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READIN
READIN started out as a place for me
to keep track of what I am reading, and to learn (slowly, slowly)
how to design a web site.
There has been some mission drift
here and there, but in general that's still what it is. Some of
the main things I write about here are
reading books,
listening to (and playing) music, and
watching the movies. Also I write about the
work I do with my hands and with my head; and of course about bringing up Sylvia.
The site is a bit of a work in progress. New features will come on-line now and then; and you will occasionally get error messages in place of the blog, for the forseeable future. Cut me some slack, I'm just doing it for fun! And if you see an error message you think I should know about, please drop me a line. READIN source code is PHP and CSS, and available on request, in case you want to see how it works.
See my reading list for what I'm interested in this year.
READIN has been visited approximately 236,737 times since October, 2007.
Maybe the most key thing I'm taking away from Nixonland (as of the ¾ mark), is that I've misunderstood the Nixon presidency, which I am too young to have any first-hand memory of, in a pretty fundamental way. My narrative has always been, Nixon was an evil man and wore his evil nature on his sleeve; Reagan was an evil man but was carefully costumed by his media handlers so as to conceal that nature.
Now it's sort of obvious when you think about it, that there's something wrong with my narrative. I didn't analyze it that carefully, it was more just a general sense of things. But Perlstein lays out very clearly how Nixon shaped his public image and how he was helped in this by a new generation of media professionals such as Harry Treleaven and Roger Ailes.
I also have had an unexamined image of Spiro Agnew as a dummy, a loudmouthed buffoon who lived only to vent his hatred of minority groups and student protesters. But Perlstein is giving me a much more nuanced picture of him as a smart (for a while) politician, whose spewed hatred was politically calculated rather than unthinking. (Also: I had no idea what Agnew looked like until I Googled for his photo this morning -- would not have recognized a picture of him. This strikes me as odd when Nixon's image is so familiar to me.)
posted evening of July second, 2008: Respond ➳ More posts about Nixonland
Tonight we were reading Chapter 6, about Huck's pap keeping him locked in the cabin upriver from town -- toward the end of the chapter Pap is blind drunk:
I don't know how long I was asleep, but all of a sudden there was an awful scream and I was up. There was pap looking wild, and skipping around every which way and yelling about snakes. He said they was crawling up his legs; and then he would give a jump and scream, and say one had bit him on the cheek -- but I couldn't see no snakes. He started and run round and round the cabin, hollering "Take him off! take him off! he's biting me on the neck!" I never see a man look so wild in the eyes. Pretty soon he was all fagged out, and fell down panting; then he rolled over and over wonderful fast, kicking things every which way, and striking and grabbing at the air with his hands, and screaming and saying there was devils a-hold of him. He wore out by and by, and laid still a while, moaning. Then he laid stiller, and didn't make a sound. I could hear the owls and the wolves away off in the woods, and it seemed terrible still. He was laying over by the corner. By and by he raised up part way and listened, with his head to one side. He says, very low:
"Tramp -- tramp -- tramp; that's the dead; tramp -- tramp -- tramp; they're coming after me; but I won't go. Oh, they're here! don't touch me -- don't! hands off -- they're cold; let go. Oh, let a poor devil alone!"
Then he went down on all fours and crawled off, begging them to let him alone, and he rolled himself up in his blanket and wallowed in under the old pine table, still a-begging; and then he went to crying. I could hear him through the blanket.
Well I wasn't sure Sylvia was ready for the notion of delirium tremens, so I said he must be having a nightmare; she replied, "Yeah, or maybe too much whisky." So, picking up on more than I was giving her credit for. Earlier in the chapter when Pap was going on about what a good man he was, Sylvia pointed out that he really wasn't, and that Judge Thatcher understood that, but "the new judge is kind of weird."
The new box set is now available for pre-order! Robyn Hitchcock, the Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians years. (That is to say, the non-A & M Egyptians years -- the tracks on A & M, which include two of my favorite Hichcock records, are not available for the production of box sets on YepRoc.) Gotta Let This Hen Out!, Fegmania!, Element of Light (which I think more fegmaniax list as their favorite record than any other), and loads of bonus tracks too. The three records are also available for separate purchase, I don't think the double-record of unreleased tracks is though.
The Independentreports that two officers retired from the Turkish army have been arrested over a plot to assassinate a number of targets* including Orhan Pamuk. Commentators are speaking of this as a coup d'état.
