Thanks for clearing this up…

Gabriel Winant at Salon on why Gordon Brown calling that woman a bigot was a big deal:

To judge Brown, it’s helpful to ask how this would play out in the U.S. Imagine if, say, Al Gore in 2000 — a figure in some ways similar to Brown — had been caught calling a retiree in Youngstown, Ohio a bigot, after she complained to him about the Mexicans filling up the neighborhood. Would this imaginary Gore have been right?

There’s not really any use saying no. It takes a certain amount of delusion to miss the racial animus in anti-immigration politics. Just have a look at this sneering and nonsensical ad from Alabama Republican gubernatorial candidate Tim James, in which he complains about multilingual driver’s license exams. Or give a moment’s thought to the fact that a real candidate for office actually proposed “micro-chipping” undocumented workers. Besides, despite our disturbingly common willingness to write off Latinos and black people as not “real” members of the working class, their problems also count as the problems of working families.

At the same time though, blaming Duffy, or her hypothetical American equivalent, does sort of amount to blaming the victim. Because while the racism is real, so is the grievance. Not necessarily the particular racial hostility against Mexican immigrants — let’s not try to apologize for that. But it shouldn’t be so hard to understand why working people would resent a political order that seems thoroughly uninterested in doing anything about ever-growing levels of economic inequality.

I don’t know where I stand on this one. “While the racism is real, so is the grievance.” Meh, I don’t know. I guess the grievance is legitimate, but at the same time when this old doll is in an old folks home those Eastern Europeans and brown people she’s so worried about will be feeding her and changing her diaper.

Snazzy Picture of the Day

SULLIVAN!

Yes yes yes yes yes!!!!

This is a great time for conservative thought – because it can be clearly disengaged from conservative power and the conservative movement. No fucking surrender.

Scala Perfectionis – amateur theologian at work…

Doing some research for my novel and came across this, the scala perfectionis of mysticism, or how to think like Christ. Consists of the following stages:

1. The purgative or ascetic stage (punishment and deprivation)
2. The illuminative or contemplative stage
3. The unitive stage, in which God may be beheld face to face.

Sounds like writing to me.

Irony is both a wake up call and an anesthetic…

Book reviewsy…

I read Zoe Whittall’s Holding Still For as Long as Possible over the weekend. It was pretty good. It’s set in Toronto and is about twenty-somethings. Dear god, you’re saying, why would you ever want to read about that?

The good: The writing, the actual stringing the words together part – nice words, prettily strung. One o the characters describes herself:  “I might have made a great Victorian lady, dying in a tower somewhere, pinching my wrists until the wilting finally kills me”.

The mediocre: the whole thing is a big mess. The story is about  a love triangle of anxiety-riddled, self -obsessed hipster types. The trouble is, the three characters are all too similar. This is what the book jacket says (and I know I can’t blame Whittall for some ridiculous book jacket but still):

What is it like to grow into adulthood with the “war on terror”, SARS, and Hurricane Katrina as your backdrop? In her robust, elegant new novel, Zoe Whittall presents a dazzling and mature portrait of a generation we’ve rarely seen in literature – the twentysomethings who grew up on anti-anxiety meds, text messaging each other truncated emotions, blurring their public and private lives…

And so on and so forth. While I’ll agree that this group isn’t written about often, or if they are written about, it isn’t honest and it all devolves into stereotypes, but still, I don’t feel that Whittall gets it right. This book feels kind of nineties to me, and I’m not trying to be nit-picky. She is at least more honest and sincere than most people are about this generation, but still, some of it feels like posturing. Like, oh the girl who has panic attacks, and the girl with rich parents who wants to be a filmmaker but doesn’t really get it because of her privileged upbringing, etc., etc. Panic attacks do not and cannot make a novel. While these characters aren’t quite stereotypes, they still feel cheapened somehow. I’m finding it hard to describe beyond that, it was more of a visceral reaction I had when I was reading the book. It just felt wrong. I am just now starting to realize how much this last decade and it’s laundry list of tsunamis, torture, “terrorism”, war and corruption has affected me. This is part of what I’m trying to deal with in my own writing. So I admire Whittall for trying to deal with it, and trying to do it honestly. And I admire her for writing a pretty good book that is worth reading, and doing it in and about Canada. I think once we get more people doing this, Whittall will be less of a novelty and become one more member of a group of good young Canadian writers. I look forward to it.

