Friday, July 13, 2012
Thursday, July 12, 2012
It's time for Joe Paterno's fans to open their eyes: David Jones | PennLive.com
It's time for Joe Paterno's fans to open their eyes: David Jones | PennLive.com:
"As the investigation of Jerry Sandusky has progressed, it has become clear to even some of Joe Paterno’s more zealous followers that he was well informed of his former assistant’s heinous crimes and not only did nothing, but participated in a cover-up.
It doesn’t mean that those finding it hard to get their minds around such conclusions are either delusional or stupid. Only that they are horribly disillusioned and need time to digest what can today not be plainer."
"As the investigation of Jerry Sandusky has progressed, it has become clear to even some of Joe Paterno’s more zealous followers that he was well informed of his former assistant’s heinous crimes and not only did nothing, but participated in a cover-up.
It doesn’t mean that those finding it hard to get their minds around such conclusions are either delusional or stupid. Only that they are horribly disillusioned and need time to digest what can today not be plainer."
Caltech’s famously futile sports teams get NCAA sanctions that usually come to athletic powers - The Washington Post
Caltech’s famously futile sports teams get NCAA sanctions that usually come to athletic powers - The Washington Post:
This is hilarious -- at least to this former Cal Tech jock.
This is hilarious -- at least to this former Cal Tech jock.
New narrative line
I also have been brooding about the probably future novel, Old Age v. The United States of America. An addition. On the road trip, the buddy of the protagonist brings his dying wife -- she convinces him that he should administer the drug to her where they had their honeymoon in Mexico. I think maybe in the end the protagonist will be arrested for murder, the other two dead (the buddy decides to join her), though of course he didn't kill them at all. But assisting in suicide is a crime. Not sure what role the drug cartel stuff will play, or maybe even be dropped. I like using it as backdrop more than front and center. As ordinary. Not sure when I'll actually start on this in a disciplined way. Still brooding. And brooding is such fun.
CJ on film
I really want to make a new film based on my novel. But instead of an adaptation, do an "inspiration" -- that is, same protagonist, same journey, many of the same devices, but a more simple rendering to avoid the parts that are virtually impossible in a no-budget shoot, like scenes in the 1960s etc. A more simple rendering of the same journey, is the deal.
I'm thinking along these lines lately. Still waiting for interested actor to finish the book. Even if he passes, I could cast someone else, of course.
I'd need to write a script ... so we are looking at, what?, a 2013 shoot? My wife likes me to have distant deadlines. Keeps me going ha ha.
I'm thinking along these lines lately. Still waiting for interested actor to finish the book. Even if he passes, I could cast someone else, of course.
I'd need to write a script ... so we are looking at, what?, a 2013 shoot? My wife likes me to have distant deadlines. Keeps me going ha ha.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Morris Berman nails it
I just finished Berman's The Twilight of American Culture (the first book in a trilogy) and cannot praise it highly enough. Here is a book with a "depressing" theme -- yet which I find invigorating to read because maybe, after all, "the truth will set us free." Berman pulls no punches and offers no pseudo-mystical remedies for our cultural decline. His theme is not new. But as an historian he brings together from a wide variety of sources parallel narratives that wrap together like strands of rope to present a strong and clear interpretation of our recent and current culture. And he suggests a reasonable way for many of us to live in such a future. Just listen to some excerpts.
The bottom line indeed: writing as survival.
On to the next book in the trilogy. This is heavy stuff -- but somehow exciting reading.
economic and technological appearances to the contrary, American civilization is in its twilight phase, rapidly approaching a point of social and cultural bankruptcy. The gap between rich and poor has never been greater; our long-term ability to pay for basic social programs is increasingly in question; the level of ignorance and functional illiteracy in this country is so low as to render us something of an international joke; and the takeover of our spiritual life by McWorld—corporate/consumer values—is nearly complete.
As Marshall McLuhan once pointed out, if you could ask a fish what was the most obvious feature of its environment, probably the last thing it would say would be “water.” If you swim in it all the time, you just don’t notice it; this is how any culture functions. What is crucial, of course, is the nature of the water. In the case of the United States, the “water” is corporate consumerism.
If literature survives at all, it is as a retreat for those who refuse to assimilate to American mass culture.
When I say, then, that I am optimistic about contemporary “monastic” possibilities, it represents no more than an educated guess on my part, and maybe it is just wishful thinking; history remains a strange and unpredictable creature. But this much I do know: If we make no attempt to preserve the best in our culture, we can rest assured that the possibility of cultural renewal is pretty much ruled out.
The more individual the activity is, and the more out of the public eye, the more effective it is likely to be in the long run. Not that like-minded souls shouldn’t make connections, but the key is to keep these links informal.
