6. But the duke, the primate.
5. We have also changed daycare to one word from two (noun and adjective).
4. They are normally lowercased when standing alone: the church's stand, a league spokesman.
3. Sacred names and the proper names and nicknames of the devil are capitalized: Almighty, Redeemer, Holy Spirit, Allah, Mother of God, Vishnu, Beelzebub, Father of Lies.
2. Thus CP style is archeologist, ecumenical, encyclopedia, esthetic, fetus, gynecologist, hemorrhage, medieval, paleontologist, pedagogy and pediatrician.
1. And on it has gone.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Monday, May 09, 2011
justice
Good day. If you have received this notice, then you have been identified in the commission of a misdemeanor or pedestrian traffic violation on our CCTV camera network. The image of the perpetrator has been matched to your identity with a very healthy 63% certainty. Considering that you were likely moving and furtive during the commission of your crime, this is pretty good.
Your crime has been identified as JAYWALKING on 08/23/2007 at THE INTERSECTION OF MCINTYRE AND 12TH STREET. If you feel that this identification has been made in error, please visit the Department of Remissions by the end of business hours today. The Department of Remissions is open from 8:33 - 9:40 am and 2:14 - 2:17 pm every third Thursday and second Tuesday. Appointment only. Please bring birth certificate, recent utility bill, a fresh urine sample. A change of clothes is also recommended.
In order to assist in the speedy dispensation of justice, you have been selected for home self-tasing. Your self-tasing device is being delivered to you and should arrive by mail within the next 24 hours. When you receive your Disciplonic Auto-Taser MK III in the mail, please release the yellow tab on the side of the unit. A voice prompt will guide you through the process to ensure that your discplinary tasing is carried out in as comfortable, safe and convenient a manner as possible.
Please make sure that your designated auto-tasing area is free of standing water. DO NOT TASE YOURSELF IN THE BATH OR SHOWER. For your comfort, refrain from eating for one hour before adminstering the device.
In the event that you do not operate your self-tasing unit within 48 hours of receipt of unit, the device will automatically tase any moving object within the range of its sensors. The unit will then self-destruct. You will be billed for the cost of a replacement unit.
Pulling the yellow tab on the unit indicates that you agree with the terms and conditions of use of the Disciplonic AutoTaster MK III. You agree to indemnify and hold harmless the State in the event of seizures, surface burns, cardiac arrest, memory loss hydrocephaly and gout. Use of the unit is equivalent to purchase. You will be billed separately for the cost of the unit and all processing fees related to the prosecution of your offense.
Thank you and don't forget to tip your mail carrier.
Friday, April 01, 2011
Five minute poem?
Following the example of Schmutzie via a project from Amy Turn Sharp, here's a poem that took five minutes to write. I had no subject or particular place to go with this, but I decided to post the result, no matter what.
“His father in law is Ingmar Bergman,” houseguest says.
Spouse generalizes, pulls a thread out into a balloon,
which is where we go, on a raft that feels like spoons
lashed together from suppositions.
Spoons gathering water, each taking on their tiny share,
and down we go.
Full fathom five my facebook updates,
my networks going on without me
like a horn that pours forth salt into the oceans,
just brining up the place.
What a waste.
I've got places to go, copyrights to infringe,
a beard to brush out before the ants come
on their tiny feet.
“His father in law is Ingmar Bergman,” houseguest says.
Spouse generalizes, pulls a thread out into a balloon,
which is where we go, on a raft that feels like spoons
lashed together from suppositions.
Spoons gathering water, each taking on their tiny share,
and down we go.
Full fathom five my facebook updates,
my networks going on without me
like a horn that pours forth salt into the oceans,
just brining up the place.
What a waste.
I've got places to go, copyrights to infringe,
a beard to brush out before the ants come
on their tiny feet.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Superman vs. The Hot Pocket
I posted this already over at the prairie dog blog, but I like spreading my intellectual property around. I had this idea that Lois Lane should be played by a microwave oven in the upcoming Superman film, because she accompany Superman around and heat up his snacks.
But then Lex Luthor or Zod would pull a fast one on Supes.
Don't worry, Superman will prevail. Or will he?
But then Lex Luthor or Zod would pull a fast one on Supes.
Don't worry, Superman will prevail. Or will he?
Saturday, March 26, 2011
some notes for a talk on fluid dynamics
From time to time, some friends of mine host an evening of drinking and talking called Chicken & Wine at a local Ethiopian restaurant. You could describe the evenings as a lecture series of mandatory informality. There are no rules or strictures, except one; speakers must choose a topic outside their area of expertise. The results are usually funny and thoughtful and sometimes quietly astounding.
Well, I'd like to put Chicken & Wine's run of greatness to an end with a pre-emptive strike. This is a draft of my talk, which I'll deliver if they host any more of them. And if they let me up on stage.
For this talk, I've been asked to discuss something outside my area of expertise.
Which is why I'm going to talk about fluid dynamics.
I know absolutely nothing about fluid dynamics.
I don't even know, in all honesty, whether that's even a thing, or whether I've just arbitrarily plugged two words together and generated a noun phrase willy-nilly.
But little lights spark briefly in my brain when I think of the phrase, as if to signify that yes, in some context, I've heard the term. My brain wants to tell me, even if only hesitantly and with the faintest of impulses, that I know something about fluid dyamics.
But I don't trust my brain.
I don't trust my memory.
Long before studies proved that memory was sufficiently malleable to introduce false experiences into someone's mind by dint of careful suggestions or even throwaway phrases, I had a feeling that my mind was nothing more than a wave constantly riding in to shore, constantly foaming, ever on the verge of breaking.
Someone would ask me what I thought of some ancient compilation of Smiths b-sides. After a prompt or two, my desire would mix with my memories of buying Smiths albums, of flipping through the cardboard sleeves in record stores with that carefully honed paddling of index and middle finger, of deciphering Morrissey's suggestive, sloppy and sometimes filthy lyrics. And then I would somehow remember that album of b-sides, with its wash of colour, its British '60s film icon on the cover, its aesthetic debt to Warhol, and the crooked and experimental songs that Marr and Morrissey had knocked off on a lazy afternoon. Perhaps before the fame, the campiness and the heroin got to them.
You know the album.
Or maybe you don't. Because the album I'm describing doesn't exist. It has no name. And yet it describes every Smiths record. The key lies in its namelessness, its satisfaction of categories, its position in a waveform that dips in and out of actuality.
But I tell you this: that would be the greatest Smiths album ever.
The easiest way to find out something about fluid dynamics is to Google it. Go on and give it a good Google. The internet, with its connected web of servers, is a memory that we believe we can trust. Data can be transposed, erased, replaced or even misinterpreted, but a datum is a datum. Random facts, dates, the names of authors – these can all be found on the internet. How many full fathoms does my father lie? Which wood is coming to Dunsinane? Google that shit. Stat. Hey, why do doctors always say 'stat'? I'm so going to Google that.*
People say that our memories are failing in a google-rich environment, but what it shows us is not that our memories are fake, but that the thing we think of as memory is fake. We have injected a structure into our minds, a house for facts. The memory palace is simply the most rigorous and opulent application of our native conception of memory. But we confuse the structure for its materials, as if we looked at a house and believed it to be a hollow tree.
The new metaphor for computing is no longer the box but the cloud. And it is the newest metaphor and structure for memory – vague, shifting, flowing into and out of other structures. We're packing up and moving that house, room by room, into the sky.*
Fluid dynamics, by the way, is a sub-discipline of fluid mechanics that deals with fluid flow—the natural science of fluids (liquids and gases) in motion. It has several subdisciplines itself, including aerodynamics (the study of air and other gases in motion) and hydrodynamics (the study of liquids in motion).
The more you know.
Stat is a barked abbreviation of the Latin statim, which means “immediately”. Doctors like to say stat because they're so very busy.
*But this can't be right, you say. There's still plenty of stuff running around up there in our heads, and there always will be. And some of it must be true – which is to say, it must be constant. Practical experience bears that out. Red lights always mean stop, green means go, and a flashing red hand means that you shouldn't have been crossing the street in the first place.
I wonder about those everyday details of our life, and to what degree we actually remember them as individuals. Red lights are not an individual phenomenon; they are objects that our entire culture holds in its mind. One day we will find ourselves in a place with strange new lights, and our minds will refuse to hold on to their colours.
Well, I'd like to put Chicken & Wine's run of greatness to an end with a pre-emptive strike. This is a draft of my talk, which I'll deliver if they host any more of them. And if they let me up on stage.
For this talk, I've been asked to discuss something outside my area of expertise.
Which is why I'm going to talk about fluid dynamics.
I know absolutely nothing about fluid dynamics.
I don't even know, in all honesty, whether that's even a thing, or whether I've just arbitrarily plugged two words together and generated a noun phrase willy-nilly.
But little lights spark briefly in my brain when I think of the phrase, as if to signify that yes, in some context, I've heard the term. My brain wants to tell me, even if only hesitantly and with the faintest of impulses, that I know something about fluid dyamics.
But I don't trust my brain.
I don't trust my memory.
Long before studies proved that memory was sufficiently malleable to introduce false experiences into someone's mind by dint of careful suggestions or even throwaway phrases, I had a feeling that my mind was nothing more than a wave constantly riding in to shore, constantly foaming, ever on the verge of breaking.
Someone would ask me what I thought of some ancient compilation of Smiths b-sides. After a prompt or two, my desire would mix with my memories of buying Smiths albums, of flipping through the cardboard sleeves in record stores with that carefully honed paddling of index and middle finger, of deciphering Morrissey's suggestive, sloppy and sometimes filthy lyrics. And then I would somehow remember that album of b-sides, with its wash of colour, its British '60s film icon on the cover, its aesthetic debt to Warhol, and the crooked and experimental songs that Marr and Morrissey had knocked off on a lazy afternoon. Perhaps before the fame, the campiness and the heroin got to them.
