Buckeyes are #3

Buckeyes are #3 in the Rivals.com preseason preview (and yes, I know it's still only July). Apparently they're loaded with talent, and ready to reach the championship for the third year in a row. Unfortunately, no one remembers the '02 National Championship and dwells on the big losses in the BCS the last two years. So even if OSU beats USC and Wisconsin, the jury will remain out until they can beat the likes of Georgia in January sometime.

In other good news, OSU dodges the list of top party schools, and spares alumnae like myself further embarrassment.

Public Transit of the Future

If you ask me, and no one ever will, the best thing to do with gas prices right now is to jack up the tax to $10 per gallon and use the surplus to start rebuilding our entire infrastructure. From neighborhoods, to local roads, to freeways, to interstates, the whole concept of how we move goods and people around this country needs to be redrawn from scratch. What we need now is not gas-tax holidays or more offshore drilling, but people with the ability to think big, absurd, techno utopian dreams. Namely, I want to go to work in a people mover. Somebody ought to make it happen.

What's the Pitch?

This is good advice from the Storytellers Unplugged:

I was at some author event the other night and doing the chat thing with people at the pre-dinner cocktail party and found myself in conversation with an aspiring author who had just finished a book, and naturally I asked, “What’s your book about?”

And she said – “Oh, I can’t really describe it in a few sentences– there’s just so much going on in it.”

WRONG ANSWER.

The time to know what your book is about is before you start it, and you damn well better know what it’s about by the time it’s finished and people, like, oh, you know - agents and editors, are asking you what it’s about.

And here’s another tip – when people ask you what your book is about, the answer is not “War” or “Love” or “Betrayal” or “Zombies”, even though your book might be about one or all of those things. Those words don’t distinguish YOUR book from any of the millions of books about those things.

When people ask you what your book is about, what they are really asking is – “What’s the premise?” In other words, “What’s the story line in one easily understandable sentence?”

The elevator pitch is a well-worn technique in almost any circumstance, but it's particularly useful in the arts. If you can't explain what you're doing, or what you're working on in a sentence or two, then you probably don't actually understand it well enough to make it a success. All you have is a cloud of ideas buzzing around your head but you haven't yet found the essence of the problem, haven't gotten down deep enough.

What finding the premise does is allow you to sell the story, and reinforce that essence (that thing that makes it different and therefore better than everything else out there). This what they do in Mad Men when Don Draper has one of his eureka moments and is able to relate products to our innermost desires and do so in single line of advertising copy.

Blood Meridian As Miller's 300

I'm about a third of the way through Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, and it has occurred to me that I may have been wrong to make fun of Frank Miller last week. In McCarthy's novel we have the same impulse to mythologize history, taking what is known of the infamous Glanton gang and pump it up into a gnostic phantasmagoria. With the grotesque character of the Judge we have Melville's Ahab and Whale rolled into a single horrifying figure who kills without purpose or motive other than his own. He is chaos visited upon the world. Thus far, the character of the Kid is a cypher, a passive figure who like the reader can only witness the various atrocities, while surviving to live another day. It will be interesting to see how this works out. I suspect it will not end well.

Mad Men 2.1

The new season of Mad Men does not quite pick up where last season left off which leaves us with a huge gap to fill with wondering whatever happened to Peggy's bundle of (surprise) joy.

In the meantime, Don is getting old, facing 40, going to seed, etc. etc. At the office, the Silent generation is starting to get hints that the Baby Boomers (young folks, hipsters) are moving in and getting ready to destroy everything they've built, or at least grabbed onto and claimed for their own.

The similarities in culture shift are frighteningly similar to what we've seen in the rise of Gen-Y that I could just spit. And the real rub is that Don has already had it better at his age than any Gen-Xer ever will. More power, more money, more prestige, more secretaries. The only thing relatable about him is his emergent obsolescence.

It's Almost, Almost Football Season

Yahoo's college sports affiliate, rivals.com, has been counting down the college teams all month. They started at 120 and today they did #6 (Florida, if you're interested). By my count that leaves Southern Cal, Oklahoma, Missouri, Georgia, and Ohio State as your top 5 teams.

