Take it from veteran journalist and computer writer James Fallows, of the Atlantic:
For my own workaday purposes, the most useful recent invention has been
the Livescribe Pulse pen, which I bought just after its introduction
early last year and now can hardly be without. It looks like a somewhat
bulky, cigar-shaped metallic writing instrument. Inside it contains a
high-end audio recording system and assorted computer circuitry. When
you turn it on, it starts recording what you are hearing—and also
matches what is being said, instant by instant (in fact, using photos it
takes 72 times per second), with notes or drawings that you’re making
in a special Livescribe notebook. The result is a kind of indexing
system for an audio stream. If a professor is explaining a complex
equation during a lecture, you write “equation,” or anything else—and
later when you click on that term, either in the original notebook or on
images of the pages transferred to your computer screen, it plays back
that exact part of the discussion. (Works on both Macs and PCs.) For me
this means instant access to the three interesting sentences—I just
write “interesting!” in the notebook or put a star—in the typical
hour-long journalistic interview. The battery lasts for several full
days’ use between recharges, and the pen can hold dozens of hours of
recordings.
Or take it from me, an average joe journalist… this device is freaking amazing, for anyone who does any kind of interviewing or listening with attention. It passes my tech test: it works straight out of the box, no need to crack open the manual. Even for people with bad penmanship. Unbelievable.
Super Sad True Love Story is a brilliant new satirical novel, set in the near future, built on what writer Gary Shteyngart realized was the crucial difference between the great futurist novels Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley, and l984, by George Orwell (of course).
As Shteyngart points out in this typically great interview with Teri Gross, as a novel of ideas, Brave New World is a superior book. But we don't remember it very well, because we don't connect with the characters. In l984, by contrast, even though it's really just a thinly disguised Stalinization, we do remember the book, because Julia and Winston are passionate lovers, pitted against a brutal future. Because their love is on fire, the novel — despite the thinness of its vision — sticks with us still.
The love in Super Sad True Love Story isn't as passionate, but it's real, and funny, and through the eyes of nerdy Lenny and cruelly practical Eunice, we experience the crushing of our hopes for the future of our world. Amusing and harrowing, as Jane Smiley said in her review. It deserves its best-seller status.
But the deeper truth is that the writer Gary Shteyngart is as close as we come today to an Oscar Wilde.
Most writers at a reading stammer on for half an hour or so, and offer a few spiky answers to questions, and they're gone. Shteyngart read for about fifteen minutes, and then took "questions and complaints" for forty-five minutes, delightfully, with no sign of flagging.
He's so much funnier in person than his books, as amusing as they are, that it wouldn't be too surprising if in the not-so-distant future, as his wit overtakes the interest people have in reading media artifacts, (aka books), he becomes famous for his quips, and no longer need write at all.
After all, how well do we remember Oscar Wilde's plays, compared to his remarks?
Here are a couple of examples of his wit, harvested from a reading witnessed at the Skirball Center in L.A. a month or so ago. The overarching topic was America in decline.
American fiction is great. It would be nice if somebody read it.
The Netherlands was once a great mercantile empire. Now it's just a great place to get stoned. We can still hope to grow up to be Santa Cruz writ large.
The painful truth that Shteyngart is wrestling with in the book is not political. He doesn't really care about politics. He cares about books, and sees that that we are moving towards a "post-literate" Google/Facebook/TV future in which no one really reads or even watches movies (though, perversely, everyone wants to be a writer).
Being a good writer, Shteyngart doesn't tell us this so much as show it to us, by dividing his novel between one half, written by a nerdy fortyish brilliant character named Lenny, in diary form, which resembles what we think of as literature. The other half of the story, written by his much younger girlfriend Eunice, is in the form of emails to her mother, sister, and best friend. She writes in the harsh glaring style that forms so much of text/email discourse. It's a dramatization of now versus soon.
A couple of examples; here's Lenny in his diary:
I glanced at [his former coworkers, in the immortality company]…How perfect they looked. How absolutely striking and up-to-the-minute and young. even in the middle of calamity, their neuro-enhanced minds were working with alacrity, trying to solve the puzzle, trying to get back in [to the company that would guarantee their future]. They had been prepared from an evolutionary perspective to lead exalted lives, and now civilization was folding up around them. Of all the rotten luck!