You know the album.
Or maybe you don't. Because the album I'm describing doesn't exist. It has no name. And yet it describes every Smiths record. The key lies in its namelessness, its satisfaction of categories, its position in a waveform that dips in and out of actuality.
But I tell you this: that would be the greatest Smiths album ever.
The easiest way to find out something about fluid dynamics is to Google it. Go on and give it a good Google. The internet, with its connected web of servers, is a memory that we believe we can trust. Data can be transposed, erased, replaced or even misinterpreted, but a datum is a datum. Random facts, dates, the names of authors – these can all be found on the internet. How many full fathoms does my father lie? Which wood is coming to Dunsinane? Google that shit. Stat. Hey, why do doctors always say 'stat'? I'm so going to Google that.*
People say that our memories are failing in a google-rich environment, but what it shows us is not that our memories are fake, but that the thing we think of as memory is fake. We have injected a structure into our minds, a house for facts. The memory palace is simply the most rigorous and opulent application of our native conception of memory. But we confuse the structure for its materials, as if we looked at a house and believed it to be a hollow tree.
The new metaphor for computing is no longer the box but the cloud. And it is the newest metaphor and structure for memory – vague, shifting, flowing into and out of other structures. We're packing up and moving that house, room by room, into the sky.*
Fluid dynamics, by the way, is a sub-discipline of fluid mechanics that deals with fluid flow—the natural science of fluids (liquids and gases) in motion. It has several subdisciplines itself, including aerodynamics (the study of air and other gases in motion) and hydrodynamics (the study of liquids in motion).
The more you know.
Stat is a barked abbreviation of the Latin statim, which means “immediately”. Doctors like to say stat because they're so very busy.
*But this can't be right, you say. There's still plenty of stuff running around up there in our heads, and there always will be. And some of it must be true – which is to say, it must be constant. Practical experience bears that out. Red lights always mean stop, green means go, and a flashing red hand means that you shouldn't have been crossing the street in the first place.
I wonder about those everyday details of our life, and to what degree we actually remember them as individuals. Red lights are not an individual phenomenon; they are objects that our entire culture holds in its mind. One day we will find ourselves in a place with strange new lights, and our minds will refuse to hold on to their colours.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
The Eyes of Meg Ryan
A version of this video originally appeared on MamaPop.com.
"Check it, fools." This here's my excuse to edit clips of Meg Ryan and Faye Dunaway with a soundtrack from a Maya Deren film. Oh yes, you can hire me to do this kind of thing. Because Mark Rappaport's dead.
"Check it, fools." This here's my excuse to edit clips of Meg Ryan and Faye Dunaway with a soundtrack from a Maya Deren film. Oh yes, you can hire me to do this kind of thing. Because Mark Rappaport's dead.
eyes of meg ryan from palinode on Vimeo.
What's Today With A Palinode? for March 16
Today in Palinode:
Guy Uses Chatroulette For Sweetest Musical Marriage Proposal Ever on Moxiebird
And that's what I did on the internet today, barring some random tweets, Facebook posts and trolling Atlantic Magazine blogs.
If you’ve felt that the one thing missing from hockey was Jesus, then I’ve got good news for you. The Youth Ministry Office of the Diocese of Saskatoon is presenting the Saskatoon Blades Faith Night – tonight! You can watch the Blades face off against the Warriors… and then there’s a Christian rock band. I’m kind of curious as to how the Diocese and the Blades came up with this. UPDATE: Commenter Malcolm points out that Faith Night is being put on by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Saskatoon, not the Anglican Diocese. This is why one of them should change their name from ‘Diocese’ to ‘House of Chillax’.
Guy Uses Chatroulette For Sweetest Musical Marriage Proposal Ever on Moxiebird
Chatroulette may already be consigned to pop culture’s endless attic of Shit We Thought Was Cool For Five Minutes, but there are still moments of genuine pleasure to be squeezed from its husk. Like this video, in which a song to a pretty girl on the internet turns into something unexpectedly sweet.
And that's what I did on the internet today, barring some random tweets, Facebook posts and trolling Atlantic Magazine blogs.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
The Twilight Saga Saga: Chapter Five
Well god's hairy gravy boat, it's been a while since I've looked at Twilight and attempted to come to grips with Meyer's marketing machine in preteen prose, chapter by chapter. I thought it had defeated me in only four chapters, but the curiosity fueled by boredom is more powerful than Stephenie Meyer's prose. Onward!
In chapter four Bella receives two invitations - one unwanted but unavoidable, the other desired but fraught with danger. Mortal danger. Nookie danger. That's the most dangerous danger of all. "Blood Type" doesn't get to the nookie (spoiler: it takes four whole books to get to the action) but indulges in a kind of literary foreplay. If you're reading along with me, get used to it. This is three books of foreplay and one book of crazy birth horror. Sandwiched in there somewhere is the actual sex, like the thinnest coldcut ever sliced by man or beast. What we're chewing through now is the endless spongy Wonder Bread of Meyer's writing.
Unlike the previous chapters, which tend to jump forward a day or so, "Blood Type" picks up where "Invitations" left off, with Bella so hot and bothered that she shows up late and "in a daze" to English class. The first Learn To Write moment comes depressingly quckly:
Meyer doesn't trust her reading audience, so she pegs adverbs on nearly every line of dialogue, which makes conversations feel overstuffed but vapid at the same time. Here she avoids it by diluting the adverb into an entire phrase ('in a disparaging tone') and the result is even worse.
In fairness, Mason's line is ambiguous - maybe he's so happy to see Bella that he feels the need to announce it in front of the class (After all, everyone in Forks seems to love Bella Swan so much thather teachers are probably carving hearts into their desks and pasting pictures of her into their wedding albums.) Meyer could have avoided this bit of awkwardness by joining a telling piece of action to the dialogue:
We don't need to be told that Mason's tone is disparaging in this scenario; the students' laughter gives the readers all the information necessary to determine what kind of a person Mr. Mason is, how the students feel about him, and how the students feel about Bella. The key to making this kind of scene work lies in the action, not in the narrator's judgment.
It's also apparent in "Blood Type" that Stephenie Meyer is not sure what the form and purpose of a chapter should be. Here she treats a chapter like a junk drawer, full of odds and ends related only by virtue of their sequence - a moment in English class, a lunchtime conversation with Edward, a trip to the nurse's office and a scene in a parking lot. It's a bit of a jumble, with individual scenes that feature some flourishes of talent but badly need an edit. You might reasonably object that the chapter's structure is unavoidable because of the sequence of events, but there is no reason for these elements to exist in the configuration that Meyer presents. Let's take a look at the scenes and see how they fit.
1. English class. There is no reason for this scene to exist. It's a transition from the climactic scene in "Invitations" to the main action of the chapter. In other words, it's filler. Which is only worthwhile when a writer stuffs it with good material that would otherwise go to waste.
2. The conversation at lunch. Bella sits with Edward at lunch and have a long, frustrating conversation. To a large extent it covers the same ground that was done much more effectively in "Invitations" (Edward can't stay away from Bella, but it might be a good idea for Bella to stay from Edward). Even though Meyer's adverb-heavy dialogue and constant references to Edward's face and eyes is grating, Bella and Edward's interaction tells us a good deal more about their characters than Bella's constant monologue does - largely because dialogue is a series of holes punched in the surface of a narrator's consciousness. It's one of the only points in the book when we glimpse Bella from someone else's point of view.
Unfortunately, that point of view is Edward's, and Edward isn't really a character. He's a fantasy lover with "ocher eyes" who adores Bella to the point of wishing to consume her. It would be nice for someone to come up to Bella and tell her that she's a self-centered jerk who shields her emotions behind a front of adolescent precocity - but that's never going to happen, because this is Twilight.
3. Biology class. After a standard sexually frustrating lunch with Edward, Bella heads to Biology class and discovers that Mr. Banner is planning on taking everyone's blood and determining their blood type. To no one's surprise, Bella turns out to be hemophobic. This is a glimpse into the symbolic latticework that holds up the Twilight books. Blood, stone, sun and mist (there's no darkness in Twilight - just diffused light). A crude reading would simply equate fear of blood with fear of sex and the body. A more sophisticated reading - wait, there isn't one. The Twilight novels work with a simple substitution cypher: blood for sex, hunger for lust, and so forth.
On a practical level, though, this scene is borked. Mr. Banner brings out the lancets and the other instruments of torture and starts pricking fingers. Then he mentions that anyone under eighteen will need parental permission slips, which he has in his desk. So why is he carrying out the exercise? Are most of the students eighteen? This seems unlikely - unless the students of Forks are slow learners. I'd be willing to buy that, but all of the student characters we've met so far (Mike, Jessica etc.) are bright, fashionable, energetic teens who would fit perfectly into an episode of 90210.
I'm guessing that an editor noted the implausibility of a teacher taking blood samples from children, so Meyer inserted a couple of lines to work around the problem. But this raises a host of other problems. In the real world, permission slips would be issued at least a week or two beforehand - which would give Bella plenty of time to refuse or skip class.
Of course, if she skipped the blood test, then the next scene could never happen - which means that the entire Biology class scene is simply a bridge into the real stuff, which is Edward and Bella dancing around their mutual attraction. In effect, the permission slip detail reveals just how instrumental the scene is, and how uninterested Meyer is in the world she's writing about.
4. The nurse's office. Once the blood lancets come out, Bella turns to clammy mush and needs to be escorted to the nurse. This occasions one of the first examples of interesting writing in Twilight:
Note the details that Meyer captures here when Bella shuts off her visual channel. Squeals. Giggles. Skewering. There's a kind of slaughterhouse atmosphere here, a note of terror amplified by the purely auditory input. Meyer keeps the conceit consistent enough that Bella identifies Banner's position and emotional state by his voice alone. Blood and helplessness goose the text and bring it out of its slumber (if the Twilight Saga were a sleeping person, then I picture Meyer as the person who sneaks into the room and places the sleeper's hand in a glass of warm water).
