Critical Apprehensions & Intemperate Discourses

Kip Manley, proprietor

The anvil lasts longer than the hammer.

A sideline, an hors d’oeuvres, a carnival bark; but one takes one’s hammers where one can find them:

The public esteem of the profession of arms is at a rather low ebb just now—at least in the United States. The Soviet Union retains the pomp and ceremony of military glory, and the office class is highly regarded, if not by the public (who can know the true feelings of Soviet citizens?) then at least by the rulers of the Kremlin. Nor did the intellectuals always despise soldiers in the United States. Many of the very universities which delight in making mock of uniforms were endowed by land grants and were founded in the expectation that they would train officers for the state militia. It has not been all that many years since US combat troops were routinely expected to take part in parades; when soldiers were proud to wear the uniform off post, and when my uniform was sufficient for free entry into movie houses, the New York Museum of Modern Art, the New York Ballet, and as I recall the Met (as well as to other establishments catering to less cultural needs of the soldier).

Jerry Pournelle, ladies and gentlemen, piping up from 1979 to remind us that even if the ROTC wasn’t really in danger when Alito joined CAP, well, that doesn’t so much matter; we have always already been hating the military more. —That’s from “Mercenaries and Military Virtue,” his introduction to David Drake’s Hammer’s Slammers collection; therein we find the celebrated story “Hangman.” Take up your copies and turn with me now to page 184 of the Baen Books 1987 paperback edition:

“Never been shot in the head myself, Captain, but I can see it might shake a fellow, yeah.” Jenne let the whine of the fans stand for a moment as the only further comment while he decided whether he would go on. Then he said, “Captain, for about a week after I first saw action I meant to get out of the Slammers, even if I had to sweep floors on Curwin for the rest of my life. Finally I decided I’d stick it. I didn’t like the… rules of the game, but I could learn to play by them.

“And I did. And one rule is, that you get to be as good as you can at killing the people Colonel Hammer wants killed. Yeah, I’m proud about that one just now. It was a tough snap shot and I made it. I don’t care why we’re on Kobold or who brought us here. But I know I’m supposed to kill anybody who shoots at us, and I will.”

“Well, I’m glad you did,” Pritchard said evenly as he looked the sergeant in the eyes. “You pretty well saved things from getting out of hand by the way you reacted.”

As if he had not heard his captain, Jenne went on, “I was afraid if I stayed in the Slammers I’d turn into an animal, like the dogs we trained back home to kill rats in the quarries. And I was right. But it’s the way I am now, so I don’t seem to mind.”

Hammer? Anvil? —Context amongst yourselves.

—Filed 7184 days ago to Paralitticisms; .

Pieces of what, exactly?

I didn’t notice when James Frey’s Million Little Pieces hit the Oprah jackpot, but I wasn’t paying that much attention to the Oprah jackpot. But now that the Smoking Gun has gone and gotten itself on the front page of USA Today for calling him on his shit, well, I guess I am paying attention to USA Today. Or at least saw it out of the corner of my eye on my way to pick up a slice of pizza.

Anyway, I just wanted to remind all and sundry of this delightfully caustic review from a couple years back.

—Filed 7185 days ago to Poprocks; .

Malleability.

So almost three years after I heard of it, I finally have a copy of The Office (for which many thanks). And it is, indeed, exquisitely excruciating to watch (the moreso if you’re howsomever precariously perched in middle management yourself). But this isn’t about The Office. See, now that I’ve seen the character of David Brent in action, I now have a much more full appreciation of the Ricky Gervais Reveal.

The Ricky Gervais Reveal?

Well. The gentleman below, one Ricky Gervais, famous of course for the singular comic creation that is the character of David Brent,

was once the somewhat taller half of really-big-in-Japan-(and-the-Philippines) pop sensation Seona Dancing.

(Luckily, I’d already seen Momus’ post on the subject, or else John’s might have curdled my brain somewhat more than it did. Speaking of malleability.)

But this isn’t about the Ricky Gervais Reveal, either. It’s about another reveal, which will probably impress three people out there, and I’ve already told one of them in person, and another probably already knows. But who cares. —See, in the course of one thing and another (now that the zombies are put to bed) I was listening to the soundtrack of The Secret Garden, which has its moments, bombastic though they might be, and when “Winter’s on the Wing” came on, I happened to look over at the iTunes window, where the Artist field was highlighted, and did a doubletake. See, Martha’s brother Dickon, conjurin’ with that stick of his?

Well, there in the Original Cast, he was played by John Cameron Mitchell, who would some few years later rather famously pull a wig down from the shelf.

Rather a long way to go for thin bit of gruel, I’m afraid. —I did discover that Ricky Gervais is writing for the Simpsons,

and also what John Cameron Mitchell’s up to these days.

Does that help?

—Filed 7185 days ago to Poprocks; .

