Objectivist bloggers are getting ready for the mid-term elections, and, once again, there's a great deal of debate and dispute. I am greatly saddened by Dr. Peikoff's comment that anyone choosing to vote Republican or--my choice--not vote is not an Objectivist and does not understand Objectivism.
Let me tell you what I understand. I understand that I have to use my own judgment, and an attempt to substitute anyone's thinking for my own is no more and no less than a total abdication of rationality. I have heard arguments for both sides and I have come to the conclusion that I simply don't have enough information to make a decision that shows any signs of being well-planned in this particular area.
I also have a very good reason for not devoting my entire life to this issue: it's not that important. We are not talking about a vital or even indicative clash between ideological opposites, here, we are talking about trying to make a short-term, concrete decision about the shortest-term-thinking, most concrete people in the world today: politicians. It is not these people, ultimately, that will be responsible for determining my fate and the course of the great drama that is my life, but the people that think long-term and in abstract principles. Those are the people with whom I share my ideas and utilize my small powers of persuasion, in a forum where my voice may actually, possibly, be heard.
It is not possible to realize a gain by strenuously supporting the least objectionable of an unpalatable alternative. At best, you will simply slow the descent into destruction while making it appear that you are still in favor of that eventual destruction. I'm rejecting this false alternative outright.
About Me
Oct 31, 2006
Sep 11, 2006
That Day
I don't have any sage words to add on the anniversary that every American should be observing today. Everything I have felt or thought has been said--and said better--by someone else. Yet, I would be delinquent in my responsibilities nonetheless if I failed to speak.
What really strikes me at this moment is the scale of the devestation: not that it was so large, but that it was so small. What's three thousand people more or less? Many more people than that die every year in car accidents. It's no more damage than we do to ourselves in casual murders over drugs, sex, and fashionable tennis shoes.
Yet it is this attack that is a disgrace to any creature that has ever laid claim to the title of human being. It is the essence of horror--delivery, unarmed, into a fate that you can forsee but not act to escape. Every facet of your life comes with its attendant risk, but you do not sit paralyzed with fear because you know that you have the power to act, even up to the last second, and that is the only power you need.
You can act, and act correctly, because you can reason; you can put facts together and solve the daily and deadly dangers that face you. If you work with your reason instead of fighting it you come to enjoy this exercise; mere security bores you and you seek out greater challenges to overcome. Even in moments of extremity you can seek out a solution. You can disarm a mugger. You can drive defensively. You can solve it.
But what can you do when your reason cannot serve you? You cannot reason with a madman. There is no solution for fireballs, clouds of smoke, and thousands of tons of collapsing steel. The one thing you have that preserves you from danger cannot save you. You become this man, waiting for an unknown fate.
I may not like what my fellow country-men choose to do with their lives. But I hate with all the fire that is in me those that would deny them the choice.
What really strikes me at this moment is the scale of the devestation: not that it was so large, but that it was so small. What's three thousand people more or less? Many more people than that die every year in car accidents. It's no more damage than we do to ourselves in casual murders over drugs, sex, and fashionable tennis shoes.
Yet it is this attack that is a disgrace to any creature that has ever laid claim to the title of human being. It is the essence of horror--delivery, unarmed, into a fate that you can forsee but not act to escape. Every facet of your life comes with its attendant risk, but you do not sit paralyzed with fear because you know that you have the power to act, even up to the last second, and that is the only power you need.
You can act, and act correctly, because you can reason; you can put facts together and solve the daily and deadly dangers that face you. If you work with your reason instead of fighting it you come to enjoy this exercise; mere security bores you and you seek out greater challenges to overcome. Even in moments of extremity you can seek out a solution. You can disarm a mugger. You can drive defensively. You can solve it.
But what can you do when your reason cannot serve you? You cannot reason with a madman. There is no solution for fireballs, clouds of smoke, and thousands of tons of collapsing steel. The one thing you have that preserves you from danger cannot save you. You become this man, waiting for an unknown fate.
I may not like what my fellow country-men choose to do with their lives. But I hate with all the fire that is in me those that would deny them the choice.
Sep 10, 2006
Book Meme
John Baker was kind enough to inform me that I've been tagged for a book meme. Normally I'd let the tag pass by, but since he's such a nice fellow I thought I might as well go along with it. I've posted something similar to this before, but what the hey.
1. Name one book that changed your life.
I could go the easy route with this and say Atlas Shrugged, which would be true, but it should also be fairly obvious to anyone that reads this blog. So, instead, I'm giving credit to The Little Engine that Could, my favorite book when I was a very small child. It contains an instructive and important lesson that all children could benefit from internalizing.
2. Name one book that you've read more than once.
Atlas Shr . . . no, no, I'll think of something else. I've read almost every book that I've ever owned more than once, so I'll pick one at random: Cryptonomicon, by Neil Stephenson.
3. One book you would want on a desert island.
Probably the New York City yellow and white pages. If my presentiments about conditions on desert islands are correct I wouldn't have much time or energy for reading but I might get unexpected use out of a large book with thin pages.
4. One book that made you cry.
Where The Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls
5. One book that made you laugh.
The Wanderings of Wuntvor by Craig Shaw Gardner.
6. One book you wish had been written.
How to Become a Super-Hero in Thirty Seconds, Guaranteed
7. One book you wish had never been written.
I'll answer this even though I don't think there's much purpose to it: tie between The Communist Manifesto and the Bible. The removal of one book from the amazing pile of ridiculous slush out there isn't going to have much of an effect. Some crank will eventually come along and write something even worse.
8. One book you are currently reading.
Weirdly enough, I'm not, however I just finished The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
9. One book you've been meaning to read.
There's a few of these on my shelf at the moment, so I'll go with The Anubis Gates.
10. Tag five people.
Not a chance.
1. Name one book that changed your life.
I could go the easy route with this and say Atlas Shrugged, which would be true, but it should also be fairly obvious to anyone that reads this blog. So, instead, I'm giving credit to The Little Engine that Could, my favorite book when I was a very small child. It contains an instructive and important lesson that all children could benefit from internalizing.
2. Name one book that you've read more than once.
Atlas Shr . . . no, no, I'll think of something else. I've read almost every book that I've ever owned more than once, so I'll pick one at random: Cryptonomicon, by Neil Stephenson.
3. One book you would want on a desert island.
Probably the New York City yellow and white pages. If my presentiments about conditions on desert islands are correct I wouldn't have much time or energy for reading but I might get unexpected use out of a large book with thin pages.
4. One book that made you cry.
Where The Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls
5. One book that made you laugh.
The Wanderings of Wuntvor by Craig Shaw Gardner.
6. One book you wish had been written.
How to Become a Super-Hero in Thirty Seconds, Guaranteed
7. One book you wish had never been written.
I'll answer this even though I don't think there's much purpose to it: tie between The Communist Manifesto and the Bible. The removal of one book from the amazing pile of ridiculous slush out there isn't going to have much of an effect. Some crank will eventually come along and write something even worse.