And here's Eunice, who's Korean by the way, "teening" to her best friend about life with Lenny:
And now my mom will know I'm dating an old hairy white guy. So I told Lenny he can't tell my mom that we're going out and he got really upset, like he thinks I'm ashamed of him or something. He says that I'm trying to push him away because I'm substituting him for my father, but that he won't let me, which is pretty ballsy for a nerd-face…Things have been pretty up and down with us, although he finally had some Magic Pussy Penetration Time and it wasn't bad. What he lacks in looks he more than makes up for in passion. I thought he was going to explode.
More on the ideas of this satirist novel in shorter future posts. Suffice to say this book is brilliant, but if you're one of those five percent of the population who reads ninety-five percent of the books, because you love the elegance of literature, the sharpness of this novel will be painful, quite painful, at times.
For a lighter look at the book, here's a hilarious promo for it, scripted by Shteyngart himself:
At the reading he said he loved the movies. Wouldn't be too surprising to see him write one.
In response to complaints from fans that this site is too doomy, an effort is being made to look for insights offered into subjects less dire than climate change. (And, to be fair, climate change will not be all bad for everyone; after all, it might tend to cool L.A.)
But nevermind. Here's a story nobody can claim is too serious — not even the scribes who wrote it, for an Aussie paper:
FELLAS, read no further. In the area of new information, this
story is slim.
There has been a survey and it tells you what you already know:
when it comes to women, the vast majority of blokes prefer them
well rounded.
To translate, guys who read men's magazines tend to like the bust. By big numbers: only 20% of 60,000 readers of a men's magazine liked a size-eight girl over a girl size twelve or fourteen.
Um…this is news?
But a quote from the inevitable academic was eye-opening:
"We find
women want to be thinner than what men find attractive," [professor Marika Tiggemann] said.
"Men's idea of what is 'thin' is larger than that of women.
Unfortunately, a lot of people think being thin demonstrates being
in control or being disciplined, while being fat is a sign you're
weak."
Well, that's one way to look at it. Another is for the paper to include a picture of women in their underwear.
Surely the most beautiful quote ever seen in a parenting book:
…someday we will regard our children not as creatures to manipulate or to change but rather as messengers from a world we have long since forgotten, who can reveal to us more about the true secrets of life, and also our own lives, than our parents were ever able to. We do not need to be told whether to be strict or permissive with our children. What we do need is to have respect for their needs, their feelings, and their individuality, as well as for our own.
Beautiful for its message, as well as its phrasing, and in translation yet!
Give credit where it's due: both the Los Angeles Times and NPR's Scott Simon ran excellent stories about the difficulty of being unemployed or underemployed this Labor Day weekend.
I especially liked the LA Times story, because so often reporting on this topic falls into the either/or trap; that is, either you have a full-time job, and are sailing through the Great Recession more or less unscathed, or you have no job, and are living in your car.
I see a different truth: plenty of folks are doing all they can, and somehow are getting by, but can't scratch up enough work to make a decent living. As reporter Don Lee wrote:
Beyond the 15 million Americans who have no jobs at
all, millions more are caught in part-time or limited jobs that don't
pay them enough to maintain their standard of living — much less
contribute to the strong consumer spending needed to power the nation
out of the economic doldrums.
Economists have a technical term for these people: underemployed.
But Simon did what NPR reporters can do better (but often don't). He gave the facts an emotional spin:
Having no job means that things people talk about so much these days —
iPads, Android phones, 3-D movies, new music or meeting friends over $4
coffee drinks — are just beyond reach. You worry about getting dull,
having nothing to talk about and losing friends. You worry about life
leaving you behind.
You may be sure that your
family loves you, but worry that they'll start feeling sorry for you,
and wonder why you have to be the one person in 10 who doesn’t have a
job. You may blame politicians, brokers and bankers, but in the middle
of the night, you might turn your eyes to the sky and wonder what you
did, didn't do or should have done.
