Tag: newsF

I should not have read Jack Ketchum’s THE GIRL NEXT DOOR (a zero-stars review)

(I do a fair bit of reading, which I track over on Goodreads. Trying to move some of that value over here, prior to the inevitable enshitification.)

This book was notorious when I was a kid for being so extreme and gruesome. Straight talk: it’s not that gruesome. Yes, there are graphic depictions of torture and sexual violence that are basically in the ballpark of stuff happening in conflict zones right now. That this really happens to real people is gruesome and outrageous; that some guy typed it up in 1989 feels trite.

Anyway, what really is truly extreme and gruesome in this book is its absolute moral cowardice. Ketchum sets up an interesting premise–not the sex torture of the orphaned girl next door, but the narrator’s (David’s) complicity, how he lets awfulness roll forward despite liking this girl, despite being a “good guy” and “All-American Kid” (echoes of King’s “Apt Pupil” there).

That premise is interesting, because it matches the vast majority of us: we’re good people, and we let bad things happen all over the world all the time.

The problem is that Ketchum pulls the punch. Inexplicably, he attempts to transform David into a hero in the final act–despite the fact that there’s no set-up for it, and Ketchum seems entirely incapable of pulling it off. That might be fine; it could still be a solid three-star book if David tried to play the hero, then faceplanted (as he does in the novel, as he must, because the situation is so hopeless), and Megan (the victim of these outrages and everyone’s leer, readers included) had poured her fury and rage out on him.

Instead Ketchum paints this kid–this coward, this bystander, this rapist-by-proxy and torture fanboy–as the hero, and forces Meg to be his forgiving damsel.

And it just makes me want to fucking vomit. It’s a mediocre book that’s only shocking if you’ve never read a newspaper’s international headlines. It’s an advertisement for never holding anyone accountable for anything–save for the victims; “What was she doing alone with those boys? What did she expect, dressing like that” and so on and so forth ad nauseam, ad infinitum, world without end, amen 🤮

Gerrymandering Solved Just Like Mom Used to Make!

Remember when you were a kid and would fight over who got the bigger slice of cake, and so your mom made one of you cut and the other choose, in order to ensure fairness and decrease the amount of kvetching and whining she’d have to deal with, so she could just get on with her life?

Well, turns out you can fix gerrymandering exactly the same way (more or less): Schneier on Security: A Self-Enforcing Protocol to Solve Gerrymandering

This protocol is self-enforcing (i.e., it requires no outside arbiter or commission or oversight board or judges), mathematically verified, and fair—all of which taken together basically guarantees we’ll never ever ever use it, because (waves hands) will-of-the-people-constitutionalism-orginalist-intent-textualist-consistent-with-traditions-blah-blah-bullshit.🤬🇺🇸🔥

“the only thing in life that’s really worth having is good skill”—Jerry Seinfeld

I do not endorse Seinfeld or Seinfeld (no deeply held conviction or ideological bone to pick there; he just never particularly worked for me, as a comedian or writer), but I do wholeheartedly endorse both the above sentiment, and reading the entire op-ed it came from (here’s a gift link 🎁🔗 ):

“Opinion: The life secret Jerry Seinfeld learned from Esquire“[*]

The takeways summarized in the op-ed are good and worth your time, and the core message is a fundamental truth:

Dedicating yourself to the mastery of a craft—against all odds and despite all distractions and obstacles—is the only path along which there is relief.

Along these same lines—delving into and reflecting on what it means to dedicate yourself to craft—I likewise wholeheartedly endorse this documentary (noting that, over the last decade I’ve revised my opinion on it in at least one important detail: although I still love the documentary, I no longer even mildly like any of these comics).

[*] I also don’t endorse Esquire—again, it never really worked for me is all. I do endorse the Washington Post, though. I read a lot of news reporting from a lot of sources, and there’s is consistently the most even-handed and makes the most honest attempt at being honest and accurate, in my humble.

Recommended Reading/Listening: PseudoPod 886: “A Wonder of Nature, In Need of Killing” by VG Campen

PseudoPod 886: “A Wonder of Nature, In Need of Killing” by VG Campen

I loved this story, especially given the wonderful voice acting by narrator Sevatividam. Very strong vibes of “illegitimate lovechild of True Grit and H.P. Lovecraft.” Recommended for those who enjoy voicey first-person narrators, down-holler riverside oxy-and-meth country Americana, turtle soup, and county fairs.

You can listen to this story wherever you get podcasts, or at the following link, which also features the full text for those who prefer reading over being read to:

PseudoPod 886: “A Wonder of Nature, In Need of Killing” by VG Campen

(art credit: “Kalmarian swamp turtle” by Halycon450 released under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License)

I can’t shake the feeling that there is something vaguely antisemitic about this situation . . .🪄🐇👿

Holy Moses! The “suave devil look” for magicians (goatee, tuxedo, etc.) was invented by a Jewish magician named “Herrmann” (which I think is German for “Mr. Man”—which just so feels like a name assigned by a census taker who was fed up with weird Yiddish shtetl names he couldn’t spell) who performed for Lincoln!

