What I'm Reading, etc.

The nice thing about writing a blog pretty much entirely for one's own benefit is that you don't have to feel guilty when you step away for, say, a month and a half. I felt like I was so crabby all the time and I wasn't particularly enjoying writing about my own crankiness so I can't imagine it was in any way interesting to read about. But I've since managed to plant myself in a cheerier place. So I'm back, if not with anything particularly substantive. But here are a couple things I've read recently:

Google and the New Digital Future

The terms of the settlement will have a profound effect on the book industry for the foreseeable future. On the positive side, Google will make it possible for consumers to purchase access to millions of copyrighted books currently in print, and to read them on hand-held devices or computer screens, with payment going to authors and publishers as well as Google. Many millions more—books covered by copyright but out of print, at least seven million in all, including untold millions of "orphans" whose rightsholders have not been identified—will be available through subscriptions paid for by institutions such as universities. [...]The negative arguments stress the danger that monopolies tend to charge monopoly prices. Equally important, they warn that Google's dominance of access to books will reinforce its power over access to other kinds of information, raising concerns about privacy (Google may be able to aggregate data about your reading, e-mail, consumption, housing, travel, employment, and many other activities).

Adam Gopnik on J. D. Salinger

In American writing, there are three perfect books, which seem to speak to every reader and condition: Huckleberry Finn, The Great Gatsby, and The Catcher in the Rye. Of the three, only Catcher defines an entire region of human experience: it is—in French and Dutch as much as in English—the handbook of the adolescent heart.

I don't, as it happens, entirely agree that these books speak to every reader. Gatsby, for example, didn't particularly speak to me at the time I read it. Perhaps it would now. Like so many people, I read all three books when I was fifteen or sixteen. Huckleberry Finn was the one I loved and is, along with Moby Dick, my Great American Novel. Catcher did speak to me, but I think it's far less universal than Gopnik claims. Rather, I think it's a book that one often has to read at a certain point in life, in a certain state of mind. For the most part Holden Caulfield doesn't speak to adults. That's why he can speak so clearly to teenagers. Surely that's not a bad thing.

What I'm Reading . . .

I know I've barely posted this month but honestly I haven't done anything worth posting about and I thought that anyone still reading was probably getting pretty sick of hearing about my cat's health issues all the fucking time.

I've been reading a bunch of ballet related stuff of late. I'm interested to see what ABT's hiring of Ratmansky will bring so I've been following the critical reaction to that. Tonya Plank has an interesting post up about that (on which I left an absurdly long comment--I really ought to restrain myself). I haven't seen enough of Ratmansky's work to know how I feel about his choreography as a whole but I tend to think his involvement help more than it hurts. Either way, we'll have the opportunity to find out for ourselves.

I'm also reading Muriel Topaz's Tudor biography, Undimmed Lustre, and Judith Chazin-Bennahum's The Ballets of Anthony Tudor: Studies in Psyche and Satire, in preparation for seeing several of his ballets during ABT's fall season. I figure I'll appreciate them more if I come at them with some degree of knowledge about what's going on. I'll have a full post on those books when I finish them. I'm sure you're all just at the edge of your seats in anticipation.

And like so many other people I've been following the endless coverage of the election and Palin in particular. It's kind of amazing; between major elections I pay less attention to politics and so I forget how much it seems like we're living in the pages of a political satire and can't get out. I can't decide if it's actually funny or if it only would be funny if it wasn't real.

One thing I'm not reading is hockey previews not written by funny bloggers. The preseason's about to start, I'll be back to listening to the radio on game days, and I'm totally excited. But I just can't take hockey news. I'm on an all-positivity all the time diet when it comes to my hobbies because I have other things to be worried about right about now and I'm not going to waste energy worrying about things that are supposed to be fun.

What I'm Reading . . .

The New Yorker talked about what McCain's Supreme Court would look like and it's not an appealing picture:

In short, this one passage in McCain’s speech amounted to a dog whistle for the right—an implicit promise that he will appoint Justices who will eliminate the right to privacy, permit states to ban abortion, and allow the execution of teen-agers.

The question, as always with McCain these days, is whether he means it. Might he really be a “maverick” when it comes to the Supreme Court? The answer, almost certainly, is no.

The New York Times article on Tempelhof Airport:

Certain places, like certain works of music and love affairs, inspire bonds of affection that transcend logic and can’t be expressed in profit and loss. It doesn’t matter whether they’re great cultural monuments or civic symbols. Tempelhof also happens to be those things.

