Happy Fourth of July

Check out the Library of Congress' Flickr Stream. It is definitely top 10 most awesome things online ever.

DVDs at our rental house: (500) Days of Summer

There is nothing wrong with the plot of this movie until about the end where it tries to make up for the pretend cynicism that we're supposed to take as revolutionary for a romantic comedy and tacks on a kind of fairy-tale turn, though the secondary character, the love-interest, is the one who learns the lesson that is clearly the perceived reality in the film: fate, coincidence, etc. Okay, that's fine but then why did I have to sit through the rest of it? Especially because. . .

The problem with this movie is all the trimmings. Ignoring the fact that we have to sit through another manic pixie dream girl who is free and independent and terribly cute, it was so twee that it was hard not to play indie rock/hipster bingo. Bond over music, check. Oh, the Smiths? Check. Cute frocks that, no, you can't actually afford? Check. I know hidden parts of this grand metropolis? Check. Architecture is just about drawing pictures of buildings, just like every dream job? Check. BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE CHECK. Funny looking friends? Check. These people are how old? Check. FABULOUS APARTMENTS CHECK. MORE INDIE ROCK CHECK!

Also, precocious child as commentator has never worked for me, and this doesn't buck the trend.

Okay, I did like the part where the male lead sees Han Solo as his reflections because I'm pretty sure most guys wish they were Han Solo.

But this movie is not made for people like me. It is made for a different demographic, which is fine. I knew it going in, but I had heard enough to suggest it would have, like, cross-subcultural appeal. It did not. I would almost rather watch a regular romcom/dramedy or whatever this was because at least it isn't trying to pretend it's all that different from the mainstream.

DVDs at our rental house: Step Brothers & Open Range

Step Brothers was bad. It was just plain bad. I had heard from three disparate sources that it was going to be good. It wasn't. It felt like a series of jokes that didn't make the cut for the other Will Ferrell/Adam McKay collaborations, strung together by a stretched-thin plot. I would actually warn people away from wasting their time.

Stars: 0/5

Open Range. I haven't seen this since it was in the theater, and I remember being pretty enthusiastic about it. I'm happy to say that it has survived the years as a well thought-out Western that avoids the usual brouhaha of action films. It is instead about older people whose misspent pasts ensure that they have more to lose if they continue to play out their time left-- lifetime-wise as well the time they have left in a changing world as land is bought up and cordoned off. The cast is superb, and I know people give Kevin Costner a lot of shit, as they usually should, but he does a good job in this film as a taciturn trailhand employed by Robert Duvall, who plays a gruff codger type that I don't get tired of seeing Robert Duvall play.

Especially appreciated is the film's ability to use social norms (women and men's relationships, especially) in a neutral way, rather than highlighting the differences between our times and "then." This ensures the film isn't focusing on creating a world meant to comfort our own temporal position; rather, the attention to detail without playing it for big laughs or shock means the movie can use those fleshing-out notes without distracting from plot, character, or narration. Also, the palette is muted and works really well. Maybe it's because they're still using that color scheme, but it keeps it from looking dated, at least for the time being.

Stars: 4.5/5

Slow-motion reaction shots: The Fellowship of the Ring is a goofy fucking movie

I decided to take another DVD off the pile of movies the homeowners left here, and this time it was The Fellowship of the Ring. This time I'm going to watch it with a mature critical eye; a fair, even-handed approach.

But all I can tell you is that this is one goofy movie. I think this is a result of turning what isn't an action-adventure film into one. Whether or not this is about respecting the source-material, the pitfalls of shoehorning the story into a PG-13 action film is that you get far too many battle sequences; a host of unnecessary suspense building plot points (will Frodo die? No. . . we're only halfway through the film. And yet we have to watch Arwen be totally bummed that it looks like he is dead. And then again when he gets speared in the caves: what feels like 3 minutes of everyone looking really concerned. In Slow-Motion.); bad jokes-- ack, quips, even!; weird and corny voiceover and fades; oddly amateurish special effects in the Mirror of Galadriel scene. . . the list goes on. It is a film that should have been a bit more measured, a lot calmer, and unafraid to pace itself; I think taking its time in a narrative sense (it's plenty long) would have packed a harder punch. Time gets compressed significantly so that events tumble in on the heels of one another, as though the filmmakers decided the audience would never believe that any of this could happen over a month rather than twelve hours.

