which may be the closest one to Detroit, that has had lines outside around the block in the dead of a Michigan winter. (Note -- shortly after I wrote this two more opened up closed to Detroit and the lines have dwindled.) Folks love their weed. Another reaction is copious complaints about how this legal weed is waaaay overpriced. For the moment, supply-and-demand may force some people back to the behoodied folks on Eight Mile.
More interesting is the fact that it is still a federal crime. So even though the State of Michigan is OK with it, any involvement with it is technically an opportunity for the Feds to get you. As a result, it is for the moment an entirely cash business. And I don't just mean the customers have to hit the ATM before a visit. I mean the dispensaries, which take in tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars a week, in cash, can't even put it in the bank. I honestly don't know to what extent this reaches. Do they have to pay their rent in cash? Do the employees get paid in cash? How do they secure all that cash from theft?
Note: the reason cash businesses are a problem is because of 9/11, which begat the Patriot Act, which made it no longer acceptable to do business transactions without verifying first that the party you are doing business with is on the up-and-up. So a bank can longer set up an account with a business without first verifying they are legal, or a payroll service can't take on a client without a background check. Personally, I think the downstream effects of the Patriot Act have yet to be fully realized or appreciated.
It's a bizarre situation. Metaphorical mattresses must be stuffed with currency at this point and something somewhere is going to have to give. Unfortunately, it's probably going to have to be through a "test case" where the Feds arrest some poor schmuck and he gets to be the sacrificial lamb while the lawyers sort everything out. Who imagined recreation could be so complicated? The behoodied guy on Eight Mile is looking better.
Addendum: Now we have the first attempt at making hallucinogens legal in Ann Arbor. Reach for that star.
[Books] What I've Been Reading
Spring Snow -- Yukio Mishima. Still slow going but I haven't given up. Still not sure what Mishima is driving at for the most part. The exploration of subtle motivations is elaborate and mildly fascinating to the point where I'm wondering where it will go. If it goes nowhere I will feel like a tool.
Rings of Saturn -- W.G. Sebald. This a book that garnered effusive praise from a number of big name writers. Hailed as an inventive masterpiece and blurbed endlessly by those who are spoken of breathlessly in high-toned literary journals. I gave up after about 90-ish pages. Sebald was a wonderfully skilled writer who can form a poetic sentence seemingly out of nothing. But the poetry of nothing is still nothing.
Sebald was German (born in 1944 and died in 2001 -- the prototypical lived-and-died-through-the-Cold-War life), so what we have is a translation which is always a bit of a wildcard. Ostensibly a novel following a troubled fellow as he travels along the eastern coast of England, although at times it seems clear that Sebald is writing autobiographically. What follows is a sort of stream of consciousness woven into an intricate web of factual and sentimental relationships. There is no observation too minor from which to build a florid allegory. Given the chance, he would take a random patch of gravel and turn it into an analogy for the sorrow of impermanence. He will sit on a park bench and intensely introspect on the gray skies which will remind of literary reference which caused him to intensely introspect on something similar in the past. He will encounter a piece of ephemera and be reminded of a historical reference hundreds of years in the past that caused him to wring his hands over something or other. Perhaps it is all just very German. The only overall sensation of it all was one of decay. Weird, that someone born into the ashes of post-WWII Germany who lived to see the Berlin Wall fall would be attached to the zeitgeist of decay, but there it is.
There is just so much pretentiousness one can take. The tortured ruminations, the reading of profound meaning into trivialities, the attachment to societal decline -- even the mechanics of it: Sebald will rarely drop a paragraph on you to take a breath, he just keeps going. But Kerouac, he ain't. His thoughts, though genuine I'm sure, don't have enough energy to sustain that. Woefulness does not create energy, it saps it. As I said, the praise from what I will sneeringly call the writerly community is effusive. Which makes sense, because it's written for them; it matches their own pretensions to a tee.
Still, I might be judging unfairly. It is possible that had I stuck it out all the superfluous decoration and sorrowful images would have gelled into something insightful and timeless. If so, it would have been nice to have a hint of it in less than 100 pages. I'm moving on.
Last and First Men -- Olaf Stapledon. A "future history" from back in 1931. It appears to be a vision of the future from the time immediately post-WW1 to some point wherein humanity evolves to its final form. Highly valued by many. I've only just started it but I am deeply impressed by the formal, yet completely readable prose. The subject matter seems kind of an odd mish-mash. He spends a long time speculating about various cultural forces and how they in combination with human nature and happenstance lead to war and it seems like some keen insights might be coming. Then he goes full on I-am-14-and-this-is-deep level fantasizing.
Fair warning: there are deeply racist and anti-Semitic sections. And the Americans are kind of the bad guys. I'm not sure he doesn't fall into the trap of making his future vision really about his opinions on the present. We'll see.
Rings of Saturn -- W.G. Sebald. This a book that garnered effusive praise from a number of big name writers. Hailed as an inventive masterpiece and blurbed endlessly by those who are spoken of breathlessly in high-toned literary journals. I gave up after about 90-ish pages. Sebald was a wonderfully skilled writer who can form a poetic sentence seemingly out of nothing. But the poetry of nothing is still nothing.
Sebald was German (born in 1944 and died in 2001 -- the prototypical lived-and-died-through-the-Cold-War life), so what we have is a translation which is always a bit of a wildcard. Ostensibly a novel following a troubled fellow as he travels along the eastern coast of England, although at times it seems clear that Sebald is writing autobiographically. What follows is a sort of stream of consciousness woven into an intricate web of factual and sentimental relationships. There is no observation too minor from which to build a florid allegory. Given the chance, he would take a random patch of gravel and turn it into an analogy for the sorrow of impermanence. He will sit on a park bench and intensely introspect on the gray skies which will remind of literary reference which caused him to intensely introspect on something similar in the past. He will encounter a piece of ephemera and be reminded of a historical reference hundreds of years in the past that caused him to wring his hands over something or other. Perhaps it is all just very German. The only overall sensation of it all was one of decay. Weird, that someone born into the ashes of post-WWII Germany who lived to see the Berlin Wall fall would be attached to the zeitgeist of decay, but there it is.
There is just so much pretentiousness one can take. The tortured ruminations, the reading of profound meaning into trivialities, the attachment to societal decline -- even the mechanics of it: Sebald will rarely drop a paragraph on you to take a breath, he just keeps going. But Kerouac, he ain't. His thoughts, though genuine I'm sure, don't have enough energy to sustain that. Woefulness does not create energy, it saps it. As I said, the praise from what I will sneeringly call the writerly community is effusive. Which makes sense, because it's written for them; it matches their own pretensions to a tee.
Still, I might be judging unfairly. It is possible that had I stuck it out all the superfluous decoration and sorrowful images would have gelled into something insightful and timeless. If so, it would have been nice to have a hint of it in less than 100 pages. I'm moving on.
Last and First Men -- Olaf Stapledon. A "future history" from back in 1931. It appears to be a vision of the future from the time immediately post-WW1 to some point wherein humanity evolves to its final form. Highly valued by many. I've only just started it but I am deeply impressed by the formal, yet completely readable prose. The subject matter seems kind of an odd mish-mash. He spends a long time speculating about various cultural forces and how they in combination with human nature and happenstance lead to war and it seems like some keen insights might be coming. Then he goes full on I-am-14-and-this-is-deep level fantasizing.
Fair warning: there are deeply racist and anti-Semitic sections. And the Americans are kind of the bad guys. I'm not sure he doesn't fall into the trap of making his future vision really about his opinions on the present. We'll see.
