A Gilded Planet

Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart Super Sad True Love Story offers a vision of the future that follows present day social, political and economic trends to their sardonically satirical dystopian conclusion. It is a novel that sets a star crossed romance against the backdrop of the decadent west in decline. The author, Gary Shteyngart, imagines his future dystopia literally rather than allegorically. This allows him to create characters that are more real than symbolic. But it also leads to some odd examples of a kind of warped literary prescience. The emergence of an Occupy Wall Street type movement in the imagined future of the novel is probably the most prominent example of this prescience. The book was published over a year before the tents started to go up at Zucotti Park, but the parallels between the rolling campsite protests that occur in the novel due to the U.S.'s continued economic problems bear an eerie resemblence to what transpired in reality not so ...

Snow White and the Huntsman 2012. 127 minutes. USA. Directed by Rupert Sanders. Watchdate: 6/15/2012. Snow White and the Huntsman is a completely forgettable and pointless action adventure-cum-romance, though I did enjoy Charlize Theron's unhinged, over the top performance as well as the super mushroomy forest trip and the seven dwarves (including Bob Hoskins, Ian McShane, and Nick Frost). Why again did they deemphasize the dwarves in this version? They are the best part of the story.

Recently, the University of California Office of the President unveiled a new logo for the most prestigious public university system in the world. Since then, the logo has been met with near universal revulsion and outright disgust. It has been widely compared to a flushing toilet, or, more kindly, to one of those annoying loading icons that everyone loves to hate in this age of computers and attention deficits. In response, the fifteen-year-old girls at the UC Office of the President responded using Facebook , the average high schooler's public forum of choice: Here's the thing: It's [the new logo] not replacing anything. There wasn't a logo before, and the UC seal isn't going anywhere. The symbol also isn't new. It's been on websites, brochures, advertising and other places for nearly a year now. Did we consult people and test it? Of course. Does everyone like the new symbol? No. That's very clear. But strong differences of opinion and energetic d...

Republicans in the state legislature of Michigan have come together this week to institute new prohibitions on the freedom of contract in their state. These new state-mandated prohibitions would put certain restrictions on people's right to bargain and sign contracts reflecting the outcomes of such bargaining. Republicans often portray themselves in opposition to big government regulations of the economy. However, when it comes to putting new restrictions on the type of contracts that can be arranged between free and consenting adults, they always seem to forget they are against big government. See also "tort reform." Prominent Example of Big Government Interfering with Freedom of Contract For some reason, many prominent reporters and news commentators have decided to refer to the legislation in Michigan as a "right-to-work" law. I guess newspaper editors decided it would be a good idea to try to confuse their readers as much as possible. Instead of calli...

Europa 1991.  112 minutes. Denmark. Directed by Lars von Trier . Watchdate: 7/16/2012. Wow! I am certain this movie strikes a different chord now that Lars von Trier has publicly expressed sympathy (jokingly?) for der Führer. Until watching this movie, I had never really given any serious thought to Nazi dead-enders conspiring in Germany after the second world war ended. It does make sense that there would have been some kind of violent political insurgency during the Allied occupation of Germany (not Iraq level, but something!). I'll give von Trier credit for provoking me to think about that peculiar historical footnote. And he either deserves great credit or a resounding demerit - I'm not sure which - for pressing me to even have just the barest modicum of sympathy for the purest evil that humanity has witnessed. I have to acknowledge the movie's imagery - bizarre, haunting, elegiac, disturbing and occasionally even goofy - and certainly like very little else I...

I Blood, blood, innumerable arms All of the people yielding at once to the force of these feral stones Brain? a blowfish, a squash, but knotted with blood that threads round after beating is done Not the bloody days of books and years I fascinate the man on the street, 'Of course,' he says 'You curved your body to be played and trounced' II Once in awhile we'll idealize It is what it is, we don't get it yet We reshape to fit an identity cast in agony III At the bargaining table Be artless and demure Let your arms quake  If we don't get what I want IV Blood, blood, innumerate terms The views of another found lifeless out of many one brain chasing itself through open doors and windows just as we were about to close them The paroxysm had begun. 'Give in, give in.' 'We're doing this for you' I said with one voice 'I can't bear disobedience' His face black as ...

