This Side of Purgatory

Well, now that Jesus H. Christmas is over, it's time for us all to stand up, dust ourselves off, and see what we managed to hang on to in the bumrush.

I'm happy to hear they still read print on the west coast, and that Bentley still reads so much of it. Word to the wise compadre: The things you don't get in Vonnegut--you don't get them because they're not funny. Also, there's nothing to 'get' in Anderson that you don't want there to be. Bottle Rocket is about being fourteen. Rushmore, Tennenbaums, exercises in the meticulous Peter Pan sublimity of being fifteen and sixteen, respectively. No doubt The Life Aquatic is about the vague meloncholy of seventeenness. Beyond that, Anderson's the tofu of filmmakers. It's all in how you cook him.

Because I know you, dear reader, hang on every word, I'll let you in on what kind of culture I've been conspiciously consuming in this post-coital, post-solstice winter.

Moby-Dick: I'm enjoying it far better the second time around. Maybe it's because when I read it the first time in high school it was presented to me from within the fascist restrictiveness of the middle-American, late-capitalist, faux-egalitarian educational system. Or maybe it's because I've been laid since then. Regardless, it works on two levels: 1) Minor hero in decline chases Death, Revenge, and a White Whale on the high seas (I know what you'll say, total Wes Anderson rip-off), and 2) the same exact thing, but replace hero with America and villains with Industry, Capital, and Manifest Destiny. Watch out for Melville's wit. They never tell you in school how brutally funny that m.f. is.

The Pentagon's New Map: Thomas P.M. Barnett is to Security Studies what Mos Def is to hip-hop: without them, their professions are just a lot of borderline sociopaths bragging about all the shiny things they've bought. Barnett is like Jack Ryan, Tony Robbins and Drew Carey rolled into one, and he's presented a theory of military power in the 21st century that should command as much of your attention as those Doritos presently are (I'm looking at you, New Jersey).

Esquire: Still the best glossy in America and the one with the best mix of high, low, and unibrow humor. The New Yorker be damned! Damned, I say! (By the way, te-hee-hee-hee).

Michael Loux's Metaphysics: If you only read one introductory treatment of Aristotelian metaphysics this winter, it shouldn't be this one.

John Broome's lectures on Normative Ethics: If you only read one series of unpublished lectures on Normative ethics given at Oxford University in the fall of 2004 which you were supposed to have attended but didn't, it should be this one.

Closer: This is the movie everybody should be talking about, but they're too busy talking about how Garden State is the movie everybody should be talking about. Great material, acted greatly. Even Julia Roberts shines. Highlight lines:

Ann: "Why?!? Why do you want to know?!? Why is the sex SO important to you?!?!"
Larry: "BECAUSE I'M A FUCKING CAVEMAN!"

and

Dan: "She has a good heart, too good for you [paraphrasing]"
Larry: "Have you ever seen a heart? It looks like a clenched fist covered in blood"

Anyway, run along now and do my bidding.