[Movies] Flick Notes
John Wick 3 -- This, along with the previous entry in the series (which will be at least 4), suffer from trying to impose a rational and institutional justification on what was, in the first movie, an expression of existential emotion. Like 2, it is wall-to-wall fight scenes, often gorey. The writers overwrite and the actors overact in an attempt to make the oddball supporting characters become iconic. All fail. The motivations are manufactured. Much emphasis is put on a ragged looking Keanu Reeves ruefully responding in monosyllables, like it's totally badass. In sum, it's a decent film to shut your brain off to, but it's a mere shadow of the one where a guy got revenge on the people who stole his car and killed his dog.
Godzilla: King of Monsters -- awful. Made even more awful as it is theoretically a remake of one of the most amazing cult films of all time: Gidorah, the Three Headed Monster. I wrote about the original 5 or so years ago:
I'm sure there are more sequels in the works. It's clear Universal Pictures needs to invest in a robust supply of hallucinogens.
Godzilla: King of Monsters -- awful. Made even more awful as it is theoretically a remake of one of the most amazing cult films of all time: Gidorah, the Three Headed Monster. I wrote about the original 5 or so years ago:
Then came Ghidorah, the Three Headed Monster, a movie that simply could not have been made without the consumption of untold quantities of LSD.The remake does away with the flights of imagination. The bad guys are environmental terrorists not mysterious black-suits, the singing fairies are replaced with some sort of sonic frequency generator, and so forth. It would be fine if they truly attempted to make a movie about how the world would deal with such a threat, but they didn't. The actions are almost uniformly poorly motivated and incoherent. That is to say, nothing anybody does makes sense even after you have suspended disbelief about giant monsters. An incoherent movie that aims for realism fails. To do an incoherent movie properly, you need to add madness for it to make sense.
To wit: A south seas island whose natives worship an enormous and deeply creepy-looking caterpillar. Twin fairies, about a foot tall, who speak in unison, can summon the caterpillar via song, and live in a what appears to be a modified make-up kit. An androgynous woman who is clairvoyant and claims to be from Mars, but may actually be the resurrection of a human princess. (In the original Japanese version she was from Venus. They changed it to Mars for the US release for reasons that I'm sure it made sense when they were tripping.) A group of assassins in black suits from the princess' homeland; these men are referred to as "the killers". And lastly Ghidorah itself, a three-headed, two-tailed dragon from outer space that shoots lightning out of its mouths and has no purpose other than wanton destruction.
The events are surreal. At one point the twin fairies appear on a sort of TV talk show and are challenged by some wise-ass kid to sing to the caterpillar. The androgynous woman is heckled by a crowd and told to do a striptease. The caterpillar has to convince Godzilla and Rodan to stop fighting and team up against Ghidorah by imploring them not to be "bullheaded". Pause to consider that one: A giant caterpillar called a giant bird and a giant reptile "bullheaded" as translated by twin telepathic foot-tall fairies speaking in unison. The mind reels.
Then there is the three-headed monster itself. It appears to have no purpose other than malevolence. It doesn't eat, sleep, breed, or do anything but break things and kill people. Visually it is actually quite disturbing. It's three heads fly about haphazardly in all directions firing lighting wantonly, without any targeting intent. It emits an earsplitting shrill mechanical sort of shriek without pattern. It's a Lovecraftian vision of unfeeling, meaningless destruction. If I had to fight Cthulhu I would sick Ghidorah on him. It's clear at least one of the special effects team must have gotten a bad tab of acid.
I'm sure there are more sequels in the works. It's clear Universal Pictures needs to invest in a robust supply of hallucinogens.
Tuesday, January 07, 2020
The Month That Was - December 2019
I looked back on some of my posts from ten years ago to see what had changed. A couple things were identical. I still have the same day job and I still write and get frustrated with my progress. Other than that my life is quite a bit different. Ten years ago was the height of my travelling phase. I was literally going somewhere every month and discovering new things and writing extensively about them. My circle of friends was both larger and more intimate. My personal life involved regular contact with folks who now I rarely contact outside of facebook. I had yet to buy my current house which kind of dominates my checkbook now. My parents were still alive. Judging from my posts, I saw nothing special in the changing of the decade, and I was unaffected by the imminent demise of my forties. Yet it really was the end of an era of sorts. Am I sitting at the cusp of another era now? I'll let you know in ten years.
Aside: I started blogging over 20 years ago, but those posts have been lost to the ages. Just as well, I seem to recall an inordinate amount of snark. I suspect much at that time centered around the release of my first book Apple Pie, by that dirtbag publisher whose name I will not put in print, in December 1999. ("It was twenty years ago today...") The changes in my life since then would be astounding to catalog.
For now, I will maintain the same New Year's Resolutions I have for quite some time now:
[Travel] At Sea with Steamboat Willie
[Books] What I've Been Reading
[Rant] Progress, or Not
Aside: I started blogging over 20 years ago, but those posts have been lost to the ages. Just as well, I seem to recall an inordinate amount of snark. I suspect much at that time centered around the release of my first book Apple Pie, by that dirtbag publisher whose name I will not put in print, in December 1999. ("It was twenty years ago today...") The changes in my life since then would be astounding to catalog.
For now, I will maintain the same New Year's Resolutions I have for quite some time now:
- Enhance the lives of the people I care about.
- Fight sloth (the Deadly Sin, not the adorable forest creature).
[Travel] At Sea with Steamboat Willie
[Books] What I've Been Reading
[Rant] Progress, or Not
[Travel] At Sea with Steamboat Willie
I found myself on a Disney cruise in the Caribbean. But first a cruise memory.
I have only been on one other cruise in my life (Celebrity) and I came away from that with mixed feelings. I could appreciate the convenience and value, but also acknowledged the limitations: The tightly controlled dining experiences -- mostly geared towards all-you-can-eat buffets, crowding (if not overcrowding) in the popular areas such as the pools, and most importantly, limited time and opportunities in port. You see by this time I was experience in Caribbean travel and was disappointed by how little you could appreciate the islands in a 9am - 5pm stop. Cruising was about being on the boat.
Disney changed my tune a bit on this front for a few reasons. First, the food was a cut above. Even the buffet (I usually hate buffets) had decent quality and variety. Second, the service was Disney, and everything that people say about Disney's service quality is true. Lastly, it wasn't that crowded. There were a ton of kids everywhere, yes, but there are also very nice adult only areas -- including a pool, spa, restaurant, and a couple of bars. These were never crowded because 90% of the adults on the boat had kids and could only use them when they could slip away. It's kind of a cool lifehack: go on a kid oriented cruise because the adult areas won't be crowded.
Of course being kid oriented is also a liability. There is no casino on Disney boats. The only thing close to gambling is bingo. Playing bingo they give you a couple of paper cards to play by hand but that's just to occupy your hands, since you typically purchase cards in multiples of ten you do most of your play with virtual cards stored in a little handheld machine that plays them for you. It tells you when you have bingo. It's almost comical, but folks get really enthusiastic over it. Needless to say, it's not really my speed.
Another thing you can't do on a disney cruise is by a drink package. With most cruises your food and soft drinks are included in the price, but hooch is extra. Since there is typically a lot of drinking on a cruise, most lines offer single price package you can by that covers all you can drink. As you can imagine, this will elevate the level of drunkenness on a boat, which is unacceptable to Disney. Hooch is ala carte, but not unreasonably expensive.
The ports on this voyage were Cozumel, Mexico and Georgetown, Grand Cayman. Cozumel is a place I have no particular affection for. It's entire economy revolves around the cruise ships and the port has a density of bars and crap shops like a neutron star. Hawkers everywhere offering everything -- one called out to me "You need a car? Tequila? Girls?" Last time I was here I arranged an excursion to the mainland to see the Tulum ruins. Sadly we weren't in port long enough for me to do that again and I didn't feel like dropping a ton of cash to arrange a beach visit at some resort or snorkel for an hour, so instead I went into Senor Frogs and used their free wi-fi to catch up on email. (Did I mention wi-fi was very expensive on the boat? Something on the order of .25 cents per MB, although there were package purchases that made it slightly cheaper.)