OSU plays at USC sometime in September so that will pretty much set the season for me. Do we get thrown to the wolves in another BCS fiasco, or do we gear up for the Big Ten season and play for the Rose Bowl? (I'll fess up to the drubbing we got against Florida in the Fiesta Bowl, but I still say LSU benefited from getting to play what was essentially a home game, blecch). So all things being equal, and knowing how badly we play against the SEC, I'll take my chances in the Rose Bowl.

Also, it's going to be another long year in Fort Collins as Colorado State rebuilds under their new coach, Steve Fairchild. Rivals pegs them as the 96th best team in College football (two spots down from where they finished last year) and warns that the Rams have no quarterback (we've seen that before - as I recall, Bradley Van Pelt's first year was the season of rotating quarterback ineptitude).

Morning Run - 5 Miles

I opted for distance over speed this morning and added about 1.2 miles to each end of my normal loop. Small potatoes, you say. Just you try it, I say.

Anyway, I was very deliberate in my pace and probably ran a little slower than I needed to. But the whole way I kept psyching myself for that last mile which is uphill all the way. It was a little overcast and only around 60 degrees so the weather was perfect.

The downside is that it took me about an hour and 15 minutes door to door which is a ridiculously long time. But, like I said I'm just building on longer distances at this stage and not worrying about how fast I'm going.

Got home and immediately did an hour of yoga which helped release all the tension in my hamstrings and cooled me down in a nice gentle way.

The Polls

All of the political pundits want to know why the polls are so close. Every day they check the numbers and then speculate (wildly) about what it must mean. How is it that Obama isn't ahead by more? Why is the race so tight? Will Obama stumble? What about the disaffected Hillary voters? Blah, blah, and blah.

MSNBC seems to think that there's secret racism in the polling and that it's actually closer than it looks. This could be true, though I'm trying to pretend that race won't enter into it.

But my guess is that we're in a lull. The primary lasted too long, everyone's in summer mode, and no one's really committed to the election coverage yet.

I say, wait and see. Wait for the Olympics. Wait for the debates. Wait for the conventions. Wait for the 75,000 in Mile High stadium. Wait until the country has a chance to see these two guys standing next to each other, and then check the polls. The more charming candidate always wins. If Barack doesn't have a double-digit lead after all of that, then we'll know for certain that the Bradley effect is in play.

Cthulhu Chick Tract

Need I say more?

No merciful paternalistic "god" looks down on you from the heavens -- just an endless, frozen void that cares nothing about the fate of a collection of insignificant bipedal microbes at the hands of vastly more powerful beings whose motives their puny minds cannot even comprehend!

Sightless and mindless, all Azathoth cares about is being entertained for all eternity by his monstrous courtiers.

Do you think he can save you from the Old Ones' wrath? Ha, ha, ha!

The "Ha, ha, ha" is my favorite part. Pitch perfect.

Here's the convert's moment of spiritual crisis:

God is a blind retard?
There's no Heaven?
Everything I've worked for during my short life will be utterly destroyed when the Old Ones awaken?
Can it possibly get any worse?

Of course it can! See for yourself and "Ha, ha, ha."

Obama's Speech

As I mentioned earlier, all arguments eventually devolve to emotional pleas that exploit our fears. But, if you make a purely emotional plea that tries to tap into peoples hopes, as Obama did yesterday, you get dinged for being too vague.

Obama's speech was an attempt to motivate (manipulation, psychology) to pursue a larger purpose (situation, universe). The politicos take this as an opportunity to argue about Obama's methods (mind, fixed attitude), or lack thereof (since it was not, in fact a policy speech).

His optimism isn't realistic, they say. He didn't say how he'll achieve all of these things. It's all empty rhetoric ¹.

Which pretty much misses while disappearing up their own asses political echo chambers.


¹. Rhetoric being the language of poetry and non-rational persuasion, as opposed to the cool² prosaic³ language of logic.

². Cool in its original meaning of detachment as opposed to it's current usage as a post-Boomer catchall for "nifty," as in "keep cool, but care" from Pynchon's V.

³. And here I mean prosaic as in, well I'm not sure, but just sort of banal and boiler-platish. The distinction between poetry and prose is kind of stupid anyway, since some of the best prose is rhetorically¹ beautiful.

