We’re Cutting the Cord

We are going to do it.  We are “cutting the cord”.

Very soon, our household will no longer have cable TV.  To me (although not to my love, Karla), this seemed almost unfathomable until recently.  Not that I am SUPER into television; I usually have a show or two that I am keeping up with at any given moment, but other than a select few, I’m never really passionate about them.  I don’t typically turn on television and just watch whatever is on—I turn it on at appointed times to watch something specific.  Karla has almost never been that way, so this won’t be a huge change for her.

While I don’t really *watch* a whole lot of TV, I do turn it on sometimes just to feel connected to the outside world.  If I’m all alone in the house, I have often simply turned on the TV to feel less lonely—and I’ve always been quite aware that was my motivation for doing so.  In recent years, as I’ve become more aware of this opiate-type usage of TV, I have tried to curtail it and now will read with music on more often than with TV.  Silence, however, is still somewhat rare for me.  But I’m a work in progress.

The good (?) news is, we have so many streaming and DVD options, we still have more to watch than we could properly accomplish in a lifetime.  Our household alone has Netflix as well as Amazon Prime, so even those two services alone offer more than we need.  Factor in free streaming services like Crackle and a dozen or so other channels we have loaded on our Roku and the approximately 500 DVDs we own—including numerous seasons of TV shows–continuing to pay for cable seemed silly and wasteful.

Yes, there are a few shows (at this point, really just The Walking Dead) that I still HAVE to see.  Luckily, each episode is available to rent for 2.99 the day after it airs via Amazon.  Pricey?  Perhaps—but much cheaper than our cable bill.  I will just be avoiding Facebook on Sunday evenings for awhile :)

I hear you:  BUT SETH!  What about live TV?? News?? Sports???

 Yes.  This is the only part that hurts.  First, we will be keeping the cable through the election.  Once that whole fracas seems settled, we’ll cut the cord.  Yes, I will miss sports.  However, I already gave up football.  But I will surely miss seeing my Phillies, 76ers, and Flyers play.  I will certainly follow their seasons via print and internet media.  I imagine in the vanishingly rare event that one of my teams would be having an amazing year and look headed to the playoffs, I might cave and get the cable again, but for just a limited time.  I will very much miss special events like the Oscars—but a local theater here shows it on the big screen every year—so maybe there’s an opportunity for a new tradition.  Or, maybe, it will become one more item in the growing list of things I used to care about, but now, maybe not so much.

I can’t claim that this change is occurring because we don’t watch filmed, scripted entertainment.  We do, and we don’t feel ashamed of it.  It’s just that there’s filmed, scripted entertainment coming out of our ears, and we pay more for all of it than we do for our electric and gas bills.  This seemed askew to us.  In addition, we get an actual newspaper delivered, as well as about ten magazine subscriptions, and I am kind of addicted to fivethirtyeight.com and The New York Times online—so as much as I love CNN and MSNBC, we don’t really get our information from the television.  The fact of the matter is, getting rid of cable stands to change our lives very little—a realization that made it seem truly ludicrous for us to keep it.

Howard Bryant for President (of MLB)

I have posted a few entries in the past about the unappreciated world of sports journalism; unfortunately most people writing about sports are not thought of as real journalists or, god forbid, artful writers tackling important topics–and granted, much sports journalism is pure reporting of events.  But longform or opinion sports journalists are some of the most eloquent, incisive writers out there, and some of their work can elicit incredible emotion or hammer home incredible points.  It doesn’t always connect sports to the wider world (although it often does), but sometimes a terrific piece of writing that is just about sports is still worth the time (and money) investment.

One of my favorite sports writers is Howard Bryant, who writes a bi-weekly column for ESPN the Magazine.  I have never, ever once read his column (or one of his longform features) without coming away thinking about something differently than I had before; his ability to turn the angle on a topic and shed a new viewpoint on it is nothing short of mystical.

In the most recent issue, Howard wrote a short column about Major League Baseball in general that I feel is worth reproducing here.  If you have any interest in baseball, sports in general, or terrific opinion journalism, please take a few minutes to read this.  I have pasted the text here for you but a quick search for Howard Bryant and MLB will find the original article on MLB’s site.

 

“After A-Rod’s Fall, He and MLB Are a Perfect Fit” by Howard Bryant, from ESPN the Magazine, September 5th, 2016

IT SOUNDS SO inconceivable, naive, delusional, but it was only a decade ago that Alex Rodriguez was the antidote to a ruinous generation of drugs and greed. He was the choice of the really smart baseball men, such as Theo Epstein and Brian Cashman, both of whom traded for him, and a paralyzed commissioner such as Bud Selig, who tolerated Barry Bonds holding the home run record because soon enough Rodriguez would shatter it and make the game whole again. He would make them clean.

Alex Rodriguez only made it worse. The Golden Boy wasn’t so golden after all. Following a bizarre week in which the Yankees held a retirement ceremony for him even though he’d never announced he was quitting, Rodriguez was discarded without much care. Even the pregame celebration before his final game as a Yankee was curtailed by thunder, lightning and rain, fitting for those who found him less of a True Yankee than the rest. “That wasn’t thunder,” former Yankees player and coach Lee Mazzilli said of the biblical thunderclaps that preceded the downpour. “That was George.” The Yankees’ 1996 championship team was being honored the next day, but for Rodriguez’s night, only Mariano Rivera joined him on the field. Former teammates Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada, Bernie Williams and Derek Jeter were not present. Neither was his old manager, Joe Torre. That’s called a message pitch.

Point the blame at Rodriguez, who admitted using PEDs, but no amount of reveling in his inglorious end can undo the enormous collaborative effort that has created baseball’s current dystopia. Rodriguez, along with Bonds, Roger Clemens and Mark McGwire, is part of the Mount Rushmore of discredited legends that represents the true legacy of the steroid era: It isn’t that they aren’t in Cooperstown. It’s that nobody cares.

The all-time home run list was once led by the most recognizable foursome in sports — Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Frank Robinson. That leaderboard stood for nearly 30 years, until Bonds, who hit his 500th and 600th home runs just one season apart, passed Robinson in 2002. Sammy Sosa hit 60 home runs three times and won the home run title in exactly none of those years. While baseball took the money and laughed at warnings that it was undermining itself, the consequences would be felt later, with Rodriguez amassing 3,000 hits, 2,000 runs and 2,000 RBIs — something only Aaron had done — but leaving the game utterly uncelebrated, inside baseball and especially out.

The Rodriguez epitaph will be a one-sided story about the phenom who was part of the top millionth percentile of talent and blew it all. Yet Alex Rodriguez will in the end be no different from the industry in which he performed for the past two decades, a game that has lost its way, seemingly intent on undermining all that made it special.

The game, like A-Rod, took the money (it is now close to a $10 billion industry), ignored the spread of steroids and lost out on the good stuff. Its records are now as worthless as those in the league it is so envious of, the NFL. It decides which team will host the most important games of the World Series based on an exhibition game. It plays its championship in the worst weather because its leaders refuse to compromise on money and adjust the schedule. It plays at least one game every day between teams that play under two sets of rules. And because baseball cannot decide whether it wants to be truly modern, the game’s leadership allows it to stand weakly in the middle, playing a full season of baseball, simultaneously rewarding and penalizing teams for not coming in first place by staging a one-game playoff, as if the baseball season were the NCAA tournament.

Baseball wants the world to be proud of its drug-testing program. Meanwhile, it deals with an All-Star team of steroid-tainted players who thus far need a ticket to enter the Hall of Fame — Bonds, Clemens, McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, Gary Sheffield, Jason Giambi, Manny Ramirez and most certainly Rodriguez — by disciplining virtually none of them and hiring nearly all — laying the weight of accountability on the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. If not knowing himself was the self-destructive fatal flaw of Alex Rodriguez, it makes perfect sense that he felt so much at home playing major league baseball.

Something About Something I Just Read

It’s a sad fact that true sports journalism has just about disappeared in our culture.  And here right away I must draw a distinction–sports news is alive and well and thriving, ie the reporting of facts and scores and controversies, etc.  but sports journalism–the longform literary journalism that digs deep into issues in sports and then uses them to illuminate cultural or human issues that transcend the playing of games–is all-but dead, which is a shame, because it’s one of the best and most unique forms of literature there is.

Newspapers–when they used to have a lot more space for stories because there was more space needed for advertisers who no longer exist–used to publish it, but now, except for the New York Times, all newspapers publish is sports news.  Sports Illustrated runs about one longform piece every two weeks, but it’s usually a book excerpt.  Yahoo Sports and FiveThirtyEight.com push out a nice piece every now and then.   The only real go-to place for it anymore is ESPN the Magazine.  The Mag (as us acolytes call it) is a tricky magazine to read, because it actually consists of just about ONLY longform sports journalism, which is GREAT but also makes it tough to just pick up and peruse.  But it’s existence is comforting.

Last year, The Mag published a piece on Alex Rodriguez that remains my favorite piece of sports writing ever.  Before the article, I had a very neutral opinion of A-Rod–I wasn’t rooting for him, but I didn’t hate him like many do.  After the article, I was not only on his side, I was actively rooting for him–even a fan.  but more than that, the article moved me, to tears even.  But not about Alex Rodriguez.  About me.  Like the very best sports journalism, the piece transcended the world of sports and connected the essentially meaningless lives of millionaire athletes to my individual life and our wider, diverse culture.  It was writing of weighty value.  I saved that issue and have since read the piece (which is extremely long and takes about two hours to read) three times.