And, most amazing of all, Ted Rall found the humor in this unhappy (no joke) situation:
We as a state have forgotten — if we ever knew — the environmental facts about the peripheral canal through the San Joaquin-Sacramento delta, but we remember this: the l982 vote against its construction was an expression of a resentment against Southern California.
That's what Paul Conrad caught. No one has ever, nor likely will ever, replace him on the opinion pages of The Los Angeles Times.
His was the most powerful of pens — and the least politically correct.
The Los Angeles Times is in the middle of a bankruptcy proceeding that is opaque, to say the least, from the outside; it's shed literally hundreds of reporters and editors over the last few years, its circulation has plummeted…but despite all that, it's been on fire this summer.
Its series on the public pensions in Bell provoked public demonstrations and resulted in the passage of legislation in the state capitol. Its series on the value-added teacher rankings has also made national news (and was disapproved of by NPR, but got a flat-out rave from Slate's Jack Shafer, who pointed out the information it used was freely available to one and all…by California law).
And now it's backing cartoonist Ted Rall, who has returned to Afghanistan in search of the pipeline that some (notably Michael Moore) think is the real stakes in the war. What other major media outlet would be so bold as to run a wacky series by a lefty cartoonist from freaking Afghanistan?
Now news comes that the paper may soon be in the hands of Michael Eisner, famous for remaking Disney…and driving away his former friend and best mind, Jeff Katzenberg.
No idea if long-time readers should celebrate, or mourn. I only hope the paper doesn't back down from its new-found feistiness.
The political blogosphere has been buzzing about a huge story in The New Yorker by Jane Meyer on "the Kochtopus."
To put it in short, just as Hillary famous said, there really is a vast right-wing conspiracy, funded by $100 million from the ultra-right-wing Koch brothers, who run a fossil fuels empire. The amount of money they have poured into climate change denial and environmental deregulation is especially shocking….as much as thirty million to a non-profit called the Mercatus Center. Meyer goes on:
The Wall Street Journal has called the Mercatus Center “the
most important think tank you’ve never heard of,” and noted that
fourteen of the twenty-three regulations that President George W. Bush
placed on a “hit list” had been suggested first by Mercatus scholars.
Fink told the paper that the Kochs have “other means of fighting [their]
battles,” and that the Mercatus Center does not actively promote the
company’s private interests. But Thomas McGarity, a law professor at the
University of Texas, who specializes in environmental issues, told me
that “Koch has been constantly in trouble with the E.P.A., and Mercatus
has constantly hammered on the agency.” An environmental lawyer who has
clashed with the Mercatus Center called it “a means of laundering
economic aims.” The lawyer explained the strategy: “You take corporate
money and give it to a neutral-sounding think tank,” which “hires people
with pedigrees and academic degrees who put out credible-seeming
studies. But they all coincide perfectly with the economic interests of
their funders.”
In 1997, for instance, the E.P.A. moved to reduce
surface ozone, a form of pollution caused, in part, by emissions from
oil refineries. Susan Dudley, an economist who became a top official at
the Mercatus Center, criticized the proposed rule. The E.P.A., she
argued, had not taken into account that smog-free skies would result in
more cases of skin cancer. She projected that if pollution were
controlled it would cause up to eleven thousand additional cases of skin
cancer each year.
In 1999, the District of Columbia Circuit
Court took up Dudley’s smog argument. Evaluating the E.P.A. rule, the
court found that the E.P.A. had “explicitly disregarded” the “possible
health benefits of ozone.” In another part of the opinion, the court
ruled, 2-1, that the E.P.A. had overstepped its authority in calibrating
standards for ozone emissions. As the Constitutional Accountability
Center, a think tank, revealed, the judges in the majority had
previously attended legal junkets, on a Montana ranch, that were
arranged by the Foundation for Research on Economics and the
Environment—a group funded by Koch family foundations. The judges have
claimed that the ruling was unaffected by their attendance.
Once again, no matter how I try, I can't be cynical enough for the 21st century, it seems.
