We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
Is all poetry lyrical poetry? Does it matter? In my view, poetry (and drama) are meant to be heard, not read. I am not, however, a professor of literature.
Gioia writes: “I suspect one thing that hurt poetry was being too well taught.” While professing his admiration for them, Gioia blames the “New Critics” of the mid-20th century — “R.P. Blackmur, Allen Tate, Kenneth Burke, Cleanth Brooks, John Crowe Ransom, and Yvor Winters” — for inadvertently alienating the public by inspiring generations of teachers to treat poems as difficult texts to be deciphered like the Rosetta Stone, rather than as enjoyable scripts for oral performance. Poetry was less like dance or drama than like philology or philosophy.
What is it good for, if anything? That's a big topic. Is it good for anything? I certainly think it is, but properly-done it requires so much time, commitment, and money that it could never be, or have been, available to large numbers.
Meaning does matter, in all areas of human life. Unfortunately, fake meanings, ie "false narratives," can matter a lot in life too. Analysis is a mental laboratory as much as anything else.
Can psychoanalysis or psychodynamic therapy (which I prefer to offer) be curative? Sometimes. Can it be helpful? Certainly. Can it be done right? Not really. It's called "the impossible profession" for good reason.
I can testify that it did a lot of good for me and made me a better Psychiatrist too. (We were required to be in a lengthy analysis in analytic training.) Interestingly, that analysis has continued to work, grinding away, in my head ever since in a never-ending and self-questioning process. Self-knowledge is never pleasant, however, and I would rather play tennis than dwell on it too much. I only dwell on it when I need to. It burns sometimes, but it cleans the instruments.
My lad and a couple of my cousins are studying old family portraits and putting them on a family ancestral photo website. Good clean fun. They emailed me this photo of a couple of my Mom's ancestors, asking me whether I recognized them. They must think I am ancient, but I can't even make out the faces.
A guess is that's my great-grandfather's winter house in Fort Lauderdale. His grand old place still stands there.
It's an interesting topic. For example, there are still people who avoid fats for fear of their cholesterol or of getting fat. Even some doctors can't let that go although it's been debunked for years now. So often, people believe what they want to believe unless they are of a skeptical bent.
Many people believe that the moon landing was faked. People afraid of cell towers.
He was dealing with unassimilated (but more historically-accurate, de-assimilated) people who mostly did not want to be there. So why were they there at all? Such stories are heart-breaking. I do blame the emergence of this urban subculture on LBJ, a racist at heart who figured that urban blacks could never succeed in civil life in any numbers, and so needed to be given money to vote and to shut up.
I sometimes wonder what I would be like had I been sent to a school like that. I doubt that I would be skiing in Vermont with a bunch of friends on the MLK long weekend.
That was a public school. Charter schools can be wonderful, but only with parental (ie maternal mostly) support. These kids are screwed - by their "parents" and not by any "system." It's hopeless, so give them free money to live on. And guess what? It's not just urban black people. It can be rural white people too. There is a bell curve in human nature. I just feel for the ones who have aspirations, talent, and abilities but are crushed by their destructive subcultures of dependency and sociopathy.
Obama had a great chance to change this game for all colors of skin, but never did. Politics.
“Nations, as individuals, who are completely innocent in their own esteem, are insufferable in their human contacts.” Before the Fall, Adam and Eve were sinless, cognitively innocent and morally innocent. But after the Fall, with moral innocence shattered, this other innocence turns into a mode of obtuseness. It is sin-blind and self-unaware. It will not and cannot see itself addressed when Jesus looks upon sinners and says with authority, “go and sin no more.”
Spending a few days at meetings in midtown Manhattan. Readers know that this ol' country boy does love NYC for a regular dose of the Big Time.
Details: Park Ave. Note the line for Grizzly's food truck on the left. Smells great. Flags are St. Barnabas. Next, on left, Waldorf-Astoria (now owned by the Chinese). Other buildings are mostly banks. All day and all night, streets filled with people bundled against the cold, cars zooming, limos waiting. Vitality. Attractive, put-together people. Great fun just to amble around and check things out.
