Jury Duty

Well, here it is: my first post written inside a courthouse.  Yes, loyal readers, I write you from within the wearying bureacratic soul-suck that is...Jury Duty.  Where, as it turns out, they offer free computer access.  But not much else.  So, since I have a minimum of three more hours to wait and I've already read most of the interesting magazines lying around (well "interesting" is a stretch.  The most recent thing here came out in March.  This morning I read an issue of Harpers that was published during the Bush administration.  Really.)

What to talk about?  Well since I've spent the last hour reading every web site I can think of to kill time, I guess the news is a place to start.

Oh--first--jury duty itself.  This is my second time to be called to Jury Duty in LA.  The first time was at a different courthouse, one that sent most of us home by 10 AM.  I mistakenly assumed, receiving this recent summons, that I would be going to the same courthouse; in fact, however, I ended up at a court where they make you wait around all day.  I've been here since 8:30.  It's 1:30 now.  So far not one person in the room has been called.  I'm hopeful they'll start to release some of us soon.  Though since I know they won't I guess 'hopeful' isn't the word.  What, then?  Praying, maybe.

Back to the news.  It's sort of dispiriting, isn't it?  How about bullet points on the big issues.

-Can we all agree to be collectively outraged about J McCarthy being given a full time job The View?  I realize daytime talk is not exactly the Oxford debating society, but at least most of their regularly-scheduled idiots aren't offering opinions that might actually cause immediate harm.  Stay-at-home moms are the meat and potatoes of a show like the The View.  McCarthy espouses dangerous nutcase theories that lead to under-vaccination and, in some cases, death.  Yet ABC gives her a public platform in front of the very audience who she threatens the most.  Appalling.

-My take on George Zimmerman.... (as if the world needed more people talking about him).  The man is pathetic and foolish; he's like The Office's Dwight Schrute--only with a gun.  In a state that allows him to shoot people.  Still, I think that what he did was legal, at least according to Florida law.  The issue at stake--as many in the media have pointed out--is laws that allow "Stand Your Ground" justifications for the use of deadly force.  (A media meme has taken hold, recently, suggesting that "Stand Your Ground" actually played no role in his conviction; for a refutation of same go here.)  Florida laws don't seem particularly reasonable to me, and though I'm not qualified to pronounce on the subject, I don't see a need for "Stand Your Ground" type laws in general.  Though much about that night will never be known, Zimmerman seems to me to have been something more than an unsuspecting, innocent victim (the fact that he ignored the 911 dispatcher's order to say in his car and instead went back after Martin is telling).  At the very least, I believe he helped to provoke the violence that lead to Martin's death--but without any witnesses it's obviously impossible to say what actually happened.

My gut reaction to this kind of news is to say that nobody anywhere in the US should be allowed to carry a pistol (except cops).  I know that's a simplistic solution to a complicated set of problems.  Still, as ever in America, guns make things worse.  (As the mob was to the Sopranos, so guns are to America; they serve to turn every problem, disagreement or tension into a matter of life and death).   Any problem that exists in American society is made worse--deadlier and more horrible--because of the ready access of guns.  The Newton killings, for example, or the shooting in Colorado, the core problem, in both instances, is our difficulties in dealing with the mentally ill.   But guns make the problem worse.   In China, by contrast, mentally unstable people go on knifing sprees; people are hurt, and it isn't pleasant, but it's nothing like as bad as it is here.  There, the potential for mass violence is siginificantly absent, because guns are so much harder to come by. 

But I digress.
("But it's all there in the letter."  "Verbatim.")

I would say, as a sidenote, that I think the prosecution overcharged Zimmerman.  If they'd have gone for ONLY manslaughter, giving up on 2nd degree murder, they might have got a conviction.  Also worth remembering; the Florida crime scene people made serious errors in handling the evidence.  Had they bagged  Martin's bloody clothes correctly, DNA evidence might have been more conclusive.  Yet more proof that "CSI" and "Crime Scene" are the most arrant of fictions.

-I'm working now on a Modern Family spec.  Then, back to a play.  A different one, I think.
-It's been a tough summer.

-I'm getting back into tennis, trying to get back into serious shape.  For most of last year my main exercise was walking.  That allowed me to listen to books on tape, and for that reason I relished it (I "read" all of Trollope's Barsetshire Novels while walking around the Hazeltine/Sherman Oaks park last year.  Wonderful.)  But walking, while relaxing, doesn't soup up the metabolism like I now think I need.  It also take time from the day.  So back to running, jumping rope, and--for now--tennis against the backboard.  Lessons may resume shortly.