This was a lengthy way of me introducing the piece I read today, also from ESPN the Magazine.  The article is “Athletes Control the Media” by Kent Russell.  This article qualifies as actual literature, in any field.  Although it is ostensibly about what the title suggests–athletes controlling the media and no longer vice-versa–Mr. Russell expands upon the subject with such aplomb, veracity, and intensity of feeling that the article becomes a large-scale examination of our current media culture, as well as the “many lives” of each of us as individuals in the new age of social media.  Although this might sound like a topic you’ve read about before, Mr. Russell has infused it with a layman’s philosophy quite unlike anything I’ve ever read.  Following are some passages I found especially mind-boggling.  You can read the whole article here (and if you do, just randomly click on an ad or watch the entire video commercial so ESPN the Magazine can make a few cents to keep this kind of journalism going).

Excerpt 1:

“Far below the press box, pacing the field, was the man himself. Bill Belichick kept his arms folded and his chin tucked, sphinxlike. I watched him nod in agreement, conferring via headset as to his next turn in this game of human Stratego, yet I never saw his mouth move. With the help of binoculars, I began to fixate on the small gap between his lips, scanning for the fine mesh screen behind which the smaller, truer Belichick looked out on the world, as if in a Mickey Mouse suit.

By refusing to play along with these people in the press box, Belichick has allowed himself to be transformed, by way of their writing and broadcasting, into a humorless curmudgeon. This is a persona, to be sure; a mask that Belichick donned long ago. What he understood was that over time, many of the journalists up here would begin to mistake this mask for the man’s actual face. And so, in leading them to believe that he is a reticent grump — and not an unflinching actor in addition to the greatest coach of all time — Belichick has gotten the media to direct their questions to the mask.”

 

Excerpt 2:

“When people cheer on the death of the news conference, what they’re also cheering on, perhaps unwittingly, is a future in which all of us will engage in this kind of careful brand management. In such a future, I’ll have my inner circle, the few people I know and care about from real, corporeal life. Then I’ll have my fans and followers, the fellow travelers who don’t really know me but enjoy or support my curated presence. Then I’ll have my “haters,” the people who misinterpret or misconstrue my presented selves, or who actively work against my narrative. These individuals are not with me, physically or in spirit, so they must be against me. This is a feedback-looped orientation toward the wider world that another, better, writer once summed up as: “He who does not feel me is not real to me.”

During his media day news conference, Marshawn Lynch put that sentiment this way: “I don’t know what image y’all trying to portray of me. But it don’t matter what y’all think, what y’all say about me. Because when I go home at night, the same people that I look in the face, my family that I love, ha, that’s all that really matter to me. So y’all can go and make up whatever y’all want to make up because I don’t say enough for y’all to go and put anything out on me.”

This declaration still makes me want to stand up and cheer, sound as it does like something a pioneer in a cabin on the frontier might say. But — and this is ignoring the fact that his trolling flouted an obligation listed in his $31 million contract — Lynch got at the crux of something capital-T True here. Something that works against the point he was trying to make. Real adult life, the face-to-face relationships that allow one to understand as well as to be understood, is founded upon messiness, dialogue, the abdication of total control. I alone cannot truly know who I am. I alone don’t even get final say. I can have some idea. This idea can be based upon the selves I put forward. Yet it’s the people whose lives are affected by my selves — they get to tell me what all that self-presentation looks like. They get to measure the distance between the kind of guy I say I am and the kind of guy I happen to be. It is unlikely that Lynch, Jeter and Belichick have any interest in hearing what kind of guys they are. This is understandable. Although they are as in the limelight as anyone in our culture can be, “spelunk the darkest caves of your psyche, in public” is listed nowhere in their job descriptions.

“STICK TO SPORTS!!!!!” you might be saying about now. Fair enough. I will not mention the recent TV debate in which moderators were demonized for questioning the backstories and assertions of individuals trying to become the leader of the free world. Nor will I mention how the University of Missouri football team used social media to tell the world that it was going on strike until the university’s president stepped down. When that president did step down and media came to document the campus’ reaction, there was a literal sign of the times staked into the quad — no media / safe space — in addition to an assistant professor of mass media who was filmed saying, “Hey, who wants to help me get this reporter out of here?” This same assistant professor had previously posted on her Facebook page: “Hey folks, students fighting racism on the MU campus want to get their message into the national media. Who among my friends knows someone who would want a scoop on this incredible topic?”

 

Except 3:

“Belichick slid into the room and stood to the left of the dais, out of frame. There was a small pack of reporters about 5 feet from him, but none approached. He leaned into a corner jutting from the wall’s architecture, putting all of his weight onto its right angle. He kept his hands in his pockets and his face fixed, rocking back and forth, toggling his spine against the edge. He watched Brady just as intensely as he does during a game, radiating neither joy nor love but grim determination.

I thought then of all the Kremlinology that people engage in, trying to divine the real Bill Belichick from whatever scraps he leaves. Commenters, both official and unofficial, have looked to his on-field body language and cryptic sound bites for clues. They’ve dissected pictures of him kissing his girlfriend. They’ve pored over Vines of him eating “like a gremlin.” They’ve read way too much into the fact that he sang “Love Potion No. 9” at a party. I, myself, read way too much into the answer he gave during the last Super Bowl media day, when the daughter of one of his players asked Belichick what his favorite stuffed animal was. “I’d like, uh, like a little puppet,” he said, “that you can kinda put your fingers in … it’s a little monkey … and then he can talk.”

Belichick took to the dais. He started delivering a monologue of platitudes, as if trying to get them all out at once. “It was a tough week mentally,” he croaked in his strangled-sounding voice. “But they really pushed themselves. I thought our preparation was good and they played hard tonight.”

Eventually, a question was asked. Belichick stared into the middle distance. He appeared to be imagining some empty, perspectiveless afterlife in which jaunty supermarket Muzak was overlaid with the tortured screams of this interrogator. Then he snapped to and answered, “It was good team defense, which it always is when you play good.”

There were a few more questions about special teams. But no one asked the question that I wanted answered, the only question to ask, I thought, which was: “Bill, how does it feel to be so controlling? So single-minded? To be heir to — and apotheosis of — Vince Lombardi, George S. Patton and Niccolo Machiavelli? At what cost is this success? How can this possibly be enjoyable, still? Who are you?”

There was a lull in the back-and-forth. Camera shutters clicked together like insect legs. Belichick sucked his lips inward, nodded. A wall-mounted digital clock blinked past midnight. I thought about asking my question. He climbed off the dais and left.”

 

 

It’s My Thought That Counts

It occurs to me with no lack of regularity that, because of my persistent status as single and childless, that I have significantly fewer opportunities to receive presents as the rest of you romantic and procreating beasts.  And hey, listen, I’m gonna admit something most people avoid saying out loud:  I would like more presents!

So recently, I was thinking, maybe it’s not just the lack of Valentines, Father’s Day, and anniversary (as well as the extra gifts one gets at Christmas and birthdays etc, from your significant other and children) that are preventing me from getting a significant amount of free goods.  Perhaps part of the problem is, when gifting times roll around, many of you potential gifters think my interests are limited to just a few things, like pompous music, post-1930s American and British poetry, and the films of Alfred Hitchcock, and you just don’t know how to buy presents for a guy like that!  And, while it is true that I really love those things, the fact of the matter is, I have literally hundreds of interests, and with the advent of the internet, there is nearly no shortage of ways you can spend money on me! And the internet also means it is very easy for me to re-sell something you may accidentally get me that I already have!

So, in case you have just been hankering to buy a gift for a guy but don’t know who the hell Philip Larkin is, I will here lay out for you a massive list of interests I rarely talk about, but I assure you I am just crazy for!

1.  Soundtracks to movies made before 1980 on vinyl records

2.  Anything to do with early thought on city planning, especially dealing with pioneer Jane Jacobs

3.  I like hats

4.  I like notebooks to write in, but not one with Hallmark-y or sentimental messages printed on the cover

5.  Corduroy clothing

6.  I collect old postcards, preferably with messages written on them, preferably from 1915 and earlier

7.  Single-issue Marvel comics (any title) from between 1993-1997 are usually a good bet

8.  Anything celebrating the state of Pennsylvania, especially including its coat of arms

9.  Back-issues of Discover magazine, pre-2005.

10.  Post-it notes, white-out, index cards, legal pads, mechanical pencils

11.  Owls

12.  Games for the original Game Boy (original only, no Game Boy color!)

13.  First edition of any book by Orson Scott Card, Dave Eggers, Flannery O’Connor, or John Updike

14.  Hoodies or winter coats ordered from the websites of any of my favorite bands.

15.  Anything that you see on this list, if you can find a mousepad that in some way depicts or deals with it, I would like to own that mousepad

16.  I have a genuine interest in the Johnstown Flood.  Aside from the famous book by David McCullough, I own nothing about it.

17.  Aside from the DVDs, any merchandise or materials related to the film “Labyrinth” would be a home run.

18.  I have a high interest in the European particle accelerator known as the Large Hadron Collider, or LHC (sometimes also called CERN).  Yes, there is merchandise.

