Gentle Reader -- You are welcome to peruse my web-based journal. I assure you that my contributions to this medium will be both infrequent and inconsequential. Read on!

HEDY LAMARR

Just some trivia: This smoking hot babe, the first actress to do a nude scene in a feature film, also co-invented and co-patented a technology for electronically guiding torpedoes and missiles that is the basis for cell phone technology today.

Doesn't she look a bit like Alida Valli?

I would have loved her for her mind, of course. posted by Carlton at 11:19 PM

RESISTANCE NOT FUTILE

I've found that there comes a time when the good habits that one builds up over the course of one's life must be resisted, and that habits of thought and attitude must be knocked down. For example, it was drilled into me from an early age that one does not quit. One never quits. One perseveres. One gets set on a path and follows it in a straight line of constant advancement until its ultimate culmination. This is fine and all right for quite a long time, especially while one is in the structure of school and goals and measures are achievement are set by others.

For me, what this meant was that after I graduated from college, I naturally went on to graduate school in English, a subject I had studied because I found it pleasant and relatively unstressful at the undergraduate level. The natural progression, of course, was that I would get my Dr. degree, become a teacher or professor of some type, get tenure and settle into a long, productive and secure career as an academic. Others have done so; it's not a bad life.

It took me a long time to realize the proper response to this schedule: Fuck that. It may seem simple, even axiomatic, in hindsight, but there came a time when I had to examine the natural progression and determine whether or not it was a good one -- at a basic level, whether it was something that I wanted to do. It turns out that it wasn't. The process of realization, however, was really shattering -- the idea that I had to generate my own goals, my own measures of whether I had accomplished them, and that whatever I did someone would be there to criticize, knocked me for a loop. The idea that, on the road from Point A to Point B, Point B is really death, is a tough one.

I find myself on a similar schedule now. Practicing law in a big firm is, if anything, even more regimented and hierarchical than being in academia. For the first decade, one identifies oneself by how long ago one graduated from law school ("I'm a third-year."). At the end of that time, one gets to the top of one totem pole and, if lucky, leaps to the bottom of an immensely taller totem pole. I've heard the leap to partnership described as "a pie-eating contest, in which the prize for first place is more pie."

What's the point? I am acutely aware that I have yet to find my place in the world. I am in a very good situation, relatively speaking -- good job, debt under control, interesting work, etc. Having leapt from one moving train, however, I am acutely aware of the possibility of leaping yet again. The only question is -- leap to what?

(Yes, I got started using "one" and just couldn't stop. Sorry for the pretense.)
posted by Carlton at 11:13 PM

SELMA'S REALLY ON

My brother gave me a copy of the Silmarillion for Christmas (a fine and appropriate present). I am at home sick on New Year's Eve (while Ms. Twink is off kicking up her heels at a party, naturally), and I thought I'd give it a spin. I find myself faced with a dilemma.

I've read LOTR a couple of times -- at least once when I was a kid and once after seeing the first movie. In both forms, characters tend to drop references to other times, places and events that I find tantalizing. There's one line in the books where someone makes reference to a former Dark Lord who had Sauron as a servant (and who, by extension, was a ten-times tougher baddie). My ears, of course, prick up. When the characters keep referring to men as "Numenorians," I want to say "Hmmm, what's that mean?" And of course, people keep asking questions like, "Where the hell are they all going to in that boat at the end?"

And the fact is that I have some basic answers to those questions (which I don't feel like getting into here). There are appendices. There is the Silmarillion. There are other books -- some written by JRRT himself, and some compiled later. Some of them have cool pictures. And the geeky part of me that was always a good student eats this stuff up -- not only am I interested in finding out the answers to the questions, but I find myself learning the information. I'm talking about facts like who the different kind of elves were in the distant past (for the "present" of LOTR), why their leaders were, why they fought, where they lived, etc. There are an infinite number of names, words in made-up languages, stories of all types.

Here's the problem -- how much time do I want to spend on this? This is knowledge that, outside a geek circle-jerk, is of absolutely no use. It's not even knowledge -- it is trivia of the rankest sort. And yet, like certain others who have an interest in baseball statistics, rock history and the number and frequency of specific trains, I find myself drawn in.

