Culture: December 2003 Archive Page

'The fakir drew from under his knee a ball of grey twine. Taking the loose end between his teeth, he, with a quick upward motion, tossed the ball into the air. Instead of coming back to him, it kept on going up and up until out of sight and there remained only the long swaying end... [A] boy about six-years-old... walked over to the twine and began climbing up it... the boy disappeared when he had reached a point 30 or 40ft from the ground... a moment later, the twine disappeared.'

This purported to be an eye-witness account of the trick given by a couple of American travellers returning from the mysterious Orient. Within a few months, however, the editor of the Tribune was forced to come clean and admit that not only was the account bogus but that the travellers did not even exist.

Too late. -- Michael Holland reviews Peter Lamont's The Rise of the Indian Rope Trick --Give 'em Enough Rope (Guardian)

PETA: Mad Cow with a Side of Green OnionsJerz's Literacy Weblog)

I notice that PETA has lost no time in capitalizing on the mad cow disease to advocate its vegetarian position... but I don't recall PETA having much to say about the green onion scare! (Google turns up plenty of PETA recipies that use green onions, though).

Inspired by a post on Sugarpacket.

I can also bake JUST as much as I like. OK, so I like baking a little more than strictly needed, and who really needs seven types of cookies these days, but it's fun! And some traditions, like the ginger-bread house, have become too important to ignore. --Torill Mortensen --Christmas Eve (Thinking with My Fingers)

Simply reading Torill's Christmas preparations makes me exhausted! But the food sure looks good.

He wrote his plays in longhand. He took his time. He followed the news; he was politically brave. He wrote of the self and also of the world. He wrote for the stage and also for publication. He was theatrical; he was dialectical. He cultivated a public image; a small crowd of remarkable people intersected with the largely antisocial playwright: Emma Goldman, John Reed, Robert Edmond Jones, Paul Robeson, George Jean Nathan, Sean O?Casey, Hart Crane and, unhappily for O?Neill, Charlie Chaplin, who married his daughter. He made friends with a few important critics. He married someone who believed in his work. Winning big prizes did not protect him from savage assault. He argued with God. He hid from the world. He exhorted himself to write better, dig deeper, and he did. --Tony Kushner --The Genius of O'Neill (Times Literary Supplement)

Here's another good quote: "I can make no claim for O’Neill as one of the great writers, only as one of the greatest playwrights; for these two things, writing and playwriting, are not the same, and O’Neill’s work makes that clearer than any other’s." (Kushner is the author of "Angels in America.")

He was reading from a university mission statement and other material on its website.

"To provide outcome-related research and consultancy services that address real-world issues" - shrieks of laughter. The university's "approach to quality management is underpinned by a strong commitment to continuous improvement and a whole-of-organisation framework" - uproar in the room.

The university in question was RMIT but it could have been any of them. Go to your website and read the language, Watson urged guests at a recent Deans of Education dinner. That made people laugh even more.

--James Button reviews Don Watson's Death Sentence --Fighting the death sentence (The Age)

The article and the book being reviewed are very Austrailian. The other day, I couldn't find this book in the US Amazon.com database. Thanks for the suggestion, Jim.

Bureau of Labor Statistics data indicates that, as of Nov. 30, women represent 50.6 percent of the 48 million employees in management, professional and related occupations. --More U.S. Women Crack Glass Ceiling (Washington Times/UPI)

Women are much more likely to go to college than men; they tend to study harder, get higher grades, have fewer drug problems, are more likely to seek help from their professors, etc.

I'm blogging this in part so I can find it again the next time I get a freshman paper with a thesis that goes something like, "This one literary work, in which a female character faces oppression, proves that all women are oppressed in every possible way, and because that sucks, sexual discrimination should therefore be stopped immediately."

Some people may say "It's about time men got a taste of what it's like," but that's hardly fair to the generation of boys who are growing up in a very different world from the one their grandfathers and great-grandfathers ruled -- a new world which many of their fathers helped bring about.

My parents had a fairly traditional division of labor until my early teens, when my father's neck injury forced him to retire on disability and my mother went back to work.

My wife stays home with the children full-time, and she is home-schooling Peter in kindergarten this year. Because she breast-fed she did the vast majority of the late-night baby-walking; she also does the the children's laundry (which includes deciding what they are going to wear each day, apparently because I have no sense of style, which I won't deny). So that's all fairly traditional in terms of gender roles, but I do all the dishes (we tell the baby not to play with the dishwasher because it is "daddy's") and give all the baths, and when I am not at work I make about half the meals and do nearly all the diapers. Leigh does do all the bills, but she generally does that sort of paperwork in the evenings while I'm getting the children ready for bed. It also means she controls the finances, which is fine with me; it's a bit embarassing having to ask her for cash so I can buy my $1.80 plate of salad in the cafeteria a few times a week -- at least Nora Helmer and Lucy Ricardo got allowances. (But if I'd been interested in money I'd have never been an English major in the first place.)

Anyway, I've blogged on boys in school before.

Same color palette: greens, blues, and reds on a synthetic base of white. Same kinds of curves and contours, same balance and proportions. Whereas once upon a time toothbrushes were made from a single plastic cast, contemporary models, like contemporary athletic shoes, are built up out of inscrutable deposits of layers and sediment that speak to some elsuive yet exquisitely refined ergonomic principle. --Matt Kirschenbaum --Of Sneakers and Toothbrushes (MGK)

This one made me smile. Does the target audience for Nike ads actually call them "sneakers" these days? Just curious.