19.  I love Grey Flannel cologne but haven’t owned any in years.

20.  Any DVD that says it is part of the “Criterion Collection”…you can buy me that.

21.  I am a big fan of motorized inclined planes, or “funiculars“.

22.  I love backscratchers.  It is not possible for me to own too many of them.

23.  Books or materials about early American filmmaking are always great (post 1910 and D.W. Griffiths only, I have no interest in Edison’s important but dreadfully boring experiments).

24.  Dr. Strange is my favorite comic book character.  I have plenty of stuff but feel free to take a leap of faith, there’s a lot out there.  Statues, figures, and busts are especially desired.

25.  The easiest thing on the list:  I love all Philadelphia sports teams.

26.  I have an interest in Quantum Physics.  There are tons of books and DVDs on the subject.  I will read and watch them all.

27.  John Sloan, the painter.  That man painted my soul.

28.  I am intrigued by the lost colony of Roanoke and would love to learn more about it.

29.  Post-Revolution, my favorite historical figure is Aaron Burr.

30.  I could always use a new (good) digital camera.

31.  I have an interest in but have not read much about behavioral psychologist BF Skinner.

32.  I am a major evangelist for Dr. Pepper, and even more specifically Diet Dr. Pepper, and I will, without irony, wear, brandish, or otherwise use merchandise imprinted with this soda’s logo.

33.  I have always been smitten with now-deceased scientist Carl Sagan, and any of his books are welcome.  Likewise, his television series, “Cosmos”, and any materials related to it, are high on my love list.

34.  In the realm of living scientists, I have a bona fide man-crush on Neil DeGrasse Tyson and will gladly accept his books, DVDs, or tickets to see him speak somewhere.

35.  I get weak in the knees for Ben and Jerry’s “Late Night Snack”.

36.  Art Spiegelman’s masterpiece of graphic novel literature, “Maus”, is an all-time fave, but is always priced just out of reach.

37.  Toblerones.

38.  Coffee-table sized books featuring the art of Henri Rousseau, and/or merchandise featuring his paintings “The Dream” or “The Snake Charmer“.  If I listed all of these items in order by what I’m interested in right now, this one might be #1.

39.  I have an odd interest in the history of the Mormon religion, specifically the handcart disaster, the Mountain Meadows massacre, and the early life and “visions” of founder Joseph Smith.

40.  I’d love a Polaroid camera.

41.  I love coffee, of course, and there are a few things I still need, primarily a pour-over set for iced coffee and a French Press.

42.  If I hit the lottery tomorrow, two of the first purchases I’d make would be the complete series of “The Fraggles” and “24” on DVD.  Don’t judge me.

43.  My favorite living poet is Billy Collins.  I have all his books.  See what else you can do.

44.  I love riding my bike.  But I’m not a serious biker, like, wearing spandex, etc.  I do it just to cruise around.  But I could use a new lock, gel seat cover, or other biking stuff you might think of.  I could also use a new bike, but if you want to go that far, we should probably collaborate on that.

45.  Anything relating to the old TV shows “Northern Exposure“, “Twin Peaks“, or “Picket Fences“.  I own the entire series of “Northern Exposure”, but other than that, it’s open season.

46.  I find the Donner party very interesting.  I have read this book on it, but nothing else.

47.  I like to use caramel coffee syrup in my coffee and oatmeal.  I can never have too much of it.

48.  I love newspapers, but it’s not easy to find merchandise regarding them, such as hats, shirts, etc.  My favorite newspapers are The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and USA Today.

49.  Museum memberships.  Any kind of museum.  Art, history, whatever.  I can’t imagine a gift I would love much more than a membership to just about any museum.  Currently, I am a member of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, but no other museums.

50.  Old coinage, pre-1900, from early America or other countries.  Confederate money would be very cool.

I Told You So. Even Though You Didn’t Care Then, and You Don’t Care Now.

About two years ago, I posted this.

And now (in case you didn’t see this particular news snippet) this has happened.

Powerlines

 

Manic Panic

I am currently in the midst of a months-long creative and intellectual mania.  I often say I don’t have enough time in a day, but it has certainly never been more true than it is now.

I attribute this primarily to getting healthy and exercising; it definitely kickstarted an increase in energy, and a change in mood to the extreme end of “good”, and energy plus super good mood=extreme mania, and it’s lasting a long time.  Which is good—damn good—but my lack of ability to do every single thing I want to is getting a little annoying.  Let me describe a little better what the mania entails:

First and foremost, I want to do stuff constantly.  Like, outside of the house stuff.  It being winter, there are a limited amount of things to do, but I have lists of things I want to do when I have time, like “take pictures on Raspberry Street” or “tour the Watson-Curtze Mansion“, etc etc.  When I do have time for activities such as this, it’s damn difficult deciding what to do.

Secondly, I have an enormous list of creative and artistic projects that I want to start, work on, or complete, and the list of projects itself has become a project.  When I’m at work or out and about, I find myself typing ideas into my cell phone’s “notepad” for me to add to the project list when I get home.  Hell, my list of potential blog entries alone is staggering.  This aspect of the mania is the most frustrating, as I am getting more and more interesting and ambitious ideas and I simply don’t even have the time to start on most of them.

The mania is also driving up my appetite for media/ information consumption, even as the mania means I have less time to partake of that particular fountain.  For many years now, most of you know, rather than watch much television, I’ve (through Netflix) watched, on average, one new movie a day.  Even as my appetite for film continues to grow, my attention to other projects and interests is decreasing my time for them.  And the mania has only increased my desire to read; I currently could probably read all day for four straight days and not get sick of it.  Information, information, information, my mind screams at me.  I currently have very little desire to read fiction (although, Mom, I really DO want to read that Stephen King book you sent me, and probably will start it in about 2 weeks).  I read the Erie newspaper every day, and often stop somewhere for a USA Today, New York Times, or Wall Street Journal, depending on what’s happening in the world or if I heard about an article or feature in one of them from one of the websites I simply can’t stop reading thoroughly every day (Slate.  Huffington Post.  Oh, and Hacking Netflix and Deadline).  And my magazine consumption, which I had finally whittled down in recent years, has skyrocketed during the mania.  I can’t seem to read enough science writing.  I currently read all of the “big three” science mags (Popular Science, Discover, and Scientific American;  I’ve been a big Discover supporter for years but right now it’s just not enough), and it seems my hankering for history now bleeds over into magazines.  America’s Civil War has been a mainstay on my bedside table recently, as have some oddballs such as Archaeology and The Saturday Evening Post.  And these are all in addition to the standard entertainment, arts, news, and cultural magazines you’d expect me to be reading.  Oh, and yes, I read books, too!

I have also taken quite a shine lately to just listening to music.  I have found that, in most of my adult life, I have rarely simply sat down, doing nothing else, and listened to music intently.  And now I have started doing it and it is changing my life.  But where is the time???

Oh, and I have REALLY started to enjoy just puttering around my apartment, re-arranging things, finding new homes for this or that, hanging the artwork in new arrays, paging through my old books, putting old photos in little frames, etc etc.

In short, I literally do not have enough time in a day right now.  I already start out with a deficit, working 50-60 hours a week.  Then, remember, I’m spending between 8 and 12 hours a week in the gym, so there is potentially almost 80 hours unavailable a week.  And then there’s sleep, at some point, and getting on the internet.  I have essentially zero downtime.  Please do not misunderstand me: I am loving this.  I am in a constant good mood, and never even remotely close to being bored or sad.  But damn.  Who knew there could be so much to do (without, really, doing anything)?  Also, this is a way of explaining to some of you how and why I might occasionally sound out of my mind, especially after a day that may have been devoted to intense, marathon bouts of reading, followed by writing or otherwise creating something incredibly personal and emotive, followed by going to a hockey game or something, and then back home to shower in the dark while The National plays on my stereo.  It’s a whole lot of fun, but sometimes can make me a little crazy.

I anticipate things leveling off as my body continues to adjust to being some degree of healthy.  But I just had to put it out there how wild and fun and jam-packed my life is at this point, even if it might not sound particularly fun to a lot of you, it is for me.  And almost everything I’m doing or want to do is free or relatively cheap (not to mention my food budget being more than halved in recent months) so I’m actually saving a lot of money recently (concert-going has all but stopped, and there’s much less time to go to the movies now).  How one starts saving money by doing more stuff is some sort of mystery!

Hey, have an awesome day!

From this week’s TIME magazine:

$25:  cost of purchasing Plan B., the morning-after pill, from a vending machine at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania;  it’s the only known such machine in the U.S.

OK, I thought it was cool when we made Saturday Night Live, but TIME magazine!  And last year, Carlisle High School was in TIME!  (remember, for having sheep mow their grass?)

Maghound, Tree of Life, and holy boxes!

1.  Yesterday I learned that one of my nearest and dearest services, Maghound, will be going out of business.  Now, Maghound isn’t famous, and I’ve never mentioned it on this bloggy wog despite being a product evangelist for four years and an early adopter of the service (I signed up in it’s first month of beta testing).  What it is (was) is a service that allows you to recieve a bunch of magazines without subscribing to them, and to change which magazines you get a monthly basis.  I was usually on the 7-a-month plan, so I would choose 7 magazines from their vast selection.  If one month I got, say, Golf Magazine (I never did) and didn’t like it, I could change that slot the next month to get Mother Earth News (great mag).  Maghound wasn’t the method I used to get my favorite magazines—those I always actually subscribe to, the old-fashioned way, but Maghound has been a wonderful way for me to explore new realms of reading, and along the way, I’ve found a lot of publications that I’ve really loved, and been able to get one or two issues of magazines that interest me but not enough to recieve for a whole year.  It really has been a great service (and they have some of the best customer service representatives I’ve ever had to talk to) and I am extremely sad that it is going out of business.  It’s been a part of my life like Netflix is for myself and many others, and it sucks that there’s probably not even a single other person I know who will mourn it with me.  So I say here, on this tiny little bloggy wog:  I’ll miss you, Maghound!