New York Times: “How a 1933 Book About Jews in Magic Was Rescued From Oblivion” (🎁 gift link)

In fact, Herrmann (shown in the picture at the top, courtesy of his Wikipedia entry) is so synonymous with the look that if you prompt an A.I. with “create a poster for an 1800s stage magician. The magician needs a goatee” it gives you a picture of this otherwise obscure 19th Century French stage magician:

A.I.l generated image from the prompt “create a poster for an 1800s stage magician. The magician needs a goatee.” The result is a stereotypical "suave devil" stage magician--and happens to be a nearly spot-on portrait of 19th C Jewish magician Alexander Herrmann

This is Seriously How I Feel about Every Casino App 🎰💸🤮

I live in Michigan, and we’re deluged in ads for this stuff here. I don’t personally care about gambling—don’t dig it, don’t really object to it, not close to anyone who’s gotten really tangled up in it. But these apps—the aggressiveness of the celebrity shilling, the dopamine-flood design of their ads, the trite offers of “help” to those struggling with a gambling problem—just feels gross as fuck to me. It may be a stretch to say you are profiting from your neighbors’ misery when you use these apps, but it is no stretch at all to point out that Jamie Foxx and Jason Alexander and all the rest of these celebrity shills sure as shit are. Why in the world are these folks, who are already multi-millionaires, taking this work to promote these apps?

A Canticle for Leibowitz ★★★★★

(I do a fair bit of reading, which I track over on Goodreads. Trying to move some of that value over here, prior to the inevitable enshitification.)

This is a re-read (or really a re-listen for me). The first time I read A Canticle for Leibowitz I was maybe 17 at the oldest, so almost three decades ago now. Reading old books is a comfort, because it reminds us that even our most painfully modern woes—A.I.! Self-driving cars! A broad American passion for alluring misinformation coupled to a contempt for facts spoken by the “wrong” side!—were old and well-worn decades before I was born. This books is from 1959, and it’s third section literally opens with a guy working in his office and getting super frustrated with the malfunctioning A.I. he’s trying to dictate a letter to. Soon thereafter he and his subordinate have to dodge autonomous semis while crossing the street to get to the cafeteria. 😂

Setting aside Canticle‘s mild antisemitism(*), it’s refreshing to read religion in a scifi book written by someone who doesn’t have contempt for religion, but neither idealizes it, either. Miller (who I understand to have been a devout Catholic by the time he wrote the novel) respects that religious institutions, like any and all institutions, are political and can be petty, because they are operated by humans (who are political and petty). But he also highlights that religious institutions aren’t *just* petty political vehicles. He acknowledges the reality that people don’t cleave to religion out of fear or contempt or cruelty or because they hate the Other, but rather out of love and comfort and, believe it or note, a true and legitimate desire to bring about a good and just world.

We have religion in America now—right alongside our malfunctioning A.I. and glitchy self-driving cars. We’re gonna have it in the future. It’s absence in scifi is as weird and non-credible as the bizarrely small number of Black people in the Detroit depicted in Robocop.

(*) A “Wandering Jew” character plays a major supporting role in all three sections of this A Canticle for Leibowitz. I think enough people categorize the “Wandering Jew” as a foundational antisemitic trope that this should be a fairly non-controversial opinion. But I also know how the Internet works, so if you’re legit interested in discussing what precisely reads as antisemitic to me in this novel, feel free to reach out. Happy to chat.

Cannibalism: it’s what’s for dinner!

I like this as satire and critique, but also just really love the rhythm of this graff:

With the advances we have made in pain management, prosthetics and ergonomic furniture, there isn’t a compelling reason not to become a Center-of-the-Plate contributor to the next course of global food mania. Write off that leg with the bad knee on your taxes; then hack it, cryo-vac it, ship it to a tycoon in Hong Kong who needs something rare to serve his guests at the executive dinner.  It’s a win-win for din-din!

—Stephen Trouvere, “A Modest Proposal Regarding Office Veal“

Pairs well with Agustina Bazterrica’s Tender Is the Flesh (translated by Sarah Moses). My thoughts on that novel:

Straight talk: this book is a little like heavy metal poisoning. Its impact is pernicious, deep, and likely permanent. You’ll be powerfully tempted to pigeon-hole this as an allegory (about world-wide overconsumption of meat, about climate change, about patriarchy, about the deadly tendency to humor wealthy idiots)—but, jeez, don’t. That’s just a defense mechanism, your brain’s white blood cells trying to contain and thus destroy an interloper. Don’t cop out like that. Just let the story fully in, let it blossom and consume you.

It’s really a helluva book.