Recently Read

Cat Sense
by John Bradshaw

Cat Sense
by John Bradshaw

It’s not exactly a mystery: cats are a mystery. Perhaps no animal is so beguiling in its actions, its sense of itself, its mere way of being, as the domesticated cat. And all that enigma wrapped in riddle surrounded by puzzle invariably leads interested parties to both write books about cats and read books about them. No surprise, then, that this cat fancier found his way to the pages of Cat Sense, the recent exploration of all things feline by researcher John Bradshaw.

The book’s subtitle--How the New Feline Science Can Make You a Better Friend to Your Pet--makes multiple promises, which the text comes close to delivering. Bradshaw reports on any number of cat related phenomena using data derived from fairly rigorous scientific research; so the “new feline science” part rings quite true. That stuff about making you a better friend to your cat? Well...maybe. That may depend less upon the information presented, and more upon how you use that information--and even then it may be a dodgy proposition.

Time Flies When You Can't Remember Why Time Flies

I'm shocked and appalled to discover that it has been damn near three months since I posted anything other than a movie review to this blog. Not coincidentally, for most of the last two and a half months I've been working almost full time five days a week--something I had not been doing since 2009. No wonder I've been so tired, and distracted, and thwarted in most of my efforts to be doing what I want to do, rather than what I'm required to do.

It is my sincere wish that all that will change soon. I think I'm just a week or two from working out the details on how I may be able to keep on working but have more time for the good stuff--an arrangement that, if it works out, will probably radically transform my current situation. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

In the meantime, I invite you to enjoy a few recent movie reviews, posted at the right under their usual place. Keep watching the screens...

Reel Reviews

Zero Dark Thirty -- Depending upon your politics, you may be predisposed to hate this movie before the first scene. But a more practical reason to hate this movie might be its simple banality. Certainly that’s true in the early torture scenes; it’s surprisingly easy to be blase about the evils men do, especially this many years down the line. There’s also a certain predictability--even beyond the already well-known endgame--that pervades much of this film’s story structure. I certainly wouldn’t call it a Best Picture worthy film, despite the nomination, but it’s probably worth your time, perhaps to be watched with a certain amount of clinical detachment. I guess that’s the cost of doing business within the notorious muddle this film seeks to depict. Posted 8/21/13.

Reel Reviews

The Cabin In The Woods -- Oh, shit. The Initiative lives, and it’s way more fucked up than anyone ever imagined. Whedon probably deserves a markdown for cribbing from himself, but the results justify the recursiveness. Because man, once this thing gets going, it really gets going--with enough gusto to overcome the horror genre cynicism of even the most jaded and skeptical viewer. Definitely worth a look. Posted 8/21/13.

Taylor's Laws

An occasional series in which I promulgate certain laws of nature, to help us better understand the universe around us

---

Taylor's Vehicular Follicle Law

Any luxury car, when being driven with at least one passenger accompanying the driver, will contain at least one blonde person.

Explication: This law is described purely from observational sources. Having lived in enclaves frequented by luxury car drivers for many a year, I can attest from personal witness that this law is true. Why this circumstance is the way it is, is probably an exercise best left to the intelligence of the reader. The socioeconomics of blondness being what they are, this is almost axiomatic, in an a = a sort of way. Nevertheless, this law is worth recording for posterity, if nothing else. Note that the blonde person in question need not be the passenger; it is only necessary for there to be at least two bodies in the vehicle for the law to be operative. (It is entirely possible for a solo luxury car driver to be raven-haired; but if said person is accompanied by a passenger, that passenger will be blonde.)

Recently Read

Fat Chance
by Robert H. Lustig, M.D.

Fat Chance
by Robert Lustig, M.D.

I'm not qualified to judge the science presented in this book. I am, much to my chagrin, overly qualified to judge the judgments that Dr. Lustig makes about being obese--and that is why I highly recommend this book.

There are two sides to the issue presented in Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease. On the one hand, you have the science mentioned above. Lustig delivers a strong case--as strong a case as you can make in layman's terms for a very technical argument--that the obesity pandemic that is now ravaging the world is largely the product of the over consumption of sugar, specifically fructose in processed foods. Making heads or tails of the effects of leptin, insulin resistance, ghrelin, and other hormones on the hypothalamus, and how all that translates into weight gain and "metabolic syndrome," can be a bit of a slog, especially if you're not technically minded. Suffice it to say, Lustig explains these medical matters with enough simplicity and clarity that a reasonably well-informed reader will likely judge his thesis to be sound and consistent.

On the other hand, there is the matter of the experience of obesity, both from Lustig's patients (related as illustrative anecdotes throughout the book's chapters), and the reader's own understanding of that experience. This is where the rubber meets the road--or, to be more apt, where the sugar hits the liver--for making the case that Fat Chance represents an honest, accurate reflection of what has happened to people all over the world, what is happening to more people as time goes by, and what the legacy of that crisis will be for our world if nothing is done to change society's course.

If you read this book as someone who has suffered through a lifetime of weight problems, you can't help but recognize in this text descriptions of the mechanics of obesity that dovetail perfectly with your own life story. Who hasn't grown up fat and wondered why you were made that way? What fat person hasn't felt the frustration of failure to control his or her behavior--supposedly the key aspect of how people get to be obese? Lustig has answers for these and other questions that contradict the received wisdom about obesity: the long-standing philosophical position that if you're fat, it's because you make bad choices.

Not so, according to the author; Lustig presents ideas that explain why so many of the treatments for obesity that have been preferred up till now--by the medical community, by government, by fat people themselves--simply haven't worked. He argues that behavior follows biology, not the other way around; that a calorie is not a calorie (meaning, different types of calories affect the body differently); that changing environment is more effective than changing diet; that our modern food industry has a stake in making us sick, despite the costs to the rest of society. All of this rings all too true, both to someone who has been trapped in an overweight life, and to anyone who has been paying attention to the overarching trends in our world, especially societal and political trends regarding the production of our food supply. In that ring of veracity the reader finds a forceful argument in favor of Lustig's view of the problem, and thus the utility of this book.