What's good about these films? The sets are stunning, particularly the art nouveau-influenced Rivendell. Howard Shore's score is brilliant. It packs a higher emotional punch than any of the soft-lit, sappy this-and-that the script requires from the actors. The casting is great in general.

But for the most part, it is a silly film. Sure, the source material is a bit silly if you take a couple of very large steps back and forget that you ever had an imagination. But it isn't silly like this. Pod orcs and OKAY because seriously, guys, there is like an extra 15 minutes of Cont Dooku and Gandalf having some sort of completely misguided breakdance/Jedi/old guy beatdown. There is no way to watch it without wincing. The audience doesn't need those sort of hijinks to understand that Saruman and Gandalf are badass. They can tell. They are played by Christopher Lee and Magneto. They wear robes. Long beards. Big sticks. We got it. Also, I don't have the book in front of me, but I'm pretty sure that the passage doesn't read "And then Cthulhu ATE THEM ALL." Because that's what The Watcher looks like, something crossed between Lovecraft and the Sarlacc Pit. Sometimes less is more, and the more left to the imagination, the more the movie makers trust the audience, the better.

If Father Ted had ever made it to. . . Pope Ted

[via] Yes, I am one of those people who thinks old people and priests using modern technology is. . . cute. (Pixar does too, I saw Up.) Even though they're bound to be way more savvy than me. While the actual story is a bit less colorful, the image of a bunch of Vatican officials using an iPad is so Father Ted-core I can't help it.

Listen. I've seen Law & Order SVU so I know what I'm talking about.

The Village Voice, which I've never been crazy about because I'm boring, is up in arms over an anti-child prostitution campaign by Demi Moore & Ashton Kutcher that cites what they've uncovered to be unsubstantiated data. They're campaign says that 100,000 to 300,000 children are being forced to work as prostitutes or in some other sex-related capacity, the Village Voice has found that this oft-quoted statistic is from a study that was identifying the amount of children at risk.

They offer up as an alternative the averaged 827 arrests per year. While I'm all for correct information and the compilation of as much data as possible and a perfectly informed public and legislature, and while I have no love for either Demi Moore or Ashton Kutcher (actually, the most interesting part of the article is about the PR/charity firm that helps celebrities put together these public causes, confirming once again that even the "best" intentions are always commercial enterprises), the writers of the article so clearly have an axe to grind that it's hard to take them seriously. And it's not even an axe against underage prostitution. They clearly just don't like Ashton Kutcher. It's not even-handed or even well-informed, and certainly not convincing. It's a rant against a few groups of people (celebrities, conservatives, anti-prostitution politicians, anyone who doesn't like the Village Voice). Even if it does offer up new information, it is only going halfway. You cannot offer up arrest records as an alternative data source for something that is illegal and underground. Even their graphic is clumsily worded, saying "Advocates Insist 100,000 to 300,000 American Juvenile Prostitutes Annually" (do what, annually? I assume "exist"; the benefit of not specifying is because those advocates use the statistic in several different ways)-- there is a word missing there, especially if you're making the comparison, as they are, directly underneath, to "Actual Underage Arrests Yearly: 827 Across America." It is wishful thinking on the journalists' (...) part that the actual number of children in this situation is matched by the arrests each year, and a strangely optimistic assessment of the efficacy of the police in quashing this problem. I welcome a broad-minded look into the numbers, but this article is not it. It's like if I came up to you and told you that I've looked at the arrest data and that's how I know not only how many people smoke weed, but also that only blacks and Hispanics smoke. With a straight face.

i use amazon because it's cheaper. not because i think they're santa.

"It seems like a lot of people who shop at Amazon believe that the site sells books more cheaply than your neighborhood bookstore out of the goodness of their hearts."