The nurse's office has some genuinely good moments. Edward (yeah, he's there all of a sudden) places Bella down "on the crackly paper that covered the brown vinyl mattress on the one cot". In one well-selected vivid detail, Meyer summons up the entire experience of visiting a school nurse. That damn crackly paper covering. We also get to see the casual power that Edward commands in the school, even as he remains in the background.
5. The parking lot. All this leads up to the real revelation of the chapter: Edward is a violent asshole. And this doesn't turn Bella off.
What? How are we take a scene in which a man physically overpowers a teenage girl and drags her to his car, all under the guise of 'protecting her' and (even more insidiously) keeping a promise? The movie adaptation skips this entire passage altogether, jumping straight from the lunchtime conversation to the beach at La Push. Meyer should have done the same. As it is, we now know that we're reading an insanely popular teen fantasy novel about an abusive jerk and the girl who just can't get enough of it. Slow clap, Meyer. Slow. Clap.
The chapter continues into a long conversation between Bella and Edward about her family, but the parking lot scene damages "Blood Type" so profoundly that there's not much point in examining it.
***
You Suck, Bella score: 5 (she spends part of the time feeling guilty about mistreating Mike, and the rest of the time she's fainting or being pushed around by Edward)
Learn To Write score: too high to count
Chapter 5: Blood Type
In chapter four Bella receives two invitations - one unwanted but unavoidable, the other desired but fraught with danger. Mortal danger. Nookie danger. That's the most dangerous danger of all. "Blood Type" doesn't get to the nookie (spoiler: it takes four whole books to get to the action) but indulges in a kind of literary foreplay. If you're reading along with me, get used to it. This is three books of foreplay and one book of crazy birth horror. Sandwiched in there somewhere is the actual sex, like the thinnest coldcut ever sliced by man or beast. What we're chewing through now is the endless spongy Wonder Bread of Meyer's writing.
Unlike the previous chapters, which tend to jump forward a day or so, "Blood Type" picks up where "Invitations" left off, with Bella so hot and bothered that she shows up late and "in a daze" to English class. The first Learn To Write moment comes depressingly quckly:
I made my way to English in a daze. I didn't even realize when I first walked in that class had already started.
"Good to see you, Miss Swan," said Mr. Mason in a disparaging tone.
Meyer doesn't trust her reading audience, so she pegs adverbs on nearly every line of dialogue, which makes conversations feel overstuffed but vapid at the same time. Here she avoids it by diluting the adverb into an entire phrase ('in a disparaging tone') and the result is even worse.
In fairness, Mason's line is ambiguous - maybe he's so happy to see Bella that he feels the need to announce it in front of the class (After all, everyone in Forks seems to love Bella Swan so much thather teachers are probably carving hearts into their desks and pasting pictures of her into their wedding albums.) Meyer could have avoided this bit of awkwardness by joining a telling piece of action to the dialogue:
"Good to see you, Miss Swan," Mr. Mason said. Laughter rippled through the room.
We don't need to be told that Mason's tone is disparaging in this scenario; the students' laughter gives the readers all the information necessary to determine what kind of a person Mr. Mason is, how the students feel about him, and how the students feel about Bella. The key to making this kind of scene work lies in the action, not in the narrator's judgment.
It's also apparent in "Blood Type" that Stephenie Meyer is not sure what the form and purpose of a chapter should be. Here she treats a chapter like a junk drawer, full of odds and ends related only by virtue of their sequence - a moment in English class, a lunchtime conversation with Edward, a trip to the nurse's office and a scene in a parking lot. It's a bit of a jumble, with individual scenes that feature some flourishes of talent but badly need an edit. You might reasonably object that the chapter's structure is unavoidable because of the sequence of events, but there is no reason for these elements to exist in the configuration that Meyer presents. Let's take a look at the scenes and see how they fit.
1. English class. There is no reason for this scene to exist. It's a transition from the climactic scene in "Invitations" to the main action of the chapter. In other words, it's filler. Which is only worthwhile when a writer stuffs it with good material that would otherwise go to waste.
2. The conversation at lunch. Bella sits with Edward at lunch and have a long, frustrating conversation. To a large extent it covers the same ground that was done much more effectively in "Invitations" (Edward can't stay away from Bella, but it might be a good idea for Bella to stay from Edward). Even though Meyer's adverb-heavy dialogue and constant references to Edward's face and eyes is grating, Bella and Edward's interaction tells us a good deal more about their characters than Bella's constant monologue does - largely because dialogue is a series of holes punched in the surface of a narrator's consciousness. It's one of the only points in the book when we glimpse Bella from someone else's point of view.
Unfortunately, that point of view is Edward's, and Edward isn't really a character. He's a fantasy lover with "ocher eyes" who adores Bella to the point of wishing to consume her. It would be nice for someone to come up to Bella and tell her that she's a self-centered jerk who shields her emotions behind a front of adolescent precocity - but that's never going to happen, because this is Twilight.
3. Biology class. After a standard sexually frustrating lunch with Edward, Bella heads to Biology class and discovers that Mr. Banner is planning on taking everyone's blood and determining their blood type. To no one's surprise, Bella turns out to be hemophobic. This is a glimpse into the symbolic latticework that holds up the Twilight books. Blood, stone, sun and mist (there's no darkness in Twilight - just diffused light). A crude reading would simply equate fear of blood with fear of sex and the body. A more sophisticated reading - wait, there isn't one. The Twilight novels work with a simple substitution cypher: blood for sex, hunger for lust, and so forth.
On a practical level, though, this scene is borked. Mr. Banner brings out the lancets and the other instruments of torture and starts pricking fingers. Then he mentions that anyone under eighteen will need parental permission slips, which he has in his desk. So why is he carrying out the exercise? Are most of the students eighteen? This seems unlikely - unless the students of Forks are slow learners. I'd be willing to buy that, but all of the student characters we've met so far (Mike, Jessica etc.) are bright, fashionable, energetic teens who would fit perfectly into an episode of 90210.
I'm guessing that an editor noted the implausibility of a teacher taking blood samples from children, so Meyer inserted a couple of lines to work around the problem. But this raises a host of other problems. In the real world, permission slips would be issued at least a week or two beforehand - which would give Bella plenty of time to refuse or skip class.
Of course, if she skipped the blood test, then the next scene could never happen - which means that the entire Biology class scene is simply a bridge into the real stuff, which is Edward and Bella dancing around their mutual attraction. In effect, the permission slip detail reveals just how instrumental the scene is, and how uninterested Meyer is in the world she's writing about.
4. The nurse's office. Once the blood lancets come out, Bella turns to clammy mush and needs to be escorted to the nurse. This occasions one of the first examples of interesting writing in Twilight:
He continued through the room with his water drops. I put my cheek against the cool black tabletop and tried to hold on to my consciousness. All around me I could hear squeals, complaints and giggles as my classmates skewered their fingers. I breathed slowly in and out through my mouth.
"Bella, are you all right?" Mr. Banner asked. His voice was close to my head, and it sounded alarmed.
Note the details that Meyer captures here when Bella shuts off her visual channel. Squeals. Giggles. Skewering. There's a kind of slaughterhouse atmosphere here, a note of terror amplified by the purely auditory input. Meyer keeps the conceit consistent enough that Bella identifies Banner's position and emotional state by his voice alone. Blood and helplessness goose the text and bring it out of its slumber (if the Twilight Saga were a sleeping person, then I picture Meyer as the person who sneaks into the room and places the sleeper's hand in a glass of warm water).
The nurse's office has some genuinely good moments. Edward (yeah, he's there all of a sudden) places Bella down "on the crackly paper that covered the brown vinyl mattress on the one cot". In one well-selected vivid detail, Meyer summons up the entire experience of visiting a school nurse. That damn crackly paper covering. We also get to see the casual power that Edward commands in the school, even as he remains in the background.
5. The parking lot. All this leads up to the real revelation of the chapter: Edward is a violent asshole. And this doesn't turn Bella off.
We were near the parking lot now. I veered left, toward my truck. Something caught my jacket, yanking me back.
"Where do you think you're going?" he asked, outraged. He was gripping a fistful of my jacket in one hand.
I was confused. "I'm going home."
"Didn't you hear me promise to take you safely home? Do you think I'm going to let you drive in your condition?" His voice was still indignant.
....
"Let go!" I insisted. He ignored me. I staggered along sideways across the wet sidewalk until we reached [Edward's] Volvo. Then he finally freed me - I stumbled against the passenger door.
"You are so pushy," I grumbled.
"It's open," was all he responded. He got in the driver's side.
What? How are we take a scene in which a man physically overpowers a teenage girl and drags her to his car, all under the guise of 'protecting her' and (even more insidiously) keeping a promise? The movie adaptation skips this entire passage altogether, jumping straight from the lunchtime conversation to the beach at La Push. Meyer should have done the same. As it is, we now know that we're reading an insanely popular teen fantasy novel about an abusive jerk and the girl who just can't get enough of it. Slow clap, Meyer. Slow. Clap.
The chapter continues into a long conversation between Bella and Edward about her family, but the parking lot scene damages "Blood Type" so profoundly that there's not much point in examining it.
***
You Suck, Bella score: 5 (she spends part of the time feeling guilty about mistreating Mike, and the rest of the time she's fainting or being pushed around by Edward)
Learn To Write score: too high to count
Thursday, February 10, 2011
So I Got Me a Psychic Reading
A bit of disclosure: this post could be considered advertising of sorts for HollywoodPsychics.com, for which I have received no compensation beyond a free psychic reading.
Like most college-educated folks these days, I have an unseemly and obnoxious interest in poking fun at spiritual matters. We cheer on The Amazing Randi as he debunks frauds, mentally high-five Christopher Hitchens or Twisty Faster as they skewer yet another godbag (for vastly different reasons), and generally feel quite content sleeping in on Sunday mornings à la Homer Simpson.
