Category: Words

I had one of those moments today that made me realize I’m living in the future. I sat down to write for this freelance project I’ve picked up, and realized that my audience consisted of people in need of particular business services (asset-backed financing, bridge loans, business process management consultants) and search engine crawlers looking for relevant content.

That is, my writing is designed for the reading pleasure of machines. Apparently this machine audience enjoys the frequent repitition of keywords.

Peter Hessler’s forthcoming book Oracle Bones begins with a story that might as well be a historical footnote. During the US campaign in Yugoslavia, US bombs hit the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, killing three. The US claimed it was an accident caused by the use of an outdated map. China claimed it was deliberate. There were protests and marches. Then, slowly, it all blew over. Later, stories leaked out that the embassy was the only target selected by the CIA rather than the Pentagon, that the three people killed were probable intelligence officers, that the Chinese embassy had been assisting the Serbs.

What was really happening? Hard to say. The rest of the book ranges from the earliest archeological findings to special economic zones and Falun Gong, but I think that first anecdote really captures Hessler’s method. He attempts to understand what’s happened, but he acknowledges his limitations, and the limitations of his methods and sources.

In many ways, he seems to say, our efforts to understand the present and the past are as incomplete as the predictions of the future that ancient Chinese made with the oracle bones that give the book its title. They give us some kind of reassurance that we know and control our environment– but it’s not complete by any means.

Hessler’s details and adventures are sometimes touching and sometimes hilarious, but always fascinating.

I’ve added about a half-dozen new blogs to my feed list at Bloglines. There’s lots of great stuff out there. On the other hand, if I am lucky I will soon be too busy to read this many blogs every day: I have two interviews this week!

The Times today has an article about Y-Combinator, a hatchery for technology startups. I’m hoping I’ll find some potential employers among its offspring.

However, I was particularly amused to see that the bio of co-founder Robert Morris on the About Y Combinator page states that “in 1988 his discovery of buffer overflow first brought the Internet to the attention of the general public.” That’s something of a roundabout way of confirming that he is the Robert Morris, whose use of the buffer overflow discovery inadvertently brought the nascent Interntet to its knees and made him the first person indicted under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986.

After three months of candidacy, I’ve gotten a final answer from my two favorite job prospects. And that answer is no.

The other position that’s called me back recently is through Americorps/VISTA, which is basically like the Peace Corps but domestically and for one year instead of two. I’d spend the year working for a local charity coordinating its volunteer efforts: duties would be mainly phoning, scheduling, and conducting orientation sessions, plus some heavy lifting and light praying.

It pays $900/month.

Sure, it’s volunteer work with a stipend, not a salary. But I nearly laughed out loud when they told me. Then I nearly laughed again when they told me that some of the students who typically do Americorps/VISTA actually qualify for food stamps.

When I was a child, $900 would have seemed like all the money in the world. Even when I was fresh out of college, it would have seemed perfectly reasonable compensation for a month’s work: $300 for rent, $300 for food, $300 for fun, clothes, savings, and emergencies. When did I get so greedy that $5.67 an hour seems like not enough?

Perhaps when I moved to a state where the minimum wage is $6.75.

I feel very conflicted about this. If I really cared about social justice, wouldn’t I leap at this opportunity?

I’ve mentioned before how much I love cover songs, the way that they add additional layers to an existing cultural touchstone. For those of you immersed in literary theory, it works on the same principle as Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote. My recent favorite is a version of the Rolling Stones song “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” performed by Cat Power.

The original lyrics by the Stones, for those of you unfamiliar with the song, conflate the unfulfilled promise of advertising with the unfulfillment of sexual rejection. It’s one of those songs everyone has heard at least a few times, and therefore ripe for a cover version.

The Britney Spears version drops the lines about sexual rejection and becomes a straight-ahead critique of how advertising and media demand conformity and inspire dissatisfaction with the self. It’s a wholesome independent-girl message, which is probably why it also skips the line about cigarettes (despite the fact that Spears is rumored to smoke two packs a day). In this song, the advertisers don’t hold out a promise, but dictate to the listener “how tight my skirts should be.” This version, I’m afraid, really does the opposite of what a good cover does: it strips away layers of meaning, creating something simpler and less interesting. I suppose that’s what to expect from Spears and her team.

The Cat Power version, which is obviously my favorite, drops the chorus, but keeps all the verses. Also, crucially, it keeps advertising as a metaphor rather than a literal focus of the song. In fact, this version intensifies the focus on unfulfilled sexual promise, adding layers of longing and romance to it. The key change in lyrics turns it into a lamentation rather than a cry of frustration: Where the Stones sing about being rejected by a possible sexual conquest (“trying to make some girl / who says baby better come back next week”), Cat Power vocalist Chan Marshall is begging for the return of a lover (“trying to make some boy / baby baby baby come back”). Then, instead of ending by rocking out about not getting laid, she returns to “I’m tryin’, and I’m tryin’, and I’m tryin’…”

Wikipedia has a whole history of the song, plus a list of other cover versions, including one made for Sesame Street called “I Can’t Get no Cooperation.”

Apparently GWB is opposed to human-animal hybrids such as those used to research, oh, most genetic diseases. But, as one of the commenters to the linked post noted, he has not stated any position on Cylons.

Brad DeLong links to ScienceBlogs.com coverage of the State of the Union address. He uses one of my favorite rhetorical methods: the phrase “and a pony.”

So, yeah, “double the federal commitment to the most critical basic research programs in the physical sciences over the next 10 years” sounds great. So does “If we reverse the polarity on the flux capacitor, we can generate an infinite amount of free energy, and a pony.” I’ll believe it when I see the pony.

The author of the following isn’t someone I know directly, but he is dating someone whose sister I know, so that’s close enough for me to call him a friend on the Internets. Plus, he’s funny, and politically astute. He’s written a goodbye letter to his rights, now that Alito is coming:

Dear Abortion Rights, Fourth Amendment & Checks and Balances:

I am so sorry to hear that you guys are leaving. I’ve known you my entire life, and I guess I just sort of assumed that you would always be around. I’ve gotta admit, I’m kinda nervous about facing the future without you. I guess I never really told you how much you guys mean to me. You guys have totally been there for me when I needed you. Especially you, Abortion Rights, you really had my back when the chips were down. We should all totally hang out before you guys take off, reminisce about old times, you know? Remember that time when Richard was all like getting totally out of control and wrecking our house, and Checks and Balances straight-up regulated his ass? That was awesome. That’s the kind of thing I’m really going to miss about you guys. Nobody was quite like you, and I’m so worried that I’ll never meet anybody like you guys again.

Fondly,

Tracy

PS. I always used to think that Second Amendment was sort of a dick, but recently I’m really starting to see why you guys hung out with him so much.

I have seen only one of the movies nominated for any of the Oscars this year. I am somewhat proud of this fact. I have walked a line. A line that involves no film except for Harry Potter, and that only because, well, how could I not?

Walking the line between comic and disturbing is A Softer World, a series of photographic comics that range from creepy to funny and often achieve both at once. I recommend it highly.