15 Books
I saw a post on Greg Laden's Blog about the 15 Books Meme circulating on Facebook.
It works thus:
List 15 books you've read that have stuck with you. Don't take more than 15 minutes to come up with the list.
Dracula
The Stand
The Lord of the Rings trilogy
The Hunt for Red October
A Brief History of Time
Misquoting Jesus
The Elegant Universe
The Red Queen
The Ancestor's Tale
The How and Why Wonder Book of Dinosaurs
The various essay collections of Stephen Jay Gould
How to Read Literature Like a Professor
Banvard's Folly
Your Inner Fish
The Great Mortality
I cheated a little at #11, since Gould's essays have been packaged in a couple of different ways through the years.
Have at it!
CB
Poor Sparky…
From icanhazcheezburger.com:
see more Lolcats and funny pictures
The style of the photo reminds me of the 1930's - era Universal horror films when the female lead sees the off-camera monster for the first time...
True Blood
There are relatively few TV programs that I watch with any regularity. House, NCIS, and occasionally Burn Notice are really about it, with an odd smattering of SpongeBob tossed in.
One program that I recently found myself caught up in is HBO's True Blood, which just started its second season. I burned through the first season of 12 episodes in a couple of evenings, and am currently debating whether it's worth it to subscribe to HBO to watch the second season or just wait until the DVDs get released.
The series is based on Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire books, in which a key plot point is that vampires, which have been around basically forever, reveal themselves to the general public and begin making some efforts to integrate into human society. I've not read any of the books, but the integration efforts are very significant to the show.
The results are interesting, and True Blood functions in many ways as a metaphor for tolerance.1 By setting the narrative in rural Louisiana, the writers are able to leverage the deep, complex, and often violent history of social relations in the southern United States to great effect.
Now while I like the show itself, the thing that really sticks in my head is the opening title sequence. (Bear with me on this...)
The sequence was produced by Digital Kitchen, and constructed from a combination of newly shot and archived footage set against Jace Everett's song Bad Things. (The sequence is available to view at Digital Kitchen's website, as is a short "making-of" feature. Remember, this is an HBO series - the title sequence is NSFW, and not particularly family-friendly. It's also available with some discussion at The Art of the Title Sequence.) It is built up of short film clips with abrupt transitions, and generally contrasts concepts of sin and redemption. About halfway through is a short black-and-white segment showing a small boy of perhaps 10 wearing KKK robes with a haunted, vaguely uncomprehending look on his face. That look is what burned itself into my mind.
I haven't been able to determine if the scene from the KKK rally was staged for the title or if it's older archived footage. My suspicion is that it's archival. Either way, it's a powerful image that drives home how malleable children are and how much they learn by example.2
CB
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1Vampires have been used as metaphors for just about everything from repressed Victorian-era sexuality to high school awkwardness. I'd venture to say that with a little thought and effort, one could construct a vampire metaphor for nearly anything...
2Don't worry. I don't have any intention of waxing philosophical on the SpongeBob title sequence any time soon...
Artificial Celebrity
Joshua Zelinsky has a post at Religion, Sets, and Politics wherein he rants about Perez Hilton.
I'm certainly not going to begrudge Joshua a good rant - we all need those now and again - and in point of fact the issue of gender roles that he touches on is a significant one to me. But his post got me thinking about the nature of celebrity, in particular the way that we in the U.S. seem to elevate people to celebrity status for no obviously good reason, and that leads me to a short rant of my own.
Here are some examples that stick out in my mind:
Perez Hilton (since Joshua brought him up): Famous for blogging about other famous people, and being a snarky jerk.
Jon and Kate Gosselin: Famous for being fertile.1
Paris Hilton: Famous for being born rich. And being skanky.
Britney Spears: Famous for very public meltdowns. Formerly famous for being a mediocre singer.
The Jonas Brothers: Famous for no discernable reason. Acting ability and musical talent don't seem to be involved.
The common thread seems to be media (over)exposure - Paris Hilton gets coverage every time she gets a new cell phone, the Gosselins have photographers following them when they go shopping, and you can't swing a dead cat without hitting stuff branded with Disney's latest Pop star o' the week. In a nutshell, the publicity machines sell us on the idea that these folks are somehow worthy of our attention and admiration, and often we happily buy into that.
I think we could do a lot better. I'd like to see more recognition given to people that actually do something to benefit the world, such as:
Bill and Melinda Gates: Yeah, Windows Vista stinks, but their foundation has given over U.S. $1 billion to worldwide health initiatives, including vaccination programs and AIDS research.
The crew of MythBusters: The folks there help promote science and reasoning skills and encourage critical thought. And they blow stuff up.
Drs. Warren Breidenbach and Tsu-Min Tsai and their team: Researched and performed the first long-term successful hand transplant operation in 1999.
The late Stephen Jay Gould: In my opinion the most readable and influential biologists of modern times. His skill at conveying complex and subtle concepts remains unmatched, even 7 years after his passing.
Millard and Linda Fuller: Founders of Habitat for Humanity.
Doctors Without Borders: This one goes without saying.
There's certainly a place in society for entertainment celebrities. I enjoy movies, music, and sports as much as the next guy. But I think we'd do well to consider where our priorities lie.
CB
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1One can't help but wonder how much the pressure of being in the spotlight contributed to their recently announced separation and divorce filing. One also must hope that the spotlight can be shut off while they work through a difficult time in their lives, particularly for the sake of the kids.
Humor on the Windshield
I'm travelling for work this week, to the Twin Cities area. Yesterday, when I left my office, I found this on my windshield:
Wait, what?
This is in a parking lot that my colleagues and I have parked in with total impunity for about 10 years. Apparently, the ACME company (We Put Rockets on Anything!) has made some changes to their campus parking rules.
The funny part (to me - it's early...) is that, so far as I could tell, there isn't any signage or indication that I can't park there, or where I can park. Nor is there any indication on the ticket of exactlywhat I received the citation for. I'm interpretting it as a warning or a courtesy notification, but in the absence of more information, they may as well have placed a head of cabbage on my car.
I suppose I'll contact the security department this morning and find out what the whole story is.
UPDATE:
The problem was, as it turns out, that there are now some (not particularly well-signed) visitor spots that we're supposed to use. The conversation with the woman in the security department went something like this:
Me: "Hi. I had a ticket on my car yesterday. There wasn't anything specific marked that I did wrong, and no fine was listed. What's up?"
Her: "Did you park in the North lot?"
Me: "Yep."
Her: "Oh, OK. You just need to park in the visitor spaces. They're on the east side of the lot."
Me: "Yeah, I found those. When did you guys make that change?"
Her: "A few weeks ago."
Me: "You know, there isn't really anything to indicate the change, and the visitor spaces aren't very noticable since they're on the far side from the entrance to the lot and kind of far from the door."
Her: "Yeah, I know. Hopefully somebody will figure that out pretty soon."
So, I notified my esteemed colleagues, and will now be sure to park only in spaces marked for visitors. Hopefully they won't have more than 12 visitors on any given day...
CB
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