The BSG We Were Spared

It's Alien vs. Predator vs. Borg vs. Cylon in Bryan Singer's aborted Battlestar Galactica re-boot. The article says that in the wake of 9/11 the storyline hit too close to home, but frankly I think this thing would have collapsed under the weight of its own awfulness without any executive interference being necessary. Blecch.

Since the actual BSG reboot has played it pretty loose and free with our post-9/11 world, I think the lesson here is: don't go all skiffy until you understand your themes and don't get excited about concept art until you know who your characters are.

In the abortive 2001 version, it was 20 years after the original series, and the humans had taken a vote and decided to abandon the search for Earth. They'd found an asteroid field and set up the New Caprica colony there, and over the following two decades they'd gotten decadant and become obsessed with glitz and pleasure domes and gambling. According to producer Tom DeSanto, it was as if the Jews had stopped at Mount Sinai and set up Las Vegas. And then the Cylons show up and attack [emphasis mine].

Ponder that for just a second, if you will. Your brain hurts a little, doesn't it? Now try this:

In the end of pilot, we would go to the planet Cylon, and the camera would dive through the mysterious clouds, down through a tangle of mechanized buildings, and you'd hear the voice that has been instructing the Cylon attackers earlier in the show. You would zoom in on the source of the voice as it talks about the future and the need to convert humanity. And it turns out the Cylons are led by a group of humans who have been "converted" into Cylons. And the leader of this group is none other than Richard Hatch, aka Apollo. It turns out Apollo was captured and became part of the "Cylon collective." (Yes, just like the Borg.) The series would have been about the relationship between Apollo and his son, who's the new Commander of Galactica. The son would have been struggling to redeem his father's humanity and bring him back from Cylon-hood.

Oh noes. Do not want.

The worst part is, you know they were totally jazzed about the Cylon Apollo plot twist. I can just see the high fives now ... and we zoom in as a cheezy prog rock version of All Along The Watchtower plays in the background. Oh wait.

Who Will Watch the Watchmen

People are worried that the Watchmen movie won't be as good as they hope because the guy who made 300 is making it. My fear is that the movie will expose the fact that Moore's Watchmen wasn't all that great to begin with. Like most comics, it's all about the concept and the atmospherics, the characters and their wacky back-stories and attitudes, but let's face it the actual plot is pretty thin gruel. The Comedian gets thrown out a window and it takes us 12 issues to discover, what exactly? Ozymandius is going to save the world by dropping a squid on Manhattan. Awesome.

The coolness is not in the story, but in the details and the encyclopedic attempt to cram everything in. Just as in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, all the things that make it good are all the things that are almost impossible to get on a movie screen.

300 suffered from the same problem because it's overdoneness was built in. Frank Miller's whole concept was ass-backwards from the get-go and the whole thing only really existed because Miller was going through his whole kinetic all action no story phase.

"Ok, dudes, check this out. Normally what you do is take a myth or a legend like King Arthur, or Robin Hood, or Ulysses, and try to find its historical context and dramatize it as if it really happened. But what I'm going to do is take an actual historical event and present it as though it was a myth or legend. Crazy right?"

He sandelpunked Herodotus and turned it up to 11.

To be fair, this isn't what Moore did with Watchmen, and I think the movie version will be just fine. The question is will the audience for The Dark Knight be up for another round of Batman as filtered through Taxi Driver.

Rationalizers

This is worth repeating. Your worldview, my worldview, is not rational. As Jonah Lehrer puts it:

The problem, as political scientist Larry Bartels notes, is that people aren't rational: we're rationalizers. Our brain prefers a certain candidate or party for a really complicated set of subterranean reasons and then, after the preference has been unconsciously established, we invent rational sounding reasons to justify our preferences. (Some voters, of course, probably do chose their candidate for "rational" reasons, but I have yet to meet very many of them.) This is why the average voter is such a partisan hack and rarely bothers to revise their political preferences.

It's not a problem really, just a fact. All of these grand arguments about war, ethics, politics, religion, evolution, etc., are not in fact real arguments. They are attempts to rationalize the attitudes and opinions that we already have fixed quite firmly in our minds. The number of times we actually change our minds are so rare that they may be accidents, or may demonstrate that we actually already held a differing opinion without realizing it.

