Category: Journal

I know I’ve mentioned this before, but if you’re not signed up for Warren Ellis’ newsletter, Orbital Operations, you’re missing out and you owe it to yourself sign up immediately. Go ahead and do it now. I’ll wait. This is where you sign up. For the most part, I dislike reading reviews of books because that almost invariably leave me less excited about picking up the book. Even glowing reviews have this effect, which probably says something about me, but let’s not go there. Contrast that with this, the final paragraph from this week’s discussion of Lavie Tidhar’s Central Station: And, yes, it does tell its own story, one that is as much myth and legend as sf. Interrupted love, the culture of abandoned robots, designer babies with imaginary friends and released AI as wild djinni. The book is bigger than it seems, and I’m still thinking about it, unpacking the layers of it. I recommend it highly. It’ll stay with you for days, because every idea in it has more ideas under it. It’s all of science fiction distilled into a single book. That is a how to get me excited about a book. Seriously, sign up for the newsletter. You won’t regret it. Or, if you do, I probably won’t hear about it so I’ll just assume you had no regrets.    

We left the window slightly open last night during the thunderstorm and light show. The cats thought this was the most exciting thing they’d seen in ages, so they zipped up and down the length of the occupied bed all evening, making excited noises and fighting with each other for a spot by the window. After last night’s thrills, tonight’s a relatively quiet evening, ideal for a little catching up. I recently read Eduardo Galeano’s Open Veins of Latin America. It’s a history of Latin America from a decidedly economic perspective, and a Marxist one at that. It’s an unpleasant book to read as Galeano makes a strong case for placing the blame for the lack of economic development in Latin America on the people who sought to get rich at the expense of (and often on the backs of) the people living there. It’s well written and it’s a story worth telling, but it’s not a fun book to read. If you look at it from just the right angle, and maybe squint a little, it echoes one of the messages of William Gibson’s The Peripheral. One of the recurring themes of science fiction (and human history, I suppose) is that there are few things worse than contact with a superior civilization. In most cases, this means a militarily superior civilization. After reading Galeano and Gibson, I think it might be even more ruinous to encounter a civilization more advanced in its economics.  So, to clear my palate, I’m re-reading Slaughterhouse Five. It wasn’t in my queue, but I wanted something a little more pleasant to read. I love Vonnegut’s voice. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed a comedic book without enjoying the author’s voice. With a thriller, or Serious Literature, or whatever, a writer can get away with having an unremarkable or even grating voice if the story and characters are strong enough. With a book that’s meant to be funny, the writer doesn’t have that luxury. If their voice is irritating, I won’t laugh, and I won’t enjoy the book. On a side note, my sister is about to watch Liverpool play against Valencia in the Europa League final. The match is long over, but she recorded it and is watching it now. Vonnegut’s Tralfamadorians live in four dimensions and see time as a solid, all moments existing at once and forever and it is pointless to try to change what will happen since it’s already occurred. For my sister’s sake, I hope that this is not true and the match will end differently than it did when I saw it, but I doubt that it will. Anyway, I’d forgotten just how delightful it is to read Vonnegut.  Vox published an article today purporting to show a relationship between how people commute and how happy they are. People who ride the train are the second happiest, just behind people who can walk to their jobs. I’ve no idea if this survey is valid, but my experience agrees with their conclusions. Commuting is awful. It’s bad enough that we have to work; having to spend my time, my attention, and my money to get there and back is even worse. Anything that minimizes one or more of these factors increases my happiness significantly. Having the good fortune to be able to read in peace and not have to deal with traffic or parking? I’m pretty lucky to have that option. I’m about one year in to my “reading books on the train” initiative. I just did a quick hand count and it looks like I’ve read twenty-nine books during my commute over the last twelve months. That makes me happy. The time on the train is “found” time, time I was wasting messing around on my phone and increasing my stress levels before and after work. Carrying a book on the train was an easy habit to pick up and it’s easy to keep with it. I still have a longish list of books on my “to read” list, so I bet I’ll be doing this for a while.    