8. One book you are currently reading.
Weirdly enough, I'm not, however I just finished The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
9. One book you've been meaning to read.
There's a few of these on my shelf at the moment, so I'll go with The Anubis Gates.
10. Tag five people.
Not a chance.
Sep 5, 2006
On the Shelf
In case you hadn't noticed, my blogging has been extremely erratic for the past couple of months. This is a result of several factors conspiring to temporarily kill my enthusiasm for matters literary. I will be back, and with several fiction projects to boot, but right at the moment I'm shelving the responsibility while I take care of other matters. Thanks to everyone that's visited.
Sep 2, 2006
World War II Army Quiz
Amusingly enough, this fits my personality pretty well. I find it amusing as well that the allies (except France) are all definitely at the top and the axis are all definitely at the BOTTOM. HT: Gus Van Horn
 | You scored as Finland. Your army is the army of Finland. You prefer to win your enemy by your wit rather than superior weapons. Enemy will have a hard time against your small but effective force.
|
Aug 23, 2006
Night Watch
I'm aware that I've already reviewed a book with this same title: just so that there is no confusion, this is not the same book. It is, instead, an oddity that came to my attention because of a thread on Oo.net: a fiction novel out of Russia. Not only that, a bestselling fiction novel out of Russia. I don't exactly keep tabs on everything that moves through the bookstore, but I haven't seen such a thing before.
Night Watch follows the career of a mystical secret agent working for the "good guys". In basic essence it is very similar to the TV shows Angel and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The main character, Anton, is not entirely happy with his work or with the nature of the world and the working"arrangement" between the light side and the dark side. His difficulties develop through several separate but connected story arcs as he learns that there isn't much difference between the "good" ends divorced from means and the "evil" means divorced from ends. Both sides are engaged in all manner of deviousness that adds up, eventually, to nothing.
I found the agonizing a bit dense and over-done, but Anton's realization at the end of the book made me smile. It was only a small piece of a large puzzle and did not alleviate the gray doubt of his surroundings very much, but I have to say that the novel is worth reading.
Rating: 3.0
Night Watch follows the career of a mystical secret agent working for the "good guys". In basic essence it is very similar to the TV shows Angel and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The main character, Anton, is not entirely happy with his work or with the nature of the world and the working"arrangement" between the light side and the dark side. His difficulties develop through several separate but connected story arcs as he learns that there isn't much difference between the "good" ends divorced from means and the "evil" means divorced from ends. Both sides are engaged in all manner of deviousness that adds up, eventually, to nothing.
I found the agonizing a bit dense and over-done, but Anton's realization at the end of the book made me smile. It was only a small piece of a large puzzle and did not alleviate the gray doubt of his surroundings very much, but I have to say that the novel is worth reading.
Rating: 3.0
Aug 21, 2006
Ramalama (Bang Bang)
I heard Ramalama (Bang Bang) on "So You Think You Can Dance?" some weeks ago and, after some digging, managed to find both the song title and the name of the artist. It's such a genuinely weird piece of music that I liked it immediately (especially the dull, gong-like beat overlaying the entire song). Check out Ms. Murphy for yourself.
Aug 14, 2006
Cool Video Clip
If you're at all curious about what I do for a living, click on the link above and watch the video from Fox News 19; about halfway through the clip there will be some footage from a "Lab in Dayton" . . . the girl sitting on the window in the blue scrubs is Jackie, she works in my room. (The lady in the back in the green scrubs and white jacket is my team leader, Nan, but she's only visible for a second or two.) I wasn't in the video because I was at lunch. We had a package left to do that day and the video crew showing up delayed us. Still, it's kind of nifty.
Personally, I'm in favor of offering money for tissue and organ (and blood) donations, but since that's currently illegal and not likely to change any time soon, I'm registered as an organ and tissue donor. When there's really no rational reason to go one way or another on an issue (and I don't consider refusing to donate on principle because you're not allowed to get paid for it a rational reason) I figure generosity can't hurt. After all, I'll be dead, so what do I care about what they do with my, well, meat? Heck, I spend my working hours taking apart other people's earthy remains, it's sort of like poetic justice if I insist that they get a crack at me as well.
Okay, so it's kind of a tasteless joke, but there just aren't any other kind in this business, and you have to laugh about it at least a little, otherwise you'll go mad.
Personally, I'm in favor of offering money for tissue and organ (and blood) donations, but since that's currently illegal and not likely to change any time soon, I'm registered as an organ and tissue donor. When there's really no rational reason to go one way or another on an issue (and I don't consider refusing to donate on principle because you're not allowed to get paid for it a rational reason) I figure generosity can't hurt. After all, I'll be dead, so what do I care about what they do with my, well, meat? Heck, I spend my working hours taking apart other people's earthy remains, it's sort of like poetic justice if I insist that they get a crack at me as well.
Okay, so it's kind of a tasteless joke, but there just aren't any other kind in this business, and you have to laugh about it at least a little, otherwise you'll go mad.
Aug 12, 2006
Raising the Roof
I spent this morning at work, however my housemate invited his buddies over and spent the day crawling all over the roof, ripping off shingles and plywood and applying more shingles and plywood. The roof turned out to be a mess: mis-applied shingles, rotting wood, poorly-attached joists. It's about typical for this house, which appears to have been the abode of do-it-yourselfers whose aggressiveness in the face of home projects was matched only by their incompetence in the face of the selfsame projects. (Don't ask me about wiring.)
I share the incompetence trait, but my response in the face of a lack of knowledge is: get someone else to do it. I mean, that's the whole point of dividing up labor, right? I get on with the writing and cutting up bodies, and other people shingle roofs, wire houses, and fix my car, right? Well, assuming I can pay them for it, that is.
So, why is it that you find so many jobs that were done by people that clearly didn't know what the heck they were doing? You don't save money or time in the long run by doing a crappy job on your own. I know how it happens--I work, after all--but I still don't understand why, and I never have. Why, when I know my professor is spouting absolute B.S., do I have to sit through the inane lecture, biting my tongue? Why, when I know my supervisor has no plan and is just randomly firing off things in the hope that one of them will work, do I have to be patient?
It's the elitist's credo: why do I have to live with the mistakes of people that are stupider than I am? I don't even have patience with my own stupid mistakes, so where do they get off expecting me to have patience with theirs?! Sometimes I think that if I'd spent more time telling people where to get off and less apologizing to them for their own mistakes, my life would have been better. So why don't I? I've always been afraid of what might happen, which is probably the worst stupid mistake I've ever made. I was afraid of having to stand alone.
Well, I have to do that, anyway. At least, if you stand up, you can be proud of being brave. It's not worth it to be "nice", especially since you never get anything out of it.
