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Monday, July 14, 2003 |
Stephen King on Literary Fiction
Stephen King takes on Jonathan Franzen and others who whine about the death of "literary" fiction, and makes some good points:
Let us begin with Ulysses, James Joyce's tale of Leopold Bloom's big day. In 1998, eighty-one million copies of Ulysses were sold—not worldwide, but in the United States alone. (2) Since there are roughly 290 million people in America, (3) the math works out to one copy of Ulysses for every three and a half Americans. I think even Mr. Franzen would have to admit that, when it comes to serious literature, "Ulysses pretty much wrote the book." (4) And in the vernacular of sales, these are mighty tall tickets. [The numbers in parens refer to footnotes in King's piece.]
This is about the best news I've heard in a while. If even a small fraction of these people get to chapter 3, then that's saying something.
8:48:16 PM Permalink
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Bush Debates Bush
This is a great debate between George W. Bush, govenor of Texas and George W. Bush, President. Looks to me like we were sold a pig in a poke:
Stewart: We're gonna have an honest, open debate between the President of the United States and the one man we believe has the insight and the cahones [sic - SLM] to stand up to him.
Thank you, Governor. Mr. President, you won the coin toss. The first question will go to you.
Why is the United States of America using its power to change governments in foreign countries?
Bush: We must stand up for our security and for the permanent rights and the hopes of mankind.
Stewart: Well, certainly that represents a bold new doctrine in foreign policy, Mr. President. Governor Bush, do you agree with that?
Bush: Yeah, I'm not so sure that the role of the United States is to go around the world and say, "This is the way it's gotta be."
Stewart: Well, that's interesting. Well, that's a difference of opinion, and certainly that's what this country is about. Differences of opinion. Mr. President, let me just get specific. Why are in Iraq?
Bush: We will be umm, changing the regime of Iraq for the good of the Iraqi people.
Stewart: Governor, then I'd like to hear your response on that.
Bush: If we're an arrogant nation, they'll resent us. I think one way for us to end up being viewed as the ugly American is to go around the world saying we do it this way, so should you.
4:20:11 PM Permalink
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Of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm
want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to
come back to his farm in one piece? That is understood. But, after all, it
is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a
simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a
fascist dictatorship or a parliament or a communist dictatorship . . . That
is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and
denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to
danger. It works the same way in any country. - Hermann Goering to Nuremberg
psychologist Gustave Gilbert
4:17:58 PM Permalink
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A Couple of Movies
Over the weekend I saw a couple of movies.
Winged Migration is an absolutely amazing documentary about migrating birds. Wonderfully filmed, in many sequences you are actually flying along amid flocks of birds. Birds have never been photographed this close, in their natural elment, the skyways.
The Swimming Pool is a sensuous sort of murder mystery with a lot of suspense that doesn't necessarily bear fruit. Charlotte Rampling is fantastic as a mystery writer who retreats to a large house in the South of France to beat a case of writer's block. She's really fun to watch, as she was in Under the Sand. There are lots of scenes where we watch her start out with one set of emotions in a story, then gradually, almost imperceptibly, she changes. She's naked, too, in a few scenes, which is great, but naked more often is the beaturiful Ludivine Sagnier. I was a little disappointed in the ending, which doesn't seem to carry the weight of the rest of the movie, but it's still well worth seeing. (Great music, too, right out of Hitchcock.)
By the way, with Winged Migration, I saw a trailer for Masked & Anonymous, which made me think about this movie some more. After seeing T3 and Matrix Reloaded in the last couple weeks, I was really itching to see something that wasn't so manipulative, so obviously contrived. You see some of these movies, and feel dirty when you come out, somehow. With M&A, and the two movies in this post, at least you're seeing someone try something a little off the beaten path, a little unusual with a point of view. I may badmouth M&A, and be a little disappointed in it, but I know I'll be glad to see it again, and I can't say the same for T3 or Matrix Reloaded.
4:00:56 PM Permalink
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Lookout!
Atheism, and its carriers. Well-known spoof site Landover Baptist Church has come up trumps with How to Spot Atheists and Report Them to the FBI: I've got to tell you, says Pastor Deacon Fred, that from what I've seen in the last few years, there are roughly 300 active Atheists living in the United States. I know that sounds like a lot of godless nuts, but I'm not exaggerating just to get your attention. Atheism is becoming a very serious epidemic because our projections show that within a mere eight years, our country will no longer have prison space to hold all of... [The Pagan Prattle Online]
3:35:09 PM Permalink
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It's not as if he lied to a grand jury
The Wall Street Journal this morning printed the astounding sentence about this administration's dissembling about the lies the administration presented to drum up support for their war: "it's not as if he lied to a grand jury." So, it's offical: lying to the American people to create support for a war is less of an issue than lying about sex in the oval office. Then they have the gall to say that it wasn't a lie, since it's true that "the british government says..." So if you say that you read on website that Bush has lied about everything his administration has done since it came into office, then you're telling the truth because you read it here.
3:30:51 PM Permalink
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Useit.Com: PDF: Unfit for Human Consumption. Users get lost inside PDF files, which are typically big, linear text blobs that are optimized for print and unpleasant to read and navigate online. PDF is good for printing, but that's it. Don't use it for online presentation. [Tomalak's Realm]
Interesting, and right on. It used to be that Java apps were the scourge of the web, but PDFs are taking over from that. Of course, I'm the guy who just created and published 3,000 PDFs, but sheet music is, I think, a special case, and people who use this site know (I hope) that they can expect to see PDFs and have to download special software to view them.
11:43:22 AM Permalink
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© Copyright 2004 Steve Michel.
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