How to Talk about Books You Haven’t Read July 1, 2009

is the title of a book I actually, ahem, read.

The premise is intriguing: a book about how to talk about books you haven’t read. The premise is not actually what the book is about. That is, it is not solely a how-to book, though there is some of  that.

Instead, it’s a rumination on what our actual experience is of reading, remembering, and talking about books, and something of a polemic about how we should read and teach literature.

The structure of the book is simple: Bayard posits a thesis and then uses a piece of literature or pop culture to prove his point. It’s an easy read and an entertaining one.

So, what is Bayard’s central thesis? Books are not pure, reliable, or fixed. So why are we pretending that they are? And, why do we pretend to know books that we don’t?

In fact, Bayard would argue that we do know these books, in a way.

Bayard sets up libraries and books in threes. First, the libraries that we all possess/are a part of:

1. Collective library: this is the library that we share with members of our culture. This library is not just a repository, but influences the meaning of every book we (don’t) read. Our mastery of it is not a complete (yet obviously impossible) knowledge of the books themselves, but of the relationships between books within it.
2. Inner library: this is a subset of the collective library  around which an individual personality “is constructed, and which then shapes each person’s individual relationship to books and to other people.”
3. Virtual library: “the realm in which books are discussed,” “a mobile sector” of the collective library and is at “the point of intersection” of other people’s inner libraries. A book club, a journal, a conversation. He calls it virtual because the books being discussed are in fact not real: they are being created out of the misremembering and outright lying of the participants.

Then there are the different types of books:

1. Screen book: it “consists in large part of what the reader knows or believes he knows about the book, and thus to the comments exchanged about it.” Since we are always forgetting what we read, Bayard argues that the screen book is less about what the book actually contains than what we believe it contains.
2. Inner book: it is the baggage that we come into the reading context with that shapes our reading without ever realizing it. Our inner books “create a system for receiving other texts and participate both in their reception and reorganization.” Again, Bayard is arguing that there is nothing out there called “a book”: we create the book (screen book) depending on our filters (previous inner books).
3. Phantom book: it is the produce of screen books interacting in the virtual library — another unreal book, but a different one than we would have created without the additional meaning provided by someone else.

OK, enough with the terminology. The gist? It is a fun and honest assessment of what we do as readers and as discussants. More importantly, for this teacher of books, is his argument at the end: that we are teaching our students incorrectly. That we are teaching them an undue reverence for the “truth” of books, when everyone knows that we lie about books all the time. That when we talk/write about books, we are creating books and are therefore creative: by emphasizing rote memorization and singular meanings, we are not teaching our students how to be creative.

It’s all very interesting. As I was reading the book, I kept thinking about how I would want to teach it. Obviously, with this title, I might be fired before I even hit the classroom, but I recommend it: it will make you think about your own relationship with books and also perhaps make you a bit more honest about that relationship.

Zzzzzzzzzzz June 30, 2009

Wake up!

Lauren has shamed me into returning. It’s not that I don’t have anything to say. I suppose. It’s just that when I typically decide to turn back to the blog, I’m tired or something.

No excuse though. So, fewer excuses, and more writing. It will be good for me. No kidding.

Union of the Snake May 12, 2009

You may not know this, but I played soccer for ten years of my life and quite enjoyed it. I even played at the Kingdome before a Sounders game. That being said, I haven’t been that interested in MLS or such things, but that might change because the owners of the new Philly team to debut in 2010 knocked it out of the park, to mix imagery.

The new team name? Philadelphia Union. The logo? Fantastic, and they even provide a narrative in case you don’t get it.

My favorite part? The motto: Jungite aut Perite — Join or Die.

Which is the best motto ever.

Will I get season tickets? No. Do I promise to go to a game? Definitely. +, it’s right next to a casino. Bonus!

So, this is the kind of season it will be May 4, 2009

A season where our first regular season Phillies game is rained out.
A season where the Mariners come back innumerable times to win a game they had no business winning. Like, really.
It’s going to be a season where the Phillies will string me along, and the Mariners will force me to watch them because they’re crazy, making me lose much sleep.
Because I love them.

Sheesh April 14, 2009

First, we have the incredible loss of Harry Kalas, fittingly enough in the broadcast booth. Anyone who is a Phillies fan is feeling the pain of losing someone who was a great fan and a great broadcaster. What hit me while I was watching coverage yesterday (as my tears welled up now and again) was what a commentator noted: that, in the space of almost forty years, he entered the homes of people for over three hours for almost half of the year. I won’t feign fan supremacy, but I’ve probably listened to Dave Niehaus at least 5000 hours during my lifetime. That’s a lot of time to spend with someone. Kalas is sad; Niehaus will be tragic.