I share the incompetence trait, but my response in the face of a lack of knowledge is: get someone else to do it. I mean, that's the whole point of dividing up labor, right? I get on with the writing and cutting up bodies, and other people shingle roofs, wire houses, and fix my car, right? Well, assuming I can pay them for it, that is.
So, why is it that you find so many jobs that were done by people that clearly didn't know what the heck they were doing? You don't save money or time in the long run by doing a crappy job on your own. I know how it happens--I work, after all--but I still don't understand why, and I never have. Why, when I know my professor is spouting absolute B.S., do I have to sit through the inane lecture, biting my tongue? Why, when I know my supervisor has no plan and is just randomly firing off things in the hope that one of them will work, do I have to be patient?
It's the elitist's credo: why do I have to live with the mistakes of people that are stupider than I am? I don't even have patience with my own stupid mistakes, so where do they get off expecting me to have patience with theirs?! Sometimes I think that if I'd spent more time telling people where to get off and less apologizing to them for their own mistakes, my life would have been better. So why don't I? I've always been afraid of what might happen, which is probably the worst stupid mistake I've ever made. I was afraid of having to stand alone.
Well, I have to do that, anyway. At least, if you stand up, you can be proud of being brave. It's not worth it to be "nice", especially since you never get anything out of it.
Aug 5, 2006
Mistborn
Before I began this blog, I reviewed Brandon Sanderson's first book, Elantris, on Oo.net. Frankly, it was campy; a 2.0 at best. When I spotted Mistborn on the shelf at the bookstore, I didn't know what to think. It sounded interesting, but Sanderson's first book was such a let-down. Still, some of my favorite authors write bad books occasionally, so I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. I'm glad I did, because Mistborn, by contrast, is good.
The story follows the work of Kelsier, a legend of the underworld, as he undertakes his greatest heist ever: stealing the government. In the dreary, ash-smothered Final Empire, he assembles a crew and uses his magical abilities to further his cause, adopting a young protege to go where he cannot.
As a caveat, though, there are a great many traditional fantasy staples in this book, the first of a projected trilogy. The "magic system", dubbed Allomancy for its reliance on ingested metals, which is explained in great detail. The strangely distorted landscape. The hideous and frightening monsters. The made-up slang. I've reached the point where I find the development of an imaginative and detailed setting to be of very little importance in a novel, and that is a point that Sanderson seems to enjoy dwelling upon. I think my changed preference reflects the fact that there's nothing to think or draw conclusions about in such flights of world-building; you can only passively absorb because it bears no connection to reality, kind of like mathematicians trying to imagine a four-dimensional "cube". I don't find much of value in absorbing things in order to say "that's neat" and move on.
It's still very much Sanderson's writing style, which is fine because style wasn't the problem with the original so much as tone and some awkwardness with the plot. In Mistborn, the goofy, bouncy characters are completely fitting--it's a gang of thieves, after all! The awkward politics make perfect sense as well, since the involved parties are supposed to be politically naive in the first place. There's excellent foreshadowing of future books, but the important points are wrapped up neatly in the climax.
I look forward to the next book eagerly.
Rating: 3.5
The story follows the work of Kelsier, a legend of the underworld, as he undertakes his greatest heist ever: stealing the government. In the dreary, ash-smothered Final Empire, he assembles a crew and uses his magical abilities to further his cause, adopting a young protege to go where he cannot.
As a caveat, though, there are a great many traditional fantasy staples in this book, the first of a projected trilogy. The "magic system", dubbed Allomancy for its reliance on ingested metals, which is explained in great detail. The strangely distorted landscape. The hideous and frightening monsters. The made-up slang. I've reached the point where I find the development of an imaginative and detailed setting to be of very little importance in a novel, and that is a point that Sanderson seems to enjoy dwelling upon. I think my changed preference reflects the fact that there's nothing to think or draw conclusions about in such flights of world-building; you can only passively absorb because it bears no connection to reality, kind of like mathematicians trying to imagine a four-dimensional "cube". I don't find much of value in absorbing things in order to say "that's neat" and move on.
It's still very much Sanderson's writing style, which is fine because style wasn't the problem with the original so much as tone and some awkwardness with the plot. In Mistborn, the goofy, bouncy characters are completely fitting--it's a gang of thieves, after all! The awkward politics make perfect sense as well, since the involved parties are supposed to be politically naive in the first place. There's excellent foreshadowing of future books, but the important points are wrapped up neatly in the climax.
I look forward to the next book eagerly.
Rating: 3.5
Sixth Day
I did it.
For seven months I've been slaving away at my new job, struggling to force my ever-more-sluggish and reluctant body to accomplish my job functions. For seven months I've been told every day, multiple times a day, that I just wasn't quite getting it, that maybe I was coming along but I just had to be patient, that everything they trained me to do yesterday wasn't correct today, that if I was sitting still I should be moving, and if I was moving, I should be sitting still. That when I was proud of my progress, I was never good enough, and when I was mad, that I had no right to be.
Well, I've claimed my reward, and no one can take it away from me. What is it? Now I can work on Saturdays.
Sounds like a weird sort of "reward", more work, doesn't it? But the thing is, if you volunteer to come in and work on Saturdays, the company pays you, for four hours, almost as much as you make in thirteen during a normal week. So, more work IS a reward, because at the end of the month you take home half again as much as you would have otherwise.
The thing is, in order to work Saturdays you have to be ready. You have to be competent, and the supervisor has to vouch for you. Frankly, I think he was dubious about the idea, he was just tired of my whining. If so, he was wrong.
I am so doing this again next Saturday.
For seven months I've been slaving away at my new job, struggling to force my ever-more-sluggish and reluctant body to accomplish my job functions. For seven months I've been told every day, multiple times a day, that I just wasn't quite getting it, that maybe I was coming along but I just had to be patient, that everything they trained me to do yesterday wasn't correct today, that if I was sitting still I should be moving, and if I was moving, I should be sitting still. That when I was proud of my progress, I was never good enough, and when I was mad, that I had no right to be.
Well, I've claimed my reward, and no one can take it away from me. What is it? Now I can work on Saturdays.
Sounds like a weird sort of "reward", more work, doesn't it? But the thing is, if you volunteer to come in and work on Saturdays, the company pays you, for four hours, almost as much as you make in thirteen during a normal week. So, more work IS a reward, because at the end of the month you take home half again as much as you would have otherwise.
The thing is, in order to work Saturdays you have to be ready. You have to be competent, and the supervisor has to vouch for you. Frankly, I think he was dubious about the idea, he was just tired of my whining. If so, he was wrong.
I am so doing this again next Saturday.
Aug 3, 2006
Six Plays by Henrik Ibsen
Have you ever been browsing at a bookstore when a book just leapt off the shelf, tackled you to the ground, and dragged you over to the checkout counter, all the while shouting: "Buy me! Buy me! Buy me!"?