Georgetown was a somewhat better experience. I have previously spent some time in Grand Cayman before. I really wanted to get to a place called Rum Point -- a truly relaxed and laid back beach well away from the hubbub. Sadly, the official excursion was booked, so my plan was to hop off at the dock and hook up with a tour operator there. But the only tours you could arrange at the dock were bus tours of the island. So I hunted for a car rental agency but everyone said I the best place was one of the hotels on Seven Mile Beach (the main tourist spot). I inquired about a cab to Rum Point and was quoted $100 each way, and I had better make arrangements ahead of time to get back, because there are no cab's waiting around for rides at the other side.
So I sighed deeply and grabbed a cab up to Seven Mile Beach where I would have two options: a) rent a car to get to Rum Point, which at this point would have ended up being about 1 hour visit, or b) hook up with one of the major hotels for a day pass to use their services and beach chairs and just relax on one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. For the lack of hassle, I chose B. I chose poorly. I stopped in a couple of the resorts, big names like Wyndham and Marriott and none of them would sell me a day pass. This was very weird to me as I thought almost all but the most exclusive resort properties do this, especially in a place like Grand Cayman with all the day-trippers coming off the boats. Feh.
So I wandered a way up the beach and eventually stumbled on a beach bar called Calico Jacks and stopped for a beer and some horrible fried appetizer. Well since I was running out of time, I asked how much for a lounge chair on the beach? $15 for a chair and umbrella or I could get a chair only in the shade of a lovely tree for a five-spot. Done and done. I went for a long swim in the transparent 80-degree gulf then slept for an hour on so in the shade.
I do like Grand Cayman (as opposed to Cozumel). I liked it better last time I was there when I had multiple days to explore. Still, lesson learned: Do Not Leave Your Shore Excursions to Chance. There's just not enough cushion for error.
Back on the boat I fell easily back into the rhythm of things. The tasty food, the spa time, the pool time, some light entertainment in the evenings. Honestly, the over-abundance of children was not an issue at all. I took to having an evening walk to the basketball court to shoot hoops under the stars after everyone was asleep. It's the little things that count.
I still think I prefer a few days at a location rather than a day-visit to a fully commercialized port, but I'm good with cruising and would do it again, including -- perhaps especially -- Disney, surprisingly enough. The hip and fashionable would sneer at both cruising and Disney, but I can see the attraction and wouldn't hesitate to join in now and then.
I have only been on one other cruise in my life (Celebrity) and I came away from that with mixed feelings. I could appreciate the convenience and value, but also acknowledged the limitations: The tightly controlled dining experiences -- mostly geared towards all-you-can-eat buffets, crowding (if not overcrowding) in the popular areas such as the pools, and most importantly, limited time and opportunities in port. You see by this time I was experience in Caribbean travel and was disappointed by how little you could appreciate the islands in a 9am - 5pm stop. Cruising was about being on the boat.
Disney changed my tune a bit on this front for a few reasons. First, the food was a cut above. Even the buffet (I usually hate buffets) had decent quality and variety. Second, the service was Disney, and everything that people say about Disney's service quality is true. Lastly, it wasn't that crowded. There were a ton of kids everywhere, yes, but there are also very nice adult only areas -- including a pool, spa, restaurant, and a couple of bars. These were never crowded because 90% of the adults on the boat had kids and could only use them when they could slip away. It's kind of a cool lifehack: go on a kid oriented cruise because the adult areas won't be crowded.
Of course being kid oriented is also a liability. There is no casino on Disney boats. The only thing close to gambling is bingo. Playing bingo they give you a couple of paper cards to play by hand but that's just to occupy your hands, since you typically purchase cards in multiples of ten you do most of your play with virtual cards stored in a little handheld machine that plays them for you. It tells you when you have bingo. It's almost comical, but folks get really enthusiastic over it. Needless to say, it's not really my speed.
Another thing you can't do on a disney cruise is by a drink package. With most cruises your food and soft drinks are included in the price, but hooch is extra. Since there is typically a lot of drinking on a cruise, most lines offer single price package you can by that covers all you can drink. As you can imagine, this will elevate the level of drunkenness on a boat, which is unacceptable to Disney. Hooch is ala carte, but not unreasonably expensive.
The ports on this voyage were Cozumel, Mexico and Georgetown, Grand Cayman. Cozumel is a place I have no particular affection for. It's entire economy revolves around the cruise ships and the port has a density of bars and crap shops like a neutron star. Hawkers everywhere offering everything -- one called out to me "You need a car? Tequila? Girls?" Last time I was here I arranged an excursion to the mainland to see the Tulum ruins. Sadly we weren't in port long enough for me to do that again and I didn't feel like dropping a ton of cash to arrange a beach visit at some resort or snorkel for an hour, so instead I went into Senor Frogs and used their free wi-fi to catch up on email. (Did I mention wi-fi was very expensive on the boat? Something on the order of .25 cents per MB, although there were package purchases that made it slightly cheaper.)
Georgetown was a somewhat better experience. I have previously spent some time in Grand Cayman before. I really wanted to get to a place called Rum Point -- a truly relaxed and laid back beach well away from the hubbub. Sadly, the official excursion was booked, so my plan was to hop off at the dock and hook up with a tour operator there. But the only tours you could arrange at the dock were bus tours of the island. So I hunted for a car rental agency but everyone said I the best place was one of the hotels on Seven Mile Beach (the main tourist spot). I inquired about a cab to Rum Point and was quoted $100 each way, and I had better make arrangements ahead of time to get back, because there are no cab's waiting around for rides at the other side.
So I sighed deeply and grabbed a cab up to Seven Mile Beach where I would have two options: a) rent a car to get to Rum Point, which at this point would have ended up being about 1 hour visit, or b) hook up with one of the major hotels for a day pass to use their services and beach chairs and just relax on one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. For the lack of hassle, I chose B. I chose poorly. I stopped in a couple of the resorts, big names like Wyndham and Marriott and none of them would sell me a day pass. This was very weird to me as I thought almost all but the most exclusive resort properties do this, especially in a place like Grand Cayman with all the day-trippers coming off the boats. Feh.
So I wandered a way up the beach and eventually stumbled on a beach bar called Calico Jacks and stopped for a beer and some horrible fried appetizer. Well since I was running out of time, I asked how much for a lounge chair on the beach? $15 for a chair and umbrella or I could get a chair only in the shade of a lovely tree for a five-spot. Done and done. I went for a long swim in the transparent 80-degree gulf then slept for an hour on so in the shade.
I do like Grand Cayman (as opposed to Cozumel). I liked it better last time I was there when I had multiple days to explore. Still, lesson learned: Do Not Leave Your Shore Excursions to Chance. There's just not enough cushion for error.
Back on the boat I fell easily back into the rhythm of things. The tasty food, the spa time, the pool time, some light entertainment in the evenings. Honestly, the over-abundance of children was not an issue at all. I took to having an evening walk to the basketball court to shoot hoops under the stars after everyone was asleep. It's the little things that count.
I still think I prefer a few days at a location rather than a day-visit to a fully commercialized port, but I'm good with cruising and would do it again, including -- perhaps especially -- Disney, surprisingly enough. The hip and fashionable would sneer at both cruising and Disney, but I can see the attraction and wouldn't hesitate to join in now and then.
[Books] What I've Been Reading
Three escapes and one potential trap.
Maigret's Childhood Friend, by Georges Simoneon -- Delightfully prototypical Maigret. I continue to be enamored of Simoneon's marvelous economy of language and how he manages to engross without contrivance, just well-drawn characters, linear plotting, dogged police work. I will continue to pick off Maigret's for a while I think.
