Dear lord it was raining down out there when I walked up here to the studio this morning (walked and was late - because biking, which I usually do, would have been insane).   Perhaps I ought to invest in a slightly bigger umbrella, one that doesn't  shield my head and nothing  more; an hour and a half later my back is still soaked.  Perhaps I ought to not wear sandals when there are furious little mountain-streams rushing ankle-deep down the hills I have to traverse.  My feet are all wet and chewed-up.  I'm afraid I might have trench foot by the end of the day. 

Banal concerns, I know.  I'm just cold and wet here and it sucks.  On the other hand, if I didn't have to work and could just bunker in at home, I'd be happy as can be.  At the very least it would be appropriate weather to slog through the final 20 pages of War and Peace, which is all I have left; I peeked ahead, and it looks like it's all essay to the end.  You know, the parts of Tolstoy that Hemingway said everyone skips anyway.  I'm not skipping it, though.  There's a lot that Hemingway said that I used to follow blindly when young, that I finally got over - but that was a long time ago.  We'll talk more about writing later - I'll save that for an entry of its own.

Thanks to this Bigsoccer thread I bought a French press last weekend (Bodum 8-cup Brazil, not quite as stylish as the glass-and-steel Chambord but made of 'unbreakable' polycarbonate.  Since you asked.) and now I'm a geekily fanatical convert (Kiki will attest to this - how many times have I told her about it already?)  Go get one and you will be too.  I'm counting the seconds till I can get home and go through the whole ritual of making my afternoon coffee.

And now, a musical break: 

 Go on over to Todd Snider's website and listen to "Conservative Christian, right-wing Republican straight white American males".  It makes me feel like a grubby hippy, and I like it.

Having summer classes is like having a summer flu: what's not particularly fun during the winter is just plain tortuous now.  Husserl and July just do not mix.

About 3 hours till the live-on-ESPNNews Danny Szetela draft.  At the moment I'm hearing that teams are going to ask for Mike Magee when it becomes clear that Rico Clark and Eddie Gaven are going nowhere, and I really don't want to see any of them go.  I think the Metros are more than capable of getting their act together and winning MLS without adding a player like Szetela, but I hope we get him straight-up through the lottery, just to give the whining anti-NY babies and conspiracists of Bigsoccer something to chew on.  Cheers!  

Let us now give a word of thanks... this is the last time I'll have to get up at 5 on a Sunday to work.  For a while at least - the boss comes back from vacation this week.  I don't know how people do this every day.  At least, people who aren't named Imus or Stern, making millions upon millions of dollars for it.
 
I'm not awake enough to say anything else interesting at the moment.  Let me pass it to my friend Zoran, and a connection he drew in an email last night after I sent him a bunch of links, including this one on Radovan Karadzic - failed artist, wartime Bosnian Serb leader, international fugitive-in-hiding.
 
"I have something that will interest you. Marko Vesovic writes about Radovan Karadzic and his poetic talent. Below you have the link to an article on Edward Limonov, controversial Russian writer who was quite popular before, but he turned into a nationalist and went to see Radovan Karadzic on a couple of occasions.
From the article you will see that Limonov was discredited after he became active in the intellectual guerilla (movement).
 
What Vesovic said about Karadzic is essentially the same thing. It is obvious in the opening sentences when Vesovic states that everything that he will say about Karadzic is now under the shadow of the fact that he should be prosecuted for war crimes. 
  
This is a question of how alternative and radical literary thought grows into intellectual guerilla (movements). Of course, there is always our famous crutch word “unfortunately” but no one seems to be able to explain why Limonov was so attractive not only to lay audience, but to intellectual circles in Germany and France. In the same way, Karadzic had something that attracted people like Limonov, Daniel Schiffer from France or Peter Handke from Germany.
 
Was it the game that Europe played with Serbs, like Baudrillard claims, I don’t know. There are just too many questions open, especially on the background of radical ideas. 
  
