How to follow up a sublime and funky thread that has established four new internet traditions and killed at least two performers of Franz Schubert’s tempestuous piano Sonata No. 21 in B flat (D.960)?

By having <a href=”http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2009/11/20quatro.html”>Catherine and Heathcliff audition for <i>Twilight</i></a>, that’s how.

Matt Matravers emails and asks me to post for CT readers:

bq. Many of you “posted”:https://crookedtimber.org/2009/03/25/remembering-brian-barry/ very kind and moving messages about Brian Barry when he died. If you knew Brian in the last many years, then you knew Brian and Anni. Since I don’t have any way of contacting people individually, I am posting this. I hope readers will forgive the impersonal nature of the contact.

bq. I learnt today (Thursday) that Anni died overnight at home. She had been feeling unwell with what she thought was a ‘chest infection’. The doctors diagnosed pneumonia and pressed her to go into hospital yesterday, but she resisted saying that she, in any case, was feeling a bit better. A neighbour found her this morning.

bq. I do not have any further details, but I’ll do my best to inform people when I do. Anni was a lovely person, a force of nature, and something special.

Very sad news indeed. I remember visiting Anni and Brian at their flat near the British Museum. There was a great atmosphere, fine conversation, and lots of opera.

UPDATE: The following announcement will appear in the Guardian:

bq. Anni Barry (Anni Parker) of Bury Place, London died peacefully in her sleep on 3rd December 2009 after a short illness.

bq. Her funeral will take place at 2pm on Monday 21st December in the West Chapel at Golders Green Crematorium.

bq. Flowers welcome.

bq. If sketchy in other regards, _Brother West_ is never anything but expansive on how Cornel West feels about Cornel West. He is deeply committed to his committed-ness, and passionately passionate about being full of passion. Various works of art, literature, music, and philosophy remind West of himself. He finds Augustinian humility to be deeply meaningful. This is mentioned in one sentence. His taste for three-piece suits is full of subtle implications that require a couple of substantial paragraphs to elucidate.

From “Scott’s _IHE_ evisceration”:http://www.insidehighered.com/views/mclemee/mclemee267 of Cornel West’s latest effusion. Recommended.

Update: I want to be finished with this, but probably should “respond to Edward Champion’s pissy little attack”:http://www.edrants.com/scott-mclemee-a-wildly-weak-and-untrained-mind/ on Scott, since I helped launch this snowball down the hill in the first place. The bit about Scott not having published a book is fair enough, as far as it goes (which isn’t very far). But the bit about how Scott is “a man who doesn’t even possess a bachelor’s degree” is not. Academic credentialism is a pretty shitty substitute for argument – and if Champion disagrees and really wants to play that game, he should perhaps cough up a bit more about his own academic accolades and accomplishments for those (like himself) who care about these things. The crack about how:

his crude and lifeless essays have proven so soporific that, in 2004, the National Book Critics Circle awarded him the dubious Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing for his unadventurous pursuits. It was a questionable distinction, enervated by the fact that only a handful of out-of-touch elitists actually care about this dubious accolade

acquires a somewhat different resonance if one knows that Champion ran against Scott to be elected to the board of aforesaid organization – and lost. One can only presume that their failure to elect him by acclaim is Complete and Sufficient Evidence of their out-of-touch-eliteyness.

Champion is a bit of a sad sack – a gnawer-over of scraps of literary carrion disdained by larger predators and snarler at those whom he fears might take them away from him. And furthermore a writer possessed of a wavering and uncertain grasp of the English language (viz. the rummy use of ‘enervated’ in the passage above) and perpetrator of such metaphors as “a superficial conclusion distressingly reminiscent of a teabagger’s uninformed protest.”

Update 2: “Scott responds to the fried chicken nonsense”:http://www.insidehighered.com/views/mclemee/mclemee268 in his new _IHE_ column.

I know that there is some competition, but David Kopel’s “explanation”:http://volokh.com/2009/11/30/swiss-vote-to-ban-minarets/ of the minaret vote as perhaps the only plausible response that solid Swiss burghers could make to secret conspiracies and sweetheart deals between their government and the “Islamonazis of Tehran” surely ranks as the most flat-out insane Volokh Conspiracy post ever. If I were one of the saner Volokh conspiracy contributors (there are several), I would be considering as rapid and public an exit as possible to avoid reputational contamination.