The Dreadful Lemon Sky, by John D. MacDonald -- There was a time, decades ago, when I worked my way through these Travis McGee books. I came to stop at one point because I found them hopelessly lurid and violent and generally dark-toned. Not sure what encouraged me to go back and read one besides curiosity, but it confirmed my impression. MacDonald writes well, but these modern-day, white-knight, noir-ish, hyper-macho books wear thin quickly. I can see the lineage passed down to something like the Doc Ford series from Randy Wayne White, but White has a much better sense of humor and Doc Ford is not dark-hearted. Probably a close modern day match would be Jack Reacher -- another series in which I'm in no hurry to indulge. Good for what it is.
No Hero, by John P. Marquand -- Marquand was a fairly renowned mainstream fictionalist. Winner of the Pulitzer, and so forth. His side gig was writing an espionage/intrigue series featuring a Japanese spymaster called Mr. Moto (eventually turned into a movie series featuring Peter Lorre). The plot is fairly standard -- down on his luck rogue stumbles into a spy-game that causes him to sort himself out and also gets the girl. The writing is direct and clear. The real treat here is the insight into the sentimentalities of the times. Written pre-WWII, when the political machinations in the Pacific between Japan, U.S., China, and Russia were still in flux and no one was really certain how it was all going to shake out. A fun book and very cool lens into the past.
Spring Snow, by Yukio Mishima -- definitely not escapist. Mishima was arguably the premier Japanese writer of the 20th century and led quite a life. He was shortlisted for the Nobel, hobnobbed with various elite personalities, eventually he attempted a coup and committed seppuku upon its failure. A half-century after his death he is now something of a cult figure in certain circles of what is inexactly called the alt-right -- primarily for his devotion to an aesthetic combination of classical beauty and nobility and masculine strength. Spring Snow is the first of a tetralogy referred to as The Sea of Fertility. It is said to be an essential summary of the evolution of Japanese culture into modernity. I have only just started it. It is slow. The emotional motives of the characters are pursued in intricate detail. There are flourishes of description and scene setting that, while nicely written, seem a bit overindulgent. In short, Mishima is not a writer whose style I am attracted to. Still there is a bit of intrigue building so we'll see how far I get. I do get the sense that there is much worth telling in this book.
Maigret's Childhood Friend, by Georges Simoneon -- Delightfully prototypical Maigret. I continue to be enamored of Simoneon's marvelous economy of language and how he manages to engross without contrivance, just well-drawn characters, linear plotting, dogged police work. I will continue to pick off Maigret's for a while I think.
The Dreadful Lemon Sky, by John D. MacDonald -- There was a time, decades ago, when I worked my way through these Travis McGee books. I came to stop at one point because I found them hopelessly lurid and violent and generally dark-toned. Not sure what encouraged me to go back and read one besides curiosity, but it confirmed my impression. MacDonald writes well, but these modern-day, white-knight, noir-ish, hyper-macho books wear thin quickly. I can see the lineage passed down to something like the Doc Ford series from Randy Wayne White, but White has a much better sense of humor and Doc Ford is not dark-hearted. Probably a close modern day match would be Jack Reacher -- another series in which I'm in no hurry to indulge. Good for what it is.
No Hero, by John P. Marquand -- Marquand was a fairly renowned mainstream fictionalist. Winner of the Pulitzer, and so forth. His side gig was writing an espionage/intrigue series featuring a Japanese spymaster called Mr. Moto (eventually turned into a movie series featuring Peter Lorre). The plot is fairly standard -- down on his luck rogue stumbles into a spy-game that causes him to sort himself out and also gets the girl. The writing is direct and clear. The real treat here is the insight into the sentimentalities of the times. Written pre-WWII, when the political machinations in the Pacific between Japan, U.S., China, and Russia were still in flux and no one was really certain how it was all going to shake out. A fun book and very cool lens into the past.
Spring Snow, by Yukio Mishima -- definitely not escapist. Mishima was arguably the premier Japanese writer of the 20th century and led quite a life. He was shortlisted for the Nobel, hobnobbed with various elite personalities, eventually he attempted a coup and committed seppuku upon its failure. A half-century after his death he is now something of a cult figure in certain circles of what is inexactly called the alt-right -- primarily for his devotion to an aesthetic combination of classical beauty and nobility and masculine strength. Spring Snow is the first of a tetralogy referred to as The Sea of Fertility. It is said to be an essential summary of the evolution of Japanese culture into modernity. I have only just started it. It is slow. The emotional motives of the characters are pursued in intricate detail. There are flourishes of description and scene setting that, while nicely written, seem a bit overindulgent. In short, Mishima is not a writer whose style I am attracted to. Still there is a bit of intrigue building so we'll see how far I get. I do get the sense that there is much worth telling in this book.
[Rant] Progress or Not
Scott Sumner takes a shot at one of my favorite topics: Is Progress Real? I think he gets it wrong.
His argument, which I hope I am summarizing correctly, is that people who say I would never exchange the world of today for the world of yesterday are missing the point. There is a concept called the Hedonic Treadmill, which prevents us from feeling the positive effects of any progress. In other words, we keep resetting our expectations with each new benefit we achieve so we never actually benefit from improvements.
I should be more precise. Sumner is not saying there is no progress, he is saying we don't realize any net benefits from it because of the Hedonic Treadmill (I think). This is trivially correct but essentially wrong. It is true that at any given point in history you can take a timeslice of the population and not seem any indication of a greater sense of well-being, but I don't think that's what's important. All that is telling you is the phases of life remain in place. Teenagers are still disaffected. Young adults still strive and struggle. Older adults still fret over loss and regrets. If your measure of Progress is that these feelings lessen, I don't hold out much hope for you.
But over an individual life, the view can be very different. Stating that you would never want to go back to the old days is highly relevant in that context; probably the most relevant piece of data. And I strongly suspect that most mature people who objectively looked at their arc of the world over the course of their lives would agree that things are better than they used to be. To be sure, things have been lost. Folks my age often lament the loss of freedom in childhood and the increased coarseness of the world. Those are very real losses, but as I have mentioned before, as an insecure, introverted kid, I would have traded all that for one day's access to the Internet. For a longer term example, when I was 32 my gall bladder gave out on me. I spent a day in the hospital during which doctors my four small slits in my abdomen and went into my guts with a scope and pulled it out. Two days later I was back at work. Had it been 25 years earlier I would have six inch scare across my gut and have been laid up for 6 weeks recovering. Had it been 70 years earlier and I'd have been dead at 32.
The fact of the Hedonic Treadmill means I don't live closer to a state of bliss from moment to moment, but any extended reflection will verify the objective fact of progress that the Hedonic Treadmill masks. I maintain my belief that progress is real and it occurs, but it can be a ten-steps-forward-nine-steps-back affair. Which is why you need a full dose of life to see it.
His argument, which I hope I am summarizing correctly, is that people who say I would never exchange the world of today for the world of yesterday are missing the point. There is a concept called the Hedonic Treadmill, which prevents us from feeling the positive effects of any progress. In other words, we keep resetting our expectations with each new benefit we achieve so we never actually benefit from improvements.
I should be more precise. Sumner is not saying there is no progress, he is saying we don't realize any net benefits from it because of the Hedonic Treadmill (I think). This is trivially correct but essentially wrong. It is true that at any given point in history you can take a timeslice of the population and not seem any indication of a greater sense of well-being, but I don't think that's what's important. All that is telling you is the phases of life remain in place. Teenagers are still disaffected. Young adults still strive and struggle. Older adults still fret over loss and regrets. If your measure of Progress is that these feelings lessen, I don't hold out much hope for you.