A while back, I made it all the way to the office before discovering that I’d left my wallet at home. After thinking about it for a moment, I was surprised to realize that it wasn’t really that big a deal. Sure, I didn’t have ID or credit cards, but I didn’t really need them at the office. My train tickets were on my phone, and I could always use the phone to pay for lunch if I needed it. Leaving the wallet at home? No big deal! Last Thursday, I woke up late because my alarm didn’t go off. That silence was the sound of the other shoe dropping. My phone was stuck on the boot screen and was burning through the battery fast enough to make it double as a space heater. It turns out that, while not having a wallet is not a big problem, not having my phone is kind of crippling. Not only could I not access my train tickets, but I couldn’t make calls (duh), receive messages, or, and this is the critical bit, authenticate my login for any of the more secure systems at work. I literally could not do my job without my phone. My carrier didn’t do a lot to help, either. A chat with their tech support confirmed that the phone had a “known issue” and would need to be replaced. I was informed that I could replace it any of their retail outlets, and that there would be a note on my account indicating that the troubleshooting had already been completed. The folks at the retail location were not on board with this process. They wanted to take a stab at fixing it and told me to come back in two hours. When I did, I was told that I did, in fact, have the “known issue” with my phone and would need to get a replacement. The replacement would arrive in 3-5 days. Someone else had the same issue I did, went to the same location, but managed to get better results.  Did I mention that I literally could not do my job without my phone? I mentioned this to the people at the store. The options I was offered were to add another line to my account, or to buy out my current contract and start a new one. These were not especially attractive alternatives. They had my phone in stock, but I was told that I couldn’t exchange mine with their existing stock because mine had a blue cover and these had black covers and “the serial numbers wouldn’t match.” I asked if any other local location had my phone, but I was informed that they couldn’t check or even call other locations. I tried calling their central ordering line, the people who theoretically would have access to the inventory at all of their retail locations, but they were unable to help.  I tried Best Buy next, and they busted their butts trying to find options that would work for me. They spent no less than two hours on the phone with my carrier trying to find some loophole that would allow me to have a working phone by the end of the day. They even offered me the option of “buying” an unlocked phone with a winking understanding that I’d return it when my replacement arrived. I declined, but that reminded me that I had an older phone in a drawer at home that might still work. I went home, brought it back to Best Buy, and they activated it. It wasn’t pretty, but at least I was working again. So, now that the dust has settled, there are two key takeaways from this experience: Keep your last phone as a backup instead of recycling it or trading it in. Phones are now critical for work. Find out what the replacement policy is before signing the contract. 3-5 days is unacceptable and any carrier with this policy that doesn’t at least offer a loaner should be ashamed. For authentication that send you text messages, use your Google Voice number or some other virtual phone number. That way, even if your phone is dead, you’ll receive the texts as emails or be able to access them online.