While Lustig makes it clear that the odds are indeed stacked against us, he does offer a blueprint for fixing the problem, for both the individual and society. The doctor's advice on how to overcome your personal obesity challenge--raised awareness about sugar in the foods you eat, getting more fiber in your diet, exercising as much as you can, and having manageable expectations about your health--may not seem revolutionary, but it strikes this reader as the best possible message on the subject. Lustig's prescriptions for societal cures--higher taxes on sugar, changes to subsidies and tariffs on various foodstuffs (discouraging sugar, encouraging fresh foods, etc.), using the fight against tobacco as a model for fighting the food industry--seem more far-fetched, if reasonable given the scope of the problem, simply due to the corruption and intransigence of governmental agencies. But at least the ideas are there, and given the seemingly insurmountable odds against putting any of those top down reforms in place, perhaps that hopelessness itself can spur the individual to take the necessary steps himself. After all, can you really expect help to come from Congress, or McDonald's? Fat chance, as the doctor might say.

I can't recommend this book highly enough, especially to anyone who is obese and wants to understand what has happened to him or her. Knowing about science and politics is all well and good, but knowing about yourself is always the key to any number of mysteries. In Fat Chance, anyone who cares about the obesity pandemic may indeed find that crucial key.

Route of Lesser Evil

I was recently discussing my bicycling exploits with several folks here and there, and describing my current typical route seemed unsatisfying. Most folks who live around here probably got it in general terms, but even so it may have been a bit unclear on the whole dimensions of the thing. So I got to thinking: why not show instead of tell?

The result of that thought is sitting above: a composite, courtesy of Google Maps, of the length of my now typical standard route, marked in red with arrows to show direction of travel. Click on the map above for a full sized view (your browser window may or may not show the full pic in one shot; you may need to right-click and choose "View Image" to get the 100% view).

Most of the trip runs along the same path, but towards the end--where I've been stretching out the distance lately--the route follows a loop instead of a simple out and back. I'm not sure what the total distance is; I know that from Alamo Plaza (starting point) to downtown Danville, where the trail crosses the boulevard, is almost exactly 3 miles, so 6 miles to there and back. The total distance of the attached loop is a bit of mystery, but I know the leg of the Iron Horse Trail that goes under the freeway is .71 miles, and that part below Sycamore Valley Road (to Paraiso) is almost half a mile by itself (.43 mile, to be exact); so the full loop has to add at least 2 miles to the total. So the total round trip must be something just beyond 8 miles. If I'm feeling good that day, and the weather's good, I usually take around 57 minutes to complete the circuit.

I don't know if this impresses anyone or not. I know it impresses me, considering that last year at this time I rarely went beyond that point where the trail crosses the boulevard. My fitness has certainly gotten better, thanks to the lengthier workout, and as noted in the previous post, my weight has now gotten down to a number I haven't seen since 2003, at least. "Best physical condition in 10 years" is something worth crowing about, I think.

So there it is. Hope you're impressed.

For The Record, Scale Check

Finally, about 10 months later, I've reached another downward milestone. I haven't seen 282 on my scale since at least 2003--ten years ago; and it's probably more like since 2002, so you can really chalk it up to an even longer period.

Hopefully, the next time I see an even smaller number will be fairly soon. Keep watching this space.

Recently Read

Eats, Shoots & Leaves
by Lynne Truss

Eats, Shoots & Leaves
by Lynne Truss

I’ll admit it: I’m baffled by this book.

In the past, whenever I wanted to consult an oracle on matters of punctuation, I would grab my copy of Strunk & White’s venerable The Elements of Style. But I’m willing to modernize when the occasion seems suitable, and my writing has had recurring issues with certain matters grammatical and syntactical; consulting a new oracle seemed like a good idea.

Enter Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss. This book was an unexpected bestseller when it hit the shelves some ten years ago, and it seems to have received rave reviews from anyone who had cause to care. Thus, I opened this small volume expecting both help with my writing and an entertaining discourse on all things punctuation.

As it turned out, I didn’t really get either one.

Regarding the punctuation: I consulted this book specifically for a definitive judgment about my personal punctuation hobgoblin, the “Oxford” comma. (It’s the comma that cradles the penultimate item on a list, just before the ‘and’ that marks the last item in the sequence. For example: red, white, and blue; versus today’s kinda/sorta standard usage: red, white and blue.) This comma question always puzzles me, so I figured, let’s see what the current standard bearer for correct punctuation has to say about it. Surely a book boasting a “zero tolerance approach to punctuation” would be able to provide the kind of ironclad guidance I needed. Right?

Well, no. Truss, the self-described “stickler” who authored this work, grabs the Oxford comma with both hands...and then punts. Her stance on the Oxford comma:

My own feeling is that one shouldn’t be too rigid about the Oxford comma. Sometimes the sentence is improved by including it; sometimes it isn’t.

Oh, of course. And sometimes my asshole needs wiping; sometimes it doesn’t.

What the hell? That waffling statement sure doesn’t seem like a “zero tolerance” approach to punctuation. Truss’s indecision left my writing in exactly the same place where it started--not exactly the sort of help I was seeking.

To be fair, Truss provides examples that underscore the uncertainty that lies beneath her Hamlet-like vacillation about the Oxford comma. The reader can see some sense in the author’s equivocation on this admittedly esoteric point of contention. But when readers pick up a book about punctuation, they expect to find firm rules to follow, rules that provide the intellectual framework that will improve their writing. As in all things in life, uncertainty doesn’t help.

Nevertheless, I’m willing to strike another blow for fairness and note that, on most matters of punctuation, Truss hews much closer to her stated goal of “zero tolerance.” Much of Truss’s instruction comes in clear, concise, definitive directions on usage that, if the reader can absorb it all, will undoubtedly improve his writing, especially for those writers who have weak spots that need buttressing. The Oxford comma stumble is somewhat anomalous, though for someone like myself it’s a most inconvenient anomaly.