Over at Digby's place, David Atkins has argued against any cuts to Medicare or Medicaid as part of a laughably unnecessary "grand bargain" meant to avoid the largely mythological "fiscal cliff," by referring to increasingly depressed wages of working people in the U.S. But in a recent post , he repeated a myth about how globalization has factored into the downward pressure on the livelihood of the vast majority of Americans: Now, it's certainly true that we live in a brave new world that structurally advantages the wealthy: labor is global and expendable, jobs are increasingly mechanized, the world is flattened, vertical integration and economies of scale are commonplace. But as Hacker and Pierson persuasively argue , this is also a product of intentional public policy, including (as I have frequently argued) an obsession with  inflating assets over wages . Atkins correctly points out that a major part of the story that explains the stagnation of m...

John Carter 2012.  132 minutes. USA. Directed by Andrew Stanton . Watchdate: 3/10/2012. John Carter was a lot of fun. It's much more engaging than Avatar even if the visual spectacle of its world isn't nearly as fantastic. The Disney marketing wizards really screwed up, their advertisements seemed weirdly confused and even ashamed of the movie's story. The movie is just a really well-executed adaptation of the precursor to Star Wars , Avatar , Indiana Jones and all those kinds of adventures. That shouldn't be hard to market. Instead, they removed everything distinctive about the title and went as generic as possible with the trailers. Dumb move, Disney. Dumb move. But anyway, leaving aside this obsession with money that often consumes mainstream "entertainment journalism" (if you can think of a more odious term please don't let me know), I probably would have suggested cutting or refashioning the opening scene but other than that I have no compla...

Many political junkies are fond of a modest proposal for electoral reform known as the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact , often referred to as NPV for short. NPV evolved out of consternation at the result of the 2000 Presidential Election, in which George W. Bush famously won the presidency even though he didn't receive the most votes due to an archaic feature of our democracy known as the Electoral College along with a friendly ruling from the Supreme Court. It would be admirable to institute the NPV and move to a system in which getting the most votes guarantees a victory in the presidential election. But why stop with the presidency? Last week, Democrats won more votes than Republicans in the elections for the House of Representatives, yet Republicans will maintain a solid majority in the "people's house." And this is not an uncommon result: in 1996, the same thing happened. Democrats won the House elections in terms of votes but were still in the minor...

It's that Eissales was ambushed by abstract warriors in the dead of a dog on a foray (Yilmaz told me it was a visit to kin) Their plan was to sell Eissales to his mortal enemies (for a price, of course) Stripped down to the body, tied with leather and stuck in tents (with only a greenhorn guard idling outside) Eissales chewed through the straps Knocked over the guard with a two-finger jab between his head Stole the knife and scalped the youth and cut off one of the boy's legs (all in what Yilmaz related to me as "one swift movement") After escaping into the Dark Forest Eissales survived on the leg 'til he reached the cabin of his strapping partner (a sojourney that would have been two hundred miles in those years)

17.4.22 Today confusion and cynicism are at a high level. There is little mention of the Manufacturing Warrens. A great deal of neurotic chatter is focused on the rumor of further shortages. 1. Today the reaction is probably darker than at any time since the Collapse. 2. There are signs of desperation appearing, for the first time a definite sense among some quite ordinary people that now we cannot possibly recover. As always, many people are trying to be optimistic. They express their faith in an ultimate redemption. Only a few still express that it will be possible to emerge from recent events back to a higher level. 3. It is on the whole assumed by most people that the network backbone will fall. There is doubt and anxiety as to whether or not this would indicate the total breakdown of communication. As usual, there is a lack of opinion leadership from above to guide the people in this grave affair. 4. The Manufacturing Warrens are scarcely mentioned today. Nearly everyone is so ...

Alice 1988.  84 minutes. Czechoslovakia. Directed by Jan  Švankmajer . Watchdate: 5/7/2012. The sound effects in this movie might be the most unpleasant noises I've ever experienced. Even if I leave that aside, along with the annoying device of showing Alice's lips speaking "he said, she said" every few moments for the entire running time, I still find that I like this movie better in theory than in practice. Sure, there's some inspired bits of stop motion animation, sure, this story deserves a dark, fucked up interpretation like what Svankmajer attempted, but it's faint praise to say this is much more interesting than the mostly disastrous Tim Burton version. I did absolutely love when Alice crawled into the desk though.

"Comic opera." - Lancaster Dodd From left to right: Whining White Pieces of Shit Behold the outrage generated by that most outlandish breed of reactionary, the Whining White Piece of Shit: When I'm at the Wal-mart or grocery story I typically pay with my debit card. On the pad it comes up, "EBT, Debit, Credit, Cash." I make it a point to say loudly to the check-out clerk, "EBT, what is that for?" She inevitably says, "it's government assistance." I respond, "Oh, you mean welfare? Great. I work for a living. I'm paying for my food with my own hard-earned dollars. And other people get their food for free." And I look around with disgust, making sure others in line have heard me. In response to President Obama's reelection yesterday, the Whining White Piece of Shit quoted above plans to boycott any business that accepts food stamps among other measures intending to show his absolute contempt for all Obama support...

