THE NEWS HACK'S CREED:
I know more than you.
I make lots more money than you.
I'm smarter than you.
I'm sexier than you.
I appear on TV all the time.
I work ten minutes a day.
I rule the universe.
I'm going to live forever.
You are an idiot.
THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 2:
A lie isn't a lie when it tells THE TRUTH.
THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 3:
I've come to realize that the looseness of the journalistic life, the seeming laxity of the newsroom, is an illusion. Yes, there's informality and there's humor, but beneath the surface lies something deadly serious. It is a code. Sometimes the code is not even written down, but it is deeply believed in. And, when violated, it is enforced with tribal ferocity.
--JOHN "OMERTA" CARROLL.
THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 4:
News isn't news when we don't report it.
PERMALINKS:
THE NEWS HACKS' DICTIONARY
THE EUGENE DAVID GLOSSARY
AMERICA'S MOST UNINTENTIONALLY FUNNY WEB SITE!
Blogroll Me!
![[Powered by Blogger]](http://buttons.blogger.com/bloggerbutton1.gif){kind=small}
Friday, January 07, 2011
That extremely irritating chain press release about THE ANNOUNCER proves that sentimental buncombe at the speed of light is still sentimental buncombe.
[S]itting on my chair when I got into the ballroom where the event is taking place was a box embalzoned with the word “Zoll,” and the phrase “a story of human nature enabled by technologuy.” On the box was some trippy young dude in a furry hat. Inside the box was – a phone? a music player? Reese’s minis? – no, inside the box was a bag of popcorn.
● 4:35 p.m. Look, Zoll! Nope, just Gary Shapiro, the omnipresent CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association. He’s here this time to introduce Yoon.
● 4:37 p.m. On screen is a video…look, Zoll! Ew, while he looks like a cute Eskimo kid, he turns out to be an all-American, and hugely irritating kid in a bad hat.
● 4:38 p.m. Seems Zoll’s parents were “totally stoked” when he was born. If so, why did they name him Zoll?
● 4:40 p.m. Ew, actual kid playing Zoll is on stage. But now he’s gone. And Yoon is here. He’s talking about envisioning the future for consumer electronics devices….after some brief remarks, Yoon bails, and we get some…dancers? Are we at CES, or are we dancers? I’m sure this has a point – maybe the dancers are carrying 5G phones? Zoll is hanging with the dancers. Will he never leave? No, dancers leave, but Zoll is still here.
● 4:48 p.n. [SIC] Yoon is back to talk about how content can be shared. He says TV will be the dominant and central component of human life. Smart TV is the place where everything is converging, he says. Samsung has the first TV app store, he notes. He also says they are breaking down barriers between various Samsung devices. He says Samsung is working on a cloud system for devices to talk to each other. They want them to be the best gateway to storage and enjoy content in the cloud. Does anyone see an issue here? The vision is all about an all-Samsung world, but who operates that way?
● 4:55 p.m. He says Samsung will partner with a variety of companies on this vision. Tim Baxter, president of Samsung’s American business comes on to tell us about it. He says they are partnering with leaders in cable on multi-screen video experiences, as well as VOD experiences.
● 4:58 p.m. Yoon invites to the stage Comcast CEO Brian Roberts and Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt. Roberts notes that 3 years ago they announced Project Infinity, to bring any content to any device at any time. They’re launching the Xfinity TV app on the Samsung Galaxy tablet. (There’s already a Xfinity app on the iPad.) You can watch VOD content on the device, and eventually will be able to watch live TV. Time Warner is offering a similar app for the Galaxy Tablet, which already allows you to watch live TV. Britt is also showing navigation on a smart TV, which includes a much better interface than a typical cable guide. They’re also showing the ability to start watching the same content on one device, and then to switch to another.
● 5:09 p.m. Next up, Jason Kilar, the CEO of Hulu. He says four big things will change in 2020. In 2011, TV is not interactive or social. We used to navigate and consumer content with horrible program guides. Three, current remotes will go away. Four, advertisers used to speak to television programs, and not to people. But he says TV is changing fast; people are able to choose advertising relevant to them. Hulu Plus will be on Android mobile phones, demonstrated today on Galaxy S. His takeaway is that reinvention of TV has already begun.
