Hard-packed and stony

Pleasing bit of description in Larissa MacFarquhar's Feb. 12 profile of Pat and Paul Churchland, two Canadian philosophy professors who are, at the article's open, wandering at the California seaside:

"It's a little before six in the morning and quite cold on the beach. It's low tide, and the sand is wet and hard-packed and stony."

It's almost Hemingwayesque—terse and physical—but he'd have left out the "a little before" and the "quite." I'd prefer it that way, I think, but it still holds up. "Pack" is such a great word.

(Painting: Duane Murrin's "Low Tide.")
(Alf, please skip.)

Word of the Day I

I picked up a new word, courtesy of Kia, who writes:

"Gopnik's writing about art in the New Yorker in the 1990s had an almost emetic effect on the boyfriend I was living with at the time."

According to the OED:
emetic, a. & n.

1. Having power to produce vomiting. Also fig. sickening, mawkish.
2. A medicine that excites vomiting.

I'm thinking emetic sentimentality, emetic public figures, my unhappily emetic response to getting cleated in the groin on a third base somewhere in Etobicoke, Ontario, in 1986.

And, you'll be happy to know, I'm making no mention of Adam Gopnik for at least two weeks. The effect would be, well, grody.

(Alf, please skip.)

We heart the New Yorker

When I have a readership, I hope I think of things like this. At Emdashes, our prime source of New Yorkeralia, Emily Gordon has posted friends' virtual valentines to the magazine's contributors. See who gets a whip, who a standing invitation to dinner, and who the elixir of eternal life.

And, yes, you can see what I'm sending out, too.

(Illustration: Patricia Storms.)
(Alf, please skip.)

Vows and covenants I

On another note entirely: Can we journalists all agree not to use the adjective 'hard-hitting' anymore?

(Alf, please skip.)

Mailbag I

Unsolicited submission from a reader, who writes, "Hey journal-boy, what you make of this?"

"If I'd written all the truth I knew for the past ten years, about 600 people— including me—would be rotting in prison cells from Rio to Seattle today. Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism.

Objective, professional journalism is one of the main reasons American politics has been allowed to be corrupt for so long."

-Hunter S. Thompson, gonzo journalist (1939 - 2005)

* * *
I'm just trying to figure out how many people would rot in jail for the truth I know. A couple of hundred, I reckon, give or take. I can probably pad my stats if I turn friends in for shoplifting. Let's say 220.

Hunter's arguing little circuitously, but it's probably the speedball's fault. If those corrupt people aren't rotting in prison, it is because he's an objective and professional journalist. But, if he has only fear and loathing for objectivity and professionalism, then doesn't he fail as a truthteller and a journalist?

Sorry, wrong verb tense.

Thompson's suicide note:

"No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun — for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax — This won't hurt."

We love the flameouts, don't we?

(Alf, please skip.)

Bringing sales back

Pop-music critic Sasha Frere-Jones returns this week to a favorite (and decidedly unmasculine) theme: making sure Justin Timberlake gets his due as an artist.

"Sales of CDs are sagging—pendulous, even—and in the Internet era anybody who can sell more than a million units is a superhero. Enter Captain Timberlake."

I used to think Sasha Frere-Jones was a woman, perhaps like the one above. I hoped for it; I rolled her name around in my mouth: "Sa-sha." It sounded feminine, I reasoned, and the hyphenated surname probably meant an unhappy marriage.

I scrutinized her columns for a giveaway "We gals...", all the while indulging a fantasy of sitting in her New York kitchen, sipping flavored coffee, our banter rife with razor-sharp similes. And when we fell onto the bed, it was beneath of fog of German electronica—sonorous, ambient, totally obscure. (Like this.)

Anyhoo, oops, nope, it turns out that, in addition to being the New Yorker's premiere music writer and possessor of Wikipedia's bleakest page, Sasha Frere-Jones (right) is a man. Moderntime was also confused and disappointed.

ZP from Hate will contest Frere-Jones's critical supremacy, I think, putting in a claim for Alex Ross, the classical-music critic. It's impossible, though: Ross makes me feel dumb, like I should have been paying closer attention to avant-garde Finnish composers, and what was I doing with my time anyway?

When you read Frere-Jones you think, Hey, it's okay I've been hitherto ignorant of this amazing hip-hop act because, well, there's Soulseek, and still time on the clock. When you read Ross you feel that someone is on a nearby rooftop, shooting sniper pellets of scorn into your shoulder blade.

