Spoiler Alert–The Lost Symbol October 25, 2009
Posted by caveblogem in Books.2 comments
I guess it should be no surprise to me that I am not part of the demographic for which Dan Brown’s new book The Lost Symbol was written. I find myself very irritated by the protagonist, who I find wimpy and self-righteous and boneheaded. How could Tom Hanks have wanted to play this guy on the big screen? An example:
Then watch ESPN, Langdon thought, always amused to see professional athletes point skyward in gratitude to God after a touchdown or home run. He wondered how many knew they were continuing a pre-Christian mystical tradition of acknowledging the mystical power above, which, for one brief moment, had transformed them into a god capable of miraculous feats. –pp 87
Can you continue a tradition without knowing it? What if the meaning you are trying to convey is: we’re #1? And why does this amuse our symbologist? The first two questions are rhetorical, of course. The answer to the third is because he thinks he is superior to them. I would love to take the guy to a sports bar to watch a game, and I actually smiled briefly during the part of the book where you are supposed to think that he has drowned.
But I do find myself wondering who it is that makes up his main demographic, the people who like this Robert Langdon and identify with him in the way you are supposed to care about protagonists of bestsellers.
See, much of the tension in the plot of The Lost Symbol depends upon the reader feeling that the unearthing of a secret by its central villain will be incredibly destructive. The reader is unsure what constitutes this secret until very nearly the end of the book. We are led to assume that the consequences will be on par with an atomic bomb.
Langdon turned to her trying to speak, but he could find no words. It didn’t matter. Understanding was written all over his face Sato was right. Tonight was a national security crisis . . . of unimaginable proportions. (ellipsis in original, I’m afraid, pp. 438)
So when I finally get to the denouement of this terrible secret, that many high-ranking politicians are Masons, and were caught on videotape doing their Masonic rituals, and the villain is going to send the video to major media outlets, I am mystified. You read that last sentence correctly, not Mansons, he’s writing about Masons. And this is supposed to be a bad thing because people won’t understand. There will be a sort of witch hunt that will lead to total chaos.
I have nothing against Masons. But I found myself thinking that it would not be the tragedy he makes it out to be. Secret rooms for Masonic rituals in the Capitol building sub-basement? Covert brotherhoods among the most powerful people in the country? The Director of the CIA scrambling operatives to keep all this stuff secret? Maybe I am a little angry about the mismanagement of this country over the last (pick a number) years, but I found myself thinking: Bring on the videotape, bring on the chaos.
So, naturally, I found myself wondering, who, when reading this part of the book, breaths a sigh of relief, thinking “gosh, I’m glad they were able to keep that stuff under wraps”?
It’s at the top of the picture there. October 16, 2009
Posted by caveblogem in Other.3 comments
Snow pretty early this year
Happy Fall October 12, 2009
Posted by caveblogem in Other.1 comment so far
Maggie doesn’t even know it’s there.
Wipe Board October 8, 2009
Posted by caveblogem in Other.2 comments
Yeah, it’s another gray cubicle, but it came with a wipe board.
Sloppy Taggers September 13, 2009
Posted by caveblogem in Other.2 comments
Apparently the gangs of Tyngsboro, Massachusetts don’t really value artistic tagging skills.
It is a little embarrassing when we have visitors from California here, I must say.
I’m looking over August 25, 2009
Posted by caveblogem in luck or time.1 comment so far
I find maybe 50 or so four-leaf clovers a year. A couple of years ago I tried giving them away as gifts, but I guess I don’t have enough friends to do that successfully, because I have a pretty big backlog
I started looking for them, in part, because I was intrigued by how you could actually get better at finding them (other reason was a puppy that took forever to do her business). Once you know where and how to look, you see tons of them.
A couple of weeks ago I started taking pictures of them before I picked them, to look into the perceptual issues a little more formally.
The picture above, taken right next to the flower bed that encloses my mailbox, has two four-leaf clovers in it. See if you can find ‘em.