Yanking cranks.

Title 47, Chapter 5, Subchapter II, Part I, §223, “Obscene or harassing telephone calls in the District of Columbia or in interstate or foreign communications,” used to read as follows:

• a) Prohibited acts generally
• Whoever—
  • (1) in interstate or foreign communications—
    • (A) by means of a telecommunications device knowingly—
      • (i) makes, creates, or solicits, and
      • (ii) initiates the transmission of,
    • any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image, or other communication which is obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, or indecent, with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass another person;
    • (B) by means of a telecommunications device knowingly—
      • (i) makes, creates, or solicits, and
      • (ii) initiates the transmission of,
    • any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image, or other communication which is obscene or indecent, knowing that the recipient of the communication is under 18 years of age, regardless of whether the maker of such communication placed the call or initiated the communication;
    • (C) makes a telephone call or utilizes a telecommunications device, whether or not conversation or communication ensues, without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person at the called number or who receives the communications;
    • (D) makes or causes the telephone of another repeatedly or continuously to ring, with intent to harass any person at the called number; or
    • (E) makes repeated telephone calls or repeatedly initiates communication with a telecommunications device, during which conversation or communication ensues, solely to harass any person at the called number or who receives the communication; or
  • (2) knowingly permits any telecommunications facility under his control to be used for any activity prohibited by paragraph (1) with the intent that it be used for such activity,
• shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.

Of course, you’ll want to know what a “telecommunications device” is.

• (h) Definitions
• For purposes of this section—
  • (1) The use of the term “telecommunications device” in this section—
    • (A) shall not impose new obligations on broadcasting station licensees and cable operators covered by obscenity and indecency provisions elsewhere in this chapter; and
    • (B) does not include an interactive computer service.

Clear enough?

Ah, but now, thanks to H.R.3402, the (otherwise estimable and indeed highly necessary) Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act of 2005, we get to take up our red pens and amend the above. Turn with me to Sec. 113 for the changes:

• (a) In General- Paragraph (1) of section 223(h) of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 223(h)(1)) is amended—
  • (1) in subparagraph (A), by striking ‘and’ at the end;
  • (2) in subparagraph (B), by striking the period at the end and inserting ‘; and’; and
  • (3) by adding at the end the following new subparagraph:
    • ‘(C) in the case of subparagraph© of subsection (a)(1), includes any device or software that can be used to originate telecommunications or other types of communications that are transmitted, in whole or in part, by the Internet (as such term is defined in section 1104 of the Internet Tax Freedom Act (47 U.S.C. 151 note)).’.

Now are we clear?

—No: it’s not illegal now to post anonymously to the internet, on the grounds that someone somewhere might be annoyed. Then, Declan McCullagh never said it was. He was if somewhat alarmist nontheless pretty clear up front that the intent to annoy (or abuse, or threaten, or harass) was key. Those who pooh-pooh the idea this law would ever be used against the colorfully pseudonymous commenters at Eschaton or Daily Kos or TBogg (or Little Green Footballs, or the Free Republic, or the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler) underestimate, I think, what a target-rich environment comment threads have become for abuse and threats and harrassment, and sheer downright intentional annoyance; miss, in fact, the very raison d’etre of the internet troll. —The most recently celebrated eruptions of accusations of abuse (and annoyance) depended, it’s true, on mendacity, or at least a criminal inability to parse satire and provide context—but while that might get you acquitted, it won’t pay your legal bills.

Atrios—I mean, Duncan Black—has it pretty much right, I think. Unless His Imperial Presidency signed one of Strip-Search Sammy’s backsie specials, this law will either be interpreted in basic good faith, following the spirit of its context and intent (“Preventing Cyberstalking,” says the subsection’s title)—or it will be adjusted drastically, following a nasty and otherwise unnecessary legal battle. Or both. It (as ever) remains to be seen. —Meanwhile, here’s grounds for one of those perennial conversations we all ought to keep having, about moderation andd politesse and community, and speech, and the illusory freedoms thereof. Annoying, I know, we’ve been over it all before and will again, but chop the wood and carry the water, okay?

(Oh, who are we kidding. We’re all going to have to keep identity affidavits and political permits on file whenever we want to blog about anything more inflammatory than knitting. We’ll be like porn stars with those USC 2257 statements at the bottom of every page. Bots will ping us in IM: “Papers, please.” What a brave new world! If only those dam’ libertarians hadn’t made libertarianism so selfishly stupid…)

—Filed 7186 days ago to Squawkbox; Comments [1].

Technical note.