Interesting: Frere-Jones, back in 2003, when he was writing for Slate, took Ross to task for exactly that—being a snot:

"Listen to Ross slag the kids in this efficient dig: Timberlake, for those who have let their subscription to Teen People lapse, is the blond, curly-haired twenty-two-year-old lead singer of 'N Sync."

"The New Yorker has a track record of approaching pop music with one hand holding its nose."

His defensiveness about Justin aside, Frere-Jones makes a compelling argument for the 'big tent' approach. This openness is his greatest virtue as a critic: he's certain that not all great music has happened already, no matter our desire to retreat to our room with our Brian Eno and forget about Janet Jackson's latest offering. Viewed the right way, the idea takes on existential implications.

(Top photo: Anggun, the Indonesian-French singer, who, herself viewed the right way, sounds all right.)

Gladwell, Prego, and true happiness

Quick hit for you. I've gotta write a profile of a reporter for Newswriting, so I'm researching Malcolm Gladwell, his trademark hair, and his 'ideas' beat.

Just found this this ten-minute TEDtalk he gave in September, 2006.

This is how TED—which stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design—describes itself:

TED is an event like no other.
It brings together more than 1000 thought leaders, movers and
shakers...
...in Monterey, California every year...
...for four days of learning, laughter and inspiration.

Learning, laughter, and inspiration... Brrrr: the very recipe for a teeth-grinding first date. The site is cooler than it sounds, but the punctuation is yearbookish throughout. And they misspelled his name.

(Alf, please skip this one.)

Irony is dead

Like a lassi after the vindaloo, impressionist Rich Little (right), who does a spot-on Dr. Phil, will take the podium this April at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner.

“I think his brand of humor will be perfect for the night," said WHCA president Steve Scully, noting that he'd reminded the comedian of his goal: "to singe, not burn."

The annual dinner hosts around 3,000 of the most powerful people in Washington, and, unless you've been on a media fast in the Gulf Islands with Raffi, you know what happened last year.

Stephen Colbert (left), Comedy Central host and that night's keynote speaker, crossed the line, was mean-spirited and unfunny, performed the greatest act of moral courage in the history of the universe, sarcastically destroyed both the media and its masters, or was f**king pathetic and depressing. Take your pick.

(You know you need to watch at least 6:50-13:30 again, all the while asking yourself, 'Is it possible for a comedian to kill and bomb at the same time?')

Whether he killed, or bombed, or both, depends on whom you ask. But most can agree that Colbert's ironic speech left many in the room clenched and squirming. And angry: Laura Bush refused Colbert's hand as he exited the dais, under thin applause.

And there were some watching C-SPAN that night who didn't quite get it. From self-described 'reasonable conservative' Jon Swift:

"I had never heard of Stephen Colbert before this event but he seems to be a very articulate and sincere conservative. Some are even saying he is courageous for facing down the liberal media the way he did. I'm not sure I would go that far. Have we sunk so low that merely having convictions makes one a hero?"

In this week's Talk of the Town, Jeffrey Goldberg doesn't talk up Colbert's convictions; he reckons the comedian committed the "sin of humor" with President Bush sitting only a few feet away.

Surely, though, beside the Sloth, Wrath, and Pride of the roastee, humor is a venial sin.

Ten Hail Marys and an Act of Contrition, my son, and on your way.

Now collecting votes for the 1) funniest, 2) wickedest, and 3) flattest Colbert lines.

(Edit: Holy Christmas! Rich Little is Canadian??)

Al Qaeda's death-metal soldier

Adam Gadahn, the first American to be charged with treason in fifty years, used to be big into death metal.

The 28-year-old is now Al Qaeda's top English-language propagandist, having converted to Islam at age 17, left his home in rural California, and trained at terrorist camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Raffi Khatchadourian's Jan. 22 profile of Gadahn is full of rich ironies, like the fact that before he joined Al Qaeda, Gadahn (featured in all photos at right) rejected evangelical Christianity because he felt alienated by its “apocalyptic ramblings.”

Check out his thoughts on family:

“Allah warns the parents, siblings, offspring, and other relatives of the Muslim that their relation to him will be of no use to them on the day of judgment, if they have not themselves died as true believers.

So don’t be complacent, or let the Devil deceive you into thinking that your connections will intercede for you on that terrible day."

