It's that time of year when a man looks out his window and tries to think of a single book that truly speaks well of snow, and finds that nothing comes to mind.
Some of you may have already heard this anecdote, repeated this week in the New Yorker, about mathematician Kurt Gödel, but it's too good not to mention anyway. (The article also gives you another chance to try to understand his incompleteness theorems. I got about 20 per cent of it this time).
"So naïve and otherworldly was the great logician that Einstein felt obliged to help look after the practical aspects of his life. One much retailed story concerns Gödel’s decision after the war to become an American citizen. The character witnesses at his hearing were to be Einstein and Oskar Morgenstern, one of the founders of game theory. Gödel took the matter of citizenship with great solemnity, preparing for the exam by making a close study of the United States Constitution. On the eve of the hearing, he called Morgenstern in an agitated state, saying he had found an “inconsistency” in the Constitution, one that could allow a dictatorship to arise. Morgenstern was amused, but he realized that Gödel was serious and urged him not to mention it to the judge, fearing that it would jeopardize Gödel’s citizenship bid. On the short drive to Trenton the next day, with Morgenstern serving as chauffeur, Einstein tried to distract Gödel with jokes. When they arrived at the courthouse, the judge was impressed by Gödel’s eminent witnesses, and he invited the trio into his chambers. After some small talk, he said to Gödel, “Up to now you have held German citizenship.”
No, Gödel corrected, Austrian.
“In any case, it was under an evil dictatorship,” the judge continued. “Fortunately that’s not possible in America.”
“On the contrary, I can prove it is possible!” Gödel exclaimed, and he began describing the constitutional loophole he had descried. But the judge told the examinee that “he needn’t go into that,” and Einstein and Morgenstern succeeded in quieting him down. A few months later, Gödel took his oath of citizenship."
Are we still Currently Reading Burmese Days or are we ready to try Currently Reading something else?
How many perfectly conceived works of literature, art or cinema can you think of? Understand that by 'perfectly conceived' I don't necessarily mean productions of great originality or profundity, Grosskunstwerke that will last the ages. I mean books, films or paintings that achieve exactly what they set out to achieve, even if that goal is quite modest in scope.
I have been thinking about this having just reread and rewatched the novel and 1973 movie adaptation The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth. I make no sweeping claims about either; Forsyth is not likely to join the Western Civ canon anytime soon, and the movie is quite conventional in style. But I think 'Jackal' is a - the - perfectly conceived thriller, whatever that is worth. I am assuming that most people here will have already seen it or perhaps even read it, but as a quick recap, the story is about a mysterious professional assassin (codenamed the Jackal) who in 1963 is hired by the OAS (a group of extreme-right French ex-servicemen and civilian sympathizers furious about the 'abandonment' of Algeria) to kill President de Gaulle. The novel and movie follow the killer's plot, from his initial extensive pre-planning to the final execution of the hit; a parallel manhunt story develops as the French police get wind of the scheme and desperately seek out the Jackal before he can get within rifle-shot of the President. As I say, there is nothing particularly notable about Forsyth's literary style, either on the page or in its onscreen incarnation. But I defy any thoughtful viewer not to be utterly compelled by the story. There is little overt violence, and many of the details - the Jackal's assumption of various disguises and his preparation of false passports and papers, etc. - are quite pedestrian in themselves. But there is something fascinating about the slow, slow build-up of tension. Everyone behaves intelligently in the story, which is not to say that they always make the right decisions; but their decisions make sense given the limited information that they have, and there are no MacGuffins or outrageous coincidences thrown in to keep the plot on track. Everything seems to unravel in a way that makes you think: yes, this is really how it would have been. I should add that there is one critical red herring which is only revealed in the closing moments of the story, and which demonstrates that one can be on completely the wrong track and yet still draw, more or less by accident, the correct conclusion anyway. If I had to draw up a 'desert island' list of books or movies and I wasn't trying to impress anyone then Jackal would be on it every time.
Other suggestions for minor but perfectly conceived stories/films etc.?
UPDATE: Click here to hear Forsyth discuss the book in a 2004 BBC World Service interview.
So here’s William Saletan’s take on how to solve the Social Security problem. I’m not going to play the “third rail” card because that’s just greedy Baby Boomer talk. I will concede he may have a point about longer life spans and the need to raise the retirement age. However, I can’t give him the whole game for two reasons:
1. William Saletan is a young punk who has no experience in the real world. Okay, I don’t know if that’s true, but it was fun to say. He’s not an easy guy to get bio info on, but I think he graduated from Swarthmore in 1987, which puts him just under 40. Frankly, when it comes to raising the retirement age I’d put more stock in the opinion if it came from somebody who is facing it in the next few years. I call this my Abortion Opinion Rule, which states that I am willing to listen the Pro-Life argument as long as it is coming only from a woman in her childbearing years.