Yeah, me neither. Anyway, when I go browse for books, I normally head straight for the Science Fiction/Fantasy section. Occasionally I will make brief, furtive sorties into other parts of the store, and sometimes I will even try something I find there. Well, last week I got a little turned around carrying my fantasy novel to the checkout line and ended up in the Drama section. I didn't even know there was a Drama section. I'm not your Intrepid Bookstore Explorer, here.
Just as I was about to bolt, I espied the name "Ibsen" on this collection of plays, and I thought, "Wasn't he in The Fountainhead?" Until that moment, I truly didn't know that there was an actual playwright named Ibsen. I had never encountered one of his plays before. Some cultural education I have!
If you, like me, have never encountered Ibsen's plays in your own cultural explorations, then read them immediately! They are fantastic. I usually find even good plays to be dull reading at best; they aren't really meant for the format, after all. Even reading Ibsen, however, I gained a sharp sense of his keen observational powers and dazzling ability to put together a complex, many-layered plot. I understand why he is given credit for revolutionizing the drama and reinventing the tragedy.
The six plays in this particular collection spanned his career: "Peer Gynt", "A Doll's House", "Ghosts", "The Wild Duck", "Hedda Gabler", and "The Master Builder".
Edvard Grieg created a musical accompanyment (now very famous) for "Peer Gynt" that I have listened to many times and enjoyed, but this was the first time I'd ever heard of the play that inspired it. The story follows the adventures of the title character through his long life, travels, and existential conflicts as he looks everywhere to find himself and never succeeds. All this is told in excellent epic verse, a pleasure to read.
"A Doll's House", "Ghosts", and "The Wild Duck", are all family dramas of apparently small scope that probe deep issues underlying the artificial constructs the families build out of their lives. The book is annotated by Martin Puchner, who describes these constructs as the "bourgeoise lies" that Ibsen always seeks to expose--it made his plays shocking and controversial in the 1890's, and also renders them enduring works of art despite the narrowness of their events.
"Hedda Gabler" is another play, like Peer Gynt, about a single woman who, finding her life to be empty, shallow, and without meaning, seeks always to inject some sort of conflict or excitement into her surroundings; she reminds me of Dominique Francon from The Fountainhead, to be honest.
"The Master Builder" is yet another tragedy, this one about the demands of conscience on a man whose ultimate success stems from a terrible disaster. In seeking to rationalize and hide from the disaster, he only seeks in wrecking his wife's happiness, which in its turn only adds to the burden of unearned guilt he visits upon himself. The two forces lead him unerringly to final destruction.
Puchner describes Ibsen as both a realist and a naturalist; I don't know enough about drama to really categorize him, but he doesn't seem like much of a naturalist to me; he illustrates only too sharply the consequences of poorly-considered choices upon his characters, even as they blame their fates on powers outside their control.
Rating: 4.5
Yeah, me neither. Anyway, when I go browse for books, I normally head straight for the Science Fiction/Fantasy section. Occasionally I will make brief, furtive sorties into other parts of the store, and sometimes I will even try something I find there. Well, last week I got a little turned around carrying my fantasy novel to the checkout line and ended up in the Drama section. I didn't even know there was a Drama section. I'm not your Intrepid Bookstore Explorer, here.
Just as I was about to bolt, I espied the name "Ibsen" on this collection of plays, and I thought, "Wasn't he in The Fountainhead?" Until that moment, I truly didn't know that there was an actual playwright named Ibsen. I had never encountered one of his plays before. Some cultural education I have!
If you, like me, have never encountered Ibsen's plays in your own cultural explorations, then read them immediately! They are fantastic. I usually find even good plays to be dull reading at best; they aren't really meant for the format, after all. Even reading Ibsen, however, I gained a sharp sense of his keen observational powers and dazzling ability to put together a complex, many-layered plot. I understand why he is given credit for revolutionizing the drama and reinventing the tragedy.
The six plays in this particular collection spanned his career: "Peer Gynt", "A Doll's House", "Ghosts", "The Wild Duck", "Hedda Gabler", and "The Master Builder".
Edvard Grieg created a musical accompanyment (now very famous) for "Peer Gynt" that I have listened to many times and enjoyed, but this was the first time I'd ever heard of the play that inspired it. The story follows the adventures of the title character through his long life, travels, and existential conflicts as he looks everywhere to find himself and never succeeds. All this is told in excellent epic verse, a pleasure to read.
"A Doll's House", "Ghosts", and "The Wild Duck", are all family dramas of apparently small scope that probe deep issues underlying the artificial constructs the families build out of their lives. The book is annotated by Martin Puchner, who describes these constructs as the "bourgeoise lies" that Ibsen always seeks to expose--it made his plays shocking and controversial in the 1890's, and also renders them enduring works of art despite the narrowness of their events.
"Hedda Gabler" is another play, like Peer Gynt, about a single woman who, finding her life to be empty, shallow, and without meaning, seeks always to inject some sort of conflict or excitement into her surroundings; she reminds me of Dominique Francon from The Fountainhead, to be honest.
"The Master Builder" is yet another tragedy, this one about the demands of conscience on a man whose ultimate success stems from a terrible disaster. In seeking to rationalize and hide from the disaster, he only seeks in wrecking his wife's happiness, which in its turn only adds to the burden of unearned guilt he visits upon himself. The two forces lead him unerringly to final destruction.
Puchner describes Ibsen as both a realist and a naturalist; I don't know enough about drama to really categorize him, but he doesn't seem like much of a naturalist to me; he illustrates only too sharply the consequences of poorly-considered choices upon his characters, even as they blame their fates on powers outside their control.
Rating: 4.5
Fishing Rights: A Challenge to All
In the above post on Oo.net, I came up with what I think is an elegant solution to the "problem" of fishing rights, so now I'm looking for input on my solution. Basically, it is:
Would-be commercial fishermen bid yearly for a license to sell a specific type of fish (in a specified country, since governments can't exactly guarantee anything about other countries). This license is known as the "primary" license. The holder of the primary license can also issue "secondary" licenses whereby others can acquire the right to sell fish of the specified type. Each type of fish will be bid individually.
Note: The government is not the default "owner" of this license; in the absence of anyone that wishes to bid for a license (such as on fish that have little or no commercial value) then the license remains "open", and no one can contest anyone else's use of that type of fish.
I invite everyone and anyone to try and poke holes in my solution or demonstrate how it would not work. You may need to read the entire thread to understand the question under debate, however, and it's a bit long.
If you're not an Objectivist and/or you don't understand or care to understand how Capitalism actually works, I will inform you that your ideas are "not even wrong". This doesn't mean that I hate you, it just means that I don't want to write a ten-page paper explaining the foundation of the discussion before I get around to the actual discussion. So, this is actually a fairly narrow question.