A month or so ago, I tweeted a question asking if readers could more easily list their top ten films, books, albums, TV shows, or restaurants. Since I miss LiveJournal and love making list, I thought I’d share mine. All of these lists are subject to change at any moment, and they’re personal favorites as opposed to what I think are the “greatest” works in the media. I started with films and did albums a little later. Since we’re talking about the Hugo awards, let’s do novels. In no particular order: East of Eden (and Journal of a Novel) – John Steinbeck In this case, I lied about these being in “no particular order.” East of Eden stands head and shoulders above the rest of them. Not only is it a stunning example of craftsmanship in storytelling, the meaning of it kicked in the head and kept me up for forty eight hours after I finished it. Years later, I read the companion journal that Steinbeck kept as he was writing East of Eden, published as Journal of a Novel. Not only did it drive home just how much intention was invested in every stylistic decision, it gave me insights into how he delivered his meaning without ever getting in the way of the story. Just a towering work and a fantastic read. Small Gods – Terry Pratchett This was my first Terry Pratchett novel, and it’s still my favorite. Mediocre Pratchett is still better than 90% of what I read, but this is absolutely peak Pratchett: Incredibly funny, deep, sad, and insightful. When he set out to skewer a target, that target stays skewered. Small Gods also has the best ending of any of his novels, and I’m a sucker for a novelist who sticks the landing. Neuromancer – William Gibson I’m torn here: Do I go with Neuromancer, which changed my reading habits in an eerily similar fashion to the way NIN’s Pretty Hate Machine changed the game musically? It’s a fantastic story, and even though the future it describes appears to have forked off from our reality, it remains a recognizable future. However, I’m tempted to list The Peripheral, which is a better book in almost every sense, but it didn’t set my brain on fire in the same  mid-20s way Neuromancer did? I’ll stick with Neuromancer, but really, either book would be worthy of the list. Zodiac – Neal Stephenson I picked this up after reading Snow Crash and, at first, I was a little disappointed that this wasn’t a cyperpunk novel. Once I got into it, though, it was a delight. Smart and funny and paced better than any of his recent work, this is still my favorite Stephenson book. Snow Crash’s highs are higher, and it’s certainly a more important book, but I enjoyed Zodiac even more. Against the Day – Thomas Pynchon I read this six months ago and I’m really not sure how to rank it. The prose requires a lot of effort on the part of the reader, but it’s worth the effort. The overarching story, the very definition of sprawling, plays out like a dream you’re not completely sure is a nightmare until way too late. It doesn’t all work for me, but what does work is overwhelming. If you’re interested, Warren Ellis has some well-worth-reading insights on this book. Brothers Karamzov – Fyodor Dostoyevsky Here’s a story about why this novel is on the list. When I was in high school, I read a lot, both in and out of classrooms, and felt that I was reasonably well-read. My freshman philosophy professor was unimpressed. It turns out that, while I’d read a lot of books, I didn’t understand what most of them were about. In school, we talked about theme, mood, plot, style, and all sorts of things to avoid talking about what the book was really about. My professor has us read two chapters from this book and we went into great detail as to what they were about. They were about things we would not have been allowed to discuss in a public high school. After that, I read the entire book over the course of a weekend. So this is what literature was. It wasn’t just theme, mood, plot, and style. It was about trying to express a view of the world, to unmask frauds, and to find the humanity in the gray areas between absolute right and wrong. That is why this book is on the list.  A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole I’m ashamed to say I didn’t read this one until recently. It is very, very funny. So funny, in fact, that the underlying cynicism goes down with a spoonful of what you might mistake for sugar. No one is spared. Everyone gets it, and oh how richly they deserve it. I enjoyed reading A Confederacy of Dunces more than I’d expected and look forward to forgetting enough of it to read it again. Perdido Street Station – China Mieville I don’t like horror movies or books. I respect the genre, but it just doesn’t work for me. That said, the middle third of Perdido Street Station is, by a wide margin, the scariest stuff I’ve ever read. It is absolutely the stuff of nightmares. The first third is an exercise in setup and world building, and it’s interesting, but I struggled to remain engaged, and the final third is a little more conventional than the rest of it (although it is still a good distance from “conventional”.) It’s all good, but man, that middle third? Nightmares. I’m serious about that. Nightmares. The Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien There is probably nothing I can say about this trilogy that hasn’t already been said. Let’s just say that, without it, my years and years of playing D&D would have been less derivative but also less fun. Good Omens – Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett I didn’t want to include more than one novel by any author, but if there was going to be a repeat, it was always going to be Pratchett and there was no way this list would honestly reflect my tastes if it didn’t have Good Omens on it. This may be the first book I ever read that made me laugh so hard I couldn’t stop….

That is all.

So, I learned something interesting today. I ordered a pair of reading glasses on Amazon last week. I made sure to get a pair with the “Prime” logo because, hey, if I’m going to pay for Prime, then I might as well use it. As you can see, the glasses I chose were in stock, so I expected to get them in 2, or more likely, 3 days. When I got my confirmation email, I was told that even though this item was Prime, I wouldn’t get it until early the next week. Today, I got another message indicating that the glasses wouldn’t arrive until early May. So, I got on chat to see what was going on. The glasses I ordered were out of stock. I mentioned that the order page said they were in stock at the time and, curiously enough, still did. What was going on? It turns out that the stock status on the sales page is not a reliable indicator of much anything. That’s more than a little annoying, but there is a way to find out the true status of any item. The first thing you need to do is to scroll down to the “Product Description” section on the item’s page. Make a note of the ASIN, which is an internal Amazon tracking number. Then, append the ASIN to this URL: https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/ For this item, the URL is: https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B01AMT6WXW This will give you the real stocking status of the item you’re looking it. It’s not cool that you can’t trust the sales page to see if your item is really in stock, but if it’s really important to get something, at least there’s a workaround.  

