the ancient past

Remembrances of things past, days of yore, olden times.

Learning how not to think

31 July 2009 in lit, the ancient past | 1 comment

If you haven’t read David Foster Wallace’s 2005 commencement address at Kenyon, you should. It’s humble and real and warm, and truly great. It’s also very difficult to read. After his suicide, it’s impossible not to hear the echoes of Wallace’s internal conversation, the darkness and doubt and obsessive thoughts that he clearly struggled to get a handle on.

As I’m sure you guys know by now, it is extremely difficult to stay alert and attentive, instead of getting hypnotized by the constant monologue inside your own head (may be happening right now). Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliché about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: Learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed. Think of the old cliché about quote the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master.

It’s not technically available online, but you might be able to stumble across it in the depths of the Internet archives. Thanks, Dave.

The 90s obviously didn’t totally suck

11 July 2009 in music, the ancient past | No comments

Karp, playing someone’s apartment/bedroom/closet in Atlanta, 1996. This video makes me regret not rallying to see them at Gilman Street even more. Thanks for the memories, Jacob. PS, you may feel moved to add your own vocal track.

Disco Demolition Night

5 July 2009 in baseball, the ancient past | No comments

Hard to believe that this was 30 years ago, but here’s some excellent local news footage of a notorious moment in baseball history: the White Sox ill-fated “Disco Demolition” promotion. In the end, Comiskey Park descended into a riot after a Chicago DJ exploded a crate full of disco records in the middle of the field between games of a double-header. The NYT has a nice chronicle of the unfolding disaster:

[Mike] Veeck, [son of the White Sox owner], ordered yellow-jacketed guards to go outside to stop fans from crashing the gates.

That allowed the spectators inside the ballpark to storm the field without much resistance. Jack Morris, a Tigers pitcher, recalled “whiskey bottles were flying over our dugout” after Detroit won the first game, 4 – 1.

Then Dahl blew up the records.

“And then all hell broke loose,” Morris said. “They charged the field and started tearing up the pitching rubber and the dirt. They took the bases. They started digging out home plate.“

Watch for Greg Gumbel in the footage above; he was a sportscaster for a Chicago-area station.

Handmade

2 July 2009 in outdoors, the ancient past | 2 comments

This photo is from an excellent 70s photo book called Handmade Houses. I bought it after I read this inspiring little piece on Inhabitat, and it has got me thinking about getting back to basics. In this economy, basics may be all there are.

In the winter and spring of 1997, I helped my friend Steve make a house by hand on the California coast. At first, it was like Robinson Crusoe. No possessions to speak of, other than my hammer, some books, the sun and ocean, fresh air and work. We worked all day, doing what felt like good, wholesome labor in the sun, banging, sawing, sizing things up.

This is where I lived for a while.

Then El Nino arrived. After a few weeks, the whole thing had become more like Lord of the Flies. Days and days of rain, mudslides on Highway 1, crazy-making isolation. In between squalls, we framed the house, affixed the plywood sheathing, put on the deck and roof, and ran the wiring. At some point, I came down with a cold, which eventually became pneumonia.

In the spring, I retreated to the warmth of Doug and Ted’s house in Berkeley to recuperate, a few weeks later I’d taken a job at a museum, and that was the end of simplicity. For the time being, anyway.

So you can’t stop moonwalking

30 June 2009 in music, the ancient past | No comments

I won’t bore you with my thoughts on Lisa Marie Presley’s MySpace thing about Michael (“I wanted to save him. I wanted to save him from the inevitable which is what has just happened”), or relate my story of finding out that the rumor was true (upon reading this tweet from Lil’ Jon: “RIP M J!!”), or discuss Justin’s excellent email about how MJ helped him stay in his “eight-year old zone.”

I will only spread some love about my favorite MJ recording, which is a very scratchy demo version of “Working Day And Night” from the Special Edition of “Off the Wall.”

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Enjoy.

How cool was Hong Kong in the early 60’s?

7 June 2009 in cinema, the ancient past, travel | 1 comment

Walking around the Maxwell Food Market near Singapore’s Chinatown reminded of Wong Kar Wai’s excellent movie about Hong Kong in the early 60’s In the Mood for Love. After I watched it last night, I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to actually travel back in time, or just walk inside an imagined version of the past.