2. He completely leaves out the matter of age discrimination. Old folks are not that welcome in the modern workplace. It’s not simply a case of our willingness to work to age 70, but more one of our attractiveness to prospective employers. The perception the under 40-set has of the AARP crowd is classic generation-gap nonsense. Most of us don’t want to hang up the cleats at 65 and settle in to a life of golf, early dinners, and bad large-print novels, and even if we did we couldn’t afford it. A lot of us would like to stop going to the god awful job we’ve had for years, but we have no problem with continuing on as productive members of society. We’d just prefer not to do it as Wal-Mart welcomers.
I'm halfway through Kingsley Amis' famous and supposedly brilliantly hilarious novel. Yes, I've laughed out loud a few times but the laughter is all based on accumulated cringe pain in the stomach, like a Fawlty Towers episode but lasting much longer. After a while it just hurts.
So could somebody please explain what is the big deal about this book?
Read this article and see how long you linger the next time you pass a mirror.
The Older Workers on this here Canadian Cultural Blog may be used to this phenomenon by now, but for those of us in lower advertising categories, here is a sobering example of the aren't-the-policemen-getting-younger-these-days experience.
A colleague of mine compared a historical character (sorry, specific details lost in transit) to Kato Kaelin. Blank faces all round. Then he realized that in the mid-1990s the only shaggy-haired layabout his students were interested in was this chap.
By popular demand, here's an item on the late Hunter S. Thompson. The SF Chron has further here and here. I put up my own remembrance last night.
[Added a few minutes later:] Just wanted to note that not many people realize how closely Hunter Thompson was a direct successor of George Orwell. Orwell set a precedent as an emotionally engaged participant-observer gonzo journalist; Thompson did start out writing a very familiar clean bitter copybook English against injustice, especially in his 1964 South American reportage, collected in The Great Shark Hunt, which I've quoted twice on my own site. Yes, Thompson did go off his nut at the end, but I'd rather remember what he did well.
Now that Harvard has released the full transcript of Larry Summers' notorious speech, the guesswork about his intentions can be laid to rest. We can all make our summary judgments on this one: I think William Saletan at Slate continues to get it right. He points out that Summers got into hot water by elaborating on his original thoughts in a clumsy way (he is no expert in this field, and it shows) that seems to be a product of an intellectual hubris not particularly connected to sexism - that's the way he is with everyone and everything. But the transcript also I think proves that much of the original scattershot criticism was based on simple misrepresentation of what he said. BTW, I can't help but add that walking around with a fat smug grin doesn't help PR-wise when you're trying to avoid charges of condescension.
It is well and truly worth the three bucks to read this NYRB essay by Michael Chabon about the Sherlock Holmes stories, their kinship with the Chandler idea of trying to do some kind of good in an irredeemable world, the importance of Holmes fandom to the invention of Internet fan fiction, and... well, other stuff. Including a well-deserved kick in the pants to Harold Bloom.
One hundred twenty years ago today, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn published by Charles L. Webster & Co.
While writing a shopping list for a coworker today, I stumbled across this lecture on the history of Charlemagne and Roland, the Middle English cycle of Charlemagne legends. The history is especially interesting because the cycle is entirely hypothetical: it was proposed by a 19th century graduate student rushing to finish his dissertation. Since then, it was elaborated upon by successive generations of scholars in an elaborate game of telephone, accreting more details in each iteration. By the nineties, proposals had been made for its table of contents, place of composition, and the name of its author, even though there is essentially no evidence for its existence.
From my new French etymological dictionary:
yé-yé (XXe s.)., redoublement de l'interject. yea ou yé, empr. à l'anglo-améric. yea(h), pour désigner un style de chansons à la mode dans les années 1960-1970.
I don’t much follow the business of miracles, but it seems to me that the recent death of Sister Lucia of Our Lady of Fatima fame marks the end of era.
The Holy Mother shows up these days on sandwiches and the sides of retirement homes, keeping her counsel. Gone is the time when She appeared to shepherd children and had a chat.
Last summer I got into a fuss over possessing a portable manual typewriter. I took the matter to my antiquer brother-in-law (we pretty much communicate only when one wants something from the other, which makes for an excellent relationship). This past weekend, in celebration of the second anniversary of my AARP eligibility, he presented me with the fruit of his search, a Smith Corona Clipper, circa 1950. The condition is less than pristine, but at least excellent. No detectable wear on the green Bakelite keys. Near perfect working order. An object of greater beauty has yet to sit on my kitchen table (this picture is not an exact representation, but it gives the correct impression).