But over an individual life, the view can be very different. Stating that you would never want to go back to the old days is highly relevant in that context; probably the most relevant piece of data. And I strongly suspect that most mature people who objectively looked at their arc of the world over the course of their lives would agree that things are better than they used to be. To be sure, things have been lost. Folks my age often lament the loss of freedom in childhood and the increased coarseness of the world. Those are very real losses, but as I have mentioned before, as an insecure, introverted kid, I would have traded all that for one day's access to the Internet. For a longer term example, when I was 32 my gall bladder gave out on me. I spent a day in the hospital during which doctors my four small slits in my abdomen and went into my guts with a scope and pulled it out. Two days later I was back at work. Had it been 25 years earlier I would have six inch scare across my gut and have been laid up for 6 weeks recovering. Had it been 70 years earlier and I'd have been dead at 32.
The fact of the Hedonic Treadmill means I don't live closer to a state of bliss from moment to moment, but any extended reflection will verify the objective fact of progress that the Hedonic Treadmill masks. I maintain my belief that progress is real and it occurs, but it can be a ten-steps-forward-nine-steps-back affair. Which is why you need a full dose of life to see it.
Sunday, December 15, 2019
The Month That Was - November 2019
After a string of about 17 straight years, this was the second year in a row I did not spend Thanksgiving in Las Vegas. In fact, it's been two years since I have been out West at all. That needs to change. Still I got to Florida for the long weekend and spent Thanksgiving at a tiki bar on the waterfront -- so that's almost as good as Vegas.
Sorry to be so late this month -- certainly the latest I've ever been. I was swamped beyond reason for the last half of November and the start of December was no better. I've had an adventure lining up a new insurance carrier, been overwhelmed at my day job, and generally trying to follow up on nine-million other things including travel shenanigans. More on that next month (maybe).
[Books, Baseball] Book Look: Cubs Way
[Movies] Flick Check: The Irishman
[Good Links] Bits and Pieces
Sorry to be so late this month -- certainly the latest I've ever been. I was swamped beyond reason for the last half of November and the start of December was no better. I've had an adventure lining up a new insurance carrier, been overwhelmed at my day job, and generally trying to follow up on nine-million other things including travel shenanigans. More on that next month (maybe).
[Books, Baseball] Book Look: Cubs Way
[Movies] Flick Check: The Irishman
[Good Links] Bits and Pieces
[Books, Baseball] Book Look: Cubs Way, by Tom Verducci
Subtitled "The Zen of Building the Best Team in Baseball and Breaking the Curse", this is the story of how Theo Epstien, the man who found a way to break the Red Sox curse, turned around and did the same thing for arguably an even more deeply cursed franchise, the Cubs.
Most books like this tend to be more like puff pieces; sentimental memorabilia for folks who want to relive some previous glory and while there is some of that, Verducci does a much better job of providing some tactical and strategic angles to building a winner than most authors. You get some valuable glimpses into how much information is available in the contemporary stat-driven game. To wit:
Among the other interesting aspects on display is how Epstien (and presumably his peers) approached building the team in the same way you would build a business. You start with a plan -- a set of strategies and goals and an explanation of how that gets you to win the World Series. Here the book loses the thread a bit. We are given a brief outline of the plan as presented to the organization. We are then introduced to the players acquired to make it happen, often with very affecting biographical info, but we are not really given deep info on how it was decided these players were the ones to fulfill the plan. This leaves fairly sizeable hole in our picture.
And still you need luck. As Billy Beane pointed out in Moneyball, over a 162 games playing the probabilities works out. Over the dozen or so games in the postseason it becomes more of a crapshoot. And so, despite all the sharp and clever scheming and planning to build the team, the Cubs needed in the postseason too. They needed a clutch hit from a veteran on his way out. They needed their top reliever to keep his fragile emotional state in check and pitch more innings than he ever expected.
Should you read Cubs Way? If you are interested in re-living the Cubs World Series championship, then absolutely. I am still amazed at a single statistic: The celebration was attended by 5 Million people. One of the largest gatherings of the human species in all history. If you are looking for insight into the business side of baseball or you are a full on stats-head, it's not quite as satisfying, but still worthwhile.
Aside: If you've been reading along, you know I adopted the Astros as my back up baseball team, as I have been spending some time in Houston, have been to a couple of games, and the Tigers (always my first team) are dead in the water. The Astros lost the World Series to the Nationals -- I think the only Series where all seven games were won by the visiting team. Big disappointment, but the real story came later when they were accused of using electronic means to steal signs from opposing teams. As the narrative is currently formulated, during their World Series championship year, 2017, the Astros used a video camera to relay the opposing catchers signs then someone in one of the stadium tunnels would bang a trashcan to indicate the pitch such that it could be heard by the Astros batter. It is an important scandal, especially since the Astros won the series. As they say: Big, if true.
Most books like this tend to be more like puff pieces; sentimental memorabilia for folks who want to relive some previous glory and while there is some of that, Verducci does a much better job of providing some tactical and strategic angles to building a winner than most authors. You get some valuable glimpses into how much information is available in the contemporary stat-driven game. To wit:
- Video is so detailed that pitchers can be evaluated on the rpms they put on their breaking balls.
- The measurement of Exit Speed, or the speed of the ball off the hitters bat, has taken on a great importance.
- There is so much situational data -- how a player performs in specific circumstances (# of outs, # times through the rotation, how the hitter performs vs. pitcher's strengths, and all these in combination) -- that it needs to be reduced to a few simple numbers so in-game decisions can be made quickly.
- Incredible contortions are made for the psychological well-being of the players -- beyond just making should that all conceivable distractions are eliminated. Whatever elaborate mental preparations a player desires are supported completely -- everything from food choices to high end fitness equipment to personal psychologists.
Among the other interesting aspects on display is how Epstien (and presumably his peers) approached building the team in the same way you would build a business. You start with a plan -- a set of strategies and goals and an explanation of how that gets you to win the World Series. Here the book loses the thread a bit. We are given a brief outline of the plan as presented to the organization. We are then introduced to the players acquired to make it happen, often with very affecting biographical info, but we are not really given deep info on how it was decided these players were the ones to fulfill the plan. This leaves fairly sizeable hole in our picture.
And still you need luck. As Billy Beane pointed out in Moneyball, over a 162 games playing the probabilities works out. Over the dozen or so games in the postseason it becomes more of a crapshoot. And so, despite all the sharp and clever scheming and planning to build the team, the Cubs needed in the postseason too. They needed a clutch hit from a veteran on his way out. They needed their top reliever to keep his fragile emotional state in check and pitch more innings than he ever expected.
Should you read Cubs Way? If you are interested in re-living the Cubs World Series championship, then absolutely. I am still amazed at a single statistic: The celebration was attended by 5 Million people. One of the largest gatherings of the human species in all history. If you are looking for insight into the business side of baseball or you are a full on stats-head, it's not quite as satisfying, but still worthwhile.
Aside: If you've been reading along, you know I adopted the Astros as my back up baseball team, as I have been spending some time in Houston, have been to a couple of games, and the Tigers (always my first team) are dead in the water. The Astros lost the World Series to the Nationals -- I think the only Series where all seven games were won by the visiting team. Big disappointment, but the real story came later when they were accused of using electronic means to steal signs from opposing teams. As the narrative is currently formulated, during their World Series championship year, 2017, the Astros used a video camera to relay the opposing catchers signs then someone in one of the stadium tunnels would bang a trashcan to indicate the pitch such that it could be heard by the Astros batter. It is an important scandal, especially since the Astros won the series. As they say: Big, if true.
[Movies] Flick Check: The Irishman
This one is a bit different for Scorsese. Yes, it's about organized crime. Yes, it has De Niro and Pesci. But this time we throw in Pacino for good measure. And, more interestingly, the arc here is not just a storied event, although there is a main event, but an entire life. It is long -- three and a half hours - and it probably should have been shorter, or longer and a trilogy, or perhaps a mini-series.
