For the next few weeks pravdakid and I are going to try something a little different, at least for this blog. We're both going to be blogging about the same thing, the new graphic novel Asterios Polyp. Tomorrow, I'll blog my first reactions, but today I want to introduce the novel and give a little background to it.
Asterios Polyp is written and drawn by David Mazzucchelli (I'll be misspelling that name frequently in the course of these comments, I'm sure). It has generated a fair amount of buzz both in the mainstream media (getting several different reviews in the New York Times), and in the world of comics criticism. Mazzucchelli was a name unknown to me, but apparently he's pretty famous in the comics world, since he worked with Frank Miller on some groundbreaking projects, including Daredevil and Batman: Year One. A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, his work is somewhat reminiscent of another design school grad, Chris Ware, in that he clearly loves to experiment visually with comics conventions. He's been working on this thing for about ten years or so.
Briefly, the book is about an East Coast architect and academic named Asterios Polyp, whose life, at the beginning of the narrative, has taken a woeful turn. This is due in no small degree, we quickly understand, to the fact that Polyp is an asshole. When we first see the main character, he has lost his job and his wife, his apartment is a mess, and he is watching old home-made porn tapes. Then his apartment building is struck by lightning and burns up: this is the event that gets him moving. He leaves New York and takes a bus upstate. That's as far as I've gotten. More tomorrow.
(Dave, feel free to correct any mistakes I've just made here.)
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
An open letter to Andrew Sullivan, concerning the ongoing struggle to “see what is front of one’s face.”
Mr Sullivan:
In the fall of 2001, soon after the terrorists attacks of 9/11, you inaugurated the “Sontag Award” on your blog, The Daily Dish, as part of your journalistic battle against “decadent,” radical left-wing intellectuals, bent on destroying the United States through their ill-considered attacks on the Bush administration and their criticisms of the Iraq War. The award was named in honor of Susan Sontag, who had the temerity to suggest in the early days following the attacks that the United States was not, in fact, a blameless actor on the world stage, and that U.S. citizens needed to be more critical of the government’s response to the attacks. In the months and years that followed, you frequently dispensed the Sontag award upon those who, in your words, were guilty of “glib moral equivalence in the war on terror and visceral anti-Americanism.” (I note in passing that to argue for self-reflection and self-critique does not require that one engage in “glib moral equivalence” of any sort. A better example of the latter, I should think, would be to, say, create a label for one’s right-wing domestic opponents--something like, oh, I don’t know, like “Christianist,”--that is clearly meant to suggest a structural similarity between such people and the “Islamisists” who bombed the Trade Towers. But back to the matter at hand...)
You no longer mention the Sontag Award. Indeed, it is difficult to find any kind of evidence on your blog now there was ever any such thing. You list a “glossary” of snarky awards that you continue to promote, but they mostly refer to right-wing figures like Michelle Malkin and Hugh Hewitt. This change mirrors your own (obvious though unstated) political conversion. Now that you are a prominent supporter of a Democratic president and an opponent of the War on Terror, the danger from effete, latte-sipping, socialistic fifth-columnists is no longer quite so alarming, apparently. Instead, good Americans all need to fear knuckle-dragging, pickup driving, gun-toting Southern Baptists: moral monsters who believe neither in evolution nor gay marriage. Right-wing caricature, in short, replaces the previous left-wing caricature. Andrew Sullivan is not at war with the Susan Sontags of the world. Andrew Sullivan is at war with the Michelle Malkins of the world. Andrew Sullivan has always been at war with Michelle Malkin.
One piece of evidence remains from those early years, however. About the same time that you came up with the Sontag award, you also invented the Von Hoffmann award. This award is given out for “stunningly wrong political, social and cultural predictions.” The origin of this award is the warning by columnist Nicholas Von Hoffmann, in late fall of 2001, that the war in Afghanistan would turn into a quagmire, a claim that you found, given the early apparent success of Western troops in defeating the Taliban regime, to be self-evidently risible.
I’m sure you realize the problem. The war in Afghanistan is now almost eight years old, with no foreseeable end. Eight years is longer than the United States’ participation in both World Wars. Nicholas Von Hoffmann’s 2001 prediction was not “stunningly wrong;” it was pretty much spot-on.
Andrew, you need to get rid of the Von Hoffmann award. I suggest that you do so as soon as possible, in a similar manner to how you made the Sontag award disappear. Simply remove it from the website, and never mention it again. There is no need to apologize to Mr. Von Hoffmann, nor any admission of fault on your part. Repeat after me: the Von Hoffmann award does not exist. It has never existed.