Really? I've never met anybody who has expressed this belief. Nobody believes that stores reduce prices because it must have hurt when they fell out of heaven, the other day. Jesus.

"I know affordability is an issue. But sometimes I think we’re so obsessed with getting stuff cheaply that we forget what we’re losing in the long run."

Here's what I lose in the long run if I don't get stuff cheaply: food. A roof over my head. Electricity. Running water. Not having these sorts of things sucks balls. Anybody who says "I know affordability is an issue" and then goes on to ignore how much difference three or four dollars makes does not know exactly what kind of issue it really is. My husband, a student, has racked up massive debt because he has to buy school books-- if we had to buy these books full price, much less Amazon's discounted price, we'd have at least a credit card debt that is three times higher and would also be paying directly out of pocket, immediately, rather than, as we are unfortunately doing now, off-setting the cost at the expense of later interest. Amazon Marketplace, which I am well aware does not exist out of the kindness of the company's heart, thank you, is a fucking lifesaver. Not only are we able to find academic books that often sell for upwards of $100 for 200 page books (and not glossy or hardcover or anything), but we can also sell them back if need be, often at 60 to 100% of the original cost.

I like bookstores. I love bookstores. I spend a lot of time in bookstores, and have done so since I was young. I still go to bookstores despite the fucking ridiculous music they pipe in. If I live somewhere without AC or heat, I go to bookstores. I love used bookstores because they too are affordable and, if you have the time, a treasure to browse in. Big bookstores offer bathrooms; that's really great. But not everyone has the luxury to put money into a cause.

Generally, I shop at used bookstores or Amazon Marketplace. I prefer both these options to independent new book stores and large retailer bookstores; this is purely for reasons of finances. I don't feel bad about hanging out in bookstores without making a purchase. I don't buy things unless I really want them.

"There’s value in a bookstore that Amazon can’t offer."

Yes, as of this moment, I have yet to figure out how to shoplift from Amazon. I'm just kidding. At least I don't pull a Bogie and go seduce the store clerk and drink whiskey ALL WITHOUT making a purchase. The nerve of some people.

Patrick Wolf "House"

Plus Billboard interviews him about his new album. And here's a more in-depth one from The Quietus.

i just have to post more Greyhound

This is a good one to get your Monday started (it's even raining today here :)

"I am what I am"



"Moon River"

How to figure out Obama

Cornel West is up in arms because Obama is afraid of "free black men." West's colleague at Princeton, Melissa Harris-Perry, says that West's critique of the President stems from personal matters, including unanswered phone calls, rather than true political analysis.

While I don't know what the nature of the relationship is between West & Obama (he's the president of the free world, he's a busy guy), I don't think you need limit the personal nature of his verbal attack to simple interpersonal relationship issues. West "called the black president out for what he sees as his complicity with the agenda of white, moneyed elites. He called Obama a "black mascot" for Wall Street, and at one point accused him of not acting like a "free black man." West is taking it personally that Obama does not act like West believes a "black man" should behave.

In an Op-ed for the LA Times, conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg expresses a view I have long held (see, the political divide can be breached.) Obama is a politician. It is bound to happen. He is not betraying any one race or ethnicity with his behavior. He is, like all politicians, betraying, to some degree or to the nth degree, all his constituents. As Erin Audrey Kaplan points out, "the president owes blacks as much as he owes Jews or any other constituency that voted for him in significant numbers." Indeed, as the President, he owes it to everyone living in America (legally or otherwise.)

This is a nice spread of responsibility that I like to see. Citing racism as the motivating factor for opposing Obama's agenda is simplistic and basically not true. Wanting to hold Obama responsible for his campaign promises, which I've never felt were realistic, is not a product of my hatred of this so-called black president or of blacks or African-Americans, or Kenyans, for that matter (har har.) Understanding that Obama, before his being a black man or a white man or a biracial man or a man, is necessarily a politician makes his actions understandable, if not always laudable.

