Dean Christakos

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November 30, 2006

My eyes can't handle the pain

In an article in The Stranger, author Neal Pollack once wrote, "September 11, 2001, has had all kinds of unintended consequences. One of the least tragic, but most irritating, has been an explosion of absolutely terrible writing."

Case in point: Orson Scott Card's new opus: Empire. The plot synopsis:

When the president and vice-president are killed by domestic terrorists (of unknown political identity), a radical leftist army calling itself the Progressive Restoration takes over New York City and declares itself the rightful government of the United States. Other blue states officially recognize the legitimacy of the group, thus starting a second civil war. Card's heroic red-state protagonists, Maj. Reuben "Rube" Malek and Capt. Bartholomew "Cole" Coleman, draw on their Special Ops training to take down the extremist leftists and restore peace to the nation...

You know it's going to be bad. It's only a matter of how bad. The answer: worse than you think, even when you take the fact that it will probably be worse than you think into account. Behold:

What the terrorists aren't counting on, thought Cole, is that America isn't a completely decadent country yet. When you stab us, we don't roll over and ask what we did wrong and would you please forgive us. Instead we turn around and take the knife out of your hand. Even though the whole world, insanely, condemns us for it.

Cole could imagine the way this was getting covered by the media in the rest of the world. Oh, tragic that the President was dead. Official condolences. Somber faces. But they'd be dancing in the streets in Paris and Berlin, not to mention Moscow and Beijing. After all, those were the places where America was blamed for all the trouble in the world. What a laugh -- capitals that had once tried to conquer vast empires, damning America for behaving far better than they did when they were in the ascendancy.

"You look pissed off," said Malich.

"Yeah," said Cole. "The terrorists are crazy and scary, but what really pisses me off is knowing that this will make a whole bunch of European intellectuals very happy."

"They won't be so happy when they see where it leads. They've already forgotten Sarajevo and the killing fields of Flanders."

"I bet they're already 'advising' Americans that this is where our military 'aggression' inevitably leads, so we should take this as a sign that we need to change our policies and retreat from the world."

Insert:

Cole took his grime-covered hands off his M-16 to air-quote just as he'd air-guitared to the Nuge's Wango Tango in those golden days of his youth.

Moving right along...

"And maybe we will," said Malich. "A lot of Americans would love to slam the doors shut and let the rest of the world go hang."

"And if we did," said Cole, "who would save Europe then? How long before they find out that negotiations only work if the other guy is scared of the consequences of not negotiating? Everybody hates America till they need us to liberate them."

"You're forgetting that nobody cares what Europeans think except a handful of American intellectuals who are every bit as anti-American as the French," said Malich.

...

"It's weird," said Cole. "I always feel like when I get to Virginia, I'm back in the United States. Like DC is a separate country. And not just DC. Maryland along with it. Like the Potomac is the boundary line between the country I love and a foreign country where they hate me because of this uniform."

It's hard to find more stilted dialog outside of fanfic, fundamentalist fantasies, self-aware literary experiments, and bad writing contests.

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November 26, 2006

I Confess, I'm addicted to the hard stuff

Pure Columbian, good stuff.

My Name is EJ and I'm a Coffee Addict....

Originally uploaded by ejholmes.

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November 25, 2006

Mission Accomplished

After more than two months, I finally finished the book Mao: The Unknown Story. Really, 650 pages of, "and then Mao yet again led thousands of his ostensible allies to their deaths in an effort to consolidate his power" gets pretty daunting. I had to take a break in the middle to read The Quiet American which was surprisingly uplifting, in comparison. However, it was nevertheless a great book if you're interested in learning more about the Communist revolution in China and the Cultural Revolution. I also recommend Red Azalea and Wild Swans for a good treatment of these eras. After finishing, I rewarded myself by reading the ultra-trashy novel The Washingtonienne (whose author's blog ended up featured on Wonkette leading to her firing and notoriety and then, ultimately, a book deal). I realize that as a young, hip male I'm supposed to be all about Nick Hornby (whom I do enjoy) and Chuck Palahniuk, but truthfully I find chick-lit to be a guilty pleasure.

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November 22, 2006

MIT Students Making Their Parents Proud

For those that missed last week's Harvard-Yale football game, the recent dearth of MIT-pranks has finally been brought to an end with a streaker who took to the field with MIT emblazoned on his back. Here's a hard-to-see video of the event. Semi NSFW picture after the jump...

