Crazy Like Us

Two recent pieces on the weirdness of our society's approach to madness, very worth reading if you haven't already:

Ethan Watters's "The Americanization of Mental Illness" in the New York Times, January 8 2010, and

Louis Menand's "Head Case" in the New Yorker, March 1 2010.

My personal favorite quote from the latter:

"In the Hippocratic tradition, melancholics were advised to drink white wine, in order to counteract the black bile. (This remains an option.)"

Quote of the Year: early contender

...this culture of perfect intellectual confidence, in which everything is sooner or later penetrated and unmasked—this culture of explanation, in which all the ancient problems are either solved or scorned, and every obscurity of human life, every fog and every cloud, is just a research paper away from satisfactory clarification. There is no riddle of existence that cannot be resolved, or robbed of its sting, in a David Brooks column. We are lucid now, and efficient; we are the quickest studies who ever lived. We throw no shadows. We know how things really work. We have the definite measure of everything. (Happiness, for example, is defined for us by social science; is an objective of public policy). Even as we cozily admit our fallibility, we exempt nothing from our brilliance. We dispel inwardness with our analysis of it. Hurriedly and without any suspicion that precious things are being driven away, we march smartly through all the pains and all the perplexities, and we call this dream of transparency, this aspiration to control, this denial of finitude, reason.

Reason is precisely what it is not. Reason is more provisional, more modest, more patient. Reason is not a festival of ideas or a catalogue of best practices.

--Leon Wieseltier on Philip Roth, in The New Republic

H/T Gregory Wolfe at dotCommonweal.

Ode to the BQE

Okay, so I still don't have a lot of time for blogging, and I probably won't for a while. Among other things, I'm writing 1500 words of fiction a day (rain or shine, brain waves present or not), prepping my dissertation manuscript for placement with an academic publisher, and looking for a day job and/or teaching post. So all that's eating up more than the number of hours there are in a day, and I don't want to post half-digested thoughts here just to say I've put something up. Expect posting to remain light...but I'll pop in when I can!

But I do have to mention one cool thing that I would have blogged about this fall, if I had the time: Sufjan Stevens' new album, The BQE. Sufjan presents "a cinematic suite inspired by the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and the Hula-Hoop." It's gorgeous. Sufjan is ridiculously talented and one of the most innovative artists of his generation; at his most classical he reminds me of Debussy. As usual, the song titles on the new album are a work of art unto themselves, e.g.: 10. Interlude III Invisible Accidents; 11. Movement VI Isorhythmic Night Dance with Interchanges; 12. Movement VII (Finale) The Emperor of Centrifuge. And here's a sample of the sound:

Out of Office Auto-Reply

Ahem. Well, it would be an understatement to say posting's been light around here lately.

Truth is, after finally graduating in May (doctorate in philosophy), I've needed an extended breather, so for once I'm going to let summer be summer, and take some time to rest, for real. I.e., go to the beach, feel sand between my toes, and not think about how to string coherent sentences together for a while. So I'll be back sometime around the end of August or beginning of September...until then, enjoy the weather! I hope you all get to have your full share of relaxing backyard barbecues, beach trips, etc., between now and then...

Starving Artist Recipe #2: Ginger-Lime Cooler

This is a simple recipe that can be made hot in the winter (sort of like a tropical hot toddy), or iced in the summer. Ingredient amounts, as always, are approximate, so adjust to your taste:

1 ginger tea bag
juice of half a lime
1 or 2 tsp sugar
1 or 2 oz coconut rum
coriander
ice

Boil water and steep a cup of ginger tea. Set it aside to cool. Squeeze the lime juice into a glass. Add a teaspoon or two of sugar, the coconut rum, and a dash or two of coriander. Stir until the sugar dissolves, then add ice. Pour in the cooled (or still hot, if you're impatient) ginger tea, stir, and enjoy!

Another Cat Story

Today, while the landlord is fixing the bathroom, the two kittens are shut up with me in my room.

Buttons is a plump, sanguine character with the face of a contented tiger cub, the biggest and strongest of a litter of four, the alpha.

Velvet is the runt, a skinny jet-black animal with a hysterical temperament. As an infant, she would shriek if anyone tried to pick her up, and even now, being shut up in this small space is making her very nervous.

They're doing fine for the moment, although they weren't too happy when they first joined me, because I vetoed all the activities they considered fun: "Hurrah, let's pull everything out of the trash can and see if it's fun to play with!" No. Bad kitties. "Hurrah, let's chew up all the shoes and see which ones taste the best!" No no no. Bad kitties!

Then I went out to the roof for a moment. Buttons sat contentedly in the windowsill and watched me; Velvet could not handle being left in the room without the human. She was quite convinced that she would be trapped in the room forever and would starve to death. I could hear her meowing at the door; then she decided it would be better if she could see me and took Buttons' spot on the windowsill. By "took her spot," I mean she stepped right onto her, trying her best to violate the laws of physics by occupying exactly the same space at the same time, until Buttons got tired of the arrangement, hopped down, and left the windowsill to her nervous sister.

It took some time for Velvet to calm down again after I came in. She plopped herself in my lap for reassurance, and I'm sure that if she could have talked she would have whined, "Don't ever leave me again! Please don't ever leave me again!"

Rather needy, that one. As I write this, she's sitting on my lap, watching the letters appear on the computer screen. I'm not sure whether this creeps her out, or whether she's wondering if they're something she can eat. Either way, she looks intrigued, and a little suspicious.

Who's On Stage?

Fun for your Friday morning, courtesy of the inimitable Animaniacs: here's Slappy Squirrel's Woodstock parody, complete with her version of "Who's on First?" and, as always, Dvorak's Humoresque, which is her theme song.