If you're reading this, as soon as you're done, turn off the computer, go to your car, drive to the nearest bookstore, and purchase 'Blink' by Malcolm Gladwell. This is an utterly fabulous book by someone who knows how to write. If the name Malcolm Gladwell rings a bell, it's because he wrote the Tipping Point, which has become an oft-used phrase in the early 21st century. Gladwell is a staff writer for the New Yorker who finds fascinating insights in the most unlikely places - the behavior of shoe retailers, or the multiple ways mayonaisse can be rated, for example - that manage to illuminate the way things work in a real and profound way. 'Blink' is probably not as profound as 'The Tipping Point', but its every bit as fascinating.
'Blink' is about the dangers of thinking too much. It's about the unconscious faculties our minds have for making brilliant deductions out of very small samples of evidence. It's also about how that process can be corrupted. I decided that if I was going to write about this book, I wouldn't give away any of its knockout anecdotes. And I won't. But I do want to say that I love the fact that decisiveness is celebrated in the book, probably because I like to think of myself as decisive. One of my favorite points from this book is that the more information you accrue, the less likely you are to make an accurate judgement, and if that sounds like balderdash to you, then you will love the book. It's a trip. Some of the best parts of it concern what happened when 4 white NY police fired 41 shots into an innocent black man one night in 1999. And if you think the explanationto that is just 'racism' that's just because I subconsciously primed you to think that way by by choice of words. The angle Gladwell takes is frequently surprising and often challenging. I don't know if the book even has a 'point', but regardless, its the most interesting thing I've read in months.
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Stuff that's gonna rule in 2005
Ok, after reading my previous post I have officialy scared myself. So very cynical! What happened to the cheerful, upbeat, happy-go-lucky Moondog? Well, the easy answer is, George W. Bush happened, but heck, that's no reason to wallow in despair. So what if we're all terrified riders in a careening shopping cart bouncing around the lip of a volcano? Does that mean we can't have a little fun? I believe that we can, and indeed, probably should. Why? Why should we have fun in the face of impending globo-political disaster? To answer this question, I must tell an old zen story from about 2000 BC.
Seems a zen holy man was being hunted by ignorant villagers and bandits who believed he was a witch. They chased him out of town and, to escape them, he cut off the road and began climbing a cliff. Unfortunately, they had a tracker and soon, the holy man was halfway up the cliff with bandits climbing up after him. To make matters worse, he looked up and saw 12 more bandits at the top of the cliff, climbing down to get him. He shifted his grip on a rock and suddenly an angry bird started pecking at his fingers. At this point the zen master spied a wild stawberry growing out of the cliffside. He smiled, and with his one free hand, picked it and popped it into his mouth, and enjoyed it.
That's the story.
Now, there are zillions of interpretations about what that story means (as with any zen tale), but what I take from it is, if you're in the shit, and you've done what you can, and the shit is still rising, then hell...eat yourself a strawberry. For me, pop culture is my strawberry. Movies, tv, books, video games, and so forth. If I'm stuck halfway up the cliff, then damn, I'm gonna play some Half-Life 2.
Good pop culture due this year:
Movies: King Kong. Do you really think Peter Jackson is gonna ruin his follow up to Lord of the Rings? Neither do I. Can't wait. I think Domino, a movie scripted by Richard Kelly, the Donnie Darko guy, is also going to be great. Apart from that, i'm looking forward to Star Wars and the new Paul Thomas Anderson movie. Then, of course, theres the new Spielberg War of the Worlds with Tom Cruise which should kick booty. War of the Worlds, man. That's good stuff.
Books: I'm eagerly awaiting A Feast for Crows, the new George R.R. Martin fantasy tale. It comes out July 19. I also want to Read Jonathan Strange and Doctor Morrell. There's a memoir being written by Colin Powell which should be pretty fascinating.
TV: 24 starts this Sunday, and I'm anticipating Jack Bauer kicking all kinds of ass. Lost is the best thing on TV, and I'm REALLY looking forward to Hurly's backstory. I think the fat man has all kinds of interesting secrets.
Videogames: Jade Empire is a role playing game set in ancient China (perhaps it has zen priests) which is supposed to be absolutely fabulous. Apart from that, I'm waiting for the Xbox 2 announcement in march. That thing is going to rock.
Music - there's a new Lyle Lovett cd due out this year, and a new Aimee Mann as well. Can't wait.