Here’s the link:
 
http://slate.msn.com/id/2078955/"  
 
This is so interesting to me, and I'm glad Z. brought it to light.  Beyond the explicit connection between Limonov and Karadzic, beyond the dalliances of the intellectual set with volatile 'revolutionary' figures (to the point where certain artists pose themselves as the revolutionary movement themselves, i.e. Limonov)  there emerges the reliable phenomenon - via both articles, but especially Vesovic's interview - of failed/flawed artist as political leader, as demagogue - a type of political creature we can obviously trace back through Hitler, and no doubt far beyond that as well.   And Z. is of course absolutely correct - the intellectual sets that embrace and at times even nurture such figures at their bosom - even with amused skepticism, as Vesovic portrays he and his fellow writers to have done with the the young artist-poseur Karadzic - well, it cannot be ignored when they say now  "all these thoughts are colored by the fact that he is wanted for war crimes'.  Does that betray an admission that while a Karadzic may be seen as an extreme, volatile and lamentable crystallization of some radical literary thought now, they cannot find it in themselves to say (with any degree of intellectual honesty, at least) that he was a true pariah, or even truly remarkable for his attitudes in those circles (even if they would like to say so now), because he simply was not?  That to some extent they all breathed of the same air?     These are just the first thoughts coming to mind, and not especially well-stated; I'll try to come up with some sort of decent, substantive  comment/response later on.

I also want to note something totally different, something else I brought up to Z. the other night, regarding a review of Dale Beck's Hatchet Jobs.  Now, I keep something of a distance from contemporary literature (too much of a distance, I think, but I'm playing a lot of catch-up) and even more of a distance from any kind of literary scene.  Hell, I felt completely and utterly out of place taking creative writing MA classes in  NYC (just one reason I got the hell out of there) - I don't feel at all at home around the literati, or what I've known of them so far, at any rate.  Thus I don't really keep up with the currents of gossip and trends and who's-hot, who-said-what.  I've never read anything by Dale Beck, not his supposedly infamous review of Rick Moody's book which is included in his new collection (for that matter, I've never read Rick Moody) nor anything else.  I don't find myself caring that much more to upon reading Daniel Mendelsohn's critique of the critic, but I am a bit bemused by something at the end of it.  I mean this paragraph. 
 
"Dynamics of power, punishment, and pain between a younger and an older man have recurred in Peck's work from the beginning: Martin and John contains two arresting descriptions of S&M sex, one of which ends with the younger man begging the older to penetrate him with a shotgun. It is difficult not to see, as the origins of this fascination, the extreme Oedipal tensions at play in the passage from The Law of Enclosures, too: the obsession with power (Peck's as well as his father's), the son's fantasy of being able to punish or save, the constant threat of physical violence both by and against the father ("fists" occurs twice). All this is worth noting only because of its implications for Peck's criticism: it's hard not to feel, in his book reviews, a ferocious kind of acting-out going on. The "hammer and nails" Peck mentions in the passage above seem intended not so much for construction, as one is tempted at first to read the passage, as for a crucifixion; and indeed, you sense that what Peck the critic really wants to do isn't so much to judge a writer as to nail the guy."
 
 
"Dynamics of power, punishment and pain":  So very Foucault, that - and Foucault, like quite a few other artists who emphasized discipline and the meting out of punishment, liked to mix up a little pain with their pleasure.  After you've brought up the whole sexual/power/punishment dimension, how can you, as a critic, note that Beck is a Gay Writer, and yet back away from the blatant sexual connotation of 'nailing the guy', which is evoked both here and in the title of the review? 
 

I find it funny when certain Metro fans criticize John Wolyniec for 'doing nothing for 89 minutes, then scoring a goal", as if it were proof that he's a totally useless player who ought to be planted permanently on the bench in favor of Fabian Taylor and Cornell Glen (a question for those people:  can FT and CG stay healthy and with the team for more than two weeks at a time, first?).  After all, wasn't it said of Romario that he would be totally invisible for 88 minutes of a game and then pop up to score the decisive goal in the last 2?
Admittedly, comparing Wolyniec to Romario may be laying it on a little thick.
 
Tonight's game is big for us.  Chicago is in a slump and the Metrostars are, well, no one knows what we're going to see from the Metro from one game to the next.  If we ever found a way to win both ends of the home and home with Fire this week, I can't see us being caught for the rest of the season in the East.  But what am I saying - we never beat Chicago, not even if they play 5 games in 7 days, and there's bound to be another 18 changes at the top of the Eastern Conference between now and the end of the season.  I fully expect to see all 5 teams occupy that spot at some point from here on out.
 
Joe Cannon being interviewed on the SJ-Colorado pre-game by Lorrie Fair now...Cannon's long been a favorite MLS player of mine, not just because he's a decent keeper but for his bizarre dual sock puppet appearance on the Bigsoccer boards a couple years ago.  One was ingratiating and kind to the ultra-weird SJ fans, one ripped 'em a new one for being the freaks that they are.  Well done, Mr. Schizo-goalie! 
Not that you were at all incorrect about San Jose fans, by the way, Joe.
 