This end (of the universe) up August 17, 2009
Posted by caveblogem in Other.2 comments
Finished my last final yesterday morning at 7:00am and the whole family decided to take the rest of Sunday off. The weather was promising to be warm and muggy (but not as warm and muggy as today and tomorrow, which the meteorblahblahists are calling “oppressive.” And New England weather has no business making promises.) Just a side note, here: You should feel free to rearrange the final punctuation marks in that last couple of sentences howsoever you see fit. I give up. Anyway, we decided that Boston’s Museum of Science might be air-conditioned and cool, and there are films (3-D sharks, no less) and other stuff.
Special added bonus: Almost empty until like noon. Lots of people decided the beach was the place to be.
A new exhibit on Black Holes (well, if you are capitalizing things like God and The United States, then, well, I don’t know . . .) is still in the “asking for feedback” stages. My lovely wife thought it was a little short on saying how these things are formed in the first place (always the teacher). And I certainly couldn’t remember seeing any explanations. She posited that maybe everyone is supposed to know this already. I’m wondering if maybe they just didn’t think of it. As support for this, I offer the following photo:
Now maybe it doesn’t matter which direction they face, but I certainly wouldn’t take the chance.
Balding like an embalmed syphilitic tyrant August 10, 2009
Posted by caveblogem in Other.Tags: aging
3 comments
I try not to be a vain person, really. I’ve got to admit, however, that having a little mostly bald patch on the top of my head near the back really bothers me. Try to put my finger on what there is about it that really gets to me and I’d have to guess that it makes me feel like I look weak. It’s stupid. I am much stronger, and in slightly better shape than any other time in my life, except possibly my late teens. Something about having hair, but a missing patch, seems worse than no hair at all.
There are few famous people sporting this particular look, which makes it all the worse, of course. The famous guys my age have rugs or hair plugs or were vain enough to start using monoxidil in their youth. Some shave their heads, which my wife discourages me from doing. I was reading last week’s New Yorker and ran across a real gem, though. Buried in Ian Frazier’s two-part travel narrative about Siberia is the phrase, used to describe a companion, “Lenin-pattern baldness.”
With Lenin-pattern baldness I can still be intimidating and frightening. I find that a comfort, somehow. “Get off my lawn,” bellowed the big guy down the street with Lenin-pattern baldness.
*I should probably note that the title to this post is derived from a line in one of my favorite books, Microserfs, by Douglas Coupland.
One of the things that are wrong with me August 2, 2009
Posted by caveblogem in Other, Rock.3 comments
It is a time of transition for me (as Warren Susman once wrote, “It’s always a time of transition”). I’m finishing up my second-to-last class today, and last night I was listening to the radio (all night) and reflecting upon early influences on my way of viewing relationships–the stuff that crept (slithered?) into my head during my formative years, circa 1980.
For those of you who were not there, or don’t remember, this was the time when in the suburban US, there were at least two bands whose music was ubiquitous to the point where, for a teenager, it was unavoidable: Journey, and REO Speedwagon. There were good things, musically, about that time period; they are not the subject of this post.
The subject of this post is the way that the music you listen to (or even hear) shapes you in ridiculous ways. I’m going to paraphrase these two examples from REO Speedwagon so that I don’t ruin any young lives through exposure to the actual lyrics.
Take away the sappy music and here’s the basic message of “Take It On The Run” (from Hi Infidelity, 1980, for those of you who wish to play along at home):
I heard a rumor from someone (let’s face it, one of our local liars) via a process similar to the game “Telephone,” that you are cheating on me. I believe wholeheartedly and completely that it’s not true. But if you go out tonight it is over between us–frickin’ over.
And the basic message of “Keep On Loving You” (from Hi Infidelity, 1980):
Look, I tried to tell you that I’ll love you for ever, but you were cold and hissed at me like some kind of snake and basically ignored me. But really, I’ll love you forever, you cold, evasive snake.
