My favorite piece of light news this weekend: George Bush’s old email address was G94B@aol.com.
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If He Had Switched to Gmail, the Terrorists Would Have Won
November 15, 2008 by raronauerAnd Now I Wonder …
November 13, 2008 by raronauerWhen I was young, I had good taste in music. Of course good is a subjective term, but I’ll say that OK Computer meant a lot to me and I liked Modest Mouse before “Float On” came out.
Liking music was a currency in cool in high school and college, but before the age of illegal downloads, it was also a class system. Since music on the radio sucked (obviously) to find real music, you had to buy music. As a youth, I devoted a significant portion of my allowance to new CDs. Each $16 CD (including taxes and the like) was a risk: What if I didn’t like the new Weezer album?
Nowadays, there are other ways to be cool. You could, for example, write a novel and live in a sometimes bug infested apartment. But more to the point, the older we get, the more opportunities there are to define oneself. As a teen, music was a way for me to know about the world outside of my parents’ help. Now as a pseudo adult, I need that sense of individuality less because I am more of an individual.
And all this is an excuse to say lately, I’ve been quite bad about finding new music. I’m not just cheap. Most music can be obtained for free with a little research. But I’m lazy: I’m too lazy to read music blogs and too lazy download tracks. Even getting the new tracks on my iPod seems like a lot of work lately.
In the meantime, I’ve been enjoying light music. There’s a coffee shop I go to that seems to play exclusively Sheryl Crow, John Mayer and Tracy Chapman. And I don’t mind. They have good coffee and sometimes you just want a fast car.
This one goes out to JK, who introduced me to Wilco and the small pleasures of making my way downtown.
Cricket Writing
November 9, 2008 by raronauer
Emboldened, I gave into the situation and its happiness—gave in to the song, to the rums and the Coca-Colas, to Avalon’s smooth skillful butt, to the hilarity of remarks made by Dr. Flavian Seem and Prashanth Ramachandran, to the suggestion that we go on, after the gala, to some further place; and to the crush of hips and legs in Chuck’s stretch limo; and to the idea that we swing by, since we’re all dressed up, the all-fours club down on Utica on the far side of the Great Eastern Parkway, where the speechless all-fours players have been playing all day and signal to partners by picking their ears and rubbing their noses, their women hanging around drinking and eating and very ready to go home; and to persuading some characters from the all-fours club to come out and fete with us at the limo driver’s place down on Remsen and Avenue A; and to stopping on the way there at Ali’s Roti Shop for roti and doubles and stopping at Thrifty Beverages to load up with beer and four bottles of rum and, because there is no limit to our hunger, stopping also at Kahaune Restaurant and Bakery to order a delivery of tripe and beans, patties, and curry goat; and to the invitation, once inside the home of the limo driver, who is named Proverbs, to join in a card game called wapi, and to losing nearly two hundred dollars playing wapi; and to the truth of the remarks “Boy, it have a good wapi there tonight” and “Mankind does be serious about the wapi game, boy”; and to the ephemeral mouth belonging to a girl with a diploma in lifesaving; and to six laughing pairs of hands that picked up my wrecked body and dropped it on a couch; and to water splashed on my face at six in the morning; and finally to the proposition, made by Chuck as we walked behind a gang of boisterous Hasidic boys in the first warmth of the weekend, that we sweat it all off at a banya just a few blocks from his house.
I just read Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland. You might have heard the rumor that the book is awesome. Believe the hype: it is.
Reading it after American Wife was a small education in how different great books can be. Sittenfeld’s achievement in American Wife was writing a novel where a lot happened to a lot of people. American Wife was engaging and smart, but above all the story moved.
I believe suspense in literature is limiting, and at the onset of Netherland, we know one character dies and the narrator gets back with his wife. Over the course of the book, those things are explained, but O’Neill spends more time writing than storytelling.
Secondly, O’Neill writes sentences like the one above. I’m the kind of person who skips block quotes, so if you didn’t read it, go back. That’s one sentence, 356 words to be exact. This post is 153 words. Winner, O’Neill.
Fish or Fowl?
November 5, 2008 by raronauer
On the off chance that the New York Times wanted me to be their Washington bureau chief, I’ve avoided writing too much about politics on this site. I don’t want to have an incriminating web trail of liberal bias. Also, after Kerry lost in 2004, I realized that caring about politics was a little like being a sports fan. No matter how much information you consume, you’re still powerless in the outcome. It’s important to know what’s going on in the world and in our country, but following politics is ultimately a hobby. I happen to prefer activities that begin with R sounds, like reading, writing and running.
That said, hot damn. Barack Obama is our president.
His rise is like the rabbit and the duck. Look at it one way and perhaps the most thoughtful and practical politician in our lifetime is going to be president in 76 days. Look at it the other, and we’ve just elected our first black president. While last night showed how far the country has come, I don’t think we would have elected Obama if he were mediocre. Because he’s the rabbit and the duck, his presidency won’t just be a milestone. Regardless of race, his administration is poised to be one of the greats: he’s capable and he’s taking office when the country needs capable leadership. Everyone, or at least the majority of voters, can agree that the country will be better off in four years.
On a related note:
I feel a little like Michelle Obama did back in February. Yesterday was the first time in my life I felt patriotic, which is an adjective I’ve always associated with blind sentimentality. And as long as we’re talking about absurd nationalism, I love Michelle Obama. She is going to be a great First Lady.
