Sunday, January 16, 2005

The iPod Shuffle has simply figured out that unexpected pleasure is at times far more gratifying than planned satisfaction

Much attention has been given to the new iPod Shuffle: for only $99, 120 songs, played in a random way. What’s so great about that?? Ohhhh, that’s the iPod I would like to have!

I remember the days (many decades ago) when they would play my favorite song on the radio and I would be insanely happy… even though I had the 45 rpm at home and could play it anytime. So spontaneously there, springing a surprise. Or, when, on an impulse, someone calls and spins a brilliant plan to eat, to do something, to take a trip around the world. Because they just thought of it and it seemed in that second right. And chances are it was.

The NYT pairing of the story (today, Week in Review) on the iPod and the book "Blink," where the author argues that “our instant decisions can be better than those born of long contemplation,” was clever indeed. True, I could too easily be accused of being a rather impulsive type, but this isn’t a post that seeks to justify past spontaneity on my part. I only want to put in a good word for impulse and randomness and blink decisions and wave a flag of hope that knocks down the last sentence of the Times piece where Bennahum (writer for Wired and Slate) is touted as having said this:

“…your rational process of making sense of things is a model that may be obsolete…’Life is random’ is a really great way of shrugging your shoulders in a Buddhist way of nonattachment.” “It’s kind of grim actually,” Mr. Bennahum added.

No it’s not. Realizing that joy can be born of randomness as well, is hardly a crushing discovery.

Surely there’s something between Sex and the City and Gravity’s Rainbow to feed our souls?

In today’s NYTimes Week in Review, I read with great interest about the expectations that are foisted upon the US by different regions and governments around the globe. Of course, what Europe appears to want is hardly what the US is willing to hand over. But I am fascinated by the comment of Michael Naumann, editor of the German Die Zeit. The NYT says this about him:

For Mr. Naumann, who once worked as a book publisher in New York, America’s most lasting contribution would be to reclaim its status as a wellspring of the arts.Too many Europeans, he said, view American culture as synonymous with raunchy television like the “Sex and the City” series. “What I wish most from the United States is the next novel from Tom Pynchon,” he said.


He has got to be kidding! How many readers were actually able to finish (let alone fully comprehend) “Gravity’s Rainbow?” Maybe it reads better when translated into a language* that doesn’t acknowledge the need for shorter words or sentences.

*In selecting the “words of the year,” the German Language Society also gave a nod to Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgaben- übertragungsgesetz – winner of a special award as the longest German word of the year. I'm told that “the monster word consisted of 63 letters, 20 syllables, and ten individual words—all to express a law having to do with British beef (Rindfleisch) and the so-called mad cow disease" (read about it here).

You celebrate getting through another year at birthday-time, even though you sleep during a good portion of that year, correct?

…So why shouldn’t a blog celebrate an anniversary (today!) even if it occasionally dozes off?

Congrats to the Tonya Show (TTS) for a magnificent year in the running (with an occasional rest stop)! I remember well the birth of TTS: I was at the author's house a few weeks into January 04 and I was telling her about the first few steps taken by Ocean. Her reaction? Something to the tune of “you blog? how weird!” Within a day, her own blog was born.

…What if you change your name in the middle of the year? Can you still lay claim to kudos for a year of the Tonya Show even though at birth, you were Procrastination Central?

Yes, of course. If, say, the Today Show (another TTS) starts out as Sixty Minutes and then changes its name and hour of appearance, why, it still deserves an anniversary, doesn’t it? DOESN’T IT? I’m going with a “YES!” Cheers to the Tonya Show (also once known as Procrastination Central) – with deep appreciation for the blog, the author, and the indelible sense of humor that radiates from both!

A night at the opera, part 3

Finally, the third film from our night of the triple feature (see the two posts below): a documentary about mole rats, circus performers, robots and the art of topiary. I kid you not. Our hostess tells us that if we listen carefully, we will come to understand the choice for the title (Fast, Cheap & Out of Control, directed by the Erroll Morris, who is known to me because of his later success, the Fog of War -- and also because I find a name that doubles so many letters uniquely easy to remember). But she dozes off again and we lose the nuance of the film in the course of obsessing about the absence of (sexual) energy in at least one of the lead narrators.

P.S. That was a fantastic Bolognese pasta sauce, Ms. Althouse! And Ms. Tonya Show, I’ll get on your case later today. I know we are hitting your anniversary. You are not the Forgotten One.

A night at the opera, part 2

Okay, continuing with an evening of celebration (see post below), we have switched from the deep, the difficult, the tangentially macabre and we are now onto … Hair (the movie).

One blogger is singing along. Another is attempting to find bloggable material. Me, I am enjoying the contrast. Everyone is awake now. I got my eyes I got my nose I got my mouth… I got life, brother… I got life! (And the staid, rich folk take him to court for it.)

The talk is now of navels that have slipped below the evolutionary line of probability.

Movies about hippies seem dated, but not in the sense that you cannot watch them. They either make a person cringe, or emote rhapsodically. It seems I've managed to place myself in a room with examples of both.