A beautiful and finally tolerable day in the Imperial City. Call them ‘surrender monkeys’ all you want, but when Pierre L’Enfant in 1791 began designing Washington, D.C., he’s not the one who decided the capital should be on a swamp. Here’s an open thread.
We’re tuning out for a day or two all the click-baiting, ankle-biting meme chihuahuas (Gore and Portland, this person is or is not a racist, etc.) in favor of a new book. “The Windup Girl” by Paolo Bacigalupi. We recommend it.
People seem to think Bacigalupi is the next William Gibson (after all, it says so in the blurbs). Perhaps he is, but so far we find him closer to Murakami’s excellent Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. Also highly recommended.
Reviewers suggesting it’s a new ‘Neuromancer’ aren’t completely off. That book’s now oft quoted “The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel” doesn’t convey the richness of “Windup.” And Murakami’s textured (and structurally clever) “Hard Boiled Wonderland”, although not as well known to most Amerikuns, while of the same early 1980s era as Gibson went beyond just ‘jacking into the net’ and explored some of the biological themes fully developed in “Windup.” What we get with “Windup” is a more richly created dystopian world.
Is Bacigalupi another Vance as others suggest, a ‘world builder’ without peer? That’s for another post, perhaps. “Windup” is a great read filled with wry observations about a future with mindless American-Davos consumerism/branding triumphant. Dystopian to be sure but always entertaining and at times witty as well.
Dr Leo Strauss says
@Comment
Can’t add to what specialized game review sites might say, except to note that most major game developers and publishers (two distinct things) realize the market growth and profits are moving towards handheld (iPhone/Android) casual games. Many of the smartest developers have gone so far as to speculate this current round of consoles may be the last (or next to last) of the video game form as currently known.
Sony says PS3 will remain its flagship console for 4-5 more years (it has to, for Sony to recoup incredible losses on the hardware. Will MSFT wait that long, too? Alot of speculation given the losses MSFT incurred on the Xbox. So no one sees new units on the immediate horizon.
Second, most games are cross platform now, with very few must have exclusives (especially with HALO winding down). Mass Effect 2, for example, is now coming out on PS3. What that means is most games will look essentially the same more or less as the extra coding to take advantage of some PS3 internal arcana aren’t worth the investment/ROI.
Third, who’s the system for? If the user enjoys online/multi-player, Xbox-Live remains years ahead of Sony. From what we read, MSFT motion detection implementation is slightly ahead of Sony this first generation if people want to jump and leap around a living room. Sony offers Blu-Ray, but Xbox has Netflix and streaming video. Do people really care? Some do, many don’t. MSFT wants to build Xbox live into its mobile phones. Will it work? Many smell another Zune-type misfire. Potential is there.
Price? PS3 has finally come down so there isn’t that huge disparity.
Quality? We’ve had two 360s die from RROD (red rings of death). MSFT’s completely new re-design of the 360 supposedly fixed their QQ issues but the Stiftung’s latest 360 is the last MSFT product currently in our lives. Sony QQ issues by comparison have been nearly negligible.
As for the PS-2, it’s quaint. There’s fun to be had in some of the 100s of games re good game design. It’ll be akin to watching distant UHF rabbit ear TV analog signal compared to current standards. We find the PS-2, like the Saturn, the Dreamcast, the old original PS, SNES, NEO-GEOs, etc. are all fun for a quick trip down memory lane. We doubt any would hold interest for long beyond that.
The young ones in our lives love the Wii for certain things and the Xbox 360 for HALO and Call of Duty Modern Warfare’s iterations so they can frag us old people and run around tea-bagging everyone (in the traditional, pre-Dick Armey-astroturf sense). Killzone on the PS3 can’t compete with Modern Warfare as a differentiator. The don’t use the PS2 anymore.
YMMV
Comment says
Leo, do you have any thoughts on xbox vs. ps3 or if PS 2 is still a good game system for the money?