American In-Law
October 30, 2008 by raronauer
Last night, I finished Curtis Sittenfeld’s new book, American Wife. Sittenfeld continues to impress me. I liked her first two books, but they seemed like well-written accounts of her own life. And while I’m in no position to judge that, I was happy to see her move beyond the self roman à clef genre with a fictionalized account of someone else, namely Laura Bush
While I agree that the book loses some momentum in the last fifty pages as Sittenfeld projects her own distaste of the Iraq invasion on Alice Blackwell, overall, it’s a perfect vacation read. I don’t say this disdainfully: to make a book as engaging as American Wife takes great talent, talent Sittenfeld has showed in Prep and Man of My Dreams.
Like the Bush family, the Blackwells in American Wife are successful, clannish and obsessed with their own traditions. As a democrat who grew up middle class, Alice feels like, and is, an outsider. Entering a new family is sort of like rushing a frat. Unfortunately, the person asking you to join can’t relate since they never had to pledge. As their marriage progresses, it’s easier to assume her in-law’s traditions than to create her own. While this is a heightened representation of the in-law experience, in its exaggeration, it shows some truth. I’ve always thought that in-laws are in an unspoken competition to become the dominate family, a competition usually won by aggressiveness and good plans.
Luckily for Alice, this outsider feeling goes away when she becomes First Lady and her in-laws start sucking up to her. If it only it were that simple for the rest of us.
Genius Thought
October 18, 2008 by raronauer
If you’ve read Malcolm Gladwell’s recent New Yorker piece on the late-blooming genius, you may think that your own genius is just twenty or so years away from being recognized. Perhaps pandering to the accountants who really wanted to act, Gladwell writes, “Whenever we find a late bloomer, we can’t but wonder how many others like him or her we have thwarted because we prematurely judged their talents.”
Gladwell compares writers and artists like Jonathan Safran Foer and Pablo Picasso to Ben Fountain and Paul Cezanne. His point is that sometimes genius comes early, and sometimes it takes time to develop. Fair enough, but he makes it seem as if prodigies like JSF and Picasso never had to struggle for their art.
JSF and Picasso may have had instant acclaim and will be/were more prolific than their Gladwell assigned foils. But their youthful genius doesn’t preclude them from the frustrations of “late-blooming” ones. As the Picasso postcard my mom sent me from Spain reads, “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.”
Talent—whether late blooming or precocious—is useless without hard work. Cezanne and Fountain, for all their later success, were always painting and writing, even if onlookers thought they were fools. And prodigies must work too. No one’s going to create for you.
Don’t Touch That
October 11, 2008 by raronauer
This week, I have a cold. I used to pretend colds were a fun change of pace. Plus, who could argue against the joy of sneezing? This time, I hold no such delusions. I’m annoyed that I need to carry around a travel pack of Kleenex like some three year-old’s mom, the three-old being me.
One reason I may have gotten sick is that I don’t really believe in germs. I know they exist, but I don’t think they can hurt me. In my head, only pansies wash their hands before eating and Purell is for neurotics.
Except as a sick person, I notice myself touching everything and I’m starting to feel like the monkey in Outbreak. If you’ve ridden a B train lately, watch out. On my last ride, I coughed everywhere and held the handrail with my bacteria laden hands. And while I would never use an instant bacterial killer, those people sort of have a point.
“You Pay A High Price For Affiliation”
October 9, 2008 by raronauer
That’s what my Uncle, or the husband of my first cousin once removed, said to me over the holidays. That sentence has been bouncing around my head ever since. It’s true even on WordPress, as anyone who has clicked on one of the category tags on this site and been redirected to another WordPress blog can attest.
Right now, I don’t have any affiliation. Of course, I don’t have affordable health care either. But daily, I wake up and I write. I go for a run. I read a book. I take notes about what I should write the next day. It’s great, but it’s not sustainable. And I wonder what will happen after I’m done with this book.
After Michael Phelps won his eighth gold model, a poolside reporter asked him if he ever really thought he would break Mark Spitz’s record. It seemed like she was expecting a humbled Phelps to say no, that he never thought his dream was attainable. Instead, Phelps said something like, “Yeah, I did. I don’t think you can achieve something like this without believing you can.”
So as I live this life of unaffiliated creative time, I think it’ll work out. I have to. Otherwise, I should just get a 9 to 5, retire my jeans and flip-flops and learn how to be polite.
Joke For Tina Fey as Sarah Palin
September 26, 2008 by raronauer“I’m a feminist. That’s Latin for smart woman.”
With special thanks to jg.
A Note About Misanthropy
September 25, 2008 by raronauer
As George Orwell put it, “Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way.” It’s no coincidence that Orwell was aware of decaying English because he made the language come alive. Read the rest of Politics & The English Language if you don’t believe me.
I suppose the same could be said for human nature and fiction writers. Hobbes was right—we’re really all dirty beasts. Writers know this. But the best ones can still find some kindness for us.
That’s not to say characters can’t be flawed. A book can’t work without flawed characters; even Matilda was a bit needy when you think about it. But a fiction writer must have some compassion for these flaws by creating characters who are also disappointed by their limitations. Without that sympathy, a fiction would be no different than spending the morning hung over at the DMV.