● 5:12 p.m. Next, Shantanu Narayen, CEO of Adobe, to talk about Flash on devices, and the Air platform. He says there is enormous opportunity for applications outside the browser on a variety of devices. Yoon says Samsung TVs will support Flash.
● 5:17 p.m. Yoon invites the various partners back on stage. They all take a bow. They shake hands and leave. But, look…Zoll is back. Then he leaves, and Yoon comes back. And now he’s going to talk some more about Samsung smart TVs.
● 5:18 p.m. Artsy, sleep inducing video that lacks any real content…then another video, this time trying to show using your Samsung phone as a remote for your Samsung TV, or accessing social media on your Samsung TV. Not long after, we get Zoll and the dancers again.
● 5:30 p.m. Now we’re going to shift to 3D…and here comes Dreamworks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg. He says they have been working together for more than 18 months. He says they will continue to package Dreamworks 3D films with Samsung TVs. They also use Samsung TVs to help make the Dreamworks Animation films.
● 5:36 p.m. Yoon also says the company is going introduce something called 3D sound. They do a demo with simulated fireworks. And then Samsung’s delinquent mascot Zoll comes back with his dancer friends. Zoll says that nature rules, and asks what we can do to protect our planet. Yoon comes back to talk about how green Samsung is.
● 5:43 p.m. He says Samsung embraces the four As: Access, algin, amaze and act.
And that’s it, amen.
Someone wants to BAN the Consumer Electronics Show?!? NEVER!!!!!
● 4:35 p.m. Look, Zoll! Nope, just Gary Shapiro, the omnipresent CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association. He’s here this time to introduce Yoon.
● 4:37 p.m. On screen is a video…look, Zoll! Ew, while he looks like a cute Eskimo kid, he turns out to be an all-American, and hugely irritating kid in a bad hat.
● 4:38 p.m. Seems Zoll’s parents were “totally stoked” when he was born. If so, why did they name him Zoll?
● 4:40 p.m. Ew, actual kid playing Zoll is on stage. But now he’s gone. And Yoon is here. He’s talking about envisioning the future for consumer electronics devices….after some brief remarks, Yoon bails, and we get some…dancers? Are we at CES, or are we dancers? I’m sure this has a point – maybe the dancers are carrying 5G phones? Zoll is hanging with the dancers. Will he never leave? No, dancers leave, but Zoll is still here.
● 4:48 p.n. [SIC] Yoon is back to talk about how content can be shared. He says TV will be the dominant and central component of human life. Smart TV is the place where everything is converging, he says. Samsung has the first TV app store, he notes. He also says they are breaking down barriers between various Samsung devices. He says Samsung is working on a cloud system for devices to talk to each other. They want them to be the best gateway to storage and enjoy content in the cloud. Does anyone see an issue here? The vision is all about an all-Samsung world, but who operates that way?
● 4:55 p.m. He says Samsung will partner with a variety of companies on this vision. Tim Baxter, president of Samsung’s American business comes on to tell us about it. He says they are partnering with leaders in cable on multi-screen video experiences, as well as VOD experiences.
● 4:58 p.m. Yoon invites to the stage Comcast CEO Brian Roberts and Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt. Roberts notes that 3 years ago they announced Project Infinity, to bring any content to any device at any time. They’re launching the Xfinity TV app on the Samsung Galaxy tablet. (There’s already a Xfinity app on the iPad.) You can watch VOD content on the device, and eventually will be able to watch live TV. Time Warner is offering a similar app for the Galaxy Tablet, which already allows you to watch live TV. Britt is also showing navigation on a smart TV, which includes a much better interface than a typical cable guide. They’re also showing the ability to start watching the same content on one device, and then to switch to another.
● 5:09 p.m. Next up, Jason Kilar, the CEO of Hulu. He says four big things will change in 2020. In 2011, TV is not interactive or social. We used to navigate and consumer content with horrible program guides. Three, current remotes will go away. Four, advertisers used to speak to television programs, and not to people. But he says TV is changing fast; people are able to choose advertising relevant to them. Hulu Plus will be on Android mobile phones, demonstrated today on Galaxy S. His takeaway is that reinvention of TV has already begun.