This is intriguing…

I just heard this on CBC today even though it’s been out for a month. 4 things are interesting to me here:

1. Usually when celebrities come together to raise money through music the song blows. Like, it is just awful, e.g. We are the World. This K’Naan song is actually amazing.
2. I love the mix of douchebags with real artists here. Usually it’s 90% douchebag on these charity singles, with Bono right up front. Like, fine, you’ve got your Avril and your Hedley, Sum 41, Simple Plan etc., but then you’ve got Emily Haines, Corb effing Lund,  Sam Roberts, Hawksley, Serena Ryder, Tom Cochrane, Jim Cuddy and tons of other great artists.
3. I forgive Nikki Yanovsky for that awful Olympic song for the sweet licks she does on this track. I knew there was a good singer buried under all that schmaltz.
4. Um, Hawksley kills it.  1:41 in. I love you, Hawksley.

Top 23 films of the decade…

Hey, George. How’s it going, you saucy minx? What was that? You want to take me out to dinner for an evening of wine and witty banter? Yes, please.

I forgot to do this four months ago, but Callum and I came up with our lists of the best movies from 2000 to 2009.

Here’s mine.

1. Mystic River
2. Kill Bill Vol 1 and 2
3. Monster’s Inc
4. Capote
5. Almost Famous
6. No Country for Old Men
7. Up tied with The Incredibles
8. Black Hawk Down
9. City of God
10. Brokeback Mountain
11. The Constant Gardener
12. American Splendour
13. O Brother Where Art Thou
14. Spirited Away
15. Good Night and Good Luck
16. Moulin Rouge
17. High Fidelity
18. Chocolat
19. Man on Wire
20. A Very Long Engagement
21. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
22. Shrek

Okay, so they may not be the best, but they’re my favorites. Well, Mystic River really is the best.  Feel free to debate that if you want.

I realize the list is heavy on the Pixar and the Clooney, but what can you do? Have Pixar and Clooney teamed up yet? I sense a winner….

I’m pissing my pants laughing…

in a public place and feel ridiculous: Twilight recaps done by a very hilarious blogger. Read them and be prepared to snort all kinds of fun stuff out your nose…

(If you’d told me a week ago that Breaking Dawn was going to be about Bella Swan Cullen fighting off a vampire fetus, I would have laughed in your face.)

On the soul-crushing reality of being a writer:

From the aptly titled The Rejectionist blog:

Dearest MFA-getting Author-friends! We have a very special and sobering message for you today, inspired by the reams and reams of MFA-produced short stories and fictive efforts we have been reading lately, many of which are quietly pointing us toward the inevitable conclusion that whatever the hell they are teaching you up in there, it has nothing to do with Publishing. Lucky for you, little ones, you have us! to pour the ice-cold pitcher of Reality Water over your febrile and loftily-aspirationed heads!

1. Ask yourself the following questions: 1. Have I published a short story in The Paris Review? 2. Have I published a story in the New Yorker? 3. Am I Wells Tower? 4. Am I a talentless but famous white dude with lank, greasy hair? If you cannot answer “yes” to at least one of these questions, your odds of publishing a short story collection are somewhere around .001%. If you can answer “yes” to two of these questions, those odds will go up slightly (if you answer “yes” to questions #1-3, you should totally call us, we will buy you a beer at the Pencil Factory and you can tell us about being in a band with Al Burian). It doesn’t matter where you got your MFA (sorry, Iowa!), it doesn’t matter how much McSweeney’s loves you, it doesn’t matter how many awards you have gotten (unless one of them starts with Guggenheim or MacArthur) or how many times you have been in Best American Short Stories; your chances are very, very bad, and they are exponentially worse now than they have ever been.

Read the whole thing.

Also, to that I would like to add: Fuck you, James Franco.

Essential reading…

This is a much blogged about post by Julian Sanchez about the right wing echo chamber. He tried to find the reason for it and comes up with some interesting theories. I like:

But as Tucker Carlson won boos for pointing out at CPAC last year, the fact is also that publications like The New York Times fundamentally practice solid journalism. Inevitably, reporters’ and editors’ own views are at least subconsciously going to shape how stories are presented and which are seen as newsworthy in the first place however hard they might strive for objectivity. It’s still more likely when those views are shared by the large majority of the professional community.

Still, there’s a lot of institutional and cultural capital built up in those hoary outlets, which at least produces a set of norms and practices that create pressure toward more fair and accurate reporting—and some of that bleeds over into even the explicitly ideological ones. The output may have varying degrees of liberal slant, but The New York Times is not fundamentally trying to be liberal; they’re trying to get it right. Their conservative counterparts—your Fox News and your Washington Times—always seem to be trying, first and foremost, to be the conservative alternative. And that has implications for how each of them connects to the whole ecosystem of media: Getting an accurate portrait is institutionally secondary to promoting the accounts and interpretations that support the worldview and undermine the liberal media narrative. Perhaps ironically, the trouble is that the novel conservative institutions that have emerged as an effect of technological innovation lack that Burkean reservoir of evolved, time-tested local traditions.