2.  The order I would vote for the films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar (I’ve seen them all):

1.  The Tree of Life
2.  Hugo
3.  The Artist
4.  Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
5.  The Descendants
6.  Midnight in Paris
7.  The Help
8.  Moneyball
9.  War Horse

3.  I’m not a pack rat, but it’s dawned on me recently that I may have a few too many things that I am just “kinda into” that I am constantly accruing for no serious purpose.  For instance, I can’t stop aquiring bags; I love getting messenger bags, sling backpacks,  cargo bags, and, most shamefully, totes.  I essentially have a closet full of these (thankfully inexpensive) things I almost have no use for.  In the summer, when I bike a lot, I have one small backpack that I use exclusively for biking, and one messenger bag (the first one I ever got) that I use when I do things like go to a Starbucks and write and read like a pompus asshole.  These bags are not falling apart anytime soon, so why I keep getting new ones is mystifying.

Likewise, I have about 200 more notebook-type things than I will use in a lifetime.  I simply cannot stop buying composition books (in 3-packs), small yellow legal pads, cheap black patent leather journals (for the love of God, don’t ever buy me a Moleskine journal, I hate them!), planners, and, oddly, these.  Now, I actually do quite a bit of writing, and not just the fancy-schmancy crapola that turns up on ye olde Notes From the Fire, but I’m always making little insignificant lists and writing little cheeseball sayings and quotes from movies and letters to friends, etc etc; I typically have one or two notebooks of various types going for each room of my apartment, and some that travel from room to room for various reasons.  I seriously require 7 or 8 different notebook-type things at any given time.  But I probably have close to a hundred (again…thankfully cheap) things of this nature right now.  I just love buying them. 

Guess what else this weirdo loves?  Boxes.  Not cardboard boxes, but boxes like this and this and this.  Oh, I’ve got them.  Oh, and photo boxes?  Michaels has them on sale for 2 bucks right now and it’s all I can do to keep myself from buying 50.

I guess what I’m saying is…what the hell is wrong with me?

Reading the latest issue of TIME magazine, I was intrigued by an article about YouTube, and was so blown away by some of the stats (and some of the writing, which in a few sentences manages to encapsulate what would take me a paragraph; let’s hear it for journalists!) that I felt the need to share it here.  This is two small excerpts from an article by Lev Grossman:

For every minute that passes in real time, 60 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube.  You can turn that number over in your mind as much as you want; at no point will it stop being incredible.  Sixty hours every minute.  That’s five months of video every hour.  That’s ten years of video every day.  More video is uploaded to YouTube every month than has been broadcast by the Big Three TV networks in the past 60 years. 

There’s never been an object like YouTube in human history.  It gets 4,000,000,000 page views a day, which adds up to 1,000,000,000,000—that’s a trillion—a year.  It has 800,000,000 users who watch 3,000,000,000 hours of video a month (that’s 340,000 years).  Human civilization now generates massive quantities of video footage simply as a by-product of it’s daily functioning, much as some industrial processes generate toxic slurry.  Before YouTube there was no central catchment for all that video; now it drains into a single reservoir, where we as a species can pan through it and wallow in it endlessly.

 

Some Thoughts on Birthdays

So it’s going to be my birthday soon, and I thought I’d take this opportunity to ruminate on the subject of birthdays.  A little bit about my own birthday, but mostly just about birthdays in general, and ways in which you might possibly be being an ass.

Everyone has a birthday, obviously.  And I don’t begrudge anyone celebrating that birthday.  Make a big deal about yourself, scream for attention, demand a party and gifts, whatever whatever.  We should all be entitled to one huge “me” day a year, and the day is not without significance, being the day you did, after all, start living (in case you wondered where I fell on the abortion issue).  But let’s be clear:  everybody gets one birthday.  Just one.

Dig it:  there is no such thing as your “birthday week” or your “half birthday”.  Now obviously, there are quite literally the week in which your birthday takes place, and the mathematical halfway point, calendar-wise, to your birthday.  But these are not things.  They are happenstance, completely immaterial to the advent of your birth.  When you demand that others now also celebrate these “you” days, you have become a pig.  You are blatantly asking for more than your share of attention for having done nothing but slide forth the birth canal.  If you’re reading this, you are just a regular person; you are not the son of a god, a producer of classic Hollywood cinema, or the botanist who figured out how to domesticate almonds.  In short, we have no convincing reason to think about your birthday any longer than the cursory few moments we think about anyone’s birthdays other than our own.  I demand you stop being a priggish diva.

If you want extra time being special, and proclaiming your special-ness, you must in fact find ways to be special.  If you want to be smarter, or more attractive, or funnier, or more wealthy, you must put in the time, effort, and footwork to become more special and noticeable.  Do not attempt to gain more than your share of the world’s “specialness attention” by suddenly deciding that your birthday for some reason lasts a week, and must be mentioned four times a day in person and twice on Facebook, while the rest of us who are pretending to be humble (some of us, I know, usually failing), stick to the damned rules and only celebrate one day’s worth, and then spend the rest of our lives finding legitimate ways to be recognized for achievement.

I can hear what some of you are saying.  But Seth!  My family always celebrated half-birthdays growing up.  It is family tradition!  Well then, fie on your family for being a bunch of look-at-me’s.  I can’t blame anyone for innocently celebrating a tradition they grew up thinking was legitimate, but you’re a big girl now.  Go build a bookcase or paint a mural or something, and celebrate your one birthday like the rest of us classy cattle.  There’s no free passes here.

OK.  That was a pretty good rant, wasn’t it?!  Man I really love when I get on a sweet roll with a rant like that.

I was born on a Friday the 13th.  This year, it also falls on a Friday.  Due to the massive birthday alarm that is Facebook, I anticipate having to reveal this fact much more this year than ever before.  I apologize in advance if you see me explaining it to people a lot in the days surrounding my birthday; I assure you, I will be more tired of typing it than you are of reading it.

I’ve written a couple friggen’ good poems about my birthday.  You can read my favorite one here.  (you can also hear me read it at that link!)

This year I’m going to be 34.  Thirty-four.  Now, I know some of you who are reading this crossed that mark quite some time ago and are considering telling me, “Buck up kid, you’re young.  Guess what?  It just keeps on going after 34, too.”  Well, I know.  But for some reason, the sound of 34 is more threatening, more…absolutely adult sounding, than the previous thirties.  Inside I still feel…19?  25?  Something younger.  I’m still going to these little indie rock shows and standing up front and jumping all around;  am I being that awkward old guy?  Am I the weird out-of-place geezer the hip kids are pointing at, thinking who’s he trying to fool?  I can’t go on pretending I don’t love books on American history, the songs of Henry Mancini, “Meet the Press” and the quietude of an early Sunday morning.  I’ve got a foot in the grave and a foot in the mosh pit (just figuratively; I never did like moshing).

Well, who cares.  I was just kind of rambling there. I don’t feel old and I have no intentions of starting to act old.  Sure, some of my tastes are morphing slowly, but just as part of a greater appreciation of the wider world.  I still mosh, figuratively, and read some really cutting edge magazines.  That last part about magazines was meant to be a joke, although in my head, I meant it seriously.

But I just can’t get past that number.  Thirty-four.  It’s the first time the number of my age has made it clear to me that I’m on this train and there’s no turning around.  That’s right, folks: I’m talking about our old friend mortality.  I’m gonna die, you’re gonna die, we’re all gonna freakin’ die.  When you’re 18, you’re never gonna die.  But when you’re 34, you’re definitely gonna die someday.  Not that I mind dying someday, but let’s have fewer reminders of it, eh?

I know this has been an aggresively cynical post on birthdays, but hey, what do you expect from a super-special person like me?  I am unpredicatable, and you gotta take the good with the bad, or the optimistic with the pessimistic, as it were.  Perhaps if I celebrated a half-birthday or birthday week, I wouldn’t feel the need to write jarring social criticism for your approval.  But hey, I’m just following the damned rules of society here.

I can’t sleep.  This happens often because of my ever-changing work shifts.  Usually, I have tricks to jolt myself into sleeping when I need to.  But sometimes they don’t work.

Everyone seems to have a strong opinion about this Osama Bin Laden thing.  Everyone wanted him dead when he was alive, and now that he’s dead, a lot of people seem to have suddenly come across the notion that killing people is bad.  It’s odd.  I really don’t know what to make of it; mostly because I’ve been avoiding doing much thinking on the topic.  Some things just seem too confusing at the outset for me to approach them more closely.  I will say that I am certainly not sad he’s dead.  But also, certainly, killing people always sucks.  It seems to me that, for the most part, nothing major has really happened except an interesting news cycle.  The military/ industrial complex chugs on and Glenn Beck is still a vampire.  Really.