Continue reading "MIT Students Making Their Parents Proud"

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November 21, 2006

I See a Childhood Hero in Person

Steve Wozniak came to Politics & Prose to promote his new book iWoz. He discussed mostly his early days growing up in California, becoming obsessed with electronics, and the early days of starting Apple Computer with Steve Jobs. One of his great stories involved building one of his early computers and using a television as a display, but televisions back in the mid-1970s didn't have a video input, so he needed to open it up and build a video input himself after figuring out how the television circuits worked.

Apple Computer was an early inspiration to me to get me involved in computers, ultimately bringing me to MIT to study Computer Science, and it was great to see Steve Wozniak in person, who was clearly still so excited about design and engineering and the promise of computers and regaled us with stories of his early enthusiasm about trying to changing the world.

Unfortunately, the bookstore was sold out of copies by the time I arrived, so I wasn't able to buy a copy for him to sign, but I still got some good pictures:

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November 20, 2006

More Self-Referential Hipster (Self)-Mockery

I make frequent references to hipster bingo with respect to gonig to shows around town, but in the meantime, I've come across two related blog posts:

Taxonomy of an Indie Rock Show:

Skinny indie guys: They've been into the band since they were releasing 7-inch EPs from their basement, and it's, like, so lame that they have all these annoying fans now, but their friend who works at the label got them these tickets, so, whatever? Can be heard loudly complaining that the show at NorthSix in 2001 was so much better.

Stoners: Known for behaving as though it's the New Year's Eve Phish show at Madison Square Garden. Really, though, no one wants your contact high ... well, okay, maybe just a touch of it.

The Gigocracy (organized by concentric semi-circles extending from the stage):

(2) The Blogger - With digital camera in hand, the blogger is the second ring of the gigocracy. Unlike the messageboarder, the blogger works under the premise of objectivity and displays less overt fan-boy tendencies. While not as meticulously informed as the messageboarder, the blogger knows considerably more than the average person about the band. Often works in the music or journalism industries and rarely pays to get into a gig. Alcohol or other mind-altering substances will reveal the blogger's true nature: the messageboarder.

(3) The Hipster - Forming the third ring at any indie rock show is the hipster. Notorious and lampooned for lack of participation at concerts. Body movements are usually constraint to the traditional head bob, but less cool activities such as dancing have been spotted, although under the guise of "irony." Also known for their rather fickle band support. Like a mirage, hipsters tend to disappear when a band starts to "get too popular" or "sell out." Hipsters are frequently also bloggers, but they're pained to admit it in public.

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November 16, 2006

Blogging will be slow...

There will be a slowdown in blogging while I catch up on rest and finish unpacking my apartment.

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November 8, 2006

What I Could Have Posted Last Night

In the event that things last night didn't turn out as well, I wouldn't have known what to say, so I was going to quote from Howard Zinn's 2005 commencement address at Spelman College. It's still worth reading and remembering, so here's an excerpt:

My first hope is that you will not be too discouraged by the way the world looks at this moment.

...

I want to remind you that, fifty years ago, racial segregation here in the South was entrenched as tightly as was apartheid in South Africa. The national government, even with liberal presidents like Kennedy and Johnson in office, was looking the other way while Black people were beaten and killed and denied the opportunity to vote. So Black people in the South decided they had to do something by themselves. They boycotted and sat in and picketed and demonstrated, and were beaten and jailed, and some were killed, but their cries for freedom were soon heard all over the nation and around the world, and the President and Congress finally did what they had previously failed to do — enforce the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. Many people had said: The South will never change. But it did change. It changed because ordinary people organized and took risks and challenged the system and would not give up. That's when democracy came alive.

...

The lesson of that history is that you must not despair, that if you are right, and you persist, things will change. The government may try to deceive the people, and the newspapers and television may do the same, but the truth has a way of coming out. The truth has a power greater than a hundred lies. I know you have practical things to do — to get jobs and get married and have children. You may become prosperous and be considered a success in the way our society defines success, by wealth and standing and prestige. But that is not enough for a good life.

