Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Biden II
The transcript from this video has been making the rounds as proof that Joe Biden is going to start putting his foot in his mouth. But having watched it, it has finally cured of any doubts I might have had about Obama's pick. The guy is hilarious! I mean, just insanely good sense of comic timing. Very very likable. And his openness and ease with a crowd....
I think this pick confirms what is fast becoming the iron rule of the campaign: Obama Is Better At This Than You. Anytime someone comes up with some criticism of a decision that the Obama campaign has made, they end up being proved wrong. These guys are just the best in the business. The rest of us, we should just sit back and enjoy the ride.
via.
Monday, September 1, 2008
Dreams
I am in the process of just tearing through Barack Obama's Dreams From My Father. It lacks the formality and diplomacy of The Audacity of Hope, so I think it gives you a better sesne of Obama as a writer.
His writing is a weird mix of master and novice. His descriptive skill is incredibly compact yet extremely vivid. Rarely does he not come up with the exactly the words and details to draw a picture in the minds eye, and when relating events, every phrase builds towards the scenes point. There is an ambiguity to his writing as well. Barack is much more of a shower than a teller. Scenes are often related, and though he often explains the effect some scenes had on him emotionally, like when Auma tells him about the fate of his father, other scenes receive no discussion and analysis. This actually, can often be aggravating. When A black Reverend tells him that his congregation won't work with Barack's organization because they don't want to work with some jews and Catholic churches, and besides the mayors black and he's friends with him, so why work with them now, You kind of want to know what this scene means, what it signifies of Obama, but he doesn't really say anything particular about it, just leaves you to draw your own conclusions.
On the novice front, Barack seems to have some difficulties maitaining the verisimultude of the memoir genre. The long passages of conversation are fine. You can just assume that he is recalling the broad outline of something that was once said, and he renders the character's voice acutely enough that we can buy that even if these are the exact words they said, they were in tis same voice. Besides this is just a nessesary convention to keep such writing interesting. But he has the tendency, expecially in earlier passages (you can feel him improving as the book goes on) on having the speaker state information that both characters know already, like in comic books with two old foes restate their entire origins to each other while fighting. It pulls you out when you know a character wouldn't say something like that. Also, remembrances prompted by other events are other framed as things he is thinking of at the time. I can accept that the conversations are somewhat the product of invention, because i can beleive you know the outline of it, or at least the gist. But expecting me to buy that you remember not your train of thought from several years ago is just asking to much of me, I think. It's a convention of narrative that I just can't buy as realistic.
Also, there is a fragmentary nature to the narrative, which is somewhat reminiscent of Joyce. The chapters, especially the earlier ones, jump over whole points of experience. To a degree, this is ok, since you can fill in a lot of details yourself. But sometimes it just seems fragmentary. Its hard to connect the anrgy, young, semi-militant black man of his first two years of college relates to the young boy growing up. It's kind of hard to figure how someone who relates to Malcolm X can reconcile that with being raised by entirely by white relations. Sometimes, his showing, not telling approach means he stops even showing. This would be eaiser to deal with, I think, if each of the chapters had a more cohesive whole, some kind of conclusion, but they don't They are more like breaks in the narrative. Cliffhangers. And then the narrative jumps ahead, and you are left wondering what the significance of the last chapter was. If he is going to encapsulate one period in his life, then he needs to give the capsule some sense of completelyness. The book lacks any degree of closure or conclusion. In a sense this is a good approach, because he keep reading, hoping for the various threads to come together by the end, but I am kind of doubting that Barack is going to pull this all together at the end, and make all the chapters retroactively fit into a concrete worldview. It's more like he is just offering up his experiances for perusal.
On that front though, the book is pretty devastating. The depiction of race relations in 1980's Chicago is just about the most depressing comment on the subject I have read. its just an endless series of ethnic rivalries, with all sides working against each other, making it impossible for anything to get better. I hope it's not still like that.
Which brings me to another point. This book is obviously not the work of someone who was planning on eventually running for president, or even really any political office. There's just too many details that people wouldn't want on the record, and no politician would want to be caught leaving such harsh depictions race relations. They certainly wouldn't structure an entire chapter around sitting up at 3 a.m. (heh) after a wild party, drunk and stoned and miserable. Or throw in all this cursing, including passages where he calls people motherfuckers. (There is a great novelty to thinking of the Eloquent Hopemonger saying "motherfucker." Is there an audiobook? Read by him? If so, I NEED it.)