● 5:12 p.m. Next, Shantanu Narayen, CEO of Adobe, to talk about Flash on devices, and the Air platform. He says there is enormous opportunity for applications outside the browser on a variety of devices. Yoon says Samsung TVs will support Flash.
● 5:17 p.m. Yoon invites the various partners back on stage. They all take a bow. They shake hands and leave. But, look…Zoll is back. Then he leaves, and Yoon comes back. And now he’s going to talk some more about Samsung smart TVs.
● 5:18 p.m. Artsy, sleep inducing video that lacks any real content…then another video, this time trying to show using your Samsung phone as a remote for your Samsung TV, or accessing social media on your Samsung TV. Not long after, we get Zoll and the dancers again.
● 5:30 p.m. Now we’re going to shift to 3D…and here comes Dreamworks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg. He says they have been working together for more than 18 months. He says they will continue to package Dreamworks 3D films with Samsung TVs. They also use Samsung TVs to help make the Dreamworks Animation films.
● 5:36 p.m. Yoon also says the company is going introduce something called 3D sound. They do a demo with simulated fireworks. And then Samsung’s delinquent mascot Zoll comes back with his dancer friends. Zoll says that nature rules, and asks what we can do to protect our planet. Yoon comes back to talk about how green Samsung is.
● 5:43 p.m. He says Samsung embraces the four As: Access, algin, amaze and act.
And that’s it, amen.
Someone wants to BAN the Consumer Electronics Show?!? NEVER!!!!!
Bernanke sees signs of self-sustaining growth
TRANSLATION: Don't worry, GOD'S SERVANTS, you'll get more money.
TRANSLATION: Don't worry, GOD'S SERVANTS, you'll get more money.
Fluoride in drinking water - credited with dramatically cutting cavities and tooth decay - may now be too much of a good thing. It's causing spots on some kids' teeth.
The best-laid plans of mice....
The best-laid plans of mice....
ESPN and the NFL have agreed to broad terms on a new media rights deal that will be worth nearly $2 billion per year. Specific numbers still are difficult to confirm, but multiple sources say ESPN has told the NFL that it will increase its annual rights fee by 65% to 70%%, which means it will pay the league a record fee, between $1.8 billion and $1.9 billion a year.
Do I smell collusion -- as in collusion to keep the CABLE MONOPOLY from breaking up?
P. S. This means there will be NO lockout; SLIME and SUMNER and BRIAN ROBBER will find billions more of our money to burn (using FANTASY FOOTBALL as an excuse, natch), and the sponsors' CEOs will pull their Chevy Chase act in the luxury boxes as never before. Only a few shareholders (and cable-TV-subscribing turnips) may suffer.
Do I smell collusion -- as in collusion to keep the CABLE MONOPOLY from breaking up?
P. S. This means there will be NO lockout; SLIME and SUMNER and BRIAN ROBBER will find billions more of our money to burn (using FANTASY FOOTBALL as an excuse, natch), and the sponsors' CEOs will pull their Chevy Chase act in the luxury boxes as never before. Only a few shareholders (and cable-TV-subscribing turnips) may suffer.
Thursday, January 06, 2011
Today liberals proved their love of the Constitution, like their love of country, is conditional (Second Amendment, anyone?). We've no doubt though the Republicans managed to make the document sound like one of those corny cowboy poems, or "Ah'm PRAAAAYOUD t'BEEE a CAAAAAAAAAAAYN!!!!! AMERICAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYN!!!!!" Fortunately the reading was "bipartisan", after a fashion, so we may yet have hope.
CAVEAT: Lots of CON-SER-VA-TIVE bloggers complained.
CAVEAT: Lots of CON-SER-VA-TIVE bloggers complained.