Talking of political philosophers’ job descriptions, Michael Sandel’s Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? (UK) has been out for a while now, but only just reviewed in the NYT (by Jonathan Rauch). It has the virtues that Sandel has honed over the years (and were notably absent from his first, influential, book): he has the remarkable ability to keep things clear and complex at the same time, and resists the temptation to repeat himself for the sake of the ungenerous or slow-witted reader. Rauch is right that the chapter on Kant is a gem, but equally striking is the chapter on Rawls which is accurate (as the earlier book wasn’t always), fair-minded, and to the point (and even, at the end, inspiring). The Economist review says, that he nudges the reader toward Aristotle, by being harder on the consequentialist and Kant-inspired accounts of justice, but that’s not really my read of the book: unless his experience has been radically different from mine, he believes that his students (and, probably, many of his readers) are unduly reluctant to incorporate a concern with personal virtue into their judgments and the book attempts to overcome that bias, putting the different accounts on a more level playing field. Every page makes some real world or literary reference that will be familiar to the non-philosophical reader. A couple of social scientist friends have recommended it to me as something to recommend to other social scientists as an excellent introduction to the field. (Update: See also George’s typically excellent critical review here).

But more to the point, his TV show is almost all up online now, free.

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I don’t know how I missed the breakthrough in fish stick technology mentioned so casually in this article from the Sunday Times:

SCIENTISTS have grown meat in the laboratory for the first time. Experts in Holland used cells from a live pig to replicate growth in a petri dish.
The advent of so-called “in-vitro” or cultured meat could reduce the billions of tons of greenhouse gases emitted each year by farm animals — if people are willing to eat it.
So far the scientists have not tasted it, but they believe the breakthrough could lead to sausages and other processed products being made from laboratory meat in as little as five years’ time.
They initially extracted cells from the muscle of a live pig. Called myoblasts, these cells are programmed to grow into muscle and repair damage in animals.
The cells were then incubated in a solution containing nutrients to encourage them to multiply indefinitely. This nutritious “broth” is derived from the blood products of animal foetuses, although the intention is to come up with a synthetic solution.
…
The Dutch experiments follow the creation of “fish fillets” derived from goldfish muscle cells in New York and pave the way for laboratory-grown chicken, beef and lamb.
…
The Vegetarian Society reacted cautiously yesterday, saying: “The big question is how could you guarantee you were eating artificial flesh rather than flesh from an animal that had been slaughtered. It would be very difficult to label and identify in a way that people would trust.” Peta, the animal rights group, said: “As far as we’re concerned, if meat is no longer a piece of a dead animal there’s no ethical objection.”

That’s the “big question”? I’m guessing that Dr. Kass will find this even more repugnant than the public licking of an ice cream cone.

I hadn’t been following the story of Switzerland’s efforts to ban the construction of minarets. Switzerland has about 400,000 muslims and — though there are many mosques — precisely four minarets. The referendum succeeded by a comfortable majority. As you can see from the poster, the rights of women under Islam were pointed to as a reason to support the ban. The Guardian reports that the pro-ban SPP

said that going to the European court would breach the popular sovereignty that underpins the Swiss democratic model and tradition … It dismissed the arguments about freedom or religion, asserting that minarets were not a religious but a political symbol, and the thin end of a wedge that would bring sharia law to the country, with forced marriages, “honour” killings, female genital mutilation and oppression of women … The prohibition also found substantial support on the left and among secularists worried about the status of women in Islamic cultures. Prominent feminists attacked minarets as male power symbols, deplored the oppression of Muslim women, and urged a vote for the ban.

The Times reports that there’s some evidence that more women were in favor of the ban than men, too. One can only suppose that, having waited until 1971 to give women the vote in Federal elections, and in some parts of the country until 1990 in Cantonal elections, the Swiss are now making up for lost time making good on their commitment to feminism.

While Australia has been transfixed by the meltdown of the Liberal (=conservative) party over climate change, there have been a string of positive developments around the world, which make a positive outcome from Copenhagen, leading over the next year to an intermational agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions, much more likely than it seemed two years ago, or even six months ago. Among the most important developments

* Obama’s commitment to a 17 per cent (rel 2005) target, which essentially puts the Administration’s credibility behind Waxman-Markey
* China’s acceptance of a quantitative emissions target, based on emissions/GDP ratios, but implying a substantial cut relative to business as usual
* The change of government in Japan, from do-little LDP to activist DPJ
* EU consensus on the need for stronger action
* Acceptance of the principle of compensation for developing countries, and acceptance by countries like India that they should take part in a global agreement and argue for compensation
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Alex’s mention of Hancock reminds me that Alan Simpson, half of the greatest comedy writing team in the English language ever, is 80 today. If you’re English, celebrate by watching this. If you’re American, you can watch this instead (and thank Galton and Simpson for having a deeper understanding of American culture than the network bosses who persistently rejected Redd Foxx as the star). Happy Birthday, Mr. Simpson,and thanks.

My post yesterday was about how politicians seize on the academic research the suits their agenda rather than being disposed to listen to good arguments. Dog bites man, you might think. A similar phenomenon is at work in the elevation of minor academics who can give a bit of intellectual sheen to some political project or other. I was astounded, watching Newsnight a couple of evenings ago, to hear someone touted as a major British political philosopher. After all, I’ve taught the subject, in Britain, for over twenty years, and I’ve never heard of him. Of course, I might just be ignorant, and he might be a previously overlooked genius. Step forward Philip Blond, formerly a theology lecturer at the University of Cumbria and now being promoted as the philosophical voice behind David Cameron’s “new” Toryism. A brief perusal of what’s available on the web doesn’t suggest to me that I’m missing anything. But I’m often wrong, so I’m open to correction.