Typing may be the only skill I developed in high school. Mrs. Sullivan’s typing instruction was almost as effective at getting your yah-yahs out as the Phys-Ed class. Her Typing Room was an old lab room at the end of the wing, full of long tables bearing monster manual typewriters that may well have been surplus purchased from the War Department. Hands were poised over the keyboard, eyes locked on the copy to the right of the machines. Good posture counted for something back then. Mrs. Sullivan strode the aisles, ruler in hand, ready to give you a good snap if she caught you watching your fingers on the keys. Those were the days.
If you’ve never written on a manual, I recommend it. It won’t be easy at first, but once you get the hang of it you’ll find it fairly exhilarating. Writing becomes a literal activity. You must strike the keys. You don’t process words; you detonate them. Above all, you alone are responsible for your language – you are the spell checker and style manual – and soon you find yourself writing with conviction or not at all. It’s a rush, man.
Last week, the most thoughtful thing I read was an Amazon review. Stumbling across well-developed little essays like that makes wonder how people manage to make themselves commit their thoughts.
I never have trouble capturing a rant in mid-sputter, nor in picking apart an argument someone else makes. These are both fairly spontaneous sorts of writing, and they just seem to flow through the keyboard. Unfortunately, sitting down and making myself write up an experience or a review is nearly impossible. There's a school assignment sort of feel to it, and it only gets worse if I've promised I'd do it.
OK, to try to shake us out of our libertarian complacence, here's a Salon piece about David Irving that argues that the traditional, Voltairean, I-disagree-with-what-you-say etc. etc. defense is wrong, wrong, wrong.
Since Cliopatria has declared me your leader, let me take it upon myself to commit a minor bit of copyright infringement for the team by posting this interesting baby-name piece from the NYT from a couple of years ago (hey, you started it, Ben).
Where Have All the Lisas Gone? By Peggy Orenstein, July 6, 2003.
"According to the official Popular Baby Names Web site, the name we are considering for our daughter, to be born later this summer, was in the Top 200 for her sex last year. It was less popular than Molly but more so than Abby. This has me worried. It seems perched at a precarious point from which it could, without warning, rocket into overuse. Witness Chloe, which has shot from 184 to 24 since 1991. Call out the name in your local Gymboree, and four little heads will whip around.
Popular Baby Names, which is operated by the Social Security Administration, ranks the 1,000 most common boys' and girls' names since 1900. You can also look up a specific name and track its status over time (an activity that, I warn you, is an Internet addict's sinkhole). The site, started seven years ago, was initially the side project of a government actuary named Michael Shackleford. Michael reigned as the No. 1 boys' name for 35 years beginning in 1964, after about a decade of duking it out with David and Robert. It was unseated by Jacob in 1999 ...
Shackleford grew up, with no small amount of bitterness, in a multiple-Michael world. He hoped that by publishing the list, parents-to-be would see that his name (and other common names) were shopworn and choose something more original. (Shackleford, incidentally, quit the Social Security Administration in 2000 and moved to Las Vegas, where he has become a gambling consultant known as the Wizard of Odds. His own children are named Melanie, No. 88, and Aidan, No. 63.)
Perennials like Michael or Sarah are not, to my mind, the nub of the issue. They don't explain why so many people seeking more adventurous names seem to hit upon the same ones. Why did I recently receive birth announcements from three couples who had never met, who lived as distant from one another as Maine, Minnesota and California, yet who had all named their sons Leo? How to account for the sudden spate of Natalies?
I am not so smug as to think myself immune to first-name zeitgeist. A few years ago, I developed a sudden affection for Julia, which now hovers at 31, and then for Hannah, which is No. 3. Although I have never personally met a Madison (2), I have watched friends seduced by the seeming novelty of Alyssa (12), Olivia (10) and Dylan (24 among boys), only to discover that their children are destined to spend life with the initials of their last names appended to their first.
While my husband doesn't seem concerned -- at least judged by the excessive eye rolling when I bring up another contender -- I've trawled the Social Security site for clues to the potential future of "our" name. I've sifted through message boards on pregnancy sites to see if it has cropped up among other moms-to-be. I've checked a site that polls users to determine a name's image based on continuums of ambition, attractiveness and athleticism. I've even looked on the Kabalarian Philosophy site, which, using a supposed mathematical principle, analyzes the "power" hidden in more than 500,000 names. None of that, however, explained what I really want to know: how a particular name becomes popular and whether it's inevitable, like it or not, that my husband and I will choose the next Kayla (19).
