electrical fire

electrical fire
Originally uploaded by mattbucher.

We had a small electrical fire the other day.

HIGH WINDOWS

When I see a couple of kids
And guess he's fucking her and she's
Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm,
I know this is paradise

Everyone old has dreamed all their lives---
Bonds and gestures pushed to one side
Like an outdated combine harvester,
And everyone young going down the long slide

To happiness, endlessly. I wonder if
Anyone looked at me, forty years back,
And thought, That'll be the life;
No God any more, or sweating in the dark

About hell and that, or having to hide
What you think of the priest. He
And his lot will all go down the long slide
Like free bloody birds. And immediately

Rather than words comes the thought of high windows:
The sun-comprehending glass,
And beyond it; the deep blue air, that shows
Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.

--Philip Larkin (1974)

Trip to the antique store

Dr. Monkey
Originally uploaded by mattbucher.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mbb/sets/1672158/

Went to this cool antique store during the holidays and saw everything from a human skull to a Kenny Rogers photo montage.

The Bird

For some reason, the Kansas City Star thought it necessary to give us a 1500-word piece on athletes flipping the bird. I can just picture the reporter pitching this to his editor: "Uhhh... I got this great idea about a pressing issue in the world of sports. Steroids? Salary Cap? No, sir. The Bird."

Signed books

DFW - Infinite Jest
Originally uploaded by mattbucher.

I don't have a scanner, but I do have a digital camera and this weekend I had some time on my hands so I decided to take shots of a few of my signed books. I discovered that many of the books I've had signed were not signed on the title page so that's difficult to communicate in a single photo and some of the signatures are pretty plain and unremarkable. I've got a funny Zadie Smith signature that I can't seem to upload right now, but hopefully soon.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/mbb/sets/1598639/

Rawrrrrrr

LIONESSSSS
Originally uploaded by mattbucher.

The paw, the maw, the look: sheer beauty.

The reading docket

1. I am slowly working my way through Volume 1 of Emma Goldman's "Living My Life," which is incredibly well written and informative. I'm going to start looking for volume 2 soon, but I am taking my time with this one, about one chapter per night.

2. Am also taking my time going through "The Good Earth." I read it a long time ago but had absolutely no perspective on it and couldn't even recall the plot, but now that I am re-reading it I am riveted. This is the Chinese Steinbeck. After I'm finished I might have to sit down and figure out what Buck is saying about contemporary American ethics, especially with respect to investing in real estate.

3. This weekend I passed up the chance to get the hardcover or Audio CD of DFW's "Consider the Lobster" in order to buy something I really wanted to read (for the first time): Jack Finney's sequel to "Time and Again" - "From Time to Time." Written 25 years after the first book, this one follows the adventures of Si Morley as he goes back to 1912 (or forward to 1912 since he is still living in the 1880s) to affect the sinking of the Titanic.

4. Next in the queue: James Magnuson's "The Hounds of Winter" and Steinbeck's "The Long Valley"

5. Books I'm looking to buy: Nathanael West's "The Dream Life of Balso Snell"; Upton Sinclair's "Oil!"; Leon Rooke's "The Beautiful Wife"; and John Hodgman's "The Areas of My Expertise."

Wow, a million bucks

This guy who runs the Million Dollar Homepage is actually pretty close to his goal of raising a million bucks. As of right now he's at $828,200. Evidently he got a lot of press in November (including the Wall Street Journal) and the spillover should carry him over the $1M mark. It's obviously a fad marketing scheme, but it's still a pretty impressive accomplishment. What got him going was that the local media in England picked up on the story and he was able to shape that exposure into a snowball of publicity. Obvoius: any revolution in the world will have to use the media.

new puppy

Riley

Here is a picture of our new puppy, Riley. She is a sheltie, eight weeks old, and still learning to pee outside.
All the pictures are here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mbb/sets/1459664/

finger gash (warning: gross)

finger1
Originally uploaded by mattbucher.

I got this new super-sharp vegetable peeler with razorlike teeth and after about ten seconds of use, I promptly cut off a huge chunk of my left index finger. I couldn't get it to stop bleeding (a spouting geyser) so I had to go to the emergency room and have them apply this white goo (liquid stitches). The pain was so intense I nearly passed out, although they did give me a vicodin prescription. I'm having trouble typing today.

new camera

I'll probably be directing your attention to Flickr a little more frequently since we just got a new Nikon Coolpix 4600.

