Reading In A World Of Your Own

There's an article in Newsweek on "Baby Boomers and Books: A Love Affair." The author, Malcolm Jones, tries -- somewhat half-heartedly and unsuccessfully -- to clear the boomers of the charge of narcissism through their reading. Instead, he shows that the books most important to his circle of boomers were written and published during their lifetimes, were targeted to them in particular, and were disproportionately sappy and/or escapist.

The best literature written during the boomers' lifetimes, and which largely accidentally wound up shaping boomers' literary tastes, was neither written by nor for them. On the Road, Howl, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, The Catcher In The Rye -- all of these books were written by and for the generation of G.I.s, the young men (mostly) born in the teens and twenties who came of age in the forties and fifties, who fought for their country and came home to go to school, make art, fight for change, and create a world of sexual, social, and artistic freedom, sometimes in cities, sometimes in small groups, sometimes completely on their own.

The Kennedys were of the G.I. generation; so was Martin Luther King, Jr. (slightly too young for WWII), Thurgood Marshall (slightly too old), Rosa Parks, Betty Friedan, Dick Leitsch and the other early organizers for gay rights, and virtually all of the other political figures we associate with the 1960s.

In literature, the GI generation includes Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery, Truman Capote, Harper Lee, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Richard Wright (a little long in the tooth with this group), Saul Bellow, Kurt Vonnegut, Ray Bradbury, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Flannery O'Connor, Norman Mailer, Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, Robert Duncan, and Elizabeth Bishop. In short, virtually every writer we associate with substantial achievement in postwar American literature. Even Phillip Roth, Thomas Pynchon, Toni Morrison, John Updike, and Sylvia Plath were born in the 1930s. Calling them boomers is like calling the Harlem Renaissance and young modernist generation GIs.

The only unifying cultural experiences for baby boomers, and in which they led the charge, were the anti-Vietnam movement, 1960s rock and roll, and 1970s cinema. There has been no substantial contribution of the baby boomers to art or literature on anywhere near the scale of the generation preceding them. The rest is narcissism and intrigue.

More Real Than Reality Itself

Jean Baudrillard died on Tuesday.

His obituary in the New York Times is surprisingly sympathetic -- certainly much better than the early Le Monde obit for Derrida -- even if it gets a few things not quite right and needlessly gives more publicity to the intellectual hoaxters Sokal and Bricmont, quoting a passage that probably has nothing to do with Baudrillard. (At least no one seems to be reading Sokal and Bricmont's book.) This might be because either more people in the media understood Baudrillard (writing about their own terrain, not the history of literature and philosophy) or because they didn't understand him at all. You can read the obituary either way.

The next day, it seemed almost as though Baudrillard had played some kind of Bunuelian joke from beyond the grave. Here was the NYT headline from the 7th:

Jean Baudrillard, 77, Critic and Theorist of Hyperreality, Dies

Then, on the 8th, this headline, featured as the lead image on the Times web site:

Captain America Is Dead; National Hero Since 1941

And story after story, announcing his "death," without any mention in the headline that he is an (ostentatiously) fictional character...

Baudrillard would no doubt find this funny, charming, and appropriate. Of course, he would say, my media "death" is no less fictional. Like the Gulf War, it never happened. The only surprise for my death, unlike Captain America's, is that it is news at all.

New Things I Like

1) NetNewsWireLite. I've never really liked RSS readers. Sage for Firefox had gotten buggy, and live bookmarks aren't manageable (or updateable) beyond a certain scale. But this one works, it's super-well integrated with broswers (Firefox, Camino, or Safari) and it's free. I'd been keeping Safari and Firefox both open so I could use Google Chat and read RSS. Not any more.

2) Peel. An MP3 blog reader with a built-in music player. You can play mp3s from music blogs one after another, like it were a radio station, without even navigating to the site.

3) Babble. A web magazine, put together by the people from the online sex mag Nerve, about nontraditional parenting. Kori Gardener from Mates of State contributes a column ("Band On the Diaper Run"), and there's a great feature called "Notes From A Non-Breeder." This entry, about a young man who wants children with partners who don't, is one of the better web pieces I've read in a long time. And I may make a separate post on the Alternadad debates, which have also spilled over into (among other places) David Brooks's column in the New York Times and New York Magazine.

It's crazy to me that people my age are suddenly as interested in nonvanilla parenting as they used to be in nonvanilla sex, but it makes a certain kind of sense. In Philadelphia, the Gayborhood and once-funky Bella Vista are now full of strollers, maternity shops, and a Whole Foods. Plus ça change.