You won't get anything out of this other than (possibly) bragging rights. I'll go ahead and offer a few scenarios that occured to me and my rebuttals as a starting point:
Q: Jennifer, wouldn't this constitute at least the potential establishment of a coercive monopoly?
A: In a word, no. A coercive monopoly depends not only on the non-existence of competitors, but the impossibility of competitors, and all anyone has to do in order to defeat your monopoly would be to out-bid you for the license next year. The government would only be ensuring that you had the right that you'd paid for, just like registering a patent.
Q: What's preventing the highest bidder from issuing more licenses than the market or fish population can support?
A: What prevents a manufacturer from making more shoes than he can sell? The fact that he'll lose money if he does. If there are already a great many entrants into a specific field, the wise capitalist invests elsewhere. If he doesn't, he loses his shirt and the problem quickly vanishes.
Q: What happens if some political group raises a bunch of money and buys all the fish licenses so that no one can fish?
Hey, if that's how they want to spend their money, so be it. It's no different from someone buying a strip mall and turning it back into wilderness.
Q: What's preventing everyone from refraining from bidding and getting "free" licenses?
Self-interest. The problem of fishing rights really only arises in the case of industrial-scale fishing, at which point it becomes profitable to acquire this sort of license so that you can exclude or (somewhat) manage your competitors from a specific field. Besides, could you ever be completely certain that you'd managed to secure the agreement of every potential competitor? Trying to enact a deal of this kind would leave the door open for a very small venture-capital firm to acquire the primary license at a very low price, then charge everyone for secondary licenses!
Q: What happens with foreign countries that don't have fish licenses?
Nothing. In any situation other than anarchy, the government will have to do something about fishing rights. Currently, the tendency is towards telling you where you can fish, and when, and how much, and how, and so on and so forth. Entry into a market where all you have to do is buy a license would be much more profitable.
Anyone else have good ideas? I realize that this scenario is terribly concrete, but I think it's beneficial to your overall thought processes if you occasionally attack concretes from an abstract standpoint. In addition, by showing that the same principle can be applied to even this concrete makes your entire case all that more sound.
Would-be commercial fishermen bid yearly for a license to sell a specific type of fish (in a specified country, since governments can't exactly guarantee anything about other countries). This license is known as the "primary" license. The holder of the primary license can also issue "secondary" licenses whereby others can acquire the right to sell fish of the specified type. Each type of fish will be bid individually.
Note: The government is not the default "owner" of this license; in the absence of anyone that wishes to bid for a license (such as on fish that have little or no commercial value) then the license remains "open", and no one can contest anyone else's use of that type of fish.
I invite everyone and anyone to try and poke holes in my solution or demonstrate how it would not work. You may need to read the entire thread to understand the question under debate, however, and it's a bit long.
If you're not an Objectivist and/or you don't understand or care to understand how Capitalism actually works, I will inform you that your ideas are "not even wrong". This doesn't mean that I hate you, it just means that I don't want to write a ten-page paper explaining the foundation of the discussion before I get around to the actual discussion. So, this is actually a fairly narrow question.
You won't get anything out of this other than (possibly) bragging rights. I'll go ahead and offer a few scenarios that occured to me and my rebuttals as a starting point:
Q: Jennifer, wouldn't this constitute at least the potential establishment of a coercive monopoly?
A: In a word, no. A coercive monopoly depends not only on the non-existence of competitors, but the impossibility of competitors, and all anyone has to do in order to defeat your monopoly would be to out-bid you for the license next year. The government would only be ensuring that you had the right that you'd paid for, just like registering a patent.
Q: What's preventing the highest bidder from issuing more licenses than the market or fish population can support?
A: What prevents a manufacturer from making more shoes than he can sell? The fact that he'll lose money if he does. If there are already a great many entrants into a specific field, the wise capitalist invests elsewhere. If he doesn't, he loses his shirt and the problem quickly vanishes.
Q: What happens if some political group raises a bunch of money and buys all the fish licenses so that no one can fish?
Hey, if that's how they want to spend their money, so be it. It's no different from someone buying a strip mall and turning it back into wilderness.
Q: What's preventing everyone from refraining from bidding and getting "free" licenses?
Self-interest. The problem of fishing rights really only arises in the case of industrial-scale fishing, at which point it becomes profitable to acquire this sort of license so that you can exclude or (somewhat) manage your competitors from a specific field. Besides, could you ever be completely certain that you'd managed to secure the agreement of every potential competitor? Trying to enact a deal of this kind would leave the door open for a very small venture-capital firm to acquire the primary license at a very low price, then charge everyone for secondary licenses!
Q: What happens with foreign countries that don't have fish licenses?
Nothing. In any situation other than anarchy, the government will have to do something about fishing rights. Currently, the tendency is towards telling you where you can fish, and when, and how much, and how, and so on and so forth. Entry into a market where all you have to do is buy a license would be much more profitable.
Anyone else have good ideas? I realize that this scenario is terribly concrete, but I think it's beneficial to your overall thought processes if you occasionally attack concretes from an abstract standpoint. In addition, by showing that the same principle can be applied to even this concrete makes your entire case all that more sound.
Jul 27, 2006
The Force of Reason
The title of this book was frankly, intriguing, although I've heard Oriana Fallaci described as a "Leftist" correspondant in the past. (She denies belonging to either the Left or the Right politically, which in today's world roughly means that she's SANE.) The Force of Reason is a follow-up to The Rage and the Pride and is terribly referential, a flaw even in works of fiction. It is a tirade against the Muslim takeover of Europe, a phenomenon that Oriana refers to as "Eurabia" (a term she did not invent). I'm sorry to say that there really wasn't much to the book; it very much left me asking "what reason?"
This is because Ms. Fallaci's writing is extremely emotionalistic and overwrought, precisely what you would not expect in a book purporting to be about reason. She dwells lengthily on issues such as the method of preparing halal meat; I appreciate that draining the blood of an animal may seem gruesome to some people, but since I cut up humans for a living I'm not terribly concerned by it, myself. I'm also not terribly in favor of catering to people with weak stomachs and fine sensibilities; if you can't stand the sight of blood, have the grace to faint in private. Don't pretend that it adds weight to your argument.
Her self-translation to English from Italian is awkward at best, making the book difficult and sometimes unpleasant to read. It's nice that she tried to put her words into English on her own, certainly it's difficult for a translator, no matter how skilled, to convey the essence of someone else's words. However, she could have at least given the manuscript to a native English-speaker for polishing after she'd translated the essence. The errors of usage make her seem hurried, unprofessional, and too hysterical to be taken seriously.
While she does make some interesting points about such issues as the collusion of the Catholic Church with the Muslim invasion, her points are detached from any underlying principles. Why is Islam bad? They kill people! They castrate women! They defame Oriana in the press! They don't allow free speech! They bomb stuff!
And why are those things bad? No answer. This is sad, because that is precisely the question that must be addressed if one is to make a consistent, compelling, reasoned case against Islam. Anything else is just flailing around in the dark--blind screaming in an uncaring universe.