Well, that's what comes to mind on january 5th. I'm sure that by May 1st, there will be all kinds of new things on the list. We shall see. For now, it's Tuesday and there's a new episode of Lost. Pass the strawberries.
Seems a zen holy man was being hunted by ignorant villagers and bandits who believed he was a witch. They chased him out of town and, to escape them, he cut off the road and began climbing a cliff. Unfortunately, they had a tracker and soon, the holy man was halfway up the cliff with bandits climbing up after him. To make matters worse, he looked up and saw 12 more bandits at the top of the cliff, climbing down to get him. He shifted his grip on a rock and suddenly an angry bird started pecking at his fingers. At this point the zen master spied a wild stawberry growing out of the cliffside. He smiled, and with his one free hand, picked it and popped it into his mouth, and enjoyed it.
That's the story.
Now, there are zillions of interpretations about what that story means (as with any zen tale), but what I take from it is, if you're in the shit, and you've done what you can, and the shit is still rising, then hell...eat yourself a strawberry. For me, pop culture is my strawberry. Movies, tv, books, video games, and so forth. If I'm stuck halfway up the cliff, then damn, I'm gonna play some Half-Life 2.
Good pop culture due this year:
Movies: King Kong. Do you really think Peter Jackson is gonna ruin his follow up to Lord of the Rings? Neither do I. Can't wait. I think Domino, a movie scripted by Richard Kelly, the Donnie Darko guy, is also going to be great. Apart from that, i'm looking forward to Star Wars and the new Paul Thomas Anderson movie. Then, of course, theres the new Spielberg War of the Worlds with Tom Cruise which should kick booty. War of the Worlds, man. That's good stuff.
Books: I'm eagerly awaiting A Feast for Crows, the new George R.R. Martin fantasy tale. It comes out July 19. I also want to Read Jonathan Strange and Doctor Morrell. There's a memoir being written by Colin Powell which should be pretty fascinating.
TV: 24 starts this Sunday, and I'm anticipating Jack Bauer kicking all kinds of ass. Lost is the best thing on TV, and I'm REALLY looking forward to Hurly's backstory. I think the fat man has all kinds of interesting secrets.
Videogames: Jade Empire is a role playing game set in ancient China (perhaps it has zen priests) which is supposed to be absolutely fabulous. Apart from that, I'm waiting for the Xbox 2 announcement in march. That thing is going to rock.
Music - there's a new Lyle Lovett cd due out this year, and a new Aimee Mann as well. Can't wait.
Well, that's what comes to mind on january 5th. I'm sure that by May 1st, there will be all kinds of new things on the list. We shall see. For now, it's Tuesday and there's a new episode of Lost. Pass the strawberries.
Tuesday, January 04, 2005
Well as 2004 slinks out of the door and 2005 adjusts it's tie and checks its breath, here are some predictions, in no particular order. New Years prognostications are one of life's guilty pleasures, along with New Year's resolutions and New Years embarrasing memories of having drunk too much the night before.
Firstly, and not all that surprisingly, reality tv will continue its ongoing search to find ever-lower gutters to lay down in.There are some great reality shows and some merely good ones, but most are absolutely excerable. Have you seen the promos for 'Who's your Daddy?' where some adopted girl gets confronted by a bunch of imposters pretending to be her Dad, and has to pick which one really is, for a prize? In england Channel Four is getting ready to show 'Dust to Dust', where someone bequesths their (and I swear I'm not making this up)dead body to the show and they put it outside in the wild, then film it every week as it decomposes. Yep, this is entertainment in the 21st century. The answer to the question, 'are there any limits to the lengths some people will debase and humilate themselves to be on tv?' is a resounding No. There's stuff coming that will make us feel even more like the Roman Empire in Decline than we already do.
Okay, my next prediction is that there will be a natural disaster of biblical proportions, of asian tsunami proportions,in the United States. As I alluded in my last entry, you can only poop on mother nature for so long before she poops back,and we're heading for a poop-o-rama of unprecedented size. The only thing more predictable than this is the outcry from the news media right after, along the lines of 'who knew about this beforehand?', to which the answer is, all of us did.
