Despite Phil Plait’s infamous “Don’t Be a Dick” talk last year, I still like him. I just didn’t like his message much. But that’s fine, because disagreement is what I do best (if you don’t count foot massages and omelets). He’s especially good – and kind of dickish in a mild-mannered way – on things like astrology. Here are a few words that should be written on a t-shirt. I know I’d wear it.
There is a blog I’ve been reading for a few days now by a woman named Monica (hey, my sister’s name is Monica!), who calls herself Monicks. She has made a super-long list of atheists on Twitter to which my name (@godlessinitaly, duh) should be added sometime soon, I hope. So if you’ve never checked out Monicks Unleashed I suggest you do so. She’s way cool.
We’re moving, and each time I move I end up reflecting on all the moving I’ve done over the course of my life. I’ve tallied up a total of 22 separate abodes in 36 years. I count as an “abode” any place I’ve lived for at least a month with no more permanent address to call home. To be clear, I’ve included places my father lived after our parents’ divorce, really just a succession of cheap apartments in which I was guaranteed a bed. A third of my “abodes” were in New York City, where I racked up a frightening four in one solar year.
Throughout it all I’ve managed to hang on to a few things — mostly books and records — thanks both to my mother’s basement and her goodwill. Now those things are in jeopardy; she’s moving to a small apartment and my ad hoc collection will have to find another home. The alternative is the dump.
Since I bought most of this stuff used, it would be perfectly natural to bid it all adieu in a similar fashion. I could sell the records and donate the books to a local library, in the spirit of the Greek adage panta rei (“everything flows”). What matters most to me is that they find owners who appreciate them. I know this sounds weird for a bunch of plastic and paper — and it’s purely sentimental — but it matters to me.
My collection isn’t worth much even by the standards of an armchair collector. Sure, I have a few choice albums: an original mono version of Blonde on Blonde, an unpeeled Velvet Underground and Nico, a vinyl copy of Metal Machine Music. It’s nothing any Dylan or Lou Reed fan wouldn’t have, and the records themselves aren’t in excellent shape. As for the books, I shipped a lot of them to Italy on my last visit. But what to do about my four-volume calfskin-bound set of Montaigne’s “Essays”? Throw it in my carry-on bag on my next trip? That’s a tough one.
“Forget about them,” my mother said. “Be glad you have your health. You have a family now. Stop obsessing.”
I know she’s right, but I can’t help obsessing. I’ve read the Stoic
philosophers, but I’m not able to entirely repudiate material things. “Don’t preach,” I told her. It didn’t come out well, and I regretted having said it.
What she meant was this: “You’ve done perfectly well without these things for eight years. You’ve made a life for yourself in another country. Let them go. You’ll be happy when you don’t have to worry about them anymore.”
I’m not really attached to things in general; in fact, I don’t own much of anything worth keeping. Once you subtract my ballooning personal library, there’s not much left except furniture and underwear. So I think I should be permitted an occasional excess.
Happily, we’re moving to a place with more space than I’ve ever had in any previous arrangement, so there will actually be room for my things. It would cost an arm and a leg to ship them all here, and that’s a nagging detail, but wouldn’t it be worth it in order to restore the harmony of my collection?
That’s the meat hook beneath my skin right now. Should I heed the noble, philosophical angel on my left shoulder and separate past from future? Or should I listen to the neurotic bibliophile devil on my right shoulder and follow my impulses? The deadline is only a few weeks away and I can’t decide what to do.
Like all parents I entertain a fantasy of sharing my passions with my children. I want our daughter to grow up in a home swarming with books, records and cultural artifacts. Now that personal libraries tend evermore toward the electronic (hypothetically I could stuff every book I own into one wafer-thin Kindle) this seems particularly urgent. I dream of the day when Melissa pulls my copy of, say, “American Yiddish Poetry” off the bookshelf and I get to explain it to her.
Not long ago a columnist in The Guardian wrote ecstatically of getting rid of his “dead tree books.” I was mildly shocked reading what appeared to be a manifesto urging all decent people to toss out their weighty stockpiles in favor of a pared down selection of truly essential volumes. The author was positively gleeful, embracing the changing times. By contrast I am a melancholy, deeply torn 20th Century Man.