Rating: 2.0
This is because Ms. Fallaci's writing is extremely emotionalistic and overwrought, precisely what you would not expect in a book purporting to be about reason. She dwells lengthily on issues such as the method of preparing halal meat; I appreciate that draining the blood of an animal may seem gruesome to some people, but since I cut up humans for a living I'm not terribly concerned by it, myself. I'm also not terribly in favor of catering to people with weak stomachs and fine sensibilities; if you can't stand the sight of blood, have the grace to faint in private. Don't pretend that it adds weight to your argument.
Her self-translation to English from Italian is awkward at best, making the book difficult and sometimes unpleasant to read. It's nice that she tried to put her words into English on her own, certainly it's difficult for a translator, no matter how skilled, to convey the essence of someone else's words. However, she could have at least given the manuscript to a native English-speaker for polishing after she'd translated the essence. The errors of usage make her seem hurried, unprofessional, and too hysterical to be taken seriously.
While she does make some interesting points about such issues as the collusion of the Catholic Church with the Muslim invasion, her points are detached from any underlying principles. Why is Islam bad? They kill people! They castrate women! They defame Oriana in the press! They don't allow free speech! They bomb stuff!
And why are those things bad? No answer. This is sad, because that is precisely the question that must be addressed if one is to make a consistent, compelling, reasoned case against Islam. Anything else is just flailing around in the dark--blind screaming in an uncaring universe.
Rating: 2.0
Jul 24, 2006
Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest
My literary blog appears to have been taken over by movies for the past few days. I hope no one minds, we'll get back to books soon, I promise. I actually have a backlog still to review before I read anything new.
Anyway, I went to see Disney's new Pirates of the Carribean movie, and I have to say that it was very enjoyable. It wasn't profound, mind you . . . in fact, it swung violently between melodrama and slapstick to the point where I developed this vision of Charlie Chaplin twirling his mustache evilly as he drops a pie onto the face of the heroine he's just tied to the railroad tracks.
Needless to say, that's a little . . . weird, a term that more than adequately describes this movie. You have your dastardly plot. You have poor honor-bound Orlando Bloom (I can't remember his character's name, but is it important? It's Orlando Bloom! Just call him Legolas) searching the seven seas to redeem his imprisoned love. You have the female lead (what's her name?) proving to be much more practical and effective than her absent lover (Orlando Bloom, just in case you forgot, anyway it bears repeating), except on the one occasion when she tries to use her "feminine wiles". You have the wise-cracking sidekicks (although it's not readily apparent whose side they are on), and you have the Giant Squid/Octopus Thingy with Incredibly Bad Breath.
And you have Johnny Depp, as the perpetually less than masculine Captain Jack Sparrow in a (possibly) final showdown with . . . The Terminator.
No, no, wait, that would be David Jones of the David Jones' Locker fame, although having Ahnold show up in this movie would probably not have been completely beyond the pale. It was a fun way to start off a weekend.
Anyway, I went to see Disney's new Pirates of the Carribean movie, and I have to say that it was very enjoyable. It wasn't profound, mind you . . . in fact, it swung violently between melodrama and slapstick to the point where I developed this vision of Charlie Chaplin twirling his mustache evilly as he drops a pie onto the face of the heroine he's just tied to the railroad tracks.
Needless to say, that's a little . . . weird, a term that more than adequately describes this movie. You have your dastardly plot. You have poor honor-bound Orlando Bloom (I can't remember his character's name, but is it important? It's Orlando Bloom! Just call him Legolas) searching the seven seas to redeem his imprisoned love. You have the female lead (what's her name?) proving to be much more practical and effective than her absent lover (Orlando Bloom, just in case you forgot, anyway it bears repeating), except on the one occasion when she tries to use her "feminine wiles". You have the wise-cracking sidekicks (although it's not readily apparent whose side they are on), and you have the Giant Squid/Octopus Thingy with Incredibly Bad Breath.
And you have Johnny Depp, as the perpetually less than masculine Captain Jack Sparrow in a (possibly) final showdown with . . . The Terminator.
No, no, wait, that would be David Jones of the David Jones' Locker fame, although having Ahnold show up in this movie would probably not have been completely beyond the pale. It was a fun way to start off a weekend.
Jul 22, 2006
Superman Returns
Although I've heard several reviews of this movie, none of them better than mediocre, I decided to go see it for myself because I (generally) like superhero movies and I also like to form my own opinion. Well, I have.
It was dull.
Brandon Routh is a very handsome young man, and would make a fantastic Superman in a movie with some sort of conflict. As it was, he portrayed the worst characteristics of the Man of Steel: with his powers, he's invincible. Without them, he's nothing. His activities reminded me of Ayn Rand's discussion on the invincible, immortal robot: such a thing could have no values, because nothing could make any difference to it whatsoever. Nothing could be either for or against it. Everything Superman does is strangely purposeless. It's possible that it makes a difference to the people he saves, or even to the curiously zombie-like hordes that watch his activities, but it can't make any difference to him whatsoever.
Why does Superman fly around saving people? The question is not addressed in the movie, but it seemed very much that he'd picked up the idea that he ought to: from his father, with his noble speechmaking that was nevertheless detached from reality, and from his human family, that encouraged the deathless demi-god to think that human things somehow applied to him. This was especially apparent in his relationship with Lois, which he could not even approach in any sensible manner, much less sort out. He couldn't decide whether it really applied to him or not; whether he could be human or not.
Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor was even worse: he couldn't even manage to be really evil in any horrifying sense, instead he projected an aura of pathetic degeneracy, like a prison-yard thug. (In fact, his one confrontation with Superman was about as titanic as a prison-yard knifing.)
In addition, he was stupid. There is something mortally indecent about hearing a stupid villian utter the words "mind over muscle" in a tone of righteous self-satisfaction. What mind? Are you talking about the alien technology that you stole (and could never have come up with on your own), the kryptonite rock (also stolen) that fell out of the sky, or the boat that you schmoozed out of some befuddled old lady? What a fountain of cognitive superiority. I'm awed. *sarcasm* Carmen and Vivaldi playing in the background do not turn a man into an intellectual; they make him a ridiculous second-hander who has latched onto the supposed trappings of the intellect as a showpiece.
Between Luthor's sham intellect and Superman's sham humanity, there wasn't much left of this movie to make it at all interesting. Oo, special effects. Yay.
It was dull.
Brandon Routh is a very handsome young man, and would make a fantastic Superman in a movie with some sort of conflict. As it was, he portrayed the worst characteristics of the Man of Steel: with his powers, he's invincible. Without them, he's nothing. His activities reminded me of Ayn Rand's discussion on the invincible, immortal robot: such a thing could have no values, because nothing could make any difference to it whatsoever. Nothing could be either for or against it. Everything Superman does is strangely purposeless. It's possible that it makes a difference to the people he saves, or even to the curiously zombie-like hordes that watch his activities, but it can't make any difference to him whatsoever.