It’s more difficult in the spring and summer, because the birds start chirping around 5am, and sometimes, that is exactly when I want to fall asleep.  I’ve no idea why birds chirping should keep one awake; after all, train whistles and thunderstorms put me to sleep.  Is this an ingrained but learned reaction, from years of hearing birds in the morning?  Or is it something even further inside us, a pattern stitched onto our DNA, a swatch of our instinctual fabric?  Who the fuck knows.

PBS sure has a great lineup of shows coming up on Wednesday night.  First there’s an episode of “Secrets of the Dead” that’s all about that wicked crazy army of statues that were created for some Chinese emperor dude like a bajillion years ago.  I learn about that army of statues about once every five years.  Then I forget all about it and am all too happy to learn about it again later.  Then after that there’s an episode of “NOVA” all about Machu Picchu.  Most of it focuses on whether or not I spelled it correctly without utilizing Google, which is right beside me and which I could have easily used, but did not.  But the rest—about how they built it and such—seems pretty interesting, as well.  Then after that, there’s another interesting thing, but I forgot what it was.

It will forever be a mystery to me whether or not thinking about sex as I lay in bed keeps me awake or helps me to sleep.  I have tried this technique every single night of my life since I was 14, with what could only be called a mixed bag of results.

Every time I’m in a checkout line recently, I am taunted by TIME’s special edition on the Civil War.  It’s one of these mega-big, laminated and bound almost-book things that TIME puts out like 4 times a year and you don’t get them if you’re a subscriber.  Basically they are books.  And I mean this Civil War edition just looks badass.  It’s got all these pictures from the era (Civil War photographs are mind boggling) and what appear to be some killer articles.  But it’s freaking 13 bucks.  Now don’t get me wrong.  Thirteen bucks, the bank does not break.  But it’s right there in the impulse aisle, right beside copies of “Us Weekly”, chapstick, and 5 Hour Energy.  I can never seem to talk myself into adding thirteen dollars to my total bill when I am already at the register.  What an odd price point, $13.  I’d probably buy it for ten.  Fucking psychology.

Thank you for allowing me to type myself to sleep.  I shall now go lay down and see if the birds will let me sleep.  If I can stop thinking about sex long enough.  Or should I think about it more?  I can never figure that one out.

Aronofsky no longer directing “The Wolverine”.

50 More Things from 2010

Due to the severe limitations of “top ten lists”, as well as the sheer amount of crap I love each year, I’ve decided to institute this general list of 50 things I plain-old loved in 2010.  Most will be things that did not appear on my music or movies list, as well as things created, released, or performed in 2010, but I’m not going to limit myself with actual ground rules.  Here are, quite simply, in no particular order, 50 things I loved in 2010:

50.  The New York Times

Hear hear for a newspaper that still dares to have sections devoted to important things like science, business, and art.  I’ve found it difficult to spend less than two hours on a copy—even on a day like Tuesday.

49.  Red Bull Cola

It will probably be a short-lived experiment, but the delicious and almost-natural cola from Red Bull was a tasty shot of adrenaline (even if it was overpriced).

48.  Dwayne Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson in “The Other Guys”. 

The movie itself may have been lacking, but these two good sports’ 5 minutes of screen time made the enterprise worth the price of admission.

47.  “Dancing with the Stars”

For awhile, I hated myself for this guilty pleasure, until I realized it was actually genuinely compelling television.  Cynical hipster naysayers need to actually watch a season (I should know–I am a cynical hipster naysayer)

46.  The segment on NPR’s “Whad’Ya Know? with Michael Feldman” where they listed fake WikiLeaks

Far and away the most I’ve ever laughed at the radio.

45.  The new Ansel Adams photographs

Whether or not they are actually Ansel Adams’ is still in dispute—but they’re terrific photographs anyway

44.  This.

43.  “8: The Mormon Proposition”

The documentary that reveals (gasp!) how Prop 8 was engineered by the institution of the Mormon church.  Enraging, and engaging.

42.  VEVO on YouTube

Sure, this music channel on YouTube is 100% a corporate whore, but my year has been exponentially enhanced by concert footage of my favorite bands not shot by a drunk frat boy with a first generation iPhone.

41.  James Franco’s “Palo Alto”

Franco’s collection of short stories is good—real good.

40.  James Franco on “General Hospital”

Yeah, it’s on before I leave for work, so sue me if I watch it every now and then!  Franco’s performance as–ahem–Franco was an over-the-top piece of performance art so nuanced (with nods to the real-world oddity of James Franco being on a soap opera) that I often found myself stunned something so lovely and sophisticated was happening on American daytime television.

39.  James Franco in “127 Hours”

Portraying a not-so-likeable man within a bare-bones script who also has to cut off his own arm, Franco manages to make us like him, and makes us want to be better people, too.

38.  James Franco’s art opening in New York

James Franco opened a gallery exhibit of his art in New York this year, and although not all of it is great, some of it is incredible, and it’s all very valid.  To imagine a Hollywood star opening an art show he says–out loud–is about the “sexual confusion of adolescence” makes me think we may be living in a culture with, well…culture.  See some of the art here. 

37.  James Franco in “Howl”

So, the movie kinda stinks, but Franco hits an underappreciated home run as the poet Allen Ginsburg, an unlikeable, grizzly gay man with so many conflicting character traits, it’s an amazing juggling act Franco had to do–and a bona fide joy to see.  Also, John Hamm is in the movie, too!

36.  Salvation Army Stores

Thanks to this discovery, the visual palette that is me (it seems absurd to call what I have a “fashion sense”) is evolving for the first time in a decade.  (read: more sweaters)

35.  Joel Stein’s column in TIME magazine

The most self-absorbed man in the newsmagazine business continues to get funnier, even as his subjects get more serious.  Every week, I’m sure he’ll be arrested.

34.  The Mac Wrap at McDonalds

I seem to be the only human alive not disgusted by this, either literally, morally, or some other, more etheral way.  But I’m not disgusted.  I’m delighted.

33.  “Gimme Shelter” performed at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony by U2, Mick Jagger, and Fergie.

Rock and roll heaven.  An absolute orgasm.  And I don’t even like U2!

32.  The repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

Because even republicans want to get into Heaven.

31.  Jonathan Franzen’s “Freedom”

Franzen is this generation’s Hemingway.  And “Freedom” is his “A Farewell to Arms”.  Read it.  Just do it.

30.  The March to Restore Sanity

I wasn’t there, and I didn’t see a lot of it, but I love it anyway.

29.  The “LOST” finale

It’s much debated, but I was never an “I need answers to X, Y, and Z, and I need them freaking spelled out for me” kinda guy.  I didn’t have LOST theories.  I work more by “feel”.  And the finale certainly felt right.  I still cry, every time.

28.  The “twist” ending of “Remember Me”

Everybody hates it.  I love it.  What’s new?

27.  The Chilean miners

Seriously?  This story was too good to be true.  If they made this movie and it was fictional, you’d be all like “No way this would happen like this.”  Just an unbelievable story.  The rare event of real news being real entertaining–and then uplifting.

26.  John Updike’s “Endpoint”

Sadly, this posthumous collection is the last poetry that will ever be released by Mr. Updike.  Luckily, it’s amazing (but, also, terribly terribly sad.)

25.  “The Good Wife” on CBS

I’ve just discovered it, so I have to get caught up, but it is tickling me.

24.  Seeing Art Speigelman give a talk at Dickinson University

Seeing the legendary literary graphic novelist give a highly entertaining and informative talk was one of the live event highlights of my year, and nobody had a guitar.

23.  My super-secret crush, The View‘s Sherri Shepard.

I will do unspeakble things to this woman.  In the good way.

22.  Mila Kunis and–yes–James Franco in “Date Night”

See #48 and substitute these actor’s names.

21.  The comeback of The Atlantic

One of the oldest and most respected magazines in the world revamps itself and somehow does not end up sucking.  In fact, it’s now better than ever, and just announced a profit for the first time in a decade.  And thankfully, it is somehow still completely pompous.

20.  Michael Vick

I sure know when to get back into Philadelphia sports, don’t I???  I simply love this real-life tale of redemption; if I didn’t believe in second chances, my own life would probably look a little bit different.

19.  This.

18.  TurningArt

The Netflix-like service provides you with rotating art prints (and a neato frame).  Sure, they don’t do much but hang there, but it’s a great way to explore what you like and don’t like about art.  It’s interesting to find how your relationship with a piece of art changes as it hangs in your home; much different than seeing it for 5 minutes in a gallery.

17.  Dogs

Still the best thing going.

16.  “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon”

Fallon has really hit a stride that is pure magic.  Sure, he’s not breaking new ground like his competition Craig Ferguson (who’s got a bit of briliiance working, as well), but Fallon’s show works miracles within a formula.  Delicious.

15.  The Fusco Brothers

The smartest, funniest comic strip in (or probably NOT in) your local newspaper just keeps getting funnier.  And smarter.  And harder to find.

14.  BuyBack$

A store that is just cheap, used DVDs, CDs, and Blu-Rays?  Yeah.  I’m kinda all over that.

13.  The re-release of new-age symhony In C.

Composer Terry Riley’s experimental, semi-electronic classical piece In C was re-released on CD this year, and it is just as addictive as when I first owned it back in high school.  Shades of just about all my current favorite artists can be heard in this breakthrough work.

12.  Cherry Crush

Because it’s fucking delicious.