You may or may not have noticed the footnotes I stick in the hyperlinks hereabouts (hover your mouse over them, if not); I like to tuck a little snarky context in them. Helps with some of the jokes. —Of course, you might have noticed the footnotes, but if you’re using Firefox, you probably couldn’t read them, since Firefox trims the <title> tag by default, and it’s downright impossible to figure out how to reset it in about:config. But luckily, there’s an extension for just about everything in Firefox; a little judicious Googling (far less than I’d feared) turned up the Popup ALT Attribute, which was built to allow people who’d been misusing the <alt> tag for tooltips (conditioned, apparently, by that evil former monolith, Explorer) to keep doing so; as a sideline, it includes “multiline tooltip,” which tells Firefox to stop truncating those mutiline footnotes. Seems to work fine so far, though of course your mileage may vary; I’m pleased to note it process a hyperlinked image properly, by my standards, which is to say it displays the <title> tag of the link rather than the <alt> tag of the image, with nary a moment of confusion.

And that’s as geeky as I plan to get today. Back to the zombies. That I can’t call zombies. Long story; I’ll tell you about it someday.

—Filed 7187 days ago to Indulgences; Comments [6].

Resolver.

Almost forgot to mention: Patrick spent New Year’s Day brewing up one helluva mole, while I made the Hoppin’ John, and when we were all gathered around, him and me and the Spouse, and Anne and Dylan and Vera and Rich and Erika and Matt and Jesse, and Steve and Sara and Johnzo and Victoria, and the three cats, of course, well, it was then that Steve, who isn’t called Uncle Crackdown for nothing, started asking what our New Year’s resolutions were.

And I thought about how every year lately we’ve been standing around in varying states of intoxication groaning as the year ekes out its last. Turning our faces slowly to the next. Anything’s got to be better than that, right? is what we all say, year after year after year.

(Actually, said this person, or that, I had a pretty good year this year. —Hush, you! You’re mucking up the paradigm!)

So I thought about saying my resolution was to have a good year, but I didn’t.

I said, instead, to finish something.

I have a couple things in mind. We’ll see.

—Filed 7188 days ago to Indulgences; Comments [6].

If I had a hammer, I’d do something about all these goddamn nails.

Against the law to advocate overthrowing US gov’t.

What do you mean? I’ve never done anything of the kind!

Membership in California Lawyers for the Environment, right? Worked for the American Socialist Legal Action Group, right?

So what? We never advocated anything but change!

Smirk of scorn, hatred. He knew he had me.

I had my second Afghani dinner in as many days with Julia and her husband and her brother in an exquisite little stripmall joint somewhere deep in the wilds of Queens, far to the east of anywhere I’d been before, and the sabzi challow was just as good as she’d said it would be, and when her brother and I caught a subway back to Manhattan I got to remember all over again why you never get on an empty subway car in the middle of summer.

And despite the conventional wisdom about how oddly disjointed it is to meet in the flesh someone you’ve only known online, the only really awkward moment came when it usually did, for me, at least: Why’d you stop? she said.

I shrugged and said what I usually said: I don’t know. I stopped because I’d stopped.

Got to work. Got to. At local library, on an old manual typewriter. The book mocks: how can you, little worm crushed in gears, possibly aspire to me? Got to continue nonetheless. In a way it’s all I have left.

The problem of an adequate history bothers me still. I mean not my personal troubles, but the depression, the wars, the AIDS plague. (Fear.) Every day everything a little worse. Twelve years past the millennium, maybe the apocalyptics were just a little bit early in their predictions, too tied to numbers. Maybe it just takes a while for the world to end.

I was on a bus. Late March? Early April? I was on a bus, on the way home from work, earbuds in, nose down, book open. Early April, I think. I hadn’t posted anything in a bit. My “long explore” of the Unheimlichsenke had sputtered out in a thicket of Victors and Victorias, and I was instead becoming obsessed with unriddling the koan: what I’d thought was passing for enlightenment wasn’t. (That’s it? That’s all there is to it?) —The book in my hands was The Shining Sea Pacific Edge; I was trying to find a passage I’d remembered, where Tom Barnard lays out just how simple it turned out to have been, getting to Utopia: we just told them to stop, he said, or I’d thought he’d said, or words to that effect. I wasn’t finding it. I was, instead, sticking bus transfers between these two pages, or those, obsessively marking passages I wanted to come back to, bones in the ground of the answer I knew I had to find, bits mostly from the italicized interpolations, Barnard’s notes from back in the always-already, Robinson’s commentary track, the becoming the book itself was trying to help us all sidestep—

Sometimes I read what I’ve written sick with anger, for them it’s all so easy. Oh to really be that narrator, to sit back and write with cool ironic detachment about individual characters and their little lives because those lives really mattered! Utopia is when our lives matter. I see him writing on a hilltop in an Orange County covered with trees, at a table under an olive tree, looking over a garden plain and the distant Pacific shining with sunlight, or on Mars, why not, chronicling how his new world was born out of the healthy fertility of the old earth mother, while I’m stuck here in 2012 with my wife an ocean to the east and my daughter a continent to the west, “enjoined not to leave the county” (the sheriff) and none of our lives matter a damn.