In the fall of 2001, soon after the terrorists attacks of 9/11, you inaugurated the “Sontag Award” on your blog, The Daily Dish, as part of your journalistic battle against “decadent,” radical left-wing intellectuals, bent on destroying the United States through their ill-considered attacks on the Bush administration and their criticisms of the Iraq War. The award was named in honor of Susan Sontag, who had the temerity to suggest in the early days following the attacks that the United States was not, in fact, a blameless actor on the world stage, and that U.S. citizens needed to be more critical of the government’s response to the attacks. In the months and years that followed, you frequently dispensed the Sontag award upon those who, in your words, were guilty of “glib moral equivalence in the war on terror and visceral anti-Americanism.” (I note in passing that to argue for self-reflection and self-critique does not require that one engage in “glib moral equivalence” of any sort. A better example of the latter, I should think, would be to, say, create a label for one’s right-wing domestic opponents--something like, oh, I don’t know, like “Christianist,”--that is clearly meant to suggest a structural similarity between such people and the “Islamisists” who bombed the Trade Towers. But back to the matter at hand...)
You no longer mention the Sontag Award. Indeed, it is difficult to find any kind of evidence on your blog now there was ever any such thing. You list a “glossary” of snarky awards that you continue to promote, but they mostly refer to right-wing figures like Michelle Malkin and Hugh Hewitt. This change mirrors your own (obvious though unstated) political conversion. Now that you are a prominent supporter of a Democratic president and an opponent of the War on Terror, the danger from effete, latte-sipping, socialistic fifth-columnists is no longer quite so alarming, apparently. Instead, good Americans all need to fear knuckle-dragging, pickup driving, gun-toting Southern Baptists: moral monsters who believe neither in evolution nor gay marriage. Right-wing caricature, in short, replaces the previous left-wing caricature. Andrew Sullivan is not at war with the Susan Sontags of the world. Andrew Sullivan is at war with the Michelle Malkins of the world. Andrew Sullivan has always been at war with Michelle Malkin.
One piece of evidence remains from those early years, however. About the same time that you came up with the Sontag award, you also invented the Von Hoffmann award. This award is given out for “stunningly wrong political, social and cultural predictions.” The origin of this award is the warning by columnist Nicholas Von Hoffmann, in late fall of 2001, that the war in Afghanistan would turn into a quagmire, a claim that you found, given the early apparent success of Western troops in defeating the Taliban regime, to be self-evidently risible.
I’m sure you realize the problem. The war in Afghanistan is now almost eight years old, with no foreseeable end. Eight years is longer than the United States’ participation in both World Wars. Nicholas Von Hoffmann’s 2001 prediction was not “stunningly wrong;” it was pretty much spot-on.
Andrew, you need to get rid of the Von Hoffmann award. I suggest that you do so as soon as possible, in a similar manner to how you made the Sontag award disappear. Simply remove it from the website, and never mention it again. There is no need to apologize to Mr. Von Hoffmann, nor any admission of fault on your part. Repeat after me: the Von Hoffmann award does not exist. It has never existed.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Perpetual ferment hasn’t been bubbling much lately so I thought I’d write about my experience yesterday at an agricultural society luncheon talk. The speaker was the publisher of an agricultural trade publication, and his talk focused on bringing the brand online. It was basically an introduction to new media publishing, which was a new topic for the society membership, most of whom were men over the age of 50. Not much to report on the talk. For me, the really interesting thing about the event was the pre-talk discussion at my table: a spirited dog-pile on the slow food movement. Last month’s speaker had been a slow food advocate, and the guys at my table were still savoring their contempt for what he said and how he said it. One observed, “People tell me they respect agriculture. They don’t respect agriculture, they just like food.” They traded anecdotes about urban naïveté toward the flyover states. One mentioned a businesswoman who looked at the endless tracts of corn in Iowa and asked, incredulously, “Who is going to eat all this corn???” “Did she think it was sweet corn?” “YES!” The table rocked with genuine laughter. Apparently the slow food speaker had been savaged in the Q and A, and the men at my table revisited the best bits: “Where are you going to get all these farmers? You’d need ten million people willing to farm! Nobody wants to farm! It’s dirty. It’s unrealistic, it’s unscalable, it’s unsustainable, and it’s never going to work.” All agreed that the best Q and A zinger had been: “Have YOU ever farmed?” Unfortunately the speaker’s answer had been “no.” As my lunch companions piled on, I realized I was watching the ritual behavior of a tribe working hard to contain a threat. These were businessmen, expert in running large operations, deeply invested in industrial methods and products. These were Friends of Monsanto.