Why does Superman fly around saving people? The question is not addressed in the movie, but it seemed very much that he'd picked up the idea that he ought to: from his father, with his noble speechmaking that was nevertheless detached from reality, and from his human family, that encouraged the deathless demi-god to think that human things somehow applied to him. This was especially apparent in his relationship with Lois, which he could not even approach in any sensible manner, much less sort out. He couldn't decide whether it really applied to him or not; whether he could be human or not.
Kevin Spacey as Lex Luthor was even worse: he couldn't even manage to be really evil in any horrifying sense, instead he projected an aura of pathetic degeneracy, like a prison-yard thug. (In fact, his one confrontation with Superman was about as titanic as a prison-yard knifing.)
In addition, he was stupid. There is something mortally indecent about hearing a stupid villian utter the words "mind over muscle" in a tone of righteous self-satisfaction. What mind? Are you talking about the alien technology that you stole (and could never have come up with on your own), the kryptonite rock (also stolen) that fell out of the sky, or the boat that you schmoozed out of some befuddled old lady? What a fountain of cognitive superiority. I'm awed. *sarcasm* Carmen and Vivaldi playing in the background do not turn a man into an intellectual; they make him a ridiculous second-hander who has latched onto the supposed trappings of the intellect as a showpiece.
Between Luthor's sham intellect and Superman's sham humanity, there wasn't much left of this movie to make it at all interesting. Oo, special effects. Yay.
Jul 18, 2006
What Would the Founders Do?
I noticed some time ago that Alexander Marriott had reviewed this book, so when I saw it at the bookstore I decided to pick up a copy for my own interest. Brookhiser does a fair job of covering his subject matter, which is a list of questions modern Americans would ask the Founders, if that were possible, of course. The book is not great, but it is interesting in a vague sort of way.
The title, however, is somewhat misleading; Brookhiser doesn't attempt to project what the Founders would do about modern situations in modern context (an impossibility that would only make him look foolish). Instead, he draws parallels between modern situations and theoretically similar ones that occured during the Founders' time. A more accurate title, then, would be: "What Did the Founders Do?" As a side note, Brookhiser deserves significant credit for being able to think in terms of essentials: his identification of the principles at work behind different questions (and thus what historical situations corresponded to them) is uniformly accurate.
Marriott accurately notes, however, that even this skillful reduction to essential problems doesn't help us much: the Founders were far from philosophically uniform and many of them were inconsistent, meaning that the answer often becomes a matter of: which founder? Not to mention that it's not always clear why they did what they did, so you never do know whether to emulate their example.
Rating: 3.0
The title, however, is somewhat misleading; Brookhiser doesn't attempt to project what the Founders would do about modern situations in modern context (an impossibility that would only make him look foolish). Instead, he draws parallels between modern situations and theoretically similar ones that occured during the Founders' time. A more accurate title, then, would be: "What Did the Founders Do?" As a side note, Brookhiser deserves significant credit for being able to think in terms of essentials: his identification of the principles at work behind different questions (and thus what historical situations corresponded to them) is uniformly accurate.
Marriott accurately notes, however, that even this skillful reduction to essential problems doesn't help us much: the Founders were far from philosophically uniform and many of them were inconsistent, meaning that the answer often becomes a matter of: which founder? Not to mention that it's not always clear why they did what they did, so you never do know whether to emulate their example.
Rating: 3.0
Jul 17, 2006
Dreamfall: The Longest Journey
Dreamfall is the sequel to The Longest Journey, an adventure game that followed the travels of April Ryan, a young girl who discovered she could travel between the real world and a magical fantasy realm. She had some very fun, quirky, enjoyable adventures, and the game wound up fairly well at the end with a solid victory for the good guys.
I'm not normally a fan of adventure games because I have limited patience for the "Use Toothpaste on Frog" phenomenon: that is, some extremely non-intuitive, non-logical step you have to take in order to solve a puzzle so you can progress. However, The Longest Journey had only one instance of this problem that I noticed, so I liked it.
In Dreamfall, you return to the magic/science dual worlds of Stark and Arcadia (with the addition of another unexplained realm called Winter) as Zoe, and again, strange events unfold.
The game was a series of somewhat unpleasant shocks from the moment I bought it, starting with the amount of hard drive space it required just to install it on my computer: 7 GB. It also ran right up against the Number of Disks rule, having six CD's in the box. (The Number of Disks Rule is a computer-game standard I made up: once you have more disks than you have fingers, it's time to convert to a new medium with more storage space. Sadly, this rule only applies to computer games.)
The beginning of the actual game, however, was extremely enjoyable, with the expected tutorial-like setting where you explore the various actions available to you. There are simple puzzles and tasks to complete along with exposition for the overall story. There is a new combat system, not present in the original game, which took some trial-and-error to learn. Quick and easy fun.
Unfortunately, as the game progressed the puzzles didn't get any harder. In fact, they required very little thinking of any kind; usually you were told exactly what you had to do and how to do it; the only exception was the lock-picking mini-game, which came with no instructions. It was very easy to figure out, though. I also had to sit through interminable conversations between characters that often made little sense, the conversations and cut scenes often lasting two or even three times as long as the independant action sequences. It's a very "in" game, too, in that you'd be very, very lost if you had not played the first one. The combat system is essentially pointless as well; it is not an RPG element, it is yet another mini-game.
That, and it ends on a cliffhanger. I can almost understand cliffhangers in books, but in a video game? What happened, the budget ran out and you shipped whatever you had? Come on.
Despite its many serious faults, however, the game was as distracting and attention-sucking as a good book, and it takes maybe 8 hours to play, so I'll definitely be getting the next one to find out what happens. However, I think I'll be waiting for it to hit the cheap shelves this time.
I'm not normally a fan of adventure games because I have limited patience for the "Use Toothpaste on Frog" phenomenon: that is, some extremely non-intuitive, non-logical step you have to take in order to solve a puzzle so you can progress. However, The Longest Journey had only one instance of this problem that I noticed, so I liked it.
In Dreamfall, you return to the magic/science dual worlds of Stark and Arcadia (with the addition of another unexplained realm called Winter) as Zoe, and again, strange events unfold.
The game was a series of somewhat unpleasant shocks from the moment I bought it, starting with the amount of hard drive space it required just to install it on my computer: 7 GB. It also ran right up against the Number of Disks rule, having six CD's in the box. (The Number of Disks Rule is a computer-game standard I made up: once you have more disks than you have fingers, it's time to convert to a new medium with more storage space. Sadly, this rule only applies to computer games.)
The beginning of the actual game, however, was extremely enjoyable, with the expected tutorial-like setting where you explore the various actions available to you. There are simple puzzles and tasks to complete along with exposition for the overall story. There is a new combat system, not present in the original game, which took some trial-and-error to learn. Quick and easy fun.