I can see how rambling turns him off. Everyone knows that succinctness gets you more bang for your psychotic-metaphysical buck.

Death metal, as you probably know, is identified by downtuned rhythm guitars, fast percussion, and dark lyrics that focus, Elizabeth Kolbert-like, on nihilistic metaphors. What you may not know is that metalheads revere Cookie Monster and imitate his singing style.

'I forget—how exactly does Cookie Monster sing?'

Rocknerd explains why the growling and ümlaüts preponderate in heavy metal, but he doesn't have much to say about how young Americans "pick up the sword of the idea" and go on to attack their own societies, even martyring themselves if necessary.

In Khatchadourian's article, forensic psychiatrist Marc Sageman provides a profile of "homegrowns," as they're called. He finds that, as with most cults, the ideology is just window dressing for new recruits. The chief appeal seems to be finding community within a "bunch of guys."

Once within that “bunch of guys,” the men become radicalized through a process akin to oneupmanship, in which members try to outdo one another in demonstrations of zeal.

Sound familiar? Perhaps you see a parallel to young men who electroshock their own genitals.

Apparently, ideology and political grievance play a minimal role during the initial stages of jihadi enlistment. According to Sageman, the common thread is that "the future terrorists were isolated, lonely, and emotionally alienated.”

It won't be the last time I ask this: What happened to soft drugs and acoustic guitar?

(Extra reading: "My Year Inside Radical Islam.")
(Extra watching: Gadahn and Zawahiri appeal for your conversion.)

The Sensitive Atom: Panexperientialism & Human Importance

"A sparrow does not fall to the ground without God's awareness" (Matthew 10:29).

While Adam Gopnik has us on the subject of Matthew, Darwin, and human significance, let's look at another formulation of meaning and the cosmos.

Panexperientialism: the idea that everything—humans, dogs, mosquitoes, trees, blades of grass, and atoms—has feelings, or an inner life.

According to one of the "most decorated spirituality and ethics writers in North America," Vancouver Sun columnist Douglas Todd:

"There is an intimate correlation between matter, emotion and that elusive quality we now call spirit."

"When it comes to understanding the environment, panexperientialism is also crucial. Humans develop a closer kinship with nature when they recognize that everything on the planet is ultimately made up of things that feel."

"This is not to say humans and a blade of grass are equal. Humans are infinitely more complex, possessing all sorts of emotions, thoughts and aspirations of which a blade of grass, literally, cannot dream."

I wrote him a letter.

* * *

Sun reporter Douglas Todd

Dear Douglas Todd,

I'm glad I read your column in this morning's Sun: I was dreading sitting down to my Saturday homework, but your argument about panexperientialism so alarmed me that I rushed to the computer with a cup of coffee and here I am now at 9:15 AM. Thank you.

So, divinity is "embedded in the evolutionary process, which works through a combination of chance and purpose"? That sounds like intelligent design to me. By your disclaimer, I was hoping your exploration of panexperientialism was a gesture of charity to those readers who asked for it. But you seem to think it was "the most important part" of your column, too.

The notion seems a last-ditch attempt by religious people to affirm human beings' centrality in the universe. If Christians now concede that a dominion-style relationship with the bears and sparrows, rocks and trees, as laid out in Genesis, leads to environmental rape and spoil, they have two ways to even the balance

• Make everything meaningful
• Make themselves meaningless

Panexperientialism is the former choice: man, assured of his own importance, magnanimously accords it to everything else.

And that would be fine, as far as it went—humans on par with the world of things. But then the ugly notion of primacy creeps back in: "This is not to say humans and a blade of grass are equal."

Do we need the special recognition for humans, Mr. Todd? Are we equal to the world or superior to it?

Here's a crazy idea: We make ourselves peers with the atom, not by making it feel, but by accepting that neither of us matters much.

Insisting on human importance will not, to use your phrase, "urge us towards beauty." Forgetting it will.

Best regards,

John Bucher

P.S. I've attached an excerpt of Adam Gopnik's recent article about Charles Darwin. It applies to this question, I think, and you both reference the same Matthew verse.

* * *

Dear John Bucher,

Thank you for your letter. We'll have to agree to disagree about panexperientialism. If you'd like, you can send your letter to the Letters section of the Sun, but I have no control over whether it gets published.

It's up to you.

Sincerely,

Douglas Todd