It’s not often I am physically surrounded by real live people whose views on a topic are opposite to my own habits of thought. These men weren’t total aliens to me: my maternal grandfather ran an enormous wheat operation in Nebraska, then my mother and her brother took it over for a while. I was familiar with the conservative culture of the Midwestern industrial farmer. I’d seen the producer’s exasperation with bureaucracy, the service industry, and consumer culture. My uncle, who would have turned 80 today, was working more than 1200 acres when he died; he was also a rock-ribbed Republican. My paternal grandfather, what we might call a traditional agrarian farmer, worked forty acres where I grew up, and after he died my father farmed weekends in a manner too serious to be considered a hobby but not serious enough to be a career. I’ve done a share of farmwork, for pocket money, or just for the exercise: I’ve picked tomatoes, watermelon, cantaloupes, and corn. I’ve plowed, planted seedlings, turned vines, and stapled crates. But I’ve never really farmed, not like my relatives did. The men at my table were right -- farming for survival is hard, you get filthy, and at certain times of the year you have to work 18-hour days. And you run the risk of hail.
My lunch companions were certainly not dirty; they were wearing suits and talking about the stock market. At that table, they were captains of industry. Some had doctorates in agricultural science; others bred racehorses or published on bovine genetics. The day’s speaker, sitting to my left, was the CEO of a multi-media firm but he took care to establish his bona fides by mentioning his Christmas tree farm. During his presentation he cited a rising star in ag media named John Phipps. I googled Phipps, expecting to find the Sean Hannity of agribusiness, but was pleasantly surprised at his evenhanded tone (yet unsurprised at his faith in the Invisible Hand). Some of his comments on organic farming clarified what I’d witnessed yesterday. In a blog entry on industrial agriculture’s hostility to what he calls the agrarian movement, Phipps describes the market for organics, free-range eggs, and local produce, then observes,
Industrial producers like myself have been trying to write off these developments as consumer fads, but I think they are woven into the cultural shifts made possible by abundance and the differences in values of Boomers and succeeding generations. We also have struggles with a larger issue: agrarians are boldly snatching our outdated "family farm" image which we flog in the halls of Congress to attract subsidy support.The growing divide between agrarian and industrial producers no longer alarms me. In fact, heated opposition to the agrarian movement is the last thing industrial ag should be spending time on. The market is sorting this one out as we speak.
Overall, Phipps calls for a frank self-evaluation of industrial agribusiness: the work is a massive tech-intensive, scalable operation capable of high caloric yields, and the agriculturalist is a CEO and entrepreneur as well as a hands-on manager who joins the workers on the factory floor. According to Phipps, Big Ag needs to be honest with itself about what it does and who it is. In casting off romantic images of the farmer, it doesn’t hurt that Captains of Industry are fewer and farther between in our post-industrial economy, and the role is there for the taking. Agribusiness finds itself in a uniquely protected niche as the financial markets plunge: some pundits are saying the safest investments are gold and farmland. Stop worrying about the small farmers, says Phipps – trust in the market.
Though he regards the agrarian farmers with some benevolence, Phipps dishes out a spot of contempt for the agrarian consumers. Pointing out that the biggest producers of organic foods are corporations like Kraft and Coca-Cola, he argues that earthy-crunchy types see corporate ownership as a betrayal of “organic” values:
Despite complying with the rules, many food advocates are outraged at large operations providing products they imagined would come from smaller and frankly, quainter farms.The rise in the local food movement underscores this disappointment. My own feeling is it's not really about the food characteristics - it's about the desire for an attractive and pleasantly rustic rural population to grace modern life at the convenience of non-farmers.
The jabs at the slow foodies suggest a cultural divide not at the level of the market, but at the level of social reality. Like the businesswomen flying over Iowa, he thinks localvores nurture a Fisher-Price image of the traditional family farm and fail to grasp the scope of what is really necessary feed the nation and the world. They link farming with tourism. In a sense, I’m reminded of Jack Nicholson snarling “you can’t handle the truth!” At the same time, I wonder whether the highly educated and prosperous businessmen at my table still might smart a little at the image of the picturesque rube. Yet they saw the utility of invoking that image when lobbying for subsidies and tax breaks. Listening to my lunch companions slag slow food, I knew the object of their scorn was not small farmers, though they worked at transcending whatever stereotype they saw in that role, when convenient. Their real target was the urban elite who styled themselves slow food experts – who do a little gardening, read Michael Pollan, visit Lancaster County, and feel obliged to write letters to Congress or the New York Times about fixing the food system – in other words, members of MY tribe.