Oh Blog, I Still Love You

I've been spending my unused blog-time posting over at Young Philly Politics, a sometimes-crazy political forum-cum-think tank of (you guessed it) young Philadelphia political bloggers. (Search for "Short Schrift," and you can see what I've written so far.)

Philadelphia's in the runup to a hotly contested mayoral primary, so sometimes the partisan rancor is thick, and sometimes things sink to name-calling and petty arguments, but the site is full of good people. None of whom (I think) I know personally.

I promise to come back strong to Short Schrift soon. There's one idea I've had cooking for a long time that puts New York Times Television to shame. It also involves a big media company, an unexpected move, and cash dollars to be made. But it's a little less obvious, and more specialized to what I do, so it will take a little more explanation.

And with the seed of that poem like a gift from the sun, I say (as the sun said to Mayakovsky and O'Hara), farewell.

Pretty Lady

Music blog Stereogum reports, and Si.com confirms, that Beyoncé Knowles will be the first non-model, non-athlete featured on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.

At great personal sacrifice, I carefully examined Beyoncé's photo set. (Readers can award me a medal for courage later. I only did my duty.)

It should suffice to say that the lady looks fantastic. I don't know what she has to do with sports, but I'm glad that she's in a swimsuit here, and not in, say, FHM. Sports Illustrated always gets great models and photographers, and her set is no exception. It's classy, fun, and seems celebratory rather than spank-inducing.



There are a few shots where things don't quite fit right. I can't tell if it's because Beyoncé's body is slightly different from a typical swimsuit model's, or if it really is just a matter of fit. BK says that her mom designed some of her swimsuits, so I'm guessing it's the latter.

In most of her shots, though, she fits right in, with one important difference. Where models mostly strip themselves of personality to sell the goods, Beyoncé doesn't have to do that. If she's selling anything, it's herself, her movies, and her music. So in her best shots -- and I've posted my three favorites here -- her personality rips right through the camera lens.



In these, she's not artfully posed or facially controlled -- they look like photos you've snapped of your wife or girlfriend, on an especially fun day at the beach. It's weird, because more than anything, they made me think of my wife, and our memories together, and how much I love her. This is an unusual feeling to have while looking at pictures of another beautiful woman. But it's a welcome one all the same.

In The Boring-Ass Bits Of Your Daily Life

Jessica Pressler titled her musings on the ways that memories of an ex-boyfriend/-girlfriend return in strange unexpected moments "Remembrance Of Flings Past," but I like my title better.

Come to think of it, I think I like "In the Boring-Ass Bits Of Your Daily Life" better as a translation of "A la recherche de la temps perdu" too. It certainly captures what Proust meant.

The End of the World (Musically)

Hot on the heels of my Best of 2006 mix CD, I've got another thematic mix that I want to share. This one is called "Not A Single Lonesome Sound: Songs About the End of the World." It's available for download here.

In my 2005 review of Andrew Bird's masterpiece The Mysterious Production of Eggs, I spoke briefly about the musical genre of the "false apocalypse" -- songs that treat the end of the world not as total Revelationary disaster, but as something slightly more mundane and everyday but still altogether strange. I've always liked this concept/motif, and it seems to me that a pop song is a perfect medium for exploring it. A novel is almost necessarily too long and ponderous -- it has to descend into either allegory or an excess of explanation. And an explicit theological treatment would be even worse. Only a song, or perhaps a poem or short story, can capture the right mood, the right amount of wonder in the discovery. Yes, indeed, the world has ended, and its end is nothing like you believed it would be.

My friend Brandon described these songs about the end of the world as having the right balance of sadness and hope. I think Mirah puts it best in "Mount St. Helens" when she sings, "We were alone there... there was still hope there." At the same time, songs like Talking Heads's "Life During Wartime" share the dystopic mood of films like Cuaron's stunning Children of Men. Like Clive Owen's Theo in that film, David Byrne's narrator is matter-of-fact in the face of disaster: "Heard about Houston... heard about Detroit... heard about Pittsburgh, PA." But in a different context in "(Nothing But) Flowers," Byrne is disappointed in paradise: "I miss the honky tonks, Dairy Queens, and 7-Elevens... Don't leave me stranded here, I can't get used to this lifestyle."

All of these songs are imaginative, all of them are musically excellent, and some of them are deeply moving or funny -- sometimes both at the same time. It's odd, too -- listening to them together always manages to cheer me up.

