04/24/2005 - 04/30/2005

Plot Against the Readers

I was noodling through some of Lance Mannion's past posts, and I read through some discussions of the National Book Awards from last year in his Writer's Workshop category. One of the books that came up in the discussions was Philip Roth's The Plot Against America. I tried to read that book a while back, because every once in a while I make a point of readings authors I know are terrible, or I expect them to be. It's the reason I read Jackie Collins. Roth is just an exmaple of a bad writer who gets reviewed well. I liked Portnoy's Complaint just fine, but have found all of Roth's subsequent work to be wholly inadequate and limited in range. Really, so is Portnoy , but at least that book has the verve of the new.

Plot Against America was bad in the ways I come to expect from writers from the "literary" genre who take on tropes from other genres. Usually, these writers have a terrifically mediocre grasp of plot. And they are often extremely bad at explaining actions, or background information. And by bad, I mean dull as day-old dogshit. But when these writers add the difficulty of, say, a mystery plot, or science fictional plotting story techniques, they are worse than the most boring Boy Scout ghost-story teller around a campfire. In Roth's specific case, he fucked up all the world building, which is the essence of alternate history (and much other good science fiction). Boring dumps of information, like reading a history paper written by a retarded 5-year old. And I could frnakly care less about Philip Roth's same goddamn family dynamic I've read for 40 fucking years.

I can understand why Roth would want to use the alternate history technique, even badly, because it helps hide how little he has to say about the world, and about people.

Like a lot of literary writers, his world is so cramped and constipated, it gives me claustrophobia to read about it. Even when he changes the entire world, he doesn't really care about except in so far as it affects his own gonads and guts. That's fine, but frankly I can get a more expansive and interesting worldview from a freako right wing Mack Bolan novel, or a JAG novelization. I blame Saul Bellow, Ernest Hemingway, and JD Salinger for second-rate junk like Plot Against America. The huge self-regard that fueled the fiction of all those writers led to novel world that only existed to be reviewed and cataloged, often rejected, by the characters in them. OK, using fiction to judge the world is a reasonable use of pages and ink, but not when you're goddamn boring. Bellow is often boring, but at least he's boring in a way had never been done before. Roth is boring in a way that's been done for years in the slush piles in the offices of Tor and Baen Books.

Look, I am biased in favor of books that have interesting plots. I think Charles Dickens and Leo Tolstoy would be in favor of that. But even Ford Madox Ford's Good Soldier, which is a slow and tightly focused book, has a compelling and involving plot. Unlike the over-determined classist crap of Henry James, at least Ford shows non-obvious things about the people involved in his story. I think it's because Ford genuinely likes people, and James, Bellow, and finally Roth only like themselves.

Darwin’s Radio / Greg Bear

Darwin's Radio / Greg Bear
I actually read this a few weeks ago, but figured I would mark it down. I like Greg Bear fine, but I always ened up thinking his books should have been more complete, should have gone further. This was an interesting evolution disaster novel, with a bunch of biology discussion. But the ending didn't seem like an ending, so much as running out of steam and paper.

Nibbled to Death by Ducks / Robert Campbell

Nibbled to Death by Ducks / Robert Campbell
A fine little book. Sort of like having an interesting conversation in an Old Man Bar. But there is one nice section worth excerpting.

Fixing Social Security

"Everyone born before 1950 will get full benefits." Shrub, just now, speaking on the TayVay.

My Mom, who fits that birth definition, offers up a half-hearted "yaaay."

I return with some sarcastic applause.

Mom look at me, smiles, and says, "Fuck you."

Class warfare at its finest!

Cadillac Beach / Tim Dorsey

Cadillac Beach / Tim Dorsey
This is the second novel of Dorsey's I have read, and it's better than Hammerhead Hotel. Dorsey seems to have looked at the market for novels involving crime in Florida, and thought, "You know, Carl Hiaasen is just not surreal enough." One of the thing that just about every Florida writer seems ot have in common is a love for the state's past, mixed up a hatred for the way it is now. John D. MacDopnald write about the same scumbag developers that the modern guys write about.

Having been in the Orlando area for the last few months, I understand where these guys are coming from. Though they do seem full of an attitude they also decry: "we were here first, so can we close the door on any new residents now?"

Anyway, Cadillac Beach almost falls over under the weight of its own constant invention, but it holds together better than Hammerhead did. And there was one moment I found memorably comic.

At one point, the protagonist Serge Storms has gotten his stolen limo shot up by mobsters. To hide the bullet holes, he buys a bunch of those decals that look like fake bullets holes to hide the real ones. It’s a funny throwaway bit.

The Island / Peter Benchley

The Island / Peter Benchley
I would bet this is the silliest of the books Benchly wrote in the first burst after JAWS. Suffice to say, it involves a society of pirates who have hidden away in the CAribbean for hundreds of years.

