The Flaming Lips

The Flaming Lips – Do You Realize??

I have no words for this song. If you’ve heard of The Flaming Lips, you know this song.

MD versus Bookstore

MD: I’m going to the bank. I need quarters for laundry, and the bank has those.

Bookstore: I’m right across the street from the bank. Aren’t I shiny? And you have those Hugo noms to read.

MD: But I just took for myself forty dollars in quarters. Surely I can’t afford a book right now.

Bookstore: Well, you can just skim the first pages of these books, to see who you wish to read first.

MD: What does this do for me?

Bookstore: Er. It prepares you. For when the time comes. And you know what they say: Be Prepared.

MD: I was never a boy scout.

Bookstore: It was an allusion. I figured you’d know what that was.

MD: I don’t know. I should be at work.

Bookstore: First one’s free.

MD: So you are aware, I sigh heavily as I do this.

Bookstore: Victory!

MD: You don’t have any of the Hugo nominees on your shelves!

Bookstore: Do so! I have Scalzi right there, see?

MD: That is both Old Man’s War and cheating.

Bookstore: Oh but look. I have The Book of Lost Things right here.

MD: Cheating!

Bookstore: And I have The Somnambulist here. Didn’t you want to read this?

MD: When it was out in paperback, yes!

Bookstore: But look at the cover. And the era. Just read the first page. Just a taste.

MD: [reads] “Be warned. This book has no literary merit whatsoever. It is a lurid piece of nonsense, convoluted, implausible, peopled by unconvincing characters, written in drearily pedestrian prose, frequently ridiculous and willfully bizarre. Needless to say, I doubt you’ll believe a word of it.”

Bookstore: Eh?

MD: I hate you so much.

Book Review: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass

ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND and THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS, by Lewis Carroll

I’m not even going to bother. Instead, I’m going to share my favorite of his poems. (One of two, at any rate. The other is both The Walrus and the Carpenter and far too long.)

Jabberwocky, by Lewis Carroll

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
   Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
   And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
   The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
   The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
   Long time the manxome foe he sought –
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
   And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
   The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
   And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
   The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
   He went galumphing back.

“And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
   Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!’
   He chortled in his joy.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
   Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
   And the mome raths outgrabe.

(This has been reproduced in its entirety on the internet in other places, so I’m assuming it’s okay. If it’s not, I’ll obviously pull it.)

Hugos

Obviously, as people have heard by now, Hugo Nominations are up.

Listed in no particular order except for maybe alphabetically:

• Brasyl, by Ian McDonald
• Halting State, by Charles Stross
• The Last Colony, John Scalzi
• Rollback, by Robert J Sawyer
• The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, by Michael Chabon

Looks like I have yet more books to read.

I Believe A Toast Is In Order

Major congratulations and indeed props to Monsieur Wolf for having the guts to start submitting. May your rejections be few and your bottles of bourbon many.

Dredg

Dredg – Bug Eyes

I think I found this band in 2002. I dig ‘em. They sound about as good live as they do on album, and considering that I saw them when they set up shop in the middle of the San Jose Rasputin (on Bascom) that’s quite a feat.

Mass-Market

A post by Abby Zidle spawned this.

I will open by saying I am a snob.

I make my coffee exclusively with French Press and despise Starbucks because they don’t understand the phrase “short pull.” I shudder at the phrase “Top 40″ and proudly proclaim that I got sick of an album before you had even heard of the band. It isn’t enough for me to just know the philosophy of Nietzsche. I have to have read his works and then tell you why you are wrong for calling him a nihilist (you are, by the way).

I enjoy mass-market books.

There is a distinct and unfortunate snobbery against mass-market. I can understand the basis of the snobbery, though I do not comprehend. I will say there’s an intellectual distinction between reading Sartre versus Steele. After too many Dresden books, I feel the need to crawl into something intellectually redeeming lest I drown. It is a gasping for breath, like a landed fish.

But, on the other hand, after sitting down with something heavy and bold, I need something light and refreshing, like pairing a fillet mignon with a vinaigrette salad. Something that I don’t have to analyze, pick apart, and heavily tax my mental faculties in reading it. I toss aside Brothers Karamasov and shout, “If I ever read another literary book, it’ll be too soon!”

In my personal life, I hide my intellectual pursuits. I’m shy to come forward on the things I read, unless they happen to be mass-market. I proudly shove light reads around, and hide the philosophy at home. I’ll openly show the books I’m reading so long as they’re fun, simple titles. I hide the spines of the smart books when I’m reading on the lightrail or at Coffee Society.