11.  “What Up With That?” sketches on Saturday Night Live

This is by far the most enjoyable recurring sketch on SNL I’ve seen in years.  It has a concrete element of the absurd, and a perfect setting for uproarious celebrity cameos.  And Keenan Thompson is a genius, I don’t care what you say!  Click here for a selection of this year’s What Up With That’s on Hulu.

10.  Roles For Women

There’s still not nearly enough meaty roles for women in movies—Hollywood, indie, or otherwise—but this year saw a few choicer roles than before, thanks to dandy’s like “The Kids Are All Right”, “Please Give”, and “Secretariat”.

9.  Dan Simmons’ “The Terror”

One of the most interesting, and also more difficult, novels I’ve ever read.  Simmons’ explorers-trapped-in-icelocked-ships-being-terrorized-by-unseen-monsters-yet-also-slightly-based-on-historical-fact-of-Franklin’s-lost-expedition has got to be the world’s first historical fiction gothic horror novel.  And it scared the shit out of me.

8.  Cleveland

It really does rock.

7.  slate.com

The one-time almost-sad story of an great website gone bad is now a must-read internet newsmagazine.  I have it set as my homepage.

6.  Blu-Ray discs in Reboxes

Hey thanks.

5.  The first fight scene in “The Book of Eli”, where Denzel cuts that dude’s hand off.

OK, so the rest of the movie is kinda hum-drum, but that knife scene by the underpass with above-mentioned amputation is pure badass movie magic.

4.  Free concerts in the square in downtown Buffalo

I got a free front-row Ed Kowalczyk show, courtesy of the city of Buffalo, in a very attractive, quaint little square with a big statue of some dude (Mr. Buffalo?) in the center.  Can’t wait to see next year’s schedule!

3.  Katie Couric doing CBS’s Evening News

I just plain trust her.  A throwback to old-school news.

2.  The poster for The National’s album “High Violet”.

Good art and good music, all affordable?  Sign me up.  Check out the poster here.

1.  “The Expendables”

The movie was pretty bad, but I’d watch these guys pop popcorn.

 

The One Where I Whine About Things

1.  Everyone who gets my phone number here in Erie says, “Oh, 717, that’s the New York area code!”  No, no it’s not.

2.  We are almost at the shortest day of the year!!!  Which means soon they’ll start getting longer! Yaaaayyyy!!!

3.  After a very promising start, the Columbus Blue Jackets are once again in last place in their division.  They started as one of the best teams in the NHL!  Granted that was just in the first few weeks, but still, I was getting excited.  And still, even while it was happening, I could find NO mention of them in the press or anywhere, and in all the sports-themed stores at the mall (3 of them) I cannot find a single item with their logo, whereas I can find almost every other pro team in every sport.  Why does the whole world ignore the Blue Jackets???

4.  Entertainment Weekly‘s year-end top ten list of novels did not include—anywhere on the top ten—Jonathen Franzen’s Freedom.  This goes beyond bizarre.  I mean, for it to not even BE ON the top ten list seems like it must be an actual accident.  (for those not into books, this omission is like “Avatar” not being on a top ten list of movies in 2009, except the book doesn’t suck.)

5.  Just because you see I very recently posted soemthing on Facebook does not mean I am all of a sudden obligated to text you back.  I am not just laying around, posting to Facebook in a void of activity.  I often post something right in the middle of the stream of life. I’ll text you back when I’m good and ready!

(sorry, just doing some venting)

But mostly, I just wanna know about the neckties.

1.  Seriously now, what is up with neckties?  I just don’t even understand why they exist.

2.  I’ve got nothing against this Justin Beiber guy, but I really really hope he knows it’s not going to last.  Does nobody notice that our culture requires a new, mid-to-late teens super-mega-squeaky-clean star every 3 to 4 years?  I mean, don’t get me wrong, Miley Cyrus and Jonas Brothers are not gone, but they’re fading, and I feel bad for these kids that almost (I said almost) certainly will not be able to make a transition to an adult career in entertainment.

3.  So I’ve waited years to get back in touch with you, wondering where you are, how things are going and, yes, what you look like.  Not out of (solely) my continued attraction to you, but simple curiosity: nobody knows better than I how interestingly years change a person’s looks.  So after once-monthly searches on Facebook for two solid years (and the same on MySpace for 5 years before that) I see you have finally made a facebook account, and I quickly request you.  Except, when I am finally able to look at your pictures, there’s not a single picture of you.  There are 50 pictures of your kids (I’m happy you have kids you enjoy, but I give about zero shits about kids I’ve never met and who have no idea who I am), 20 pictures of your pets, and three albums of the house you had built.  But not a single picture of you.  I friend requested you, not “Old Friend’s Kids”.  C’mon, you haven’t really disappeared completely into them, have you?

4.  Number 3 was not about a specific person, but something that I’ve experienced a few times.  Stop thinking it was harsh, you know you’ve thought it, too.  And Paul, really, don’t argue with me.

5.  I now get home delivery of The New York Times.  Let me tell you, there is no reason to get any other newspaper, ever, anywhere.  This thing is amazing.  Every copy–daily–has more information in it than a copy of TIME and Entertainment Weekly put together.  I’m especially impressed by their daily entertainment coverage; I might seriously not resubscribe to Entertainment Weekly.  Plus–and this is what really, REALLY tickles me—most days, there is no sports section.  The sports are in the entertainment section.  (guess what folks>  That’s what sports are!)  As I’ve said again and again recently, my demonization of sports is over as I find myself more and more drawn to them, but devoting a third of a newspaper or televised newscast to sports still seems like the work of a bestial culture.  I wanted to hug The New York Times when I realized how they did it!

6.  Along the lines of sports, now that my head is back in that realm, I feel I need to make clear, here in a public forum, my official favorite teams in the three sports I care about (eff basketball, though I’ll probably end up going to a few of Erie’s semi-pro team, the Erie Bayhawks, cause why not?).  Here are my 3 favorite teams in each sport, IN ORDER:

Baseball
1.  Philadelphia Phillies
2.  Cleveland Indians
3.  Washington Nationals

Hockey

1.  Columbus Blue Jackets
2.  Philadelphia Flyers
3.  Buffalo Sabres

Football

1.  Philadelphia Eagles
2.  Buffalo Bills
3.  Baltimore Ravens

7.  I saw a convoy of plows driving down the highway today, even though it hasn’t snowed yet.  Winter can suck it.  (I know I sound bitchy tonight but these can’t all be rainbows and angel farts, you know.)

After years of  trying to escape my Newsweek subscription, I finally managed to do it earlier this year.  And now, this week, Fareed Zakaria has joined TIME as a new columnist.  (For those of you who don’t know, Zakaria was Newsweek’s main public face for many years, and one of the main reasons I left the magazine behind.)  What’s a boy to do?  I love TIME and am subscribed to it through 2015 but I really, really hate Zakaria.  I know there’s nothing I can do, short of cancelling my subscription.  I’m just venting.  Argh!

From an interview with William Shatner in the current issue of TIME:

TIME:  If you could share a secret about yourself, what would it be?

Shatner:  The secret is, I don’t know what the heck I’m doing.  I don’t really know what I’m doing in anything: relationships, driving, talking to you.

My Fifteen Minutes of Comic Book Fame

Going through a box of old stuff this morning, I came across the October, 1993 issue of Doom 2099, a comic book that hasn’t been published since…oh, early 1994!  I loved it, though.  It really spoke to young Seth.  And so it was one day in late 1993 (you do the math, I was born in ’78) that my newest issue came in the mail, and in the letters section was…a letter printed that I had written!  I shall re-create word-for-word that letter here for all to see because you all care very much.  Here it is:

Dear Joey,

Doom 2099 is the best written comic book I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading.  With each issue I’m left desperately wondering what’ll happen next.  The cyberspace story arc was simply incredible.  Just when you thought Doom and Wire were down and out, they find some way back!
        Although Pat’s art isn’t spectacular, it’s perfect for Doom. Mr. Broderick seems to be able to express Doom’s emotions despite his mask.  Kudos all around.
        Lastly, I love the quotes.  They sum up the meaning of the stories and make the comic seem like you can actually learn something from it!  Please keep it up!

Things I Don’t Understand

1.  Watermelon
2.  Moustaches
3.  Sweaters
4.  Fareed Zakaria
5.  Walkie-Talkie cell phones
6.  Hopscotch
7.  Picks left in afros
8.  Flat paint
9.  Shoehorns
10. Leather jackets

Oh no!  TIME magazine just made a minor format change.  I may freak the fuck out.

My 15 Minutes?

How many minutes of fame does all this stuff add up to?

(before you call me an arrogant idiot…this is meant quite ironically.  Though it is all true.)

1.  My mother was photographed riding a bicycle with a very young me in a basket on the front of the bike, and my sister behind her on the bike.  This photograph appeared in a parenting magazine in the early 80s.

2.  Around age 14, I was on the local news, cheering at a game of Harrisburg’s minor league soccer team.  It was a close-up.

3.  I had a letter printed in an issue of the short-lived Marvel comic book DOOM 2099.

4.  I appeared on the cover of my company’s newsletter, The Smile, beside the company president.  We were both wearing sombreros.

5.  Although miniscule, my picture has appeared in Entertainment Weekly.

6.  An issue of the Shippensburg University literary magazine was dedicated to me.

7.  After a “multi-cultural” day at my high school, my photo appeared in the Carlisle Sentinel. I was once again wearing a sombrero.  I was eating tacos.  It was a close-up.