Cold Pursuit / T. Jefferson Parker

Cold Pursuit / T. Jefferson Parker

In the Heat of the Summer / John Katzenbach

In the Heat of the Summer / John Katzenbach
I believe this is his first novel. One of the Miami Herald crowd, like Carl Hiaasen and Edna Buchanan. Katzenbach may be best known for Hart's War, whichi was made into a movie.

Hard Aground / James W. Hall

Hard Aground / James W. Hall

The Forgotten Man / Robert Crais

The Forgotten Man / Robert Crais
It’s a nice continuation of the Elvis Cole series. The main mystery is kind of boring, frankly, but the scenes of Cole as a child are interesting. The problem with the structure of the Cole books – and the Myron Bolitar series has a similar problem – is that the secondary characters are somewhat more interesting than the main one.

The last Crais went into the background of Joe Pike, the Killer Pal of Cole. Bolitar has a Killer Pal, too. Hell, so does Easy Rawlins from the Walter Mosely books. As I think about it, they all serve similar purposes: they are perfectly willing to be more violent than the main character, as if the main character will lose sympathy without that. As Mike Hammer or Joe Reacher show, the main character can be a borderline sociopath and still be compelling to readers.

This is a different structure from, say, Spenser and Hawk. Spenser is just as violent as hawk, but with a different set of rules. There’s a comparison, but it’s not because Robert Parker is unwilling to have Spenser do dubious and violent things.

In any case, it’s certainly as entertaining as an hour of TV.

The Fanciest Dive / Christopher Byron

The Fanciest Dive / Christopher Byron
I have a certain admiration for someone who very clearly has no fear of pissing in the pool he's swimming in, biting the hand that feeds, cutting off his nose to spite his face, and abusing cliches til the bleed. Chris Byron does a lot fo the first three, and even a little bit of the latter in this book. When I lived in the West Village, I used to read Byron a lot in the weekly NY Observer. Mostly, he came across like a harsh shot of whiskey after all the soothing, full release (with an occassional shiv in the back) style of writing that the Observer specialized in. Byron happily told the self-regarding Upper East Side types who were assumed to read the Observeer that they, and their peers in the financial industry, were fools, marks, and scam artists. I mostly remember he seemed to hate Revlon with a passion, and Martha Stewart Omnimedia. When I lived in the West Village, I used to read Byron a lot in the weekly NY Observer. Mostly, he came across like a harsh shot of whiskey after all the soothing, full release (with an occassional shiv in the back) style of writing that the Observer specialized in. Byron happily told the self-regarding Upper East Side types who were assumed to read the Observeer that they, and their peers in the financial industry, were fools, marks, and scam artists. I mostly remember he seemed to hate Revlon with a passion, and Martha Stewart Omnimedia. I picked up a used copy of The Fanciest Dive for a buck in a local library. Read it in a few hours. It's a story of a startup magazine -- TV-Cable Week -- from Time, Inc., back before Warner or AOL got connected to the company. Time wanted to have a magazine that would capitalize on the growth of cable TV in the 80s, so they poured money into an untested idea and lost tens of millions in months. A ton of this MBA shitbaggery sounded awfully familiar to someone who had been through various rises and crashes in Silicon Alley in the 90s.

I picked up a used copy of The Fanciest Dive for a buck in a local library. Read it in a few hours. It's a story of a startup magazine -- TV-Cable Week -- from Time, Inc., back before Warner or AOL got connected to the company. Time wanted to have a magazine that would capitalize on the growth of cable TV in the 80s, so they poured money into an untested idea and lost tens of millions in months. A ton of this MBA shitbaggery sounded awfully familiar to someone who had been through various rises and crashes in Silicon Alley in the 90s.

Just some examples:

1) The young Harvard MBAs who had analyzed the idea and the market has specifically recommended testing it with potential audiences before committing all the way. The top magazine executives of Time (who were like most executives: more full of themselves than competence) dived right in, because they were desperate to be as successful as the Video side of Time, who were making Scrooge McDuck amounts of cash in cable.

2) At one point, the operations of the magazine moved up to White Plains. Having been part of a magazine that got moved up to White Plains, I had flashbacks of pain and commute.

3) Senior tech managers promised results that just couldn’t be done with the technology of the time. The tech guys who were actually making the systems work did heroic work, until reality finally caught up with them.

4) Money thrown at parties and gift bags and other accoutrements that would impress Manhattan peers, but not accomplish anything for the project.

And so on.

But my favorite parts were when Byron made it clear how little he thought of henry Grunwald, the editor-in-chief of Time, Inc. (and former managing editor of Time magazine). Grunwald just died a few months ago, before I picked up Byron’s book, and the media was full of hagiography, treating him like some Solon of our age instead of a typical mouthpiece of the establishment. Byron describes the time when Daniel Zucchi, the publisher of TV-Cable Week took Grunwald on a tour of the White plain facility during construction. Then Zucchi took Grunwald across the street to the White Plains Galleria, which was pretty new in 1986.