As for the entertaining discourse...well, that leaves much to be desired, too. Truss writes in a tone that may be shooting for light, breezy, and conversational, but that actually comes across as pedantic, supercilious, and perhaps a little bit crazy. (Note: two Oxford commas in that last sentence; I think they work in that context...but can I really be sure?) The author’s almost celebratory account of her nitpicking life does less to convince you that Truss knows her grammar and more to make the case that she can be a real pain in the ass. Reading her manifesto of moral outrage over bad punctuation makes it seem like you’d have a better time staying at home with your sciatica than spending a night on the town with Truss--especially if she brings along her markers, paper cutouts, and various other implements of grammar guerrilla warfare. (Given her account, Truss seems destined to get arrested for defacing private property with her on-the-go editing, and if you’re hanging around with her you’ll probably get hauled in, too.) The worst of this pomposity pervades the Introduction; Truss has enough sense to play things closer to the vest in the heart of the book. Thus, a word to the wise: skipping the Introduction entirely may make Eats, Shoots & Leaves a better, more useful read from the start.

So Eats, Shoots & Leaves is a classic “mixed bag” of a book. You can get something out of it, if you want to (or need to) improve your writing, and if you can stand an author who is quintessentially too geeky for her own good. Just skip that Introduction and try to absorb the main body of the text directly. Or better yet: get a secondhand copy of the book and keep it on the shelf near your desk as a reference, checking on the rules of usage on an as-needed basis. (The book lacks an index--another point of demerit--but it’s short enough that you can find what you need quickly by checking the table of contents and browsing a few pages.) Any book that achieved bestseller status ten years ago should be readily available at a used book sale for a dollar or two at most.

Whatever you may think about the tone of this book, or using the Oxford comma, or crazy grammar people in general, this can be said for certain about Eats, Shoots & Leaves: Truss is right that too many people don’t know good grammar--and thus, any grammar guide, if used, is better than none at all.

It's Worse Than You Think. Much Worse.

Put that Kool-Aid down. The Heat are not heroes

---

(This is a very long post. Apologies in advance, but I wanted to make my case as comprehensively as possible.)

So here we are. The Miami Heat have just won the second of two straight championships, and the hype and hagiography machine is rolling on, as expected. Here's a sample of the  headlines in reaction to Thursday night's game:

Litke: Victory Validates LeBron's Decision (AP, via the Comcast home page)

LeBron James, Dwyane Wade deliver another NBA title in a Game 7 to remember (Wetzel, Yahoo! Sports)

Back-to-back champ LeBron James helps elevate beauty of game with help from tenacious Spurs (Wojnarowski, Yahoo! Sports)

The articles are pretty much what you'd expect: plenty of laudatory prose showered upon LeBron James, some for Dwyane Wade, not so much for Chris Bosh. A bevy of "One Shining Moment" style salutes to the King James and his Heatles. A touch of "ends justifies the means" rationalization in favor of James and "The Decision"--but with very little cogent analysis of what was so wrong with the Heat from the very beginning.

And no one bothers to say the magic word: collusion.

Dan Litke, at the very least, comes closest. In his column Litke addresses the fact that Miami's assemblage of superstars came together under a very dark cloud of criticism. He writes:

James was already the best player in the game when he made "The Decision'' nearly three years ago, a move that the rest of the basketball world pounced on as a sign of weakness, a tacit admission that he couldn't win a championship all by himself.

James was right on that score...

The Heat were convenient villains, fair or not, for skipping most of the preliminaries and assembling the core of the team with little more than a checkbook. James' move to Miami touched off free-agent envy among his superstar brethren - everybody wanted to be a part of a Big Three somewhere - and the rest of the league is still scrambling to put one together as formidable as Riley's troika in Miami.

Indeed. No team has yet put together a viable counterpunch to Miami's Big Three--and that inability to match up has been the crux of the problem right from the start. That line about "free-agent envy" makes it seem like the issue rests only within the psyches of other NBA superstars; but, as I've argued all along, what happened in the summer of 2010 struck right to the core of the Association and its ability to showcase a truly competitive professional sport. And, of course, it also highlights the other end of this grim reality: the brutal failure of the so-called sports "journalists" to get this story in any way correct in fact or analysis.

As I first argued in this post, non-Miami based NBA players, executives, and (especially) fans had cause for howling in protest against James's move, not out of simple envy, nor because LeBron made a social faux pas (actually staged one, that is, on ESPN no less), nor because the three amigos then backed up the original faux pas with that ridiculous pep-rally/smoke machine show days later. No, the problem lies in the fact that three of the game's best players colluded to try to rig the sport by placing themselves all on one team.

In some ways, it's a simple numbers game. In the Summer of 2010, James, Wade and Bosh were clearly among the top fifteen players in the game--possibly even top twelve or ten. (James was and is the consensus best player in the game, while Wade certainly ranked in the top six or seven. For all the criticism he gets today, Bosh back then was clearly an All-Star and a sought-after free agent--at least the 15th best player in the game). All three had been members of the 2008 gold medal winning USA basketball team at the Beijing Olympics--a sign that they were certainly among the twelve best American hoopsters, at least. James, Wade and Bosh were the pick of the 2010 free agent litter; any players who could match them in stature were either already on the decline, or securely under contract, or both.

So then, you scoop up the three best available players in free agency, all of whom are at least top fifteen quality players, and you put them on one team. What does that mean? Well, it leaves only twelve of the top fifteen players remaining--for the other twenty-nine teams. Even if each of the four remaining best players had their own two running mates on one roster, that would still limit the fifteen best players in the game to only five teams (out of thirty). More likely, due to reasons of contract status, age, and a host of other variables, those other twelve players will remain scattered, singly or in duos, throughout the rest of the league. If all the remaining top players are evenly distributed on other teams, that still leaves seventeen teams in the league without one of those top players at all.

Does that affect the league's competitive balance? Of course it does. Remember, in the best of scenarios, the NBA is the least competitively balanced of the four major North American professional sports leagues. (I discussed this fact in the research article "The Champs-Chumps Ratio," still available online at Scribd.) Start clumping the superstars together on just a few teams, and that propensity towards competitive imbalance will become overwhelmingly decisive. Already, few teams go into an NBA season with a viable chance to win the championship; let the best players pick and choose their own teams and teammates, and the trophy being passed among two or three teams (at most) will become a foregone conclusion. All the rest of the teams in the league become nothing more than well-paid versions of the Washington Generals.

And the fans of those out-of-the-superstar-loop teams? What do they do? Apparently, they can go pound sand, for all James, Wade and Bosh care.