Which is why the only way to really energize an argument is to shift away from the realm of the Mind and Fixed Attitudes (as it's called in Dramatica¹), and start attacking people's motives (Psychology, Manipulation) or their actions (Physics, Activity).

In other words, you can argue policy until you're blue in the face, but nothing really changes until you move away from rational argument and start attacking someone's personality or their accomplishments. So what do you do? In politics, you question your opponents patriotism, or hope you can catch him with an intern. Pure gold. But you aren't going to break your opponent by trying to out-think him. More importantly, no one will care. Just ask Al Gore.

For instance, McCain and Obama have different policy positions on the Iraq War and the Surge. But McCain can't argue that Obama's position is wrong, so he says that Obama is just playing politics at the expense of winning the war. He shifts from a disagreement over methodologies (since even the Iraqi government has endorsed Obama's position) to an attack on Obama's motives (he's a traitor, he's un-American).

We move from the rational to the emotional.

That's why most of these arguments on blogs and on talk radio take on an echo chamber effect. There is, in fact, almost nothing to say to persuade people or change their minds. It's all about reinforcement through repetition. Tell me what I believe in.

This is where all the trouble starts. This is how we end up with Bush for two-terms. This is how we end up with a mortgage crisis and an energy crisis and consumer debt and endless war. Because every step of the way our leaders have told us not to worry, and every step of the way we've shrugged our shoulders and said, OK. As Milch says, "we cannot think our way to right action, we can only act our way to right thinking."

An Al Gore slide show will not save the environment. Too much talk, too many lofty ideas. But if people actually force themselves to change their behavior, we might save it through our actions.

Similarly, when you see Obama traveling the world, meeting with world leaders, learning how to take the world stage, he's embracing the philosophy that you have to fake it to make it. Dress for the job you want, not the job you have. Actions speak louder than words. And I agree with him. The only way to learn something is to do it.

McCain in the meantime is trying to argue his way into the White House by rationalizing his decisions (the surge is working! the surge worked before it was a surge!) and by trying to undermine Obama through the repetition of non-rational attacks.

As for my support of Obama, that's a rationalization as well. I'm just trying to justify my middle-class upbringing, my high-level of education, my liberal values, my white collar job, my Subaru Forester, my weekly trip to the farmer's market, etc., etc. Y'know, stuff white people like to do. And that's fine with me.

But, if you support McCain. Well, you're trying to rationalize the fact that you're a racist dead-ender with nothing to contribute. Good luck with that. Better get a shovel.



^1. I mention Dramatica because it is part of their theory that a story is a model of the human mind struggling with a problem. More importantly, the way that the human mind deals with problems is to rationalize them either by accepting an inequity or by justifying the actions required to balance things out.

Morning Run - 32:19

I think that's it for speed drills this week.

I literally could not have physically moved myself faster.

I actually felt a little fatigued at the end. Limbs went rubbery.

Still, 32:19. Woo-hoo.

The Cream Puff, Appendix

McCain thinks it's unseemly to visit foreign countries during a political campaign. Yet wasn't that he in Colombia just recently when the hostages were freed? Yeah, I thought so.

The Cream Puff

The only thing worse than McCain's smears against Obama as un-American and un-Patriotic is the number of people who will agree with him. McCain has no substance, no character, no policies, and yet he can go to Schmidt's, have a cream-puff, and somehow thinks he stands on equal footing with Obama. His bleachy whiteness shines through.

Obama on the other hand goes to Germany and gets 200,000 people to cheer for an America without Bush, and renews the romance that the U.S. has carried on with the rest of the world since World War II. Hopes, dreams. It's not everything but it's a start.

And what kind of signal will it send to the world if we allow those taint-tightening reactionary forces of the Bush era elect the cream puff. How deep is the despair of all these so-called more-patriotic dead-enders that they should be allowed to make all of our aspirations seem so futile?

For the record, Barack's speech yesterday was amazing. And as a footnote to a footnote, I used to live in Columbus and Schmidt's is like the McDonald's of German food.

Morning Run - 33:08

Another great morning. I didn't have any one setting the pace, so I had to do what I could on my own.