Larry McMurty recently  auctioned off a sizable portion of his collection of 450,000 books , most of which resided in Booked Up, the book shop he owns in Archer City, Texas. This has inspired me to confess to my increasingly unstable obsession with book stores in general, and finding all the good ones in the San Francisco Bay Area in particular. This syndrome is closely related to a condition known as book lust . The motherlode book shop in the Bay Area, so far as I've encountered thus far, is Green Apple Books on Clement Street in the Richmond District of San Francisco. I finally made it over to Green Apple over the summer and was quite overwhelmed by their vast and varied collection. I felt some anguish when I had to leave before being able to explore their second floor. Green Apple is not quite as historically or culturally important as City Lights Books in the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco, but somehow it feels even better to browse Green Apple's seemingl...

FETHIYE 5/30/12 - We are on a dolmuş, a small, cramped, hot little rocket to Kayakoyu. Kayakoyu is a Greek village in southern Turkey that was abandoned after a 1923 "population exchange." We are with Brandon, an Asian-Australian fellow who had been living in London for the last couple of years. Shortly after Turkey, he's taking a 5 month trip to South America. He's been out of university for at least five years now, so it sounds like it's possible to do such things after starting a career. Kayakoyu, Turkey Sitting in the ruins of this 17th century Greek Orthodox High Church, I am reminded of the pictures I have seen of the bombed ruins of World War II era Europe. Yet this city wasn't bombed, rather its population was deported almost ninety years ago. Since then, nature has taken its toll. Staggering.

Chicken with Plums 2011.  93 minutes. France.  Directed by  Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi . Watchdate: 4/30/2012. Chicken with Plums is an entirely pleasant and mild movie that borders on being insufferably middle of the road. The absurdly cartoonish elements aren't particularly funny and the maudlin romantic moments aren't particularly moving, but there are a few scenes worthy of attention, particularly a long sequence that ends with some amusing opium-related comic business. I haven't seen Persepolis so I can't compare it to the filmmaker's previous work, though I don't feel like I'm in more of rush to see Persepolis  based on the style exhibited in this movie. Sometimes I want to excoriate these middling kinds of movies, but it seems ornery and ideological to do so. What's the point of generating hatred where none existed before?

California Forward, a non-partisan front group for sanctimonious centrists who think problems can be solved by anodyne nonsense and half-measures, has polluted the ballot in our state with a truly moronic proposition that would give large businesses the ability to elude environmental regulations by playing county governments against each other. While it purports to move power and authority down to the local level, it would have the effect of giving private business entities the power to rewrite California's laws as long as they can convince already beleaguered local governments to go along with them. I am a strong supporter of the principle of local control of decision-making. Every day, city governments all over the country enact great policies that federal and state governments are too sluggish and cowardly to touch. But often "bringing power back to local government" is code for "corporate privatization of laws and regulations", in the same sense that ...

Woodrow Eastwick, The Prophet of Peoria Hector Wentworth, The Wizard of Wichita Ray Pinchot, The Shaman of Shreveport Earl Norris, The Diviner of Duluth Spiro Fallon, The Telepath of Topeka Hamish Perlmutter, The Clairvoyant of Cleveland Hoover Framingham, The Nostradamus of Nashville Jeremiah Hubbard, The Buddha of Bloomington Neve Linklater, The Sage of Salt Lake City Thomas Mogenson, The Enchanter of Evansville Isaac Fairbanks, The Sorcerer of Springfield Adam Tertius, The Guru of Grand Rapids Victor Kerosene, The Mage of Missoula

At 9:01am, Barleycorn's is a church, a temple, a place of worship with mass three times per day, prayer in the direction of the Black Monolith five times per day, and a reading of the Sacred Scrolls of Wisdom by Rabbi Michael Lerner at least once per week. Barleycorn's is located with building that has a steeple, a bell tower, and two minarets, along with stalactites, stalagmites, and many other pseudo-natural wonders. At around 8pm (or just after sunset, whichever comes first), Barleycorn's closes down, the last prayer said, the last mass read. At 9:01pm, Barleycorn's reopens as an all-night diner. It serves hot pastrami, corned beef, roast beef au jus, meatloaf, chicken salad, tuna salad, potato salad, bacon, lettuce and tomato, meatball sub, macaroni and cheese, fried mozzarella sticks, grilled cheese, chicken soup for the soul, chicken parmesan, chicken cacciatore, chicken kiev, chicken fried steak, chinese chicken salad, bbq pork bun, cobb salad, taco salad, bre...

