"Keep an open mind...."

A Reason online story suggests the idea of "intellectual diversity" as a conservative ruse in education...wonder if this could be connected to a Pennsylvania school district's policy of urging kids to consider intelligent design theory despite being taught evolution. (NYT Mag story)

But how much do students care—even college students? Students have a way of leaving debates at school—especially when at the elementary or middle-school level. The ultimate effect of "evolution is just a theory" policies will be to increase the number of theories students may or may not fall for under ideological pressure from parents, priests or even teachers—not to encourage them to consider the relative merits of the theories and make up their own minds.

The same is true to some extent of college students. As the Reason story points out, college students lately are "organization kids," liberal or not. "No one seriously..believes diversity on elite campuses extends past skin color," the story states. This is true, but college students themselves actually tend to believe that, though in a vague way; and they certainly ignore intellectual diversity, making this debate less immediately important.

Sideways: not a PSA

NTY: "Is Wine-Soaked Film too, Er, Rose?"

Aside from the fact that this has the word "Er" in the headline, it's a little short on challenges to claims that the film Sideways ignores alcoholism. The people making these claims are another example of issue advocates who feel the need to graft their narrow conccerns onto everything they see.

Similar: SceneSmoking.org's obsessive tabulations of smoking in films.

Anyways, the story doesn't point out that Sideways does acknowledge the ill effects alcohol can have—the "drink and dial" scene, Miles stealing from his mother (which one source quoted in the story does point out), and his depreession, which is pretty obvious throughout the film....plenty other things, I'm sure, can give any attentive viewer a good enough idea of the problems booze can cause. Which leads me to the question, what do these people need? A blatant public-service announcement before the credits roll? "Hi, I'm Paul Giamatti and...."

Quote of week/swell story

NY Times: A Zealous Prosecutor of Drug Criminals Becomes One Himself

I just really like this story. That's basically it.

He said that in July 2004 he had come across a glass pipe that Texas troopers had overlooked in searching a seized car. "A girl called it a crack pipe, so I assumed there was crack in it," he said. He took it home. "I happened to be having a bad day, so I smoked it in the barn," he said. Lurid, awkward and pitiful. And I think it's funny, personally. Feature-y enough to be engrossing, dry enough to keep me awake.

The Gates

An appraisal in today's NY Times of "The Gates"....

Michael Kimmelman writes: "The Gates" is a work of pure joy(1), a vast populist(2) spectacle of good will and simple eloquence, the first great public art event of the 21st century.

Pure joy: The orange ribbons basically work off one's sense of wonder, and they succeed at that, for what it's worth. This is also how the artists construe it on their Web site: The Gates will seem like a golden river appearing and disappearing through the bare branches of the trees—it creates or at least evokes images of the improbable. And like a captivating hallucination or anything else that appeals to wonder, it has to be fleeting; it will actually be taken down and the individual pieces recycled. Pure joy? No. Let's say that for what it does, it's good—it looks nice, creates a feeling of warmth (the "good will and simple eloquence" are not off the mark), but it will probably inspire pure joy only when combined with hallucinogenic drugs or religious fanaticism (hey, it would match those robes that Buddhist monks wear). Fair enough.

Populist: This word is a load of crap in most applications. The artists have a certain idea of what a city should look and feel like, and they've been able to carry it out. It's benevolent and generous, and the art has been installed in a considerate manner, according to the artists' Web site. To be "populist," this work has to be pretty accessible. It doesn't have to be dumb but has to have some broad, obvious appeal. That is a standard feature of all public art: it can't be entirely subtle. Hence the gigantic reflective "bean" at Chicago's Millenium Park. It's big and obvious but has an element of wonder to it; the attraction is in its size and shape and warped reflections of people and buildings. The artists' approach is populistic. Populism, like democracy, is a hazy and virtuous word that invokes the percieved bond between millions of people. That bond is itself inarticulate, often poorly qualified. What we get from it is the noble feeling of hearing or saying the word, since an idea is mixed in there somewhere, after all. But the idea is still unclear and can be applied almost any way you dare, and that's why it makes so many people comfortable; it doesn't require answers or explanations. Maybe that's at the heart of the "populism" of works of art like "The Gates": They are enjoyable but entirely undemanding.

Show yourselves!

So last week, my vanity or boredom or whatever drove and derided me to hook this blog up to a sitemeter.

Evidently I have readers or viewers I never knew about. Not Andy, not Santi, not Wes...just random people coming from domains like U of Texas at Arlington, University of Oklahoma. Maybe they run across this page without actually reading it — they certainly never post any comments. This handy PIE CHART (!) shows where viewers came from this week.

Who the hell are you people? Show yourselves—leave comments, email adresses, URLs below—and maybe I'll post here on a consistent basis, say, three times a week.

Slate does Celebration

Witold Rybczynski's slideshow essay

There's a scene in Thus Spoke Zarathustra in which the title character comes upon some houses and wonders if "men" really come and go from those houses. "They look to me as if made for silken dolls," he says (Don't worry, I'm not going to go off on a Nietzschean tear on a fucking weblog). And that's what gets into the back of my mind and bothers me about Celebration. I'm not so much suspicious of the idea of a micro-planned neighborhoood; just of the specific way it makes you feel.