Keep in mind, Grunwald was clearly kind of a sheltered type, the kid of New York executive who flew in a helicopter to White Plains, even though it would have taken less time to take a car. (Well, limo. People like Grunwald wouldn’t ride in the back of a Ford Crown Vic, unless they were finally fleeing the Children of 1789.) Anyway, this is from Byron:

That is currently in my top five of literary takedowns, the list that Steve Erickson’s takedown of Al Gore permanently ensconced at the top.

Byron's book also appears to imply that Gerlad Levin, the Candide of NYC media executives, may have hidden a memo that would have scuttled the money-losing project right at the beginning. While Byron never says it, it seems obvious that Levin might have done it deliberately to make his rival execs in the Magazine division of Time Inc. look like dopes.

Anyway, no one should be surprised that the execs at the top got promoted and rewarded, while most of the middle and lower level execs got demoted and punished. That’s the way corporations work.

Anyway

Friedman and Its Discontents

OK, so I have Charlie Rose interviewing Thomas Friedman on the tele right now. Maybe I've been out of NYC too long, but isn't it clear that Friedman's a total rube? The look on his face appears to be the same as some pig-ignorant first-time visitor to Times Square, who watched a 3-card monte player for about five monutes, and announces, "This is easy!" OK, so I have Charlie Rose interviewing Thomas Friedman on the tele right now. Maybe I've been out of NYC too long, but isn't it clear that Friedman's a total rube? The look on his face appears to be the same as some pig-ignorant first-time visitor to Times Square, who watched a 3-card monte player for about five monutes, and announces, "This is easy!"

Except that Friedman isn't gambling with his own money. So I guess he's even worse: he's the dealer's plant, but he's so dopey, he doesn't realize he's the plant. Amazing. I thought this kind of unquestioning capitalist porn-hype died with the dot.coms. Ah well.

One example: he talked about how, a couple years ago, Indiana became the first state to outsource their tech development for state unemployment payment systems. There were three bidders, one of which was from an Indian company -- based in Mombai, I think Friedman said. Anyway, Indiana goes Indian -- contractually speaking. Because of cheaper wages, the Mombai bid was 8 million dollars lower than the two US companies (Accenture and maybe Deloitte). But as the process is starting, Gov. Frank O'Bannon drops dead of a heart attack. (Of course Friedman, being a NY Times fuckstick, forgets O'Bannon's name.)

"There's a run off election," Friedman says. (Um, no. O'Bannon's term would have been up in 2004, anyway. Way to check your facts, Jayson Blair.). The pisswad Republican Mitch Daniels makes an issue out of the contract, as one part of his winning campaign over Joe Kernan, the sitting Governor. And then the contract with the Mombai company is canceled.

And Friedman says: "Were the people of Indiana exploiting the Indians, or were the Indians exploiting Indiana?"

Rose chirps in, brown dripping off his nose in cascading sheets, "That's 8 million dollars they could have saved."

"Exactly!"

"Money that could have gone to hospitals, and training."

"Exactly! Who's the winner and who's the loser?"

Tom, both the Indians and the Hoosiers are the losers, because they either have to work like dogs for short wages (which they are happy to get in poverty-stricken India), while the Hoosiers continue to see their wages driven down. The winners are 1) the guys who get to throw that contract around; and 2) the owners of the companies, either in Mombai or in the US, who take the money. I can understand how you don't see them, since you're sitting in their press box at the Global Stadium (naming rights to be sold later), eating all their free cheese while they laugh at you behind your back. "Rube," they say. "Useful idiot." You and your porn star moustache.

"I don't want to make extravagant claims," Friedman just said, as the show was about to end. Good grief. Hearing Friedman earn his cheese makes me pray for the day when corporate shills like him can get outsourced to India. Shouldn't take too long.

Controlled Markets

Sony is trying to control how people trade their Everquest items and experience by creating their own trading post: Station Exchange.

I wonder how long it is before there are restraint of trade lawsuits against Sony and other virtual world manfacturers who try to crack down on third-party selling of items and experience. Why, legally and/or ethically, should Sony own all products created by the combination of their programming of the Everquest online world, and the effort their customers' put into that world? I can think of some reason in favor of Sony's argument, and some against. Same reason why I understand the complications of First Amendment law in mall spaces. I wonder how long it is before there are restraint of trade lawsuits against Sony and other virtual world manfacturers who try to crack down on third-party selling of items and experience. Why, legally and/or ethically, should Sony own all products created by the combination of their programming of the Everquest online world, and the effort their customers' put into that world? I can think of some reason in favor of Sony's argument, and some against. Same reason why I understand the complications of First Amendment law in mall spaces.

