Dr. Rat

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one. I think the thing with cool is that it really originated as a negative thing--that is, it played off a manner that was "uncool." This goes back to Lester Young, who was streets away from being "cool" as in "natural" or "unaffected." Cool for him was a theatrical performance which sent up, flustered, frustrated, puzzled and thwarted the decidedly uncool. Unfortunately there is a bullying element to this--my reading of Young is that one of his core messages was "you have left the normal context behind." Language is now different, power relationships are different, values are different. I know the language, the sources of power and the values. You do not. In many ways it was the flip-side of what an intelligent, sensitive black man must have often experienced in his travels through American society. I am not altogether unsympathetic with this move, especially in Young's case, but I think there are some distinct limitations to this essentially hostile approach to the world at large. And as the balance of hostility has shifted--as the hostility of the cool to the uncool has been matched by the increasing indifference of the uncool--the whole business has become an exercise in courting self-affirming rejection from the ignorant bourgeois. Which, if you asked me, is pretty masturbatory. Which may be why adolescents are the folks most keenly aware of and obsessed with what is cool and uncool. I'm middle aged, I have no time for the masturbatory! --eric

I'll give him another try one of these days. I came back to Hammett becasue I ran out of Chandler and couldn't see what had put me off when I was younger. Issues with my male ratness, perhaps? Mike Hammer is pretty much off the map, for me: the hard-boiled detective after all the interesting bits have boiled off. --eric

Apparently a pretty stand-up guy, too: --eric

I'm with Jim on the Uninvisible rec. And until then I didn't like them much either--had similar feelings about the contrived quality of their sound, etc. But I think they really hit their stride on that album--something clicked. --eric

Is the implication that Gould wasn't? (Not trying to argue, just curious.) Also, as an FYI, David Quammen does the nature/science thing pretty well, too, especially in The Song of the Dodo. Oh, no. Just trying to say something nice about Pinker. He's just published a piece on the matter in the NYT:

These essays are really good, and you can keep on with them through I Have Landed. The one possible annoyance is that they were written for a periodical, and Gould, over the course of hundreds of essays sometimes returns to the same points and makes them using quite similar examples and arguments. I'd also recommend the collection of Gould essays from the New York Review, Urchin in the Storm, which gives you more of his fiesty, argumentative side. The beauty of these essays is that Gould was truly a well-educated man, unlike someone like Steven Pinker who's taken his spot at Harvard. Gould sometimes liked to show that education off too much, but I'd rather have Moses Mendelson in the original than have someone quoting Huck Finn who hasn't read it. But at least Pinker's on the side of the angels on homosexuality. --eric

I'm absolutely sure that that was an intended tip of the fedora from Macdonald to Hammett. BTW: if you haven't read the Macdonald Archer's yet, then what are you waiting for? Start with The Galton Case, The Chill, or The Zebra-Striped Hearse. Then read the rest in any order. They're all good, though of course some are better than others. Thomas Berger, one of my favorite 20th Century America authors and not generally lavish with compliments, praised Macdonald sdpecifically for his voice, "for the purity of his American language, for his keeness of eye and precision of ear." He was a master. And unlike many authors confined to the Mystery ghetto, he's eminently re-readable. It's the characters and the writing that count. To paraphrase Edmund Wilson: who cares whodunit? Speaking of Berger I just read Who Is Teddy Villanova? which at one time was in every used book store in the country. Crazy, slightly surrealistic book, seemingly lightweight, but for some reason it sticks with you. I'm a big Chandler fan, and have now read through all the Library of America volumes on both Chandler and Hammett, but can't seem to get around the cliches in MacDonald. But I used to hate the tough-guy cliches in Hammett, as well. And if you were to keep on with Wilson, all of these authors would be consigned to the rubbish heap, not just the plots! --eric

I kinda like Giddens because he did stuff like write complimentary articles about Bobby Hackett at a time when it was completely uncool to do so. Back in the day when you spun the Gleason records with an audible smirk. You remeber the cocktail music craze, right? To be the uncool contrarian and not even to get much attention for it. That's cool. --eric

A few points I'd make, coming from the viewpoint of someone who runs a non-affiliated public station. First, what is it that the Nation writer is looking for? I think the relatively modest criticisms advanced by the former NPR reporter are pretty much on the mark. But what exactly would "in your face" or "kick ass journalism" be? Is that what we need from NPR when what I'd consider to be the journalistic mainstream has largely been abandoned by the commercial networks? Is NPR "not hungry enough?" Yes, probably. But I really don't think they ought to abandon the mainstream along with everyone else. The reason why they are picking up millions of listeners is because they serve a need created by developments in the commecial radio marketplace. The function of NPR isn't to provide an alternative to the mainstream. It is what formerly was the mainstream. On the minorities issue: We really ought to remember that NPR-afilliated stations are more, not less, open to minorities and their concerns now than they were when the drive to increase listenership began in the 1980s. It is understandable that the drive to win a core audience (upper-middle college educateds) has occupied most of their attention up to now. And I think it is fair to expect them to work harder to expand that audience now. But it is doubtful that NPR is ever going to have substantial appeal to working class urbanites--it would abandoning their base, and the base pays the bills. However the alternative--more complete governement funding--saw an NPR that was far more elitist than today. I think some responsiveness to the audience is essential to keeping the thing good. My big beef is not with what NPR is so much with how much of the CPB funding they suck up. My beef is that station who do try to do something different than what NPR does have a very difficult time getting funding and support. I think there ought to be a lot more money being spent on stations that are earnestly seeking to develop substantial audiences in a non-NPR fashion. That, of course, is a completely self-interested statement. --eric