Nonetheless, we're still curious about the unfalsifiable - all that hazy spiritual stuff that we can't quite ignore because its premises operate beyond truth and falsehood (repugnantly misogynistic/ homophobic/ racist statements and actions proceeding from said premises do not operate in the same epistemic realm, however – those are empirically verifiable and they suck). So when my bloggy friend and peer Cecily offered to set me up with a free reading, I thought, “cool.” And then I thought, “Hell yeah.” Then I wanted a taco, but there's nowhere to go in this city for decent Mexican food.
The reading, I found out, could be done by phone. This sort of thing always amazes me, but humans are capable of figuring each other out in tweets and text messages, so why not a phone call? Their web site even offers a free email reading.
I wasn't sure what to expect when I dialed the menu, but I enjoyed the system they have going. You punch in an account number and then you're taken to a menu of available psychics. You can listen to various psychics introduce themselves and explain their style of reading – it seems there nearly as many ways of divining the truth as there are diviners.
I picked James, who was a) the first person on the menu, b) had a kind and thoughtful voice, and c) used a mix of Tarot and astrology, with a dash of Native American spirituality. It felt a bit like a Unitarian service I attended once. James had fewer questions for me than I imagined – just my first name, my date of birth, and whether I had any particular question in mind. I did! I wanted to know a little bit about my career. Because my career is what the kids like to call “nascent,” which is a fancy way of saying that I'm a broke-ass freelancer.
Based on my sun sign (Leo), James picked a particular deck, whose name I didn't catch. Then he asked me to clear my mind and visualize myself in my ideal career. Because my ideal career is a successful freelance writer (as opposed to the kind I am right now), I pictured myself exactly where I was at that very moment, but with a clean shirt. James told me that he was shuffling the deck as I cleared my mind, but for all I know he could have been rubbing silver paint on Kim Kardashian's nipples. Probably not, though: I hear that Kim's nipples really demand your attention.
He told me he'd be drawing the cards in a Medicine Wheel formation (fun fact: I've been to a Medicine Wheel). For the hub of the wheel he drew The Star, which is one of the major arcana. James told me that this was a really good card to have at the center of my wheel. He filled in with some details that I didn't catch, but the basic message of the star, as it relates to my career, is: Go For It. Nothing To Worry About.
I imagine this is the kind of thing that the Jameses of this world tell people who ask about their career prospects, because it's encouraging and can't really be disproved in any way. Part of me felt like saying “I can't go for it, James! I'm a quadriplegic with an axe through my head! James, this axe really hurts! Can I change my question to something more axe-related?”* But I trusted that a less auspicious card – say, the godawful chaos of The Tower – would have prompted him to give me a more cautionary message.
Crossing my Star card was the Page of Pentacles. This meant that I would be receiving a message soon about job prospects, but it also meant that I should be active in hunting down my job, using the Yellow pages and talking directly to managers at companies where I wanted to work. Not something I needed the Tarot for, but still: good advice.
Following those two cards, James laid out my near future with three cards capturing mind, body and spirit. The first card he drew was the Four of Cups, which he said was “an unusual card” in this configuration. But it was a good card! He then asked if I was married, which was probably the only other point in the conversation where he directly solicited information from me. When I said I was, he launched into an exploration of love and connection. The card indicated that I was happy and in a good relationship, but that it might serve me well to renew my bond with my partner in some way. During the call I thought that the cards had actually thrown him for a loop and sent him on an unexpected path, but it occurred to me afterwards that Valentine's Day is coming up. Ah well.
The physical aspect of the future was represented by the Two of Swords. This, apparently, is not a good card. It's about communication, but it carries the possibility of miscommunication and mistakes. He told me to remain open and available, and not to shut myself off. Again, good advice for the job seeker.
The last card, the spiritual one, was the three of cups. Again with the cups! Either he was too distracted by silvering up Kim Kardashian or the cards really do have a vision of my future. This was another good card, with its image of three women making a toast. It indicated that a spiritual event in the near future, a celebration of some kind, would be connected to my career prospects. Networking at a wedding, maybe?
He went to draw further cards, telling me that my chief motivation was 'moving forward' and not money, reiterating that I should go for it, whatever it is that I may want to do. He threw out a few educated guesses that maybe I had an unfinished novel or album that I was working on, which wasn't too far off the mark. If I were a different kind of person, I might have jumped in at that point and said “Yes! Yes, I have an unfinished novel!” but I kept as quiet as possible.
To finish up, James advised me to wear blue – particularly sky-blue – and something silver to my job interviews. I probably should have followed this advice earlier, since I've been wearing my pink shirt to interviews. Damn you, pink shirt. Damn you and your french cuffs.
I'm not convinced that James contacted some divine truth or jacked his third eye into the quantum-entangled psilocybin matrix that binds our existence together and will one day beam us into eternity to merge with the Star Whale that created us all. On the other hand, he was perceptive, courteous and seemed genuinely engaged in reading and interpreting the cards – no small feat. I enjoyed the session and I wish him well. And I foresee some silver nipples in his future.
*"Like, should I apply for a job as a professional axe remover? My only qualification is my personal experience with this axe in my head."
Like most college-educated folks these days, I have an unseemly and obnoxious interest in poking fun at spiritual matters. We cheer on The Amazing Randi as he debunks frauds, mentally high-five Christopher Hitchens or Twisty Faster as they skewer yet another godbag (for vastly different reasons), and generally feel quite content sleeping in on Sunday mornings à la Homer Simpson.
Nonetheless, we're still curious about the unfalsifiable - all that hazy spiritual stuff that we can't quite ignore because its premises operate beyond truth and falsehood (repugnantly misogynistic/ homophobic/ racist statements and actions proceeding from said premises do not operate in the same epistemic realm, however – those are empirically verifiable and they suck). So when my bloggy friend and peer Cecily offered to set me up with a free reading, I thought, “cool.” And then I thought, “Hell yeah.” Then I wanted a taco, but there's nowhere to go in this city for decent Mexican food.
The reading, I found out, could be done by phone. This sort of thing always amazes me, but humans are capable of figuring each other out in tweets and text messages, so why not a phone call? Their web site even offers a free email reading.
I wasn't sure what to expect when I dialed the menu, but I enjoyed the system they have going. You punch in an account number and then you're taken to a menu of available psychics. You can listen to various psychics introduce themselves and explain their style of reading – it seems there nearly as many ways of divining the truth as there are diviners.
I picked James, who was a) the first person on the menu, b) had a kind and thoughtful voice, and c) used a mix of Tarot and astrology, with a dash of Native American spirituality. It felt a bit like a Unitarian service I attended once. James had fewer questions for me than I imagined – just my first name, my date of birth, and whether I had any particular question in mind. I did! I wanted to know a little bit about my career. Because my career is what the kids like to call “nascent,” which is a fancy way of saying that I'm a broke-ass freelancer.
Based on my sun sign (Leo), James picked a particular deck, whose name I didn't catch. Then he asked me to clear my mind and visualize myself in my ideal career. Because my ideal career is a successful freelance writer (as opposed to the kind I am right now), I pictured myself exactly where I was at that very moment, but with a clean shirt. James told me that he was shuffling the deck as I cleared my mind, but for all I know he could have been rubbing silver paint on Kim Kardashian's nipples. Probably not, though: I hear that Kim's nipples really demand your attention.
He told me he'd be drawing the cards in a Medicine Wheel formation (fun fact: I've been to a Medicine Wheel). For the hub of the wheel he drew The Star, which is one of the major arcana. James told me that this was a really good card to have at the center of my wheel. He filled in with some details that I didn't catch, but the basic message of the star, as it relates to my career, is: Go For It. Nothing To Worry About.
I imagine this is the kind of thing that the Jameses of this world tell people who ask about their career prospects, because it's encouraging and can't really be disproved in any way. Part of me felt like saying “I can't go for it, James! I'm a quadriplegic with an axe through my head! James, this axe really hurts! Can I change my question to something more axe-related?”* But I trusted that a less auspicious card – say, the godawful chaos of The Tower – would have prompted him to give me a more cautionary message.
Crossing my Star card was the Page of Pentacles. This meant that I would be receiving a message soon about job prospects, but it also meant that I should be active in hunting down my job, using the Yellow pages and talking directly to managers at companies where I wanted to work. Not something I needed the Tarot for, but still: good advice.
Following those two cards, James laid out my near future with three cards capturing mind, body and spirit. The first card he drew was the Four of Cups, which he said was “an unusual card” in this configuration. But it was a good card! He then asked if I was married, which was probably the only other point in the conversation where he directly solicited information from me. When I said I was, he launched into an exploration of love and connection. The card indicated that I was happy and in a good relationship, but that it might serve me well to renew my bond with my partner in some way. During the call I thought that the cards had actually thrown him for a loop and sent him on an unexpected path, but it occurred to me afterwards that Valentine's Day is coming up. Ah well.
The physical aspect of the future was represented by the Two of Swords. This, apparently, is not a good card. It's about communication, but it carries the possibility of miscommunication and mistakes. He told me to remain open and available, and not to shut myself off. Again, good advice for the job seeker.
The last card, the spiritual one, was the three of cups. Again with the cups! Either he was too distracted by silvering up Kim Kardashian or the cards really do have a vision of my future. This was another good card, with its image of three women making a toast. It indicated that a spiritual event in the near future, a celebration of some kind, would be connected to my career prospects. Networking at a wedding, maybe?
He went to draw further cards, telling me that my chief motivation was 'moving forward' and not money, reiterating that I should go for it, whatever it is that I may want to do. He threw out a few educated guesses that maybe I had an unfinished novel or album that I was working on, which wasn't too far off the mark. If I were a different kind of person, I might have jumped in at that point and said “Yes! Yes, I have an unfinished novel!” but I kept as quiet as possible.