And neither can our president, perhaps. The subtitle for the piece is "the billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama." This Sunday Frank Rich took up that theme in the TImes, adding a lot of shocking details, and concluding:
When wolves of [Rupert] Murdoch’s ingenuity and the Kochs’ stealth have been at
the door of our democracy in the past, Democrats have fought back
fiercely. Franklin Roosevelt’s triumphant 1936 re-election campaign
pummeled the Liberty League as a Republican ally eager to “squeeze the
worker dry in his old age and cast him like an orange rind into the
refuse pail.” When John Kennedy’s patriotism was assailed by Birchers
calling for impeachment, he gave a major speech denouncing their “crusades of suspicion.”
And Obama? So far, sadly, this question answers itself.
Take a look at JFK's speech, and you'll see Rich has a point:
In the most critical periods of our nation's history, there have
always been those fringes of our society who have sought to escape their
own responsibility by finding a simple solution, an appealing slogan,
or a convenient scapegoat.
Financial crises could be explained by the presence of too many immigrants…And under the strains and frustrations imposed by constant tension and
harassment, the discordant voices of extremism are heard once again in
the land. Men who are unwilling to face up to the danger from without
are convinced that the real danger comes from within. They look
suspiciously at their neighbors and their leaders. They call for a 'man
on horseback' because they do not trust the people. They find treason in
our finest churches, in our highest court, and even in the treatment of
our water. They equate the Democratic Party with the welfare state, the
welfare state with socialism, and socialism with communism.
Lately I've been asking friends and acquaintances a simple question: What are you really looking forward to seeing in the movie theater?
Last year the answer I heard, again and again, was: Avatar. And this summer the answer was equally predictable: Inception.
Each of these movies, though flawed in details and heavy-handed in execution at times, was undeniably a big, original, memorable experience. And both became huge hits.
But lately my friends and acquaintances are drawing a blank. I detect much greater excitement around the long-form television series such as Mad Men and The Big C.
And deservedly so. From President Obama (who sent a congratulatory letter to Mathew Weiner, of Mad Men fame, after the third season) to the critics, it's pretty much agreed that the long-form series has taken the dramatic crown away from the movies. (As David Denby of The New Yorker said this week: "But Hollywood, obsessed with gratifying a young audience, no longer has much use for drama—at least, not in big-budget movies.")
For spectacle, movies still can't be beat (outside of Las Vegas, maybe) but drama?
Forget about it. When it comes to drama –aka story — movies look more and more like zombies.
Walking, but dead. Not knowing it.
Hollywood itself, the biz, is sending the same message. Veteran Hollywood reporter Patrick Goldstein, of the Los Angeles Times, this week quoted a "top agent":
"You'd have to say that this summer we probably hit bottom, certainly
creatively, with so many studios relying on so much pre-sold branded
product," said one top agent. "It's really hard, because so much money
has left the business, there are fewer distributors than ever before and
many of the ones that are left have cash problems, so it's just
agonizingly difficult to get a movie up and running right now."
The New York Times today profiles the legendarily profligate Joel Silver, who with his fellow mega-producers Jerry Bruckheimer, Scott Rudin, and Brian Grazer, is being pressured to cut back by the studio…or get cut lose.
As a movie producer friend told me a year or so ago, about his struggles to get movies made:
"Stars don't work. Concepts don't work. Nobody knows what works anymore."
Maybe not in the theater.
But on the big screen (at home) everyone knows what works…
Hell, we know these characters by name. What movie people can we say that about?
According to the seasonal outlook from the US Forest Service, the developing La Niña will bring warm temps and an increased possibility of Santa Ana winds to SoCal in the next two months:
So far this summer, the lingering affects of the El Niño have kept much of the state under a cool, onshore flow regime as low pressure remained over the Pacific Northwest. This pattern will likely give way to more of an amplified pattern this fall with high pressure developing over the Southwest. This would lead to above normal temperatures for the September into early October timeframe. It is during that period when large fire potential may be highest for the season. Later this fall, cooler than normal weather may occur November into early December.
Here's their graphic version. (La Niña, which influences the course of the Pacific jetstream, tends to bring heat, wind, and dryness to SoCal, but cooler, wetter conditions to NorCal, above I-80.)
The Forest Service predicts four or five big fires in SoCal this fall. [h/p: OC Science]
Kit Stolz 