 

And then comes news that Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick passed away last night. Sedgwick’s Epistemology of the Closet was a book (and I can’t believe I didn’t put that book in my Facebook 10 books) that changed my life. As I read (and re-read) it in college, its first great gift was to put words and theory to something I didn’t quite understand; its second great gift was to offer a theory that was open — Sedgwick offered a hypothesis and argued for it, but it never felt like arguing. I returned often to her ideas when I played around with how gay identity was being expressed on the nascent Web or when looking at the Orient and sexuality. The homosocial continuum, the narrative construction of the closet, minoritizing v. universalizing conceptions of homosexuality: these are ideas that are still important and still debated. I’m glad I got to see her speak once, and I’m glad I found her.

Thoughts on Iowa April 3, 2009

Thanks to work I did with a student two summers ago, I’ve had occasion to read all of the state Supreme Court decisions on same-sex marriage, so it’s interesting to compare Iowa’s decision (of which I have only read the summary) to those others.

First, the decision connects the decision with the best historical principles of the state:

Equal protection under the Iowa Constitution “is essentially a direction that all persons similarly situated
should be treated alike.” Since territorial times, Iowa has given meaning to this constitutional provision, striking blows to slavery and segregation, and recognizing women’s rights.

I remember explicit references in the New Jersey decision to its historical freedoms, etc. It is an interesting rhetorical move because it places the granting of such rights within the state’s narrative of itself, rather than as an aberration.

In discussing how they counteracted the argument that same-sex couples do not meet the threshold of being similarly situated as opposite-sex couples, the court said

The purpose of Iowa’s marriage law is to provide an institutional basis for defining the fundamental relational rights and responsibilities of persons in committed relationships. It also serves to recognize the status of the parties’ committed relationship.

I think some of the most interesting elements of these cases are how they discuss the purpose of the state’s involvement in marriage. For Iowa, as with many others, children are not mentioned, but rather that there is something beneficial to the state to encourage and recognize committed relationships.

To determine whether the classification of sexual orientation warranted a more demanding constitutional analysis, the court said it would have to meet four factors:

(1) the history of invidious discrimination against the class burdened by the legislation; (2) whether the characteristics that distinguish the class indicate a typical class member’s ability to contribute to society; (3) whether the distinguishing characteristic is “immutable,” or beyond the class members’ control; and (4) the political power of the subject class.

The court establishes: that gays and lesbians “as a group have long been the victim of purposeful and invidious discrimination” (note the inclusion of purposeful); that their orientation does not preclude them from contributing to society; that “sexual orientation [is] central to personal identity and that its alteration, if at all, could only be accomplished at the expense of significant damage to the individual’s sense of self”; and, that they have not gained enough power to “overcome the unfair and severe prejudice” that inhibits them.

The immutability question here is the interesting part here for me, as the court comes squarely down on the side of immutaibility, and on the importance of sexual identity to selfhood.

Having established that it merited further scrutiny, the court then had to determined “whether exclusion of gay and lesbian people from civil marriage is substantially related to any important governmental objective” based on the reasons the county offered:

(1) tradition, (2) promoting the optimal environment for children, (3) promoting procreation, (4) promoting stability in opposite-sex relationships, and (5) preservation of state resources.

For #1, the court got at the heart of this argument:

When a certain tradition is used as both the governmental objective and the classification to further that objective, the equal protection analysis is transformed into the circular question of whether the classification accomplishes the governmental objective, which objective is to maintain the classification.

Exactly.

#2 was easily swatted down; #3 is fun: “The court concluded the County’s argument is flawed because it fails to address the required analysis of the objective: whether exclusion of gay and lesbian individuals from the institution of civil marriage will result in more procreation.” Again, exactly: “dear, the gays can’t marry: let’s make some more babies to celebrate!” #s 4 and 5 were also summarily dismissed.

The court then went on to talk about religious arguments, and I think this one is fascinating, particularly since previous cases didn’t really bring up religion that much. Perhaps because this is Iowa and not godless Hawaii or New Jersey, but the court felt the need to address it:

Recognizing the sincere religious belief held by some that the “sanctity of marriage” would be undermined by the inclusion of gay and lesbian couples, the court nevertheless noted that such views are not the only religious views of marriage. Other, equally sincere groups have espoused strong religious views yielding the opposite conclusion. These contrasting opinions, the court finds, explain the absence of any religious-based rationale to test the constitutionality of Iowa’s same-sex marriage statute. “Our constitution does not permit any branch of government to resolve these types of religious debates and entrusts to courts the task of ensuring government avoids them.”

I mean, how refreshing: it’s the job of the courts to make sure that government gets out of religion, not into it.

Finally, the court declared the marriage statute “constitutionally infirm,” which I think is a fascinating way of describing it. It’s not unconstitutional, it’s constitutionally infirm — corporeally sick or even diseased.