It's easy to pretend only whites can be racist, and it's easy to pretend the South is full of bedsheet wearing white guys. (Of all the places where I've spent time in these US of A, the North has been the most racist and racially uncomfortable place I've experienced. Not the South.) The problem with all this pretending is that it means the political dialogue is firmly oriented around ad hominem attacks, polarizing figure, and ridiculous rhetoric from both sides (see Bill O'Reilly and Rachel Maddow.) And the problem with this is that people forget how to debate and forget that issues are complicated and hydra-headed.

This simplified political atmosphere is why West can basically imply that Obama isn't black enough-- in a very particular understanding of being black, as defined by Cornel West. If my experience as a biracial individual is a common one, if you're pink and purple, the purples will always call you pink and the pinks will think of you as purple. I don't know why Obama is an exception to this suddenly in the dialogue. I was very disappointed when Obama chose to fill out the census as a black man, especially considering his background. Science tends to recognize nature and nurture as vital to development, and it's too bad claiming traditional labels can't take that in. It is, in general, a failure of understanding the particularities of racial makeup and socialization in America that has resulted in Obama's being considered a black president. He had the opportunity to show that that "certain rootlessness", in the words of Cornel West, can benefit a multiracial individual who, owning this rootlessness as the qualifying feature of multiracialism, can move past skin-associated expectations and start getting work done. This has happened with whites, where it is somewhat unimpressive when somebody is half-Irish, half-French, despite the fact that the Irish were considered ethnic minorities, hired to do work that was considered too dangerous to waste costly slaves on. (And it was hardly a Southern phenomenon. Italian and eastern European immigrants, in addition to the Irish, met the same resistance in Northern cities.)

West is threatened by the idea that something could challenge his racial false-binary (something that for him is very black and white HAHA but for real), and so for him, it is personal: he says that when an independent white man and an independent black man meet, "they got to be mature to really embrace fully what the brother is saying to them." I hope he recognizes that both men must be mature, and that both men must be mature to understand that multiracialism is a new can of worms that should not be shoehorned into one or the other. West seems threatened by the introduction of a new way of thinking, where quadroons are not just black people. They are people who had a significantly different personal experience from a full-black (or white) person, and it is ignorant and sadly dismissive to think otherwise. (West mentions the challenge of one's culture being in opposition to one's skintone, but it is still without a real understanding of the possibility that a biracial person might want to claim that as their American experience. Unfortunately, Obama chose to reject this idea, too, with the census.)

What is most unfortunate is that West links the sadly natural tendency of any president, Republican or Democrat, to answer to the moneyed elites to Obama's inability to fulfill his destiny as the black man in office. Kaplan wonders if "Obama will turn out to be yet another disappointing black politician, one who readily articulates the needs of those at the bottom but doesn't ultimately address them." This is problem every politician needs to fix, and the sooner we stop thinking about it in racialized terms-- especially in nation where the poor white has become an "ethnic" group-- the sooner we can get shit started. But I'm pretty sure that won't happen.

People want to say we live in a post-racial world now, which is a truly ridiculous term. On the other hand, we will never live in a practically color-blind world if a biracial man is not recognized as such because those around him are too quick to claim him as their own (or as in opposition to them) in order to make political action "easier" and the country's political dialogue more sensational.

from an Interview with Mary Gaitskill

When did you realize you wanted to write a novel that engaged in some way with Rand’s philosophy, and how did your conception of Two Girls, Fat and Thin change over time? Did you see it from the start as a satire? [The Nervous Breakdown]

I've heard it said about satire, that for it to work, the satirist has to have some sort of secret love or empathy for the thing she's satirizing. That's probably true, but I didn't start out thinking in terms of satire. I felt it poignant and weirdly moving that people wanted to base their lives on the deeds and opinions of fictional characters. Especially since these characters were created by someone so sternly and humorlessly purporting to represent objective reality and rationality; I can think of few things less rational or realistic than trying to imitate made-up people. [1] Yet I didn't have the impulse to just mock it because it came out of an idealistic impulse plus need. Also what these people were doing seemed just a more extreme version of something a lot of people, maybe everybody, does: cobbling together a sense of self or purpose through a combination of ideal and fantasy that gets superimposed over actual experience, and which can seem real, or at least non-nutty if enough people are buying into it. And shared fantasies, like the kind pop culture or fashion create naturally, do have elements of reality that get bigger the more people are acting like its real. That is part of the irony of Rand's appeal; supposedly she was a pure individualist, and the kind of phenomenon I just described is by nature collective. [2]
__________
[1] I envision this applying to anyone imitating anything as received through media-- behavior on reality shows or fashion as delivered through the internet or crimes reported by the news is filtered and tidied up and sensationalized, and has already lost its ability to claim a state of pre-made-up. All of those people on a screen or page are "made-up people."
[2] I like this-- it could apply to any movement that expresses itself as apart from "a crowd" but that relies on representative figureheads and visible proponents.