Usually we put our favorite Branson East columnist Mike! at the head of the line, but yesterday when he alerted us that BABS!!!!! might play Mama Rose we had nothing to say. Today we found it: This will be the APEX of CRITICAL ACCLAIM. Why? Because BABS!!!!! will play it angry. VERY angry. She'll remember all the fockers (pardon our CONCAST MOVEES-inspired language) who gave her the back of the hand, and mocked her looks and her politics, and all the paparazzi butting into her mansion from hundreds of feet up, and she will be a TOWERING INFERNO OF RAGE. If the real Mama Rose "killed an agent by pushing him out a window", BABS's will be a MASS MURDERER!!!!! Yes, BABS!!!!! will end her career in an Os-CAR®-winning BLAZE OF FURY!!!!!!!!!!
UNLESS...she does make good on Arthur Laurents's implied threat to have "Hollywood magic" improve her looks. At best it will be Lucille Ball in gauze; at worst it will be a facelift by Industrial Light and Magic. GO FOR IT!
UNLESS...she does make good on Arthur Laurents's implied threat to have "Hollywood magic" improve her looks. At best it will be Lucille Ball in gauze; at worst it will be a facelift by Industrial Light and Magic. GO FOR IT!
Wednesday, January 05, 2011
WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT!!!!!
Sony Bankrolls 3-D Video of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue!!!!! (Non-bankrolled overemphasis added)
NO, Mr. Bew-KES, this does NOT make up for YOGI BEAR.
(Via MediaBistro)
Sony Bankrolls 3-D Video of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue!!!!! (Non-bankrolled overemphasis added)
NO, Mr. Bew-KES, this does NOT make up for YOGI BEAR.
(Via MediaBistro)
Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww SHUCKS, our favorite prevaricating loudmouth's leaving his job to ensure his Boss can hold His FOREVER.
Who will top Bob Gibbs? Someone, we hope.
(Via Marketwatch)
Who will top Bob Gibbs? Someone, we hope.
(Via Marketwatch)
World Food Prices Jump to Record on Sugar, Oilseeds
Hey John! John STOOOOOOOOssel! Your FRIENDS are BACK!!!!!
Hey John! John STOOOOOOOOssel! Your FRIENDS are BACK!!!!!
That kooky old relative of Republicans has come out of the attic -- yep, some people are celebrating secession.
(Via NRO [?!?!?!?!?])
(Via NRO [?!?!?!?!?])
More genius in anti-terrorism efforts:
A pilot's spilled coffee accidentally triggered a hijacking alert and caused a United Airlines flight from Chicago to Frankfurt, Germany, to make an unscheduled stop in Canada.
A pilot's spilled coffee accidentally triggered a hijacking alert and caused a United Airlines flight from Chicago to Frankfurt, Germany, to make an unscheduled stop in Canada.
Tuesday, January 04, 2011
If the JINTS can welcome back Plexi -- PLAXICO why can't NFL teams scour the prisons for soon-to-be-released free agents?
Isn't ARF-ARF the GREATEST SUCCESS STORY OF THE CENNNNNNNNNNTURY?!?!?
Isn't ARF-ARF the GREATEST SUCCESS STORY OF THE CENNNNNNNNNNTURY?!?!?
"Dog poo" -- yes, there is a good term for HEF, and no amount of 24-KARAT-GOLD NEWS HACK plating can change its appearance -- or lessen its smell.
Izabella St James, it seems, was much more open about having a physical relationship with him.
‘I wanted to see if this experienced King of Sexdom knew anything the rest of us did not,’ she recalls. ‘But he just lay there like a dead fish....'
Another suitable metaphor!
(Also via NEWSER!)
Izabella St James, it seems, was much more open about having a physical relationship with him.
‘I wanted to see if this experienced King of Sexdom knew anything the rest of us did not,’ she recalls. ‘But he just lay there like a dead fish....'
Another suitable metaphor!
(Also via NEWSER!)
Why will it now take THREE CO-EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS to get NEWSER!!!!! to run press releases for ED MURROW, THE CONSCIENCE OF AMERICA?
Or is this SYMBOLISM?
Or is this SYMBOLISM?
Rock Band is what people don't want to see when they make starry eyes at FACEBOOKS!!!!! -- and it was "hot" too.