I think what is most interesting about this decision for me is that it feels like there was a shift here from other cases (or maybe I’m reading into things and/or mis-remembering): instead of forcing same-sex couples to prove that they deserved this, the state was forced to prove how they didn’t deserve this, how the state benefitted from excluding them from this. I think it’s an important shift — essentially providing these couples with the standard of innocent before proven guilty.

Interesting times.

Redemption is Nigh April 2, 2009

‘$25,000 Pyramid’ Contender to Replace ‘Guiding Light’

As long as a certain someone isn’t invited, then perhaps my brilliance will be able to be rekindled.

Or maybe Rick can get on this time!

Helping Me Understand March 20, 2009

It will likely come as no surprise, that I’m a fan of NPR. However, since I walk to work, I don’t really listen to it that often LIVE, but I do subscribe to a few podcasts, and I just had to share a few recommendations.

Despite the shadenfreude of the Cramer-Stewart kerfuffle, it did nothing to help anyone better understand what is going on with our economy or how we got there. I think I’ve earlier recommended a This American Life episode which explained how the mortgage crisis happened; this time, they explain why the banks are all failing in simple terms that someone who has never taken an economics course can understand. It also basically explains how there are no good options for us to save the banks — capitalization and nationalization both come with serious pitfalls.

Also on the economic front, Terry Gross had NYT journalist Gretchen Morgensen on Monday to talk about AIG, and Terry did a great job of asking the questions that we need to have asked (and for me, that question most often was, “What does that mean?”), and Morgensen did a great job of explaining and also not remaining “objective”: she laid blame where it deserves to be laid and offered analysis of the responses to the crisis from the government.

Finally, I had for a long while subscribed to the podcast stream of Radiolab, based on some unsourced recommendation a long while back, but had never listened to any of them. On the way to Vegas, I finally listened to one on Musical Language. Now, I am not all that interested in science in general, much to the chagrin of my science colleagues here, whom I tease about working with worms and blowing things up. However, I was captivated and constantly annoyed Rick with, “Ooh, you have to hear this!”. On this episode, there are fascinating discussions of perfect pitch and the impact of one’s native language (that is, that people who are raised to speak languages that depend on tonal differences to make distinctions between different words — e.g., Mandarin — have a much higher propensity to have perfect pitch; in other words, it’s not just ingrained), science and the reception of The Rite of Spring. I was inspired to listen to another podcast on Pop Music, which had a great story on earworms. The last one I listened to was on Race, and it too was interesting — looking at the impossible debate about nature and culture when it comes to race, and things like DNA, athletic talent, and even drug trials.

Just thought I’d share. Now back to making sure I know all of the words for tonight’s concert!

A New Day, A New Way March 18, 2009

Yes, it’s time for baseball. How do I know? The Mariners’ commercials are up!

Sadly, they’re not all that great, which I hope is not an omen for the season to come.

Sure, it’s fun to see the boys attempt to act. I love hearing Ichiro talk at all times, and his line, “Ahhh, the closer,” is good. Likewise, seeing Edgar at any point, especially saying the word “sprinkles,” warms my heart. But there are is nothing approaching “Tribute” or “Epidemic,” “Clapper,” or “Flip,” though “Sorry” is my favorite of this year’s crop.

The title of my post is this year’s Mariner motto, which isn’t bad, though it’s Obama-esque. It certainly beats Sodo Mojo, but that’s not too hard. I’m starting to get excited, though I still haven’t purchased my MLB.tv subscription. I’m sure I will though. Homework must be done first to get to know this year’s team: I’m intrigued by this year’s moves (including Junior, whom I don’t loathe at all compared to my antipathy for a certain drug user) and am looking forward to players like Cedeno and Tuiasosopo doing well and maybe getting some playing time. The pitching still frightens me, largely because of Bedard. The M’s are not going to be out here at convenient times (vs. O’s midweek in June; vs. Yankees midweek in July), but I suppose I will have to make a special trip just so I can see Junior.

We also have our Sunday plan for the Phillies, which I’m excited about once more. We have some very good games, including the Red Sox on Fathers’ Day. I of course bet on both teams to win the pennant and the Phils to win it all (sorry M’s: I do have to be grounded in some reality when I gamble).

Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves March 17, 2009

I suppose that we were the gypsies, being the traveling fools that we are; the tramps are the many, many whores — real and imagined — that we see every trip to Vegas; the thieves are the machines, once again, though they left us with enough overall to still feel good about the trip.