I do Kotzwinkle! As much as I can, actually. I recommend it to everyone. It does no harm to your eyesight so long as the print isn't too fine. Thanks, all. Whille all this was going on I was out drinking a lot of good beer and watching one of my favorite local bands (the Neptune Quartet--mandolin, cello, bass and guitar playing everything from Tom Waits and Frank Zappa to Nature Boy). So I had a good one, and now I'm hung over. Very glad the board is back. Thanks again, everybody. And to Jim for keeping this thing going. --eric

as you like, I suppose. I kinda like having a persona (especially one that pays hommage to William Kotzwinkle), but I feel more honest making it fairly transparent. Oh, call me rat, people have been calling me eric all my life. That and shithead. --eric

We've been playing him for a couple of months, and I had no idea he was that young (I rarely look at the covers). In fact, I can hardly beleive he's that young. He not only plays with facility beyond his years, he plays with maturity beyond his years. Also, he isn't quite the show-off that the Tatum comparison might imply. --eric

I'm reading Iain Pears new book The Portrait. It's a long monologue by an artist spoken to an old friend/enemy who is a prominent art critic. I'm about halfway through and I am really happy with the way pears deals with a lot of the issues surrounding aesthetics that have very little to do with art itself--rivalry, in-groups and out-groups, fashion, Oedipal feelings, salability . . . a lot of the stuff we end up talking about here quite a bit, presented with a generous (but far from non-judgemental) understanding. A short and fast read, to boot. Pears is the author of a series of art history mysteries and of Instance of the Fingerpost (mystery set amongst the scientists and spies of seventeenth-century England. Like Stephenson's Quicksilver, but better written) and of Dream of Scipio, which I haven't been able to finish yet but which seems to be about the parallel declines of a) Roman Culture b) Medieval Christianity c)the French Third Republic and d) Us. Anyhow, so far I can give this one a strong recommendation. --eric

Is it common among medical researchers to farm out their writing tasks? My wife, who is an historian, has never heard of this being the case in her discipline. I have a friend who makes a pretty good living doing this sort of work for doctors. I suppose either historians are expected to be able to write, or there is less excess cash hanging around to pay ghostwriters in the history field than in the health field. --eric

Jeff Borroughs William Borroughs Enoch Root

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Sorry, I wasn't so much replying to you as to White. He made me mad! Grrr. Had no intention of jumping on you and your eminently reasonable post. --eric

Words: 514 (NOTE: The genie works best on texts of more than 500 words.) Female Score: 688 Male Score: 971 The words it chooses as "male" ae strange. For instance, my big masculine scorer was the word "some." --eric

Personally, I think the whole "critique" of the middlebrow is nothing but self-congatulation. Go read the Curtis White piece here. What's the big problem with Terry Gross? Well, no problem at all, as she gives White the opportunity to tell us how smart he is. And one imagines that opportunity doesn't arise nearly enough to suit Mr. White. I read this sort of cultural criticism a fair deal, and I've yet to see the critique of the middlebrow that doesn't boil down to resentment of people getting to know stuff that ought to be learned only by hanging out in the author's kind of social cirlcle and learning the secret handshake. I come from a very modest background. My father was thrown out of high school for being a wise-ass. He taught himself (and me) out of magazines anfd newspapers and reading the Encyclopedia Britannica. I myself have learned a lot from public radio, including Fresh Air. Part of the dividend of all that middlebrow learning is that I'm the first person in my family to graduate high school. I have a nice two-word answer for anyone's cavils about Fresh Air being middlebrow. Or anything else for that matter. --eric

Philip, it appears, live in Europe: --eric

Winard's put out some good records of late for Highnote. Though the covers weren't as good. --eric

Dancing about architecture? If I could put a stake through that quote's heart (& also Zappa's "smells funny" quote) I would. If anyone has a spare copy of the Rosenthal they'd like to dispose of tell me as my sister's looking for it & it's o/p. How about writing about music is like playing music about social issues? --eric

I've had pretty good luck with Varese saraband stuff from the 1950s. I have had problems with a couple of their recordings on Fuel 2000, though. (Source material was far from ideal,a nd far from the best that could be had). But, I shoudl add, that I've usually been happy with Fuel as well. --eric

I've seen the TV series (which I recommend) read the first three books and listened to the BBC series. The movie was surprisingly good, though rough in spots. The last 40 minutes or so was a mess plot-wise, but it held up well enough to get a B from me. Also, the general philosophico/religio satire came across pretty well: I feared it'd be lost on the cutting room floor. Solid. Mos Def was a little lost at times, but generally did a good job as well. --eric

1. Secular Humanism (100%) 2. Unitarian Universalism (97%) 3. Liberal Quakers (82%) 4. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (78%) 5. Nontheist (76%) 6. Theravada Buddhism (75%) Funny because any discussion of religion or the spirtual with UUs or Quakers or Buddhists drives me up a wall. The Narcissism of small differences strikes again? --eric