DrLeoStrauss says
World War III illustrated over the decades . . .
http://www.worldwar3illustrated.org/?et_mid=36325&rid=3702048
Dr Leo Strauss says
Atrios notes Buffy is coming back to theaters but without Whedon or any of its tv cast.
http://www.eschatonblog.com/2010/11/happy-hour-news.html
According to AICN reports, the geniuses at WB hired a 29 year old woman with no prior experience at all (tv or film) to write the script. Given Buffy’s iconic status and fanatical fan base, what could possibly go wrong?
Whedon responds:
http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/watch_with_kristin/b212644_joss_whedon_reacts_buffy_movie_news_i.html
Dr Leo Strauss says
http://www.japantoday.com/category/entertainment-arts/view/space-battleship-yamato-blasts-off
Typical Tweety Quote says
Is this some kind of homo-erotic thing they do? They put on these uniforms and dance around? What is it they exactly do?
Tweety (Oct. 2010) (referring to historical re-enactment aficionados)
Dr Leo Strauss says
A little bit of awesome in a bleak Fall.
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/46952
Dr Leo Strauss says
Haruki Murakami has 11/1 odds to win 2010 Nobel Prize in literature according to Brit oddsmakers.
http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/haruki-murakami-has-111-odds-to-win-2010-nobel-prize-in-literature_b12771
Comment says
Waler Issacson’s favorite republican ideas man showing some more squalor:
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/09/gingrich-calls-for-federal-law-banning-shariah-law-in-us.php?ref=fpblt
Dr Leo Strauss says
re O’Donnell and witchcraft, it’s pretty amusing. We’re acquainted with some of her Movement advisors – like Armey, Establishment faces in the guise of ‘outisders’. The ones we know are deeply embedded in the Faith and Values Voter Movement and yet are the ones helping O’Donnell fashion her witty comeback lines waiving away witchcraft.
If Values Voters can overlook a Family Research Council founder hiring Rentboy.com, Vitter with hookers, Ensign sleeping with an aide’s wife and then bribing them, a little paganism is a small ‘youthful indescretion’ as Henry Hyde used to say. After all, it confirms their more important ‘we’re under siege from pop culture’ trope — aren’t vampires and werewolves everywhere from Harry Potter to Twilight to True Blood? She’s an example of its pernicious impact and the mythical ‘salvation’ narrative.
On the MSNBC Starbucks Informercial this morning, also funny so see self-professed media professionals and ‘been there, done that’ types gush that O’Donnell’s joking responses are spur of the moment, sua sponte quick-on-her-feet brilliance. Always helps to get out the door on a Monday with a good laugh.
Dr Leo Strauss says
‘Windup Girl’ wins the 2010 Hugo, shared with China Miéville’s ‘The City & The City.
http://www.thehugoawards.org/2010/09/2010-hugo-award-winners/
Dr Leo Strauss says
Gibson’s “Zero History” pub machine kicks into gear over at Salon . . .
http://www.salon.com/technology/google/index.html?story=/tech/htww/2010/09/01/william_gibson_zero_history_and_google
Given his prolific tweeting one wonders when the man has time to write a to do list, let alone a novel. Advance word on ZH says it’s good.
Dr Leo Strauss says
Murakami gives an interview, comparing writing a novel to having a dream.
http://www.japantoday.com/category/book-reviews/view/murakami-says-writing-novel-is-like-having-dream
Dr Leo Strauss says
@Alex
Poor fellow. He didn’t like the book. Perhaps he can get a refund.
Alex says
@Dr Leo Strauss
I really don’t know why you bother in the light of James Nicoll’s points here. (Shorter: those springs are meant to contain so much energy they would work to launch a SSTO spacecraft, and if you can make genetically engineered giant elephants to wind them up, you can also make biodiesel and use it in a diesel engine at enormously higher efficiencies.)