Spotting MLS players/coaches/front office types who come on to Bigsoccer incognito is one of my favorite pastimes anyway.  It's not all that frequent an occurance, but if you've got a good eye you can sometimes pick 'em out.  There's a current Metrostar who had a short but amusing run on the Metro boards before (so I hear) being told by tipped-off MFO folks to shut the hell up.
 
I've heard a rumor of a rumor of what the name of the new Salt Lake City team could be called (if a certain sports executive has his alleged way), and let me just say that, while 'traditional', it's truly absurd in its lack of realevence to Salt Lake City (at least as far as I know - and that begs the question, what the hell do I know about Salt Lake City?).  If it comes to pass, I can't wait to hear the rationale behind this one.  I think the SLC Punks is the obvious choice. 
 
The Quakes are just working Colorado at the moment.





 

"Family Health is made possible by O'Bleness Memorial Hospital. Nearly 9 million women suffer from heart disease. It is the number one killer of women as well as men. Talk with your doctor; it could save your life."

Ragin' Ron Ferguson IM's me to let me know that the above underwriter's announcement (which I just read) sounds as if it's saying that men, along with heart disease, is the number one killer of women. And he's right, it does come to think of it.
Now switch it around, and you'd really be on to something.

Bergson:

"If some bold novelist, tearing aside the cleverly woven curtain of our conventional ego, shows us under this juxtaposition of simple states an infinite permeation of a thousand different impressions which have already ceased to exist the instant they are named, we commend him for having shown us better than we know ourselves. The very fact that he spreads out our feeling in a homogeneous time and expresses its elements by words shows that he is only offering us its shadow: but he has arranged this shadow in such a way as to make us suspect the extraordinary and illogical nature of the object which projects it."

With a wet head and a paper cup half-full of milky, honeyed chai, I sit here in the studio, comfortably handling brief interruptions like having buttons to push, announcements to read, IM's to answer while simultaneously being not just somewhere else, but many other places. I pause to turn the monitor down to zero when a news feature involving Bush comes on, because his voice makes me physically ill and angry - a reaction I ought to be able to control, but cannot. But my real work here is of carefully exposing the new day as if it were film. This work is done inside, and so it is done at a distance beyond these walls, even beyond the morning itself: it is the only project I take seriously when I see things as worth taking seriously at all. I read the above quote earlier this morning while shambling through the early part of my day; I have never read Bergson, nor Proust (whom the quote presages) but I think, yes, any good writing would have to show something of the "thousand different impressions which have already ceased to exist the instant they are named". Any good way of living (that I can imagine) would involve acknowledging them - unrecognizable, fragile, nonratioid things.

So I write as training to recognize something that is utterly unrecognizable. And I write because unless I am writing, my head feels like it is filled with a block of lead rather than brains - I feel noticeably dumber. So this writing is really for me, not for you, which is probably why, dear reader, you have been so bored for the past few paragraphs.

The other evening, out on the small swath of common balcony outside my apartment door, in between intermittent naps (I had woken up at 5 am for work, and could hold no longer hold back the force of exhaustion that washed through my body and mind) I read through the slow, agonized end of Prince Andrey. As for his far less heroic, less dignified, far less soulful (soul-less?) real-life namesake - the one who is holding all three of us hostage at this very moment without any sign of letting up (or so it seems)... well, even in my most vindictive moments I can't bring myself to wish such things upon him. But that is hardly due to some self-imposed ethical restriction anymore: the fine moral upbringing I received, which taught me not to wish bad things on other people still resonates in my mind, though faintly. In truth, I don't wish bad things to happen to him for the same practical reason I really don't want something bad to happen to the hateful sub-human we have as President: because the result of such a thing would be worse in the end: in one case, an even more evil man in charge of all of us: in another, a boy without his father. Both are things that none of us should want.

That said, I imagine he wishes the worst possible things upon me.

I have tried to give him the benefit of the doubt from the start; I have been a man about acknowledging that he is K's father, that K ought to have his father in his life...there was never any question about letting him have that. But he doesn't just want that with-limits, he wants everything, and clamps down on Kiki (who deserves it least of all) by using her own son as a weapon against her.
I have never really written that much about this - certainly not here - but it's the best way I have to think through it. Someday - Kiki willing - I'm sure it'll show up in something I write.

I googled "Prince Andrey" while writing (for the benefit of you out there who haven't read Tolstoy) and this is what I came up with. Maybe some radical faith is what I need after all. Maybe I'll go read some CS Lewis.

They belong to a group called "Fuck for Forests", and by golly, that's exactly what they do.

