A plucky gang of writing chums thwarts the plots of nefarious vanity publisher – and a few others besides. Plots, that is. It’s A Nest of Ninnies meets Carl Hiassen and John Grisham and they all drink each other under the table together. Here’s how it all happened. Here are links to supporting documentation. It’s "certain to resonate with an audience." A selection from chapter 2:
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John Holbo
Basically, you’re a razor, and you have to run through a number of
increasingly weird 3D levels, chasing cats, and shaving their balls.
The cats get increasingly hard to find, and there are an amazing number
of them. There are tabbies, tortoise-shells, Siamese, and cougars. As
you complete levels the razor gets more powerful and you have to be
careful not to hurt the cats or neuter them. When you succeed in
shaving a cat’s balls, it spits up a diamond that you can collect.
Next time I teach Grice on conversational implicature and the Cooperative Principle, I think I’ll use this sentence as an example of how not to be maximally relevant:
In Trier, Germany, birthplace of Karl Marx, the prosecutor’s
office has been investigating the claim of a woman that babies were
being cut up and eaten in Satanist rituals.
Link via Jonathan Goodwin, who reliably bursts with timely and topical quotations. Such as this:
Philosophical works among [the Solipsists] are more or less of this
sort: “Does the scarab roll dung into a ball paradigmatically?” “If a
mouse urinates in the sea, is there a risk of shipwreck?” “Are
mathematical points receptacles for spirits?” “Is a belch an exhalation
of the soul?” “Does the barking of a dog make the moon spotted?” and
many other arguments of this kind, which are stated and discussed with
equal contentiousness. Their Theological works are: “Whether navigation
can be established in imaginary space.” “Whether the intelligence known
as Burach has the power to digest iron.” “Whether the souls of the Gods
have color.” “Whether the excretions of Demons are protective to humans
in the eighth degree.” “Whether drums covered with the hide of an ass
delight the intellect.”
Discuss. In strict accordance with Grice’s Cooperative Principle. That is, "make your conversational contribution [concerning the protective puissance of demon excretions, etc.] such as is
required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or
direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged."
I’ve gotten myself involved in something a little unusual (for me, anyway). I’m on the program committee of OOPSLA ’05. Specifically, I’ll be reading submissions in the ‘essay’ track. These are supposed to contain "in-depth reflections on technology, its relation to human endeavors, and its philosophical, sociological, psychological, historical, or anthropological underpinnings." I’m announcing it here because academic folk with solid but untechnical essays that fit the bill might not necessarily think to submit to a conference nominally devoted to object-oriented programming. I’m quite curious what sorts of things I’ll be reading. Should be fun.
1 Three Things About Miéville
This post will be substantially pastiche of others I’ve written about China Miéville; remasticated bits encrusted around critical consideration of his new novel, Iron Council. No plots spoiled.
I’m going to pose a few questions for the author. I am not usually
one for sniffing out intentionality behind the scenes, mind you. (Not
that I think there is anything indecent about that angle.) But
unusually, in this case, I find I am curious what the man can have been
thinking. How admirably the world is arranged, since – oddly – he may
answer.
Now a brief statement, not of my thesis, but of the obvious, to which my thesis hopes to bear a sturdy relationship.
1) Miéville is a superlative subcreator, to use Tolkien’s term of
art for the art of fantastic world-building. 2) Miéville is a polemical
critic of Tolkien – more so: of Tolkien’s generic legacy – on behalf of
an allegedly more mature conception of fantasy as a genre. 3) Miéville
himself tells stories which are substantially in line with generic
fantasy conventions, in terms of overall form, also in terms of many
types of detail.
So a critical question about Miéville is whether 1) suffices to back
2), with some to spare; for 3) has a notable tendency to corrode the
credibility of 2).
One possibility also to be considered is that 2) is just snarky fun Miéville had, being a punk blowing steam on a webpage. Then 1) and 3) needn’t fight each other by proxy, knocking over and propping 2), but can simply be considered side by side.
add_filter( 'pre_comment_content', 'wps_filter_comment' ); function wps_filter_comment($comment) { $replace = array( // 'WORD TO REPLACE' => 'REPLACE WORD WITH THIS' 'év' => 'é' ); $comment = str_replace(array_keys($replace), $replace, $comment); return $comment; }Hey, I’m nominated for a Koufax for Best Writing! Since I’m competing against, among others, Crooked Timber, this is a little awkward. But keep in mind that when people say Size Matters, what they mostly mean is that Grotesque Length matters. (How much post you’ve got tucked under the fold. I hope I don’t have to draw you a map.) Vote Holbo.
