An evening with (another) Keith

It seems I'm drawn to writers with whom I share a name. A couple of years ago, I found myself in the Hugo House, listening to Keith Knight. This evening, I was in the stuffy basement of Elliott Bay listening to Keith Gessen -- a founding editor of the journal n+1, to which I refer at times -- read from his debut novel All the Sad Young Literary Men. I agree, that is a great title.

The portions he read centered around a sad young literary man finding his way in New York. It was funny but at the same time remained serious, similar to his journal. A woman in the crowd referred to an article that mentioned his "seriousness that could misconstrued as irony" style; he replied that, the small jokes aside, it was meant to be taken earnestly, that many people unfortunately resort to irony when our current situation is serious. And speaking of serious: during the Q&A session he mentioned Theodor Adorno, a sociologist and cultural critic, of whom I have read a little for a history of consumer course. Gessen came across as bunny rabbit in comparison but I can see why he holds Adorno in high esteem.

Needless to say I bought his book and am falling behind on my reading goals...

Nonlinear History, what?

I'm breaking a rule here and calling this book read when I still have thirty pages to go; I'm going to finish it before I go to bed though. And, really, I'm going above and beyond what was assigned as reading for my class since only portions of the book were assigned. Anyway, it's one of the most fascinating works I've ever read and you eggheads out there would dig it. The text is small and the author is a genius so be aware. My professor has refrained from giving us a long lecture on "complexity theory," which is, as I understand it, De Landa's field, but I think it can perhaps be summed up as "a unified theory of everything" (are those song lyrics?).

Another reason I'm making this post pre-completion is that I need to detach myself from the computer but have the urge to stay in front it. Why? Because I've been working pretty hard on my other site and am becoming obsessed with the number of hits I get (330 as of this writing). A lot of the "work" that goes into it involves finding other blogs/sites that have common interests and trying to network with them. It has worked though; I've had about 130 unique visitors this week!

So De Landa is book 10. I need to be at 16 by the end of April to be on pace. I'll hopefully finish The Watchmen this week and maybe some other reading for class. Read. Eat. Sleep. And blog, I guess.

Daydream

Right now I’m sitting in a small cottage in Austin, with the windows open and the warm breeze rustling the leaves of the surrounding trees. Birds are chirping intermittently and the whir of a far-off lawn mower ebbs and flows as it carves lanes in someone’s American dream. The room is dark and the fan is buzzing; the glass next to my foot sweats as does my brow. My books are piled high but I’m in no rush to finish them. It’s a weekday, maybe a Wednesday, maybe a Thursday, but that hardly matters. The dog, lying on his back, exhales the heavy air and the next door neighbor is learning to play the harmonica. A phone rings, a real phone that is mounted on the kitchen wall, but it’s too hot outside to talk so the ring persists unrelentingly. Einstein said that time slows down as velocity increases but I’m of the opinion that temperature is an important variable that he must have neglected. Night will fall, eventually, and everyone will slowly emerge from their caves. Bicycles will rattle down to the corner store and barbecues will begin.

Nice binding, nice book

Just finished Yannick Murphy's Here They Come. I bought it during McSweeney's big sale last summer even though I'd never heard of he author. In fact, I just realized about two minutes ago that it was written by a woman, not a man. True, the protagonist was a thirteen year-old girl but I just thought he was a good writer.

The narrative unfolds in a sort of unorthodox methods, like a series of vignettes. It drew me in quickly and I couldn't put it down (reading this review it seems that the author wrote it fast as well). And, to top it off, the binding is spectacular and I felt distinguished carrying it.

Up next:

The Watchmen (on loan from Phil)

Science

Weighing in at a mere 257 pages, you'd think Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent would be a quick read. Well, it wasn't quick but it was good. I'm sure the English majors out there can expound on many themes but the one that caught my attention was the focus on science.

Bear with me for a quick philosophical diversion.

The qualitative research methods class I'm taking now is taught by a philosopher. On the first day he threw out Aristotle's five modes of knowledge:

1. techne - artistic/technical knowledge
2. episteme - scientific knowledge
3. phronesis - practical wisdom
4. sophia - philosophic wisdom
5. nous - intuitive reason

He went on to explain that episteme has come to be the only truly accepted mode of knowledge; quantitative data, statistics, and measurement have come to dominate research and business. As an engineer I can say confidently that the "art" of "old-time" construction has been replaced by a rigorous understanding of the behavior of materials and statisical models give us expeced loads on structures. My professor's argument was that people are sensitive; we exist in a qualitative world full of experiences better described with words than numbers. Thus, qualitative methods are necessary for understanding the world.

Back to Conrad.

Mr. Vladimir, the official at the embassy, recognizes this dominance of science and recommends that the anarchist agent, Mr. Verloc, direct his hosilities toward science itself. He says that attacking heads of state or churches is expected and that an attack on an observatory at the prime meridian will stir things up. Anyway, reading the book for the first time while hearing this philosophical angle was interesting.

Furthermore, while we're discussing science as god, I had another interesting experience today. As you may know, this weekend is the first ever Green Festival in Seattle. We went to hear Amory Lovins, the founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute speak this afternoon. I'd rank him up there with the smartest people that I've ever encountered but I left his lecture with some questions. He is all about sustainability and sustainable capitalism; as I understand it, he believes that the America's energy/security woes can be solved by the practical application of science and R&D, by the private sector. While he makes an incredibly strong argument for this case, backed up graphs, dollar amounts, and prestige, I was left wondering about everything else. By this I mean that, sure, a safe, lighter car that gets incredible gas mileage is great but that doesn't solve the problems urban sprawl and traffic congestion; the fact that Wal-Mart is pushing the trucking industry to use fuel-efficient trucks is good but it fails to address the fact that unchecked consumption of goods made in sweatshops isn't so good. Maybe I'm overanalyzing it but I saw this faith in science that seemed to be ignoring the qualitative elements like quality of life or social justice.

Anyway, that gets me through book number nine.

FYI

Delta is my new favorite airline. Why? Because they have a free trivia game that everyone on the plane can play via the seatback screen.