This is not because I am ashamed of what I do. I bravely put forward that I minored in philosophy, that I have a steadily growing library of the stuff, that I want to give Hume and Kierkegaard and Nietzsche hugs and punch Popper and Descartes in their faces. Oh, and Kuhn totally deserves a high-five. Seriously, Structure of Scientific Revolutions kicked my ass and I loved it.) I love this stuff.

The problem isn’t me. The problem is other people.

I was a member of a philosophy club in college. Weekly meetings were held in a basement, tucked away from prying eyes, where we sat with professors and discussed varying topics such as “What is Humor?” and “Does Language Form Thought?” We had the throwaway topics of “Brain in a Vat” and things like that (“What if… what if your red was my blue? How would we even know?” … “Woah.”), but by and large we tried to keep it relatively interesting and fresh.

There were several stereotypes to be had.

There was the classicist, who spouted Aristotle, Plato, and Parmenides and decried anything that came after 400BC. He seemed to somehow believe that since all philosophy spawned from the Greeks, that they had it right and we’ve been mucking it up ever since.

The smug know-it-all who just read the Cliff’s Notes on every major theory of western civilization, brushed over a copy of Tao Te Ching, and laments the west’s ignorance of the brilliance that is eastern philosophy (this person is a wonderful addition to life, if you think about it).

The scientist, the realist, who demanded that all things hold up to the scrutiny of experiment (I had a fun time with her when we discussed the problems of inductive logic). The materialist who firmly held faith in a Unifying Theory.

I was the pedantic asshole who liked to challenge the professors to their faces when they said something outlandish (they did it to get the other students thinking – I eventually caught on and let them have their way).

Then there was this girl. She and I had a tenuous friendship, which was brutally severed when she said that the college of engineering was a “trade school” and should be removed from the university. (There is hardly a faster way to make an enemy of me than to talk down engineering, math, or science.) She wore nothing but black, every day, in the vein of the stereotypical beat poet, the kind you see made caricature of in Dot’s Poetry Corner on The Animaniacs. She sneered at everything and was all but a nihilist.

She loved Nietzsche.

As a direct result of her, I was unable to enjoy Nietzsche. I read Thus Spake and The Gay Science for my existentialism class; I loved them, adored them, the words resonated in my soul. It was exactly what I wanted to hear, and when I wanted to hear it. But I grit my teeth and kept disliking him, because in my mind, to like Nietzsche was to become her.

But the day came when I called her out on being incorrect on her analysis of Nietzsche. I could see my existentialism professor breathe peacefully as I did so. Perhaps my dislike of Nietzsche weighed heavily on his heart. Perhaps he was just glad to see her get some comeuppance. Either way, I walked out of that room on fire. I walked out of that room able to like Nietzsche, but only because I had proven that I am not like her.

There’s a difference between being a snob and being an asshole. I could scoff at people who count themselves as superior for their love of trade books and their lofty scorn of mass-market, for instance. I could sneer at their Dells, their Compaqs, their eMachines. But I don’t. Because I’m glad they’re using a computer.

At the end of the day, I’m glad people are reading. I’m glad they are buying books.

How the Story Should Have Gone

A long time ago, somewhere around 2003, a courageous visionary by the name of Brad Neely decided to dub over the first Harry Potter movie. As with all amazing things on the internet that have anything to do with people with money, he was sent a cease and desist (C&D) and was unable to make any more.

At least we have the first one.

You can still download the original MP3 and play it, while watching Philosopher’s Stone on mute. A worthwhile experience.

“I… am a beautiful animal! I.. am the destroyer of worlds! I am Harry. Fscking. Potter!” And at last, dear readers, the world was silent.

You probably know Brad Neely from Cox and Combe’s ‘Washington’.

Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out.

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

RIP. You will be missed.

HAARP

Released today. Normally I don’t go in for band DVDs, as staring at a band on a screen just makes me sad that I’m not seeing them live, but this has a CD with it. And well. I have to have this.

It’s my nature you see. I have 160 mp3s by Muse.

“But MD, you final bastion of logic and reason,” I hear you cry. “Muse only has four studio releases! How can they possibly have 160 individual songs?”

To which I reply, “Well, I’ll give that 12 are cheating, in that they’re Absolution without the vocals. But you forget to consider alternate versions of songs, acoustic stuff, singles, covers, and the fact that I have a very early and odd version of Bliss, with a chiptune opening, instead of piano.”

I hear those contented, if slightly jealous, sighs. I’m glad to have eased your mind.

Go buy something from Muse.

Then watch this video.

(Note that selecting one video of theirs was extremely difficult for me. This isn’t an official video, but it uses the album version of the song and was relatively well-cut for a fanvid.)