"Kudos to the Memphis Toby Keith Fan Club that morphed itself into an OTOFTC battalion and road tripped to Fort Knox. Way to Go!!"

Can this be for real?

The award for the Bigsoccer post of the day goes to Mike Segroves. (Ok, it comes from two days ago. So sue me).

But at least he wasn't killed in a tragic, freak potato gun accident involving bread.

A quarter to nine on a Sunday morning here in the studio, and I'm feeling quite contemplative, almost meditative for some reason. Perhaps that's what I'll do in a few minutes, when the hour block of BBC World Service kicks in and I feel free to lock the door and let the station run unmanned; maybe I'll drive back to my place, hitch myself up into the lotus position and quiet my mind for a bit, acheive a scintilla of inner tranquility and mindfulness. Or on the other hand, maybe I'll drive across town to BK for an egg and cheese muffin instead, my second breakfast after the bagel and two slices of cold pizza I rammed down my throat at 5:20, before coming in here under the cover of darkness. It really is a toss-up right now.

Bildung - A German term meaning 'education', in the sense of the formation and cultivation of an individual's spiritual and intellectual qualities (as opposed to merely formal schooling - see the Bildungsroman, vs. the Erziehungsroman). The point of this blog, if it has one, is to be a Bildungs-artifact, a Bildungs-blog, if that's possible (and why wouldn't it be?) In a few weeks I'm beginning the last, highest and most difficult stage of my education - but the long trek to the doctorate that I take inside the classroom seems to be ancillary, almost beside the point. That part will inevitably take care of itself, because it has to. Follow the rules, do the work, observe the many clearly delineated and unspoken conventions and structures, and you should get your Ph. D; that much is simple. But it's what goes on outside of that - the slow, ongoing, and with time increasingly concentrated process of mental, cultural, spiritual and moral (let's not be scared of those four words!) development, encapsulated in the term Bildung - that interests me most. That's what this blog thing is bound to be about, as soon as I find out how to do it.



Last night I went out to see Frank Jordan play at the Blue Gator. Not a guy but a band, and a pretty damn good one at that. Out of Sacramento, they're recording here in town (down the hall from where I sit right now, as a matter of fact); when they're not doing that, they're nearly killing themselves (and ensuring tragically-unfulfilled rock hero status) by flipping their van on its side and ramming it into a tree late at night (that, I found out, was how the van was 'murdered'). Now they're vanless and stuck in Ohio - which is good for us, if nothing else. Lead singer Mike Visser's got a authentically great rock voice; it's truly high praise to say he evokes Jeff Buckley, but listen to tunes like "Always Temporary" and "Z" and tell me you don't hear that same sort of hair-raising, inimitably beautiful keening thing in his sound.

For being pretty far from anything (and that's to say that Columbus is 'anything'), we get some decent bands coming through here. In the past three weeks alone (and in the middle of summer, with half the normal population) we've gotten The High Strung and now Frank Jordan - two acts on the rise who people should hear a lot more from soon.

It's one thing to drive across the United States, and quite another to do it blindfolded.

Check out the pictures that people post to Livejournal.

We need more lunatics like the boys at Woly's World...

Went to see Fahrenheit 911 Wednesday night. There's really not much I could say about it that hasn't already been said somewhere, but I learned a bit from it (even if Moore is cribbing from stuff that Greg Palast has been doing for years) and was entertained as well, even if I'm not much for watching Saudis get their heads chopped off or Iraqis and American soldiers blown to pieces. It's certainly not a cinematic masterwork nor wholly cohesive in its attacks on the administration, as articles like this point out. But all in all, F-911 is nothing if not a patriotic film in the way I understand patriotism. I'll go and see it again sometime soon - especially since the longer we all manage to keep it selling out screenings (even on weekday nights in college towns on summer break!), the better the chances that people like my parents - good, decent people without too political leanings, but all too prone to supping up whatever the 7 o' clock news tells them, I'm afraid - will get around to seeing it. Not that voters in Connecticut are going to decide this election in the end - God help us if it comes to that.

Hosted Afternoon Edition yesterday, and doing it again today, so tune in for it, dammit.

Marlon Brando's dead, and it's just a bit weird how it took a day - and a couple sketchy, unconfirmed reports - before the news hit for real.

I'm far too tired, too uninspired, and sitting at much too uncomfortable a computer set-up (imagine the monitor 4 feet away from me at an oblique angle, my neck craned painfully to 3 o'clock while I type at a keyboard at my knees - can you say ergonomic atrocity?) to write any more here now. Maybe later.