** emph. + notes from b.

Also, somebody should let PBS know that they're already culturally relevant

I went to Red Lobster for the first time today. I'm a red-blooded American and this is the first time. I was totally taken in by their 4 courses for $15 (still a little pricey, but I've spread out the leftovers over 2 meals.) It wasn't half-bad. It wasn't fabulous. Oh, but the biscuits were. Jeeze.

We don't have a TV at home because J. cannot be in a room with one without watching it. I'm not exaggerating. He also watches horrible things. When I was in labor, he watched a special on killer chimps. KILLER CHIMPS. And then a program on obese pets. In fairness, the majority of the stations were in Korean or Armenian. But still. Obese pets. When you're in labor, you're kind of just like Yes, just get something up there to distract me. Now, after the fact, I'm still like. . . what?

The house we're renting has a TV and rabbit ears that get about 11 channels? ABC, NBC, Fox, the local public station, some other things, some TV Land type thing that was showing Green Acres the other day. Antique Roadshow is on a lot. Some woman had $200,000 worth of Mickey Mantle pre-fame paychecks. Tonight, we're watching a special on the natural landscape of the Balkans. One interesting thing: mines in bodies of water have had the effect of protecting wildlife because nobody wants to get near them. Also, cute baby wild boars and stupid cute baby duck things riding on the duck thing parents' backs. Yeah, aw. I'm getting one for my kid. (Just learned it is a great crested grebe and YOU SHOULD WATCH IT it's stupid.)

(Here's a good time to point out that even if you find yourself a mother & wife at 23, you still spend the evenings, apparently, sitting around watching PBS. Not doing what those MTVs tell you young mothers do.)

Okay, so the shots are beautiful and they've found some delightful footage of lovely otters and also of, um, vultures tearing up a wolf carcass. What I can't figure out, and what's distracting J. from his Latin studies, is the constant references to the Lord of the Rings. I think it's come up at least once every three minutes. The sedate yet charmed-by-the-biodiversity British narrator has name-dropped elves, hobbits, the Shire, Gandalf on a steed (to compare the necessity of taking a plane to reach certain areas), orcs, dragons. Stuff like, these woods could be FILLED WITH ELVES but they're not, here are some birds though. Or, this is live blogged "An army of attacking orcs would be preferable to the bites of these mosquitoes."

I figure that the program is trying to cash in on interest generated by the films, but it feels like they're trying to make the Balkans culturally relevant. Which is kind of. . . they are, guys! Don't worry! My conspiracy theory is that this was made by the Bosnian tourism board to get Peter Jackson, or whoever the heck is directing that Hobbit movie that will never get made, to film in this area. And they're not being subtle about it. (Their conclusion is that despite the troubles the Balkans have historically had, THEY'RE NOT MORDOR OKAY GUYS. They really said that.)

OH UPDATE GUYS: I found the site about it ("Surveying these striking and stark landscapes, one might think they’ve ventured into the Middle-earth of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings"), and nobody is too stoked about the constant Tolkien shout-outs. I still think the Come to Bosnia, Have a Great Time Board had something to do with it, though. You can watch the full episode on PBS & see how I'm right.

what is feminism?

