Election story in current Newsweek

The 7-part story on the Election in the current Newsweek, "How He Did It, is a surprisingly good read. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the story has a gripping, novelistic quality to it. The story takes all of the little threads and fragments from the last 22 months and weaves them together into a narrative. Reading it this morning, I thought about how familiar, and yet gripping this narrative of recent events seemed to me. Then I realized that this is the same effect that realist fiction had in its heyday. It took what was a more or less recognizable reflection of the world and made meaning out of it, turned it into a story. But the crucial component, for me, was the sense of investment that I had as a reader in the recounting of events. I was reading both about external events, but also about internal states--my internal state. And yet as I did this, I suddenly felt the experience of this external device (the narrative) working itself over and through me, so I suddenly experienced the unfolding of my internal states as an external phenomenon, as something quasi-objective and removed from myself. It was a strange and interesting experience.

Has this really happened?

I want to thank, even though they will never see this, the countless, faceless people who made this amazing victory possible. Thank you. You have redeemed us all.

HIstoric moment?

I went down to Grant Park this afternoon, to see the crowds assembling and take a few pictures. I was struck by the fact that nearly everyone there, gathering together to see Obama later in the night, came with camera in hand. The event was being obsessively recorded, documented, ready to be remembered. And there I was recording, documenting, readying to remember.

It started to get dark--the light wasn't lasting for pictures--so I left early and headed home. Now watching the returns on TV, it appears that Obama may be our next president. I feel so excited, so ready to step into the future that is emerging now. I feel as if I am finally awaking from a dream--an eight year dream.

McCain and Palin

Am I crazy for thinking that McCain's judgement is perfectly sound, that Palin was vetted. That, in fact, the controversy about her daughter was known and planned for? I thought this scanning the intro page of Slate where nearly every columnist there has taken some position on the Palin issue. This is good stuff! Sure to dominate a news-cycle or two. And at least Palin never said she didn't think McCain was ready to be a president!

Newberry Booksale

Found some pretty nice finds at the Newberry Book Fair over the weekend. Found a neat early 20th century home health manual, a biography of George Eliot, a pamphlet detailing Dickens related sites in Canterbury, and a little novel called, Dream Life.

You might care that I am currently reading...

Mad Men

I have really been enjoying the show, Mad Men, and won't even call it a "guilty pleasure," that anti-category of intellectual stupefication in the face of crass enjoyment. It really is a thought provoking and well-assembled show. Now, by well-assembled, I am not referring to set design, costuming, and other effects meant to simulate the period (most notably cigarettes, sexism, and anti-semitism). I have read people on IMDB fruitlessly, hopelessly, even breathlessly debating whether or not the show is "period," "authentic," or take your pick. People particularly like to invoke their own remembrance of growing up in the sixties, which begs the question of who amongst these people grew up in a Madison Avenue ad agency office.

That said, the show is effective because it works by layering details upon each other with varying effects. Sometimes the different vellum panes of detail clash in their hue or texture (the episode focusing on Pete) but sometimes there is a harmonious glow that emanates from the transposition (this week's episode, Babylon).

I have been thinking about a brief exchange that takes place in the aforesaid episode when Don Draper, the main character, meets Rachel, a Jewish woman running her father's department store, but trying to attract a more WASPy clientele. She refers to, though a bit obliquely, the title of Thomas More's famous fictional dialogue, Utopia. The title is a pun on two Greek compounds--eu-topos and ou-topos (though I could be wrong about later). The former means, "happy place," while the later means, "no-place." In the show, however, Rachel says that ou-topos means "the place that cannot be reached," "the place that cannot be" to paraphrase. The minor discrepancy between these two translations is very interesting to me. Part of the point of More's pun is that the two meanings were intertwined, even mutually dependent. Utopia is a happy place because it does not exist and does not exist because it is a happy place, a very tidy reversal. And yet this reversal gives the non-place a kind of virtual existence (thus has a kind of dialectical quality to it). I was taught that this can be exemplified by the humanist community of the 15th and 16th century. This community existed through letters and across the linguistic and geographical boundaries. And yet this non-existent community was of far greater importance to More than the really existing place where he lived (though I'm no expert, and that probably is an arguable point).