(Also via MediaBistro)
(Also via MediaBistro)
APPS!!!!! for TV won't work because people don't want to run a computer on their TVs.
And sorry, we don't think even The Lord God Steve can make TV sexy.
(Via MediaBistro)
And sorry, we don't think even The Lord God Steve can make TV sexy.
(Via MediaBistro)
Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose tenure ended with Brown's inauguration at 11 a.m. Monday, often ran the place as if it were the White House; Brown seems set on transforming it into something more like a county seat.
If more of our governing superiors had run their "places" like county seats we wouldn't be facing White House-style deficits.
If more of our governing superiors had run their "places" like county seats we wouldn't be facing White House-style deficits.
Here is hope for the future. Something made MySpace obsolete. Now for something to make GOD'S SERVANTS' PLAYTHING obsolete.
And how many times must SLIME prove to be a lousy businessman before His shareholders rebel?
P. S. at 12:05 p. m.
Exclusive: News Corp. Online Gaming Head Sean Ryan to Head Facebook’s Social Gaming Partnerships
NO COMMENT. (Via I Want Media)
And how many times must SLIME prove to be a lousy businessman before His shareholders rebel?
P. S. at 12:05 p. m.
Exclusive: News Corp. Online Gaming Head Sean Ryan to Head Facebook’s Social Gaming Partnerships
NO COMMENT. (Via I Want Media)
Monday, January 03, 2011
HOORAY!!!!!
Half of Americans are giving President Obama a positive approval rating, the highest rating he's gotten in nearly eight months, according to Gallup. According to an average of results from Dec. 28 to Jan. 2, 50 percent of respondents approved and 42 disapproved of his job performance.
His new mark is three points higher than what it was between Dec. 27 and 29. The last time Obama had a 50 percent approval rating in the Gallup poll was between May 29 and June 1.
Obama has been on vacation in Hawaii for almost two weeks and has had no public events. [SIC]
Half of Americans are giving President Obama a positive approval rating, the highest rating he's gotten in nearly eight months, according to Gallup. According to an average of results from Dec. 28 to Jan. 2, 50 percent of respondents approved and 42 disapproved of his job performance.
His new mark is three points higher than what it was between Dec. 27 and 29. The last time Obama had a 50 percent approval rating in the Gallup poll was between May 29 and June 1.
Obama has been on vacation in Hawaii for almost two weeks and has had no public events. [SIC]
[T]he American Economic Association is announcing that its job listings in 2010 recovered from a 21 percent decline in 2008. Further, the number of academic jobs exceeded the number in 2008. (Economics job listings include positions in the finance and consulting industries, in addition to academic slots.)
Voodoo is back!
Voodoo is back!
Sunday, January 02, 2011
The Iranian president's 33-year-old car has received a $1 million bid from abroad in a charity auction to raise money for a low-income housing project, reported a local newspaper on Sunday.
...for nuclear physicists?
The Iran daily newspaper said various bids from abroad have been received by the multilingual website set up Saturday for the auction, including $1 million, but it did not elaborate on the identity of the bidders.
Do I smell...m---y l--------g?
...for nuclear physicists?
The Iran daily newspaper said various bids from abroad have been received by the multilingual website set up Saturday for the auction, including $1 million, but it did not elaborate on the identity of the bidders.
Do I smell...m---y l--------g?
In the best of circumstances we find it difficult to root for Ghetto Beach. By authorizing mini hotels CHRIS!!!!! has conceded the big HHilton casino boxes won't work anymore; and tearing down hovels on Pacific Avenue won't work either when the whole CITY away from the Boardwalk is a hovel. We know how gambl -- GAMING encourages crime; how can it not encourage it in a burg itself a criminal assault? And gambl -- GAMING is now inextricably tied into customer convenience. Who wants to schlep a hundred miles to a long-ago-has-been town full of GUNS?
Saturday, January 01, 2011
Today I saw the Mummers, viewing it by walking twenty-four blocks down Broad and twenty-four up, and on the way back up I saw the same string bands I'd seen on the way down. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the most ineptly organized parade in all the world. But I must note -- and this thing rarely gets noted in the public prints -- that the fans were extraordinarily well-behaved, as they have been every time, a little tipsy perhaps, and giddy with Silly String, but why not? Before next New Year's I intend to get a DSLR and if I've not been frazzled typing this blog I intend to post my own pictures, knowing half a million have posted their own already.