Pamela Redmond Satran and Linda Rosenkrantz have built their empire on the backs of people like me. Their eight books, including the classic "Beyond Jennifer & Jason, Madison & Montana," have sold more than a million copies; a new volume, the pared-down and pointedly titled "Cool Names," will be published next month. Like "Jennifer & Jason," it is part advice manual, part pop sociology text. Avoiding the deadly (and useless) dictionary format, it divides names into sections. There's the safe Hot Cool (Polly, Harry); the famous Cool Cool (Charlize, Keanu); the retro Pre-Cool Cool (Beata, Lazarus); and the New Cool, which encompasses, among other things, constellations (Elara, Orion). The express purpose is to help jittery parents-to-be separate current favorites from what's about to break big from what the daring among them can pioneer.
The duo read the baby-name tea leaves of preschool class lists, maternity wards and birth announcements. They also consult the Social Security site, though Satran warns of a critical glitch: it doesn't combine alternative spellings. In 1998, for instance, Kaitlyn was way down at 36. But if you totted up the Katelyns, Caitlins, Caitlyns, Kaitlins, Katelynns, Katlyns, Kaitlynns, Katelins, Caitlynns, Katlins, Katlynns and Kaytlyns, that name would have easily bested the No. 1-ranked Emily. Like any kind of forecasting, though, from predicting cargo pants to recognizing that we're about to have an orange moment, picking the next Grace (15) is as much art as science. "We look at all the lists," Satran says. "We look at movie stars' names and what they're naming their children. We look at names that cut across several trends at once. But after that, it's just instinct."
Satran and Rosenkrantz have a pretty solid record of prognosticating, particularly on groups of names. They sounded the alarm on the use of places (Paris, Sierra, Asia) as first names in 1988, years before that trend slid from mainstream to cliche. A friend named her daughter London, Satran remembers, which caught her attention. A short time later, she heard about a baby boy named after a Pennsylvania town. She then met a Holland and heard about a Dakota. Those encounters dovetailed with an uptick of androgynous names for girls. By the time Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger named their daughter Ireland, Satran and Rosenkrantz knew that place names were firmly on the map.
Names weren't always subject to fashion. About half of all boys in Raleigh Colony were named John, Thomas or William, and more than half of newborn girls in the Massachusetts Bay Colony were named Mary, Elizabeth or Sarah. Even in the 20th century, John, William, James and Robert were, in some combination, the top three names for boys for more than 50 years. Among girls, Mary held on to No. 1 for 46 years, when it was supplanted for six years by Linda, fought its way back for another nine, then succumbed to the juggernaut of Lisa.
These days, even a popular name isn't especially prevalent: though the name was ranked fourth, there were only about 16,300 Emmas born last year. Sell-by dates are shorter too, at least for girls. Only three of today's Top 10 names (Sarah, Samantha and Ashley) survived since 1990.
With boys -- well, there's Michael. Parents continue to be more conventional with their sons, more conscious of tradition and generational continuity. Girls' names are more likely to be chosen for style and beauty. That makes them both more interesting to track and more vulnerable to sounding passe, the human equivalent of bragging about your new pashmina.
The Harvard sociologist Stanley Lieberson first bumped up against the fashion quotient of names in the 1960's. Believing they were bucking convention, he and his wife named their eldest daughter Rebecca, only to discover a few years later that she was part of a pack. How had that happened? The marketplace, after all, has no interest in what we name our children; no corporation profits if you choose Kaylee over Megan. That makes names one of the rare measures of collective taste.
Lieberson, the author of "A Matter of Taste: How Names, Fashions and Culture Change," insists that names generally rise and fall independent of larger cultural or historical events. Consider the resurgence of Biblical names. "They came back like gangbusters in the late 20th century," Lieberson says. "There was speculation that it was related to a resurgence of religion. But people who use Old Testament names are, if anything, less religious in their behavior than those who don't. It's just fashion."
Naming styles, Lieberson says, are usually variations on what came before, moving forward predictably, the way lapels get wider and wider until they reach a peak and switch direction. He calls this "the ratchet effect." Take Old Testament names. In 1916, Ruth, for no obvious reason, was the only one to crack the Top 20 for girls. After it crested, it was replaced by Judith in 1940, then Deborah in 1950. By the late 1980's, there were three Old Testament names among the top slots: Rachel, Sarah and Rebecca. Now it's Hannah, Abigail and Sarah, with Leah (90 and holding) as the only potential replacement. Perhaps after a hundred years, girls' Biblical names have ratcheted as far as they can go.