I think I will resist. After all, what's the point? posted by Carlton at 10:52 PM

UNFAIR EXCHANGES

I can't say that I know much about the stock market -- I have a small sum in a mutual fund that tracks one of the major indices -- but I am disturbed by the media's fixation on the market rising and falling. I'll admit, it is somewhat heartening in a ain't-this-the-greatest-country-in-the-world kind of way when the market goes up. Frankly, however, not everyone wants it to go up. I don't, for example.

See, I subscribe to the theory that you don't put any money in the market that you might want to get at in the next few years -- most people say the next five years, I'd like to leave my pittance in place until I retire. The market is too volatile to try to score a quick buck.

But more importantly, I am adding to my pittance -- every month, an even pittier pittance (?) is deducted from my bank account and added to my mutual fund. I hope that my pittance plus these small contributions will eventually grow into something substantial -- substantial enough that I don't have to live in an alley and eat castoff pizza crusts.

Simply: I want the market to stay depressed. You are supposed to buy low and sell high, which is hard to do if everything is high all the time. Because I want to buy low, while I am young and building my pittance into a hoard, I want everything to BE low. Those who are done buying and want to cash in want everything to be high. Note that this puts me at odds with people of the older generations -- your parents, my parents. Generational warfare!

But we don't want the market to go up all the time. No, we don't. posted by Carlton at 6:54 PM

ADDITION TO LIST

I have an addition to the list of my favorite movies: The Limey, starring Terence Stamp. Never has a man named Terence been so tough. If you haven't seen it, go forth and do so. posted by Carlton at 4:43 PM

RETURN OF THE RING-A-DING-DING

So I finally saw the movie. You know, the one I've been waiting three years to see. And it was good.

My one complaint, aside from the fact that there is an Extended Edition floating around out there that I have yet to see, is that it was too short. Seriously. There should be five movies. No, six.

I enjoyed the whole thing tremendously, but I had the feeling throughout that the scenes were compressed, that Peter Jackson had boiled everything down to its bones just in order to get it on film. Chances are, if you have a favorite character who isn't a hobbit, you will be left aching for more from that character. There just isn't enough time, never enough.

A bunch of uber-nerds shelled out big bucks this week for the "Trilogy Tuesday" show, where you get to stand in line at 5 AM (dressed as Gollum, naturally) in order to get into a movie theater at eleven for a four o'clock showing of the extended version of the first two movies, followed by a midnight showing of the third. I had snickered in my sleeve at these people, and never considered even atempting to attend the thing myself -- especially considering that I'd have to spend nearly an entire day in a room full of people who, frankly are not known for their social graces or hygeine. (Can you imagine what that theater smelled like when the credits rolled on RoTK? Uber-nerd spooge, is what.)



posted by Carlton at 4:41 PM

QUOTIDIAN RITUALS

Every once in a while, I look up from whatever I am doing and have to ask a David Byrne question: How did I get here?
My morning commute is an example. To get to my new job, I leave my front door, take a 5 minute walk through a park to a big T-stop, ride the train for about fifteen minutes, ride an escalator to ground level, cross a busy four-lane street, enter the Copley Mall, ride up an escalator, walk through the mall, cross to the Prudental Mall via a skyway over another busy street, go up another escalator, malk through the mall, get to the entrance to my office building, show my badge to the attendant, get in the elevator and ride to the eighteenth floor, buzz myself in with my badge, and sit at my desk. I have recently discovered that, at the place where I normally go outside and cross the street to enter the mall, I have the option of crossing under the street via a tunnel (and two sets of stairs) -- which means that I could enter the T near my house and get to my desk in Back Bay without ever going outside. It's like someone has built a tunnel between my front door and my office.

For some reason this strikes me as intensely strange. Anyone else? posted by Carlton at 4:47 PM

TOP 5 MOVIES (Mine)

I was only able to come up with three -- in no particular order:

The Lord of the Rings (counting it all as one film)
The Third Man
Pulp Fiction

I briefly considered Kangaroo Jack, but it turns out it was putrid.