Feminism, like any other -ism, is little more than providing for others a model of behavior based on the agenda and manufactured ideals of the self-proclaimed -ist. Superiority & inferiority then become dependent entirely upon the signals broadcast by the -ist. This insistence on emulation is a form of control.

whoa

One of the most amazing tattoos I've seen:

via + Artist: Dennis m Del Prete at Providence Tattoo, RI

doesn't make it alright

Forrest comes off as a talented, intense woman who knows she’s lucky to have had some high-caliber help in her struggle to make sense of it all. She acknowledges that she is privileged to be able to mine her suffering for material. Writing about an abortion, she admits, “I have the luxury to find inspiration in the pain because I am a middle-class girl with a tight-knit family.”

[warning: link goes to New York Times (which now enforces a monthly limit), and it should also be pointed out that the reviewer of the above is also a memoir writer with those same privileges and with the same power to ensure that more of these books get put out there to glamorize mental problems, prioritize psychiatry or psychology that devalues actual mental health problems, and other such issues.]

I would hope that recognizing this privilege would result in a different kind of book, one that uses those benefits to explore others who don't have such luxuries as treatment or even the luxury of defining their problems as "mental health issues." Instead, this woman chooses to write about herself, and as far as I can tell, how fabulous it is to date famous people, but also how hard it is.

I prefer this review of the book because it really helps me understand how tough it must be to live with those privileges.

Dr R is furious with himself that he did not recognise the intensity of my pain immediately and could not prevent my suicide attempt, but I decide to forgive him this once. "I am like a broken doll," I said, "and I need you to put me back together again." "A broken doll I can mend," he replied, "but a broken record is beyond help[. . .]" I seek out one of his colleagues and ask her what she thinks of me. ''I know I ought to be moved by your story, but I'm left cold," she replies. "You are a high-maintenance narcissist who appears to have learned almost nothing about herself, despite eight years of therapy." I decide she wasn't quite the person I was looking for and find another who tells me I'm wounded and wonderful.

i'm on the delivery man's side. . .

This is why I don't read mommy blogs (but I just looked at this one while watching the evening news and how much crime there is in a place like South Bend, Indiana):

So I was standing there choked up because the shelving unit it so beautiful, and I know, SO WHAT. It's just a shelving unit, for crying out loud. People have real problems, HEATHER, and here you are going on and on about a shelving unit? Could you possibly be more out of touch?

And then you call me douche. End scene.

It just so happens that this is the shelving unit I'm going to use to file away all the paperwork concerning the charities I work with. HA! SEE? That's called a NEENER.

Yeah, no it's not. The "neener" is to the rest of us who don't have the luxury to work with charities and instead have to buy shelves for normal, selfish pursuits, like shelving things that aren't going to rebuilt the rainforest. (And since they're probably books, are probably causing that problem in the first place. Oops.)

Let's face it: charities have overhead and costs (shelves to organize papers); they are not magical, beautiful units that have suddenly solved the bajillion year old problem of how to streamline a bureaucracy. So to assume the reader is going to give in and take the presence of charity-related paraphernalia at face-value and say, well! that's okay! don't actually worry about problems, just insinuate yourself into yet another "not-for-profit" whose mission statement is really just a wonderful band-aid on your guilt-ridden ego, and put those papers on those shelves!

She then recounts a charming episode in which her magical two year old says "shut up" in the presence of the hired help that has come to bestow upon them those magical world peace making shelves. (They must be great because I know IKEA prefers not to deliver.) The blogger explains to the man that she means "shut up" in the "shut the front door" kind of way. You know, the equally as irritating way. In the way "hella" is. In the way it should be outlawed in public and in the way you should get some sort of electric shock on your brain if you think it. But whatever.

The delivery man then leaves, saying something about how "Well, if that is okay in your house." Sure, point taken that his uppity sarcasm shouldn't be used to tell someone what to do in their house. That's fine, I agree; it's important not to tell people what to do, especially on their turf. But I think it also shows the importance of recognizing that slang and more profane verbal options don't fly with everyone. No matter what, you continue to exist in a cultural setting that you must be aware of. This is something my husband & I, who use profanity on occasion or more like most adults, will have to deal with as our son gets older. It was something I had to deal with with the kids I worked with in NYC. (Not to say "shut up" is the same as saying fuck. ass. But it is still a fairly aggressive utterance.)