Remember, Miami's Big Three were not assembled through good scouting, drafting and coaching (a la the Spurs of Duncan, Parker and Ginobili); nor were they constructed by way of shrewd trades at just the right time (like the Celtics did with Garnett, Pierce and Allen). No, the Heat's superstars came together because they colluded to put themselves together on one roster. In doing so, they raised a gigantic middle finger in the faces of the fans of every team that could have been helped by any one of those guys, had there been a true market for their services.

And to what end was that middle finger raised? "Not five, not six, not seven..." Those words are treated as a joke these days--an arrogant joke, to be sure, but somehow not reflective of James's true intentions. But taken at face value (as they should be), that's a pretty lofty mission statement, one that defines the players' intrigues as an action taken with the goal of creating a competitive imbalance designed to secure multiple championships.

In other words, the Heat's Big Three colluded to rig the sport in favor of their success. And in doing so, they unleashed a torrent of consequences, both intended and unintended, that will shape the NBA for years to come.

We've already covered one consequence: more competitive imbalance. The Heat were prohibitive favorites to win the championship from the moment James, Wade and Bosh inked their contracts; they were only thwarted from their original stated goal by the Mavericks, coming up a mere two games shy of winning three straight titles.

This imbalance plays out not just in the postseason, but in the regular season, too. Think about the Heat's 27 game winning streak this year. I covered that phenomenon at the time in this post. To briefly recap the point made there: one of the reasons the Heat were able to go on that streak was because, thanks to the collusion that put James and Bosh on the same team with Wade, two other teams in the East were weakened to the same extent that Miami was made stronger. And, of course, its even worse than that, because not only were Cleveland and Toronto stripped of their best players three years ago, but every other team around the league that could have been made better by signing one of those free agents in 2010 didn't get better. Not only were the Heat playing the Cavs and Raptors, who were with out James and Bosh respectively, but every other team they played was without the services of James and Bosh, too. No wonder they had such an easy time winning in such a streak.

But wait--it gets worse. Remember when the Heat signed James and Bosh to go with Wade? Many pundits suggested that paying the salaries of all three players would be so onerous for Miami that it would be the Big Three and a roster full of rookie free agents for the foreseeable future. Yet, who was playing for the Heat during this year's playoffs, besides the Big Three? Names like Miller, Andersen, Battier, and Allen all appeared on Heat jerseys this season--all veterans of more than a decade in the Association, and all made valuable contributions to the Heat's championship run. How is it possible that the Heat could employ such veteran (and theoretically high-priced) talent when they have to pay three superstars--under a salary cap, no less?

Now we see just how insidious is the effect of what James, Wade and Bosh did back in 2010. Veteran NBA players aren't particularly stupid. They're jocks, but they ain't so dumb that they can't see which way the wind is blowing. With James and Bosh moving to Miami and making the Heat overwhelming favorites to win the championship, other players could see that, if they wanted to be playing for anything other than second place and a smaller playoff share, they would do well to sign with the Heat--for less money than they might otherwise make somewhere else--and make up the difference in championship prestige, a higher playoff share, maybe even some endorsements that would not have been on the table if they'd been playing in, say, Portland. So the Heat get the veteran help they need, just the right players to fill the roles and cement their championship pedigree, despite the burden of having to pay the superstars' salaries. Salary cap? What salary cap? In effect, the Big Three's collusion to rig the game in their favor didn't just bring them together, didn't just weaken other teams by drawing their own selves away from those other teams and by denying other squads their services, didn't just weaken other teams by prying away veteran role players--it actually in a de facto sense abrogated the salary cap. You don't have to worry so much about staying under a salary cap if players are begging you to play for your team--for less money than they would make somewhere else.

What that means is, the collusion by James, Wade and Bosh effectively changed the league's rules--but only for their team. Other franchises, without the drawing power of playing beside the Big Three, remained hampered by the NBA's salary cap. For a team that, before the ink was even dry, had an enormous edge over its competitors as soon as the Big Three were signed, the cumulative effect of the advantages gained from those acquisitions was overwhelming. Rigged is almost too weak a word for it.

Oh, yeah, and another thing: what about the precedent these shenanigans have set? Will it be good for the NBA as a whole when, in six years or so, Damian Lillard, Harrison Barnes, and Anthony Davis get together (assuming the continuing upward progress of their careers) and dictate where the three of them will play together--most likely in New York, or Los Angeles, maybe Boston or Chicago? Sure, it will be good for them as individual players, but what about the fans and franchises they leave behind (Portland, Golden State and New Orleans, respectively)? Again, pound sand, fellas. Inevitably, teams that are not constantly, aggressively in the spotlight, that are not traditional glamour teams, will not be able to hold onto their star players, max contracts or not. If you're a fan of one of those lower caste teams, you should be saying, "You want me to pay how much? For tickets to this shit?" Not exactly a sustainable business model. Contrast that with the NFL, where even a team in the hinterlands of Green Bay, Wisconsin can compete on an even level with everyone else, can keep its star players, can always (given competent management) promise its fans a legitimate shot at a title. Does that sound like. let's say, the Utah Jazz to you? Not in LeBron James's NBA.

Remember all this as you read the continuing cascade of fawning words that will come in the following days. We're all supposed to love/adore/suck off LeBron James and his Heatles now, even if we were a little bit angry about that whole sideshow thing at the start. The sages of the sports pages have declared it so. But...how are you really supposed to feel about someone who wins with a stacked deck? I seem to recall a nation, back when I was young, where people actually cared about fairness. Rigging things in your favor was looked down upon, if not actively censured or beaten back. And sports, after all, are supposed to be about competition--fair competition. There's a reason why, when kids get together on a playground, the two captains (usually the best players) are on opposite teams, and they take turns picking players for their respective teams--they do it to make sure the game is fair. That should always be the goal whenever games are played.

Fairness has taken a beating in our society; it has been so for decades now. Working people see the beating fairness has taken in shrinking wages and lost jobs; homeowners see it in unfair mortgages and unjustified foreclosures; poor people see it whenever they butt heads with the criminal justice system. Perhaps this condition reflects the larger society around the game, but what goes on in today's NBA cannot be called fair. The deck is very, very stacked now.

And while others may get lost in the fog of hero worship, I can't bring myself to cheer for someone who wins with a stacked deck. All the talk about LeBron James and his legacy, about how it has just gotten so much better, represents in my view little more than wishful thinking--or perhaps a deliberate attempt to engineer that version of "the truth." Seen in the cold hard light of a clear day, I think that legacy has in fact gotten much, much worse.