To summarize, in the first third of the movie we follow the rise of Frank Sheeran -- an ambitious, corrupt, delivery truck driving tough guy (De Niro) as he climbs in rank in the mob to enforcer and hitman. The second part sees him essentially go on loan to Jimmy Hoffa (Pacino) with whom he develops a bond. In third part Hoffa goes so far off the rails that the De Niro character is ordered by the mob boss (Pesci) to kill Hoffa.
Along the way we are treated to dramatized drive-bys to many mob mythologies: Kennedy being made president by the mob who are then responsible for his assassination, the Bay of Pigs being an attempt to save all the mob investments in Havana, and of course Hoffa's murder. We are also given a glimpse into the effect mob life on the families, especially through the eyes of Sheeran's daughters.
I'll take this opportunity to point out the women play a very small role in this movie. As do any minorities. It's a story almost exclusive of white men, mostly old ones at that. If that bothers you, you should not watch it. If you watch it even though it bothers you, you can't say you weren't warned so at least admit you chose to be bothered. The nice thing about Netflix is your right to press "exit" on your remote and pick something else to watch.
In the canon of Scorsese mob films, this is more contemplative. It breaks no truly new ground -- in fact, I hold a minor suspicion that Scorsese had the idea to remake The Godfather in his image -- the choice of the mob life, the costs beyond the violence, and regrets at the end, all without the Coppola romanticism.
This leads to another interesting aspect of the film: bringing Pacino into the mix with De Niro and Pesci. De Niro is De Niro. He plays a solid, multi-layered character, but it's not a stretch for him. Pacino is well known to have had pretty much one character since Scent of a Woman -- a mildly unhinged, flamboyant loudmouth. That how he plays Hoffa, and it fits since that's what Hoffa was. The real standout is Pesci. Here he plays the opposite of the profane psycho role he normally takes. Instead he's a wizened, hyper-competent mob boss, a figure of respect, in fact, almost like Marlon Brando's Vito Corleone in reputation.
The Irishman is a terrific movie. Scorsese still makes terrific movies. It's human heart is on display, the lack of which is the thing he decried about superhero movies so he's practicing what he preaches. If he's not shaking up the world with Taxi Driver or Mean Streets anymore, he's still one of the great ones. The Irishman is proof.
To summarize, in the first third of the movie we follow the rise of Frank Sheeran -- an ambitious, corrupt, delivery truck driving tough guy (De Niro) as he climbs in rank in the mob to enforcer and hitman. The second part sees him essentially go on loan to Jimmy Hoffa (Pacino) with whom he develops a bond. In third part Hoffa goes so far off the rails that the De Niro character is ordered by the mob boss (Pesci) to kill Hoffa.
Along the way we are treated to dramatized drive-bys to many mob mythologies: Kennedy being made president by the mob who are then responsible for his assassination, the Bay of Pigs being an attempt to save all the mob investments in Havana, and of course Hoffa's murder. We are also given a glimpse into the effect mob life on the families, especially through the eyes of Sheeran's daughters.
I'll take this opportunity to point out the women play a very small role in this movie. As do any minorities. It's a story almost exclusive of white men, mostly old ones at that. If that bothers you, you should not watch it. If you watch it even though it bothers you, you can't say you weren't warned so at least admit you chose to be bothered. The nice thing about Netflix is your right to press "exit" on your remote and pick something else to watch.
In the canon of Scorsese mob films, this is more contemplative. It breaks no truly new ground -- in fact, I hold a minor suspicion that Scorsese had the idea to remake The Godfather in his image -- the choice of the mob life, the costs beyond the violence, and regrets at the end, all without the Coppola romanticism.
This leads to another interesting aspect of the film: bringing Pacino into the mix with De Niro and Pesci. De Niro is De Niro. He plays a solid, multi-layered character, but it's not a stretch for him. Pacino is well known to have had pretty much one character since Scent of a Woman -- a mildly unhinged, flamboyant loudmouth. That how he plays Hoffa, and it fits since that's what Hoffa was. The real standout is Pesci. Here he plays the opposite of the profane psycho role he normally takes. Instead he's a wizened, hyper-competent mob boss, a figure of respect, in fact, almost like Marlon Brando's Vito Corleone in reputation.
The Irishman is a terrific movie. Scorsese still makes terrific movies. It's human heart is on display, the lack of which is the thing he decried about superhero movies so he's practicing what he preaches. If he's not shaking up the world with Taxi Driver or Mean Streets anymore, he's still one of the great ones. The Irishman is proof.
[Good Links] Bits and Pieces
Notes and quotes and links of interest:
*Last month I wrote about the Coming California Crack Up. I'm beginning to think I should make it on ongoing series. To wit, from Slate Star Codex:
*The breaking of the 2-hour marathon sparked a lot of discussion about what counts as a genuine athletic achievement in the wake of technological and strategic manipulation. Are the shoes legal? Was the course realistic? Is drafting and pacing fair? The time was unofficial. And no, it probably shouldn't "count" per se, but the achievement was remarkable. I pulled this off Twitter:
*Very sad, but not surprised, to see Lodge 49 cancelled. Not surprised because it was the only truly character driven show on TV, apart from Better Call Saul which enters its last season shortly, and nobody seems to watch those. It may yet find a new home and survive, but if there were a vibrant market for such shows there would be more of them on the air.
*When I read for pure entertainment I often resort to crime fiction. I'll be delving into this list of great crime fiction from Ethan Iverson for while, I suspect.
*One of the ongoing themes here is how the world is moving beyond me as I age, how all the familiar cultural artifacts and activities slowly drift out of sight. How We'll Forget John Lennon breaks it all down scientifically.
*Last month I wrote about the Coming California Crack Up. I'm beginning to think I should make it on ongoing series. To wit, from Slate Star Codex:
California passes a law saying that freelance journalists may not write more than 35 stories per year, which many freelance journalists argue is not enough to survive on and would essentially destroy freelance journalism as a career option. The story seems to be that California wanted to ban Uber from classifying its drivers as freelancers, and the easiest way to do this was just to ban freelance work and carve out exceptions for any form of freelance work the state didn't want to ban, and whoever was in charge of exception-making randomly chose the number "35" for freelance journalism....Anyway, I think California journalists should feel lucky to be allowed 35 stories; most new housing in the state is limited to two.
*The breaking of the 2-hour marathon sparked a lot of discussion about what counts as a genuine athletic achievement in the wake of technological and strategic manipulation. Are the shoes legal? Was the course realistic? Is drafting and pacing fair? The time was unofficial. And no, it probably shouldn't "count" per se, but the achievement was remarkable. I pulled this off Twitter:
"Amuse yourself at the gym today by seeing how many times in a row you can run 100 meters in 17 seconds. It's pretty easy to begin with! If you can do it 422 times in a row-without breaks-then congratulations, you can run a marathon as fast as Eliud Kipchoge did this morning."
*Very sad, but not surprised, to see Lodge 49 cancelled. Not surprised because it was the only truly character driven show on TV, apart from Better Call Saul which enters its last season shortly, and nobody seems to watch those. It may yet find a new home and survive, but if there were a vibrant market for such shows there would be more of them on the air.
*When I read for pure entertainment I often resort to crime fiction. I'll be delving into this list of great crime fiction from Ethan Iverson for while, I suspect.
*One of the ongoing themes here is how the world is moving beyond me as I age, how all the familiar cultural artifacts and activities slowly drift out of sight. How We'll Forget John Lennon breaks it all down scientifically.
Wednesday, November 06, 2019
The Month That Was - October 2019
Winter is here. I made a visit to New Orleans, more below, but one of the purposes was to run a half-marathon. I have been running halfs for quite a number of years now. Usually it is my goal race for the year. I tend to slack off training in the winter then when Spring comes I slowly build up, through a few other races, eventually doing a half marathon in the Fall. It's how I know I haven't backslid. But I can't do it anymore. My poor knees suffered greatly during the extended training runs. I was never built for running and age hasn't helped that. This was not standard fatigue and over-use pain. This was wake up at night, borderline debilitating pain. So that was my last half marathon. I'm setting a hard limit at 10 miles and a preferred distance of 8. I'm shifting away from endurace and towards weight-training for my main exercise strategy anyway. Age is no longer something I can deny, I just have to adapt. Like I said, Winter is here.