But in his defense, the man might have thought the girl was addressing him, and could have been taken aback. The man could be making the point that the ambiguity of the statement indicates that caution should be used when uttering the statement. (And would have been better off saying, "Oh, well I thought she was telling me to shut up, you can understand the confusion, I'm sure.") I'm not criticizing this mother's parenting (even though I'm happy to, not as a mother myself but as a former nanny who had to pick up the BULLSHIT SLACK THAT PARENTS LIKE THESE leave when it comes to their kids' behavior, where they want their kids to be special but still be liked by everyone), but am instead pointing out that people who say "SHUT UP" to mean "no way" are big fucking douche-nozzles.

(The commentators are just as bad.)

writers are special ok?

god, I am so sick of this shit. Writer Bridget Asher wonders what's up with all those writers & poets offing themselves. Yeah, what's up with that?

Or could it be that we are talking about famous people, and whatever famous people do, even when it's stuff you & I do everyday, seems that much more remarkable when they do? Suddenly, actors are more likely to die in plane crashes and rock stars are more likely to OD.* (Remember Darby Crash, by the way, how his plans to achieve immortality were rubbed out by John Lennon's murder? Oops.)

This obviously isn't the case. Such individuals' visibility makes it seem this way, but I'm sure any quick search of statistics will assure you that the likelihood of ODing is probably pegged more to factors like frequency of use than whether or not you've cut an album. (The drugs one is a weaker argument, maybe, because drugs are so inextricably linked to money.)

There are a few other factors that make Asher's question and the subsequent line of reasoning problematic. One is that creating this specialized group suggests that there is something inherently more important and more tragic about a writer/poet committing suicide than there is in a general suicide. A hierarchy of importance and worth in life and death is a dangerous road to go down. It implies one person has a more important potential than another, and there is really no way of knowing that.

Asher concedes that looking into this matter would be helpful in solving a more general problem of depression-related suicide, but the fact that she has identified that depression with creativity suggests that this is a highly specialized issue that "non-creative" types couldn't possibly grapple with. Writers love to think about things like this (to generalize, sorry.) Just see the glee with which everyone greeted the news that "writers" are more likely to be alcoholics (I'm trying to find the post to link to, but in general, the only people I saw mentioning this were writers or aspiring-to-be-published writers.) One point that should definitely give anyone pause is the method of reporting-- people who hero-worship Hemingway or Burroughs or the other hard-drinking members of the old boys club to the point of emulation are going to be striving for the label and will then be more willing to personally assume it as well as more willing to accept "alcoholism" as an acceptably defined term (according to drinks per night, for example.) The overly-simplistic part of me wants to say that it's just a bunch of people who haven't outgrown their vanilla upbringing/parents/homogenization in high school/whatever/wherever, and think being depressed/alcoholic/addicted to something is just so. gee. edgy, I guess-- there way of rebelling is still linked to a world that they should have long outgrown. In a world where alcoholism is actually a problem that destroys lives and families and people, it's not cute, no matter how much it shocks your parents. (Okay, none of that was fair, but it does apply to maybe a few people I know.)

But in the end, taking reports of writers committing suicide and using that to imply a monopoly on it is the same as watching the news and only seeing stories of good-looking white women killing their children. It must mean that they are the special ones, and the logical next step must be to assume that either other groups don't do it at all, or are so naturally inclined to it that it is not worth mentioning or, in the case of suicide, lamenting.

_________
* Musicians are also special:

Maybe it’s just us, but musicians seem to land themselves in a little bit more trouble than people of other professions. Maybe it’s because they’re living the high life, thinking they can get away with it all, or maybe they’re just negatively influenced by their surroundings, but we think it probably has something to do with the same personality trait that makes them want to be performers in the first place.

This says outright what Asher hints at, and can again be answered by the visibility of celebrity. I'm pretty sure at least one of you out there has an equal or higher ratio of acquaintances arrested:acquaintances than the sample of high-profile musicians arrested:musicians (wherever you can get that statistic.)