So, to change that concept around slighly and say that Utopia is the "happy place that can never be reached" casts a much bleaker pall over the show. But I don't find this alternate meaning to be applicable to every character, though certainly for Don Draper. His character is marked by a restless propulsion, a drive towards something, yet an unidentifiable something. This causes him much angst, seen in--again, small details--the way Jon Hamm (the actor playing Draper) cups a glass when Draper drinks a drink. His hands encircle the top of the glass, cradle it; his eyes seem to peer into its depths, then through the translucence, as if surprised that the cup doesn't have a different substance altogether. There is always this strange reluctance in the way he drinks, a moment thought and hesitation. This is the pause of someone who wants to dive into the abyss and hope to hit the bottom, finally, like the free-fall that dominates the title sequence:



Yet in the episode last night, we see other characters--notably Joan, the red-headed secretary played by Christina Hendricks--who seem much more caught up in the "dialectical, punning notion of Utopia," if I can term it that, aware that desire is always caught up in its presence and absence. There is no absolute state of happiness, which leads to altogether different type of restlessness.

Proximity not causality

What has life been recently? Just events, a slightly incoherent careening cascade of events stitched together by proximity not causality to form something called a life. I have been doing some genealogy research into my family history, which has been more interesting than expected, as it includes the revelation that my paternal great-great-great grandfather owned slaves. Other than these few nuggets of information, I'm really just looking forward to a series of minor events including the delivery of new media furniture for the living room and the receipt of my volunteer application to the Evanston History Center. We are going to Colorado in a few weeks for a wedding, so that will be pleasant.

Last weekend and what-not

I have finally posted pictures from the month of may to Flickr. You will find, much like the one above, pictures of the fairy garden that Allison and I made for my mom (I hope it survives). Also pictures of that noble beast, Othello. Finally, under "Garden 2007" pictures, from a few weeks ago, of our new garden plot, refitted with (fingers-croseed) deer and critter proof fencing. When we go up to the garden today, I will take some new pics of the garden with plants, including a rose bush of the "knockout" variety.

out of the wormhole

I have exited the wormhole of working two jobs, today being my last day at EPL. Next week will be my first official full week at the Newberry. I am looking forward to being able to establish a better routine that will include working out at the gym, reading books, and writing. I haven't decided whether or not to schedule the latter two activities in the early morning or in the late night. My brain is crap in the morning, so that would seem to rule out mornings. But I get quite distracted later at night.

In other news, our dryer isn't working well and all of our clothes come out smelling musty. Very appealing. Wellesley has begun running up to Tatum's automatic feeder and slamming herself into it (and the wall) which causes a generous amount of food to shake loose. She has already created several large gashes in the all, and I am racking my brain over how to thwart a cat. Sadly no feasible solution has presented itself and the cat has me beat!

new new job

Tomorrow I start a new new job at the Newberry. For the next week and a half I'll be working both of my jobs, which means long days. Oh well, I will have to savor my downtime. While it feels strange to be starting a new job again, I am feeling much less anxiety than I did over starting at EPL. I don't, however, equate this with a difference of anticipation or excitement, but a greater sense of ease over adjusting to a new routine. The Newberry job is full-time and requires a commute downtown (pre-loop really, but fer away enough). But I feel to a greater degree the inevitability of becoming inured to these facts of the job. Well, to the future...

strange after-lifes

I rescued a handful of old paperbacks from the trash yesterday at the library. They included an erotic pulp novel, a book of Havelock Ellis' sexological writings, a books of HG Wells' short stories, and a book on the Marquis de Sade called Philosopher of Evil by Water Drummond. I only learned later that Drummond was a pseudonym for Robert Silverberg, a well-known science fiction writer. I opened this book and saw that it had been published in Evanston in the early 1960s. Intrigued I began searching for information on the Internet. Regency was an offshoot of several magazine and book publishing ventures by William Hamling, mostly science-fiction. Hamling worked with Hugh Hefner at one point and later published a men's magazine called Rogue. He began a line of soft-core pornographic novels under the imprint of Bedside Books, which later became Regency, all of which were run by "Blake Pharmaceuticals". Their offices were on Dempster, between the El stop and Sherman. Well, none of this is inherently interesting, but strange to imagine a cosmos of science fiction fans and soft-core porno writers have once lingered along these streets.

writing with cats

I have been a fairly productive writer recently, having begun a nice routine of writing for several hours every morning and some late nights too. My cats have other plans, as you can see from the above pic.

My daemon?

I was surprised that my daemon came up as a wolf. What do you think?

Update: Wow, through some circuitous path, my daemon has returned to being a wolf. Who woulda thunk it?

Part-time life

As I seem to be facing mounting criticism for only working a part-time job, I applied to a part-time job with a local non-profit. Drafting the cover letter took some time, however, as I always end up feeling like a patent medicine salesman writing these things. So, there goes another version of myself out into the ether, awaiting judgment.