Dr Leo Strauss says
You’re right, a killer montage – had forgotten how much fun and intelligent it was. How stark the contrast with the generic, rote A&ETNTUSA stuff today. Wondering if the new Hawaii Five-O will be teh suk, too.
Dr Leo Strauss says
@Aldershot re Brazil, have a hunch you’ll be amused.
Aldershot says
@Dr Leo Strauss
Besides, I think we’d do better with one of those Mission Impossible guys:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k55NuWQCh78&feature=related
One of the best series openings evah.
Aldershot says
I must plead ignorance of Harry Tuttle and the movie Brazil. I’ve been meaning to sign up for Netflix…maybe now’s the time.
Dr Leo Strauss says
@Aldershot
OK, maybe it’s time to call in Harry Tuttle to investigate !
Aldershot says
Wait…
If seven maid with seven mops swept for half a year,
Do you think that they could sweep the sand all clear?
“I doubt it,’ said the Carpenter, and shed a bitter tear.
Aldershot says
I appear to have no ‘edit’ or ‘more options’ buttons.
Aldershot says
This is a test of the emergency edit system.
Dr Leo Strauss says
Hmmm.
Dr Leo Strauss says
Hi, think the suggestions have been implemented. New post comment tag should now read latest instead of last. Aldershot, when the ratings systems for comments was turned on a few weeks ago, the code suspect conflicted with the blockquote.
Will check with the next comment.
Aldershot says
On another note, could you please change that automatic addition to your comments that links to your latest post? I mean, every time I see it I think “Oh, no, his last blog, why is he shutting the site down?”
While talking of house-keeping, I’d like to ask about the mess of code that appears in the reply box when I try to quote someone.
Also, remember when we had five, or so, minutes to edit a post before it became set in stone?
Hunter says
Somehow, probably, but he could have inserted half a page somewhere. On another note, could you please change that automatic addition to your comments that links to your latest post? I mean, every time I see it I think “Oh, no, his last blog, why is he shutting the site down?”
Dr Leo Strauss says
Hunter, that’s a great point re nuclear power. Its absence part of the ‘Contraction’ somehow probably.
Hunter says
Been reading The Windup Girl, and it’s pretty great but one thing keeps nagging at me: what happened to nuclear power? I mean, I know it’s a tough political sell a lot of places right now, and contrary to the ideology of the book, but you gotta at least toss off a moderately plausible explanation as to why it didn’t make a comeback when the age of oil ended…
Dr Leo Strauss says
David Frum as broken clock re Gibbs. When he’s right, he’s right.
http://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/20789770296
Dr Leo Strauss says
@Comment
re Goss, failing upwards is weird – it seems to be all about scale. If one is moderately incompetent or makes only large misjudgments, there’s still a chance of being tarred and feathered out of town.
Perhaps it depends if one cracks and goes off script, showing even a glimmer of remorse. The trick seems to be fail epically with bravura indifference.
Comment says
Wow – we actually learned something interesting on Olberman – supposedly Porter Goss, of all people, is on an Congressional ethics panel that has recommended a number of these investigations – Amazing, considering Goss’s own cloud – on many things.
Comment says
Years from now Newt will be trying to claim that he basically was with Bloomberg re this speech:
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/08/03/mayor_bloomberg_on_mosque/index.html
Newt will try to claim his AEI speech – so full of race and religious hatred – was really the same thing as what Bloomberg was saying – Just as he claims to be an heir to MLK while claiming that MLK would not be supporting the Palestinian human rights claims.
Comment says
Harry Reid must love this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TrIKQagJPs&feature=player_embedded
Comment says
Here’s another example of Klein’s psychological tic – after scoring right wingers, he feels he has to close with an insult to liberals by calling the troglodytes (a traditional right wing insult – to show how creative he is
)http://swampland.blogs.time.com/#ixzz0vVUiRimO
Comment says
We tend to think Klein’s comment was more of a psychological tic than one base on general ignorance – It was somewhat like the unathletic somewhat awkward Newt Gingrich pretending to love beach volleyball. Kein would like to bracket out Vietnam because he probably feels a mixture of guilt about avoiding service and sometimes now cheering war (albeit less than others).
