Books of 2013, #46: Mo Meta Blues, by Questlove

HOLY HELL DO YOU GOTTA READ THIS BOOK.

?uestlove‘s book Mo Meta Blues was already on my radar before Mike wrote about it a few weeks ago, but I’ll admit that having dinner with him (Mike, not Questlove) last week is what made me pick it up on the way out of Raleigh last Friday.

The Roots are a really intriguing act, but this book is fun even if you don’t dig hip-hop, or don’t dig the sort of hip-hop that the Roots do. Ahmir (Questlove’s given name) has had an interesting life so far — he’s the son of successful but not famous musicians — and has a quick wit and a great way with a story that’s often missing in celebrity or musician memoirs. Sure, it starts with the bog-standard growing-up stories, but there’s a depth here that gives it resonance, and not just because much of the music of his youth is also the music of mine. This book’s very self-aware, as is Questlove, and that helps keep the book from getting too full of itself.

There’s really not much I can say more about this, except to note that Quest’s level of fame is sufficient that he has access to his idols, but not so enormous as to really diminish his enthusiasm for these people and their work. That enthusiasm comes through, for example, when he gets to go rollerskating with Prince, among other things.

Yeah, that’s right. Rollerskating with Prince. Now that you this story’s in the book, how can you NOT want to read it?

Books of 2013, #45: Ancillary Justice, by Ann Leckie

I had better luck here.

Ancillary Justice is Leckie’s first novel, which is sometimes trouble, but didn’t get in the way here at all. AJ is a wide-ranging space opera sort of thing, but with some genuinely inventive worldbuilding that I can’t say much about without being spoilery. It’s a bit of a mystery, and a bit of a quest, and a bit of an exploration of some admittedly well-explored SF ideas (“what is human?”), but the mix is right; Leckie in particular doesn’t let her enthusiasm for her world completely drown the story, which is nice.

This is not to say there aren’t issues here. AJ is getting lots of attention for the way it deals with gender in language. Our narrator spends lots of time conversing in a language not his own, and a key difference between his tongue and the one he frequently speaks is that his own is vastly less gendered. Couple this with the facts that gender in the world(s) of the book is (a) not obvious in most cultures and (b) varies in presentation when it is and (c) not an indicator of position, and Leckie has set the stage for a novel that also tweaks expectations about gender in the reader, or at least that’s what it feels like she’s trying to do.

In my experience, though, shifting between “he” and “she” when referring to the same character is just jarring, and makes it pointlessly more difficult to track the actual story. I said Leckie didn’t let her ideas get in the way, and this is mostly true, but the gender thing here is (while well intentioned) enough of an “aren’t I cute” move that I’d dock her a letter grade even though I’m generally sympathetic to the notion that gender expectations are troublesome, and that gendered language can contribute to that, and all that comes with those ideas.

The politics of Radch space (the dominant human empire, which is quasi-feudal and very corrupt) are also a little twee and precious, but they don’t get in the way of the story here nearly as much as the pronoun trope does.

All that said, I enjoyed it mostly, and was sad to see it end, but not, I think, sad enough to pursue other works in the same universe (online references make it sound like Leckie plans more Radch works).

(Avoid online discussion of this book, even in places like IO9 or Goodreads, if you want to avoid any spoilers at all.)

Books of 2013, #44: Carter Beats the Devil, by Glen David Gold

I’ll just come right out and say it: holy CRAP was I disappointed in this one. In the decade since it hit the streets, Carter has gotten nearly universally good reviews. Everyone loves it. It’s been on my “I should read that” list for a long, long time, so when geek-celeb Wil Wheaton wrote about loving it on his blog a month ago, I finally got around to ordering it from Amazon.

Carter Beats the Devil is one of those “fictional story told with real-life character” books, which sometimes works but usually ends up too clever by half. This one starts well enough, but Gold really kinda runs out of steam about halfway through. It went from a page-turner to a slog, and then stayed there; I found it a chore to finish. Even the “big reveals” towards the end didn’t really pay off for me, anyway.

Anyway, onward.

Books of 2013 #43: 61 Hours, by Lee Child

(SO behind, still.)

Yeah, I know, but I was traveling again. Reacher books just go down easy, which is troublesome as now I’ve only got 4 left. Write like the wind, Lee!

61 Hours is an odd one in that it’s framed, constantly by the titular countdown that we only slowly grow to understand. Reacher, of course, is drawn into a web of intrigue in an isolated small town — which is by no means new for him — but by this point in the series Child’s gotten good enough with characters that they’re a bit better than stock, which is nice for pulp.

