The last year has meant commitment to writing. Increased writing related to intermittent crankiness and rawness. In this last year, my video game playing has dropped to essentially nil. I love video games. They are mind-numbing (usually) and verrry pleasing to the reptile brain. It’s strange how I’ve not been inclined to play them unless asked by the kids. Have never installed a game on a smartphone, nor on Facebook. Have flushed hundreds, thousands of hours of my life in World of Warcraft. Recently? Nope. Doesn’t feel like it’s a testament to an improved character, simply not something my neurochemical system wants to do. Not feeling susceptible to granular rewards dosed at regular intervals. More cruelly charmless expensive dark chocolate, though, NOW! We wantssss it…
Fond of my Kindle (say it 3x, fast)
The main thing I don’t like about the Kindle is its lack of heirloom value. “Yes, daughter. This DRM’d edition of ‘Middlemarch’ has been in our family for months and months. Is its format now obsolete? Regardless, (cough cough – consumptive hack into my greening lace handerkerchief) pass it along to your children so long as THEIR e-reader is adjoined to your account. No, wait. It should be my account to have access to it. Can we merge our accounts? Oh, FUCK IT, just put my Kindle on the photocopier and print out the book for yourself.”
Okay, and its lack of color. And its lack of a touch screen.
Otherwise, and especially for books that are current and not likely to be read by my descendents, it’s been a boon.
The ability to highlight notes and save them as text files has saved me dozens and dozens of hours of typing highlighted paper pages. Aaah.
Marvelous battery life. High contrast, no backlighting. Weird feature allowing Twitter and Facebook sharing with a few thumb gestures (easy e-erudition!) to clog up Feeds of friends with “Here’s something someone else said.”
I read faster with a Kindle, and am fairly certain I retain as much (or as little) as with a regular book.
Online dictionary. A rudimentary web browser – using it is like examining the runty spawn of a tablet and an Etch-a-Sketch. Look at it, go “Hunh. Kinda surprised it works at all.” and find it unusable after two minutes.
And walking around with eBook versions of novels that are near and dear grant a sense of power. I could look up pet phrases and be able to cite them in, like 30-45 seconds! Shake-n-Bake pretension in less than a minute! Assuming the eBook version isn’t riddled with typography errors. They often are, which might lead to my pronouncing “Slouching towards Bethel men to be born.” to grave embarrassment, point lost, dash into the bathroom until the other denizens of the salon have ceased with their clucking at my expense, embark their carriages, and return to their estates.
Having a Kindle in my possession makes each step a stomp with tremors that make the hordes of cretins tremble. That’s how it feels. Truer effect: puts even more of a lilt in my step, making it anthropologically MORE likely I will be selected out for abuse. Do your worst, bullies. My kids’ll be the boss of your kids.
Update on 2011-05-18 05:59 by Derek Denton
I find my eyes wandering to Katherine McPhee in a yellow dress in the post below. Yes, she’s a dolt and a few decades younger than me. Since it’s just us, I don’t mind confiding that. Don’t let the rest of the internet know that I have eyes, a sense of aesthetics, and am a primate with biological urges. Thanks!
Response to a visual
Thunderous ripples into flesh, dampened by will, borne stoically as if no vibration at all.
I quit ‘American Idol’. Brain: “Thank you!”
I started watching ‘American Idol’ mid-way through the first season. Thought “Wow, that is a LOT of Coca-Cola logos all over the place all the time.” and “This is dorky.” and “That Brian Dunkelman guy and his ‘I’m so much BETTER than this dorkiness’ dorkiness is annoying. At least that Ryan Seacrest acts like he’s psyched to have a job.” Meh about the singers and their drama. Liked the damaged goods stripper mom about to get damaged-er Nikki McKibbin. Thought the boo-ing of Simon Cowell stupid – golly, he was the only one with constructive advice! Blah blah.
Even during the first season, I pegged that the whole process GUARANTEED I would never, ever end up buying a recording by a finalist, or even a contestant. All of the headcases, the interesting people, the oddballs, were weeded out. They are the only ones who make decent music.
Though, yes, clearly Clay Aiken looks like he’s into some dark, dark shit.
Yet, I kept watching.
It had watercooler value, providing good baseline conversations with people while out ‘n’ about. Weekly fascination with guessing at Paula Abdul’s biochemical state. Would she be slurry? Would she make shamanistic proclamations only fully apprehended weeks, months, generations hence?
And Simon Cowell. Sage observations on ‘Idol’. In his professional life: purveyor of crap. He masterminded the “No, really, is this shit serious?” opera boy band Il Divo. It is impossible to look at a photo of Il Divo and not laugh. I double-dog dare you.
If given some quiet, I can name all of the ‘American Idol’ champs. But I still have never, ever purchased a related recording. Not even William Hung’s “She Bangs”. If I hold to that for another 60 years, please note that in my obituary.