8.  I once sold a dozen cookies to Earl David Reed, host of 105.7 the X’s “morning zoo” show here in Harrisburg.

9.  In college, I was on a terrible, terrible radio show called “The Worst Show in Radio”.  Really, that’s what we called it.  It was on one day a week at 3am.

10.  My dad was the announcer and then coach of the Newville Cardinals for a few years.  That aint nothing to sneeze at.

What do you think?  I’m saying I’ve got maybe 4 minutes in.

Seth’s Favorites of 2009: Magazines

Other favorites of 2009:

Poetry

Television

If you know me, you know I enjoy magazines more than your average bear.  I find them to be a great way to compliment my different interests.  There’s just some level of involvement in things you simply cannot get off the internet, TV, etc.  I subscribe to more magazines than I can possibly read every month, the idea being that when I want to read something, it’s there, but I don’t pressure myself to read every magazine I get (yes, I recycle them).  2009 was a great year for magazines.  It seems the more and more that the death knell gets sounded for the future of the publishing world, the better and better the publications that remain are getting!  And so here they are, my favorite magazines of 2009:

5.  Mother Jones

I’d been hearing about Mother Jones for a few years until I finally decided to pick up an issue off the newsstands this year, and I loved it so much, I subscribed.  Listen:  MoJo is a liberal magazine, and it makes absolutely no secret about it.  I think that’s why I like it so much: it’s one of the only magazines I’ve ever read where I wasn’t left, to some degree, guessing about it’s politics (even hard-line ‘zines like Commentary or American Perspective sometimes leave me scratching my head).  But, more than just being a magazine I agree with, MoJo is a lot of fun:  it’s not JUST about politics, but the wide range of subjects it explores are filtered through the liberal viewpoint, which means I can be guaranteed none of its articles are written by bigoted homophobes.  Did I mention the magazine is fun? Recommended for everyone who used to like The Utne Reader before it became a strictly environmental mag.

4.  The Wilson Quarterly

Over the last few years, I have had a very on-again, off-again, love/hate relationship with The Wilson Quarterly. It is written, basically, for intellectual snobs who are interested in interesting things.  Sometimes this is very, very…well, interesting. Other times it is…well, annoying.  Certainly there is a bit of the snob in me, but even among snobs, there are different kinds of snobs, and we don’t like each other!  Also, WQ is “non-partisan”, which means sometimes I cheer for it, and sometimes it offends me.  This constant yo-yo had it on my shortlist of “non-renewals” at the beginning of the year, but its smart, concise coverage of the economic collpase, Obama’s election, and our insanely evolving media culture this year truly did help to inform the way I’m seeing the world I live in, and for that, I think I’ll keep The Wilson Quarterly around for a few more years.

3.  Poetry

There continues to be no better method for following current American poetry than the gold standard, Poetry. This year saw so much editorial involvement by Billy Collins, I started to think he was on the payroll (which isn’t a bad thing).  Also, at the beginning of 2009, they started using even heavier paper stock, which smells really good.

2. Psychology Today

It’s not what you think.  I discovered this little gem early this year via Maghound (a Netflix-like service that lets you subscribe to numerous magazines–and change which ones you get at any time–in a Netflix-like model.  Check it out at http://www.maghound.com).  Psychology Today is not for psychologists.  As a matter of fact, they probably hate it.  It’s a magazine about pop psychology for everyday people (for instance, why are you jealous?  What happens when you sleep?  Why do you vote the way you do?).  Sure, it can get a bit hokey, and sometimes it reads like either Cosmo or Men’s Health, but regardless, it is ALWAYS a fun read.  It’s like a bon bon of a magazine.

1.  Discover

That’s right.  The science magazine.  Science is my secret interest, and I tried every major science magazine a few years back before I settled on Discover, and my love affair with the mag has just gotten hotter and hotter every year since.  Discover is written for people who are not scientists, but who are not idiots.  If Discover has an article on String Theory, for instance, you’d better already know what String Theory is, to a degree.  But unlike Scientific American, you don’t have to actually be a physicist to understand it (and unlike Science Illustrated, you do have to be older than five).  This year saw a ton of great stuff at Discover: terrific CERN coverage, in depth Darwin and Evolution stuff all year, and I can finally–finally–understand what the Higgs Boson is.  Trust me, that’s no small feat.

More love for new Pearl Jam in the media:

From the current issue of Entertainment Weekly, coming in at #3 on their “Must List”:

“The Fixer” video, Pearl Jam

PJ could’ve gone high-concept, but this live vid directed by Cameron Crowe gets to the heart of who they are–one of the best concert acts around.

If you haven’t seen this great new video, watch it right here!:

Blogging the Night Away

Last night, my friend Kyle got drunk on rum, watched movies, and fucked around on the internet, blogging his thoughts on what he was seeing/doing.  It looked like marvelous self-indulgent fun, so of course I’m doing it now! (except I’ll be drinking generic diet Dr. Pepper and various coffee products instead of rum!)

Tonight is a “Seth-time” night–I shut out the outside world and treat my apartment and everything in it like an amusement park.  It’s not very often I get to fully enjoy all this crap I’ve got in here!  Most of you will not be the least bit interested by this blog post, so I apologize in advance, but it’s gonna be fun for me, so take a flying leap!  Also, I’ll be editing it throughout the night and adding to it, so check back!

7:30pm: I’m halfway through “Citizen Ruth”, the first movie by Alexander Payne (of “Election”, “About Schmidt” and “Sideways” fame).  Kyle himself chose this movie for me by randomly picking a number (237) and then I counted to that number in my personal DVD collection.  “Citizen Ruth” is a dark comedy about the hilarious issues of abortion, addiction, the religious right, and moral certitude.  I know, hilarious, right?!  But it IS, somehow, and also very, very issue oriented.  I haven’t watched it for probably a year, and am now reminded of why I bought it.  As a rule, I very much dislike Laura Dern (what with her association with David Lynch), but in “Citizen Ruth”, Dern does an AMAZING job portraying this very tortured woman (she’s addicted to huffing paint) who’s had 4 kids taken from her and is being pressured to abort her current fetus, when she becomes a national poster woman for anti-abortion…and then the poster woman for choice…and back and forth and back and forth, all the while Dern continues to skirt the line between intense emotion and light-heartedness…as much as I dislike her, she deserved an Oscar nom for this.

Here’s a scene from the movie that perfectly illustrates how it is played both tragic and comic simultaneously:

7:45pm: Cracking open the first Diet Dr. Thunder (wal-mart brand) of the night.  I really do love this shit.  I don’t buy it for economic reasons.  I actually prefer it to the real deal now.  I have cans tonight, but I usually have 2 liters.  Wal-Mart was actually OUT of the 2 liters last night!

7:47pm: Ruth Stoops (Laura Dern) who is about to enter an abortion clinic but is waiting for some protesters to leave, just said “I wish I could take a dump.”

8:02pm: Just took the trash out.  Why do I always insist in doing this in just my socks, when I know full well that the stone parking lot hurts my feet?  I’ve always had very sensitive feet.

8:04pm: Just cracked open the newest Time magazine.  What is this stuff about New Jersey residents protesting Gaddafi?  This seems weird.  I’m gonna get to the bottom of this.

8:07pm: The anti-abortion woman who is attempting to win Ruth to their position just accused Ruth of being addicted to “smelling drugs”.

8:12pm: Perusing the latest TV Guide (that’s right, I get TV Guide) to see if I want to put on the TV or another movie after “Citizen Ruth” is over.  PBS’s History Detectives is looking pretty good.  Anyone ever seen that show?  It’s sooooooo intriguing!  But that is really the only thing coming on a 9:00 that seems worth my time.

8:14pm: Oh man!!!  Burt Reynolds makes his hilarious entry into “Citizen Ruth”!  Gotta love this character!

8:35pm: Just read about this curious phenomenon in Time:  Putpockets.

8:36pm: Flirting on Facebook.

8:54pm: Eating a can of Hormel chili.  Interesting story about me and chili:  about 2 years ago, my friend Mary and I were eating at the restaurant Chili’s.  I was very, very hungry, and was talking about having an appetizer of some kind, at which point Mary says I might as well have some chili, since I always eat chili.  I was astounded!  Sure, I’ve eaten chili in my life, but I’ve never been a chili “fan”, or, as far as I can remember, ever eaten chili in front of Mary before that moment.  I protested, but she insisted that I always ate chili.  Well, wouldn’t you know it, almost immediately after that night, I DID become a big fan of chili, and now I usually have one or two cans in my apartment at all times.  This, of course, always looks to Mary as though she were right all along!  I can in no way convince her that I was not a chili fan before that night!  Also: on my second can of Diet Dr. Thunder.

9:00pm: I’ve opted to watch History Detectives.

9:13pm: That chili was delish!!  And this episode of History Detectives is boring!  (enough WWII already, History Detectives!).  I’m going to step out of the apartment briefly to take some pictures of Carlisle at night.