And yet the book also makes me more trusting of him, because the image of him that emerges is very, very familiar. Take this passage:
His writing is a weird mix of master and novice. His descriptive skill is incredibly compact yet extremely vivid. Rarely does he not come up with the exactly the words and details to draw a picture in the minds eye, and when relating events, every phrase builds towards the scenes point. There is an ambiguity to his writing as well. Barack is much more of a shower than a teller. Scenes are often related, and though he often explains the effect some scenes had on him emotionally, like when Auma tells him about the fate of his father, other scenes receive no discussion and analysis. This actually, can often be aggravating. When A black Reverend tells him that his congregation won't work with Barack's organization because they don't want to work with some jews and Catholic churches, and besides the mayors black and he's friends with him, so why work with them now, You kind of want to know what this scene means, what it signifies of Obama, but he doesn't really say anything particular about it, just leaves you to draw your own conclusions.
On the novice front, Barack seems to have some difficulties maitaining the verisimultude of the memoir genre. The long passages of conversation are fine. You can just assume that he is recalling the broad outline of something that was once said, and he renders the character's voice acutely enough that we can buy that even if these are the exact words they said, they were in tis same voice. Besides this is just a nessesary convention to keep such writing interesting. But he has the tendency, expecially in earlier passages (you can feel him improving as the book goes on) on having the speaker state information that both characters know already, like in comic books with two old foes restate their entire origins to each other while fighting. It pulls you out when you know a character wouldn't say something like that. Also, remembrances prompted by other events are other framed as things he is thinking of at the time. I can accept that the conversations are somewhat the product of invention, because i can beleive you know the outline of it, or at least the gist. But expecting me to buy that you remember not your train of thought from several years ago is just asking to much of me, I think. It's a convention of narrative that I just can't buy as realistic.
Also, there is a fragmentary nature to the narrative, which is somewhat reminiscent of Joyce. The chapters, especially the earlier ones, jump over whole points of experience. To a degree, this is ok, since you can fill in a lot of details yourself. But sometimes it just seems fragmentary. Its hard to connect the anrgy, young, semi-militant black man of his first two years of college relates to the young boy growing up. It's kind of hard to figure how someone who relates to Malcolm X can reconcile that with being raised by entirely by white relations. Sometimes, his showing, not telling approach means he stops even showing. This would be eaiser to deal with, I think, if each of the chapters had a more cohesive whole, some kind of conclusion, but they don't They are more like breaks in the narrative. Cliffhangers. And then the narrative jumps ahead, and you are left wondering what the significance of the last chapter was. If he is going to encapsulate one period in his life, then he needs to give the capsule some sense of completelyness. The book lacks any degree of closure or conclusion. In a sense this is a good approach, because he keep reading, hoping for the various threads to come together by the end, but I am kind of doubting that Barack is going to pull this all together at the end, and make all the chapters retroactively fit into a concrete worldview. It's more like he is just offering up his experiances for perusal.
On that front though, the book is pretty devastating. The depiction of race relations in 1980's Chicago is just about the most depressing comment on the subject I have read. its just an endless series of ethnic rivalries, with all sides working against each other, making it impossible for anything to get better. I hope it's not still like that.
Which brings me to another point. This book is obviously not the work of someone who was planning on eventually running for president, or even really any political office. There's just too many details that people wouldn't want on the record, and no politician would want to be caught leaving such harsh depictions race relations. They certainly wouldn't structure an entire chapter around sitting up at 3 a.m. (heh) after a wild party, drunk and stoned and miserable. Or throw in all this cursing, including passages where he calls people motherfuckers. (There is a great novelty to thinking of the Eloquent Hopemonger saying "motherfucker." Is there an audiobook? Read by him? If so, I NEED it.)
And yet the book also makes me more trusting of him, because the image of him that emerges is very, very familiar. Take this passage:
In 1983, I decided to become a community organizer.Sound familiar? That's Obama writing in 1995, before he ran for public office, about himself in 1983. He all but says "change from the bottom up." And he knows what he is thinking is slightly nuts; I am pretty sure that last sentence is a bit of self-deprecating irony. But he does it anyways. And now here is that guy, years later, running for the presidency, and he is espousing the exact same things. That's stunning. There is a dreamer running for president.
There wasn't much detail to the idea; I didn't know anyone making a living that way. When classmates in college asked me just what it was that a community organizer did, I couldn't answer them directly. Instead, I'd pronounce on the need for change. Change in the White House, where Reagan and his minions were carrying on their dirty deeds. Change in Congress, compliant and corrupt. Change in the mood of the country, manic and self-absorbed. Change won't come from the top, I would say. Change will come from a mobilized grass roots.