-Okay, time to go read the January 29 issue of National Review.  Really.

-Addendum: Jury Service ended at 3:30.  Now, to nap.

Call To Action

Hi everyone. This is an unusual post for me; I almost never try to advocate for or against...well, anything. But this is different. This is about Jenny McCarthy. The rumor is that she is currently being considered by ABC as a potential host for The View. Anyone who's followed the anti-vaccination debates knows that Ms McCarthy has been one of the most vocal advocates against vaccinating children. Her work is dangerous and it's ill-informed; giving her a voice on national TV is only going to give credence to the substance of her ideas.

Therefore I'd like to ask--to plead, in fact--that everyone who reads this site click on the link below taking you to ABC's feedback page. There, I'd ask you to leave a short, polite note, expressing your opposition to McCarthy's candidacy. I've pasted a sample (taken from Slate) to give you an idea of what might be an appropriate note.   Please.  It will take literally two minutes of your time; and it has the chance to do a lot of good.  Also, if you could forward this information to anyone else you know who you think would be willing to post, I'd appreciate it.
Thanks

ANCIANT

Sample Letter to ABC (taken from here):
Dear ABC- I've heard that Jenny McCarthy is being considered to co-host of "The View". I strongly urge you NOT to hire her. Ms. McCarthy is a vocal activist for highly dangerous health ideas, including the mistaken belief that vaccines cause autism. While the world suffers outbreaks of measles and pertussis, Ms. McCarthy continues to advocate against vaccines. Having her host a respected show like The View would damage its reputation. For more info: goo.gl/hXJos.
Thank you,

link to feedback page for ABC


link to discussions of McCarthy's dangerous anti-vaccination work
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When I Walk Into A Room, I Do Not Light It Up

Why Must Everything Have A Title?

I have, I know, posted almost not at all over the last month plus.  This is because I've had, in a way, too much in my head to put it out.  And then again the medium, the blog, it's not ideal.  It's far worse than not ideal, really.  It's quite unsatisfactory.  And I, too, am unsatisfactory.  More than unsatisfactory, insignificant.  So I feel less and less inclined to impose--or seek to impose--my insignificance upon the world.  Or, rather, the minor subset of the world which constitutes my readers.

But I'm having some difficulties.  Let's say only that.  Let's not devolve into self pity and the rending of clothes, or even the rending of pretend clothes.  Let's not do that.  So I'm going to locate myself in the familiar and banal, which is safe--or safe enough.

And in that world, the familiar and undangerous, I'll say a few small things about what I've been reading and viewing.  To wit: 1) Chabon's Kavalier and Clay very much lived up to all its hype.  I highly recommend it to anyone who likes a good--a great--book.  In a Martin Amis review of Updike he says something to the effect that, reading his first Updike novel he has the sensation--the unpleasant and regrettable sensation--that "now I'm going to have to read everything he ever wrote."  I understand completely what he means.  And this is how I feel about Chabon.  Every time I read a new piece of his, I am again reminded that I need to just get on with reading everything he ever wrote.  Because he's worth that time.

Old John Williams, the New York intellectual, put me in the way of The End of Vandalism by Tom Drury.  And that was very very funny.  He was right, that intellectual Brooklynite.  Worth a read.

I've found a website--for which I surely SHOULD provide a link--in which you sort of..toggle various adjectives (funny/sad/erotic/serious) and adjust them, really, to various degrees... (i.e.: adjust 'funny' to..not at all funny, or to very funny, or whatever) and based on the degrees that have been toggled, book recommendations are produced.  I could easily find the link, I'm sure, but I'm not going to.  Anyway, the first book it spat out was "The Ask" by Sam Lipsyte.  Who seems to be a rising cougar, in the great savannas of the night.  But, no, I say--no.  The Ask is yet another example of an artifact which substitutes cynicism for wisdom.  It's a snide fried dough pie of trite Brooklyn intelligensia despair.  If it were to be burned at the stake--and such it surely deserves--the stake in question should be best a cheap, East Texas pine.  Certainly nothing like cherry, or mahogany.