Next - the situation in Iraq will get worse in unknown but horribly spectacular ways. Listen up - in 1967, smart people (you know, like us) knew that Vietnam was an unwinnable quagmire that was going to claim the lives of thousands who didn't need to die. But there was no way they could have predicted the specific ways in which the situation would unravel. There were still EIGHT YEARS ahead of the Tet Offensive, My Lai, The Pentagon Papers, and the fall of Saigon. It took that long for the average mainstream american to say "hmm, this might not have been such a good idea."In fact, even up to nixon's resignation in 1974, a majority of americans supported the war in Vietnam. Feeling depressed yet? Because this war has got plenty of play in it yet. Financially, it's costing us hundreds of Billions of Dollars, money that could have been earmarked to save social security or actually improve homeland security. In terms of lives lost there's no price tag. Just a lot of pain.
In brighter news, I predict that the aforementioned news media will rediscover it's teeth and become more aggressive in its pursuit of the Bush administration. Partly this is a function of the traditional change in dynamic for 2nd term presidents - critics realize they can outlast the current occupant of the White House and look more closely at his mistakes - but also its because many in the mainstream-but-still-honorable media feel stung that they were conned into essentially endorsing a war based on utter bullshit. The New York Times, for example, which relied on inner pentagon sources for their series of
stories about WMD in Iraq, now feels so betrayed by the administration that there's a palpable vibe of payback-is--coming emanating from the Gray Lady. I expect a huge scandal to break under the Bush administration, in classic 2nd term fashion. Don't expect the mainstream media to soft pedal this one. We may finally see some worthy successors to Woodward and Bernstein emerge.
Man, this has been a depressing post. Next: my upbeat tips for best movies of 05.
Firstly, and not all that surprisingly, reality tv will continue its ongoing search to find ever-lower gutters to lay down in.There are some great reality shows and some merely good ones, but most are absolutely excerable. Have you seen the promos for 'Who's your Daddy?' where some adopted girl gets confronted by a bunch of imposters pretending to be her Dad, and has to pick which one really is, for a prize? In england Channel Four is getting ready to show 'Dust to Dust', where someone bequesths their (and I swear I'm not making this up)dead body to the show and they put it outside in the wild, then film it every week as it decomposes. Yep, this is entertainment in the 21st century. The answer to the question, 'are there any limits to the lengths some people will debase and humilate themselves to be on tv?' is a resounding No. There's stuff coming that will make us feel even more like the Roman Empire in Decline than we already do.
Okay, my next prediction is that there will be a natural disaster of biblical proportions, of asian tsunami proportions,in the United States. As I alluded in my last entry, you can only poop on mother nature for so long before she poops back,and we're heading for a poop-o-rama of unprecedented size. The only thing more predictable than this is the outcry from the news media right after, along the lines of 'who knew about this beforehand?', to which the answer is, all of us did.
Next - the situation in Iraq will get worse in unknown but horribly spectacular ways. Listen up - in 1967, smart people (you know, like us) knew that Vietnam was an unwinnable quagmire that was going to claim the lives of thousands who didn't need to die. But there was no way they could have predicted the specific ways in which the situation would unravel. There were still EIGHT YEARS ahead of the Tet Offensive, My Lai, The Pentagon Papers, and the fall of Saigon. It took that long for the average mainstream american to say "hmm, this might not have been such a good idea."In fact, even up to nixon's resignation in 1974, a majority of americans supported the war in Vietnam. Feeling depressed yet? Because this war has got plenty of play in it yet. Financially, it's costing us hundreds of Billions of Dollars, money that could have been earmarked to save social security or actually improve homeland security. In terms of lives lost there's no price tag. Just a lot of pain.
In brighter news, I predict that the aforementioned news media will rediscover it's teeth and become more aggressive in its pursuit of the Bush administration. Partly this is a function of the traditional change in dynamic for 2nd term presidents - critics realize they can outlast the current occupant of the White House and look more closely at his mistakes - but also its because many in the mainstream-but-still-honorable media feel stung that they were conned into essentially endorsing a war based on utter bullshit. The New York Times, for example, which relied on inner pentagon sources for their series of
stories about WMD in Iraq, now feels so betrayed by the administration that there's a palpable vibe of payback-is--coming emanating from the Gray Lady. I expect a huge scandal to break under the Bush administration, in classic 2nd term fashion. Don't expect the mainstream media to soft pedal this one. We may finally see some worthy successors to Woodward and Bernstein emerge.
Man, this has been a depressing post. Next: my upbeat tips for best movies of 05.
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