Novel Eye

Sadly, although I think Bernie’s ideas are exactly what the country needs, and a long time coming, there is a piece of me that cannot see him in winning the White House. 1) He’s a democratic socialist. For a large portion of the population over 60 the word ‘socialist’ disqualifies him from the office of the president no matter what words precede it. My father would have been one of them. Of course, for my father and many others, the fact he protested the VietNam war would have been enough to dismiss him. To argue that socialism, as described in the works of Marx and Engel and many earlier social philosophies, has never been practiced by any major government on the planet—the classic ‘well, it works on paper’ argument—falls on deaf ears. Or to point out that a democratic system of governance is as vital to a socialist system as it is to a capitalistic one—if not more so—will not be believed. There are those who still think that FDR’s socialistic policies led the United States do...

Episode 8 - Young Adult Lit and Conservative Comedy Episode 8 - Young Adult Lit and Conservative Comedy Loann and Art, in true young boy and girl detective spirit, track down the arguments for and against grown-ups reading Young Adult literature. And, where are all the conservative comedians? Is the comedy industry a liberal stronghold? We also discuss our cultural consumption over the past few weeks. ( Now available on iTunes ) 009 - Tom Cruise & Dragons Underperform and 70's Political Paranoia Today How to Train Your Dragon 2 and Edge of Tomorrow are getting great reviews, (and Loann and Art have each seen one of them.) However, they are not meeting box office projections, so what does that mean for the studios and the stars.   And, 70's movies like The Conversation made audiences feel creeped out about the surveillance state, but where are those stories being told today?

After a long hiatus, Art and I are back, talking about popular culture, current events, and stuff.

So, I've been having a dystopia fest (this is not rare for me--I am fascinated by dystopian literature). I read Margaret Atwood's "Madadam," another book in the series that began with "Oryx & Crake." If you haven't read "Oryx & Crake," I can't recommend it highly enough. It just blew my mind when I read it several years ago. It is both dystopian--pre-apocolyptic, and post-apocalyptic. And watched "Metropolis," and "Things to Come." Then I consumed "The Hunger Games"--all three books--in three days. I had never read "The Hunger Games" before, and I found the writing hard to slog through. I understand that it was supposed to capture the simple, plain speech of Katniss, along with the present tense, but 1st person, present tense is a hard sell for a long book, let alone three. That said, the story was intriguing. I will be curious to see how they handle the horrifying violence of the l...

What Was That Now?  Episode 3 Loann and Art discuss more summer movies, including Pacific Rim and the disastrous box office performance of The Lone Ranger. And we look at the emerging success of Netflix Original Series, such as House of Cards, Hemlock Grove, Arrested Development and the brand new Orange is the New Black.

Someone on the train was listening to “Bohemian Rhapsody” today. I could hear it, thin and tinny, from their headphones. I don’t know how people can do that, listen to music so loud. Or perhaps, their headphones are simply cheap and bleed the sound. I’m feeling my age I suppose, but I’ve never been able to listen to music at high volume. I have fantastic earbuds at the moment. When I put them in, I can barely hear anything else. In some ways that’s what you want, but in others it’s almost disturbing. Am I missing announcements? People asking me to move aside? Telling me that there’s a stampeding rhino heading my way? A couple of weeks ago I could hear the music from the woman next to me. Hear it well enough to recognize the songs: Whitney Houston chirpily singing, ‘How Will I Know?’ followed by Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean.” A playlist of dead people. Would Nirvana be next, or INXS? Joy Division? Or, like today, Queen? Someone newer, Amy Winehouse? I suppose if you ...

WWTNPodcast: Episode #2 Summer Movies, A Horror Master Passes O... : In this week's episode, Art and Loann discuss the passing of horror writer Richard Matheson and how an artist deals with critics and fa...