Rather Weird

Unfortunately, this review of a new photo-essay collection on the life and times of the notorious genius Ludwig Wittgenstein is paywalled. Still, an excerpt can stand in for the whole thing:

After the war, Wittgenstein saw through the publication of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and then abandoned philosophy, all problems of which he considered himself to have solved. His conviction on this point rested on his view that all philosophical problems arose out of misconceptions about the nature of logic and language. In giving clear and correct answers to the questions “what is logic?” and “what is a proposition?,” then, he regarded himself as having answered once and for all philosophical questions. He thus gave up philosophy in favor of teaching in elementary schools in Lower Austria. Between 1922 and 1926 Wittgenstein taught in three different rural villages and was regarded as rather weird in all of them.

Am I, like, 5 years late on "The National?" Probably.

Found out yesterday that the band I'm now obsessed with opened for REM in 2007 or 2008 or some year in which I SAW REM PLAY LIVE.  But I didn't see the opening band.

Q: Should one see opening bands?
A: I gave up on them after 1998.
Q: But you missed The National, en resultant.
A: C'est vrai.  C'est vrai, et c'est triste.


A: I'm old and old and lame.

But: The National are so so good.  We're all already doomed, so let's just accept it.  I love this song and like this video.

Closer to the Golden Dawn

I am still contemplating on the new Bowie album.  My first reaction was that it was in the same ballpark as Reality and Hours and..., which, to me, means not that great.  But it's growing on me.  The song told from the vantage of a soldier in Iraq ("I'd Rather Be High") is excellent; some of the others have the potential, maybe, to turn into minor favorites.  A lot of critics have talked about the album in terms of all the references it makes to songs and phases of Bowie's own past.  What it most reminds me of, so far, is actually late-era Dylan (Modern Times, e.g., or Time out of Mind).  It's an album by someone who has no difficulty turning out solid, enjoyable rock but who clearly, given the right circumstances, is capable of much, much more.  It's not reasonable to expect a man in his mid-sixties to subjugate himself to the emotional and artistic anguish it must take to make an album like Low or Station to Station; I can't hold Bowie accountable for not producing a masterpiece of modern music.  Still, I wished he'd pushed himself a little more.  The lyrics feature too many uninspired cliches and the rhymes are often equally unimaginative.  The musical ideas, such as there are, don't do much for me either.  It's the album of a man who doesn't have to push himself and doesn't want to push himself.  It inspires admiration, maybe, and gives a modicum of pleasure but it doesn't feel significant, in any way.

* * *

Not very anxious 
to bloom, 
my plum tree.
-Issa


* * *

I'll be in [Southern City] at the end of April.  The play--the long promised play--is finally being read (or walked-though, whatever you want to call it) by real actors.  It'll be very low-key, with a small (or non-existent) audience, but still: it's a deadline, and I'm excited.  I'm working eight or nine hours a day right now on good days; if it weren't for a flare-up of some my old, somewhat debilitating blood sugar/hypoglycemia issues (short version: I get dizzy and slow-witted after almost every meal, and my mood sometimes collapses for no discernable reason) I'd say this is the happiest I've been in LA in a long time.  My doctor's appointment is at the beginning of April; hopefully that will do something towards rectifying my health.  And then... it'll all be discotheques and yachts, and champagne-swilling on the Champs-Elyssee.

* * *

Doctor Faustus got progressively more tedious the farther I got into it.  Does anybody read Mann anymore?  Fifty years ago he ranked in the top echelon of 20th century writers.  Now, I can think of only person I've ever known who's recommended one of his books to me.

I started A Passage to India last week.  I had it around, I hadn't read it, I needed something new.  I'm also going back through the Aubrey-Maturin books for the...fifteenth time, I think?  Each time through each book I find something new to appreciate.  In 300 years will people consider the two greatest writers of the 20th century P.G. Wodehouse and Patrick O'Brian?  It wouldn't surprise me.

* * *

The wife got us tickets to John Logan's play Red, last Saturday.  It was being recorded for some audioseries, so there was no set, staging, props, nothing--just two actors speaking into a microphone, with a sound effects guy on the side.  It ended up being surprisingly captivating.  Alfred Molina, who pioneered the role, was playing Rothko.  That guy can do anything and make it worth watching.  (Watching the old guy makes all the sound effects off to the side in real time was really neat).  Play where people do nothing but argue about theories of art--those are ANCIANT plays.  Great stuff.   Good job, Wifey!