To finish up, James advised me to wear blue – particularly sky-blue – and something silver to my job interviews. I probably should have followed this advice earlier, since I've been wearing my pink shirt to interviews. Damn you, pink shirt. Damn you and your french cuffs.
I'm not convinced that James contacted some divine truth or jacked his third eye into the quantum-entangled psilocybin matrix that binds our existence together and will one day beam us into eternity to merge with the Star Whale that created us all. On the other hand, he was perceptive, courteous and seemed genuinely engaged in reading and interpreting the cards – no small feat. I enjoyed the session and I wish him well. And I foresee some silver nipples in his future.
*"Like, should I apply for a job as a professional axe remover? My only qualification is my personal experience with this axe in my head."
Wednesday, February 09, 2011
Income
[It's evening. Schmutzie and Palinode are relaxing in the comfort of a living room. It's their living room, which really legitimizes the situation.]
Palinode: I've started using Google Chrome as my default browser.
Schmutzie: Me too.
Palinode: I like to use it for online browsing, finding recipes, organizing my calendar - and of course, shopping.
Schmutzie: Um, sure.
Palinode: Chrome takes me where I need to go.
Schmutzie: That's -
Palinode: Every time.
Schmutzie: What are you talking like that for?
Palinode: I figure Google listens to everything we say. So I'm monetizing our conversations.
Schmutzie: So you should be receiving a hundred bucks in three years.
Palinode: Truly we are living in a golden age of riches.
Palinode: I've started using Google Chrome as my default browser.
Schmutzie: Me too.
Palinode: I like to use it for online browsing, finding recipes, organizing my calendar - and of course, shopping.
Schmutzie: Um, sure.
Palinode: Chrome takes me where I need to go.
Schmutzie: That's -
Palinode: Every time.
Schmutzie: What are you talking like that for?
Palinode: I figure Google listens to everything we say. So I'm monetizing our conversations.
Schmutzie: So you should be receiving a hundred bucks in three years.
Palinode: Truly we are living in a golden age of riches.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Diligence
This story first appeared (as in I put it there) on Polite Fictions in slightly less edited form.
The dog entered on the south east end of the Experience just as the evening show was starting overhead. Little knots of people, t-shirts clinging to their shoulders and love handles, gazed up at the LED lights, not noticing the dog as it slipped between them, tacking back and forth up the Strip.
Darryl caught the dog on monitor 05 as it crossed into the camera's field of view. The dog had its eyes on the people, alert for danger, watching the families - for someone it recognized, maybe, or just on the lookout to avoid potential threats. Children, adults, all unpredictable.
Check this out, Darryl said. Aaron swung his chair around and they watched the dog together, a wolfhound from the size of it. Something big and rangy, with a long carbine barrel of a snout and tongues of grey fur streaming from its legs.
You think it's one of those dogs from the news? Aaron wondered. Darryl knew what he meant, had seen the stories about the animal shelters filling up with dogs from foreclosed and abandoned houses. Some people walk away from the mortgage and they just leave the dogs and cats behind. Assholes, thought Darryl, although he also knew that sometimes a person got tossed out by the bailiff and the pets were left to roam the neighborhoods. Sometimes your life broke and your dog is one of its pieces. Nothing to be done about it, but sometimes the animals were a problem. This was the first he'd seen it with his own eyes. Better call the cops, Aaron said.
Darryl nodded, but what he really wanted to say was Let's hold on. Hold on just a second. For what, he wasn't sure. For the dog to score its way through the grid of monitors as it made its way up the block? For a child to reach out and pet some lost animal with crazy marbles for eyes? Maybe just to see where that dog thought he was going.
The dog zagged out of monitor 05. Darryl switched his eyes to monitor 08 just seconds before it trotted into view and halted in front of a woman in a motorized chair. The dog skirted a wide crescent around the woman, who barely acknowledged the animal beyond a glance as she motored on. She thumbed the joystick on the armrest, and the chair picked up speed and moved off, bound for monitor 07.
The cameras implanted along the edges of the Fremont Street Experience captured everything that happened on the street below. All the people who stopped to watch the LED light show with its resolving and dissolving images of guitars and chorus girls, or sat at a bench and gazed at nothing, with the interior gaze of the disastrously broke, or just ignored the show altogether and passed along, scalps and shoulders dimpled with points of light. The camera collected them all. The ones who didn't bother to look up had somewhere to go, except there was nowhere in particular to go in this part of town. A hotel room, a casino, a few bars, a Walgreen's off the strip. Sometimes Darryl caught his father wobbling along the street, clutching a plastic yard of neon-tinted booze, on his way from a bar to a casino or back again, throwing Darryl's mother's money away in smaller and larger chunks, peeling off the whole family's future, one binge at a time.
Darryl hoped that his dad would be walking down the Strip at that very moment. Darryl hoped that he would find the dog and take him home, and maybe the dog would keep him there, keep him from straying back out to the Experience. But no, that wouldn't work, Darryl's dad had been keeping all kinds of places, motel rooms here and there, apartments belonging to various women who worked at Nevada's or the Palace or wherever. He lived in between: jobs, houses, women, families too probably. One day he'd die in between, and his body would be divided between all his lives. But putting that pisser in the ground: that job, Darryl knew, would be handed off to him.
Darryl switched his attention back to the dog. A man was petting the animal, and for an embarrassing instant Darryl thought it really was his father. The cracked red corona of skull with white hair flaring and then dripping down the skull, the reddened shelf of forehead and the belly bulging out against a plain white shirt - it was all dad's. But the man was almost certainly a tourist - just something about the way he was taking in the sights. Just the way he looked at things told Darryl everything he needed to know. Darryl switched to a camera directly overhead and swiveled the joystick clockwise, zooming in on that sunburned bald spot, closer and closer until it seemed that he was almost touching the top of the man's skull.
Sometimes Darryl felt that boring in this close to the surface would let him in, to what was beneath the surface, as if an approach so smooth and invisible could actually penetrate. In those moments he felt - believed, even - that he could see with the eyes of the people he watched: that tourist petting the dog and smiling at it, the dog looking back, ceasing for a moment from darting its gaze back and forth, for a moment relaxing into the man's affections, believing briefly that it might be close to home. Go on then, Darryl thought as he picked up the phone, go on and take that dog home.
The dog entered on the south east end of the Experience just as the evening show was starting overhead. Little knots of people, t-shirts clinging to their shoulders and love handles, gazed up at the LED lights, not noticing the dog as it slipped between them, tacking back and forth up the Strip.
Darryl caught the dog on monitor 05 as it crossed into the camera's field of view. The dog had its eyes on the people, alert for danger, watching the families - for someone it recognized, maybe, or just on the lookout to avoid potential threats. Children, adults, all unpredictable.
Check this out, Darryl said. Aaron swung his chair around and they watched the dog together, a wolfhound from the size of it. Something big and rangy, with a long carbine barrel of a snout and tongues of grey fur streaming from its legs.
You think it's one of those dogs from the news? Aaron wondered. Darryl knew what he meant, had seen the stories about the animal shelters filling up with dogs from foreclosed and abandoned houses. Some people walk away from the mortgage and they just leave the dogs and cats behind. Assholes, thought Darryl, although he also knew that sometimes a person got tossed out by the bailiff and the pets were left to roam the neighborhoods. Sometimes your life broke and your dog is one of its pieces. Nothing to be done about it, but sometimes the animals were a problem. This was the first he'd seen it with his own eyes. Better call the cops, Aaron said.
Darryl nodded, but what he really wanted to say was Let's hold on. Hold on just a second. For what, he wasn't sure. For the dog to score its way through the grid of monitors as it made its way up the block? For a child to reach out and pet some lost animal with crazy marbles for eyes? Maybe just to see where that dog thought he was going.
The dog zagged out of monitor 05. Darryl switched his eyes to monitor 08 just seconds before it trotted into view and halted in front of a woman in a motorized chair. The dog skirted a wide crescent around the woman, who barely acknowledged the animal beyond a glance as she motored on. She thumbed the joystick on the armrest, and the chair picked up speed and moved off, bound for monitor 07.
The cameras implanted along the edges of the Fremont Street Experience captured everything that happened on the street below. All the people who stopped to watch the LED light show with its resolving and dissolving images of guitars and chorus girls, or sat at a bench and gazed at nothing, with the interior gaze of the disastrously broke, or just ignored the show altogether and passed along, scalps and shoulders dimpled with points of light. The camera collected them all. The ones who didn't bother to look up had somewhere to go, except there was nowhere in particular to go in this part of town. A hotel room, a casino, a few bars, a Walgreen's off the strip. Sometimes Darryl caught his father wobbling along the street, clutching a plastic yard of neon-tinted booze, on his way from a bar to a casino or back again, throwing Darryl's mother's money away in smaller and larger chunks, peeling off the whole family's future, one binge at a time.
Darryl hoped that his dad would be walking down the Strip at that very moment. Darryl hoped that he would find the dog and take him home, and maybe the dog would keep him there, keep him from straying back out to the Experience. But no, that wouldn't work, Darryl's dad had been keeping all kinds of places, motel rooms here and there, apartments belonging to various women who worked at Nevada's or the Palace or wherever. He lived in between: jobs, houses, women, families too probably. One day he'd die in between, and his body would be divided between all his lives. But putting that pisser in the ground: that job, Darryl knew, would be handed off to him.
Darryl switched his attention back to the dog. A man was petting the animal, and for an embarrassing instant Darryl thought it really was his father. The cracked red corona of skull with white hair flaring and then dripping down the skull, the reddened shelf of forehead and the belly bulging out against a plain white shirt - it was all dad's. But the man was almost certainly a tourist - just something about the way he was taking in the sights. Just the way he looked at things told Darryl everything he needed to know. Darryl switched to a camera directly overhead and swiveled the joystick clockwise, zooming in on that sunburned bald spot, closer and closer until it seemed that he was almost touching the top of the man's skull.