10:00pm: Back from taking pictures.  Didn’t get a lot of good shots, but I should have: it’s “big trash day”, when people can put couches and refrigerators and all kinds of big stuff out on the sidewalk to be taken away.  However, my limited-ability camera made capturing anything great very difficult.  here are my favorites:

10:16pm: It is apparently impossible to not have these words snake around the pictures.  No matter how hard I try, they won’t simply appear BELOW the pictures.  Consider that my rant for the evening.  Now:  I’m well aware of how this sounds, but I’m now going to put on my vinyl copy of Godspeed You Black Emperor’s album Yanqui U.X.O., light some incense, and read some poetry.  This is going to rule.  Looks like the poet of the night is…Robert Creeley, who rules. Also, when the song “Motherfucker=Redeemer” plays, I am going to play air guitar on a golf club (which I guess is actually golf club guitar) during the 10-minute crescendo.

10:27pm: Texting Joni, who just sprained her wrist.

10:34pm: Internet and cable TV go down, not changing my plans at all, but preventing me from keeping you all updated for a second!

10:44pm: Play air guitar on a golf club, as promised, during the crescendo to “Motherfucker=Redeemer”.  If you have a spare 20 minutes and some patience, you can listen to the song here.  But that is only part one of the song.

11:25pm: Am astounded by one of these Creeley poems I must have always missed:

The Answer
by Robert Creeley

Will we speak to each other
making the grass bend as if
a wind were before us, will our

way be graceful, as
substantial as the movement
of something moving so gently.

We break things in pieces like
walls we break ourselves into
hearing them fall just to hear it.

11:33pm: Making a marshamallow latte.  There’s no actual marshmallows involved; I have marshmallow Torani syrup.  It’s just like a caramel latte except it tastes like marshmallow.  It’s fantastic!  And it sucks typing marshmallow that many times!  Also, smoking another one of these cigars I bought for the birth of Paul’s daughter…uh-oh.  Am I starting to like cigars?

11:48pm: Texting Sarah about music, and still texting Joni, but now about waffles.  Putting Radiohead’s Kid A on the turntable.  This is one of my only vinyls where I can notice the difference in sound quality on the vinyl.

Midnight: Holy shit, “National Anthem” on Kid A is making me move!  Currently dancing around my living room, singing into a golf club…keep moving the needle back again and again…this song has got me stuck in it’s groove!

12:20am: I’ve made a commitment to essentially stage a fake concert here in my living room to the entire Kid A album.  I’m getting sweaty and this latte isn’t helping!  “Idioteque” is blowing my mind and it’s getting difficult to not make the record skip!

12:54: Marshmallow latte #2.  I might not go to bed tonight.  Been awhile since I saw a sunrise…hmmmm…???  I’m gonna let Pandora radio play my Post-Rock station and read some of the Stephen King book I started today, Lisey’s Story.

1:10am: I’ve tried starting this King book a few times now over the last six months, and I just cannot get into it.  Is it, perhaps, that this is the one millionth book King has written about a writer?  This is feeling a bit worn to me.  Plus, the last King book I read before this one, Duma Key (which was about a PAINTER!) felt exactly like this book at the beginning; it seems I’m reading the same book twice–and Duma Key was barely scary at all!  I’m afraid to let myself spend that long (these are loooooong books) on a non-scary, mediocre book again.  But I shall try.  Back to the book!

1:35am: Am totally ambushed by a MySpace Instant Message (that’s right, I was on MySpace!) by one of my friends who insists they have a hilarious YouTube video to show me.  I relent, and they are right, it is hilarious!  See for yourself:

1:38am: E-mailing back and forth with Joni trying to decide on what her new hairstyle will be…I vote for number 1 or number 4.  I think number 1 will be especially amazing on her…it fits her face perfectly.  Do you think I can utilize every single one of my existing blog tags in this single entry?  Probably not, but the tags are getting ridiculous!

1:45am: I just gave Kyle and opportunity to select my next movie for me through the random number system again, but he dropped the ball and signed off Facebook, and Mary jumped at the chance.  She chose number 267 (weird, since earlier Kyle chose 237), and that movie is “Dragonslayer”!  Badass.  This is an old-school movie about…well…killing dragons, back when special effects were still mainly stop-motion and models.  But that doesn’t take away from this movie at all.  It is still VERY creepy in places.  This is another one I haven’t seen in a long time.  Makes me remember my childhood.  For some reason it seems I watched this alot when I was little.  I remember it influencing my “play”…it really sparked my imagination!

1:54am: Bowl of Boo Berry cereal and a diet Dr. Thunder.

2:13am: Between Mary and Kyle, I am having my ass Facebooked off!  Also wondering whatever happened to Peter MacNicol’s film career?  He’s the bomb in “Dragonslayer”, and then he was in…”Sophie’s Choice”, I believe?…I suppose he’s had some success in TV though.  Oh man, MacNicol is entering the dragon’s cave for the first time…this is so tense!

2:50am: Oh man I forgot about this little monster that jumps out of the hole in the cave!  It scared the crap out of me!  It’s a fierce baby dragon!

2:55am: All the lights out and some incense going for the big fight scene.  I might pee my pants!

3:02am: OMG there’s that fucking dragon.  That fucking dragon is popping up right behind Peter MacNicol…you can see it’s reflection in the pool of water.  Now you can see the steam from it’s breath!  This dragon ain’t nothing to fuck with!

3:23am: So ends “Dragonslayer”…so glad Mary picked that one!  And it seems that now just about everyone is asleep…and yet I am wide awake, perhaps owing to my marshmallow lattes.  I’m going to go cut my hair.

3:37am: Mid-cut:

3:45am: Haircut complete.  That’s right, I can give myself a haircut in under ten minutes!  Finished haircut:

Yes, it's true, I look like ass here. I blame it on my overhead flourescent light.

3:55am: Next up, I’m going to rock out a little bit more…I had so much fun earlier jumping around my living room!  This time, it’s gonna be Modest Mouse’s We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank. Then after that, it’s been decided (by Kyle again, by random number) that I’ll be watching the film “Matchstick Men.”  OK…let the Modest Mouse begin!

4:32am: Nobody can sing like Isaac Brock, lead singer of Modest Mouse.  Now, I’m not saying he’s a good singer–far from it.  In fact, most of the time, he barely sings at all.  It’s more a an in-key snarl.  But nobody else does it. Alot of the time, he actually laughs the words.  he laugh-sings words!  WTF?  It’s amazing and crazy.  Totally sweaty from jumping around my living room pretending to be Isaac Brock.

4:44am: I have elected to skip “Matchstick Men”, as “Needful Things” is on Starz, and I’ve not seen it before.  Also, I have elected to watch this movie while laying down in an attempt to sleep eventually, even though I am not tired yet, and I don’t have to be up for anything tomorrow, now seems as good a time as any to hit the reset button, although I’ll probably become engrossed in the movie and be up until 6 anyway.  I hope somebody out there got some form of entertainment out of the endless blog.  Good night.

Some PJ Love

I just opened the latest issue of Esquire (I’m a little behind though, I’ve had it for 2-3 weeks) and one of the first features in it is a graph of live musical acts called “9 Shows a Man Should See”.  The graph shows all 9 acts on a “hugeness” scale.  At the very, very top, of the “hugeness” scale of bands a man (this is a men’s magazine, after all) should see, is Pearl Jam.  And this is the text accompanying this grand honor:

“That Jane’s Addiction and Nine Inch Nails are on the road reliving 1991 seems even more embarrassing when you consider that Pearl Jam is filling stadiums by forsaking nostalgia.  They do a few hits at their shows, but it’s their reputation for the unexpected that moves tickets–and bootlegs.  Pearl Jam is the new new Grateful Dead.”

Have I mentioned how much I despise the Newsweek re-design?  I really, really hate it.

7/19/09

1.  Before an awesome lunch with Joni, we saw a squirrel trying to get into a drainpipe, and it was hilarious.

2.  Joni also wore what I would consider to be the shirt best matched to the person wearing it, ever.  It’s like someone made that shirt for her.

3.  Started off my day by watching 2005’s ‘Rumor Has It’.  I loved it. What’s going on with me and romantic comedies?  I used to think they were the devil.

4.  Saw the very first guy who was my roommate my first time through rehab walking down the street with a case of beer.

5.  I’m going to mention my sister now so I can create a sister tag for my blog, which I don’t understand how one doesn’t already exist.  PS my sister rules.

6.  Walked from my apartment to Thornwald Park, did some reading, met Michael there, and we watched a nice free bluegrass show in the park.  Talked through most of it.  Beautiful evening for sitting in a park for live music.  Instead of walking right home, I stopped at the theater and saw ‘Bruno’.  It was OK.  It’s no ‘Borat’.  Then stopped at the chinese buffet.  Then went to wal-mart and bought more stuff than I should have, since the walk back was rather long.  My shoulder hurts.

7.  Quote from Michael today:  “You want to eat my arm, don’t you?”

8.  Mary is a freelance writer.  She got a job today to write a screenplay that apparently involves a road trip and medicinal marijuana.  I’m excited for her!

9.  Took some dumpster pictures on my walk today.  I continue to be amazed by how many great dumpster pics I can get in this one podunk town of Carlisle.

10.  Going to bed now, going to try to catch up on the 8 unread magazines on my bedside table.

11.  Oh, PS, another quote from Michael today:  “What’s a romantic attachment?  Is that like a dildo or something?”

12.  Things I need to add to this entry to create tags for my blog without having to actually write an entry about them:

Paul, Modest Mouse, NPR, P.T. Anderson, Philip Larkin, High School, Childhood, spirituality, woods