* * *

Climb Mt Fuji,

O snail,

but slowly, slowly.

-Issa

Status Update Wombat

Not much happening but I'm due to post and I'm sure my legion of loyal readers are breathless to hear what I'm up to.

Vegas:
was great, as per usual.  Sage, a restaurant in the Aria, remains one of the two best in the whole city (Le Cirque is the other).  Again it delivered a superlative meal.  I even loved the dessert (a pineapple themed...thing far too elaborate to describe here).  The card games were fine, and I won substantially playing 8/16 H/L Omaha.  A bad beat at hold'em the next day (I got all in as a 95% favorite and lost) took my winnings for the trip down some, but I still finished up.

Wine
The last few weeks I've been really enjoying Hugh Johnson's exceptional World Atlas of Wine.  The world of wine is endless--even the world of French wine is near-to-endless--and the knowledge and experience it offers both fascinates and slightly nonplusses me.  We just ordered a new selection of Burgundies, with a few Northern Rhone and Italian reds thrown in for variety.  One nice bottle every week has become the new MO (the old--four not-nice bottles every week--is discontinued).

Doctor Faustus
Alex Ross recommended the Mann novel in his Five Books interview a while back and I've been slowly pushing through it ever since.  I won't attempt a thorough summary here, but it does cry out for a good translator (the one who did the Modern Library edition is appallingly bad).  Faustus conforms to almost every stereotype of German art you can think of; it's filled with abstruse, sometimes incoherently complex philosophical, theological, and historical speculations; its prose often seems designed to defeat, and not promote comprehension; and it cares about ideas to the expense of all else (pleasure, drama, character, development of scenes, etc).  For all that, it's still a great, great novel--though perhaps one to be admired more than loved.  I'm considering reading more Mann fiction after this, but we'll see.  I may need a break.

"We call the moment at which this ache first arises..."

Though I don't wholly share his views on the subjects, I thoroughly enjoyed Michael Chabon's recent essay in the NYRB on the films of Wes Anderson.  It opens as follows:  

The world is so big, so complicated, so replete with marvels and surprises that it takes years for most people to begin to notice that it is, also, irretrievably broken. We call this period of research “childhood.”

There follows a program of renewed inquiry, often involuntary, into the nature and effects of mortality, entropy, heartbreak, violence, failure, cowardice, duplicity, cruelty, and grief; the researcher learns their histories, and their bitter lessons, by heart. Along the way, he or she discovers that the world has been broken for as long as anyone can remember, and struggles to reconcile this fact with the ache of cosmic nostalgia that arises, from time to time, in the researcher’s heart: an intimation of vanished glory, of lost wholeness, a memory of the world unbroken. We call the moment at which this ache first arises “adolescence.” The feeling haunts people all their lives.

Everyone, sooner or later, gets a thorough schooling in brokenness. The question becomes: What to do with the pieces? Some people hunker down atop the local pile of ruins and make do, Bedouin tending their goats in the shade of shattered giants. Others set about breaking what remains of the world into bits ever smaller and more jagged, kicking through the rubble like kids running through piles of leaves. And some people, passing among the scattered pieces of that great overturned jigsaw puzzle, start to pick up a piece here, a piece there, with a vague yet irresistible notion that perhaps something might be done about putting the thing back together again.

On the Road Again

Today the wife and I are heading out for a weekend vacation to The Eternal City, The City of Lights, The Big Easy, The Big Apple, Las Vegas.  We got offered a bunch of free stuff to stay at the Wynn, so, there we will stay.  Among the freebies offered were tickets to "Le Reve", their (I think?) Cirque-du-Soleil esque in house show.  Report to follow, maybe.  We're also planning on revisiting Sage, one of the best restaurants in Vegas, and site of one of our top five meals ever.  Anyone who wants me to place some big money on the upcoming baseball/basketball/football season should send me a text.  Or, if you just want me to put 200$ on the roulette wheel--we can do that too.

Back on Monday.

Too Much Tuna

I've been thinking about this skit ever since I saw it. I think it may be the funniest thing I've seen in a year. Or is it? It seems to me to border on brilliant--I laugh just thinking about it--but I'm curious if anyone else will have that reaction.  Is it only my odd, odd sense of humor that this appeals to?

At the very minimum I predict my brother will like this.

Comedy Central