Sometimes Darryl felt that boring in this close to the surface would let him in, to what was beneath the surface, as if an approach so smooth and invisible could actually penetrate. In those moments he felt - believed, even - that he could see with the eyes of the people he watched: that tourist petting the dog and smiling at it, the dog looking back, ceasing for a moment from darting its gaze back and forth, for a moment relaxing into the man's affections, believing briefly that it might be close to home. Go on then, Darryl thought as he picked up the phone, go on and take that dog home.
Sunday, January 09, 2011
So This Is The Last of my Vanity
My friend and fellow MamaPop writer Anastacia Campbell kindly did a bit of artistry on a self-portrait of mine. I know I said I was bored of my iPhone, but without that little handheld wafer of clever, this could never have happened.
Obviously, it should never happen again.
UPDATE: It happened again anyway.
Obviously, it should never happen again.
UPDATE: It happened again anyway.
Friday, January 07, 2011
I'm bored of my iPhone
It's true. I'm bored to tears with my iPhone. Thoroughly sick of the thing.
I didn't think this would or even could happen. After all, the iPhone – any smartphone – is an unbelievable object. Sure, it has its flaws, but minor irritations should pale next to the fact that I can talk into a tiny colourful computer. Think back to 1983 or thereabouts. Who would have predicted that a rotary phone and a Commodore PET would get together and fit in your pocket?
 |
| A prototype. |
In January 2009 I picked up an iPhone 3G on impulse from a kiosk in a mall. It was cold out. The phone was slick and iconic, heavy in my hand and responsive to my touch. Two hundred bucks and a three year contract and it was mine.
At first I loved it. I downloaded all the apps I imagined might revolutionize my life and used them as much as I possibly could, no matter where I was. I became one of those people who routinely placed their phones on the table at restaurants and bars, flicking through emails or tweets or facebook updates as I talked and drank, nodding along with conversations while I poked out idle text messages: “I'm here! Where are you? You driving down Dewdney?” etc. It was an accessory and signpost of my life, as much as the fiber of my jacket or the shank of my shoe.
And now it is January of 2011, almost two years to the day since I first signed that contract. The 3G is so far behind the technological curve that it's nearly slipped beneath the ecliptic of support (I give it another year or so before Apple stops supporting it altogether). The hardware struggles to keep the operating system running, the slim profile now feels embarrassingly bulky, and the multitude of apps, once so fascinating, now seem pointless. I don't want to augment my reality or check bar codes in supermarkets. I have less interest than I thought in snapping photographs of whiteboards or allotting leisure time to the destruction of smug pigs.
The only functions of my phone that really matter are the ones that keep me in touch with the outside world: web browser, email, phone, and the combined punch of twitter and facebook when I'm looking for some random entertainment. Once in a while I'll launch Soundhound to find out what music happens to be playing (unfortunately useless in a bar or any place with lots of ambient noise), or I'll take a photo. But these uses occur largely in the context of communicating with other people. The photo gets uploaded, the song gets tweeted. All the rest is cold, lumpy gravy.
I tell myself I'll do something cool and creative with this or that piece of software. But after a few attempts I get frustrated with the finicky touch screen controls or the repeated crashes. My creative work requires a keyboard for writing or a sizeable monitor for editing video, neither of which, clearly, my iPhone offers. Those pursuits also require blocks of solitude and concentration, both of which dissolve like antacid tablets in the endless stream of notifications and mentions pouring from my phone.
Sometimes communicating with people is over rated. Sometimes I prefer to step off the busy street and sit by myself in a quiet place, one where I have nothing to say to others. And here the iPhone is not merely boring but insidious. I can't have a single thought or experience without a small voice telling me that I should snap an image or share a thought. I have a tool for sharing everything that passes behind or before my eyes, and I pay $60 each month for the ability to do so. If I step away from it, then my relevance in the stream begins to erode. The current moves so quickly that all my familiar points get washed downstream.
This is so much a first world problem that it's practically a spaceman problem. This is like people living on the moon complaining about the texture of their baked moon potatoes and the sophistication of their moon soap operas, when they should be perpetually amazed at the fact of their lunar existence. I live in a world where the worst that things can really happen to me, barring accident and disease, are ennui, heartbreak and reduced buying power.
I should not be bored with a feat of engineering that was science fiction only ten years ago. And yet here I am, slightly resentful of something I should be delighted to own. But that's how possessions work in age of regular obsolescence: they turn you into a bit of a jerk. I know that I'll probably pick up a better phone when my contract expires, and that one day my incredible new phone will bore me to tears.
The secret, obviously, is to understand and accept the limitations of your new device, even as the initial endorphin rush screams through your veins. More importantly, I should stop giving a shit about the endless mobile conversation happening 24/7 among my electronic peers and be content to pop in from time to time without anxiety. Or at least be able to manage my involvement in it – say, only at certain times of day – which feels a bit like I'm negotiating the worst part of my adolescence all over again. Maybe I should get my mother to tell me that my twitter followers are a bad influence? I'll text her about that. From my boring, boring iPhone.
Tuesday, January 04, 2011
The Lovely Carrost
Yesterday we went a-shoppin at the nearest Safeway. The woman at the till was more cheerful than a substitute kindergarten teacher. Her entire face was built around her smile. Her fluffed-up helmet of hair rested on her cheeks, which were held in place by a constant upturned mouth. I'd never seen someone whose face depended upon a constant supply of cheer.
What's more, she was enthusiastic about the products she was ringing through. Her enthusiasm must have been genuine, because once you reach the till lineup at a grocery store, your purchasing is pretty much done, bar the occasional Archie digest or tube of chapstick. If you're going to buy a silicon grooming glove for the cats or a sealed package of bacon shavings, you've probably made the decision by that point and thrown it in the cart.
She was particularly enthusiastic about the carrots: "Aren't these carrots just lovely?" she said as she rang them through. I can't lie, they're pretty nice carrots, colourful and sweet:
Having no geologist's pick, I threw in the kazoo for scale.
Anyway, the next thing she ran through was the butternut squash.
And she had absolutely nothing to say about it. I think the smile even faltered for a moment.
What's more, she was enthusiastic about the products she was ringing through. Her enthusiasm must have been genuine, because once you reach the till lineup at a grocery store, your purchasing is pretty much done, bar the occasional Archie digest or tube of chapstick. If you're going to buy a silicon grooming glove for the cats or a sealed package of bacon shavings, you've probably made the decision by that point and thrown it in the cart.
She was particularly enthusiastic about the carrots: "Aren't these carrots just lovely?" she said as she rang them through. I can't lie, they're pretty nice carrots, colourful and sweet:
 | |
| With regulation size kazoo |
Anyway, the next thing she ran through was the butternut squash.
And she had absolutely nothing to say about it. I think the smile even faltered for a moment.
Sunday, January 02, 2011
2010 Is 38 Questions
After my blog colleague Avitable, here's a look back at 2010 in 38 handy questions.
1. What did you do in 2010 that you’d never done before?
I started doing freelance writing in earnest. I'm particularly proud of my restaurant and food reviews, which were more challenging than I expected. Seriously, just try and make entertainment out of hot dog toppings. Other than that, I did a few things that I wouldn't call new, but they occur infrequently enough that my life line intersects with their wavelength only every fifteen years or so: grew a beard, lost my job, took a serious stab at fiction.
2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don't make resolutions. Generally I can't remember my plans for more than an hour.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
More than a few people close to me got pregnant. I'm pretty sure that my proximity was unrelated.
4. Did anyone close to you die?
No.
5. What countries did you visit?
I visited the United States. But is that really a different country? It feels like a louder, bigger, angrier version of Canada. Like a crazy overweight neighbour with a gun who's really fun to hang out with if you catch him in the right mood.
6. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010?
A steady job in a career path I want. More freelance work. More published work (which is coming).
7. What dates from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Early August, when we spent time in New York for the BlogHer conference. The end of October for Blissdom Canada, when I tried to pass on my wisdom to a roomful of bloggers and ended up talking about hungry Russian Jews.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Living with less. Living with myself. Doing something new, even when opening my eyes in the morning was difficult.
9. What was your biggest failure?
Being unable to ward off the misery of my last paying job, even after it was over.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
2010 was a refreshingly healthy year. I also drank a lot less when my spouse quit drinking.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
I bought a leather jacket I like. And a nice scarf. I bought some great tea. I bought ridiculous amounts of tea.
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Schmutzie, for forging the Canadian Weblog Awards and Ninjamatics out of pure molten will. Catherine Connors, for inviting us to Blissdom Canada.
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
By and large everyone not engaged in genocide was on their best behaviour this year. Way to go, humans.
14. Where did most of your money go?
This was not a year of profligacy. I paid rent and bills, bought plane tickets to New York, and I probably spent far too much money on tea (see question 11).
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
I got excited about going to BlogHer. The MamaPop authors party was a voice-destroying and liver-damaging evening in New York. When I was invited to speak at Blissdom Canada, that excited me even more than it terrified me. Hanging out all weekend with Schmutzie, Bon Stewart and Kate Inglis was excitement nearly past measure. And after all that, I got to hang out with various family members and introduce Schmutzie to the wonders of Niagara-on-the-Lake in fall. Being offered the dining column at Prairie Dog Magazine. Writing a chapter for a book of essays on Saskatchewan literature.
16. What song will always remind you of 2010?
I have no idea. Hmm. New Pornographers “Crash Years” maybe. Or “Rill Rill” from Sleigh Bells. Or “Tightrope”.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? Happier and more freaked out about the future.
b) thinner or fatter? Thinner, I think. When you're working from home you don't eat out nearly as much.
c) richer or poorer? Poorer. Oh so poorer.
18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
I wish I'd made more of each day. I guess that's what's 2011 is for.
19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Sit around depressed, blank-souled and dull at heart, fearful of the next few minutes but ardently wishing for its passage, just so I could get through the day and back to sleep. I spent a few too many days like that.