Draft 2.0 of my next book is moving along nicely. We are soon approaching the point where I begin to feel it is inevitable. That will be a good feeling.
Is this decade really almost over?
[Rant] A Nice Place To Visit, But...
[Travel] Down Nawlins
[Movies] Flick Check: Spiderman: Far From Home
Draft 2.0 of my next book is moving along nicely. We are soon approaching the point where I begin to feel it is inevitable. That will be a good feeling.
Is this decade really almost over?
[Rant] A Nice Place To Visit, But...
[Travel] Down Nawlins
[Movies] Flick Check: Spiderman: Far From Home
[Rant] A Nice Place to Visit, But...
California has a lot of beauty. Virtually the entire coastal area is the stuff of legend as are the National Parks. It's the home of bikini-clad women, laid back surfer dudes, and Hollywood hoi polloi. The weather is gorgeous. It's a great place to visit. But I would never want to live there.
I have seen a lot of expensive beach communities in my travels and Southern California qualifies as one big beach community. One thing you quickly learn about such places is that once you move inland, you are confronted with the back-of-the-house; the support sector for the consumer and touristy enclaves. These are filled with folks fighting to get by, working a couple of service sector jobs for a buck over minimum wage, fighting ungodly traffic jams in both directions. You'll know you're there by the proliferation of pawn shops and junk yards. California does this one better by having a further back-of-the-house to support their agriculture industry. Visit places like Bakersfield and Barstow and Yuba City to see that. It's not pretty.
But that's not why I wouldn't live there.
The Bay area, Silicon Valley, is flush with tech money. Of course since nobody will let anybody build more homes, all your six-figure salary goes to rent for a 12x15 studio apartment where you'll have a 2-hour, stop-and-go to get to your cube in the morning. Don't have the scratch to stay within reach of town? There's always the Modesto-or-Stockton-and-carry-pepper-spray-at-all-times option.
But that's not why I wouldn't live there.
Did I mention the traffic is apocalyptically bad?
But that's not why I wouldn't live there.
California appears to be knocking on the door of something called Anarcho-tyranny. Anarcho-tyranny occurs when an authority has abandoned the difficult task of trying to maintain order and common welfare, instead demonstrating authority by punishing and penalizing easy targets to maintain the appearance of power.
We see the thorough degradation of San Francisco -- residents report there is feces everywhere. People are apparently just dropping trou and leaving souvenirs at will. Housing is unaffordable due to supply restrictions. If you're lucky, the homeless just pester you rather than something worse. And as they need to relearn, there is a reason we enforce hygiene standards in the rest of the country: Down south in LA they've seen an uptick in positively medieval diseases such as Typhus and Bubonic Plague.
The State's fixed payout pension fund is pretty much a lost cause. It's promised payments are so large that tax jurisdictions, from cities to school districts, are often paying fifty cents or more for every dollar they pay in salaries. Imagine trying to increase taxes enough to cover that or keep salaries low enough not to go bankrupt and you'll get an idea of the kind of financial havoc it will wreak pretty much forever. Businesses won't be able to afford to pay anything more than the soon to be $15 minimum wage and at that rate, no one can afford rent. A spiral will begin.
The latest horror is the imposed blackouts. Evidently the power grid is, for some reason, responsible for starting wildfires and needs decades of upgrades, which means residents of many areas will have periodic blackouts for years to come. Folks with critical needs for power (like hospitals) are scrambling to prepare. A World Lit Only By Fire, indeed! Evidently, wildfires are caused by electrical equipment that sets the dried out vegetation on fire. The company line on this is that global warming has made California hotter and drier than in the past and so it's really kind of an act of God, not the fault of the power companies or their government overseers. Of course, this raises the question of why it's not happening in Nevada or Arizona or Utah. Who knew those States had solved global warming? Decades to fix the power grid sounds about right. That is to say, it may never get fixed -- money could run out (see above re: pension), or it could get bogged down in regulation and graft.
You can't help but feel like California is taking the first baby steps towards a kind of dark age, where the feudal lords in Silicon Valley and Hollywood bray about while the poor folks can't afford a home and never get raises and live by candlelight, stumbling about in human waste while dying of the plague.
OK, I engage in hyperbole for effect. But the quality of life in California has degraded, and not just in the sense of a temporary economic recession like we all get from time to time. There is really a sense of degradation of Civilization, albeit small, which might just be unprecedented in the nation's history. If they can't arrest it, they'll achieve the "Anarcho" part of the equation.
What have the leaders of California done in the face of this? Well some have banned plastic straws and bags. Some are busy trying to find a gas price conspiracy. Some are working to kill the hated gig economy. Some are banning college admission tests. Some are releasing seven-time felons who go on to murder innocent women in the interest of supporting immigration.
You can see how these are baby steps towards the "Tyranny" part of the equation.
And that's why I don't want to live there. Anarcho-tyranny.
Speaking as someone who saw the city of his birth, Detroit, degrade into a third-world hellhole, the pattern is familiar. California has lifetimes to go before it approaches Detroit, but that is the vector it is on. I will certainly be dead before it resolves one way or another, but I predict California continues to lose native born residents and only maintain its population through foreign immigration (people coming from places where California looks reasonable by comparison) for the next 10 years. I also predict that before my time is up, California will experience its first population drop. Children born today may live to see California's financial default and its governance turned over to the Feds.
I further predict that I will visit California at least three more times in my life and each trip will be delightful.
Addendum: A great counterpoint to California is Texas, specifically the Houston-Austin-San Antonio region. Massive, productive growth. Yes, infrastructure there is struggling to keep up, but the priorities are correct and there is no degradation of civilization. Hell, at Buc-ee's they brag about the restrooms -- take that San Francisco. If I were young and inclined to make my mark, that's where I would go.
I have seen a lot of expensive beach communities in my travels and Southern California qualifies as one big beach community. One thing you quickly learn about such places is that once you move inland, you are confronted with the back-of-the-house; the support sector for the consumer and touristy enclaves. These are filled with folks fighting to get by, working a couple of service sector jobs for a buck over minimum wage, fighting ungodly traffic jams in both directions. You'll know you're there by the proliferation of pawn shops and junk yards. California does this one better by having a further back-of-the-house to support their agriculture industry. Visit places like Bakersfield and Barstow and Yuba City to see that. It's not pretty.
But that's not why I wouldn't live there.
The Bay area, Silicon Valley, is flush with tech money. Of course since nobody will let anybody build more homes, all your six-figure salary goes to rent for a 12x15 studio apartment where you'll have a 2-hour, stop-and-go to get to your cube in the morning. Don't have the scratch to stay within reach of town? There's always the Modesto-or-Stockton-and-carry-pepper-spray-at-all-times option.
But that's not why I wouldn't live there.
Did I mention the traffic is apocalyptically bad?
But that's not why I wouldn't live there.
California appears to be knocking on the door of something called Anarcho-tyranny. Anarcho-tyranny occurs when an authority has abandoned the difficult task of trying to maintain order and common welfare, instead demonstrating authority by punishing and penalizing easy targets to maintain the appearance of power.
We see the thorough degradation of San Francisco -- residents report there is feces everywhere. People are apparently just dropping trou and leaving souvenirs at will. Housing is unaffordable due to supply restrictions. If you're lucky, the homeless just pester you rather than something worse. And as they need to relearn, there is a reason we enforce hygiene standards in the rest of the country: Down south in LA they've seen an uptick in positively medieval diseases such as Typhus and Bubonic Plague.