Tonight I listened to an old (1988) "Melodiya" CD (via a defunct British label) of a 1951 adaptation by a composer named Avtomyan of Shostakovich's post-war score for a film called The Young Guard. The title summons those notorious farm-tractor musicals; then again the name Shostakovich summons a man whose face suggested a few too many sojourns under a desk, who wrote reams of "musical dissidence" -- meaning works with names like Leningrad and October and lots of gloomy and doomy chords with a heavily ironic fortissiissimo major chord at the end (with a flatted fifth snuck in like Miles Davis), works that yelled to the West, "See? I'm not in the Gulag yet!" -- even as he was winning Orders of Lenin and Stalin State Prizes or whatever they were called. But Shosty must have realized it would be hard to work that shtick in writing a film called The Young Guard. Here's IMDB.com's brief description:
The film is set in the city of Krasnodon in 1942 during the Nazi occupation of Russia. Local teenagers are organizing the underground resistance. The teens manage to outsmart the Nazis in their fight. They blow up the Nazi recruitment offices. Their activity lifts the spirits of the surviving citizens. They organize other school-friends in the groups of five to help the citizens in their struggle for survival. Their courage helps many others to survive.
Whatever side the Soviets took in history they (ultimately) took the right side against Hitler, and it would be hard to be false writing such hack work in a week, as Shosty probably did -- and except for a few bathetic chords that seem to say, "Am I really writing this dreck?", it is touching and stirring music, because here was recent history, and possibly because it has the guts to be sincere. Shosty has not entered the historic ash heap for the same reasons some people must find HERR DOKTOR SONDHEIM a genius, although the former is far worthier of avoiding it, but the received opinion on things can be the wrong one, and we're too overwhelmed by it to dissent.
P. S. We must presume the Soviets didn't make up the tale of the young guards like their other tall tales -- but how would it benefit them after their own untold millions of war dead?
The film is set in the city of Krasnodon in 1942 during the Nazi occupation of Russia. Local teenagers are organizing the underground resistance. The teens manage to outsmart the Nazis in their fight. They blow up the Nazi recruitment offices. Their activity lifts the spirits of the surviving citizens. They organize other school-friends in the groups of five to help the citizens in their struggle for survival. Their courage helps many others to survive.
Whatever side the Soviets took in history they (ultimately) took the right side against Hitler, and it would be hard to be false writing such hack work in a week, as Shosty probably did -- and except for a few bathetic chords that seem to say, "Am I really writing this dreck?", it is touching and stirring music, because here was recent history, and possibly because it has the guts to be sincere. Shosty has not entered the historic ash heap for the same reasons some people must find HERR DOKTOR SONDHEIM a genius, although the former is far worthier of avoiding it, but the received opinion on things can be the wrong one, and we're too overwhelmed by it to dissent.
P. S. We must presume the Soviets didn't make up the tale of the young guards like their other tall tales -- but how would it benefit them after their own untold millions of war dead?
And speaking of daydreaming, Rich daydreams about how we can bring America back. Let's see: Ban public unions, "let smart and motivated people teach school", "dump Sarbanes-Oxley", "privatize Social Security" -- it would be more honest to resurrect Jay Gould and Jim Fisk. We will need radical thinking to bring us back but this kind of radical thinking is old, and it reeks.
We wish we knew something about infrastructure but nonetheless this piece seems simple-minded. Yes it would be nice if we could build all these golly-gee-whiz-bang projects like the Chinese. All right -- let's trade our government in for China's. Plus these projects seem aimed not at ordinary people but at the rich and tourists. Let's build an infrastructure for the rich and tourists. What about the Bird's Nest? Oh, it's a beautiful work of infrastructure, isn't it? (I don't think so.) Of course we can do better but feeling sorry for ourselves in the reflection of an authoritarian state's ambitions isn't the way to do it.