Remember Tolstoy's story, "The Death of Ivan Illych." A man on his deathbed reflects on his life, how he has done everything right, obeyed the rules, become a judge, married, had children, and is looked upon as a success. Yet, in his last hours, he wonders why he feels a failure. After becoming a famous novelist, Tolstoy himself had decided that this was not enough, that he must speak out against the treatment of the Russian peasants, that he must write against war and militarism.

My hope is that whatever you do to make a good life for yourself — whether you become a teacher, or social worker, or business person, or lawyer, or poet, or scientist — you will devote part of your life to making this a better world for your children, for all children.

We're not always going to win. Things aren't always going to be better today than they were yesterday. Things aren't always going to be "looking up." In those times when you're discouraged at the state of things, keep the above in mind.

Posted by Dean at 7:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

I Told You Things Had Changed

I spent this evening in Baltimore at the victory party for John Sarbanes, whom I volunteered for over the weekend, along with helping to to GOTV work for O'Mally and Cardin. Some friends from Cambridge ended up working for Sarbanes this year, and they gave me a call when they needed help, so I hopped in my car and headed out to Baltimore. Things seem to have turned out well.

Ok, while certain races didn't turn out quite the way I had hoped today, it doesn't even phase me. As I said back in August, "I amar prestar aen..." I could feel it.

There's an interesting comparison to this election and the bursting of the dot-com bubble. Around March of 2000, it was revealed that MicroStrategy, a rising star in business software services, had basically been lying about their revenues. Their revenues looked like they were rising by double-digit percentage points ever year because when the company would sign a services contract with a client, the company would add the value of that contract to that quarter's revenues, even if the revenue itself were to be disbursed over a period of years as the work got done. The stock fell by more than 90%. Then over the course of the next year, we learned that lots and lots of companies that otherwise appeared healthy were doing the same thing. The appearance of success kept everyone from looking deeper to see what was really going on until a moment in which people did look more deeply into what was happening, at which point everything unravelled, culminating in the collapse of Enron by the end of 2001 along with several other dot-com era companies that used rather creative accounting processes to state their revenues before being outed. This is what happened with congress over the past year. There was nothing that made the Republicans in Congress more corrupt, more incompetent, or more ignorant this year than they were in 2004 or 2002 or 2000. What happened was that suddenly they couldn't hide this fact any longer and everything came apart at the seams simultaneously.

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November 6, 2006

The Slits Play at The Black Cat

So, Sunday night after spending a long day running around Baltimore, I went over to The Black Cat to see the latest incarnation of The Slits play a show. I should note that going out at nigh in DC is much for fun when you've been working long hours all week. The Slits started in the 70s as an all-girl punk band and, like The Avengers, recently decided to regroup and go on tour. They have an entertaining punk/reggae sound that nevertheless stays simple and fun. The lead singiner, Ari-Up, took it in good humor when one of the audience members decided to talk to her between songs.

For the record, though, I prefer the sound of one of The Slits' successor bands from the 1970s, The Raincoats.

For any of you readers who were there Sunday night, I was the guy who dozed off in the corner while The Slits set themselves up on stage and then left the show early because I had to get up early in time for work. Yeah, laugh it up, young hipsters. You'll be stuck having to head home early, too, when you hit your 30s and get a real job.

More pictures of the show in my photo archive.

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On hipster monocultures

Alyssa at last week's Decemberist show meets a fellow concert-goer there and is impressed:

I learned that a certain liberal political blogger is a friendly guy and good at taking compliments. I also met a cool long-time DCer with really great taste in novels (Nick Hornby) and radio (Sarah Vowell), and am kind of kicking myself for not getting his number.

Someone by the name of Reid brings her back down to earth:

Well I'm sure he had a lot of other great qualities, but if you threw a rock into any Decemberists show crowd, you'd probably hit somebody fitting that description.

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November 4, 2006

A Disturbing Discovery...

This was me in the winter of 1991, on the Pingry high school fencing team, age 17.

This isn't what's disturbing. What's disturbing is that the person in this photo of a fellow fencer, taken in 1980:

... is Ann Coulter!

(via TAPPED)

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November 1, 2006

I Meet Michael Steele

Just because I have occasionally engaged in Republican contact does not make me a Republican, nor does it mean that I lead a Republican lifestyle. Republican Senate candidate Michael Steele was meeting voters at the Shady Grove metro station, and one of his aides offered to let me have my picture taken with him. There are only 6 days left until he loses to Ben Cardin.

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