Their lives on the B-list

13 May 2009 in the ancient past, tv | No comments

Question: Is there a better litmus test of 1980’s celebrity than a guest appearance on Love Boat? Wikipedia’s master list includes Corey Feldman, Pat Morita, Rich Little, Menudo, the Village People, and the Pointer Sisters. Also included: Lorne Greene, Shecky Green, Pam Grier, and Andy Warhol. Surprisingly omitted: The Harlem Globetrotters.

Suited to endure long periods of inactivity

8 April 2009 in dogs, the ancient past | 2 comments

Say what you will about the Soviets, but you can’t argue with this reasoning for sending dogs, rather than monkeys, into space. If there’s one universal truth of dogs, it is that they are “suited to endure long periods of inactivity.” Lynne brought the subject of these Soviet cosmonaut dog-heroes to my attention, including those pictured at right — Belka (which “most likely means ‘Whitey,’” according to Wikipedia’s “Soviet space dogs” entry) and Strelka (“Arrow”). They were the first animals to go into orbit and return alive, spending August 19, 1960 in space before returning to Earth. Wikipedia helpfully adds that they were accompanied by some friends from the animal kingdom: “a grey rabbit, 42 mice, 2 rats, flies and a number of plants and fungi.”

All passengers survived.

(Thanks to Dan Mogford, who grabbed the image off a commemorative Soviet matchbox).

Updike

27 January 2009 in lit, the ancient past | 2 comments

I love writing letters, but for some reason the only letter-to-the-editor I’ve ever written went something like this:

Dear Mr. Remnick,

If you publish one more story by John Updike, so help me God I will cancel my subscription immediately.

Sincerely,
Doug LeMoine

The year was 1999. I had been driven to what I saw as the brink — of patience! of sanity! — by the New Yorker’s incessant publishing of Updike’s fiction, which seemed (to me) not only incessant, but over-stylized, nauseatingly East Coast-ish, maudlin, wooden. No matter my mood, I found it insufferable and insulting, tone-deaf when it came to anything but older white guys. I don’t like to speak ill of the departed, so I’ll stop there and I’ll admit that I’ve softened in the meantime. Updike’s literary criticism is — who can argue? — instructive and insightful. He knew his stuff, and I felt enriched (sometimes grudgingly so) when I read his reviews.

With regard to the aforementioned letter, my hand was forced almost immediately. Updike had published something like 25,000 stories in the New Yorker to that point, so I might as well have told John Henry to stop driving steel, or for Jerry Garcia to stop jamming. By the time my letter was fluttering into David Remnick’s trashcan, I was already being forced to make good on my threat, a task that was ultimately embarrassing in its cold, bureaucratic execution. Contrary to any engaged reader’s conception of the publisher-reader relationship, when you say “I’d like to cancel my subscription,” they don’t transfer you to the desk of the editor so that you can ream him a new one. You hear a few keystrokes, and then get asked if there’s anything else you need help with.

Upon reflection, this experience was a life lesson in itself. Mr. Updike, I thank you, and I wish you well.

Maps / North Korea’s Hotel of Doom

28 October 2008 in architecture, the ancient past | No comments

Last night, Mara and I were messing around with Google Maps, checking out giant Japanese buddhas from the air. [Check out this one in Kamakura, near Tokyo]. Then we decided to see what North Korea looked like, and we raced over the Pyongyang and suddenly found this crazy thing with a giant triangular shadow. What the?

Turns out that it’s the Ryugyong Hotel. It has 105 stories, and it is indeed shaped like an arrowhead, with a broad base that tapers steeply to a pointy top. The craziest thing: It was abandoned in the mid-80’s, during construction; hence its moniker: the Hotel of Doom. (Apparently, North Korea had already sunk 2% of its GDP into it when they decided to pull the plug. Ouch.)

Esquire calls it worst-designed building in the world, which seems a little harsh. Would the world’s worst-designed building inspire this: An animated short presenting a sort of Blade-Runner-meets-Disney-meets-Shinjuku vision for how the Ryugyong will be adapted in the future? Actually, maybe it would.

See it for yourself here.

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