I’m too much like that Chris Klein character to vote for myself, however. I think I’m voting for Yglesias. I think I learn more from him on a regular basis than from any other blogger. Of course, his posts are drafty and full of typos, so it depends what you mean by ‘best writing’. I figure James Wolcott is going to trounce us all anyway.
Zoë likes They Might Be Giants, "No!". Santa brought it. Amazing how many of the things Santa brought daddy likes, too. "The Edison Museum", for example:
The Edison Museum, not open to the public
Its haunted towers rise into the clouds above
Folks drive in from out of town
To gaze in amazement when they see it
Just outside the gate I look into the courtyard
Underneath the gathering thunderstorm
Through the iron bars, I see the Black Mariah
Revolving slowly in its platform
In the topmost tower, the lights burn dim
A coiling filament glowing within
The Edison Museum, once a bustling factory
Today is but a darkened cobweb covered hive of industry
The tallest, widest and most famous haunted mansion
in New Jersey!
Behind a wooden door, the voice of Thomas Alva
Recites a poem on a phonograph
Ghosts float up the stairs, like silent moving pictures
The loyal phantoms of his in house staff
A wondrous place it is, there can be no doubt
But no one ever goes in, and no one ever goes out
The Edison Museum, not open to the public
Its haunted towers rise into the clouds above it
The largest independently-owned and operated mausoleum.
As Henry James might have said, for actual implies possible (see p. 18): "It was an adventure, unmistakeably, … to be learning at last, in the maturity of one’s powers, what New Jersey might ‘connote’."
Not what ‘New Jersey’ might connote, mind you.
Consider this an open thread only for those in the maturity of their powers.
May I remind you, and this goes as well for those with lesser powers: there are disaster victims who need your help. Please consider donating generously. And – I am sorry to repeat myself – if you were going to buy something from Amazon anyway, please consider using the Search Box under the fold to do so. Costs you the same, and that way 5.75% goes to me and I give it to the Singapore Red Cross. Thank you, those of you who have helped already. (And, to our anonymous drunken monkey offerer of matching funds: they have been met. You may donate your 200 euros now. Thank you!)
I’m preparing to teach Nietzsche and am rereading Genealogy of Morals. Here’s a bit from §7 of the first essay.
One will have divined already how easily the priestly mode of valuation can branch off from the knightly-aristocratic and then develop into its opposite; this is particularly likely when the priestly caste and the warrior caste are in jealous opposition to one another and are unwilling to come to terms. The knightly-aristocratic value judgments presupposed a powerful physicality, a flourishing, abundant, even overflowing health, together with that which serves to preserve it: war, adventure, hunting, dancing, war games, and in general all that involves vigorous, free, joyful activity. The priestly-noble mode of valuation presupposes, as we have seen, other things: it is disadvantageous for it when it comes to war! As is well known, the priests are the most evil enemies – but why? Because they are the most impotent. It is because of their impotence that in them hatred grows to monstrous and uncanny proportions, to the most spiritual and poisonous kind of hatred. The truly great haters in world history have always been priests; likewise the most ingenious haters: other kinds of spirit hardly come into consideration when conpared with the spirit of priestly vengefulness. Human history would be altogether too stupid a thing without the spirit that the impotent have introduced into it.
A couple things struck me about this old familiar passage this time around. (But you tell me.)
Belle and I just got back from a weekend on Bintan (A little getaway we had planned before all this happened.) It was a bit strange to be in a completely disaster-free corner of a disaster-stricken country. Tourists. If you didn’t turn on the news you wouldn’t have had a clue anything unusual was going on. It rained. I reread Hermann Hesse’s The Glass Bead Game, about which I am meaning to post something. Belle has started sewing this quilt thingy. (You can ask her about it.) The Filipino band at the New Years party was pretty good. They played “Achy Breaky Heart”, etc. I am always amazed to see all the latest movies for sale right there in the lobby of the hotel. I do mean ‘latest’: “National Treasure” on DVD. “The Incredibles” was playing on the big screen TV in the hotel pub. Not a very good quality pirate version, but watchable.