Tracklist:

1. The Microphones - I Want Wind To Blow
2. Built To Spill -- Randy Described Eternity
3. Modest Mouse -- 3rd Planet
4. David Bowie -- The Man Who Sold The World
5. Galaxie 500 -- Leave The Planet
6. Talking Heads -- Life During Wartime [Live]
7. Bob Dylan -- Talking World War III Blues
8. Johnny Cash -- Down There By The Train
9. The Shins -- We Will Become Silhouettes
10. Television -- Marquee Moon
11. Jim O'Rourke -- Get A Room
12. Mirah -- Mount St. Helens
13. Andrew Bird -- Tables and Chairs
14. Talking Heads -- (Nothing But) Flowers
15. The Flaming Lips -- Evil Will Prevail

The Caring Problem

An unlikely, non-music related, thoughtful piece from Chris Dahlen at Pitchfork: Why does Web 2.0 seem to care more about Star Wars than about Africa? A highlight:

All in all, you can find more Star Wars fans and more sci-fi content on the internet than material on Africa. This is partly because sci-fi nerds in the Western world have better net access than most Africans. People also seem more drawn to the relative simplicity of pop culture than to the complexities of real life. Pop culture gives us a world we can understand, and problems we can solve. Or as Ethan Zuckerman told me, "If you're writing 'Buffy [the Vampire Slayer]' fan fic, you may not know the name of the third junior subvampire who showed up for one episode in season four. But someone does, and you can authoriatatively build the Buffy index on Wikipedia." By contrast, "We don't know authoriatatively who's in the Union of Islamic Courts. And we probably never will."

Another interesting point raised by the article: the more developed a national or linguistic blogosphere becomes, the harder it is to find "bridge bloggers" who can relate what's going on to the rest of the world. "When you start getting a larger blogosphere, it makes more sense to talk to your neighbors. And you can see this in Iran, where the Persian language blogosphere doesn't bridge all that much. There are a lot of debates that you just aren't turned into unless you read Persian."

A Possible Future of Media

Originally posted at Snarkmarket. (The link is to the original post -- scroll down to see multiple comments, some of which are mine.)

Why doesn't the New York Times start its own 24-hour cable channel?

The New York Post has its own cable channel -- Fox News -- why not the Times?

(Shit -- Microsoft has its own cable channel, or half of one.)

They are the dominant source of news in both print and on the web -- why not television?

Sulzberger's been buying up internet sinkholes and fading newspapers -- why not jump into the 20th-century's media revolution, rather than trying to cling to the 19th while sticking your toe out into the 21st?

Everyone in television is dying to appeal to the demographic the New York Times serves -- no offense, but nobody else has a lockdown on wealthy tastemakers -- so why couldn't a television version of it be sold, with the express refusal to water it down?

They're already producing those web videos -- so why not hire somebody with the media and technological skills to turn those into network/PBS-quality broadcast pieces?

Despite a proliferation of cable news channels, nobody on television is doing what the New York Times does.

And get this -- The New York Times may be the only entity in the universe that generates enough original content and coverage to fit into 24 hours of television.

If I were doing it, I would shy away from just covering political and breaking news, and instead split the 24 hours into programs that cover everything the Times does -- politics, the world, art, food, movies, business, travel -- with the obvious breaks for breaking news, special events, and recaps every five-six hours -- like a real network. There would be an obvious place for real newsmagazines with long-form reporting that would put what the networks call newsmagazines to shame. And on Sunday? Just run everything from the New York Times magazine between 8 and 12, and again between 7 and 11 at night.

They could easily sell the rights internationally, to Europe, China, India, Latin America.

And all they really need is a setup like PBS, the BBC, or vintage-era CNN -- a newsroom, smart reporters and news readers, and people who can effectively introduce their (mostly) already media-savvy columnists and reporters.

They also have -- get this -- a great web site and what I hear is an excellent print product, all of which could promote each other and the television channel. (If Oprah's fans watch her show AND read her magazine, I see no reason why TimesTV would cannibalize either the paper or the website.)

Maybe television would be The New York Times's Helen of Troy. But if there is going to be anything like the good qualities of the monolithic news experience in the future, I think something like TimesTV would stand the best chance.

City of Lights

If you get a chance today, fire up Google Earth 4.0. Then type in "Paris." I did it this morning, half on a goof, and was stunned at what I saw. I have a hard time believing that any other city looks as wonderful by satellite.