Today I ran into a friend who makes her living in the local food movement; I briefly described my experience and she told me the cultural divide between industrial and agrarian farmers is actually beginning to give way. I’ve run out of blogging time and I don’t have any big conclusions. Oh, and the lunch wasn't very good. The vanilla mousse tasted like fish.
It’s not often I am physically surrounded by real live people whose views on a topic are opposite to my own habits of thought. These men weren’t total aliens to me: my maternal grandfather ran an enormous wheat operation in Nebraska, then my mother and her brother took it over for a while. I was familiar with the conservative culture of the Midwestern industrial farmer. I’d seen the producer’s exasperation with bureaucracy, the service industry, and consumer culture. My uncle, who would have turned 80 today, was working more than 1200 acres when he died; he was also a rock-ribbed Republican. My paternal grandfather, what we might call a traditional agrarian farmer, worked forty acres where I grew up, and after he died my father farmed weekends in a manner too serious to be considered a hobby but not serious enough to be a career. I’ve done a share of farmwork, for pocket money, or just for the exercise: I’ve picked tomatoes, watermelon, cantaloupes, and corn. I’ve plowed, planted seedlings, turned vines, and stapled crates. But I’ve never really farmed, not like my relatives did. The men at my table were right -- farming for survival is hard, you get filthy, and at certain times of the year you have to work 18-hour days. And you run the risk of hail.
My lunch companions were certainly not dirty; they were wearing suits and talking about the stock market. At that table, they were captains of industry. Some had doctorates in agricultural science; others bred racehorses or published on bovine genetics. The day’s speaker, sitting to my left, was the CEO of a multi-media firm but he took care to establish his bona fides by mentioning his Christmas tree farm. During his presentation he cited a rising star in ag media named John Phipps. I googled Phipps, expecting to find the Sean Hannity of agribusiness, but was pleasantly surprised at his evenhanded tone (yet unsurprised at his faith in the Invisible Hand). Some of his comments on organic farming clarified what I’d witnessed yesterday. In a blog entry on industrial agriculture’s hostility to what he calls the agrarian movement, Phipps describes the market for organics, free-range eggs, and local produce, then observes,
Industrial producers like myself have been trying to write off these developments as consumer fads, but I think they are woven into the cultural shifts made possible by abundance and the differences in values of Boomers and succeeding generations. We also have struggles with a larger issue: agrarians are boldly snatching our outdated "family farm" image which we flog in the halls of Congress to attract subsidy support.The growing divide between agrarian and industrial producers no longer alarms me. In fact, heated opposition to the agrarian movement is the last thing industrial ag should be spending time on. The market is sorting this one out as we speak.
Overall, Phipps calls for a frank self-evaluation of industrial agribusiness: the work is a massive tech-intensive, scalable operation capable of high caloric yields, and the agriculturalist is a CEO and entrepreneur as well as a hands-on manager who joins the workers on the factory floor. According to Phipps, Big Ag needs to be honest with itself about what it does and who it is. In casting off romantic images of the farmer, it doesn’t hurt that Captains of Industry are fewer and farther between in our post-industrial economy, and the role is there for the taking. Agribusiness finds itself in a uniquely protected niche as the financial markets plunge: some pundits are saying the safest investments are gold and farmland. Stop worrying about the small farmers, says Phipps – trust in the market.
Though he regards the agrarian farmers with some benevolence, Phipps dishes out a spot of contempt for the agrarian consumers. Pointing out that the biggest producers of organic foods are corporations like Kraft and Coca-Cola, he argues that earthy-crunchy types see corporate ownership as a betrayal of “organic” values:
Despite complying with the rules, many food advocates are outraged at large operations providing products they imagined would come from smaller and frankly, quainter farms.The rise in the local food movement underscores this disappointment. My own feeling is it's not really about the food characteristics - it's about the desire for an attractive and pleasantly rustic rural population to grace modern life at the convenience of non-farmers.