After three days, my Amazon fundraiser has worked modestly. Tomorrow I’m writing a $250 check to the Singapore Red Cross. (That’s $100 from me, $150 from you, guestimating a bit. Special thanks to the proud owner of a new and expensive camera lens.) Please feel free to continue buying. If there is something you were going to buy anyway, it makes good sense to do so in a way that helps.
I have seen the Red Cross praised as exemplary and criticized as burdened with inefficient, overpaid bureaucrats. (No doubt there are good discussions going on out there about this very issue. I just haven’t been reading the blogs for a few days.) I figure the Singaporean branch is as likely as any to have useful local knowledge and connections. Not to mention we live here. Feel free to critique my choice of charities, as I haven’t signed the check yet.
UPDATE: Thanks, whoever ordered four spanking new LaCie terabyte drives! (I’m assuming one person bought all four. What do you need that space for, mystery reader?) Thanks also to the new owners of various moderately pricey DVD collections. I had a busy day. By the time I actually wrote the check to the Singapore Red Cross tonight it was for S$850.00 (US $518.) I’m sort of hoping at this rate I can write another check that big by Feb 1. Give generously. Buy generously.
OK, first things first. A kind donor has agreed to match funds to the tune of 200 euros on any amount raised in our little Amazon disaster relief thingy. This person wishes to be identified as: "’One of the blogging world’s most incisive commentators, inventor of the orbital mind-control laser and 19th dan master of "Drunken Monkey" kung fu."
That’s very interesting. Do you know, I have a DVD for Mad Monkey Kung Fu, starring Lau Kar-leung (a.k.a. Liu Chia Liang, a.k.a. General Fu who fights Jacky Chan in Drunken Master II.) Sadly, Mad Monkey is Region 3 only and unavailable from Amazon. But if you get the chance, snark out on it. You should check out the sequel, Drunken Monkey. Good Unforgiven Fu – that’s kicking people while wearing a duster. The usual Indestructible Old Man Fu. Again only Region 3. (Sigh. You poor folks never get to see any good movies.) But here’s a nice site with links to cool trailers and galleries. As I quoted somewhere or other "a monkey that is inebriated is most funny."
My buy generously post below was unclear. (I was assuming folks understand how Amazon Associates works. Silly assumption.) You don’t have to buy the very items I linked. You can click any link and then search around and buy anything. I just tossed out a basket of big ticket bestsellers because direct link %’s are a little higher. Buy anything from Amazon through me and at least 5.75% of what you pay goes to me, which I (informally, not in any legally problematic way) pledge to give to disaster relief. My point wasn’t that the time is perfect to buy glitzy DVD’s – sorry if that seemed crass. I meant: buy something. I’ve stuck a convenient Amazon searchbox under the fold. Go ahead and use it.
Once again, I encourage other bloggers with Amazon Associates to follow suit. (I see Henry has already done so. Good!) The quarter is ending. Shake that little jar of change you were planning to spend on silly stuff. Give for something serious. Henry has pledged to keep up the giving through next quarter. I am happy to do the same. The logic of this is very sound. By doing this we are in effect giving immediately and agreeing to carry a little bit of debt for a short time, since the money is needed now. It would be very nice if many bloggers did this, announced it, then folks made a point of buying the stuff they were going to buy from Amazon anyway through them. (Of course this is informal, so the bloggers could just pocket the money. But if the blogger is someone you personally trust not to be such a bastard as to steal petty cash from disaster victims, the level of broken pledges should be low.)
I’m suffering from jags of survivor guilt. I really can’t bear to read the news. As Belle and I posted at our other blog, we were planning a Phuket/Koh Phi Phi Thai X-Mas junket for our whole extended family. But it fell through when the stateside folks decided they couldn’t hack the weirdness and distance and expense. So I am plagued by images of what it would have been like with Belle on the beach, 3-year old daughter to the left of me, 8-month old daughter to the right. Also, we’ve been to Phuket and Phi Phi several times and can’t help thinking about all the nice folks who were always so nice to us. I’m sure many of them are dead and many of the rest have had their livelihood destroyed, at least for the time being.