Lake of Fire 2006.  152 minutes. USA. Directed by Tony Kaye. Watchdate: 1/21/2012. On the 39th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, I watched this frightening but insightful documentary about abortion that actually gives a fair consideration of the morality of the issue without resorting to the false equivalence of "evenhandedness" when examining the political aspects of the same. The pro-life movement is based on patriarchal authoritarianism and the radical parts of it are totally nuts and at times, extremely dangerous. The movie doesn't pull any punches about that reality. That being said, it does take seriously the philosophical questions that ask about what constitutes life, and the movie shows just enough footage of actual abortions to allow for a real discussion without becoming exploitative. Shot in stark black and white photography, there are a few shots that really stood out to me. It's definitely a thought provoking and worthwhile documentary. ...

...is not the United States presidential election. There, I said it. It's not that I don't think it's very important who wins the presidential election. It's very important who wins. For example, if Mitt Romney wins, it's likely his administration will eviscerate both Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, depriving tens of millions of the Americans of health care. That would be tragic. But the most important political story of 2012 is the growing wave of strike actions at Wal-Mart, the largest private employer in the entire world. Wal-Mart is virulently anti-union and entirely non-unionized, meaning these actions are taking place largely outside the federal government's legal framework of labor conflict resolution governed by Wagner Act. This is huge. Wildcat strikes at the world's largest employers mean that labor organizing in the United States is far from dead, despite the many obituaries written for it by both conservatives and liberals. And if yo...

"I know picking words that don't sound terrible isn't Mitt Romney's strong suit, but..." - Erin Gloria Ryan During yesterday's presidential debate, Mitt Romney responded to a question about pay equity for women with an answer so tin-earred, it took my breath away: Thank you. And — important topic and one which I learned a great deal about, particularly as I was serving as governor of my state, because I had the — the chance to pull together a Cabinet and all the applicants seemed to be men. And I — and I went to my staff, and I said, how come all the people for these jobs are — are all men? They said, well, these are the people that have the qualifications. And I said, well, gosh, can’t we — can’t we find some — some women that are also qualified?  And — and so we — we took a concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to become members of our cabinet. I went to a number of women’s groups and said, can ...

If I held public office right now, this is the speech I would make over and over again. I would stand on every soapbox that would have me delivering this message. And I would probably be ignored or marginalized. "The official unemployment rate is nearly double what used to be considered normal just a few short years ago. And that official rate does not even include millions of underemployed and long term unemployed Americans. Years after the financial crisis, employment in this country is still deeply depressed. Not only does this mean untold hardship for millions of unemployed Americans and their families, but it is also causing permanent damage to our economy since long term unemployment damages the skills and earning power of workers forever. Given this stark reality, it is unconscionable that the leadership of this country is not doing everything in its power to end this jobs crisis now. "The saying goes that those who don't know their history are doomed to r...

The Dark Knight Rises 2012. 164 minutes. USA. Directed by Christopher Nolan. Watchdate: 7/20/2012. If The Dark Knight was The Godfather Part II of comic book movies, this movie is thankfully not The Godfather Part III of comic book movies (that dubious honor belongs to X3: X-Men United ). That may not be the kindest way to begin discussing this movie, but it feels honest to me. Leaving aside the tragic events that occurred in Colorado when the movie opened, I see a lot to like about The Dark Knight Rises but it is also clear to me that all of The Dark Knight's weaknesses are present with interest in this sequel - the hurried editing, the narrative overambition, the underdeveloped characters. However, the biggest problem is that these weaknesses are not excused by strengths nearly as formidable as those of its predecessor. Still, I will give the movie a considerable amount of credit for two of its overarching aspects. First, its sly determination to bring a dizzying co...

A few days ago on the way to work, I had a more visceral reaction to literature than I have ever had before. I am currently reading 2666 by Roberto Bolaño. The reaction was caused by a scene in which the scholars Pelletier and Espinoza (a twentieth century Bouvard and Pécuchet to be sure) attack a Pakistani cab driver in London over an insult. The cabbie had called the two of them pimps and their mutual ex-girlfriend a whore. As best as I can tell, this is actually a quite realistic depiction about how much senseless violence gets started in this world. How crude and how ridiculous. Before the attack happens at the very end of the scene, I had identified quite deeply with the jealousy that Pelletier and Espinoza felt due to the unraveling of their relationship with Liz Norton due to recent events in my own life. I identified even more with Pelletier and Espinoza's self-mockery of their own jealousy. But when the sequence took a turn for the bizarre with the cabbie's untowa...