As someone who was a scholar of American Culture in a previous lifetime, I could drone on and on about the function of contradictory messages in blues and pop music, and the necessity to appeal to different audiences within the same song, hidden meanings, blah blah blah. But I won’t. All I’m going to say is WTF? WTF—ing F?
I’m sorry I’m so screwed up, hon. I really am. I am trying to get over these early psychotic influences. Maybe we all are.
And I don’t know why this post is in such tiny letters, if that’s the way it looks published. I can’t figure out how to fix it, if it needs fixing. Oh, I could tweak the html, but I’m not getting paid for this, or course credit, for that matter, and there’s always the chance that, since I don’t know why it got small in the first place, if it is small, it might just revert to that state.
For those of you who were not there, or don’t remember, this was the time when in the suburban US, there were at least two bands whose music was ubiquitous to the point where, for a teenager, it was unavoidable: Journey, and REO Speedwagon. There were good things, musically, about that time period, but they are not the subject of this post.
The subject of this post is the way that the music you listen to (or even hear) shapes you in ridiculous ways. I’m going to paraphrase these two examples from REO Speedwagon so that I don’t ruin any young lives through exposure to the actual lyrics.
Take away the sappy music and here’s the basic message of “Take It On The Run” (from Hi Infidelity, 1980, for those of you who wish to play along at home):
I heard a rumor from someone (let’s face it, one of our local liars) via a process similar to the game “Telephone,” that you are cheating on me. I believe wholeheartedly and completely that it’s not true. But if you go out tonight it is over between us–frickin’ over.
And the basic message of “Keep On Loving You” (from Hi Infidelity, 1980):
Look, I tried to tell you that I’ll love you for ever, but you were cold and hissed at me like some kind of snake and basically ignored me. But really, I’ll love you forever, you cold, evasive snake.
As someone who was a scholar of American Culture in a previous lifetime, I could drone on and on about the function of contradictory messages in blues and pop music, and the necessity to appeal to different audiences within the same song, hidden meanings, blah blah blah. But I won’t. All I’m going to say is WTF? WTF—ing F?
I’m sorry I’m so screwed up, hon. I really am. I am trying to get over these early psychotic influences. Maybe we all are. Happy Anniversary!
We Multiliths are Here to Encourage You July 26, 2009
Posted by caveblogem in Other, technology.add a comment
In Stanley Kubrick’s 2001, a Space Odyssey, these black monoliths seem to drive the plot. I say seem because I’m not really certain what was going on with that film. There is considerable disagreement. Even Wikipedia, where we all go to get the final, definitive, consensus answer on things, seems a little unstable w/r/t/ this fine film. They’ve got something to do with technology, it seems. Wikipedia even goes so far (as of this writing) as to say:
The subsequent response of the characters to their discovery drives the plot of the series. It also influences the fictional history of the series, particularly by encouraging humankind to progress with technological development and space travel.
Since May of last year I have been pursuing a second bachelor’s degree in IT (my first was in Economics, and my two graduate degrees were in History). And I’m at the point right now where the monoliths I’m running into are not particularly encouraging. I know I’ll feel differently at the end of August, when I am finished with this crash program, degree in hand, but right now the sight of a monolith makes me want to shoot first and ask questions later.
Luckily, there is a great free open-source game out there that lets you do just that. I found it searching for a game I could play on this tiny and somewhat underpowered netbook I am currently running Linux on. It is called Nexuiz. Actually, the version I’m talking about is called Damn Small Nexuiz. Somebody took out all the blood and gore of the full-scale game, along with much of the fancy graphic stuff. So basically, it is a game where you are attacked by monoliths. You get to shoot them. That’s one in the picture below. He’s moving really fast, so you can’t tell he’s a monolith.
Here’s two of them coming for me, in a hail of my machine-gun fire . . . ummm . . . warning shots . . .
And here’s what they look like when they are dead:
I just have to bring down a few more of them and I will get a short break. And that’s all I really want, you know, just some space between monoliths, so I can catch my breath. After that, I’m sure I will find them encouraging, rather than enraging, again.