Most of those who claim to oppose the world of corporate sci-tech consumerism will themselves become commodities, making the round of the talk shows and selling “soul” or “green earth” or “total health” as the latest commercial fad. Their ideas will become slogans on T-shirts; they will become the trendy spearheads of the latest form of “liberation,” soon to be forgotten for the next fad on the horizon.
Craftsmanship should apply to all of life, and since its core value is the work itself—the very opposite of the purpose of American corporate consumerism—those genuinely committed to the monastic option need to stay out of the public eye; to do their work quietly, and deliberately avoid media attention. Indeed, a Taoist rule of thumb might be that if the larger culture knows about it, then it’s not the real thing.
You and I can lead the “monastic” life, and we can start to do it right now. And don’t worry about being marginalized; this is good. As Don DeLillo says, in a culture such as ours, the writer, for example, is likely to be more significant for being marginal. “In the end,” he suggests, “writers will write not to be outlaw heroes of some underculture but mainly to save themselves, to survive as individuals.” The same can be said of all monastic activities, and of the people who engage in them.
The bottom line indeed: writing as survival.
On to the next book in the trilogy. This is heavy stuff -- but somehow exciting reading.
DARK AGES AMERICA -- Blog for Morris Berman
DARK AGES AMERICA -- Blog for Morris Berman:
Just discovered my favorite cultural historian has a blog.
Vacation mode
Yesterday was nice. Lowkey, slow, but never dull, like a day on vacation, here at home. And H around the whole day, which was nice.
Artist v. Inventor
Two thoughts collide in the brain, releasing a new Higgs boson of a thought, a new way of looking at things. The first thought, a remark by composer Philip Glass, that works of art should be presented anonymously. The second thought, an appreciation of four kitchen gadgets I use regularly -- an espresso hand press, a large French press coffee pot, a small coffee bean grinder, a small meat grinder -- each well designed, user friendly, efficient, perfect for the job at hand, each invented by someone known by few if anyone, the anonymous inventor. And the new thought, maybe artists would be anonymous if art were as useful as a kitchen gadget, if art was, well, practical, something that fit into the natural rhythm of a life, like a prayer or a ritual. And, of course, for some of us, this happens, but for the culture at large, art is something stuck in a museum or a library, apart from the daily routine.
Inventors are anonymous because what they make is more important than who they are.
Inventors are anonymous because what they make is more important than who they are.
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Citizen as monk
I've talked about the writer, the artist, as monk here before. I'm reading Morris Berman's The Twilight of American Culture and find this:
The new monk is a sacred/secular humanist, dedicated not to slogans or the fashionable patois of postmodernism, but to Enlightenment values that lie at the heart of our civilization: the disinterested pursuit of the truth, the cultivation of art, the commitment to critical thinking, inter alia. Above all, he knows the difference between quality and kitsch, and he seeks to preserve the former in the teeth of a culture that is drowning in the latter. If she is a high school teacher, she has her class reading the Odyssey, despite the fact that half the teachers in the school have assigned Danielle Steel. If he is a writer, he writes for posterity, not for the best-seller lists.And later:
This is, then, a book for oddballs, for men and women who experience themselves as expatriates within their own country. It is a guidebook of sorts, to the twenty-first century and beyond. It seeks to give the reader a sense of where we are, in historical terms, and what this means; a way of orienting him- or herself to contemporary events, so as to be able to find meaning in a disintegrating culture, and perhaps to contribute in some way to the eventual reconstruction of that culture on a very different basis.This book looks like one I'm going to enjoy. I'm a big Berman fan since The Reenchantment of the World.
Everybody has a bad day
 |
| Upton Sinclair, author of "The Jungle" |
Ah, me! How many editorial readers let this get by? Depressing.
Monday, July 09, 2012
Back in the saddle again?
Hmm. I may have another novel in me after all. At least the old obsession/possession has returned, in the form of two old farts going to Tijuana to buy "security" drugs for rational exits when it's time, this in 2006 at the beginning of the cartel drug wars, in which they accidentally get involved. An original working title of "The Peaceful Pill Wars" became "Old Age v. the United States of America," a title I'm in love with. I switched to a first person narrative after an omniscient point of view in early pages of exploration. I have an opening paragraph I really like. Why, it's like Old Home Week in my brain!
No rush, no deadlines, no pressure. We'll see what happens. A novel written "on vacation". Because "on vacation" is my mantra these days.
I always like to imagine what such a project might look like, hence fiddling with a cover.
In narrative strategy, I follow the Durrenmatt model here: a surface mystery/thriller overlaying strong ethical themes. I have a lot of research to do for this -- lazy, one of the reasons I switched to first person is to have LESS research to do, ha ha, I don't have to know anything the narrator doesn't know. Well, there are other reasons, too. But I am lazy in my old age.
Sunday, July 08, 2012
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