That's what I'll do, I'll organize black folks. At the grass roots. For change.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Update II
I am starting to feel better than I was last night—listening to the Offspring and generally chilling out. Maybe all that Slipknot was getting to me. (Also Dreams From My Father, which I have been tearing through. Incredibly well-written, incredibly depressing. The community organizing sections leave me feeling profoundly depressed about the nature of the human race.)
But what I have realized just now is, thinking about Susanna Clarke, I don't need to concentrate on writing short stories. Susanna Clarke wanted to write her novel. So she worked really hard on her novel. It's what drove her. Sometimes, she stopped and wrote a short story, and got it published, but the novel is what she was concentrating on.
It SK is what I want to do, what I need to do, then that's what I should do. if some other idea comes to me, I will do that. But I need to be writing, and that means working on what drives me. That means SK. So that's what I will work on.
I have two scenes to work on.
But what I have realized just now is, thinking about Susanna Clarke, I don't need to concentrate on writing short stories. Susanna Clarke wanted to write her novel. So she worked really hard on her novel. It's what drove her. Sometimes, she stopped and wrote a short story, and got it published, but the novel is what she was concentrating on.
It SK is what I want to do, what I need to do, then that's what I should do. if some other idea comes to me, I will do that. But I need to be writing, and that means working on what drives me. That means SK. So that's what I will work on.
I have two scenes to work on.
Update
I haven't really been writing anything lately. I feel like I am in some kind of post-Gibbon funk. The thing I want to work on is SK, but I feel like I need to do more research, but I have worked on two separate scenes, and don't feel like picking them up again. I feel like I need to figure out the overall structure, like I need to do an outline, but I feel like I need to do more research, but don't feel like reading anything more. I just finished the third volume of fucking Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire! Unless I didn't, which is even more depressing.
And I want to write something. An actual story, with a beginning, middle and end. I just tried starting on something from the M stuff, but it wasn't working. I just don't feel connected with that thing right now, or I feel like it there is something sophomoric about the whole enterprise. I just can't think of a short, simple story that I want to tell (well, maybe not simple, but something not tied up in some huge megaplot that I am working on).
Maybe I should just continue trying to work on my scenes, see where that leads me, I don't know. I just know that I am starting to go antsy out here. This state is getting to me, and I don't feel like an am getting anywhere. There's all these questions and desires and thoughts kicking around in my head about things and stuff and big questions and little errands and dreams and I can't sort and of it out and feel like if I don't make some progress on something in this whole life thing soon, within a couple of months, then it will just never fucking end and I will just keep spinning my wheels here forever and ever and ever. I need something, some valediction, some sign of accomplishment, but I have done nothing to earn any, and right now, I just feel directionless.
And I want to write something. An actual story, with a beginning, middle and end. I just tried starting on something from the M stuff, but it wasn't working. I just don't feel connected with that thing right now, or I feel like it there is something sophomoric about the whole enterprise. I just can't think of a short, simple story that I want to tell (well, maybe not simple, but something not tied up in some huge megaplot that I am working on).
Maybe I should just continue trying to work on my scenes, see where that leads me, I don't know. I just know that I am starting to go antsy out here. This state is getting to me, and I don't feel like an am getting anywhere. There's all these questions and desires and thoughts kicking around in my head about things and stuff and big questions and little errands and dreams and I can't sort and of it out and feel like if I don't make some progress on something in this whole life thing soon, within a couple of months, then it will just never fucking end and I will just keep spinning my wheels here forever and ever and ever. I need something, some valediction, some sign of accomplishment, but I have done nothing to earn any, and right now, I just feel directionless.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Biden
I found out about the Biden as VP announcement last night while up late, read more about it this morning, thought about it at work, and read some more about it when I got home (late). And I have to say, the more I think about it, the more I like it, and I think it's because I think a lot of the criticisms of it are wrong.
The main criticism seems to be that they think Biden is, as Kos put it, fills a gap: that Obama is covering a percieved criticism with the pick, either a lack of foreign policy experiance or an inability to attack his political opponents. Maybe Obama was thinking of these things, but I doubt it. I don't think the guy who won the Iraq Debate—when the leader of Iraq endorses your plan, you win—is looking for someone to bolster his foreign policy cred. I think that Obama actually went with Biden because he actually reinforces a lot of Obama's appeal.