Reel Reviews -- G

Galaxy Quest (+) -- Even though I don't particularly like Tim Allen, this one was still enough fun to overcome that obstacle.

Gangs Of New York (+) -- Best Picture? No. But it certainly isn't bad. The production is lavish and first rate. And Daniel Day-Lewis is simply extraordinary as Bill the Butcher; the movie is worth watching just for his performance alone. Posted 2/28/04.

Gattica (+) -- An interesting take on the issue of genetic engineering, and the potential pitfalls of making "designer" human beings. Check it out.

The General (~) -- Director John Boorman's crime drama raises a bunch of questions. Most pertinent: Why should we care? What is it about the titular "General"--Irish ultra-thief Martin Cahill--that makes him compelling enough to deserve the celluloid treatment? Because he was clever? So are a lot of people who don't steal. Because he was a family man? SFW, as they say; lots of people have kids, including many of those from whom Cahill stole. Some half-baked socioeconomic ideology? That's a poor excuse, given that so many others from the same background stay on the other side of the law. This film is yet another example that crime is not in and of itself endlessly fascinating. It has its moments, but the subject ultimately fails to engage all but the most devoted fans of the genre. Posted 11/21/05.

Ghost World (+) -- Hits the nail on the head more often than a town full of Amish people building a barn. An awesomely true story with clever writing and a dead-on recognition of what's what in this world. The only possible quibble: in real life, girls that cute don't get that surly. Otherwise, it's perfect. A "Best of All" inductee. Posted 10/3/02.

Giant (~) -- Part of the ever-so-small James Dean catalog. It has its merits, if you're up to sitting through a very long movie.

The Gift (~) -- A run-of-the-mill mystery thriller, with a little horror thrown in. Not as good as A Simple Plan, the other Sam Raimi-Billy Bob Thornton collaboration (in this case, B.B. merely wrote the thing). It does reaffirm my position that I will never move to the "deep" South. Posted 8/26/02.

Girl, Interrupted (~) -- Not bad, but it didn't really seem to say all that much.

The Girl Next Door (+) -- A movie that's very entertaining, filled with hot chicks--especially the sizzling Elisha Cuthbert, whom the camera thoroughly ogles--plays it racy (in a good way), and doesn't ask too much. The only problem? Too many bends in the story. A simpler story arc might have served better. But that's not enough reason to complain. It won't change the world, but you'll probably like it. Posted 5/15/06.

Girl With A Pearl Earring (~) -- Competent, but hardly compelling. Such a languid film should bring some serious goods when it finally reaches its climax, but this one just doesn't come through. I'm still not sure what point the movie was trying to make; or maybe there was no point at all. And that begs the question: why bother? Posted 3/7/05.

Glengarry Glen Ross (+) -- If you have ever had to work with salespeople, this is an absolute must see. Alec Baldwin shows up early on and delivers a harangue that ranks as one of the best speeches in the history of cinema. A great cast, including Jack Lemmon, Alan Arkin, Al Pacino, Ed Harris and Kevin Spacey, pulls you along through David Mamet's compelling story.

Go (--) -- Horrible people living horrible lives. It might have worked if it had reached its sought-after Tarantino territory, but this is no Pulp Fiction; there isn't enough humor and wit to redeem it. At least Swingers (by the same director) was enjoyable. Posted 11/5/02.

Gods And Monsters (+) -- An entertaining look at Frankenstein director James Whale's last lusty gay days.

Godzilla 2000 (~) -- Why is it that Godzilla, despite constantly destroying half of Japan, always comes out as something of a hero in these movies? Why, for that matter, does he always show up in Japan (the recent Hollywood version notwithstanding)? And, most pertinently, why would a Godzilla movie released in 2000 still look so damn cheesy? They couldn't float for good special effects at this point in the series, on an almost guaranteed money-maker? By any objective standard, this is a bad movie--but it's still entertaining, with some nice visuals and the tried and true "monsters blowing shit up" formula. If you can dig the camp value, you'll like it; if not, skip it. Posted 7/20/03.

Goldeneye (+) -- Pierce Brosnan steps into 007's tuxedo, and acquits himself rather nicely. Basic fun--no more, no less.

Good Bye, Lenin! (+) -- A movie that starts sweet and charming, funny but not a riot, which then slowly builds into something surprisingly involving and emotional before the end. And if you're nostalgic for Cold War East Germany, hey, bonus points for you. A film that's ultimately more than the sum of its parts. Strongly recommended. Posted 4/7/09.

Good Night, And Good Luck (+) -- Certainly the best movie I've seen this year. Along with the compelling story and excellent acting, George Clooney has fashioned a beautiful film: lovely use of black and white cinematography, compelling shots of light and shadow that echo the polarized story elements. And David Strathairn's professional, restrained performance as Edward R. Murrow is worthy of many awards. You must see this film. Posted 10/30/05.

Goodfellas (+) -- A qualified approval. The movie is entertaining enough, but it's not as good as everyone says it is. I personally don't find criminals all that appealing.

Gormenghast (~) -- They sure laid the British eccentricity on thick with this one. On the plus side, it's visually interesting, has a few great lines, and generally holds the interest. On the minus side, it's overly long, loaded with the aforementioned eccentricity--some folks just won't "get it"--and the climax is too flat and something of a letdown. Add it all up, and you get the so-so squiggle. If you really dig fantasy, I'd recommend it. Otherwise, you have leave to skip it. (Note: this is actually a short miniseries produced by the BBC, though it is compact enough to stand as a very long movie.) Posted 8/17/04..

The Graduate (~) -- Back in the day (1967), contemporary audiences would have "gotten it" right away. But now, if you don't have a thorough knowledge of the times--and most viewers today don't--the interactions between the characters will seem very odd. That cross-decade dissonance contributes to a sense of slow pace and flat, hit-or-miss humor. This really is a good movie, and I suspect discerning viewers will appreciate it, but I have reservations about recommending such a dated film. Posted 6/10/06.