Another weird thing involves the creation of a language for the game, Jade Empire. The Cairns Blog wonders if the company could copyright the language, a work-forhire project. I wonder if the Star Trek franchise ever thought about copyrighting Klingon? And if they did, and had been successful, would they have been sued for infringement? Because I seem to remember that Klingon is just a sped-up version of Thai or Vietnamese (I forget which).

The whole thing gives me a story idea. Hmmm.

I got the original links from the Cairns Blog, who got one from the Depraved Librarian, who got it from the NY Times; and another link from Terranova. The Cairns Blog appears to be following some interesting issues of how the online space is developing culturally, not just as a business venture.

Locusts! Fire! Flood! It wasn't my fault, I swear to god!

So I watched the CBS movie Locusts last night. I knew going in that it would be bad, but the question was: would it be Atomic Train with Rob Lowe bad (which means no redeeming qualities), or Night of the Lepus bad (which means some people consider it their favorite movie of all time, and can justify the point).

As it turned out, it was probably closest to Lepus, but it was a close run thing. Locusts had a lot in common with Armageddon and Day After Tomorrow. Basically, the "science" was stretched to make the threat possible (as in Day After), and the solution possible ( Armageddon). I actually don't mind ridiculous science in service of making the threat possible. Like Them!, or other 50s monster movies, without Science Run Amok the movie doesn't exist. The 50s counted on radiation, but the advances of genetic engineering have meant a triumphant return of the Mad Scientist -- who is usually a lot more fun. And while John Heard didn't really capture the arrogance you can sometimes see in researchers, he nailed the obliviousness.

Lucy Lawless did a fine job as the Hero Scientist as well, though I couldn't stand most of the scenes between her and her somewhat-estranged husband. If I want domestic drama, I'll rent Ordinary People. (Actually, scratch that -- I almost never want domestic drama and I think Ordinary People is a chunk of shit.) But there was one excellent thing about this wife-husband relationship: they played it exactly as if Lawless was the 50s hero, and Husband was the 50s housewife. I actually wonder if the original script had it the more traditional roles, which they didn't bother to re-write when Lawless was cast as the protagonist.

Even so, my main reaction to the family drama was "Less smarm, more swarm!"

And then the solution to the pesticide-resistant locust swarms was to overcharge a line of power lines that followed the course of the Mississippi, creating an electrical field that would zap all the bugs. One: I'm pretty sure power lines don't work that way, and if you overcharge them they would simply melt, or the transformers would blow. I'll grant you, my electrical experince only includes a class in 7th Grade, and installing outlets in my house, so I might not know as much as a screenwriter. Two: all the power in the U.S was re-routed to make this implausible power field happen. The re-routing was done by the "National Power Management Department" or some such federal agency. I’m pretty sure if the Department of Energy had any kind of national control like that over our power grid, the 2003 blackout wouldn't have happened.

One of the weird things was the steady religious references to the Biblical plagues. Fair enough, but the lines seemed tacked on, like the producers had seen good ratings for NBC's Revelations and thought, "We gotta get the moron fundies to look past our scientist hero! Stick in some Bible lines, quick!" But since Lawless spent most of the movie dressed in bust-emphasizing tight shirts, the Bible lines went past without much worry. Especially when, early on in the movie, Lawless evacuates a Citrus Festival while wearing a bright orange, form-fitting tube top.

In 1954, we watched James Whitmore chase mutated insects across the country. In 2005, it was Lucy Lawless. As far as I'm concerned, that's evolution in action. (Except that Them! is a better movie. Oh, well. Evolution moves in fits and starts.)

Opera Residue

So I went with the folks to go see the Orlando Opera put on Aida. It was fine, enjoyable, even though I came up against my basic disassociation from the Opera form again. I can listen to classical all day long, can enjoy musicals, and Gilbert and Sullivan and all sorts of performances that are related. But listening to singers perform at me in a language I don't understand puts me off, and often puts me to sleep.

And this is Aida, for god's sake! A well-performed version of it! And I still stared and stared, and then dozed just a little.

That said: I really like the poster. The Orlando Opera has a local Orlando guy -- Larry Moore -- do the posters for each of their seasons, and they're just beautiful. The Salome was a particular standout, but I tend not to buy posters of performances I didn't actually go to. Not always, but usually.

It's a shame the Aida poster isn;t online, because it is quite exceptional. Moore works in pastels, though I see from one of his other sites (larrymoorestudios.com ) that he also does fine art.

Speaking if fine, fine art, I feel I should my pal El Rey every time I mention art. Somewhere else on the site is a story I did about buying art from him, along with photos of the finished pieces. He has also started a blog, talking about his "process", just like some fancy-schmancy paint slinger. And remember: Every El Rey purchase you make goes to the fund that keeps him off the streets of the Mission District, begging tourists for cigarettes and coffee. No change, just smokes and joe.