Not that anyone asked . . .
posted by Carlton at 11:00 PM

SHOULD WE TALK ABOUT THE WEATHER?

It's time to get with the program, I guess. Snow is no longer an excuse to lose touch with reality. Got to go to work every day. Got to make the donuts.

Oh yeah, I'm going to have to vote for Howard Dean in November. I will do so, with a happy heart, only briefly pausing to consider what might have been . . . posted by Carlton at 10:58 PM

ON FOXES AND HENHOUSES: NOTES ON AN INVESTIGATION

Maybe the most infuriating thing for me about the current administration is that it routinely, and openly, engages in the kind of self-dealing that should set off media and political watchdogs of all types. The Bush family's history of business dealings with the Saudis is one example -- ever wonder why we haven't been more critical of them since their citizens blew up the World Trade Center and attacked the Pentagon and their government actively endorses the strain of Islam that endorses such attacks? There's also the administration's dealings with corporations like Halliburton, Bechtel, Enron, the timber industry, the coal industry, etc. Everyone knows, and no one seems to care to mention any more, that Cheney is still getting money every year from Halliburton, and that he continues to hold its stock in his blind trust (he doesn't get accounts from the trust, but if he knows that there is a shitload of the stock in there, and he knows how the stock is doing . . . you get the picture). Just to re-iterate: Halliburton received contracts for the reconstruction of Iraq valued in the hundreds of millions (actually billions, after cost overruns) of dollars, with no competition. They also have the contract to build and service the facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, which they also received with no competition.

All this would be bad enough if the country were doing well -- but we aren't. The stock market has had an uptick in the last few weeks, but are there any new jobs? The Medicare bill which recently passed is designed, it seems, to bankrupt the program shortly after the end of a hypothetical Bush term. Our credibility with the rest of the world is at record lows, and we have so overstretched our military (the only foreign policy tool that the administration seems willing to use) that people are seriously discussing a revival of the draft (after the election, of course).

There are a lot of people out there who were terribly unhappy under the Clinton Administration who think things are just ducky under Bush. I believe that these people are confusing an affection for the person with the good or ill that results from the person's position in the White House. I'll concede that Clinton was a bad guy -- maybe he did kill people and snort coke and molest children and worship the devil as Jerry Falwell claimed in those videotapes he was selling. But when Clinton was President our standing in the world was very high, and we were engaged in an active campaign against the crime of terrorism (as opposed to the entirely wasteful and counterproductive "war" which we are currently prosecuting). Not to mention the fact that people were, um, making money.

Most importantly, however, we had people in government who acted like they were in government -- like their primary charge was to make policy that was designed to help the people of the United States, or at least make it run smoothly. The current administration is engaged in a large-scale version of what my Corporations professor called "looting" -- essentially, taking control of a company and bleeding all of the value out to yourself and leaving the shareholders with an empty husk. Nothing that the Bush people are doing is designed to make us more safe, or more prosperous (as a nation) or more free in our actions and beliefs.

One more time: Nothing that the Bush people are doing is designed to make us more safe, or more prosperous (as a nation) or more free in our actions and beliefs.

Update: Krugman thinks so too. As does Josh Marshall. In fact, that's probably where I got the idea in the first place.
("I am a part of all that I have read on the Internet." -- Tennyson) posted by Carlton at 5:27 PM

PROPOSED RULES

Can we all agree on the general rule that, the more corporate tie-ins that a movie has, the worse it is likely to be? As proof, I offer up the two newer Star Wars films, Wild Wild West , and most recently, the Cat in the Hat. I hear the Cat sux, and big time. If your big soda at Taco Bell has an image from the movie, it ain't gonna be good. If it appears on a box of laundry detergent, it's going to be awful.

Anyone care to vouchsafe or gainsay?

Another rule that I have formulated for myself: When going to an asian restaurant, make certain that there are old people working there. If everyone working there is under the age of say, fifty, it's going to be terrible.

Again: Vouchsafers? Gainsayers?

posted by Carlton at 5:02 PM

ATTENTION COMPOSITION INSTRUCTORS

Ever run into the dreaded five paragraph essay?

I think I was taught something vaguely similar, but just for use on exams. posted by Carlton at 7:37 PM