Grand Illusion (~) -- Others must see what I don't. Jean Renoir's supposed classic has a reputation as a great indictment of war. But the film does not make a strong show of the deep cost of war in death and destruction. At most, we see the burden placed upon the individual in war, but the ultimate tragedy here is (again) an individual misfortune--not the colossal tragedy of nations that WWI truly was. The story includes some interesting ruminations on the folly of class consciousness, but nothing that speaks directly to the modern viewer. Perhaps something gets lost in the translation. You're on your own here. Posted 1/20/06.

Gravity (+) -- The Infinite Improbability Drive is alive and well; Douglas Adams would be proud. Everything accomplished in this movie by Sandra Bullock’s space hitchhiker is either a testament to human ingenuity and will, or total bullshit. I’ll leave you to be the judge. Regardless, this film is definitely worth a look; emphasis on LOOK, as the visuals here are quite amazing and a major reason why Cuaron won the Best Director award. I think that overall, you’ll enjoy this film, unless you decide to go full Neil deGrasse Tyson on it and nitpick all the science (I don’t recommend that, not even to NdT). Posted 8/20/14.

The Great Gatsby (~) -- Something’s missing. I can’t quite put my finger on why this film doesn’t work nearly as well as it should, but the fact of it is there for all to see (or not see, given this one met with a disappointing reception in theaters). Too many unsympathetic characters? Perhaps. Fitzgerald wasn’t enamored with humanity when he turned out this story, that’s for sure; I guess folks aren’t that thrilled to be told that their species sucks, especially those members of it who live high on the hog. You can’t blame the cast, all of whom acquit themselves quite well. Maybe this story is just too difficult for most people to get into--and, for that matter, to be made into a really good film. Posted 1/31/14.

Greedy (+) -- A bunch of laughs here, mostly down in the delightfully crass level. The only major problem with this movie? It's not mean enough. But it is a hoot to see so much bad behavior celebrated on screen. Find it and enjoy. Posted 3/29/05.

The Grey (--) -- Holy shit this movie is stupid. Anyone who has ever seen one episode of Survivorman will instantly know that everything these guys do, short of building a fire, is dead wrong and bound to get you killed. I know that suspension of disbelief is crucial to any movie, let alone an adventure movie, but this just goes way beyond anything that makes sense. Certainly, there are a few good moments here, some nice work by Liam Neeson, and a somewhat provocative ending, but it’s just not enough to make this film worthwhile. This one really should be thrown to the wolves. Posted 6/20/13.

The Grifters (~) -- With a title like that, you expect a movie chock full of entertaining flim-flam action. Not so here, to the film's detriment. I found myself bored by the interpersonal angst between the cast of cheap hustlers. The story never gives us enough reasons to care about these people. A disappointment. Posted 12/7/05.

Grosse Pointe Blank (+) -- A hit man goes home--what could be funnier? A lot of things, actually, but this flick still finds plenty of laughs. Nice work by the consistently underrated John Cusack.

Gunga Din (+) -- Not quite the rollicking ride that a modern viewer expects from an action adventure flick. And there's a little too much plot getting in the way of the story (mostly romantic subplot stuff--utterly unnecessary). But then again, there are some great scenes in here, including some iconic moments that served as a springboard for any number of following filmmakers. Those scenes by themselves make it worth a look. Posted 5/30/05.

Recently Read

On The Map
by Simon Garfield

Nothing is cooler than a map. Never has been, never will be.

I’ve personally known this truth since I was a boy, when I spent countless hours on the floor with a variety of maps, poring over every detail I could see, down to the tiniest town, the most remote campground, the curviest, twistiest rivers and roads.

No doubt that backstory explains the eagerness with which I picked up On The Map: A Mind Expanding Exploration of the Way the World Looks by Simon Garfield. A history of cartography is a book I was born to read. Whatever destiny brought me to those pages, I can with some satisfaction report that Garfield’s book admirably performs its task of recounting the history of mapmaking--though perhaps that report comes with a few qualifications.

On The Map by Simon Garfield

On The Map is at its best in its earliest chapters, which serve as a fairly straightforward  account of cartography and its origins, going all the way back to (and even a little bit before) the founding giant of the field, the ancient Alexandrian Greek scholar Ptolemy. We get a relatively linear narrative of geographic progress, several very cool illustrations of old maps--an absolute necessity for a work like this, of course; the point of an interest in maps derives from the joy that comes from looking at them--and that wistful sense of where we’ve been that is elicited from any good work of history.

The only real problem with this book lies in how the author has telescoped much of the history of mapmaking, covering a couple of millennia in roughly half his pages. This is done so that Garfield can devote the second half of his book to the numerous tangential manifestations of cartography that inhabit various niches within today’s societal landscape: the world of dealers in (and stealers of) rare maps; maps as video games (or is it video games as maps?); maps making star turns in Hollywood movies; and finally both Google Maps (the presumed current state of the cartographer’s art) and even the medical art of mapping the human brain. Many of these topics are all well and good and fit in with the rest of Garfield’s narrative to varying degrees; but compared to the glory that is those classic maps of the once-upon-a-time known world--with all their uncertainties, decorative flourishes, and horizon expanding possibilities--some of these more clinical applications of cartographic skill may leave map fans cold. For this reader, at least, the topics got less and less interesting--and the book more of a challenge to read--as the narrative got further and further away from the splendors of globes, atlases and decorated vellum.

Whatever deficiencies may plague On The Map from standpoint of subject matter, one must give due credit to the author for his skill as a writer. Garfield produces smart, breezy prose that welcomes the reader into the narrative and keeps the storyline moving at a brisk pace, with clarity, insight, and enough touches of humor to make the work accessible for a general audience. Even those who have not been obsessed with maps since childhood will find On The Map an interesting, entertaining read--at least until the narrative wanders too far away from its core subject.

Overall, On The Map stands as a good general history of cartography, one that can perhaps serve as an entryway for those who might want to explore the core topic in greater depths; or, for those with just a touch of curiosity, simply as an overview of how our world expanded from a few isolated cultural backwaters into the dizzying, enormous, and complicated landscape that we know today. That, at least, makes Garfield's book a lot like maps themselves: it tells you something about where you are, where you've been, and--should you choose to set out--where you might be going. And that's information that is certainly worth a look.