The dire state of state finances is a result of decades of financing social security and public works expenditures with debt in the form of government bonds. The government finances are on the brink of collapse.
Which country would that be?
The dire state of state finances is a result of decades of financing social security and public works expenditures with debt in the form of government bonds. The government finances are on the brink of collapse.
Which country would that be?
May as well repeat this one from last year, with edits:
I do not like discussing personal matters but with the New Year I must. New Year's resolutions are not just made to be broken; they must preexist somewhere as lies. I have two for 2011, the same as from 2010: 1. Get published professionally and 2. Acquire a woman. Both are impossible. My masterpiece of a novel requires untold revisions -- rather demolition and reconstruction -- and I have neither the talent nor the patience to start. Well why not write a new novel? Because that would require inspiration, or experience. Our culture stinks because we don't have the panoramic life experience. Think of Dickens in his youth. Life is far easier now and we pay for it through the culture. The only places with something like the mad scramble of life are Africa and South Asia, and they don't have the masterworks because they never had Western culture. Sorry, Bollywood doesn't count.
As for the second the challenge is insuperable. Middle-age love is self-parody. Think Slick and his amours; think our thankfully outgoing guvnor EDDIE being a ladies' man. (In a way TGSM's train wreck was middle-aged because it's what a CEO might do if he had a body.) I don't have the advantage of a famous name or a famous inheritance. I fear online dating is a slog. There is no one at work. Being alone for so long I'm not sure I'd tolerate another person. The reduction of tragedy in life has made it somehow harder to mate; Matchmakers and arranged marriages existed because a spinster's fate was worse than virginity. How many more people lead unhappy love lives now that's its square to be romantically continent? The only conceivable way I'd gather a woman is through success in writing, and even if I found it I fear so many in the business would be so incompatible (i. e., knee-jerk liberals with huge egos and no irony, or overpublicized airheads) that I'd be just as bad as before, only with a little more money. So I make my resolutions knowing a higher force has already pulverized them for me.
Today the Mummers carry on with their increasingly shriveling excuse for a parade, and I'm always reluctant to head out as there are long, long gaps in the proceedings, with no one parading but policemen and souvenir hawkers, and nobody cares outside the city, but there are mobs to mingle with, and it's that or staying in my hovel all day.
I do not like discussing personal matters but with the New Year I must. New Year's resolutions are not just made to be broken; they must preexist somewhere as lies. I have two for 2011, the same as from 2010: 1. Get published professionally and 2. Acquire a woman. Both are impossible. My masterpiece of a novel requires untold revisions -- rather demolition and reconstruction -- and I have neither the talent nor the patience to start. Well why not write a new novel? Because that would require inspiration, or experience. Our culture stinks because we don't have the panoramic life experience. Think of Dickens in his youth. Life is far easier now and we pay for it through the culture. The only places with something like the mad scramble of life are Africa and South Asia, and they don't have the masterworks because they never had Western culture. Sorry, Bollywood doesn't count.
As for the second the challenge is insuperable. Middle-age love is self-parody. Think Slick and his amours; think our thankfully outgoing guvnor EDDIE being a ladies' man. (In a way TGSM's train wreck was middle-aged because it's what a CEO might do if he had a body.) I don't have the advantage of a famous name or a famous inheritance. I fear online dating is a slog. There is no one at work. Being alone for so long I'm not sure I'd tolerate another person. The reduction of tragedy in life has made it somehow harder to mate; Matchmakers and arranged marriages existed because a spinster's fate was worse than virginity. How many more people lead unhappy love lives now that's its square to be romantically continent? The only conceivable way I'd gather a woman is through success in writing, and even if I found it I fear so many in the business would be so incompatible (i. e., knee-jerk liberals with huge egos and no irony, or overpublicized airheads) that I'd be just as bad as before, only with a little more money. So I make my resolutions knowing a higher force has already pulverized them for me.
Today the Mummers carry on with their increasingly shriveling excuse for a parade, and I'm always reluctant to head out as there are long, long gaps in the proceedings, with no one parading but policemen and souvenir hawkers, and nobody cares outside the city, but there are mobs to mingle with, and it's that or staying in my hovel all day.