Unfortunately, as the game progressed the puzzles didn't get any harder. In fact, they required very little thinking of any kind; usually you were told exactly what you had to do and how to do it; the only exception was the lock-picking mini-game, which came with no instructions. It was very easy to figure out, though. I also had to sit through interminable conversations between characters that often made little sense, the conversations and cut scenes often lasting two or even three times as long as the independant action sequences. It's a very "in" game, too, in that you'd be very, very lost if you had not played the first one. The combat system is essentially pointless as well; it is not an RPG element, it is yet another mini-game.
That, and it ends on a cliffhanger. I can almost understand cliffhangers in books, but in a video game? What happened, the budget ran out and you shipped whatever you had? Come on.
Despite its many serious faults, however, the game was as distracting and attention-sucking as a good book, and it takes maybe 8 hours to play, so I'll definitely be getting the next one to find out what happens. However, I think I'll be waiting for it to hit the cheap shelves this time.
Jul 12, 2006
World Without End
I find, not infrequently, that the more I read, the more I enjoy what I read, and Sean Russell's book is a definite demonstration of this fact. I probably wouldn't have enjoyed reading it at all if I hadn't first read The Lunar Men; many of the circumstances illustrated in the book would have escaped me entirely.
World Without End follows the travels of Tristram Flattery, a somewhat naive young man with ambitions to be an Empiricist . . . in modern parlance, a natural philosopher, one step down from being a scientist. He is thrown into a world of adventure, politics, and ancient mysteries when he is tasked with reviving a plant vital to his king's health.
His world is not unlike our own; it's so similar, in fact, that I found myself occasionally playing the "what does this correspond to in the real world?" game more than once. The only striking difference is that, shortly before the rise of this new Empiricism, there were magicians. No one really knows anything about them, and when the last of them died he took pains to see that this should be so. Somehow, the king's illness, the plant, and the magicians are intertwined in ways that Flattery cannot comprehend; involving himself with one has seemingly involved him with them all.
The pace of the book is very slow and stately, almost British in its understatement; the relationships between characters are both reserved and complex. I very much enjoyed it, but it's no thriller.
Rating: 3.5
World Without End follows the travels of Tristram Flattery, a somewhat naive young man with ambitions to be an Empiricist . . . in modern parlance, a natural philosopher, one step down from being a scientist. He is thrown into a world of adventure, politics, and ancient mysteries when he is tasked with reviving a plant vital to his king's health.
His world is not unlike our own; it's so similar, in fact, that I found myself occasionally playing the "what does this correspond to in the real world?" game more than once. The only striking difference is that, shortly before the rise of this new Empiricism, there were magicians. No one really knows anything about them, and when the last of them died he took pains to see that this should be so. Somehow, the king's illness, the plant, and the magicians are intertwined in ways that Flattery cannot comprehend; involving himself with one has seemingly involved him with them all.
The pace of the book is very slow and stately, almost British in its understatement; the relationships between characters are both reserved and complex. I very much enjoyed it, but it's no thriller.
Rating: 3.5
Jul 10, 2006
Hepps on Parade
Last Wednesday through Friday I went to the Hepp-Ewers family reunion at Turkey Run State Park in Indiana, which turned out to be highly enjoyable. Events included:
- Receipt by yours truly of nine (count them) mosquito bites on my left foot within thirty minutes of arriving at the park. These are all the bug bites I got during my stay. The park REALLY needs to get a new welcoming committee. It reminds me of this song by the Scared Weird Little Guys.
- Breakfast Buffet that included: Fried Biscuits. No, seriously. I didn't know biscuits could get any less healthy. Apparently they can. Live and learn.
- A hike through the park, where, assisted by some less-than-stellar navigational attempts on the part of my mother (hey, it wasn't my fault, I was just following her) we ended up taking a completely different trail than the one we intended to take. It was all right, because the trail was still cool, however it led into (don't ask me how, I don't know) a Very Rugged Trail. My mom decided to bail, however my dad and my brother Gareth showed up as I was attempting to estimate just how rugged, exactly, this Very Rugged was, and I wound up walking the ENTIRE TRAIL (after already doing another one!) and climbing more stairs than I EVER WANT TO SEE AGAIN FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. Why, you ask? Because I was NOT going to let my dad and my brother think that I couldn't climb some piddly stairs just because I happen to be fat and out of shape, thank you very much. My brother Gareth does Cross Country and he RAN up the stairs, leaving me at the bottom gasping for air and exclaiming: "I'll be along soon!" However, I got to see the chipmunks and he missed them, so I'm not miffed.
- Philly Cheese Steak. Mm mm talk about your health food here!
- Watching my male family members try to get the wireless internet working.
- Swimming. Well, I say Swimming, but the pool never got deeper than three feet so it was more like Dunking My Brothers Repeatedly. They, of course, returned the favor. They're taller and more tenacious than I am, but I'm bigger and meaner so I think it was more or less a draw.
- Smothered Grilled Chicken while I attempt to explain to Madeline and Lily what the difference between "second cousin" and "first cousin once removed" is. For those of you that, like myself, have enormous extended families and might want to have some method for keeping track of them, it's a fairly simple distinction: Your parents' brothers and sisters are your aunts and uncles. The children of your aunts and uncles are your first cousins. Your grandparents' brothers and sisters are your great aunts and uncles, their grandchildren are your second cousins. The children of your grandparents' brothers and sisters are one generation removed from you, hence they're your second cousins once removed. Got that?
- Gathering with family to take photos and look at other photos.
- Attempt by yours truly at teaching my dad, brothers, cousin-once-removed Ollie and his girlfriend, whose name I hope was actually Julie because that's what I remember, to play contract Bridge. Attempt was mostly successful, or at least fun.
- Breakfast Buffet.
- Canoeing down Sugar Creek. Ooo rocks! Trees! Tire! The creek was, how shall I put it, less than deep, and since I was in a canoe with my dad, we scraped the bottom several times and decided to go right OVER the submerged log instead of maybe AVOIDING it like some kind of sane people. We also almost swamped the canoe, although I didn't actually see this happening so my response, when my dad was trying to remedy the situation, was, and I quote, "Geez, Dad, don't panic." Neither of us is really bad at steering a canoe, the problem was that Dad has a tendency to steer very forcefully, which meant that I kept trying to correct his over-corrections, and he'd correct my corrections, with the predictable result that at any given time we had little or no idea where we were going. Communicate? And spoil the fun?
- Hummingbirds. This was sort of a trip-addendum, as I happened upon six or seven of them when I stopped to get gas before leaving the park. The gas station attendants had put out feeders for them, and they were quite used to people. I don't think I've ever seen a hummingbird that closely before.
So, overall, a fun trip. We'll have to do it again some time.
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