One Month After Newtown Shooting, NRA Releases Shooting Game App With Coffin-Shaped Targets : pWhen 20 children and 6 adults were gunned down in Sandy Hook Elementary School exactly one month ago today, the National Rifle Association rushed to blame video games, not guns, for inspiring such mass murders. But the gun lobby seemingly lost sight of its target in the past weeks, and over the weekend released a [...]/p

SocialMe says I am spiritual and ambitious and talk about government, movies, and your community.

I think this election is one of the most important in recent history. It will act as an assessment not just of Obama's administration, or even of Bush Jr.'s administration, but of the political policies that have been in place in this country for thirty to forty years--all of our lives for most of us here--an assessment of whether the American Dream is still alive and attainable for everyone, not just for those who start with many advantages such as money, social status of one's family, influence, etc. And it is a vote about two radically different views of how to make America a better place. The issues include: economic policies, the integrity of the politic parties, and America's place in the global economy and in global issues. What I keep hearing are attacks on whether one party or the other is actually "good." For the future of our democracy, I think we need to believe that both parties want America to be a better place in line with what they conside...

Ah, Philip Larkin.  Being shown Larkin in college was revelatory for me.  I wrote my final paper on his poetry.  Looking at it now I can see both what appealed to me then, but I can also see how amazing his writing is, what depths can be discovered.  I think that I found him to be a bridge between the formal poetry of the past and the themes that would come to dominate poetry in the late 50's and 60's in free verse.  Larkin was a bitter and cynical man and his poems reflect a very post-war, British sensibility of austerity and change (in my American eyes).  And while his poems reflect that cynicism, it is interesting to me that he was still able to produce this body of work--that nihilism and pessimism did not stop him from the need to write.  Like Dorothy Parker, he flirted with suicide, wrote of it as a desirable thing, and yet staggered on creating. This is probably his most famous poem. This Be the Verse ~Philip Larkin They fuck...

Kid ~Simon Armitage Batman, big shot, when you gave the order to grow up, then let me loose to wander leeward, freely through the wild blue yonder as you liked to say, or ditched me rather, in the gutter…well, I turned the corner. Now I’ve scotched that ‘he was like a father to me’ rumour, sacked it, blown the cover on that ‘he was like an elder brother’ story, let the cat out on the caper with the married woman, how you took her downtown on expenses in the motor. Holy robin-redbreast-nest-egg shocker! Holy roll-me-over-in-the-clover, I’m not playing ball boy any longer Batman, now I’ve doffed that off-the-shoulder Sherwood-Forest-green and scarlet number for a pair of jeans and crew-neck jumper; now I’m taller, harder, stronger, older. Batman, it makes a marvelous picture: you without a shadow, stewing over chicken giblets in the pressure cooker, next to nothing in the walk-in larder, punching the palm of your hand all winter, you baby, now I’m the real boy wonder. On Being a Woman ...

Benedict Cumberbatch as the Creature, Jonny Lee Miller as Frankenstein Alas, they put him in a loin cloth--probably to not have to rate it R over here. But the bum was still awesome and yes, I thought how uncomfortable those boys must be during--like puppetry of the penis. The play (IMHO): BC/Creature--11 (BC was perhaps a tad too funny--I'm dying now to see the reversal) JLM /Victor--10 (a little too one-note, but I think that was a fault of the script.) Karl Johnson/De Lacey--9 Rest of cast--5 (except the maid--she was cool) Text--8 Set--besides the big musical numbers ( Steampunk Starlight Express and Brigadoon, the Zombie Version)--9 (the floor in particular was perfect) Music/sound (in our version)--too loud and inappropriate in some scenes Lighting--intriguing, prob. 8. I liked the use of lightbulbs --the subtle suggestion of industry and electricity--and there were enough of them to be very, very good. Some bursting flares that were a little odd. Reminded me of a recent p...

