Roger Ebert on Donald Trump

From a post on wealth in America:

[T]he most visible plutocrat in America is Donald Trump, a man who has made a fetish of his power. What kind of sick mind conceives of a television show built on suspense about which “contestant” he will “fire” next? What sort of masochism builds his viewership? Sadly, I suspect it is based on viewers who identify with Trump, and envy his power over his victims. Don’t viewers understand they are the ones being fired in today’s America?

The One-Percenters (Chicago Sun-Times)

Antique Packaging

From Josep Maria Garrofé, Antique Packaging (Corte Madera, CA: Gingko Press, 2008).

Antique Packaging is a book of photographs of old cardboard boxes. Francesc Serra found these boxes, which now form a collection at the Spanish packaging firm Tribu-3. Is Serra a founder of the firm? Does he work there? The book does not explain. I like this sentence from an endnote about Sr. Serra: “There is no way he will reveal to us where he has found the boxes and how.”

My son Ben gave me this beautiful book. Thanks, Ben!

Van Dyke Parks, “the epic opportunity”

The question: whether he plans more live performances. The answer, or part of it:

I have lived through McCarthyism, through riots with race at the core. I have seen dark times, but nothing to match the complacency, materialism, triviality, and Stone Age beliefs that dominate our current state of affairs. So I turn to the epic opportunity — the song form. Songs interest me that much.

The 405 Interview (The 405)

In Chicago last year, Parks also spoke of the work of the songwriter as “epic.”

A related post
A new Van Dyke Parks project

Digital nostalgia

The New York Times reports on the return of the Commodore 64. Says Commodore president and chief executive Barry Altman,

“There are a lot of really young computer users who want to own a retro-looking computer. And of course there are those 30- to 40-year-olds who owned the original Commodore 64 and want the nostalgia of their first machine.”

From the Commodore website:

Commodore OS 1.0, along with emulation functionality and classic game package, will be mailed to purchasers when available. In the meantime, units come with the Ubuntu 10.04 LTS operating system on CD ready to install. Don’t forget that the new Commodore 64 is a fully functional PC compatible, so you can even install and use the latest versions of Windows if you really feel you need to.

That’s a new one: the operating system is in the mail.

A related post
Digital natives and typewriters

A “spect-op”

In the world of Infinite Jest, ninety-four percent of all entertainment is consumed at home:

Hence the new millennium’s passion for standing live witness to things. A whole sub-rosa schedule of public spectation opportunities, “spect-ops,” the priceless chance to be part of a live crowd, watching. Thus the Gapers’ Blocks at traffic accidents, sewer-gas explosions, muggings, purse-snatchings, the occasional Empire W.D.V. with an incomplete vector splatting into North Shore suburbs and planned communities and people leaving their front doors agape in their rush to get out and mill around and spectate at the circle of impacted waste drawing sober and studious crowds, milling in rings around the impact, earnestly comparing mental notes on just what it is they all see.

David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest (Boston: Little, Brown, 1996).

On Monday, life in an English town came to a halt as crowds gathered to look at an object floating in a river.

Mystery object brings town to standstill (Bridgwater Mercury, via Boing Boing)

[W.D.V.: Waste Displacement Vehicle. E.W.D. vehicles send American garbage flying into Canada. Yes, it’s part of a new world order.]

Words of the day: pith, gist

I started wondering about the word pith yesterday, which I associate with essences and concision. I’m suprised to discover that the word comes to us from plant life:

I think I should have known that. I think I should have also known that a pith helmet is made of the stuff.

Pith made me wonder about gist: does it too have a literal referent in nature? Maybe in geology? Nope:

I remember hearing the word gist often in kidhood. “I’ll give you the gist of it,” my dad would say. (He still does.) Gist and pith go together in my mind because of a sentence in Ezra Pound’s ABC of Reading (1934):

A Japanese student in America, on being asked the difference between prose and poetry, said: Poetry consists of gists and piths.

This post too.

[Definitions from the New Oxford American Dictionary.]

Elayne Clift on academic entitlement

Adjunct faculty member Elayne Clift ponders academic entitlement after a semester of “appallingly poor papers and presentations”:

As the semester continued, I slipped further into despair. . . . [W]hy couldn't they write in sentences? Why were they devoid of originality, analytical ability, intellectual curiosity? Why were they accosting me with hostile e-mails when I pointed out unsubstantiated generalizations, hyperbolic assumptions, ungrounded polemics, sourcing omissions, and possible plagiarism?

From Students, a Misplaced Sense of Entitlement (Chronicle of Higher Education)

Here’s the kicker: she was teaching a graduate class.

A related post
AE (academic entitlement)

“Probability” (xkcd)

Today’s xkcd: “Probability.”

Snooki at Rutgers

Rutgers University has paid $32,000 for Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi to speak on campus. Her advice to students: “Study hard, but party harder.”

From the university’s website:

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a leading national public research university and the state’s preeminent, comprehensive public institution of higher education. Rutgers is dedicated to teaching that meets the highest standards of excellence; to conducting research that breaks new ground; and to turning knowledge into solutions for local, national, and global communities.

As it was at our founding in 1766, the heart of our mission is preparing students to become productive members of society and good citizens of the world.

Talk that talk, Rutgers.

Jersey Shore reality TV star lands $32,000 fee to speak at Rutgers (NewJerseyNewsRoom)

[$32,000: more than most new college grads will earn this year.]

The Pale King and commerce

A “retired indie bookseller” buys David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King from Amazon:

I read the New York Times article this morning about bookseller fury at Amazon being given the book before brick-and-mortar retailers, and I felt the characteristic frustration any retired indie bookseller would feel. Then mere hours later I surrendered to temptation and bought the book online.

He concludes, “as a reader and a consumer I couldn’t help myself.” I think he needs to reread Infinite Jest.

Meanwhile, in San Francisco an independent bookstore waits to sell the book:

So when word began spreading Wednesday morning that the novel was available on Amazon and the Barnes & Noble website two weeks before its “official” publication date, independent booksellers — yours truly among them — were left to wonder why the book was not yet on our shelves. (As if Amazon, with its predatory pricing scheme, needs the boost it surely got by having an in-demand book available before most retailers.)

So much for fair competition.

I’m waiting on a review copy. But I tried to buy a copy of The Pale King at a Barnes & Noble yesterday: the book wasn’t even there. The same B & N couldn’t sell me a copy of Vladimir Nabokov’s The Original of Laura just one day before the official date of publication.

The publication date for The Pale King — whatever that now means — is April 15.