20. How did you spend Christmas?
My parents came to town on Christmas Eve and took us out to supper. The next morning they stopped by for breakfast, dropped off some presents, and left us to our day. Which consisted of movies and pizza. And Doctor Who. He came by for a while.
21. Did you fall in love in 2010?
Already in love, thanks.
22. What was your favorite TV program?
Terriers. The Red Riding Trilogy.
23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Not at all. All the hateable bastards of Jan 2011 were just as hateable 365 days ago.
24. What was the best book you read?
Tom McCarthy's C was a bit uneven but it had some of the greatest passages I've read in years.
25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Harmony. That stuff makes all the difference. Also melody. And rhythm.
26. What did you want and get?
I wanted blueberry juice, and got it.
27. What did you want and not get?
I wanted ease, unity and grace, and received none of those things.
28. What was your favorite film of this year?
I think True Grit delivered more than any other film this year. Winter's Bone was straight-up fantastic.
29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Usually I cajole Schmutzie into taking me out to some awful fast food restaurant, like KFC or Taco del Mar. This time we went to the Creek in Cathedral bistro, and I had an excellent meal with friends. 39. A multiple of thirteen, and as such a harbinger of tumult. Not turmeric, tumult.
30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Incredible unearned success.
31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?
Costly casual.
32. What kept you sane?
My writing. Schmutzie. Friends.
33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
'Fancy'?
34. What political issue stirred you the most?
I got nice and stirred up about the collapse of the housing crisis into the burgeoning mortgage fraud crisis. I always get stirred up about politics in foreign countries, where I have pretty much nothing at stake.
35. Who did you miss?
I didn't miss anyone. I never do. They're there, living their lives, whether I'm around or not. I'm here if they need me.
36. Who was the best new person you met?
Between BlogHer, Blissdom and my freelance work, I met a heap of excellent people. A great big heap, piled up to the ceiling. To the person at the top of the heap I give a piece of chalk so that she may write 'This is how many great people Aidan met this year' on the ceiling.
37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010.
Keep moving. And don't swallow your gum. That shit stays in your stomach for seven years.
38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
She said
There just must be more to life than this
He said
Careful 'cause you might just get your wish
1. What did you do in 2010 that you’d never done before?
I started doing freelance writing in earnest. I'm particularly proud of my restaurant and food reviews, which were more challenging than I expected. Seriously, just try and make entertainment out of hot dog toppings. Other than that, I did a few things that I wouldn't call new, but they occur infrequently enough that my life line intersects with their wavelength only every fifteen years or so: grew a beard, lost my job, took a serious stab at fiction.
2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don't make resolutions. Generally I can't remember my plans for more than an hour.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
More than a few people close to me got pregnant. I'm pretty sure that my proximity was unrelated.
4. Did anyone close to you die?
No.
5. What countries did you visit?
I visited the United States. But is that really a different country? It feels like a louder, bigger, angrier version of Canada. Like a crazy overweight neighbour with a gun who's really fun to hang out with if you catch him in the right mood.
6. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010?
A steady job in a career path I want. More freelance work. More published work (which is coming).
7. What dates from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Early August, when we spent time in New York for the BlogHer conference. The end of October for Blissdom Canada, when I tried to pass on my wisdom to a roomful of bloggers and ended up talking about hungry Russian Jews.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Living with less. Living with myself. Doing something new, even when opening my eyes in the morning was difficult.
9. What was your biggest failure?
Being unable to ward off the misery of my last paying job, even after it was over.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
2010 was a refreshingly healthy year. I also drank a lot less when my spouse quit drinking.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
I bought a leather jacket I like. And a nice scarf. I bought some great tea. I bought ridiculous amounts of tea.
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Schmutzie, for forging the Canadian Weblog Awards and Ninjamatics out of pure molten will. Catherine Connors, for inviting us to Blissdom Canada.
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
By and large everyone not engaged in genocide was on their best behaviour this year. Way to go, humans.
14. Where did most of your money go?
This was not a year of profligacy. I paid rent and bills, bought plane tickets to New York, and I probably spent far too much money on tea (see question 11).
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
I got excited about going to BlogHer. The MamaPop authors party was a voice-destroying and liver-damaging evening in New York. When I was invited to speak at Blissdom Canada, that excited me even more than it terrified me. Hanging out all weekend with Schmutzie, Bon Stewart and Kate Inglis was excitement nearly past measure. And after all that, I got to hang out with various family members and introduce Schmutzie to the wonders of Niagara-on-the-Lake in fall. Being offered the dining column at Prairie Dog Magazine. Writing a chapter for a book of essays on Saskatchewan literature.
16. What song will always remind you of 2010?
I have no idea. Hmm. New Pornographers “Crash Years” maybe. Or “Rill Rill” from Sleigh Bells. Or “Tightrope”.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? Happier and more freaked out about the future.
b) thinner or fatter? Thinner, I think. When you're working from home you don't eat out nearly as much.
c) richer or poorer? Poorer. Oh so poorer.
18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
I wish I'd made more of each day. I guess that's what's 2011 is for.
19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Sit around depressed, blank-souled and dull at heart, fearful of the next few minutes but ardently wishing for its passage, just so I could get through the day and back to sleep. I spent a few too many days like that.
20. How did you spend Christmas?
My parents came to town on Christmas Eve and took us out to supper. The next morning they stopped by for breakfast, dropped off some presents, and left us to our day. Which consisted of movies and pizza. And Doctor Who. He came by for a while.
21. Did you fall in love in 2010?
Already in love, thanks.
22. What was your favorite TV program?
Terriers. The Red Riding Trilogy.
23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Not at all. All the hateable bastards of Jan 2011 were just as hateable 365 days ago.
24. What was the best book you read?
Tom McCarthy's C was a bit uneven but it had some of the greatest passages I've read in years.
25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Harmony. That stuff makes all the difference. Also melody. And rhythm.
26. What did you want and get?
I wanted blueberry juice, and got it.
27. What did you want and not get?
I wanted ease, unity and grace, and received none of those things.
28. What was your favorite film of this year?
I think True Grit delivered more than any other film this year. Winter's Bone was straight-up fantastic.
29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Usually I cajole Schmutzie into taking me out to some awful fast food restaurant, like KFC or Taco del Mar. This time we went to the Creek in Cathedral bistro, and I had an excellent meal with friends. 39. A multiple of thirteen, and as such a harbinger of tumult. Not turmeric, tumult.
30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Incredible unearned success.
31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?
Costly casual.
32. What kept you sane?
My writing. Schmutzie. Friends.
33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
'Fancy'?
34. What political issue stirred you the most?
I got nice and stirred up about the collapse of the housing crisis into the burgeoning mortgage fraud crisis. I always get stirred up about politics in foreign countries, where I have pretty much nothing at stake.
35. Who did you miss?
I didn't miss anyone. I never do. They're there, living their lives, whether I'm around or not. I'm here if they need me.
36. Who was the best new person you met?
Between BlogHer, Blissdom and my freelance work, I met a heap of excellent people. A great big heap, piled up to the ceiling. To the person at the top of the heap I give a piece of chalk so that she may write 'This is how many great people Aidan met this year' on the ceiling.
37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010.
Keep moving. And don't swallow your gum. That shit stays in your stomach for seven years.
38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
She said
There just must be more to life than this
He said
Careful 'cause you might just get your wish
Friday, December 31, 2010
Winners of the Ninjamatics 2010 Canadian Weblog Awards announced!
You should go and check it out, because the winners are the best of what Canada has to offer in online writing.
Canadian Weblog Awards Winners List
Thursday, December 30, 2010
my shakespeare quiz
1. In Henry V, Henry delivers the stirring St. Crispin's Day speech to his troops on the eve of the Battle of Agincourt. Why doesn't Henry just take the train to Agincourt? It's really affordable.
2. When Hamlet says “To a nunnery! Go!” who is he talking to? Ophelia is dead at that point. He's already strangled her. On top of which he's kneeling with his knee on her throat, so it's unlikely that she'd even get to the nearest water fountain, let alone a convent.
3. In The Tempest, why does Prospero say that “we are such stuff as dreams are made on”? Prospero is a former Duke of Naples. Shouldn't he be speaking a Neopolitan dialect of Italian?
4. Many critics believe that the plays and poems of Shakespeare were written by someone else. Could that 'someone' actually be Shakespeare writing under a pseudonym that was also Shakespeare? He was hiding his true identity from the Templars. And that identity... was H.G. Wells. Or Boba Fett.
5. Hey, do you remember that bit in Inception where the guy is driving the van, and there's an entire dramatic chase scene through pouring rain, and the reason it's raining is because he has to pee and the chase scene is taking place in his dream? So really, he's driving through his own pee? And then the van falls into a river? I'm pretty sure the character wet himself at that point. Do you think the character wears adult diapers? Should Nolan have established that earlier? Maybe there should have been an extra twenty-minute scene about adult diapers? What if a character was eating crackers, and then everyone went into his dream and things were, like, extra crunchy?
6. The character of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice has been held up an example of Shakespeare's anti-Semitism. Don't you think that Festus from Twelfth Night should be held up as an example of Shakespeare's hatred of his paying audience? That dude was seriously annoying.
7. Scholars have discovered that the character of Kate in The Taming of the Shrew was actually meant to be played by a trained shrew. This explains why the character attempts to eat her own weight in leaves and insects throughout the play.
8. Pop quiz: Does King Lear a) father or b) contract Goneril in the course of the play? Bear in mind that he goes blind and crazy.
9. You're walking through the woods. Titania, queen of the Faeries, wanders up and declares her love for you. What do you say?
a) “Hey, I got this ass head for a ducat in Elsinore, you like? Yeah, you like”.
b) “I got ninety-nine problems but an ass-head ain't one”.
c) “I'm a rude mechanical and you're a sprite botanical. Let's get together, 'cause Oberon's tyrannical”.
d) “All the other faeries and humans be fearin' us, so let's pretend you're Thisbe and I'm a hot Pyramus”.
