Word of the Day: "Hueristic"

Hueristic (adjective): Of or pertaining to investigation, learning and discovery. (via Kevin Kelly)

Killer Look at Investigative Reporting:

So I neglected to mention it but last's week's episode of On The Media is a must listen. The team from WNYC devoted the whole hour to the future of investigative reporting featuring heavyweights like Seymour Hersch and Lowell Bergman weighing in on the topic.

Now if "The Future of Investigative Reporting" leaves you cold, then stop reading. If it raises your eyebrows (or your loins), listen. Immediately.

Thought of the Day: "Behind"

"No matter how high you sit on your throne, you are still sitting on your own behind." --Montaigne (via KQED's Forum)

London Review of Books June 19th, Short Cuts, John Lanchester

I've said before that I'm very tired of my bibliophilic brethren discussing books as if the physicality of reading is a non-issue. My friend and colleague Mark Sarvas and I differ on this one. He doesn't care if a reviewer/journalist/pundit reads a book in the bathtub or while skydiving. He cares about what they have to say about what's inside. A fair opinion.

I, on the other hand,  think we only benefit from treating reading as a real world (and that means physical, sensual and yes sexual) activity rather than solely a cerebral one. Those in the business of books and those of us who love them do more than enough to take books seriously and it is not helping matters. Let us now be willing to make reading as delicious and as artistic as fine chocolate.

Now the last place I expected to find a like-minded friend in this argument was in the pages of the reliably stodgy London Review of Books. That was, until I read John Lancaster's magnificent essay about The Library of America earlier this summer. In it, Lanchester does what many great essays do: Take something we know beneath the water line of our consciousness and bring it above.

The choicest bits...

I am an abject fan of the Library. I own..They are about the nicest books I have. American books are in general printed to much higher standards than British books. The Library takes that tendency about as far as it will go: it’s hard not to take the volumes down from the shelves and stroke them, like a Bond villain fondling a cat.

What is really hard, though, is to read them. The books are so gorgeous, so marmoreal, that I find them unreadable. Not unreadable in the Pierre Bourdieu/Edward Bulwer-Lytton sense, and not unreadable in theory – I want to read them, I really do. It’s just that in practice, I don't... As for the Pléiade, my record of ownership is fairly strong, but equally unblemished by actual reading. I have six volumes: three of Proust, two of Simenon, and one of Taoist philosophy (don’t ask). If pressed, I would say that the Pléiade volumes are theoretically more readable, or less not-readable, than the Library of America; something to do with the sexily diminutive format. This is pure theory, however. In practice they are both equally easy to not-read.

And then...

That makes 16 volumes of beautifully produced and entirely unread great writing. What is it about these amazingly gorgeous books that makes one not want to read them? Perhaps it’s to do with having a palate corrupted by paperbacks. I buy more hardbacks now that they’re cheaper – sales figures suggest lots of us do – but in my head I still think that the paperback is somehow the real form of a book. It has a cheapness and democratic availability, and it doesn’t matter if you drop it in the bath or lose it or discover that it’s been ‘borrowed’. I can’t shake off the sense that a hardback is a slightly over-posh relative of a real book.

Bringing it home...

There’s a risk that memorialising writers, consigning them to Culture, is a way of ignoring them.

Genius. I didn't know who John Lanchester was until I read this piece. Now he's made himself a fan here in America.

Thought of the Day: "The Arts."

"In a country that has, at best, a conflicted relationship with public support for the arts, we are made to think more and more every year that art is a luxury. I was raised to believe it is a necessity. Art, in all its forms, is the expression of who, why, and where we are at any given time in history. It allows us to question, in a nonliteral, academic, or linear way, who we are, why we do what we do, and where we are going. Incorporating art into the fabric of everyday life is an obligation and a sign of a healthy democratic society."

— Stanley Tucci (via Brad Graham)

Michelle Obama and that Annoying Song:

I, like many of you I'm sure, was quite moved by Michelle Obama's keynote speak last night on the opening evening of the Democratic National Convention. But really, did they have to play "Isn't She Lovely?", that sappy Stevie Wonder song after her remarks? They couldn't find "Isn't She Smart?" "Isn't She Brave?" or something like that.

That, and the women is introduced by her brother as "my little sister" and then called "cute" by the candidate after her speech? What the hell, man? Just let her talk. Does she need to be ironed out with condescension too?

Thought of the Day: "Music"

"Music, of all the arts, stands in a special region, unlit by any star but its own, and utterly without meaning ... except its own."

--Leonard Bernstein (a hero of mine whose birthday is today.)

(via The Writer's Almanac)

One Sentence Movie Review: "The Dark Knight"

The Dark Knight (2008): "We get the kind of heroes we deserve and when we are frightened, bigoted and small, we shouldn't be surprised that our heroes are as flawed as we are."

Seen: At the Grand Lake Theatre, the only movie theatre that matters.

Word of the Day: "Insouciant"

Insouciant (adj.): "Free from concern, carefree."

Notes: Pronounced "In-soo-see-uhnt," one of those pronunciations that makes about as much sense as  "phlegm" pronounced "flem" (which makes it sound Dutch)  instead of "Fleg-em" (meaning to impale someone  on a flagpole) which I like the sound of much better.

Clone Wars: Eh, No.

So my best friend Dave has reviewed Clone Wars for Film Critic, an act of magnanimity that will save me the trouble of seeing it myself. I was tempted, but cooled off nicely upon reading this...

It would be nice to think that the infusion of new blood into the Star Wars franchise, in the form of director Dave Filoni and screenwriters Henry Gilroy, Steven Melching, and Scott Murphy, would reinvigorate the series and correct the shortcomings of some of the previous installments. It would be nice to think that the introduction of animation to the mix might create new opportunities for the storytelling aesthetic. It would be nice to think a lot of things, but this latest installment suffers from all of the less appealing qualities of its predecessors and benefits from few of their strengths.

And then, shoveling dirt to bury the stench of rot...

In watching The Clone Wars, one is filled with the overwhelming urge to grab George Lucas, thank him for his immeasurable contribution to the science fiction canon, and ask him politely to cut it out already. This will not work, however, as The Clone Wars is scheduled to become a 3D animated TV series this fall.

Bullet (or Light Saber) dodged. Time saved banked for plans of world conquest. Or pruning of toenails with oyster fork.