Paula “left”, replaced by a semi-dessicated groovy (but totally type-A) music industry chick who kept leaning over to the camera when she SHOULD NEVER LEAN FORWARD TO THE CAMERA unless she’s wearing something up to her neck. She had a funny moment with Bikini Chick, but otherwise, I’m glad to not have to look at her or listen to her again. Ah, I’m pretending to not know the woman’s name. I totally know her name. It’s Kara DioGuardi.
This year, I watched all the auditions and the whittling down. Then the last five weeks I’ve deleted unwatched ‘American Idol’ episodes off the DVR. And that’s, okay. Is it because any enterprise where Randy Jackson is considered the aesthetic anchor is doomed? Mebbe.
In farewell, I post two emblematic moments that stick in my head years after they happened on ‘American idol’. Katherine McPhee’s yellow dress. Kevin Couvais (aka “Chicken Little”) and his goofy shuffle across the stage to “Part Time Lover”.
Goodbye, ‘American Idol’. I wish you and your cross-promotions and product placements well. Seacrest, out.
‘Sex at Dawn’ – THAT should help the Google-hits!
One of two favorite books I read in 2010. Sex columnist Dan Savage had been PRAISING Sex at Dawn, having co-author Christopher Ryan on for an episode of the Savage Love Podcast (highly recommended – entertaining, pragmatic, political, frothy and available on iTunes – no, I don’t get a commission).
Ever seen porn? Heard of porn? Anyway, people enjoy watching other people have sex. People like pondering other people having sex. People like imagining themselves having non-procreational sex. Yet, admitting this is a source of shame.
How many times must we see moral zealots revealed to be unhappy hypocrites about what they profess compared to what they truly like? How many times among our friends? Us? Hell, remember how then-Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders got pressured to resign for acknowledging that masturbation is a natural activity?
“A 2005 survey of 12,000 adolescents found that those who had pledged to remain abstinent until marriage were more likely to have oral and anal sex than other teens, less likely to use condoms, and just as likely to contract sexually transmitted diseases as their unapologetically non-abstinent peers. The study’s authors found that 88 percent of those who pledged abstinence admitted to failing to keep their pledge.”
This book takes on a lot of long-held anthropological assumptions and knocks them down. We are not aggressive apes prone to violence over territory, as chimpanzees are. We are closer to bonobos. Bonobos rub genitals together in greeting, and have sex with each other. A lot. It reinforces social bonds. It feels good. It was what early humans did before the development of agriculture. Before the establishment of harvests, of property, of having more stuff than other people – including claiming dominion over mates.
“On the question of human/bonobo similarities concerning stress, it’s interesting to note that when bombs fell near them in World War II, all the bonobos in the zoo died from the stress the explosions caused, while none of the chimps perished (according to de Waal and Lanting, 1998).”
This book is ambitious, and has great humor. It strives to be an updated Kinsey report, but even broader and deeper with detailed looks at neurology, anatomy (sexual organs, sexual processes/mechanics, hormones and health), sociology, gender studies, sexual attitudes across many cultures, primate-to-primate behaviors. It examines what we actually do, and why. Not what we profess to do. Never thought I’d read paragraphs about “sperm competition” and find them so enthralling. Not prurient, but “Oh, wow.”
It’s pretty good at the take-downs of unsound, enduring, widespread anthropological assumptions. Doesn’t feel as solid on the cases it builds up. It does demand a lot of thought by the reader on what makes us as humans happy, biology v. social conditioning, wants and needs on both a species-wide and personal scale. Expect to do a lot of reflection and rummaging through your past and present.
BEFORE you go all inward in front of your computer display/smartphone right now, let me intervene and delay your impending epiphany.
Did you know that Kellog’s cereal was formed by Seventh Day Adventist brothers who worked in a sanitarium trying to dampen libidos? Check it:
“Though widely considered to be one of the leading sex educators of his day, Kellogg proudly claimed never to have had intercourse with his wife in over four decades of marriage. But he did require a handsome male orderly to give him an enema every morning—an indulgence his famously high-fiber breakfasts should have made unnecessary. […] These men believed that any spices or strong flavors excited sexual energies, so they recommended bland diets to dampen the libido. Graham crackers and unsweetened breakfast cereal were originally marketed to parents of adolescent boys as foods that would help them evade the evils of masturbation.”
Update
on 2011-05-20 05:11 by Derek Denton
I danced around a core issue in the book: monogamy. Scores of statistics that our mass national shock, SHOCK at people who are non-monogamous contain an abundance of fucking hypocrites. Other, more pragmatic nations laugh at our pretense and vestiges of Puritanism, and inability to hold to them. The book looks at scores of human societies with completely different practices on sexual exclusivity/possession with startling extremes on both ends. And at our biology, and what we admit to anonymously about actual sexual exclusivity.