My thoughts are with friends and their families directly touched by the earthquake in Japan and by the resulting tsunami. We run out of money and in many ways we run out of emotion as well. Peru, Australia, New Zealand, now Japan… In a different category, Wisconsin, Prop. 8… Each new and immediate catastrophe pre-empts the one before. Our money and our focus are needed elsewhere. New Orleans is still rebuilding, Iraq is still in pieces, but we must parcel out our love and our money in triage. I can't help anyone cause everyone's so cold Everyone's so skeptical of everything they're told And even I get sick of needing to be sold Though it's only half a month away, the media's gone An entertaining scandal broke today, but I can't move on I'm haunted by a story and I do my best to tell it Can't even give this stuff away, why would I sell it? Everybody's laughing, while at me they point a finger A world that loves its irony must hate the protest sing...

A remarkable article by an American Iraqi veteran on being home: "Jumping back into civilian life headlong, like I'd originally attempted, proved both disastrous and shortsighted. And coming to terms with this permanent state of combat readiness has made me realize just how much I miss war (or parts of it), and how lucky--and twisted--I am to be able to even write those words. I miss the camaraderie. I miss the raw excitement." "I miss that daily sense of purpose, survive or die, that simply can't be replicated in everday existence. I miss standing for something more than myself, even if I never figured out just what the hell that something was supposed to be." http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/19/pilgrims-progress/?scp=3&sq=matt%20gallagher&st=cse

I always feel despair when I finish a Le Carre. At the state of the world. At the bastard who profit in it. All right, granted, the Service has a statutory interest in international crookery and money-laundering. We fought for a piece of it when times were hard, and now we’re landed with it. I refer to that unfortunate fallow period between the Berlin Wall coming down and Osama bin Laden doing us the favor of 9/11. We fought for a piece of the money-laundering market the same as we fought for a larger slice of Northern Ireland, and whatever other modest pickings were available to justify our existence. But that was then, Hector. And this is now, and as of today, which is where we are living, like it or not, your Service and mine has better things to do with its time and resources than get its knickers caught in the highly complex wheels of City of London finance, thank you. …furthermore, we also have, in this country, a very large, fully incorporated, somewhat over-financed sister agen...

My pets are old--one ancient and one a senior citizen. Mephisto (cat, 20 yrs. old) had a stroke and is blind and deaf. The other senses are fine--he can smell us when we come in and will scream to signal. He can feel and purrs loudly when we hold him in our laps--which he always wants to do as it is his only sensation. The stroke though has left him wandering in circles and he bumps into things, so he is not feeling space the way that he should as a cat. Guinness (dog, 13 yrs. old) is deaf in both ears. The ear canal has been removed from one, and the other is so blocked that it too will require removal. He does not wake when we call to him (he never came) but we use hand signals which seem to actually work better, but you must touch him first to get his attention. We have to be careful to touch him gently if coming up on him as he startles. We have always suspected that his vision and smell were not what they should be, as he would often jump upon encountering things outside, b...

Just a little autumn haiku. A leaf drifted past my window. Sadly it speaks of Autumn's coming

Not all dying words are true and this blessing is no less real for being shorn of its ground. Query: How does the never to be differ from what never was? He thought that in the history of the world it might even be that there was more punishment than crime but he took small comfort from it. When you've nothing else construct ceremonies out of the air and breathe upon them.

I love David Mitchell, the British author (as opposed to David Mitchell, the British comedian) of Cloud Atlas , Ghostwritten, Number 9 Dream, Black Swan Green and now this, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet . Like Iain Banks/Iain M. Banks, Mitchell seems to write one "normal" or linear narrative in between the time and mind bending ones (someone is attempting to film Cloud Atlas. I think this is a very, very bad idea). That said, this is a good book, but not his best, which is rather like saying that The Magnificent Ambersons isn't Citizen Kane. This is, to a certain extent (which looking back over my blog is a phrase I use too much), a historical romance set at the very end of the 18 th century and the beginning of the 19 th on an artificial trading island off the coast of Nagasaki. Mitchell lived in Japan for many years and is very familiar with the culture. It is both a love story and a historical story--describing pretty factually as far as I have researched ...