The title comes from a segment in Bill James’ Historical Baseball Abstract. This segment appears in the recap for each decade, and in it, he quotes a baseball player complaining about the new generation of players who are only in it for the money, not the love of the game. This feature runs from the 1890s through the present.  I bring this up because my father recently forwarded me an article cursing the state of education and, especially, pupils in his classroom. I want to be nice about it, but it rings a little hollow when it’s the exact same complaint teachers have made for a long, long time. For example, check this one out: “Scholarly effort is in decline everywhere as never before. Indeed, cleverness is shunned at home and abroad. What does reading offer to pupils except tears? It is rare, worthless when it is offered for sale, and devoid of wit. “ This comes from around the turn of the millennium. No, not that one, the one before it. It’s from Egbert of Liege, some time in the 11th century. You can find teachers complaining about the inferiority of their students at pretty much any point in history. They’ve always complained about their students.  Most of the time, we should take these declension narratives with a grain of salt. Things are, by and large, getting better. It might not seem like it, and in localized pockets, it might not be true. For the most part, though? Please please please check out Will B. Macintosh’s article on the subject.  Speaking of things getting better, did you see that the British Library recently made a huge trove of art available, free of copyright encumbrance, on Flickr? Check it out, and bookmark that sucker. It’s about time someone found a good use for Flickr.

I haven’t seen it yet, but I understand that, in Zack Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Batman kills a bunch of people. He even uses guns. The fan reaction to this has been…not good. We all know Batman doesn’t kill, and “don’t use guns” is practically tattooed on his forehead*. All I have to say about that is: Good. The Dark Knight should use a gun, and he should kill people. I’m making a distinction here between “Batman” and “The Dark Knight.” I’m talking about the version of Batman who appeared in Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Returns” and has informed every Batman story since, as well as most grim-and-gritty stories about heroes who aren’t named Batman.  In “The Dark Knight Returns”, Batman is, well, dark. He’s really, really dark. He isn’t in to things like innocent until proven guilty, or rehabilitation, or therapy, or laws. He’s all about punching, and kicking, and torturing, and terrorizing. He literally beats the Joker within an ounce of pressure of his life**. That’s what distinguishes him from the criminals, right? What complete nonsense. Batman may separate himself from criminals by using more humane methods, but Frank Miller’s Dark Knight openly mocks that distinction but doesn’t quite have the courage to take it to its logical conclusion. Miller’s proposition is that it’s not the methods that make one’s actions right, it’s your rightness that justifies one’s actions. Batman is right and criminals are wrong because he’s Batman and they’re scum. It’s not the methods so much as the rightness of the cause and, importantly, the rightness of the man. In Miller’s world, abstaining from using the same methods as your foes isn’t moral strength; it’s unilateral disarmament and it provides aid to the villains.  And in this world, Batman absolutely would use guns and he wouldn’t hesitate to kill. Trying to maintain the thinnest veneer of superiority by having Batman abstain from only the most extreme measures feels like a cheat. It’s not an honest representation of Miller’s take on the character.  My hope is that, by finally reaching the logical culmination of this take on the character, we can finally put it to bed. It was a hell of an original take on the character thirty years ago. The eighties are long over. Time to move on. Time to be someone else***.   * Even though he uses guns. He’s always used guns. ** Yes, literally. For what it’s worth, this scene is a perfect example of Miller trying to have it both ways. The Joker is certain that Batman will face consequences for “killing” him as opposed to stopping just short so. It didn’t ring true then and doesn’t now. *** Yes, I totally stole that from Warren Ellis’ Planetary, Issue 7.  Too good a line not to use.    