And it was maybe those words there I was reading when the opening fanfare of “Bright Blue Music” kicked its way out of the earbuds.

It wasn’t the disjunct between interpolations and interpolated that did it, no. The split between the smirk of scorn and hatred, the AIDS camps and the terror, and the all-encompassing epic struggle over a zoning designation—that spoonful of snark to help the medicine go down—it’s a flavor I’m all too familiar with. It wasn’t the encroaching conjunct between the world around us as it evermore is these days and the world Robinson was trying to wave us away from, the 2012 he was imagining from back in 1988. We always outstrip our fictions, after all, or what’s a heaven for? —It was the abjunct, sudden sharp and complete, between myself, there, on the bus, that book in my hands, and the music that was swelling in my head, the hope unalloyed, the joy in those brassy fanfares. It was thoroughly irrational, but these moments always are: the gap between seemed suddenly so vast and deep, and I looked down and saw my feet uselessly churning the air, and I closed the book and I closed my eyes to stop them from leaking. Heartsick, gutpunched, I took a deep breath and I let go. I stopped.

I stopped because I’d stopped.

All day I would sit there staring at the page, staring into the blank between my world and the world in my book. Until my hand would shake. Looking around me, looking at what my country was capable of when it was afraid. Seeing the headlines in the newspapers scattered around. Seeing my companions and the state they were in.

That’s the big thing, the outside thing; there’s also the ten thousand things inside, little and petty, maybe, but Utopia is when our lives matter, dammit; when the only things that matter are little, and petty. Zoning changes. Database issues. Typography. —The day after I had dinner with Julia and company (and I should mention that her strength is as the strength of ten, for her heart is pure, and her aim true), I was standing in Patrick’s office at Tor, and did I mention just how cool it is to meet people in “real” life that you’ve only known online? To put a voice to the words you’ve been reading? (An hour later, we were upstairs in the sort of old New York bar you find by shooting cannons, and Patrick was catching Teresa up on convention gossip in the interstices of our wide-ranging and enthusiastic triscourse, and one of those catch-ups was him turning suddenly and saying, oh, oh, did I tell you I finally got to meet so-and-so (someone, it seemed, who’d previously only been words on a screen), and Teresa, pretending great affront, said no, you wicked thing! and I couldn’t help it; I fell for them both then and there.) —The only really awkward moment came when it usually did, for me: When are you going to start it up again? he said, there in his office.

Well, I said. I shrugged. You know. I’m working on it. Trying to port it from Movable Type to WordPress. There are issues. I want to redesign it. I have to figure out the whole WordPress thing. —I was flipping through his recently arrived copy of Alasdair Gray’s Book of Prefaces and marvelling at the sheer bookness of it. I started idly pondering which bits could best be stolen for a website, and how.

That was August; this is January. There are still issues. As you can see. At least I got it ported over to WordPress. Finally. (The Spouse fetched me a copy of the Book of Prefaces for Christmas. I still haven’t figured out how to do it. There’s a lesson in there, somewhere.) —And by the way, if you for whatever reason get into or have found yourself using WordPress, and have upgraded to “Duke,” and you do any sort coding yourself beyond just typing the entry straight into the little box provided, do yourself a favor? Fire up your dashboard, click on the Users tab, scroll down to Personal Options, and uncheck the “Use the visual rich editor when writing.” Otherwise, it will fuck your shit up. No lie.

Where was I?

Yes, the sailors are gone; yes, it’s all rather generically Kubrick around here. I want to redesign, obviously. I still need to figure out the whole WordPress thing. I want some posts of different categories to have different formatting, for one thing; I want to figure out the best way to integrate deltiolographs with a ruthlessly simple design. (It would be nice if there was a filter somewhere for Photoshop that made photos look like Wall Street Journal hedcuts, wouldn’t it?) I’d love to figure out how to fine-tune RSS feeds in WordPress, so that the Atom feed (say) was full-text, and the RSS 2.0 feed was just the post excerpt, so people had a choice, and the LiveJournal feeds might be nice to rescue, if anyone remembers who set them up. And where would I put the feeds from Audioscrobbler and LibraryThing? Decisions, decisions. Ten thousand things to rearrange, which I can do while I’m writing, I guess, is the point, as easily as not. I’m back, I guess, is the point, as much as I ever was here in the first place. The book is open; my eyes are open. Up and on to the next.

(And can I say how touched I was by the folks who showed up and said hi so quickly when tentative let’s-kick-the-tires posts appeared? Thank you. It’s good to see you all again. —Confidential to Lisa: of course, and soon enough, but still: a little patience. I’m looking for a hammer. Email me a snailmail addy, would you? There’s some paper I need to put in your hands, for all and sundry.)

—Filed 7188 days ago to Indulgences; Comments [6].

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