Random thoughts:

• The sunrises are coming later and later (and just when I was getting used to them coming earlier and earlier). I can already feel the summer slipping away and am silently dreading the Fall
  
• There was a mule deer buck with a big rack down in the clearing behind the HP A-frame. Looked like some sort of mythical stag as he stood there in the tall grass chewing his cud
• Also saw the usual: rabbits, magpies, humming bird, three joggers, three hikers, two good dogs, two bad dogs, and no mountain bikers
  

Deadwood 3.1 & 3.2

Every day takes figuring out all over again how to fuckin' live.

I just started watching Deadwood Season 3 on the DVD and this quote from Calamity Jane seems to be at the heart of Milch's view of the human condition. It's a wisdom that comes from those familiar with sociopaths, drug addicts, religious fanatics, philosophers, and poets. Folks without structure, logic, or discipline to give their lives shape and meaning. In these early episodes, existence itself is exhausting and burdensome.

On the flip side you have Hearst whose notion of remodeling the Grand Hotel is to knock holes in the wall. He has limitless wealth and power, as well as a talent for "the color", but he is a barbarian. Worse even than Swearengen. Everything he does is brutal and violent. Rape the land and murder the people, all in the name of gold. The de-constructed hotel is the symbol for how he thinks about the world.

As for our dear friend, Albert Swearengen, he's still putting his rob or be robbed philosophy to surprisingly good use. Al serves the collective more and more through subterfuge (tropes and gambits) than through the brute force of earlier days. And is still trying to teach the so-called good guy Bullock how not to be undone by his own sense of separateness, petty personal concerns, and his uncontrollable temper. "We are all of the body," as the seizure afflicted preacher said in Season 1.

By the end of episode two, Al has paid a penalty for playing Hearst's little game. We'll see what happens next.

Morning Run - 32:34

Started my run today at 5:55. As soon as I hit the trail, I fell behind another guy who was clearly much faster than me. One of those guys that I could tell would put it into some gear I don't have if I was nervy enough to try to pass him. Not letting that discourage me, I was able to settle in about 10-20 yards back and let him set the pace. I'd gain ground on the climbs, he'd pull away on the straightaways. If he knew I was back there, he never indicated it. Anyway, it was tremendously helpful and I completed my run in a new personal best time of 32:34.

The Night Visitor

We had a family of foxes in the backyard last night. Mom, dad, and two kits. Here's one of the young ones who is now just big enough for foraging expeditions.

Morning Run

View Larger Map

I've been running this 3.6 mile loop on a daily basis for almost a year now. I've done it in 90 degree summer heat and 15 degree winter cold. Dust dry, rain, mud, snow, ice, you name it. The park itself is at about 6500 feet of altitude and its hilly so you climb up and down by about 600 feet. The terrain is rough, sandy in some areas, rocky in others. There are also some nice wooded areas that take you through pine forest.

My goal is to do it in 30 minutes. Then I'll start adding to the distance.

Notes

• When I started last Summer it took me 54 minutes and I literally thought I was going to die. I was willing myself to put one foot in front of the other; everything hurt; I couldn't breath. It was awful.
  
• I remember each of my milestones with an unhealthy level of pride: first time I made it all the way around without having to stop for rest; first time under 50 minutes; first time under 45 minutes; first time under 40 minutes; first time under 35 minutes. Each triumph equal to the last in the feeling of awesomeness.
  
• Two weeks ago I was passed by a marathon runner and was completely pissed at how slow I was going. That day I clocked in at a personal best 32:50. Lesson: competition is good.
  
• This morning, I ran what I thought was a pretty strong time but it turned out to be something lousy like 35:30. Lesson: You just can't tell.
• Pet peeves: dogs off of leashes. Mountain bikers. That's all I'll say on the matter.¹
• Unavoidable but hilarious: scaring the crap out of people listening to their iPods when you come up from behind. They really freak out and you feel bad, but still. Ha.
• Good things: People who say good morning or hello when you pass. Reaching that point where your brain shuts off and all you are aware of is the sensation of movement through space.
  

¹ Except, c'mon people! Cut it out. Learn some trail etiquette for God's sake. Leash your dog. Slow down and pass on the left. Say, "on your left". It's not that hard.