A couple of weeks ago, I tweeted a question asking if readers could more easily list their top ten films, books, albums, TV shows, or restaurants. Since I miss LiveJournal and love making list, I thought I’d share mine. All of these lists are subject to change at any moment, and they’re personal favorites as opposed to what I think are the “greatest” works in the media. I started with films. Let’s do albums today since I’m in the mood for it. In no particular order: Jerry Jeff Walker & The Lost Gonzo Band – “Viva Terlingua” Growing up, country music was something like 90% of the music played in our home. Most of it was not especially good, sounding like easy listening with steel guitars. I had no idea that country music could, for want of a better word, “rock.” Then my dad brought this gem home and everything changed. The Lost Gonzos are very much at the forefront of the sound, and the songs are fantastic. If you only own one country record, it should probably be Willie Nelson’s “Stardust,” but this one’s right up there. Nine Inch Nails – “Pretty Hate Machine” This one changed everything for me. In my industrial dance years, I had more albums on Wax Trax than any other label. I loved dancing to and working out to the music, but it wasn’t always great for just listening or singing along or what have you. This was the first industrial album I can remember having great songs as opposed to just a great sound.  Pop Will Eat Itself – “This Is The Day…This Is The Hour…This Is This!” This prescient marvel came out six months before “Pretty Hate Machine,” and it may have been even more important in the Big Scheme of Thingies. It’s a cut-and-paste sampling masterpiece that was well ahead of it’s time. The Poppies name-checked essentially everything I was in to at the time, so they were sort of the Ernest Cline of their era. The songs hold up remarkably well, and the design of the album cover is one of the best I’ve ever seen. They Might Be Giants – “Flood” I’m not completely sure that “Flood” is TMBG’s best album (the criminally underrated “Factory Showroom” or “Mink Car,” anyone?), but it’s the best known and, if push came to shove, it’s probably the best loved as well. Never before had such goofiness been melded with songs this catchy. They’re also the best live act I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen everyone on this list except for PWEI and Public Enemy (and I had tickets to see both of them but didn’t see them for reasons that still make me mad.) Ambulance, LTD – “LP” This is as close to a perfect album as any I’ve ever heard. Every song on it is wonderful. It’s relatively straight forward guitar pop, but it’s absolutely the best straight forward guitar pop album I’ve ever heard. This is my favorite album of the 2000’s and it’s shameful that so few people have heard it. The New Pornographers – “Electric Version” Remember when music was serious and grim and dark and artists? The New Pornographers do, and they want to change all of that. I’d read great things about the NewPo’s, but I’d never heard their music until this album showed up on the jukebox at my favorite dive. It wasn’t anything like I’d expected; it was unapologetically fun and bright and just…wow. The first four songs would make for the best EP ever made, too. Bad Religion – “Suffer” I’d been brought up to believe that punk was just a bunch of weirdos who couldn’t play their instruments sneering behind their guitars. Then, one of my coworkers suggested I give the band Christian Death a listen. Even then I didn’t hear very well, so I picked up this instead. It was angry, sure, but it was catchy and smart too. Suddenly, punk didn’t look so dumb, but I sure felt dumb for ignoring it for so long. Public Enemy – “Fear Of A Black Planet” As with punk, I didn’t take rap seriously for a long, long time. The lyrics didn’t really speak to me and the backing tracks didn’t get my attention. At this time, I was really in to NIN and a coworker said he thought I’d like “Fear Of A Black Planet.” I went over to his place to give it a listen and I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Nothing I’d ever heard prepared me for “Welcome To The Terrordome.” The production was amazing, and Chuck D’s lyrics and delivery were unlike anything I’d heard in any genre and, frankly, it scared me a little. Which was, I suppose, the whole point. Devo – “Duty Now For The Future” I made the mistake that many people did of writing off Devo as a joke band who wore funny outfits and wrote silly songs. Devo were, and are, a very serious band with a very serious worldview. Oh sure, they’re silly, but they’re not shallow. This is one very, very weird album. There’s almost no attempt to make it listenable and at the same time, it somehow gets stuck in your head. Devo revamped their sound and sold a ton of their next two records, but for me, this one is the most compelling vision of what de-evolution is all about. Genesis – “Three Sides Live” A live album? Well, ok, that’s kind of a cheat, but this one was a pivotal record for me. The performances often outshine the studio version of the songs (“Abacab,” “Afterglow,” and “Behind The Lines,” I’m looking at you), but for me, it’s all about the instrumental medley between “In The Cage” and “Afterglow.” The interplay between Tony Banks’ keyboards and Phil Collins’ and Chester Thompson’s drums still gives me chills. This record, more than any other, made me fall in love with the sound of synthesizers.    Pictured: One of those synthesizers. Apologies to: The Arcade Fire – “Funeral”, Ted Leo + Pharmacists – “Shake The Sheets”, My Bloody Valentine – “Loveless”, R.E.M. – “Reckoning”, Radiohead – “O.K. Computer”, Shriekback – “Oil and Gold”, and the dB’s – “Like This.”