My Favorite Book

My favorite book is "The Lives of the Twelve Caesars" (De vita Caesarum) by a second century Roman named Suetonius. It is a very personal account of...you guessed it, the first twelve Roman emperors, including Julius Caesar. (Who was not, himself, properly an emperor, but was proclaimed Dictator and later had accuired the power of the imperium.)
I really can't explain why I prize it above all other books. There are many reasons: compelling narrative, brilliant organization, wonderful prose, an impossably conversational style for classical latin. But one thing that I enjoy is this: Suetonius was a secretary for the emperor Hadrian (felicitously not covered in the book). I want, one day, to read a volume on the intimate (oh, Suetonius is initmate, explaining in fascinating details the sex lives of emperors) lives of the Presidents. This is brought to mind by the recent buzz about the book proclaiming Abraham Lincoln's possible homosexuality. But that book is so dry and academic, I want someone who knows the insides and the outs like Suetonius did; someone who had the palace records like Suetonius did. I require "Nixon's Whiskey and Ladies" by Dr. Henry Kissinger. So let it be done.

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Venzeuela: The right way to live

see the post immediately preceeding.

In Hugo Chavez's Venezeuela they have finally completed the project of Western Civilization. They have at long last brought to the front of society the values of individualism, the pursuit of beauty, truth, and the value of the simple human soul and the perfect human form. Did they all read Aristotle and just think about it? No, no silly egghead, they have apotheosized crazy-ass 1980s "Dynasty" behavior. It's like Donald Trump got a whole country to class-up and he went a classed the hell out of it. Socialist Democracy with incredible oil resources placed ideally between the Andes and the Caribbean? Check. Complete wealth disparity and creepy Fritz Lang geographically inflected divisional imagery between the "upper" and "lower" classes making the terms literal? Check. Value of creepy beauty-industry celebraty machine? Oh, my friend, I chuckle because it is so high.

Read.
Read and bask in the glory of how kinda fiflthy it makes you feel.

The beauty of this hard to ascertain. But there is definitely something elegant and perfect here that just screams to be elucidated, drawn out and expressed. There is something in this piece that encapsulates, dare I say embodies, the post modern condition.

The manic desire for perfection translated from Puritan northern climes to Venezuela of all places is something sublime. Juxtaposed with the meaning of its own past, the poor, and the real potential for political violence, the rich put on fashion shows and groom beauty queens.

The way that even in the nominally socialist country there would be only one meritocratic institution, being hot, is something that literally embodies the triumph of form over substance.

Beautiful women and oil become one. A single thing: export. Not merely the commoditization of a person, but the image industry holding supreme, tenuously grasping the sides of hill outside a Third World capital. A twisted, J-Lo-ized, Brave New World.

You can hear the club beats (assuredly phat club beats), and smell the cheap cigarettes and the expensive booze. Everybody has product in their hair…oh, yes, look in the mirror…there you have had product in your hair the whole time. Heavily modified women and men whose every hair has been painstakingly removed move through the crowd, make up the crowd. You can spot the rich ones, they are less attractive, they jostle through the crowd, entitled and filled with the knowledge that this is all for them. They’ve put on a bacchanal and brought in ringers. Men surrounded by two or three women each taller than them, giving sidelong glances to each other that say: “back off.” The women that is.

You can practically see a bearded-Zeus figure shake his head wearily and say, "Oh Man, what folly consumes you!"

Man, I guess if it's gonna burn you might as well throw a party and make sure somebody's a-fiddlin'.

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By the gods...

This is a Salon piece that I believe to be a Homeric touchstone to the state of modern life. I will explain later. And, oh yes, we shall be enlightened.

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"graphic novel" is just hiding from the truth...