Celebration, in all its little ways, inspires as much meekness as it does pride. You can never just be in Celebration and appreciate Celebration; you have to be constantly reminded of the specific fact that you are in Celebration. Note the little sign in the park in slide 4. It's a nice park but is not allowed to speak for itself. Those devious little labels and signs with their poorly chosen colors are everywhere. This is a neighborhood that aims not only to be enjoyable, but also to continually sell itself. The "brand" is everywhere; you are not allowed to forget it.

Personally, I can't image living there and having much self-respect. It would cramp my style. It would cramp any style worthy of the name.

Keep in mind: This is a neighborhood where homeowners must sign a series of "Covenants," which establish very strictly what they can't do with their lawns and houses. Not "agreements." Not just the usual bureaucratic crap one takes care of when closing on a house, then forgets. Covenants. And they do adhere, with an appropriate religiousness.

Architecture critic Rybczynski's essay comes down critical yet evenhanded. He ends up relying on a distinction between "populist" and "elitist" that doesn't apply very clearly in a middle-class neighborhood, even an expensive one.

He says the streets are "artfully planned to create a sense of place." I'd have to disagree with that. In fact, for anyone remotely used to a city grid or the whole "cardinal directions" thing, it creates confusion and disorientation. It's very easy to get completely lost within Celebration, and that leaves you nowhere but in Celebration. Stranded with the brand. The cardinal directions won't help you find a way back to the highway, because the streets are so jumbled and circuitous. You'll have to forget about simple directional sense and take those insane routes on their own terms.

Rybczynski is right in saying that the neighborhood can be a nice-looking place to walk around in, but the complications would discourage walking too far from one's home. Hell, maybe wandering violates a COVENANT!

Because of its history, Florida lacks a long-standing sense of place for permanent residents. Central Florida was fairly dead for a long time; now it's scrambling to accomodate unprecedented numbers of people. Aside from rural settlers, the area once had "permanent" residents before. They were called Indians and we killed them. People come and go out here. For now, the sense of place has to be made up on the spot, not in that kinky gradual way. It is as ready-made as sense of place can be, not the ever-changing, ever-corrupting sense of place that brings true character to a city.

I like that Rybczynski is willing to critique the architecture rather than throwing feces at it. I especially agree with him on the bank in slide 7. But is the bank claimed for the city, with "CELEBRATION" in those big letters, or is its architecture subjugated to the "brand"? Though eccentric, and elegantly out-of-place, it can't escape those quaint, overscrubbed, neuterish lampposts and street signs. And it's those nuances—which make up the context for all these individual buildings—that I wish this essay called into question. Aren't they just a little meekening?

Oh, and what the fuck is the word "kerfuffle"? If that word should be applied to any kind of conflict at all, it should be reserved for, say, pillowfights among clowns.

Censorship discussion

Dear Fewer-than-Five Readers:

I'd like to start a discussion, in the comments under this posting, about where the U.S. is headed in terms of censorship. I'm just curious to see what you all think. You can be serious, facetious, satirical, angry, happy, nonsensical, logical, polite, vulgar, whatever, so long as it stays interesting.

Two things to chew over for starters: Frank Rich's column in today's NY Times; A Knight Foundation study of high school-students' attitudes about freedom of speech.

It's appropriate to begin our discussion at this Super Bowl anniversary—and maybe I'll post something about the halftime show—since in the past year government and media have scrambled to scrub all the crudeness out of entertainment, but of course haven't made it any better. Most of it is still crap. So here's what I'll be arguing: The "Decency" debate is not only dangerous to freedoms, it is also a distraction from the real problems of mainstream journalism and entertainment. But that's just me...

A challenge?

"Hallmark is never going to top that," says the wife of a man who wrote a love message in his own blood inside a wrecked train in California.

Oh, what she doesn't know! Hallmark is about to sweep the market with its latest gaudy bomb of sweetness: The impeccably beribboned Box o' Horse Guts! Let's see how flattered you feel then, wifey!

Sounds like LOGIC! Must be devious...

From a source in the real-estate industry (he's a FOREIGNER i.e. British), I recieved this all-too-impeccably logical message regarding a lawsuit rumor:

We have had our attorneys check every possible source ... and they have found absolutely nothing in
that regard.  We therefore conclude this rumor is incorrect and has no
basis!

THEREFORE? By God, it sounds like some kind of syllogism! He sounds confident that it's a water-tight chain of logic. Sounds all too eager to put my mind at jolly ease.

Well, it's the wrong tactic to use on an American. By virtue of my nationality, I distrust prim logic. THEREFORE, perhaps he should have said: "We had our attorneys check every possible source, but lo, the LORD'S majestic columns of fire plunged downward, and a voice, o a Heavenly voice, did proclaim unto us: 'THE RUMOR IS INCORRECT AND HAS NO BASIS! SO BE IT! DISPERSE FAITHFULLY MY WORD TO ALL THE NOSY MEDIA OUTLETS OF ALL THE NATIONS!'"

Now THAT'S how you spread your impossible optimism, my mannered friend.