Sometimes, Lieberson explains, rather than a concept, it's just a sound that catches hold: the "a" at the end of girls' names (Emma, Hannah, Mia, Anna), or the hard "k" at the beginning (Kylie, Kaylee, Caitlin, Courtney). That breakthrough sound undulates outward, in a kind of jazz riff, gradually mutating. So the "djeh" sound in Jennifer begat Jenna and Jessica, but Jennifer also begat Heather and Amber, which share its suffix. (Before Jennifer, the only commonly used "er" name was Esther, which was never a favorite.) Those names went on to spawn waves of their own. African-American parents, who are more likely than other groups to invent names for their daughters -- again, less often for their sons -- recently became enamored with "meek": Jameeka, Camika, Mikayla. (Remember the legendary three "meeks" of the Tennessee Lady Vols basketball team -- Tamika Catchings, Chamique Holdsclaw, Semeka Randall?)
But why does "a" or "djeh" or "meek" appeal in the first place? Why not the "th" in Ethel and Thelma (or Ruth!) or the final "s" in Gladys and Lois? That's harder to explain. "My speculation would be that a sound like the final 'a,' which did not used to be particularly popular, probably broke through as a variation on some existing name," Lieberson says, "and then it developed its own life."
That's not to say that external forces are irrelevant. Race clearly influences naming. So does class, especially among whites. Lieberson found that highly educated mothers are more likely to give daughters names that connote strength (Elizabeth or Catherine as opposed to Tiffany or Crystal). Yet, when it comes to boys, the trend reverses, with the more bookish moms going for Julian over Chuck.
That's the problem with the Popular Baby Names site: with no nuance, no dissection by demographic, it can get you only so far. For instance, Satran and Rosenkrantz recently polled upscale nursery schools in Manhattan and Berkeley, Calif. Among that crowd, Charlottes (206) and Rubys (210) ran rampant, but it was a desert for Savannahs (40).
After a couple of hours of my relentless quizzing, Satran (whose own children are named Rory, Joseph and Owen) suggested that some people become a tad obsessed by their quest for originality. While it may evoke a particular theoretical profile (Bambi, anyone?), there is no definitive evidence that a name affects an individual child's popularity, mental health or achievement level. "There are people who want to sell the idea that your name is your destiny," Satran says. "Names aren't your destiny any more than your shoes are." She pauses, then adds, "Well, O.K., maybe your shoes are your destiny."
On the other hand, when she recently advised a friend that Maya was becoming overexposed, it made no difference. Sometimes people fall in love with a name and don't want to believe it's played out. Or they're comforted by something that's a touch more common -- not everyone wants to be a trendsetter, not even those who say they do.
"There's this ideal," Satran says, "not just in names but other things that have to do with style, that you should make a personal statement. But the fact is that most people are not that adventurous. They say they want individual style but they pick their furniture at Pottery Barn. So if you tell them you're going to name your child Matilda, they'll say, 'That's awful.' But if you say Sophia or Lily or any of the names that I'm totally sick of, they'll say, 'That's such a beautiful name.' "
Even pros like Satran and Rosenkrantz are occasionally blindsided by a name, as when Trinity leapfrogged to 74 after the release of "The Matrix." Popular culture is an oft-cited launching pad for naming fads -- soap operas most famously (Kayla, Hunter, Caleb and Ashley all zoomed upward after star turns on daytime dramas). Still, the effect is not as direct as it may seem. Buffy, despite a fanatic cult devotion to the vampire slayer, has not breached the Top 1,000 (although Willow has been climbing modestly since 1998). Aaliyah surged after the singer's death, but Diana barely budged after the Princess of Wales died.
A closer look finds that Trinity was already on the upswing, from 951 in 1993 to 555 five years later. "Riding the curve," as Lieberson calls it, is often the true explanation behind a pop-name phenomenon. A name (or a sound sequence) is in the air, albeit marginally so; because of that, it's used for a character or happens to be that of a high-profile performer (like Jada, 78). That, in turn, catapults the name forward, seemingly out of nowhere.
Bringing us back to the improbable popularity of Madison: it first hit the Top 1,000 in the 1980's and it was, unlike Trinity, probably a pure media event originating in the film "Splash." Recall that, while struggling to choose a name, Daryl Hannah's mermaid strolls onto a certain Manhattan street, et voila.
Still, Madison? No. 2? How in the name of good taste did that happen? Satran points to a confluence of trends: Madison came along at a time when place names and surnames (McKenzie, Morgan) as first names were hot, as well as the related androgynous names for girls (Taylor, Sydney) and the Ralph Lauren, faux horsey-set names (Peyton, Kendall). Then there's Lieberson's phonetic wave theory. In this case, Madeline (56) may have begun to grow tired while Madison sounded just a little fresher. So when Madison finally sinks, who will replace her?