And the really lovely part about this is that he is a part of a the libertarian think tank the Cato Institute, which I don’t know much about, though I have heard it’s a bit nutty.  So yes, the guy writing this is a conservative. With a brain. Intelligently thinking through the problems existing ON HIS OWN SIDE.

I feel like we should throw a parade.

Snazzy Picture of the Day

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!

Okay, forgive me for this…

but I’m fairly certain that The Situation is 48 years old.

I know, I know. You’re saying, Alix, you should be over Jersey Shore by now. It was so five months ago. Or maybe you’re saying he spends so much goddamn time in a tanning bed of course his face looks like an old beat up shoe.

The Situation alleges to be 28 years old. But here’s what I consider proof that he’s well into his forties. From the producers of the next season of Jersey Shore:

The casting call is looking to find “tanned and toned fist pumper(s)” who know how to “dominate the gym, tear up the dance floor and rule the bedroom.” Applicants must be over 21 but “appear to be younger than 30.”

Executive Casting Director Doron Ofir said:

“I am searching for the proudest, loudest, and wildest to carry on the legacy and no haters allowed.”

So I feel vindicated. The Situation is 48, and Snooki is the same age as my mom.

Girls with guitars…

I am going to get sent straight to feminist hell for this, but here goes.

Girls suck at guitar.

Trust me, I don’t WANT this fact to be true, but it is. I’ve been in denial of it for a long time, but I just can’t deny it any more.

To me, being a great guitar player doesn’t necessarily mean that you can shred or play really fast. It means that you play with soul, with guts, and, well, balls. There are so far a grand total of TWO women that I’ve come across who do this.

Number 1: Bonnie Raitt

And I mean, she’s pretty great, but she definitely doesn’t stand up to a lot of the great Blues guys like Buddy Guy. Still, she ain’t no slouch on that slide. Also, the voice is three quarters of what makes her great.

Number 2: Ani Difranco

She’s Prince’s favorite guitar player. She pioneered that percussive acoustic style that Dave Matthews has since taken all the way to the bank. Soul? Check. Guts? Double check. Balls? Big ones: wait till she rips “Shameless” all over your face.

And one more for good measure:

And yes, I’ve heard of Kaki King, and I mostly just think she’s noise. I mean, yes, it takes skill, she’s a good musician, but that’s it. It lacks the je ne sais quoi of a Jack White or a Ry Cooder, let’s just say.

Here’s some chicks with buzz, but to me they are just full of hot air. No substance, no balls. Yes, they play the notes right, but they just don’t cut it.

(Yes, she is a woman).

All is not lost, however. It’s a bit of the chicken and egg situation. Girls haven’t traditional been encouraged to play guitar, and when they are they’re placated and praised for being mediocre or folky, or what have you. Or they try so hard to learn to shred and play with the speed freaks that it just ends up sounding generic and soulless, gutless.

God fucking bless Youtube though, because now there are young girls with guitars listening and watching and making their own videos. A lot of the weird self consciousness is wearing off, and now girls are just fucking owning their guitars. Rocking with their cocks out, so to speak.

This kid is 16 years old and plays Hendrix better than most 50 year old men in bar bands:

And once she loosens up a bit more, she’ll be quite a fucking force to be reckoned with. Most importantly, she has a good understanding of Hendrix’s slower, sexier sustained notes (check out the Little Wing solo around the 3:20 mark), and that shows she’s got a lot of soul. It’s seems hard to shred like Steve Vai, but it’s harder to play one sustained note like Hendrix.

And then if you ignore the creepiness of Sammy Haggar in this video, this 15 year old girl is pretty awesome too. Hopefully not just jailbait for Haggar. The important part is that she’s having fun:

And for all your country fans out there, check out this cute young thing with new telecaster.

Brad Paisley needs this girl on his tour immediately…

UPDATE: Oh fuck, how could I forget this chicken? Nancy Wilson is a goddess with GIANT balls. She wrote the fucking Barricuda riff.

And was Wynonna Judd built to sing this song or what?

One more thing: Nancy Wilson has the best fucking strut/kick/lunge combo in rock and roll history.

Snazzy Picture of the Day

I love you Cory Doctorow

Sweet ass quote of the day:

The way you improve your iPad isn’t to figure out how it works and making it better. The way you improve the iPad is to buy iApps. Buying an iPad for your kids isn’t a means of jump-starting the realization that the world is yours to take apart and reassemble; it’s a way of telling your offspring that even changing the batteries is something you have to leave to the professionals.