What I'm Reading...

...or at least what I'm reading when not totally stressed out. Normally I'm totally chill about the holidays, but this year I somehow got behind the ball and can't get back in front of it. Yikes. Anyway, today was my company's "End of Year Celebration" which was a surprisingly pleasant early evening thing. And on a holiday side not, happy Chanukah to those who celebrate. As the atheist daughter of a Catholic and a Jew I grew up celebrating the holidays of both religions and I still take a great deal of pleasure in lighting my menorah, even if it is only because it's pretty.

But anyway, on to my reading material:

• Last week's New Yorker was particularly good, I thought. They had a piece on endogenous retroviruses called Darwin's Surprise that was just fascinating. I also had reason this week to revisit one of my very favorite New Yorker articles, Angels and Ages: Lincoln's language and legacy. I'm very interested in rhetoric and the way that slight changes can significantly alter tone and meaning, so this is very up my alley.

• Apparently Iran isn't feverishly working towards building nuclear weapons. Ahmadinejad may be a whacko, but it seems that the country as a whole is behaving in a somewhat less crazy way. If Bush was capable of reconsidering his positions he'd probably have some thinking to do

• There's been discussion (debate even) in the hockey blogosphere lately about just what hockey blogs are for and how they should operate. The most recent round of discussion started with a post on James Mirtle's blog. That post inspired Pookie and Schnookie of Interchangeable Parts to examine their goals as bloggers with a series of very interesting questions and they've invited others to do the same. So far they have responses from Katebits of The Willful Caboose and Amy of Shots off the Crossbar, with more answers expected. It's an interesting topic to me not only because it relates not only to issues of access, methodology, and professionalism, but to the fostering of community and communication, something I consider to be among the most significant internet-related benefits in my life. (Edit: Heather B. has her responses up as well at Top Shelf.)
  

And now, I have some presents to wrap.

This and That

I'll be traveling to my aunt and uncle's for the holiday, where I'll see a whole bunch of family, so after today things will be silent here for a few days. Though I imagine most people will be doing cooler things than looking at my blog anyway. Not that that's difficult.

And speaking of cooler things, here are some of the things I've been reading lately:

HLOG has the preview for Breakfast with Scot up. The movie looks fairly sweet and it's nice to see the Leafs, and, shock of shock, the NHL doing something slightly forward thinking by giving the movie their approval.

One of my favorite dance blogs, Apollinaire Scherr's Foot in Mouth, has a discussion going on about choreographers and the audience here, here, and here, which has given me lots of stuff to think about.

The New York Times has a very positive review of the Dylan biopic I'm Not There. I have no idea if I'll like the movie, but I'm very much looking forward to seeing it anyway.

Well, have a good holiday folks.

More of What I'm Reading

• A couple days ago I was delighted to learn that a blog I read has become the number one google hit for "super smoking hottie." Katebits has funniest Sabres blogger all wrapped up and her quest to select a favorite Sabre has been one of the most delightful parts of the hockey offseason. Incidentally, hits 2-5: Deadspin, TeeVee.org, and two porn sites.

• Vogue apparently decided that they should produce a fall magazine that is actually the size of the bible. On the front cover they announce "Our Biggest Issue Ever," which is code for "Our Most Profitable Issue Ever," because it's all ads. Reading Vogue brings to mind several questions. Some of which are:
• Isn't it a little ridiculous to still be on the table of contents at page 186?
• Should the constriction of a huge metal belt which serves no belt-like purpose arouse my inner feminist? And what's with the locks? Who exactly gets to unlock this contraption? And isn't the whole look fairly intriguing anyway?
• And finally, who thought this rather phallic hairstyle might look anything other than ridiculous.

• Apparently some Russian lady has written a 600 page attack on Anna Akhmatova, the gist of which is that she wasn't a very good person. I wasn't aware of the fact that great artists are generally also lovely people. Something that the article linked above points out, stating, "there are several hundred lines of Akhmatova's poetry that make the question of whether she was a model human being utterly irrelevant." If being a nice person was required to be considered a great writer, we'd be rather short on great writers, I imagine.

• The Dallas Stars have a rather funny billboard advertising campaign going. You can see them HERE.

• I've been slowly catching up on back issues of The New Yorker. Too far behind to link much, but they've got a profile of Giuliani that encapsulates exactly why he's so awful. That being the fact that he's a nasty, rotten person. It's long, but worth reading. That's "America's Mayor" ladies and gentlemen.