Recently Read

Plain, Honest Men

Plain, Honest Men
by Richard Beeman

by Richard Beeman

The lesson we learn from reading Plain, Honest Men: The Making of the American Constitution is the same lesson that applies to all things, everywhere: context is everything.
In the case of the Constitution, context is not just everything, but it’s crucial to understanding what that document says to us when we read it now, some 226 years after its creation.

For instance, take the fetish for “strict construction” that pervades so much of our political discourse today. Those who want to adhere to a literal interpretation of the Constitution like to cite the Framers’ intent when rendering their view of the document. But, as author Richard Beeman makes clear in his account of the Constitution’s creation, a lot of the ideas, articles, clauses--even individual words--in the Constitution did not reflect the unanimous views of the Framers. Or even, for that matter, a consensus among a minority of those men. Several provisions that made it into the final draft of the Constitution lived to achieve enshrinement only because they proved to be compromises that no one liked, but that everyone in the room hated least. Are such parts of the text really worthy of sacred treatment today, when the very men who committed them to parchment had such mixed feelings about them then?

Thus, Professor Beeman’s account of the constitutional convention renders a very valuable service: it reminds us that, to use the well-worn cliche, the Constitution is a living document--not simply due to the intent of those who wrote it, but also because of the tension that went into creating it. As the narrative makes clear, agreement was a rare commodity in Philadelphia during that summer of 1787, and the document that resulted from almost five months of debate comes down to us as a mixture of genius and warts, one that practically begs future generations to interpret and modify its meaning and intent.

Nowhere is this fact more clear than in how the delegates dealt with slavery. Beeman tells us that, for the delegates, the slavery question mostly loomed over issues of representation and power relationships among the states; the moral dimension held little sway during the debates. While a few members of the convention did express their moral outrage over the institution, such ethical concerns had little effect on the ultimate compromise that apportioned representation by counting slaves as three-fifths a person. The author rightly calls out for their failings these representatives of a revolutionary generation that had declared, barely eleven years before, that “all men are created equal”; yet, he also makes perfectly clear that abolitionist sentiment was not going to make headway against the demands of delegates like John Rutledge and the Pinckneys of South Carolina. In the end, the compromise that made slavery a part of the Constitution happened because without it there might not have been a Constitution. Such were the dynamics of the meeting in Philadelphia, and Beeman gives his readers a clear picture of just how much difficulty went into creating the document by which we still live to this day.

Another great service rendered by Plain, Honest Men lies in the resurrection of a number of men who have been long since--but unjustly--forgotten. As Beeman’s story makes clear, the efforts of men like Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut--two key facilitators of the “Connecticut Compromise,” which created the bicameral Congress and apportioned representation by population in the House and by state in the Senate--should still be celebrated, though today those names are shrouded in obscurity. For this reader, learning about admirable and important members of the Pennsylvania delegation like James Wilson and Gouverneur Morris generated a great deal of pride for my birth state, thanks to their crucial contributions to the workings of the convention.

Of course, Beeman pays fair homage to more than just the forgotten. James Madison, often called the Father of the Constitution, gets his due for the groundwork he laid in getting the convention together and setting its agenda. And, hanging above all like a great portrait prominently displayed, the character of George Washington--his position as President of the convention, his formidable influence over the proceedings, what he meant to the people of the young nation--gives the narrative a powerful and heroic focus. Plain, Honest Men reminds us that we do indeed stand on the shoulders of giants; it is no wonder then that the nation they founded, with the Constitution they created, has been able to stride so far.

This wealth of historical erudition comes in a package that is accessible and inviting even for the casual reader. Beeman’s prose, while rarely elegant, does the yeoman’s work of telling the tale in a clear and intelligible voice. Occasionally, the text does get heavy; Beeman is forced to recap many of the key debate points several times throughout the narrative, given both the complexity of the issues and their reappearance throughout the narrative’s timeline (a product of the fact that the delegates themselves kept going back and reopening questions that everyone thought had been answered). Thanks to those recaps, certain parts of the book feel like a slog. However, the writing never gets so bogged down that the reader feels tempted to call it quits, and the rewards of reading Plain, Honest Men outweigh any negatives.

Of course, the greatest reward comes in the form of a deeper understanding of and appreciation for the Constitution and how it came to be. If more of today’s politicos and pundits read Plain, Honest Men and learned its lessons, we might achieve the kind of consensus we will need to guarantee success in the next two centuries of the American experiment.

Recently Read

Life of Pi
By Yann Martel

How odd that I would read this book before seeing the movie. I guess my film viewing habits really have fallen off the table.

A more germane topic, however, concerns all this book wishes to tell us about life, and faith, and maybe truth--though that last one is highly debatable.

Author Yann Martel covers a lot of philosophical ground in Life of Pi, his somewhat spectacular story of, succinctly, a boy and a tiger on a boat. I say “somewhat spectacular,” because Martel’s ultimate storytelling gambit--which story is the “real” story?--actually winds up undercutting the impact of the trick he’s trying to play. If there had been one twist at the end of the book--some ambiguity in one aspect of Pi’s amazing journey, some distinct item that would provide a sharper, clearer “Aha!” moment for the reader--that might have served everyone’s needs rather well. But laying the entirety of the adventure on the line? I call that a bit of overreach, an act of authorial hubris that has too much potential to leave readers feeling excessively manipulated and to undo whatever good work Martel hoped to achieve. (I also happen to think he bungled the ambiguity; there are elements of the supposedly metaphorical story which, within the narrative’s reality, should have been easily verifiable one way or another.)

For me personally, “Life of Pi” shows another problem arises that highlights why, at this stage of my life, I find it so difficult to read fiction. Martel liberally sprinkles an encyclopedia’s worth of obscure knowledge--mostly, in this case, zoological knowledge--throughout Pi’s first-person narrative. It is exactly the kind of brazen authorial showboating that ruins fiction for me. Nonfiction works must be well-researched and extensively referenced, or else the author’s authority withers and perishes; but fiction has different demands. Showy displays of the author’s research may be good for attracting critical attention and awards--”Oooh, such extensive research you did--here, have a shiny object...”--but a writer who flamboyantly exhibits his research inevitably takes this reader out of the story. Here I am, reading a story, and then the esoterica drops: suddenly, I’m not reading a book--I’m staring at a Everest-sized pile of index cards (or the digital equivalent thereof). It’s a lot like watching a movie and seeing a boom mike that was accidentally left within the upper corner of the camera’s view; instantly, the illusion is broken, and I start to wonder about the competence of the person who put this thing together.