On a hunch, I typed another New York place name into the Popular Baby Names site: Brooklyn. Sure enough, it has vaulted from 755 to 155 since 1991. Then I tried expanding in a different direction on the sound chain from Madeline and discovered that Adeline was inching up as well. Given those trends, it would not be as random as it would appear if, a few years from now, Adelaide and Portland, two seemingly unrelated names, were both in the Top 10.
Now I was getting somewhere. A few nights later, I saw a film that took place around 1900, a mother lode of contemporary names for both sexes. One character was Annabelle. That sounded jaunty. I liked it. But what was its appeal? Then I recalled the current popularity of the Isabella/Isabel/Isabelle chain (14, 84, 112) not to mention Anna (20) and Ella (92). Lovely names all, but they've been done. That made me suspicious. As it turned out, Annabelle was rising with a bullet (from 984 to 330 in seven years, while Annabella went from 963 to 722 in just one). The following week I spied it monogrammed on a sleeping bag in the Pottery Barn Kids catalog. Annabelle was off my list.
Michael aside, overuse usually spells the end of a name, at least for a while. Names also lose luster when they become tied to a particular era. If you really want to ensure your baby girl will be unique among her peers, name her Barbara, Nancy, Karen or Susan. Or Peggy. Those sound like the names of middle-aged women because -- guess what? -- they are.
But names are often resurrected when the generation that bears them dies out. Although our mothers may joke that the play group made up of Max, Rose, Sam and Sophie sounds like the roster of a convalescent home, contemporary parents find those names charming. Doubtless, today's Brittany will name her daughter Delores.
Or maybe she'll call her Remember. Satran claims that the next big trend will be word names. Colors, for example (she just heard of a baby Cerulean), or words that resonate with the parents' values or professions like Integrity or Story. "There's been a street-level thing happening for a while with names like Destiny and Genesis," she says. "They weren't mainstream, but they were there. The tipping point came when Christie Brinkley, who is very visible, named her daughter Sailor because she and her husband liked to sail. Parents are increasingly looking for names that are different and also looking for names with personal meaning. Word names are a natural place to go. It's virgin territory. Our grandchildren will have names we don't even think of as names now."
Satran expects to see a fad in heroes' last names as first names (Monet, Koufax) as well as futuristic or Asian-sounding names borrowed from video games (Vyce, Ajuki). Among African-American parents, she says, the coming thing will be idiosyncratic punctuation accelerated by the singer India.Arie and the singer Brandy, who recently named her daughter Sy'rai.
Which brings me back to the name we are considering for our daughter. We're not, as it turns out, willing to saddle her with something as outre as Minerva. And Zazie or Tallulah are just trying too hard. Our name, as the experts would predict, is a sideways hop rather than a radical leap from names that have recently been stylish. So yes, it could take off. Still, it's a little softer, a little more free-spirited than its precursors, not the sort of name you'd imagine for a future Wall Street gunner. But that suits me fine: I ditched the East Coast 15 years ago for the sunny iconoclasm of Northern California and a life that has become far less conventional than I once imagined. I want my daughter's name, and, I suppose, her life, to reflect that.
I hesitantly asked Satran's opinion, realizing that, like the mother of Maya, I might refuse to heed it. Had we accidentally picked the next Zoe? "Nope," she said. "I think you're safe."
So what is it? I can only respond with Satran's parting piece of advice: "Don't tell anyone the name before the baby is born. Do you really need to know about the girl with that name someone hated in fourth grade?"
She's right. Besides, I don't want to start a trend."
Alan Hogue and Martha complain that they've gotten bored of history and politics.
For those facing similar zeitui, let me recommend the Baby Name Voyager. Hours of fun, and pretty colors to boot!
Louis Proyect said something morally interesting in a comment on the Inside Higher Ed article Alan linked to:
But before I go into this, I want to turn my attention first to an article by Thomas Brown, a Lamar University sociology professor, whose debunking of Churchill on the Mandan epidemic has been circulated widely on the Internet by individuals who want to see him fired. . . . [I]t is unfortunate that Thomas Brown [. . .] has seen fit to publish his findings during such a hysterical atmosphere[. . .].
Before Brown made his article public, the Churchill affair had something of the character of a witch hunt: Professor says something reprehensible, a hue-and-cry is raised on its exposure to the public, and various writers rush to his defence under the principle that even jerks have a right to free speech and academic freedom. The battle lines are drawn predictably, and it's pretty obvious that Churchill will retain his academic position, even if he's not invited to many dinner parties anymore.