Here are a few random pictures of the bookshelves:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mbb/sets/1405706/

On my mind

Books on the nightstand:
- Time and Again by Jack Finney (awesome book about a guy who's selected by a secret government agency to participate in a time-travel experiment which involves him living in the Dakota Apartment building like it's 1882 until suddenly he goes outside one day and it is 1882. Really, this is a cult novel that needs to be revived. Also, it's filled with pseudo-factual photos.)
- Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens (I want to re-read Bleak House, Hard Times, Dombey, Pickwick, everything dude)
- Steinbeck: East of Eden, Travels with Charley, Cannery Row, Cup of Gold all read recently. Next up: Sweet Thursday
- Vegas, by John Gregory Dunne
- Down and Out in Paris and London, by George Orwell

Songs on repeat (feel free to mock, I don't care):
- Telescope Eyes, Eisley (Tyler, Texas: Represent!)
- Sugar Boy, Beth Orton
- Joga, Bjork
- My Doorbell, White Stripes
- I figured you out, Elliott Smith
- generally, Arcade Fire

• Not much to talk about movie-wise. I did see Proof and thought it was OK, but lacked a little of the internal conflict that should be present in the Paltrow character.

• In baseball news, I'm disappointed that Dontrelle Willis didn't win the Cy Young Award. I hope the Yankees get Johnny Damon. They really need mo better pitchers, but Bernie's gone and they just cut Tino so I assume some money will go towards hitters, too.

• Also, as a result of the Orwell and Dickens books I've become mildly obssessed with Britain's pre-decimal currency system (and the slang terms thereof). 1 pound = 240 pennies or 20 shillings. Check out the pictures of the half-crowns, sovereigns, farthings, and florins here.

Riley and her littermates

RILEY-littermates
Originally uploaded by mattbucher.

Somewhere in this litter is our new puppy, Riley. We are going to pick her up in two weeks. Right now she lives in Stillwell, Oklahoma. One of the reasons we left New York is that we couldn't have a dog in our apartment building. All that's about to change...

1952 Topps

Perusing (part of) the baseball card collection.

the piece de resistance: 1955 Roberto Clemente RC

BOOKS

books recently bought (past 10 days)
 
Libra - Don Delillo (1st Edition at goodwill!)
East of Eden - John Steinbeck (love it)
Steps - Jerzy Kozinski (like eating razor blades)
The Lower Depths - Maxim Gorky (won't read it, but it was $2 and looks cool on the shelf)
The Journals of Kurt Cobain (interesting for about 15 minutes, also looks cool)
The Prentice Hall Reader (for work)
Leon Rooke - Shakespeare's Dog (I was looking for his new one, but haven't read this classic yet)
Vegas - John Gregory Dunne (really enjoyable, half fiction half non-, awesome cover, 1st ed for $12)
Number9Dream - David Mitchell (love it; reminds me of Murakami, set in Japan, fractured narrative)
In My Life (Vol. 1) - Emma Goldman (can't wait to start it, hope I can find vol 2 someday)
The Commissariat of Enlightenment - Ken Kalfus
Finnegan's Wake - James Joyce (how "difficult" can it be? try solving crossword puzzles blindfolded)
Down and Out in Paris and London - George Orwell (really great afternoon read, esp. if you like poverty worse than your own)
 
Jordan also bought some books I will likely read:
 
BUtterfield 8 - John O'Hara
A Million Little Pieces - James Frey
Wonder When You'll Miss Me - Amanda Davis
Dry - Augusten Burroughs
 
Also bought:
a new large bookcase (via craigslist)
 
Thank you, birthday money.

Newseum

http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/flash/
 
I love this site. It shows you the front page of about 500 newspapers worldwide, everyday. I look at it almost everyday and I find it to be a more efficient way of seeing what's going on (or what is considered Front Page News) in dozens of American cities than bookmarking individual news sites; and it's more visually appealing than any RSS or News Reader I've seen.
 
Here are a few observations:
 
- Europeans put Nobel Prize winners on the front page, Americans don't
 
- Everyday, somewhere in the world, there is a soccer star on the front page of a newspaper
 
- Peruvians love to see dead bodies and death and destruction on their front pages
 
- Finland and Sweden have awesome tabloids
 
- Japan still has major papers using only black and white ink
 
 

Here's an evil thing I hate

Speechwriters.

Today I was reading Lincoln's second inaugural address (here) and it struck me that how, unlike GWB's second inaugural (here), Lincoln did not bother to mention a single thing about electoral politics or "reaching out" to supporters of his opponent. He had bigger things on his plate--like the Civil War and slavery (Bush had Iraq and that's not small). Then it struck me that Abraham Lincoln himself sat down at some point and considered the future of his administration, considered the appropriateness of his words, and then set down his vision of the future in these words he would deliver at his inauguration. This does not happen anymore. George W. Bush did not write his inaugural address. His speechwriters did.