The State's fixed payout pension fund is pretty much a lost cause. It's promised payments are so large that tax jurisdictions, from cities to school districts, are often paying fifty cents or more for every dollar they pay in salaries. Imagine trying to increase taxes enough to cover that or keep salaries low enough not to go bankrupt and you'll get an idea of the kind of financial havoc it will wreak pretty much forever. Businesses won't be able to afford to pay anything more than the soon to be $15 minimum wage and at that rate, no one can afford rent. A spiral will begin.
The latest horror is the imposed blackouts. Evidently the power grid is, for some reason, responsible for starting wildfires and needs decades of upgrades, which means residents of many areas will have periodic blackouts for years to come. Folks with critical needs for power (like hospitals) are scrambling to prepare. A World Lit Only By Fire, indeed! Evidently, wildfires are caused by electrical equipment that sets the dried out vegetation on fire. The company line on this is that global warming has made California hotter and drier than in the past and so it's really kind of an act of God, not the fault of the power companies or their government overseers. Of course, this raises the question of why it's not happening in Nevada or Arizona or Utah. Who knew those States had solved global warming? Decades to fix the power grid sounds about right. That is to say, it may never get fixed -- money could run out (see above re: pension), or it could get bogged down in regulation and graft.
You can't help but feel like California is taking the first baby steps towards a kind of dark age, where the feudal lords in Silicon Valley and Hollywood bray about while the poor folks can't afford a home and never get raises and live by candlelight, stumbling about in human waste while dying of the plague.
OK, I engage in hyperbole for effect. But the quality of life in California has degraded, and not just in the sense of a temporary economic recession like we all get from time to time. There is really a sense of degradation of Civilization, albeit small, which might just be unprecedented in the nation's history. If they can't arrest it, they'll achieve the "Anarcho" part of the equation.
What have the leaders of California done in the face of this? Well some have banned plastic straws and bags. Some are busy trying to find a gas price conspiracy. Some are working to kill the hated gig economy. Some are banning college admission tests. Some are releasing seven-time felons who go on to murder innocent women in the interest of supporting immigration.
You can see how these are baby steps towards the "Tyranny" part of the equation.
And that's why I don't want to live there. Anarcho-tyranny.
Speaking as someone who saw the city of his birth, Detroit, degrade into a third-world hellhole, the pattern is familiar. California has lifetimes to go before it approaches Detroit, but that is the vector it is on. I will certainly be dead before it resolves one way or another, but I predict California continues to lose native born residents and only maintain its population through foreign immigration (people coming from places where California looks reasonable by comparison) for the next 10 years. I also predict that before my time is up, California will experience its first population drop. Children born today may live to see California's financial default and its governance turned over to the Feds.
I further predict that I will visit California at least three more times in my life and each trip will be delightful.
Addendum: A great counterpoint to California is Texas, specifically the Houston-Austin-San Antonio region. Massive, productive growth. Yes, infrastructure there is struggling to keep up, but the priorities are correct and there is no degradation of civilization. Hell, at Buc-ee's they brag about the restrooms -- take that San Francisco. If I were young and inclined to make my mark, that's where I would go.
[Travel] Down Nawlins
Since I'm on a kick of passing judgment on various regions, let's do New Orleans. I'm going to say something that may raise hackles. Post-Katrina New Orleans is better than Pre-Katrina New Orleans. There I said it. I'm sure the devastation and struggle caused by Katrina were horrible, but it also washed away much of the creeping ugliness that was growing in New Orleans once you left the French Quarter. Bourbon Street was always a blast, but the smell was frightening. Between the Katrina power-washing and the new sewer upgrades, it's set for another century of debauchery.
Some may see the same gentrification that's going on throughout the country, but it has a very different feel to me. With garden-variety gentrification real estate gets a renovation and prices rise and the new money comes in and works hard to gate themselves off from the very diversity they praise (see previous post re: the Bay Area). In Nawlins, you aren't gated off from anything. You have chase the junkies out of the doorway of your seven figure condo. You may be part of the gentry, but you are bumpin' elbows with a bouillabaisse of humanity.
That said, the money part of the gentrification equation is still in tact -- in real estate, of course, but other things too. Get caught needing to Uber to the airport during surge pricing and you could be dropping $70-80. That's pushing Manhattan level. Trying to find even a nothing-special hotel room near the Quarter for sub-$300 a night is a problem -- and tack on an extra hundred per night for taxes and valet parking. Yeah, New Orleans is definitely not a budget destination.
Crime is broadly down in the city as you'd expect from the gentry -- excluding the worst areas where nothing changes and nobody goes -- but the city hasn't lost its soul. It's still one of the friendliest places you can visit; folks are quick to laugh and offer good thoughts. The Quarter is still a party. The Central Business District is getting to be very nice.
And then there is food. You could spend a lifetime exploring food in New Orleans. I will admit I don't have the greatest affiliation to Bayou cuisine. For example, many people have deep and fervent opinions about po' boys. I think a po boy is, essentially, a bad sub. A muffuletta is better, but so many places drown it in olives. A beignet is fine but nothing more than a donut to me. I like jambalaya and etouffee, but not to die for.
Still, the culture of cooking yields all sorts of gems. For brunch at the Court of Two Sisters I had an omelet that was flawless -- no strange ingredients, just loaded with veggies like I usually get, but perfectly cooked and served in a wonderful setting. At Mother's I had fabulous green beans and cheese grits for the side dishes. Unexpectedly wonderful baked ham at both places. Souffle potatoes at Antoine's were another great find. Cocktail culture is second to none.
So have a seat at the bar order something tasty and a sazerac to start. You'll find the folks on either side of you are your new BFFs. Cheer on the Saints, even if you're not a fan. Let the good times roll in the Big Easy. The sticker shock will be worth it.
Some may see the same gentrification that's going on throughout the country, but it has a very different feel to me. With garden-variety gentrification real estate gets a renovation and prices rise and the new money comes in and works hard to gate themselves off from the very diversity they praise (see previous post re: the Bay Area). In Nawlins, you aren't gated off from anything. You have chase the junkies out of the doorway of your seven figure condo. You may be part of the gentry, but you are bumpin' elbows with a bouillabaisse of humanity.
That said, the money part of the gentrification equation is still in tact -- in real estate, of course, but other things too. Get caught needing to Uber to the airport during surge pricing and you could be dropping $70-80. That's pushing Manhattan level. Trying to find even a nothing-special hotel room near the Quarter for sub-$300 a night is a problem -- and tack on an extra hundred per night for taxes and valet parking. Yeah, New Orleans is definitely not a budget destination.
Crime is broadly down in the city as you'd expect from the gentry -- excluding the worst areas where nothing changes and nobody goes -- but the city hasn't lost its soul. It's still one of the friendliest places you can visit; folks are quick to laugh and offer good thoughts. The Quarter is still a party. The Central Business District is getting to be very nice.
And then there is food. You could spend a lifetime exploring food in New Orleans. I will admit I don't have the greatest affiliation to Bayou cuisine. For example, many people have deep and fervent opinions about po' boys. I think a po boy is, essentially, a bad sub. A muffuletta is better, but so many places drown it in olives. A beignet is fine but nothing more than a donut to me. I like jambalaya and etouffee, but not to die for.
Still, the culture of cooking yields all sorts of gems. For brunch at the Court of Two Sisters I had an omelet that was flawless -- no strange ingredients, just loaded with veggies like I usually get, but perfectly cooked and served in a wonderful setting. At Mother's I had fabulous green beans and cheese grits for the side dishes. Unexpectedly wonderful baked ham at both places. Souffle potatoes at Antoine's were another great find. Cocktail culture is second to none.
So have a seat at the bar order something tasty and a sazerac to start. You'll find the folks on either side of you are your new BFFs. Cheer on the Saints, even if you're not a fan. Let the good times roll in the Big Easy. The sticker shock will be worth it.
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