I watch less TV than the average American, but more than a little. M*A*S*H reruns (it's on when I get home from work and it's still great television), sports, and movies. I was a regular viewer of The Sopranos and Mad Men. I never watched Breaking Bad (though I may since many people have recommended it), but I have gotten hooked on Better Call Saul. Most of this viewing has been done via binge-watching. Late at night, when nothing else is going on and I can squeeze two or three episodes in on VOD or Netflix.
Recently, the wife and I got a recommendation to watch Fargo. The original film is classic, thoroughly enjoyable. Coen brothers at their very best. I wasn't sure how telling fake 'true crimes' tales in serial format would play out. Despite my reservations, the show is fantastic. I finished the final episode of season two (because I can't get season one yet) this week and had a difficult time taking a break from viewing.
In true Coen brothers fashion, there is plenty of violence, dark humor, and outlandish twists of fate. The Coen brothers often have a theme of unstoppable and overwhelming evil running through their films. Fargo is no different, with several characters, who can only be described as psychotic, pursuing various goals. Each one meets a different end, some more surprising than others.
Without providing spoilers, there is one particular theme which caught my attention. It was mentioned early, and barely discussed until the very end. A secondary character is reading Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus for a class. This detail is brought up in conversation on occasion as the story progresses, several characters comment on the book. As the story unfolds, plot twists hint at the absurdity of life, how boring and difficult it is to live a life that only leaves you dead, without much to show for it. As you begin to think there can't be any redemption, the primary characters (the police) continue to pursue their goals, against odds that slowly stack against them.
Then the script flips. It becomes clear each character is Sisyphus, pushing their own particular boulder up a hill each day. A criminal seeking to make his boss or himself happy, a police officer engaging crime prevention and enforcement against increasing human stupidity and avarice, a mother dying of cancer trying to make life comfortable for her family, and a woman seeking personal fulfillment. Each day, they wake up and push that same rock up the hill again.
What becomes clear at the finish is the rock we all push, the thing we consider a burden, is in fact a privilege. It can be family, a job, any repetitive detail in our lives which we view with some level of disdain simply because it has to be done over and over again. Camus insinuates the reward for this seemingly useless behavior was death. Fargo alternately embraces this point in some cases, and rejects it in others. The characters point out our duties are what provide meaning and value. The show is full of death, and someday we will die. But on every other day, we will live. Living a life expecting nothing but an absurd finish is a fate for many, who don't expect much else. For others, death gave their lives meaning and highlighted what was good in the lives of those around them.
Fargo closes with a standard Coen brothers flourish. We're happy, but not completely so. Life goes on, happy enough for those we're pleased to see finish in good spirits, but it takes bizarre twists for others. Good has triumphed, but only barely, and evil continues in various, new, formats. It's not Hollywood. It's close enough to real life to relate to, but strange enough to keep your interest and make you think.
I look forward to watching the first season (no spoilers in the comments, please!).
This fit, skinny female is talking about fat-burning, but this is really about cardio fitness and leg conditioning unless you are overweight. Fat loss comes from diet, not exercise.
Whether your cardio includes rowing, treadmill, stair machine, biking, or outdoor running, it is the intense intervals which make a difference for endurance - thus Quality Work vs. Garbage Work. Variety is key. When people say "Walking is good for you," they refer to people over 80 or obese people. Hiking maybe, but not walking.
She talks about 20 mins on those stairs. No way I could do stair intervals for 20 minutes. More like 6 minutes. Anyway, it's a damn good and demanding thing to do once a week. My cardio workouts take longer because I cannot handle such high levels of intensity. Not ready to die yet.
Now 71, Scruton has been the bête noire of British left intellectuals for more than 30 years, and gives them another beastly mauling in his new book Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left. It is a tour de force that, the introduction concedes, is ‘not a word-mincing book’, but rather ‘a provocation’. In just under 300 pages he Scruton-izes a collection of stars, past and present, of the radical Western intelligentsia – the likes of Eric Hobsbawm and EP Thompson in Britain, JK Galbraith and Ronald Dworkin in the US, Jurgen Habermas, Louis Althusser, Jacques Lacan and Gilles Deleuze in Europe. An expanded and updated version of his controversial Thinkers of the New Left (1985), the book ends with a new chapter entitled ‘The kraken wakes’ dealing with the ‘mad incantations’ of Alan Badiou and the left’s marginally newer academic celebrity, the Slovenian Zizek.