Monday, December 27, 2010
Seven Good Reasons to Carry Your Oranges Around in a Pillowcase
 |
| This thing is stuffed full of oranges. |
Carrying an orange with you is the generally accepted sign of being an okay fellow and an all around good citizen. After all, how often have you heard of a crime being committed by someone holding an orange? Exactly. Over time it's become a shorthand for announcing your good intentions, especially when traveling.
Once you put your orange in a pillowcase, the situation changes. Now you look like you're going to bludgeon someone with your sleepsack o' citrus. But there are more than a few good reasons to choose a pillowcase over the palm of your hand as an orange storage solution. Find out what those reasons are after the jump!
There's no jump.
1. Volume. I feel ridiculous pointing this out, but even a small pillowcase has a greater capacity than your hand. Even if you have insane Wilt Chamberlain hands, the odds are that you can carry more oranges with the aid of a pillowcase.
2. Redundancy. Any systems analyst knows the importance of redundant elements. If your chosen orange isn't cutting it or gets slapped out of your hand (sometimes it happens at Customs), you've got a half-dozen alternatives. Think ahead!
3. Nutrition. Since you only need one orange for social purposes, consider the extra oranges food. Your stomach will thank you, unless you eat six oranges at once, or one orange whole, or two oranges peeled but eaten with the peeler.
4. Efficiency. On the go? Find yourself strapped for time in the morning? Using a pillowcase to transport your oranges removes the need to go searching for an extra bag. Just get out of bed, remove the case from your pillow and you're good to go.
5. Aesthetics. A pillowcase full of oranges can help you cut an attractive figure, particularly if the bag is affixed stylishly to your belt or duct taped to your back. And at night, drift into dreams on your citrus-scented pillow.
6. Finances. Stop wasting money on orange bags!
7. Entertainment. And finally, when you're bored or stranded at a party full of strangers, cut the ice by beating someone senseless with a pillowcase full of oranges.
Next up: stay clean wherever you go with a bar of soap stuffed into a sock.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
I Call It "The Dog"
Since the dawn of time, mankind has sought to use free online animation tools to amuse himself and feed his depraved appetites. And I am no exception.
I discovered xtranormal.com a little while ago, but was discouraged by the cogent and funny cartoons that people were creating. I wanted nonsense. Then I thought, Aidan, be the nonsense that you want to see. Or, make the nonsense.
So I gave it a shot. Who would have thought that I would create such gripping drama on my first attempt?
Their names are Bill and Kate, by the way. They work at an important publishing house in New York.
BILL: My heart is sorely troubled.
KATE: Was it love? Or mistaken identity? Both are troublesome.
BILL: ...because a dog, black and sinewy, with eyes like glowing coals...
KATE: Came to you in your dreams?
BILL: No. He took my idea for a live sketch comedy show. [arm sweep]
I discovered xtranormal.com a little while ago, but was discouraged by the cogent and funny cartoons that people were creating. I wanted nonsense. Then I thought, Aidan, be the nonsense that you want to see. Or, make the nonsense.
So I gave it a shot. Who would have thought that I would create such gripping drama on my first attempt?
Their names are Bill and Kate, by the way. They work at an important publishing house in New York.
BILL: My heart is sorely troubled.
KATE: Was it love? Or mistaken identity? Both are troublesome.
BILL: ...because a dog, black and sinewy, with eyes like glowing coals...
KATE: Came to you in your dreams?
BILL: No. He took my idea for a live sketch comedy show. [arm sweep]
Monday, December 06, 2010
The Right Coffeemaker for your '70s Style Orgy. Trust Me.
Today, a Tassimo coffeemaker arrived in the mail. I don't know how we ended up with it. Schmutzie knows, and periodically reminds me why we have it, but there's no room in my brain for those kinds of facts. So once again, thirty minutes after finding out the whole back story on this machine, I am befuddled by the Tassimo. Which is serving us delicious coffee and creating its own landfill of waste with every cup.
The Tassimo came in three boxes. First, a featureless cardboard box containing packing materials and another featureless cardboard box, which fit snugly around the proper Tassimo box. Our kitchen is littered with boxes, which now contain alert and curious cats.
Anyway, here's our new Tassimo, with a little plastic soldier in a wine glass for scale.
If you don't know what a Tassimo is, it can best be described as a coffeemaker for people who are insufficiently impressed with their current state of home coffee technology. Filter drips? Auto shut-off timers? Indicator lights? Screw all that. With its barcode scanner, mode dial and 'T Discs' of ground coffee/ tea leaves/ powdered milk/ hot chocolate/ beagle snouts, the Tassimo is a brave new step in the wrong direction for kitchen gadgetry.
The Tassimo is an impressive device that mildly resembles an espresso machine in form and function. Hot water is forced through a portion of coffee grounds, which comes in a dedicated packet called a T Disc. The T Disc has a barcode that provides your machine with instructions to produce the desired cup of coffee. It's a coffeemaker that encoded a barista.*
Tassimo doesn't produce a good, great, or even the best cup of coffee. It makes optimal coffee. Actually, it brews your optimal drink. The entire concept behind the Tassimo is embedded and readable in that one phrase: your optimal drink. Why does it have a built-in water filtration system? Because hard water can interfere with the brewing of your optimal drink. Why does it have a descaling program? So as not to screw with your optimal drink. Why does Tassimo produce more waste than any other coffee brewing device I know of? It's all got to do with that drink of yours and how it should be optimal.
Over the last decade or so, kitchen implements have taken a turn for the artisanal. Sure, there's some fancy tech in your toaster, and maybe your gas range shuts down and calls the police if it detects a hot-knifing in progress, but the thrill in kitchen tools has rested in their Luddite flair, their cast-iron will to simmer, their alchemy of metal and precision curvature. The balance of each implement, the way in which that ice cream scoop just slides right in to that frozen block or that hand held grater is just so damn geared to that block of Parmesan, bespeaks the expertise of its maker. Good kitchen tools provide a pretentious but satisfying experience, a sense of connection to old traditions. Even if you grew up eating casseroles from recipes off the back of a Bisquick box.
Tassimo gives you precision, but the thrill comes from the other end of the field. There's a utopian guilelessness about the machine, a promise that the classy world of cafés and bistros can be yours at the press of a button. It's going for that European classiness (even though it reminds me most of those automatic coffee machines in Australia that spit out flat whites on demand). It's like a Star Trek replicator in a Kitchen of Tomorrow. Except the kitchen is straight out of 1972, and the Bistromatic2000 One-Button Coffee Brewer is right next to the fondue pot and the electric wine muller, and the first guests are just about to arrive for a sophisticated evening of melted cheese and mutual groping. Get Your Orgy Started The Optimal Way, With Tassimo!
I recommend the little Starbucks T Discs. That is one smooth, erotic brew.
*And now that barista is trapped in the electronic landscape of the Tassimo, forced to battle light cycles on an infinite neon grid.
The Tassimo came in three boxes. First, a featureless cardboard box containing packing materials and another featureless cardboard box, which fit snugly around the proper Tassimo box. Our kitchen is littered with boxes, which now contain alert and curious cats.
Anyway, here's our new Tassimo, with a little plastic soldier in a wine glass for scale.
If you don't know what a Tassimo is, it can best be described as a coffeemaker for people who are insufficiently impressed with their current state of home coffee technology. Filter drips? Auto shut-off timers? Indicator lights? Screw all that. With its barcode scanner, mode dial and 'T Discs' of ground coffee/ tea leaves/ powdered milk/ hot chocolate/ beagle snouts, the Tassimo is a brave new step in the wrong direction for kitchen gadgetry.
The Tassimo is an impressive device that mildly resembles an espresso machine in form and function. Hot water is forced through a portion of coffee grounds, which comes in a dedicated packet called a T Disc. The T Disc has a barcode that provides your machine with instructions to produce the desired cup of coffee. It's a coffeemaker that encoded a barista.*
Tassimo doesn't produce a good, great, or even the best cup of coffee. It makes optimal coffee. Actually, it brews your optimal drink. The entire concept behind the Tassimo is embedded and readable in that one phrase: your optimal drink. Why does it have a built-in water filtration system? Because hard water can interfere with the brewing of your optimal drink. Why does it have a descaling program? So as not to screw with your optimal drink. Why does Tassimo produce more waste than any other coffee brewing device I know of? It's all got to do with that drink of yours and how it should be optimal.
Over the last decade or so, kitchen implements have taken a turn for the artisanal. Sure, there's some fancy tech in your toaster, and maybe your gas range shuts down and calls the police if it detects a hot-knifing in progress, but the thrill in kitchen tools has rested in their Luddite flair, their cast-iron will to simmer, their alchemy of metal and precision curvature. The balance of each implement, the way in which that ice cream scoop just slides right in to that frozen block or that hand held grater is just so damn geared to that block of Parmesan, bespeaks the expertise of its maker. Good kitchen tools provide a pretentious but satisfying experience, a sense of connection to old traditions. Even if you grew up eating casseroles from recipes off the back of a Bisquick box.
Tassimo gives you precision, but the thrill comes from the other end of the field. There's a utopian guilelessness about the machine, a promise that the classy world of cafés and bistros can be yours at the press of a button. It's going for that European classiness (even though it reminds me most of those automatic coffee machines in Australia that spit out flat whites on demand). It's like a Star Trek replicator in a Kitchen of Tomorrow. Except the kitchen is straight out of 1972, and the Bistromatic2000 One-Button Coffee Brewer is right next to the fondue pot and the electric wine muller, and the first guests are just about to arrive for a sophisticated evening of melted cheese and mutual groping. Get Your Orgy Started The Optimal Way, With Tassimo!
I recommend the little Starbucks T Discs. That is one smooth, erotic brew.
*And now that barista is trapped in the electronic landscape of the Tassimo, forced to battle light cycles on an infinite neon grid.
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