Dr. Horrible's End

It's pretty amazing that in the span of just three 15 minute episodes, Joss Whedon was able to simultaneously raise our expectations and dash our hopes over characters we didn't even know. As for me, I thought for sure Penny was either a fellow applicant for the Evil League of Evil, or Bad Horse herself (very cleverly disguised).

Shows what I know.

Except for the fact that Captain Hammer's song in Act III was sort of long and boring and left Nathan Fillion flailing about in a near-empty room trying to sell it. If he'd had a comical sidekick to work against it would have been a much better Gaston-style show-stopper.

Still, pretty genius for a glorified YouTube. And, FTR, Acts I and II are awesome.

2008: The Year The Music Died

Is it just me or has this been a bad year for music? It's probably just me.

New albums I've gotten this year: Vampire Weekend, The Charlatans, REM, The Last Shadow Puppets, Fleet Foxes, Coldplay (yes, Coldplay!)

New albums I was going to get but decided to give a miss: Death Cab for Cutie, My Morning Jacket, Wolf Parade, Portishead, Sigur Ros

Holdovers from '07: Band of Horses, Klaxons

Guilty Pleasures: The Kooks, Estelle, The Hoosiers, Adele, Madonna, Duffy, Robyn, The Ting Tings (!!!)

From the Archives: Presence by Led Zeppelin (in lieu of MMJ, and awesomely Zep's most underrated album), Endless Summer by The Beach Boys (in lieu of any Beach Boys inspired indie band from now until the end of time), A Rush of Blood to the Head by Coldplay (a secret success when removed from the context of everyone who loves and hates them)

Albums that are going to win me a lot of white people indie cred: Not Applicable

Likelihood I'll go get the new Hold Steady or Girl Talk records so I can win back some cred: Slim, None. Respectively.

Harvey Milk?: More '90s revisionist nonsense.

Moby Dick, I Finished It

It is just as David Milch described it in his lecture: art, poetry, literature - what-have-you - stands contrary to rational thought. Art forces us to stretch, test limits, see how far we can go. It forces us beyond our ego-centric demands for logic and meaning. It makes us confront that dark abyss that underlies everything.

And so with Moby Dick, Melville has this sense that there is something deeply wrong with Ahab's obsessions, and something equally wrong with the existence of this white whale. Ahab's a whack-job and the whale is some sort of demonic force, fine. But how can you explain it? How did this situation arise? Is this typical, or extraordinary? So Melville has to build his case around this idea he has. It's this nagging feeling, like a bad itch, that there's something scary out there in the sea and here in the human heart that is unique and problematic. Something that he can't name but is worth his and the reader's time to struggle with despite the impossibility of its meaning. For 700+ pages that's what he does: slowly, methodically, leaving out nothing. We learn everything he knows about the ocean, about whales, about ships, about the crew, about the rituals of sea-life, until he finally reveals this lacuna at the center of the story where the captain and the whale reside. They live beyond our logical reasoning and occupy a metaphysical space.

Near the end, in the chapter called The Symphony, Starbuck and Ahab talk about life back in Nantucket. Why shouldn't they just abandon the hunt and go home? they wonder. They have wives and children and could live normal lives. And Ahab, pushed to the brink, can't even explain to himself what he's doing out there in the Pacific any longer. Can't justify it to Starbuck, can't justify it to himself. And for just a second, there's a glimmer of an alternative path. Something other than the tragic destiny that Ahab has set for himself.

But the whale is sighted, and as we turn to The Chase, The First Day, you know nothing good is going to happen from here to the end. Once the whale arrives on stage, we're past the point of reason and it's all, "To the last, I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee."

It's unbelievable stuff. An Apollonian novel with a tragic Dionysian heart.

More stupidly, it's like a really well written, intelligent, Lovecraft story. Only its we who call to Cthulhu and not the other way around. Instead of the structures of sanity collapsing all at once at the sight of some horrible tentacled creature from beyond time and space, we see how those structures can be stripped away layer by layer until there's nothing left of the ego to stand between us and the abyss. How obsession leads to darkness, and ultimately destruction. How the life of a community can be destroyed by the overreaching of one madman. How our pleasure seeking, death loving id can send us straight over the edge.

That's art.