Enter Thomas Brown, who had apparently already done a great deal of research showing that Churchill was guilty of academic fraud. Brown publishes his analysis early, and it shifts the debate from Churchill's vile-but-unpunishable statements to real problems in his work that obviously deserve serious consequences.
Proyect's position seems to be that Brown shouldn't have published his findings in the midst of the free speech/academic freedom controversy, because it gave ammunition to those who would have seen Churchill punished for his political opinions. Opinions?
Here's the BBC story. A pity. We needed him.
The Ward Churchill affair has the makings of a real academic scandal. Unfortunately, the academic scandal that it ought to be - a scandal that might even prove cathartic - has nothing to do with the academic scandal that it's become. The free speech brouhaha strikes me a complete non-issue, or at least that's what it should be. A university professor writing in a private capacity should be able to say anything he wants subject to the constitutional bounds of the First Amendment; and under no circumstances should his tenure be held hostage to this. But the Ward Churchill scandal that almost everyone's missing has nothing to do with free speech. It has to do with what appears to be alarmingly poor scrutiny of Churchill's academic output and classroom behavior over the past decade. If Churchill really has committed a Bellesiles and an Ellis without any attention from his tenure committee, the University of Colorado should be taking a hard look at the rigor of its hiring and promotion system.
UPDATE: I have to say, it's not looking good for the Prof.
And if anyone wants a depressing reminder that plus ca change ... here are the Mail's main opinion columns for November 15, 1945:
"OURS - THE LAND OF ISRAEL ... Spokesman for the Jews.
OURS FOR THIRTEEN CENTURIES ... Spokesman for the Arabs."
From now on, every time I read a sensational report suggesting dramatic population change over the 21st Century I will keep in mind this article I just found in The Daily Mail, Saturday, November 10, 1945, which manages to get a few things right but wraps them in a completely misleading banner conclusion:
"The total population of England and Wales is likely to fall to only 14,000,000 in less than 100 years if the smaller families trend between the two world wars is not reversed. This is stated in a statistical summary issued by PEP (Political and Economic Planning) which points out that for 24 years the present generation has failed to replace itself.
The increase in marriage and birth-rates during the war, says PEP, largely represents marriages and births which in normal times would have been delayed for several years. They have led to a reduction in the numbers available for marriage so that, in the absence of new incentives to parenthood they are more likely to be followed by a sharp decline than by a rise in birth rates.
Birth control is held to be mainly responsible for the present decline of fertility, and all investigation points to a narrowing of the gap between the birth-rates of the poor and the well-to-do. Though population is still rising, the country is rapidly becoming a nation of the old, and fewer young people means fewer potential parents."
I am not sure that I really approve of outing literature's giants without their permission, but did anyone ever really have any doubts about Snagglepuss?
This coming Valentine's Day will be the 75th anniversary of The Maltese Falcon. In honor of same, today's SF Chron has an appreciation of Dashiell Hammett, who lived fast, died broke if not exactly young, and was "buried at Arlington National Cemetery over the objections of J. Edgar Hoover."
I still can't help preferring Chandler, but the article's worth a read anyway.
Saw "Coffee and Cigarettes" last night. Kind of a slow burn as artistic impressions go, but a very interesting slow burn. Anyone else got thoughts on it?
One of the queerest ideas going around is that if we don't fix Social Security soon we'll be robbing from our grandchildren. It's true only if we accept the nonsense that the program is a retirement plan one contributes to, which it is not. In truth, in plain talk, Social Security should be called taking care of Mom and Dad.
In an age of rediscovered morality, here is one traditional value that ought to rank pretty high.
I'm not worried about my grandson's retirement. That'll be his kid's problem.
Adult children take care of Mom and Dad because Mom and Dad aren't as quick off the ball anymore; they don't possess the physical and mental skills they had at 45, and they aren't valued in the workforce as they once were. Mom and Dad are tired, and a lot of the energy they once had was spent on love, child-rearing, and worry.
We have a president, Congress, and a national party devoted to building an ownership society. Some legacy they'll be leaving behind if they refuse to take ownership of the responsibility they have for the people who brought them into the world.
(Okay, Alan, now do I sound like an old person?)
I like visiting Harry’s Place every day, just to see if Alan A. is going to get in a fistfight. The last couple days there’s been some vigorous threads over Anti-Americanism. The debate/fuss is over my head, mainly because I don’t think either Americanism or Anti-Americanism really exist.