The prosecution is apparently calling for Islamicists (including Prime Minister Erdoğan) to be banned from politics in Turkey.
* (In the context of Turkish politics it is difficult to find the correct adjective to qualify the targets. I was going to say "liberal" but that is not correct as I'm sure their list included some Islamicists.)
posted morning of July second, 2008: Respond ➳ More posts about Orhan Pamuk
Another batch of photos is uploaded to our family album! This set includes among other things, documentation of the murals workshop which Ellen and some other local parents taught this term. The final project was painting a mural in the ground floor hallway of the South Orange Public Library.
Also featured, the photo I would like to have on my driver's license, taken by Sylvia: I think it has a certain quality reminiscent of the Simpsons. And I want to be a cartoon, I do!
posted evening of July first, 2008: Respond ➳ More posts about Sylvia
These are the events leading up to Pamuk's trial in 2005, as related in Chapter 1 of Autobiographies of Orhan Pamuk. I've converted them into tabular format for easy reference.
Sylvia and I are taking a break from Despereaux to read Huck Finn -- she was a little skeptical when I suggested that, but two chapters in she is totally enthralled. And me too: I haven't read this book since I was about Sylvia's age or a couple of years older, but it feels like an old shoe.
Just love that singer's voice -- if I'm reading their list of band members correctly, her name is Kitty Lux. (I like the male singer a lot too, Jonty Banks I believe is his name, who has the lead in "Life on Mars"; but not in the same gut-level way. He is a technically gifted singer with a lovely voice*; she is that and also is expressive where he is sometimes emotionally flat.)
* Wait, strike that -- went back and listened to it again -- Banks is a fair singer but "technically gifted" is overstating the matter.
I met Ellen and Sylvia for dinner this evening in Montclair -- Sylvia started art camp at the Montclair Art Museum today, where she is happily learning how to draw animals. In one of her classes they are doing a group project, a sculpture of Huckleberry Finn -- Sylvia has never read it, so while we were eating we decided to swing by our favorite bookstore and pick up a copy... of course it is hard to leave there without a bunch of books. Our haul:
Huckleberry Finn
Tom Sawyer -- nice to have this on hand for when she's read Huck Finn -- it is a lesser book of course, but I remember it being a fun read.
The Prince and the Pauper, to round out the kid-friendly Twain selections.
The Golden Compass -- people keep recommending this to me; I should take a look. Sylvia is loving the Harry Potter books these days, and this seemed like it would be in a similar vein.
Teddy Roosevelt -- Sylvia's pick (after she found out that no, we're not buying Dragonology today), from a series of biographies of important Americans. Teddy Roosevelt is, she explained, her favorite president: I'm not totally clear on whether this is because 26 is her favorite number, or vice versa.
The Cave -- my pick.
posted evening of June 30th, 2008: Respond ➳ More posts about The Cave
The scene that seems to me like the thematic core of the movie, is the one where WALL-E and EVE (who I thought throughout the movie was named EVA, but apparently not) are trying to get the seedling into the ship's verification unit; the ship's autopilot is in revolt and tipping the deck over so that all the helpless humans roll off to one side, and the plant with them. But EVE's passion about accomplishing her directive is enough to inspire the human passengers to reclaim their humanity, struggle to their feet, get the plant to her.
This just seems really well-done to me. The (intensely anthropomorphic) robot is leading the humans, but she is leading them towards humanity. That was what I took away from it anyway.
Unrelatedly, you know what movie this reminded me of, æsthetically anyway? Brazil, is what. Very strongly -- the cross between science-fiction and old show tunes was enough to get me nearly there, but also I picked up a Terry Gilliam type of influence in the artist's eye. Also I guess there is a little bit of thematic crossover, though I don't think WALL-E is nearly as subversive as Brazil.
Maybe the most key thing I'm taking away from Nixonland (as of the ¾ mark), is that I've misunderstood the Nixon presidency, which I am too young to have any first-hand memory of, in a pretty fundamental way. My narrative has always been, Nixon was an evil man and wore his evil nature on his sleeve; Reagan was an evil man but was carefully costumed by his 
media handlers so as to conceal that nature.
The new box set is now 
I met Ellen and Sylvia for dinner this evening in Montclair -- Sylvia started 
Patrick 