 

Another thing to feel good? This was on our bag for some reason:

(Non-Pomona College alums and their families, see here)

Yes, we were back to Vegas, this time the main purpose being to see Cher. We arrived Friday night after an uneventful Southwest flight. We quickly got our car from Thrifty and made our way to Summer Bay Resort. Yes, this time we didn’t stay on the Strip, but a little ways off in a timeshare resort since we had some points to burn and wanted to try something different. The resort is still under renovation, having previously been an apartment complex. After getting over the odd registration desk (in a former bedroom), we found our room and were pleasantly surprised:

 
The unit had two bedrooms and quite a nice living area. Here are the positives: it was nice having a place to store beverages and such; it was nice having a coffee maker in the morning without having to get out of my PJs; it was nice being able to share a place with friends. Here are the negative: it’s too far. Now, it’s really not, in the grand scheme of things, but one of the reasons I love Vegas is the energy and being a part of something exciting, and you don’t have that here. Also, it really isn’t all that feasible to walk to a casino — yes, Ellis Island, which I love, is 10 minutes, but I don’t want to walk that at 2am. And, yes, , they have a shuttle, we had a car and we could cab it — but it felt disconnected. So, I’m glad we did it, but it’s unlikely we’d do it again. Also, I could see how it would be a great place for families or for people staying a longer time who don’t need that connection to the hubbub. But I do.

So, the first night we went downtown and caroused a bit, winning some at craps and losing some at video poker at Four Queens, before hopping around to Binion’s, Vegas Club, and Plaza and then calling it a night. Thanks to jet lag, we got up way early, and drove to meet John and Angel who were staying at the Mirage. We decided to do a walkabout up to Encore, since they hadn’t seen it yet. First, though, was breakfast, so we decided to hit the Wynn buffet. We had earned enough points in previous trips to get two free ones, but of course we would have paid for the scrumptious desserts and variety of offerings. The service — as with basically every other place in Vegas — was lacking though, and I can only assume they have cut staff due to the economy.

After breakfast, we walked through Encore, then down to Palazzo, Caesars, and Planet Hollywood, where I won a bit on blackjack, but gave it back in video poker, once again. Soon, it was time to pick up Melissa and Trish from the airport and then get ready for our big dinner and mediocre show. I sort of pushed everyone into going to L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon for their winter tasting menu deal, and they agreed thankfully. It was amazing (Review here), and I now have a life’s ambition to hit the Mansion.

Dinner ran a bit long, so I literally ran across the street to make sure we could still get into Folies Bergere, for which I got $30 tickets from Goldstar. We could. Now, we’re not exactly fans of this kind of old school Vegas show, but we found Jubilee! at Bally’s entertaining enough, and since FB is closing down, we thought we should try it out. We ended up being seated in the very front row, which was awkward since we just wanted to laugh the whole time. The dancing was sometimes good, sometimes tired; the costumes, storyline, and singing were always tired. The best part was the comedian. It was just a little sad, which made us also a little sleepy.

The next morning, we hit the Mirage buffet for breakfast, which was also very good (no Wynn, but completely acceptable). We decided to walk around some more and hit Caesars, where our friends discovered the wonders of Goldfish and Gems Wild Tiles. We then went back to Planet Hollywood and I tried my luck at video poker for the umpteenth time — and finally broke my unlucky streak there by get quite a few four-of-a-kinds, netting over $300. We dropped M&T off at the condo and hit Ellis Island for some video poker and microbrews; the former was unkind but the latter was smooth.

Finally it was time for Cher. We ate a pedestrian meal at the Augustus Cafe before taking several escalators up to our seats. We were high, and so was she…OK, not really, but she’s a little wacky, which is just how I like my divas. Positives: she can still sing, there are some great costumes, and the show was entertaining. Negatives: she didn’t sing enough, there are too many goddamned costume changes, and the show could have been more entertaining. For instance, while Cher changed clothes for the 47th time, we were treated to a montage of her great acting performances, in such films as Suspect and Tea with Mussolini. I mean, really. So, more singing, fewer costume changes. It was still a hoot though, and I got to clap to “Dark Lady,” which is all I really wanted.

We hung out some more on the Strip, managing to catch the volcano and getting a alcohol-less margarita from Casino Royale. We dropped M&T back at the condo and decided we didn’t do enough gambling, so we headed to Wynn for nice gambling and drinks. The gambling wasn’t so nice to me, but the drinks were, and I hope the points we racked up translate into something.

The next morning we hit the 24-hour Starbucks on Paradise before meeting everyone else; they all headed off to Zion National Park, while I hung out for another few hours before my flight. I headed out to Palms where I used a coupon to get $50 off a very relaxing massage. I then crossed the street to Gold Coast and did some work with video poker (down) and craps (up). Soon, it was time to head to the airport after this quick little trip.

So, overall, we had a good time. It was pretty low-key, but we did a lot of the things we love to do, ate some really good food, and saw a lot of skin in some very funny shows. And, saw a lot of douchebag shirts. Which is always good. Or horrible.