We read lots of Klein stuff in NY Mag from the 70s and 80s when we were getting rid off old mags – He has logged many years in NYC politics (briefly as Cuomo cheerleader) and he must feel under seige now by the bloggers that mock him so much, So occasionally he’ll go and attack Foxman or Palin or the tea party – but then he’ll try and tack back – put on his Serious hat and ridicule his critics and try to marginalize away things.
Dr Leo Strauss says
@Comment Klein is almost Friedman-esque there. What he lacks is that extra genius to name drop an obscure Vietnamese CEO’s agreement as ‘proof’.
Simply incredible ahistorical ignorance. Such vacuity is the currency of the realm. We are such a debased society.
Stuff like this just puts the fuel rods into Movement arms nuclear reactors, stoking determination to see the entire hollow liberal edifice (of which he is merely Court Jester) torn down. One can almost imagine his indignant reply — ‘Who are you to write that? I shared nitrous with Jerry Garcia!’
Someone please remember to report back here if Greenwald uses this to needle him deservedly.
Comment says
Looks like 14th amendment foes Lindsey Graham and John Kyl are advising Bibi’s cabinet:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/02/israel-to-expel-children-_n_666995.html
Comment says
Misspelled Klein’s name by accident – sorry Joe.
Comment says
Joe Kliein – like a lot of Vietnam era post 9/11 temp hawks seems to think Vietnam never had any problematic borders (unlike AfPak) and that there were no significant minorities (what about Catholics and Montagnards?):
“Gelb imagines–and he doesn’t have to imagine too hard–similar thoughts bouncing around in Barack Obama’s brain. Afghanistan is different from Vietnam in several ways–the cross-border nature of the Pashtun Taliban insurgency, for one. But the most important difference is ethnic: Vietnam was, with some insignificant exceptions, an ethnic monolith.”
_Joe Klein
Read more: http://swampland.blogs.time.com/#ixzz0vVUiRimO
anxiousmodernman says
The Kos post is sad. I skimmed the comments. They’re still wound up about Nader voters in Florida in 2000 and how it caused 9/11 or something.
Dr Leo Strauss says
@RedPhillip
To our admittedly idiosyncratic pov the post’s seemingly almost corporatist (anodyne?) tone was . . . disappointing.
RedPhillip says
@Dr Leo Strauss Painful.
Astonishing that such self-regard is admired as political savvy. It’s a daily toss-up which faction I loathe more.
Dr Leo Strauss says
A post on Daily Kos offers what might be a ‘mission statement’ entitled ‘Why We Are Here’.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/7/31/889323/-Why-are-we-here?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos%29
RedPhillip says
@Comment Seemed quite accurate to me. Not more than a teeny tiny drop over the top.
Dr Leo Strauss says
@Comment re MoDo – we’ve long suspected a bot.
Comment says
Ok – so this guy is a bit over the top, but still somewhat funny:
http://www.piratemyfilm.com/blogs/11480
Comment says
How does MoDo get away with this – note the first few paragraphs – essentially a replica of half of her columns – She just changes the names:
Example: Leo Strauss used to be famous for his noble lies, but now Portland lawman suggest Al Gore’s accuser should be infamous for her Nobel lies.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/opinion/01dowd.html?_r=1&hp
anxiousmodernman says
Definitely going to check out the books. Although I might be medium-poisoned by jacking into the net too much. It’s been a long time since a novel really took me in.
And it’s going to be a really nice day here, too. One almost contemplates reading outside…
Hunter says
The old William Gibson’s coming out with a new one in September, I think. And Hard-Boiled Wonderland is my favorite of Murakami’s novels (by far). Thanks for the rec., I’ll definitely check out this Bacigalupi character.