Use Facebook for your Mental Health

As reported by the LA Times Tech blog, "Pew report: Facebook users have a higher degree of social well-being." I used to only log onto Facebook if I got an alert that I'd received some sort of message or wall post-- obviously this meant that I wasn't highly engaged in general, so this logging on didn't go down all that often. Recently I've been logging on ("log on"-- visit) a few times day, but we just finished up a 5 day car trip from LA to South Bend, IN, and going back on to check Facebook was less than rewarding-- while I scrolled through a few pages of blogs I visit to see what had been going on, my Facebook newsfeed wasn't something I bothered to expand the page on-- ok, I see you went to the same party those 20 year olds are going to, and somebody watered your corn, and you posted another news story that directly aligns with your political views that I know already from your other posts, so it was business as usual.

That sounds crotchety-- I don't mind Facebook-- I think it is an interesting social networking tool, and its use during the "Arab Spring" are fascinating to read about. I don't have a problem with people who are constantly on it, as long as it doesn't affect the motherfucking health and safety of those around you. (Seriously.) But this study is interesting because it suggests there is a certain way of being "socially well," defined here as being "more trusting of other people, [having a] larger numbers of close friends, [...] exhibit[ing] a higher level of civic engagement and [receiving] more social support from their friends."

The obviously flipside of that last one is the negative influence of those friends, on the less drastic but just as unfortunate side, peer pressure, and on the far end of the spectrum: bullying. In general, a large group of people coming together to dilute how you should experience things, whether its that civic engagement or what is considered a friend. More problematically, it suggests a "bad":

One disturbing finding: The social fallout from the digital divide. People who are not online have the smallest social networks, are more socially isolated, get the least amount of social support and are least likely to vote, Hampton said.

While I doubt this particular study will lead to anything, it has implications in the nexus of agreement that has come together from the people surveyed: in a world where 99.9% of behavior is classified as diagnosable and able to be medicated, it's too bad that if you don't vote, don't have tons of friends who throw awesome parties where each person only knows 2 other people, and feel that a small group of tight-knit group of friends works for you the way large casual groups of friends work for other people, you could end up being lumped into a "disturbing" set.

Also, speaking of technology, LulzSec, whose mothers never taught them that eventually people wouldn't always say nice things about the things that they hero-worship (single-mindedness like this is why your DVD warns you that the opinions offered aren't those of Sony Entertainment, and PBS? really?) has released a list of hacked email/password combinations, happily confirming (because I'm a fucking genius) my suspicions that they are a lot less political activists and a lot more douchebag cyber frat boys. [ps - pic source]

so fresh n so clean (clean)

[Outkast - "So Fresh and So Clean"]

Hey all. Thanks to anyone who followed me over from the old homestead. I thought it was time to change things up, and I was still getting a few notices from blogger so it felt like an opportunity to start with a clean slate. I also accidentally totally fucked up the HTML template on my old blog, which forced my hand-- if you remember the old place, this new one is pretty simple by comparison. I'm hoping that will make it easier to focus on the content rather than constantly fiddling around with the layout like I was doing there.

A lot has happened since I started Noise Annoys. I've seen the "scene" for music blogs undergo a huge change. It's harder to offer files and we've seen big names in the business rise and fall. On my end of things, I graduated college-- I started the old blog my freshman year-- moved around, got myself married and a kid. So why not?

Whatever happens, I'm looking forward to starting at this new location, and I hope to see y'all around.

Gertrude Stein is useless

From her. . . children's book (reviewed at NPR, including tips on how to read it, "If you have any trouble, read faster and faster until you don't."):

Alphabets and names make games and everybody has a name and all the same they have in a way to have a birthday.

The thing to do is to think of names.

Names will do.

Mildew.

It seems that Katherine Anne Porter is also not wild about the sorta fascist/collaborationist who coined the term "The Lost Generation." I hope to read her piece on Stein in the next few days and get back to you; full disclosure, haven't really read Stein but view her with suspicion. Looking forward to a take down the way you feel when reading People at the dentist's & get sucked in without having seen celebrity X's latest music video/movie/interview/sex tape but still just want to know the general shape of popular contempt.