It’s too cold to do anything outside, so I’m picking up the blogging again. I’ve changed the colour scheme and the tagline, but don’t be fooled: I’m committed to maintaining the same slovenly publishing schedule as before. No earnest New Year resolutions here.
Way back in March I did a long series of posts about Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail. I did say that I’d collect them together in one post. So here it is, as one long (150 page) PDF.
I’m not wearing a Poppy this year.
There are two ways of thinking about the Poppy. One is the Wilfred Owen way and one is the John McRae way. They are both familiar.
Here is Owen:
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori
And here is McRae
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
McRae says that war is tragic and heroic; Owen says it is tragic and futile. McRae demands that the death of soldiers
be given meaning by continuing the war that caused their death. Owen
demands that … Continue reading
I did say I have a few pieces I wanted to post still, so here (now the Ontario election is over) is one of them. A few questions a few people have asked me about No One Makes You Shop at Wal-Mart…
Where did you get the title?
The title evolved along with the content of the book. I think the first version of it came from Paul Krugman’s essay Enemies of the WTO which was published in Slate on November 24, 1999. I’d admired Krugman’s writings for some time, and yet had anti-globalization leanings. The end of his essay (which I quote and misattribute on p. 190) encapsulates the challenge I wanted to address:
Although they [anti-globalization protesters] talk of freedom and democracy, their key demand is that individuals be prevented from getting what they want–that governments be free, nay encouraged, to deny individuals the right to drive cars, work in offices, eat cheeseburgers, and watch satellite TV. Why? Presumably because people will really be happier if they retain their traditional "language, dress, and values." Thus, Spaniards would be happier if they still dressed in black and let narrow-minded priests run their lives, and residents of the American … Continue reading
Some films you watch for plot, some for action, some for characterization, some for laughs. David Lynch films you watch for the atmosphere and for the occasional shocking scene. Complaining about the plot of a Lynch movie is like complaining about olives not being sweet: it’s just not the point.
I don’t know what I think of INLAND EMPIRE "overall". I don’t even know what such an "overall" would mean – should I add up the minutes I like, subtract the minutes I didn’t like, and assess the film on the resulting number?
To judge a Lynch film I ask whether it stays with me; whether scenes play themselves over in my mind during the days after I watch it. And INLAND EMPIRE has enough of those scenes to make me glad I watched it. It’s not Mulholland Drive, one of my favourite films of all time, but then what is?
One scene in particular is stunning – not one I’ve seen talked about elsewhere. It’s about fifteen minutes in. Fading star Nikki Grace (Laura Dern) has won a part in a new film being directed by an unctuous Kingsley Stewart (Jeremy Irons), and she turns up on the empty, … Continue reading
Blogging has been non-existent for the last few weeks. I also have several emails from blog contacts that I have failed to reply to — sorry Henry, Aaron and others. I’ve been diverted by non-digital politics (Ontario Elections), home life, and trying to do my day job.
I started the blog, as the top of the page says, mainly in an attempt to promote No One Makes You Shop at Wal-Mart. Well that came out 16 months ago, so anything I could do along those lines is done.
I have a few more pieces I want to post here, and then I’ll take an indefinite blogbreak and try to do some longer-form writing.
After all, in the words of the Talking Heads; "Say something once, why say it again?"
If you read this paragraph about Kanye West from today’s Observer and don’t do a double take, you have fewer preconceptions than I.
An only child (‘Kanye’ is an Ethiopian name which means ‘the only
one’), whose parents split before he was a year old and who divorced
when he was four, Kanye was mainly raised by his doting mother, Donda.
They are still extremely close; he wrote a song for her on his last
album, ‘Hey Mama’, which, sweetly, she now has as the ringtone on her
cellphone. When Kanye was still a young child, they moved from Atlanta,
Georgia, to Chicago, where she became the chair of the English
department at Chicago State University before latterly taking over as
his manager.