Evolutionary psychologists insist that wherever an intense pleasure is found in human life, there is likely some reproductive or survival advantage connected with it. Art has little practical value, but can deliver intense pleasure. Why? Aestheticians, please explain. --Denis Dutton --Let?s Naturalize Aesthetics  (Aesthetics Online)

Dutton is the creator of the monumental Arts & Letters Daily, which inspired me to blog shortly after I first encountered it in 1998.

Finished Reading Angela's AshesJerz's Literacy Weblog)

I finally finished reading Angela's Ashes. I can't really say that I enjoyed it, although I appreciated the skill in the storytelling. I've noted before, I find myself resisting the melodramatic tugs at my heartstrings, and since the book is presented as a memoir, of course I feel terrible for not being moved as I should.

The author's unromanticized view of Ireland is better than shamrocks and leprechauns, but the endless tales of drunkard men and nagging women are just as monotonous. I find it interesting that, with all the drinking the narrator reports, he doesn't even seem tempted to drink before he turns 16. If there's one thing his drunken lout of a father would want to be a part of, you'd think it would be the ritual of buying a 16-year-old his first drink. You'd think that a boy as perceptive as the narrator would be able to see what alcoholism has done to his family and, indeed, his whole class. Of course, the story is told so that we would indeed be horrified by what Frankie is turning into (that is, his father), so that we would share the protagonist's desire to escape the life that seems destined for him.

At the end of the novel, it's not clear whether life in America will be much different for the narrator, and I didn't share in the narrator's 19-year-old exultation of sheer and utter joy that he is now free -- I've seen plenty of 19-year-olds who have no idea what to do with their freedom. (See Karissa reflecting on a former high school classmate who overdosed on heroin.)

I know the story picks up in 'Tis, and I'm interested enough to see what happens that maybe one day I'll get it from the library, but not any time soon.

I'll be the first to admit I'm not a sports fan. And here's one reason why.

"When I was (in school), we had a day when everyone who was receiving scholarships — academic or athletic — was called up at an assembly and honored. One guy who barely met NCAA requirements got a full athletic scholarship, while several other people who had almost straight As got $500 or $1,000.

"It is funny thinking back on it, because I was one of the athletic guys who got the big check for football," [social studies teacher] Whicker added. -- "Gold & Black Illustrated".

Things That Make Me WeepJerz's Literacy Weblog)

So, it's "funny," is it? I'm not laughing. This is sad.

(The article itself, about a spoof article that was picked up as true by sports journalists, is somewhat amusing.)

The machine's inventors are somewhat vague about what the food simulator will actually be used for, but they suggest that it will be helpful in designing new foods... --Lawrence Osborne --Food Simulator, The (NY Times (will expire))

Here's the PowerPoint business plan these guys must have followed.

Step 1. Invent a device that can simulate the sensation of chewing food.
Step 2. ?
Step 3. Profit.

BTW, I don't know why the NYT puts "The" at the end of the headline.

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 28 (UPI) -- Thousands of Iraqis took to Baghdad's streets Friday condemning terrorism and urging a halt to political violence. '

[OK... so far, so good.]

The demonstrators shouted "death to terrorists"...

[Gaak! This sounds like a bad MadTV skit. Were these demonstrators paying attention to the supposed purpose of their event? Or are Iraqi political demonstrations just naturally dripping with ironic metacommentary?] --Iraqis Demonstrate Against Violence (UPI/Washington Times)

Found via Drudge.

I'm marking blogging portfolios for my Writing for the Internet course. Here are a few gems:

• "I don't get any leftovers at school, and I miss that twice-heated home cooked goodness." -- Amy Slade
• "I'm willing to wager that writing for an online medium is letting me take the easy way out." -- Julie Young
• "The clothes are donated to the YWCA. The owners help dress you from head to toe and even does make-up and hair if needed." -- Tiffany Graham
• "I hate this feeling of stress and nothing getting done." -- Lindsay Dzurko
• "It seems that when something goes wrong here at SHU the baseball team is the first to blame." -- Brandon Whitfield
• "It is all so funny that people are still relying on these 'journalists' to report sex news, when, in actuality they are creating it." -- Amanda Cochran
• "Many cases in the news recently have exhibited the lack of consequences faced by those who commit murder." -- Jess Prokop

Student Blogging Gems (EL 230: Writing for the Internet)

Note to self... next time, have student bloggers blog at least part of their reflection paper on blogging. I'm reading some really excellent observations that I'd like to link to, but I can't because the students have submitted them the old-fashioned way, on paper.

Of course, some students are being honestly self-critical in a way that might be squelched if they were forced to blog their reflections online.

One recurring thread in their reflections is time -- they either don't have enough time to blog as they feel they should, or they are conscious that blogging is a great way to fritter away time while managing to convince one's self that one is being productive. One student reported that blogging feels like an extracurricular activity, like it is nothing at all in the same realm as reading a chapter of math. I say hurrah to that statement, though unfortuantely I can't link to it because the student didn't blog it.

Two more blog portfolios to go from this class.... but it's time for me to head home.