From comments and emails regarding our timepiece post on Tuesday, I am left with these recommendations (it's scientific consensus):
- Watches much over $100 are jewelry, not timepieces - and not very masculine but some guys need them for work - Expensive watches can't take the rigors of real work or recreation. - I think an ordinary American guy needs a wrist watch, a knife in his pocket, and $100 in his wallet.
Practical watches, zero-pretension, (semi-disposable) that our readers like (but surprising many guys seem to hate watches so I guess that's ok too):
What about watches for women? Don't most women prefer a nice Cartier piece? For when they are not working in the fields, I mean. A pretty reward for the rigors and hazards of bambino production:
My leather watch band broke. Mrs. BD brought it into town and asked me about a $125 leather band. I told her my Timex had cost about $37. She advised me to toss the old watch and get another from Amazon.
Wrist watches: The young folks do not use them. I feel unclothed without one, even wear it to bed. Often, business people like expensive ones, to demonstrate that they know how to make money. That's fine - it's jewelry for men, like ghetto glitz, but it does not say much about how wisely they spend money. I had a semi-fancy watch once but it died and the parts were no longer available. Now I am a Timex guy.
The humble Timex is like Toyota - Timex can wear out many bands, and Toyotas can wear out many tires.
Interestingly, both of my doctors are Timex guys too. I do not like digital watches, because I like to see the bigger picture of time.
I was rummaging through my safe this weekend, looking for a car title, and found my grandpa's engraved gold watch. I think he used it in his youth, but switched to wrist at some point to keep up with the times. It's an Elgin. Mainly of sentimental value. Antique gold pocket watches do not have much value - under $1000 generally. My watch expert pal tells me they are gold-filled, not solid gold.
Do you use a watch? If so, a cheap one or a fancy one?
A wonderful topic, often discussed: All Stories Are the Same - From Avatar to The Wizard of Oz, Aristotle to Shakespeare, there’s one clear form that dramatic storytelling has followed since its inception.
It's very easy to look ahead and expect the worst. We could enter 2016 with low expectations. There are plenty of negative trends going on in the world. When aren't there negative trends? I can't remember a single year where life was rosy, bright and promising without a hint of clouds. Some of the less encouraging new years I remember were 2000 (that nasty Y2K bug which did so much damage), 1980 (Iranian hostages and an election...the Winter Olympic Miracle on Ice was still to come), 1988 (after the market crash, people were very uptight) and 2009 (again a market crash, the mortgage meltdown and the election of a president bent on dividing the nation as he claimed to unify it). Even in these years, there were many positives which were overlooked. Needless to say, we passed through all those years without seeing everything fall to pieces.
Which isn't to say some things haven't gotten worse. If all we do is focus on what's worse, though, it is hard to see how life gotten better. Yet it has. Hans Rosling spends much time discussing this (and his videos are always worth posting again):
2016 won't be sweetness and light, the news lately has had plenty of negativity. ISIS and the growth of fascism driven by Islamic radicals, Bernie Sanders and socialist wonderland driven by his belief in mythological theories which have been discredited time and again, an overbought stock market fueled by easy money, a dollar that is the prettiest horse in the glue factory, a Fed which is raising rates because it has no choice after keeping them low too long. There's plenty of bad out there to worry about.
2016 could still be pretty good. We may worry the so-called recovery is likely to end badly, though I hesitate to say it will be in 2016. It could've, and should've, ended many times in the past 6 years. But since it isn't a real recovery, more of a muddling along, maybe there hasn't been anything to 'end'. Even though it's been a pale 'recovery', plenty of good events have occurred.
My leather watch band broke. Mrs. BD brought it into town and asked me about a $125 leather band. I told her my Timex had cost about $37. She advised me to toss the old watch and get another from Amazon.
Christmas Eve in the Ardennes 1944