On the other hand, Martel deserves high praise for his skill as a prose stylist. Thanks to my own writing and editing work, I’ve developed a constant need to assess the quality of any text I read--especially when I’m reading fiction. But with “Life of Pi” my stylistic alarm bells almost never rang out loud. Martel crafts excellent--almost lyrical--prose. Without question, his literary skill is consummate and expert. In that sense, “Life of Pi” is a breath of fresh air versus other recent works, so many of which have been published seemingly without benefit of compositional skill or professional editing. From a ‘words on the page’ point of view, “Life of Pi” is a joy to read.

So we find a very mixed bag when we consider “Life of Pi.” The book has so many devoted fans that I doubt any critique by me would have much impact on how others feel about it. I should probably recommend this book for reasons of cultural literacy alone. But I do wish the author had not been guilty of literary overreach. A gesture made presumably to teach was, in the end, too grandiose to effectively instill its lesson. Martel may have felt that he needed something epic to get through to modern readers, but a smaller, subtler effort was all we really needed. Perhaps it would have been better if, as a guy trying to make a statement about faith, Martel had had a little more faith in us.

Ace in the (Memory) Hole

I guess we really do change over the course of our lives. I recently had one example of my changing tastes/moods/whatever confront me in an unexpected way: I no longer listen to the Adam Carolla show.

This came as something of a surprise to me. I have been listening to Carolla regularly ever since the "Loveline" days back in the late '90s. I was on board from the start when the Aceman moved to morning radio back in the middle of the last decade, and I joined him on his post-firing journey into the new medium of podcasting--of which he has now become one of the leading impresarios, if not an actual new media mogul. I even read his first book. That's a long history as a relatively devoted follower.

True, I never bothered much with his television ventures like The Man Show or Crank Yankers (the former just never interested me, the latter--puppets acting out crank phone calls--should have passed without comment just for stupidity alone). And it is also true that I never kept pace with Carolla's output; once he moved his gig into downloadable territory, I invariably fell further and further behind the recent stuff, until my most recently listened to episodes were dated nearly a year behind the newest postings.

I guess that should have been a clue. Obviously, if I couldn't be bothered to listen frequently enough to keep current, the value must not have been all that great in my eyes (or, if you will, ears). Yet, I had been behind before, and made catch up efforts in the past. So why did I feel the need to abandon Carolla now?

My gut tells me to point the finger at the changes I've heard in Carolla's show in recent times. (I can't say how recent, because, remember, I was listening to year old shows by the time I pulled the plug.) For one thing, the promos just got overbearing; each episode of the podcast suffered from heavy intrusions of commercials for products that I would never bother buying. For the most part, I'm OK with someone making a buck for his efforts, particularly when he is supplying a product that has no price. But sometimes it seemed that the frequent commercials were damaging to the flow of the show, enough so to sap away the entertainment value. Let's face it: patience is a limited resource--test mine, or anyone else's, at our peril.

More troubling, perhaps, has been Carolla's ever-greater tilt towards right wing politics. One guest I recently heard on the show was some guy--I don't remember his name, and feel unmotivated to look it up, for obvious reasons--who wrote a book trashing the Occupy movement--a favorite target for Ace's ire. Carolla has long had a fairly conservative bent on many political issues (to be fair, he's relatively liberal on other, especially social, issues). I've heard him make comments with which I disagreed before--but, having done my own homework on Occupy and other issues, and knowing the fallacies embedded in Carolla's view of these issues, I found listening to his erroneous diatribes ever more tedious. Also, I started to suspect that some of his guests were not being booked "organically," but were coming at the direction of outside forces. (Carolla's affiliation with radio host Dennis Praeger may represent the nexus through which the "right wing echo machine" has recruited another outlet.) I can be forgiving when the intellectually lazy Adam Carolla forms a judgment that lacks a certain amount of depth; but I'll be damned if I'm going to be played for a sucker and drawn into listening to Fox News farm team players on the sly.

(An aside: Carolla's intelligence is a frequent butt of his jokes, but the man isn't dumb. He is, however, an untrained intelligence. Adam's strength lies in what he can diagnose through direct observation; anything that requires examination beyond surface details often leads him astray. That is the weakness that makes some of his rants tedious to listen to and undermines the show's quality.)

Perhaps worst of all, as the guest roster grew to include more junior league Hannity wannabes, fewer and fewer guests came on who really had something meaningful to offer. Comedians, once a staple of the show, largely faded from the guest roster. By the time I dropped my subscription to Carolla's show, it had been months since I had heard Dana Gould or Greg Fitzsimmons or any other comics on the show. While I get that it may not be possible to bring in one time staples like Joel McHale--he's grown too big for the show, of course--it would have helped immensely if Carolla's staff had made the effort to connect with the next round of up and coming entertainers, instead of bringing in people who just had a book to sell, or a political axe to grind (or most likely, both at the same time).

That lack of entertaining guests, I think, points to the tragic truth of why I had to dump Carolla's show: it had just gotten so boring. Each episode played out with such a sameness to it; the same rants, the same characterizations of the same people, a sameness to the tone of Alison Rosen's news...hell, even Bryan Bishop's drops--long an entertaining staple of the show--had grown repetitive and stale. The Adam Carolla Show has become, to use the hosts own oft-applied expression, fucked out.

Is there a larger implication in this act of mine? Probably not. I doubt that others are feeling the same way about the show as I do. The show still rides high on the iTunes charts, and once they're hooked, people will keep listening to/watching the same damn show for years regardless of quality. (For example, just look at all the ridiculously long-running series on TV these days.)

And now that I think about it, I'm not even sure my abandoning the ACS reflects any real change in myself beyond, perhaps, a sense that I no longer have time to waste on anything not really interesting to me. I don't seem to have missed the show since I formally stopped listening and deleted all the downloaded shows. (I have also deleted his website from my "Sausage Factory" at right; I can't in good conscience provide a link to a product I won't listen to myself.)

I guess all I'm really saying is, things change. A lesson none of us may have needed, but one that should not go unheeded. So it goes.