The jabs at the slow foodies suggest a cultural divide not at the level of the market, but at the level of social reality. Like the businesswomen flying over Iowa, he thinks localvores nurture a Fisher-Price image of the traditional family farm and fail to grasp the scope of what is really necessary feed the nation and the world. They link farming with tourism. In a sense, I’m reminded of Jack Nicholson snarling “you can’t handle the truth!” At the same time, I wonder whether the highly educated and prosperous businessmen at my table still might smart a little at the image of the picturesque rube. Yet they saw the utility of invoking that image when lobbying for subsidies and tax breaks. Listening to my lunch companions slag slow food, I knew the object of their scorn was not small farmers, though they worked at transcending whatever stereotype they saw in that role, when convenient. Their real target was the urban elite who styled themselves slow food experts – who do a little gardening, read Michael Pollan, visit Lancaster County, and feel obliged to write letters to Congress or the New York Times about fixing the food system – in other words, members of MY tribe.
Today I ran into a friend who makes her living in the local food movement; I briefly described my experience and she told me the cultural divide between industrial and agrarian farmers is actually beginning to give way. I’ve run out of blogging time and I don’t have any big conclusions. Oh, and the lunch wasn't very good. The vanilla mousse tasted like fish.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
A Bit of News
Our esteemed colleague, the pravdakid, has recently undergone a change of academic status. Congratulations, David.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Something I just have to get off my chest
Went to see Synecdoche, New York this past week. I was pretty stoked, given what I'd read about the movie and the reputations of almost everyone involved. Which made the narcissistic, jejune piece of crap that I sat through for two hours all the more infuriating.
If I ever see Charlie Kaufman in person I'm going to punch him in the nose.
If I ever see Charlie Kaufman in person I'm going to punch him in the nose.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Football and Chabon
This next comment is for loyal PF reader Al C., who has been following the fortunes of the University of Tulsa football team this fall. Al will no doubt be wondering how it was that a highly favored Hurricane squad lost, at home, to East Carolina this weekend.
Here's the answer. They just weren't all that good. Many non-BCS teams are undeservedly ignored by the national media and other coaches: Utah and Boise State would be examples here. Tulsa was deservedly ignored: their defense was not great and their offense built up the big numbers by doing well against very weak teams. I say this with no great sadness in my heart, since I am not a big fan of Div-1 sports, and certainly not at a school as small as Tulsa (we have only about 3,000 undergraduates, 4,000 students total). I suspect that there is probably some non-crazy explanation for why we have a Div-1 football team, but for the life of me I can't figure out what that would be.
At any rate, I was not at the game. I was at the public library Saturday morning, listening to Michael Chabon, who received our city's big literary prize, The Peggy Helmerich Award. He was charming, if a bit disorganized. I had read one of his Details columns a few days before at the gym. It was about an old writing teacher who had passed away, and it was a lot more compelling than the talk, by and large. The best line from the library discussion was when he said that his relationship to plot was analogous to Bob Dylan's relationship to singing.
Here's the answer. They just weren't all that good. Many non-BCS teams are undeservedly ignored by the national media and other coaches: Utah and Boise State would be examples here. Tulsa was deservedly ignored: their defense was not great and their offense built up the big numbers by doing well against very weak teams. I say this with no great sadness in my heart, since I am not a big fan of Div-1 sports, and certainly not at a school as small as Tulsa (we have only about 3,000 undergraduates, 4,000 students total). I suspect that there is probably some non-crazy explanation for why we have a Div-1 football team, but for the life of me I can't figure out what that would be.
At any rate, I was not at the game. I was at the public library Saturday morning, listening to Michael Chabon, who received our city's big literary prize, The Peggy Helmerich Award. He was charming, if a bit disorganized. I had read one of his Details columns a few days before at the gym. It was about an old writing teacher who had passed away, and it was a lot more compelling than the talk, by and large. The best line from the library discussion was when he said that his relationship to plot was analogous to Bob Dylan's relationship to singing.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Optimistic Quote for the Day
“Reason is at its best related to generosity, to being able to acknowledge the truth or justice of another’s claim even when it cuts against the grain of one’s own interests and desires. To be reasonable in this sense involves not some desiccated calculation but courage, realism, justice, humility, and largess of spirit; there is certainly nothing clinically disinterested in this.”
Terry Eagleton, Illusions of Postmodernism, Blackwell, 1996, 123.
Terry Eagleton, Illusions of Postmodernism, Blackwell, 1996, 123.
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