America is a big place with a lot of trees. The people who live here are special because we say so. We believe that if the people who don’t live here thought and acted more like us they’d be happier.
We have the nicest home in town. We drive the most expensive car, wear the finest clothes, eat the best food. The local sheriff arrests the people we want arrested and tears up the traffic tickets of those we favor. Our quilt wins first prize at the county fair every year. We are monumentally generous: if a neighbor loses their furniture to smoke damage in a house fire, we will replace it; and we will instruct them how to arrange it as well as drop by unannounced to ensure they haven’t tinkered with the floor plan. We expect their gratitude, especially when it’s time to vote for best quilt at the county fair. This is not Americanism; it is having your place, knowing it, and keeping it. It’s the way people are.
Our neighbors respect us. They admire and resent our house, car, clothes, and well-stocked pantry. They are grateful for the new furniture, but thought the carefully crafted thankyou note would suffice. They wouldn’t mind seeing first prize for best quilt occasionally going to someone else. This isn’t Anti-Americanism; it’s having your place, knowing it, and not loving it twenty-four hours a day. It’s the way people are.
A culinary stand-off between Penn and Amherst in parallel with Sunday's big game.
Today's Indy features a rather unsatisfactory hatchet-job by Johann Hari (a promising young man promoted a bit too quickly, IMHO) on Robert Kilroy-Silk and his new party, Veritas. Not that I particularly care to defend the unctuous K-S, but the writing is lazy throughout - and one particular cliche gets my goat enough to provoke a posting. Hari asks Veritas' leader a comparative question about Enoch Powell:
"He spits, "Enoch Powell? What are you going to ask me about next, Genghis Khan?" No, I'm asking about a very similar politician who espoused the same agenda - and appealed to the same people - just a few decades ago. Although now I think of it, it is clear Genghis Khan would have been an avid Veritas supporter."
Now, somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan is so dead a phrase that I'm surprised the Indy's subs let Hari make a spin on it; but more importantly, it's also a flat-wrong dead phrase. Why single out Genghis Khan as the ur-conservative? Quite apart from the fact that he's unlikely to have harbored much of an opinion one way or another about, say, the privatization of social security accounts, the suggestion here - that the Mongols had unreconstructed views about race relations - is a monstrous libel. In fact, the Mongol Empire was a model of ethnic and religious tolerance by medieval standards. The Khans specifically eschewed an ideological line on the issue: As David Morgan says, "The Mongols were undoubtedly pragmatists. They were not too proud to learn from other peoples ... they would adopt any institution and employ any potential servant that seemed likely to facilitate effective government" [Third Way, anyone?]. Genghis' grandson Khubilai presided over a multicultural kaleidoscope in which Middle Eastern, Central Asian and European bureaucrats held high office, and Buddhist, Taoist, Islamic and Christian authorities were free to dispute theological arguments unimpeded by Big Government interference. Edward Gibbon may have been pushing it a bit when he declared that "a singular conformity may be found between the religious laws of Zingis Khan and of Mr. Locke", but let's give due credit to world conquerors where it's deserved. I don't think our Genghis would have given a single Mongolian yurt for Robert Kilroy-Silk and his dreary hangers-on.
People often tell me I’m can be as young as I want to be. Now I’m finding out the President of the United States has some input on the matter. Last night he lumped me in with America’s “younger workers” (all those under age 55). I’ll be 51 in a few weeks, I’ve been paying taxes for 35 years, around the office when co-workers have questions about the aging process they ask me, and during check-ups my doctor writes a lot more on his clipboard than he used to. But by presidential decree I’m back with the youth of America. Guess I can start skipping the physicals.
There’s a trade-off, of course. I’ll be working until I’m 75 and then my benefits will be cut. I’m young again, though, and the president couldn’t have provided a more thoughtful birthday gift. Maybe later I’ll try touching my toes.
A typically interesting Louis Menand piece on Hollywood in this week's New Yorker, which more or less blames the crappy nature of today's blockbuster culture on the collapse of the studio system beginning in 1948 (for an alternative triumphalist account of that story, see the research database of the Society of Independent Motion Picture Producers). For a mixed account of the system's connection to the Hollywood blacklist, see here.
I have spent the morning thinking about, and conducting superficial research on, the word meme. I run into this word a lot and, just as I had hoped, my investigations are proving fodder for my natural inclination to be annoyed with just about everything.
There was this definition from some site I didn’t bookmark: Meme: an information pattern, held in an individual's memory, which is capable of being copied to another individual's memory.
Then this from the father of the word, Richard Dawkins: Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation.
So what bugs me is that, through it’s growing usage, it is a word that describes itself. I mean, isn’t a meme a meme?