The reasons are have supported Barack Obama are these: 1)He is the only politician who has articulated a version of America that I can belong to, the accepts and welcomes me. 2) He comes across not as a politician, as some weird amorphous creature that shifts form with every new round of polling data, but as an actual person for whom being a politician is simply his job. 3) While his political views are not as far to the left as I would like, they are far enough that I don't feel he is really on the other side, like I do with anyone in the DLC, and they represent a clear and present shift from present centrist opinion. 4) He has the mad political skills to actually get those policies enacted. Getting Obama's politicies in place is better than failing to get Kucinich's or Nader's in place. The perfect may be kept in mind, but always work for the possible.
With Biden, I feel he works to strengthen Obama's vision of America. Biden is a working-class kid who made it to the senate at an impossibly young age, and dealt with reams of personal tradgedy, yet worked through it all. He's actually kind of inspiring. And like Obama, he comes across as human, not a politician. Biden has been a senator so long the man is just completely comfortable in his skin. The guy you see on stage is not an act, and he doesn't try to put on airs or change his rhetoric to acomodate anyone. He is who he is, and that's good. If I am going to be putting the Button in someone's hands, or putting them heartbeat way from the Button, I would like to know them as a person a bit, becasue robots are scary. I don't have to like them, in fact it's very possible Biden is a huge asshole, I just have to know they aren't lying to me. Coming across as real, as an actual person, means coming across as someone who isn't lying, as someone who is honest. Biden seems to be honest. After Clinton and Bush, and Gore, who, god love him, couldn't keep those goddamn advisors off him enough, and only really flowered once he stopped giving a fuck and it was too late to get elected, I need that.
Concerning Biden on the issues, he seems to be pretty good. A couple of big disagreeances, but for the most part he seems to be a solid Good Democrat, and while I would of course like a Good Social Democrat, I am not feeling to greedy right now. The fourth point, eh, obviously Biden isn't the political phenom Obama is, but the guy is obviously a policy heavyweight, in a way Hilary Clinton can only wish she was, so even if he isn't a political phenom, the guy can run the show, which is really the VP's main qualification.
The main criticism seems to be that they think Biden is, as Kos put it, fills a gap: that Obama is covering a percieved criticism with the pick, either a lack of foreign policy experiance or an inability to attack his political opponents. Maybe Obama was thinking of these things, but I doubt it. I don't think the guy who won the Iraq Debate—when the leader of Iraq endorses your plan, you win—is looking for someone to bolster his foreign policy cred. I think that Obama actually went with Biden because he actually reinforces a lot of Obama's appeal.
The reasons are have supported Barack Obama are these: 1)He is the only politician who has articulated a version of America that I can belong to, the accepts and welcomes me. 2) He comes across not as a politician, as some weird amorphous creature that shifts form with every new round of polling data, but as an actual person for whom being a politician is simply his job. 3) While his political views are not as far to the left as I would like, they are far enough that I don't feel he is really on the other side, like I do with anyone in the DLC, and they represent a clear and present shift from present centrist opinion. 4) He has the mad political skills to actually get those policies enacted. Getting Obama's politicies in place is better than failing to get Kucinich's or Nader's in place. The perfect may be kept in mind, but always work for the possible.
With Biden, I feel he works to strengthen Obama's vision of America. Biden is a working-class kid who made it to the senate at an impossibly young age, and dealt with reams of personal tradgedy, yet worked through it all. He's actually kind of inspiring. And like Obama, he comes across as human, not a politician. Biden has been a senator so long the man is just completely comfortable in his skin. The guy you see on stage is not an act, and he doesn't try to put on airs or change his rhetoric to acomodate anyone. He is who he is, and that's good. If I am going to be putting the Button in someone's hands, or putting them heartbeat way from the Button, I would like to know them as a person a bit, becasue robots are scary. I don't have to like them, in fact it's very possible Biden is a huge asshole, I just have to know they aren't lying to me. Coming across as real, as an actual person, means coming across as someone who isn't lying, as someone who is honest. Biden seems to be honest. After Clinton and Bush, and Gore, who, god love him, couldn't keep those goddamn advisors off him enough, and only really flowered once he stopped giving a fuck and it was too late to get elected, I need that.
Concerning Biden on the issues, he seems to be pretty good. A couple of big disagreeances, but for the most part he seems to be a solid Good Democrat, and while I would of course like a Good Social Democrat, I am not feeling to greedy right now. The fourth point, eh, obviously Biden isn't the political phenom Obama is, but the guy is obviously a policy heavyweight, in a way Hilary Clinton can only wish she was, so even if he isn't a political phenom, the guy can run the show, which is really the VP's main qualification.
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