Via Tyler Cowen, Lev Grossman of _Time_ and _The Magicians_ (which I liked quite a bit, up to the end, but didn’t love) provides his personal list of the “six best fantasy novels of all time”:http://techland.com/2009/11/24/the-six-greatest-fantasy-novels-of-all-time/. I’ll observe that any list of ‘best novels’ which includes one series consisting of short stories plus one to three novels, depending on how strictly you define the term (Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and Gray Mouser series) and one short story collection (Kelly Link’s _Magic for Beginners_ ) has some oddities – but since I like both of these series a lot, I shan’t raise a fuss. A thread on best fantasy novels seems like a good Thanksgiving occupation for those so inclined, so here are my 6, in no particular order.

(1) John Crowley, _Little, Big_
(2) Gene Wolfe’s _Book of the New Sun_ (critics may cavil that it is in fact Dying Earth SF, but under Michael Swanwick’s argument that fantasy, unlike science fiction, has mystery at the heart of its universe, I contend that they are wrong).
(3) Paul Park’s Romania quartet.
(4) M. John Harrison, _The Course of the Heart._
(5) China Mieville, the Bas-Lag books.
(6) Michael Swanwick, _The Iron Dragon’s Daughter_

I’ll note that this list is in many ways dull and predictable – none of these choices are likely to surprise anyone tolerably well read in the genre. But canons can have useful social purposes – they point towards books that are central to the conversation the genre is having with itself. Others should feel free to be more adventurous.

“3 Quarks Daily”:http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2009/11/3-quarks-daily-prize-in-politics.html are running another competition, this time for best political post, with Tariq Ali as final adjudicator. Those so inclined should get over there and nominate. NB that this is not an implicit bleg to nominate CT posts – if you really want to, go ahead, but the major social benefit of competitions like this is to uncover posts and posters that would otherwise be unlikely to get much public attention. While CT’s readership is respectable rather than enormous, I suspect that most of the web-savvy people who would be inclined to like CT have probably already been exposed to it. Hence, any benefit that we receive is likely to be proportionately much less than would accrue to other, smaller blogs which don’t get nearly as much attention as they deserve.

Okay, so he’s 65 and perhaps his voice isn’t what it once was – actually, I’m not sure his voice was ever what it once was – I haven’t seen him play live for probably 25 years, so I can’t really remember too well. But oh, those songs! He’s touring in support of a new cd called “The Kinks Choral Collection”. Some of his gigs have been with chorus, but I saw him the other day without – around 45 minutes of just him and the incredible Bill Shanley on guitar, followed by a full-on band blow-out. Amazing stuff from throughout his career – early and late Kinks along with his recent solo albums. He certainly was in fine spirits – he kept cracking himself up with lots of funny stories and interaction with the audience – and did I mention that the songs just don’t quit, although, no, he didn’t play “Thanksgiving Day.” Looks like he’s headed back across the Atlantic next month – Cambridge, Birmingham, Glasgow, Manchester, and London. Definitely worth seeing.

Ezra Klein has a bloggingheads diavwossname in which he makes – among other points – pretty much the same point he makes at the end of this column. Namely, a good diet isn’t a function of not eating a huge amount on Thanksgiving. It’s a matter of eating a little better consistently. But then he goes on to note that it’s surprisingly hard to get people really to get this, never mind actually doing it. (The major problem not being convincing people they can enjoy Thanksgiving, but making them appreciate that minor bits of diet discipline can make a major difference.) If so, it seems to follow that people are more clueless about diet than exercise. Because very few people think it makes sense to get up one morning, notice you haven’t exercised for years, and try to fix that by going to the gym for 8 hours. You could injure yourself pretty bad, true. Apart from that, one day won’t matter. But somehow the diet fix (the quick make or break) seems to have a certain fetishistic appeal. That carton of Ben & Jerry’s killed my diet! No weight-lifter ever thinks skipping bench-press for one day caused his pectorals to shrivel. Bodies don’t work like that. Or are there people out there so luckless in the metabolic department that whenever they gain a few pounds, even from a single big meal, their body sort of ratchets up and locks at that level? I do recognize that people have metabolic ‘set points’, and some folks are less lucky in that regard. Are there metabolic types such that every higher weight becomes a set point? If so, I feel sorry for you. For the rest: Happy Thanksgiving! Eat a lot! (It’s fun, and sociable!)

But you knew that already.

So what do you think: are significant numbers of people more confused about how eating works than are confused about how exercise works, in that they mistakenly believe in the quick make or break strategy?