What if we’re not wired for it? Long-term exclusivity does happen, happily, but think of the broad cliché (even assumption) of a couple seething at each other with longterm resentments/tolerance and lack of affection, yet they are obliged to stay together. Think of friends who separated or divorced. Or maybe you have yourself. Was it a clean break? Or even when dating – crisp transitions from one relationship to the other, or vague, sloppy, bewildering periods? If people are not sexually compatible with one another, but compatible and happy in other ways, are they obliged to shut that part of themselves and their identity off?
As I’m typing this, a lot of tsk-tsking over Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver’s divorce is going on with the media. Is it sad a family is breaking up? Sure (we assume). Do we know all that was going on in that marriage? No. Do we project on them anyway? Oh, yes.
I am not of the “Let’s leave [celebrities steeped in scandal-of-the-day] ALONE.” There is HUGE comedy to be mined in paragons of beauty or morality caught being mammals just like us. It’s a privilege we have. Idols are built then torn down. For thousands of years.
Any-hoo, the book puts all these ideas out there, and then … leaves you wondering what should we be striving for as a society. It makes for a tough, challenging, deep read.
Mebbe the world is fulla weirdos?
Midway through a lunch hour I’ll break out the journal book and start scribbling. High-minded stuff occasionally, mostly dirty stuff. Deeply inward, slouched over, intermittently leaning back and laughing, other times frustrated how it reads like other parts I’ve written. A burst of goofy inspiration splashes on the page, I get happy, lean back again with another laugh or shake my head at some in-joke that’s been embedded and whether it will get a laugh. Then I’ll wonder what scene this behavior paints:
A gangly-ish, frumpy-ish dude in, as a neighbor described me, “corporate Joe” office regalia, seated solo making a series of pained faces, O faces, smirky faces. Occasional fidgeting and perusal of books, Kindle, reference sheets, notes. More smirking/anguish/maniacal rotations of postures and sounds.
Then I’ll look around and see a sprinkling of other hermits seated alone among the crowd. Some of them working intensely on something (usually on a laptop). I tend to write in places with lots of people around. Then I’ll glance at the tables with conversations going on. Presumably folks arrived in troupes from nearby workplaces. Maybe they choose each other’s company. Maybe some of them were press ganged and wish they could have a patch of solitude away from work.
Photo is of my pen, my notebook (at the time – now FILLED, bay-bee!, like, three journals ago!), and a fragment of pencil lead left behind at the table by a previous occupant.
Anne Sexton at home
Don’t know why this footage exists, but it’s compelling. The Spanish subtitles add to it. Does attunement and sublime expression require someone to be cracked?
One instance of getting smarter with age.
Confounded by old notes the last few minutes realized I confused “Andromeda” w/ “Andromache” spelling it “Andromachae” when I meant “Danaë” all along. WTF, me from five years ago!?!
Facebook a mural of holiday letters
My Facebook biota is full of people browsing, reluctant to contribute, unwilling to extend and be vulnerable.
That makes it less compelling to me. Still valuable as a news feed. Still good for bursts of life’s most presentable aspects scrubbed and groomed like sentences from family holiday newsletters. Feels like a shift more to posturing, less personal bravery. Even under pedestrian expressions (“Hey, gotta make another trip to the grocery store! LOLZ!”), chthonic frustrations can be readily detected (“If SOME people had planned a little better I wouldn’t be going to this goddamned grocery store again and having a SUPER-TEDIOUS conversation with the same clerk who will remark on how I’m back again 20 minutes later implying that I don’t have my shit together!”) – but I don’t want to have to work THAT hard.
I still like it for the quick-hit sense of interpersonal geography. A map of where people I know are, what they’re doing. Expands my sense of the breadth of the world – traveling to and from work can be a existential tunnel.
Many brave friends who have been willing to be vulnerable and articulate have burned out on Facebook and dropped off that mental map. Frequent thought of late: “Why is the News Feed less aesthetic, more anesthetic?” Several still hold on, the depth is appreciated (especially you who got notice from me about this blog – thank you).
Whittling down the list of Facebook friends might help. My list is too long, and I hear from people over and over they appreciate my posts, but they never interact with me. “Thank you!” I say to the compliment. “Grrr…” I say inwardly about these lurkers.
That dynamic has an advantage from a public relations standpoint, but what I’m perhaps yearning for is contact. Or solidarity with other people with peculiar brains. “Peculiar” = perceptive and honest. Life is damned peculiar, being peculiar shows attunement.
Emotional fitness test
Took a fitness test on an elliptical machine the last two trips to the gym, noticed my pulse RISES when listening to melancholy music, drops when listening to funk/soul.
Realistic diagnosis: memory of past dramas gets the adrenaline going.
Preferred diagnosis: I was born funky, bass is my baseline.