This really bothers me. I think it should be a requirement for a president to write his own speeches--at least the majority of them or at least the important ones. Let's say I'm a really busy student, why I can't I hire "speechwriters" to "articulate my vision" for me? Gee, it's called plagiarism and it's an offense taken very seriously at every university in America. The fact is that if we demanded our leaders to be proficient writers and articulate speakers, we'd see a whole new class of leaders rise to the top. This is all pretty recent, you know. Go back and read the Louisiana style politics of Robert Penn Warren's "All the King's Men." The Kingfish was pretty corrupt, but he could sure as hell improvise a speech and craft his words into persuasive sentences. Is the world really that much more complicated now that NO ONE can do this? What about Bill Clinton? How often did he just tell the speechwriters to take the day off? Never. (That film "The War Room" is a good example of how Clinton was the hand-shaker and Carville and Stephanopolous were the speech magicians.) Politics now equals bureaucracy, which means Rule by weird little committees. A small group of ideologues decides the policy that they are trying to feverishly promote and then they hire hundreds of peons to carry out their wishes. All speechwriters should be fired. You are all evil and you aren't helping anything.

Books on the Nightstand, 9/20/05

Basket Case by Carl Hiaasen
Hiaasen is one of my go-to beach reads, but I had to abandon this one when he tried to write about a "teenage hacker." It was the poorest character description committed to paper since Dave Eggers wrote about a dog.

Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn
This memoir was published to much acclaim last year but I am just now getting around to reading it in paperback. It's a pretty riveting story about a Flynn getting to know his father while he (the father) is a guest at the homeless shelter where Flynn works. I liked the book, but it did seem to lack some emoting and the tone of the writing might be hemmed in by so much of the author's drug use. Sort of similar to Sean Wilsey (though Flynn's life is the polar opposite of Wilsey's).

What's the Matter with Kansas? by Thomas Frank
Again, I'm a little late to this party, but hey, I got it at the library. I wish that every Republican or "moderate" would be willing to read it. I would hope that the Katrina disaster would get people talking about doing something with respect to the distribution of wealth in this country, but it's so hard to be optimistic. Also, it seems to me that so many Republicans opposed to "welfare" don't have a problem with "social security" or "disability" checks. Imagine if everyone who worked 40 years in this country got 75% pension salary for life.

HOHB

This year's Hands on a Hardbody contest has been stopped due to a contestant's bizarre suicide early this morning:

http://www.kltv.com/Global/story.asp?S=3854138

It wasn't clear whether Vega walked away during or just before an official break for contestants, most of whom were away from the contest site when Vega killed himself.

Witnesses said Vega went directly to a Kmart across the street, threw a trash can through a window and quickly went into the store.

"It was the most surreal thing I've ever seen in my life," said Dru Laborde, a program director for KYKX radio and a media participant in the contest.

Police said they were called at 5:59 a.m. When they arrived, they saw Vega walking from the back of the store toward the doors. He had a shotgun in his hands, police said, and shot himself. A police spokesman said police exchanged a few words with Vega before he stepped back and shot himself. He said he wasn't sure what had been said

In other news, Nabokov's Lolita turns 50 today : http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/15/opinion/15schiff.html

Still at a loss

Not sure that I was ever cut out to be a blogger, but now the updates might come even farther apart than ever before.

I got this awesome new job (here) editing high school literature textbooks and it will probably a while before I get back into posting anything here. It's great, though. This is one of the few jobs I've even heard of that rewards being a complete polymath. I've alredy wished that I knew more about Confucianism and Sanskrit and it's only my first week! I salute all teachers of literature.

In other news, I can't stop watching the news. Even ten days after the hurricane I am transfixed, horrified, staggered.

Also, I have rekindled a long-standing intrerest/obsession with Antarctica. Mostly this is a literary fascination and I devour all books that even mention the cold continent, but lately I have thought about going there. If I were to go to Antarctica, I would want travel the way of Scott and Shackelton (ship) rather than the cargo planes that fly from Christchurch to McMurdo. I'm certain that my wife would have no interest in accompanying me on such a trip, but not a lot of people can see the attraction of intentionally going somewhere -50 F (the coldest temperature recorded on planet earth was -128 F at Vostok Station, Antarctica). It really is the last frontier on the planet, though. There are still vast areas of ice and mountain ranges untouched by humans. This tallship expedition looks like my dream (comfortable and yet adventurous): http://victory-cruises.com/europa.html