Do the Right Thing 1989. 120 minutes. USA. Directed by Spike Lee. Watchdate: 8/26/2012. Like La Dolce Vita and In A Lonely Place , Do the Right Thing is one of the those movies that works well enough for most of its running time but then in the final thirty minutes or so launches stratospherically into being one of the most affecting, astonishingly brilliant movies ever. It may be worth praising the standout performances of Ossie Davis, Danny Aiello, and John Turturro, but this is a case where praising any one part of the movie won't suffice because the whole is so much greater than the sum of its parts. It's not about what the movie is, it's about how the movies grows to be. She's Gotta Have It and Mo Betta Blues went along way to convincing me that Spike Lee shares a lot of filmmaking vocabulary in common with Woody Allen. This movie began by confirming that assumption and ended by completely, utterly upsetting it. Lastly, the more erudite cineast...

The truth is not just inconvenient anymore. It's obvious. Whether it's extended droughts, historic heat waves, wildfires that burn hotter and longer than ever, or more frequent and intense hurricanes and tornadoes, you don't have to go to the Arctic in the summer (where a third of the sea ice is gone) to get that global warming is already having a dramatic affect on climatological conditions all over the world. As these photos from NASA's Extreme Weather Event Photo Contest demonstrate, global warming is going to be awesome. Photo Credit: Grant Petty Photo Credit: Jason Weingart Not in the "The Black Keys played an awesome show at the Warfield last night" way, but rather the "The shockwave sent out by the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs and altered Earth forever must have been an awesome sight" way. Photo Credit: Meggan Wood Photo Credit: Brian Allen Keep in mind, the federal government currently has the ability to borrow ...

Prometheus 2012. 124 minutes. USA. Directed by Ridley Scott. Watchdate: 6/13/2012. Screencap from only great scene in Prometheus. The best segments in Prometheus seemed to be those that did not quite necessarily fit with the overall shittiness of the movie. The opening sequence with David the creepy robot (Michael Fassbender) worked really well. But it's practically straight out of Kubrick, stylistically at least. It felt orphaned from a different (possibly much better) movie that did not cater to the summer blockbuster crowd with poorly conceived action sequences. In general, the David character worked best for me but I think that's as much a testament to Fassbender as it is to the filmmakers. He took a very intriguing but underdeveloped character and made it fascinating to watch. (So far, he's made riveting every role I've seen him play.) In one scene, Dr. Shaw (Noomi Rapace) gets an abortion from that machine  (see image above). This was the only sce...

There once were three bald writers. Their keyboards were as worn as their heads were shiny. The three bald writers were named John, Max and Nick. John and Max each wrote blogs. They wrote other things too, but mainly blogs. They would both dispute this characterization, but I am just going to stick with my interpretation in this exercise for just a moment if you'll indulge me. Nick once wrote a column for The Believer that really felt like a blog even though it wasn't. For some reason, a collection of Nick's columns entitled The Polysyllabic Spree felt most especially like a blog, even though it came in book form. Maybe it's because he began each column with a list of books he had read along with a list of books he had bought during that month. Or maybe not. Max and Nick each wrote novels. John rarely ventured into the world of prose except for a few short stories. John wrote screenplays, but Max and Nick also wrote screenplays, though not nearly as many as John, ...

10. José Martí 9. Rutherford B. Hayes 8. Julián Trujillo Largacha 7. Fidel Castro 6. Andrés Avelino Cáceres  5. George Crook 4. Abraham Lincoln 3. Venustiano Carranza 2. Máximo Gómez 1. Chester A. Arthur

I was standing in line at three in the morning waiting to see The Dark Knight Rises  at the Metreon in San Francisco when I first heard about the shootings in Aurora. Based on the number of people waiting for the 3:45AM showings at the Metreon, I imagine I am not alone in having had the experience of learning about this mass murder very shortly before seeing the most anticipated movie of the year. However, despite the highly associative proximity of these events, I feel quite uncomfortable connecting them in a meaningful way. Let me explain why. In April 1999, two kids wearing trench coats walked into a school and started shooting. That same month, Keanu Reeves wore a trench coat when he walked into a security checkpoint and started shooting. The second event happened in the movie The Matrix . Some people insisted on drawing a connection, saying that these kids took inspiration from that particular violent movie. Or they connected it to Doom , saying that these kids took inspira...