So Belle and I are donating the humble proceeds from our Amazon Associates Account for the quarter. So far that comes to almost exactly $100. A nice round number to pony up for starters. Given that I have resolved to donate x, where x = my commissions, you might consider buying some Amazon products through my Associates account. Hint, hint. Just look under the fold. I’m not an incorporated charity or anything, so don’t come demanding financial statements. But most of us are gonna buy some Amazon gear this year, am I right? So buy it now and – as it so happens – I’ll fire off a check to a reputable charity come the 1st of January [make that January 3, after the weekend]. The bigger the better. (I haven’t decided which charity is best, if that makes a difference to you.) Then I’ll fire off another check two weeks after that to equal whatever amount rolls in late. Then I’ll decide what to do. So if you click to buy after two weeks into the New Year, I’m not promising I’ll still be in the sending checks to charities business. But I’m not intending to turn a profit here, I do solemnly swear. And if you don’t trust me, don’t click. Easy. (I hereby disavow legal obligation to you, is what I’m saying. You’re buying from Amazon. I’m just stating a personal plan.)
I hereby encourage other bloggers – those of you who have hopeful little Amazon begging bowls put out – to follow suit. Pledge your proceeds for the quarter, joe blogger, even if it’s only a few bucks. Say so, so your readers can sweeten the pot. We’re big on chat, we bloggers. But chat isn’t exactly what certain folks need at the moment. [UPDATE: I probably wasn’t clear about this. You can buy any old thing from Amazon using any of the links below and I’ll get a commission. Once you are there, just buy what you want. It’s just there are extra % points if you buy the very thing on the button. Sorry for confusion.]
Tis the season. Open season! On the MLA! I see the NY Times has taken the first potshot. And so I give MLA bashing its first comment box! I must say, I don’t even think we need Chun to tell us this effort is not very impressive. (Scott McLemee‘s "Provokies" were much funnier. I think perhaps he was wise to get out of this business while the getting was good.)
Tragic hipness, multicultural agendizing and an almost abject embrace of low/popular culture converge in titles like " ‘Dude! Your Dress Is So Cute!’ Patterns of Semantic Widening in ‘Dude,’ " an entire session dedicated to papers on Mel Gibson’s "Passion of the Christ," "Urban Expressionism: Theater, Ritual, and the Hip-Hop Generation’s Black Arts Movement," "Utopia in the Borderlands; or, Long Live El Vez the King" (El Vez is a Latino Elvis impersonator), and "A Pynch in Time: The Postmodernity of Prenational Philadelphia in Thomas Pynchon’s Mason and Dixon and Mark Knopfler’s ‘Sailing to Philadelphia’ " (Mr. Knopfler is a rocker best known for wanting his MTV). The clunkiness of all this suggests that eggheads are still nerds, but it that some of them are terribly self-conscious about it now.
The trouble is that the author is so sure it’s all nonsense that he is lazily lumping the patently silly and the just possibly serious. (No, really, when the target is this big you should really try for a clean hit.) What is necessarily wrong with having a panel discussion of "The Passion of Christ"? What is specifically ‘clunky’ about it? (Unless, as seems grammatically possible, the panel is actually called ‘Dude! Your Dress Is So Cute!’ But I sort of suspect that’s not the case.) Also, calling English profs ‘eggheads’? Who calls anyone an ‘egghead’? (Sounds like Foghorn chuckling about widdah Hen’s genius kid.)
I have ever so much more to say but I’ll just declare this an open thread. I welcome reports from actual attendees of the conference. Be more informative and entertaining than the NY Times, if you please. (OK, here’s a specific question for discussion. If it’s alright for bloggers to give their posts very silly titles – which I mostly do – could the MLA solve all its problems, cross that fine line between stupid and clever, just by turning all the conference papers into blog posts?)
Adam Kotsko has an extremely funny post up. The First Letter of Slavoj Zizek to the Corinthians. "To the academic community that is in Corinth and to all those who are called to get off on knowledge and to enjoy their symptom." It’s part of a St. Paul week series, run to rather good effect.
Adam Anthony Smith also links to this Atrios post from a couple days back which I somehow missed. "A life of plenty, of simple pleasures." The school where the booklet in question is being taught claims to teach as well "the writings of Plato and Socrates." Indeed. WWSW?
Thanks for the many comments – many long comments – to my academic groupthink posts, particularly the second. Having dutifully read through, I’m too tired to respond point by point to any more points. I do feel that this exercise – which threatened to be a bit of the old same old/same old – did me much good, writing and reading.
I hope those who followed along feel the same. Otherwise you must be seething.
One commenter requested – for the benefit of those with day jobs, or whose time is valuable – a dsquared-style shorter Holbo for all this.