...they're comic books and no amount of fancy-boy talk about novels will change that. And in an unpleasant development some of my favorites are missing from the Justin Archival Library of Books in My Apartment. Those of you acquainted with the JALBMA will no doubt understand that such a development will make me very upset and likely drive me to drink. Some recent unpleasantness has deprived me of some good ones. And not just the glossy Batman stuff. Some of the F'd up Dark Horse and Vertigo titles...Fables, Hellblazer, and a delightful few issues of X-Men. I'm also missing Crisis On Infinite Earths. That was a blow. DC is significantly more to my tastes than Marvel...the characters aren't as consistenly good, but when they are good, they are much better. Let's simply be honest here: Batman would kick Daredevil's ass and it wouldn't even be close. I'd feel bad for the blind bastard. But then I would remember how just plain crappy he is and then I would not feel bad. Captain Marvel and Superman, while both corny (SHAZAM!), are endearingly mid-century let's-lick-the-reds corny, not the weird Jack Kirby's Silver Surfer corny that can't be explained away as nostalgia or simply classic wholesome appeal, I mean Silver Surfer just sucks.
...I'll have to replace this all of course. It makes me sad, but it is time to man-up and make sure that my comics are no less than the best they can be.
I'm pretty sure that my early brand loyalty to Marvel (oh, the folly of youth) was largely similar to the phenomenon I simply refer to as "My Nike Years". That is to say that I was simply attracted to Marvel because it was so dominant, it was so prevelent that I was pulled into liking it. And the corollary to this is that X-Men and Spiderman are becoming played out--I'd like to see a Fantastic Four movie or TV series...too much exposure has taken off the pleasant sheen of disreputableness that comics must carry.
Now if you'll excuse me I have to scrape the nerd off of me with a putty knife. But, alas, comic book posting is fun and I shall return to write about more comics soon.

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Don't look at me, I'm hideous.

I'm reading Harry Potter right now...I'm so ashamed.

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Damn you Harry Potter, damn you to hell.

So I've been reading the Harry Potter. And I can't stop. It's intoxicating. I want to stop. But they got a hold on me, man. It's all so, so pleasant and whimsical. It's not even particularly good writing, the metaphores are weak and repetative (Harry feels somthing in his stomach every five pages). And whole scenes are played out in excruciating detail that needn't take up more than a page. But it doesn't matter, because I want more. The new book doesn't come out until July (The Half Blood Prince, I believe it is entitled) and I am anxious for it--I need it now. Like a stone cold junky looking for my next sick fix of that sweet, sweet H. I need the junk, man...I just need it. Oh, Ron Weasley, when will you see that Hermione is perfect for you? Harry, why can't you understand that Dumbledore just wants to protect you from Lord Voldemort? Jesus, I'm gonna lock myself in my room Trainspotting style. I wonder what Potter-withdraw is like? A sweaty nightmare, I'll wager.

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Deluge of the Brooks

So, I'm going to flex the blogging muscles here (known, I believe, as the blogceps). I was catching up on the news of the world since I've been enveloped in the holiday haze for the last little while. And I was reading David Brooks' column from the first of the year.
Yeah. Well. That guy's a douche.
His column isn't about the tragedy of the South Asia floods so much as it is about the tragedy of David Brooks' position in relation to the tsunami. Which I can sympathize with. I mean what are the deaths of 150,000 people when confronted with the epic consternation of a great pundit.
Also, on the way to his admonition to the plebs to be as concerned with him for failing to come up with good column inches as the deaths in Aceh, he takes enough time to slam Thoreau and John Muir (John Muir!). Apparently without, y'know, reading anything they ever wrote. Brooks got out the old Bartletts and went at it like the ditzy chick from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. In the portion quoted by Brooks, Thoreau's point was clearly general as to the character of nature. He never meant that Nature personafied was a pure and pleasant lady.
HDT was a man of subtlety and nuance who's attempts to chronicle the world around him (both natural and human) was colored with empathy and detailed observation. Henry Thoreau did fieldwork and took notes. Naturally David Brooks, a man who believes that a listing of consumer items available at Home Depot constitutes sociology, is deeply skeptical.
This is a horrible and specific tragedy. But leave it to David-freakin'-Brooks to turn this into a simultaneous excercise on why he should be the center of attention, and why environmentalists are wrong becasue there was a flood.
After 9/11 I heard two radio DJs comment on the outpouring of statements made by Brittany Spears and Fred Durst and the like. They said: "Shut up, and give a million dollars." That's sort of how I feel about this. Please don't lead me down your own Dantean dark path in the wilderness to confront your existential crisis, David Brooks. Just shut up.

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Cy Twombly

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