Former House Speaker Farts in Committee “For Old Time’s Sake”
– June 22, 2005Posted in: Photo Headlines
Books To Jump Up and Down Over
Magic Hours by Tom Bissell: This marvelous collection of essays chronicles everything from film shoots to novelists rescued from oblivion. (The essay on the Underground Literary Alliance, with its portrait of raucous factions, unexpectedly reveals how soft today's literary world has become.) But if you peer between the cracks of these smart pieces, you may very well see how cultural lives are formed from the most unexpected life choices. And as we follow Bissell's development as a writer over the years, that goes for Bissell as well. (Bat Segundo interview with Bissell)
Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway: Harkaway's latest novel greatly improves on his previous book, The Gone-Away World, which I'm already on record as praising. Angelmaker adopts genre elements without ever feeling like a genre book, and it leads me to believe that Harkaway is well on his way to a narrative grace close to China Miéville's. Yet inexplicably this very fun book, which includes an eightysomething badass named Edie Banister, a mysterious mechanical object that may destroy the world, farcical scenarios involving lawyers and the police, and some unexpectedly moving moments about fatherhood, doesn't appear to be getting much attention in American newspapers. Nothing from the snobs at The New York Times Book Review, nothing from The Washington Post. And since I can't get Harkaway on Bat Segundo, I hope this Jump Up and Down mention gets you hopping as well.
The Age of Insight by Eric Kandel: Unless you're really pressed for time, forget Jonah Lehrer. If you want to understand creativity and its relationship to neuroscience, then the bowtie-wearing Nobel laureate is your man. In addition to being a physically beautiful book (you will drool over many of the paintings), there are helpful overviews on optical illusions, science, biographical backgrounds, and many vital figures from the Vienna Secession. Kandel's enthusiasm (and his call for greater unity between the humanities and science) is contagious.
Perhaps he’s a Slytheen.
What did you think of the end of the season, Ed, by the way?
Abigail: Eek! The Slytheen — the lamest alien seen on “Doctor Who” since Alpha Centuarri, that badly done multi-armed character from the Peladon Pertwee stories. (Yup, now you know how much of this stuff I saw as a kid.)
Okay, to answer your question…
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…with the exception of that terrible deus ex machina, I fucking loved it. I was both sad to see the end of CE, who more than proved his mettle and left the show too soon. The Daleks were not only scary again, but my heart dropped when I saw those armies of Daleks drifting through space. I think the Bad Wolf story arc was damned silly and too many secrets were revealed about the TARDIS. All in all though, we really haven’t seen that kind of excitement since “The Caves of Androzani.” And I look forward to seeing where they’re going with this, Captain Jack included.
You know, I’ve heard the deus ex machina reaction in several places and I just don’t see it. The whole point of a DEM, the thing that makes it so unsatisfying, is that we don’t know what makes the god decide to descend to earth and meddle in mortal affairs. Here, we know what made the god appear, and who, and why, and they are all human reasons and motivations.
Unlike you, I am most emphatically not a DW fan from way back, but I enjoyed this season immensely. I do think the writers sacrificed good plotting for good characterization (which is not necessarily a bad choice, although I don’t think it’s asking too much to hope for both), and all too often their endings were weak – too easy or just technobabble. The season’s end didn’t strike me that way – in fact, it justified several choices earlier in the season that I wasn’t too crazy about (it retroactively justified the existence of episode 11, for example, in which Rose learns about the existence of the heart of the TARDIS).