I have been reading Borges' Universal History of Infamy and enjoying it immensely. I would highly recommend this collection of stories. It has given me several ideas for my Estep project. I also bought a comic book version of Moby Dick over the weekend and read it with great relish. Now, I have only read about 100 pages of the original. But this comic version is quite brilliant as it includes Melvillean digressions on how the nature of whales and how whale blubber is "harvested." So, very smart, actually.

cb2 catalog

For a real hoot, please check out the most recent CB2 catalog [please note the Internet version seems to be a bit cleaned up; the paper version will fill you with riotous laughter and happy glee beams] where you will find some of the most bizarre and incomprehensible catalog copy. Reproduced below, you will find a letter that I sent to the company via email:

Yes, I was looking through the most recent CB2 catalog and was astounded by the incomprehensible copy written for many of the items. My favorite happens to be the description for the channel storage (p. 47), "Dark wood grain laminate shelving flaunts a 1" slit down the back to simultaneously reveal a hint of wall, conceal a mess of media cords. Bookcase has 5 fixed shelves. Media cart sides two doors with clean 1" top reveals that open to one adjustable shelf each." I was distracted by someone writing "a mess of cords," which is a weirdly idiomatic expression. But I didn't even know which product this referred to. Then the third sentence is simply confusing. There is strange and bizarre verbiage like this every where in the catalog: "angled wider seat" (not Wide angled seat) (15) and "slat mat stained matte black" (43). What gives with the strange copy? Was this intentional? This really makes me not want to buy these products because I don't understand what they really are.

This kind of writing reminds me of a beloved Kikkoman soy sauce advert. I can only assume that someone wrote out the copy in a foreign language then had it translated by a non-english speaker. Our current hypothesis is Italian. What do you think?

scrapbook stupidity

I've been working on a scrapbook for our trip to Europe last summer. Well, it's actually more of a scrapbox, as you can see in this picture. Normally, I enjoy doing things like this. I would spend hours making mix tape covers in high school. But this project has been troublesome from the get go. I have fought with paper, with glue, with the photoprinter (also seen in the picture), with layouts, with fingerprints, with every aspect of planning, design, and execution. Yet I labour on.

One annoying thing also associated with this project occurred yesterday when we tried to take some paper back to Paper Source. I purged my receipts last week and no longer had the proper documentation to prove that I bought two miscellaneous packs of paper roughly a month ago. The return policy at the store clearly states that if you don't have a receipt that they can look up your purchase history in the computer. What they don't tell you is that asking the clerk to do so will elicit the kind of response usually reserved for suspicious panhandlers, con men, and presidents. Basically, they treated my like a criminal mastermind, trying to engineer some masterstroke of chicanery in which I defraud the Paper Source company of $12.00. Needless to say, I was in no mood to cackle like an evil genius afterwards, but did maintain enough composure to buy more paper and clutch my receipt as I left the store.

starting work

I was called today and informed that I had passed my drug test. Well, that's one exam in the past six months or so that I didn't fail! That means that I will begin my new job at the Evanston public library in two days. Back to the grind! The last two weeks have been pretty enjoyable. I spend my days reading and working on my Estep project. The mantle in our living room is finally up, just needs a few final touches added to it. With the weather finally breaking into warmth, things are looking up. I suppose these reflections are appropriate for today. I didn't like today's prompt in the Writer's Book of Days, so I got out my Tarot deck and pulled a card and looked it up in my Tarot book. The card that I pulled was the five of cups, seen above (though I don't have a Rider-Waite deck, so the image on mine is a bit different). But the point is that the figure is consumed with grief because it is fixated on the three empty cups and isn't aware of the two full ones behind it. So, I was planning on using this image/description as my writing prompt, but haven't gotten around to it, as luck would have it.

Jarvis Cocker, "Don't Let Him Waste Your Time"

what?

I'm not really meaning to make the Internet comment culture into a hobbyhorse, but I have to note the following comment left for a fun little Internet puzzle game called Cubis 2:

Pros: Easy to learn, and fun to play!
Cons: Gets boring
Comments: Really fun to play when bored.

Uh, there are two possible things wrong with this. On the one hand, if the game's only con is that it gets boring, yet is fun the play when bored, then, as the commentator astutely points out, the game must be REALLY fun to play! On the other hand, why would you play a game that, if bored, will cause you to become bored (or even more bored) as a result of playing it?