Which isn’t to say I’m not going to get an e-book reader someday. The problem is simply which one. Because, despite my 20th-centuriness, I recognize a Catch-22 when I’m in one. It’s simply impractical to keep accumulating books unless I develop a system of filtration. The records are a different matter. I would be happy with just a few of the really meaningful ones, and the bulk on CD or iTunes or whatever nascent technology is in store for us. I’ll miss the cover art, the skipping needle, and actually listening to sides of an album. But I’ll still be able to broadcast music through the house, prompting my daughter’s curiosity.
“Daddy,” I can hear her saying, “what’s a Ramone?”
From The American
Lou Reed, probably the biggest single influence on my life and thought, has made a movie about his one hundred year-old cousin. One of the things we always loved about Lou was his empathy (“Lisa Says,” “Candy Says,” “I’ll Be Your Mirror,” etc…), and now that he’s no longer mainlining meth I bet he’s as charming as ever.
via The Arty Semite
Until yesterday I’d never heard of the ICP, or Insane Clown Posse. Rebecca Watson clued me in as I was catching up on last year’s SGU podcasts. Now I realize I completely missed one of the saddest, most rueful chapters in the history of awful music. And I mean awful. Listen for yourself. Worse, watch these morons in action. It’s like Zinnia Jones says, a “ferocious breed of ignorance.” Palin-like, one might say.
Maryam Namazie put this video up the other day on her blog. Watching it, you just want to scream out, “Yes!” and wish more people had the courage to speak out as ex-Muslims. Note that these people are not saying, “Islam is stupid.” Plenty of other people are saying that. They are simply saying that people should have the right not to believe, a claim especially relevant now in places where Islam is hegemonic. Considering the brutal murder of Salmaan Taseer last week, such voices should be heeded far and wide.
This comic is now up at Jesus and Mo, on the Guest Comics page. Scroll down to see it. It’s a really wonderful thing for a modest little blog like mine to get linked by such an illustrious duo. (By the way, they’re kicking ass over at the Washington Post, leading the pack as the best webcomic.)
I don’t think many of you will have difficulty with the meaning of this one, either. Nudge, nudge; wink, wink.
Hemant Mehta at the Friendly Atheist has found some merit in my whimsical little cartoon depicting Joseph Ratzinger as an alcoholic. I’m a bit confused as to why he seems to have enjoyed it while so many others told me they were perplexed at its “message.” Did Ratzinger say/do something recently that would connect him with such an utterance? No. I think some people are looking too deeply at it for an explanation that, well, explains. I suppose there is none in any proper sense. It just makes you laugh or it doesn’t. It made me laugh when I drew it, so I naively assumed it would make others do the same.
I learned from this article how New Yorker cartoonists sit on shpilkes each week hoping the editors buy their work. Most everything they draw is rejected in the end. But it’s the way they conjure them up that I find fascinating. You maybe have an idea or a phrase which has funniness potential, then you start drawing stuff to see what works. Sometimes it doesn’t, and that’s ok.
Hemant is right, though: you could put anything into a pope’s mouth and it would come out funny (did I just write that? It must be the influence of the Skepchicks.)
My 2011 astronomy calendar has an awesome image of the Foxfur Nebula (or Fox Fur). Here is another splendid image for your consideration.
“Its popular name arises because the nebula looks like the head of a stole made from the fur of a red fox.” I just love the ways in which big scientific discoveries get stuck with odd little names based on what they remind us of. Look closely and you can “see” the fox!
When I saw Whatever Works last year I loved it. The person I saw it with told me I reminded her a lot of Boris Yelnikoff, the lead character played by Larry David. I took it as a compliment. Plenty of people have told me I remind them of Woody Allen, which I also take as a compliment (though I know it isn’t always meant as one.)
My impression was that the movie kind of got slammed as one of Allen’s least-best, which is hardly criticism. I just watched it again. It’s actually a moving atheist comedy about Bible-Belt American Christians losing their old-time religion, following their passions and embracing a secular lifestyle in New York City.
There’s a great scene where Ed Begley, Jr., who plays the father, falls to his knees and begs Jesus for forgiveness for his sins. His daughter Melody, by now married to Yelnikoff – a misanthropic Jewish atheist – smiles sweetly and says, “Do you want to tell him or should I?”
“Tell me what?” her father responds.
“There’s nobody out there. Honest. You’re prayin’ to no one!”
Here’s the New Year’s scene at the end, which I’d wanted to post a few days ago, but what the hell. It’s a great movie, even if it’s not Annie Hall.
Marc Di Martino 