Mark this one, as always, for fans only, but I enjoyed it, if for no other reason than the consistently hilarious visual provided by the generally-offscreen antagonist.

The TSA Admits That It Is Useless

I’m sure they meant to redact the document in question, but BoingBoing reports that our boondoggle agency of self-important timewasters has admitted that there is no evidence of terror groups threatening American air travel.

The TSA has a lot of explaining to do, both to members of Congress and to the general public, all of whom were misled as to the threat we face and the justification for the most intrusive searches ever performed on the public at large in the United States in the history of this great nation. The terrorists that the TSA has made the country fear, it admits, do not actually exist.

The NFL is a goddamn racket

MeFi points us to this excellent piece at the Atlantic that points out all the completely indefensible sweetheart deals the NFL gets for, well, no good reason. Taxpayers fund the stadiums. They get an antitrust exemption. They get treated as a nonprofit. The list goes on, and it’s all a load of horseshit.

Let the owners run these teams as a business, subject to the normal rules of businesses, and have them sink or swim on that metric alone. Fuck new stadiums, fuck goofball broadcast deals, and fuck government handouts to millionaire owners. Forever.

The coolest video you’ll see today

SpaceX has been doing tests of a rocket capable of landing vertically (i.e. as opposed to splashdown). In this video, you get to watch a 2,440 foot test flight and subsequent landing from the vantage point of a hovering hexacopter with an HD camera.

To break this down for you even more: this is high-def video of a civilian space vehicle shot from a flying robot. Maybe we do live in the future after all.

In any case, it is very, very cool, and you will not find a better way to spend a minute and a half this morning.

Nile Rodgers’ Bad Day, and A Surprising Source for Great In-Depth Music Conversations

Via this MeFi thread ostensibly about Rodgers accidentally losing, and then (amazingly) recovering his treasured ’59 Strat on a train, we discover this great long and wide-ranging interview with Rodgers, which is part of the shockingly cool Red Bull Music Academy Lectures.

(In the unlikely event you’re a Heathen reader and yet still do not know who Rodgers is: he’s a goddamn giant, and has been a huge influence on popular music since the 1970s. Most famously, he’s one half of the “core” of the band Chic, but he’s also a producer of great renown — for Diana Ross, Debbie Harry, David Bowie, INXS, Duran Duran, Bryan Ferry, B-52s, and, most recently, for Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories.)

Pick up on it.

Dept. of Heh.

So, during Alabama’s predicted beatdown of Kentucky on Saturday, ESPN went to draft analyst Todd McShay to talk about why Alabama’s AJ McCarron wasn’t likely to be a top draft prospect despite his BCS titles and other records.

During McShay’s bit, McCarron was, basically, doing pretty much all the things McShay said he couldn’t do in a 4 play, 80-yard drive down field that took only 1:50 off the clock. The drive:

  • Handoff to Yeldon for 12;
  • 21 yard pass to Yeldon;
  • 27 yard pass to Kent;
  • 20 yard pass to White for the TD.

So, yeah, whatever, McShay.

Maddow sums it up

From here:

In other words, Boehner’s stated position is that the party that won the election should make major concessions to the party that lost the election in exchange for nothing. If the party that won the election balks at this attempted extortion, Republicans will start hurting Americans on purpose.

Dept. of Reaping What You Sow

We just want to point out that, after firing a perfectly good coach and then having a hot couple seasons with Fedora, Southern Miss has had a pretty rough time of it.

Heathen Faithful: “How rough is it?”

Glad you asked! The Golden Buzzards haven’t won a game this year. Sure, they scheduled a ranked Nebraska as well as Arkansas, but their most recent loss came at the hands of otherwise winless C-USA powerhouse Florida International.

No, I’m not making this up.

To find a Southern Miss win, in fact, you have to go back to their last bowl game.

Which was in December.

Of 2011. That’s right: the Eagles lost every contest in 2012.

That’s a long time in college football. I’m sure there ARE some players on the USM squad who played in that game, but given that accomplished Div-I teams are usually comprised of upperclassmen, it’s entirely reasonable to say that almost nobody on the team now knows what winning looks like, and an even smaller number were actually active contributors to a team with more wins than losses.

Bower, for his part, led the team to an unprecedented streak of winning seasons and bowl appearances before being shown the door at the end of the 2007 season because, apparently, that wasn’t good enough. I hate to pick on my hometown school, but I do indeed feel like this is a bed the trustees made for themselves, and I feel no sympathy whatsoever.

Up next for the Eagles: East Carolina (4-1, 2-0 C-USA), North Texas (2-3, 0-1), Marshall (3-2, 1-0), Louisiana Tech (2-4, 1-1), FAU (2-4, 1-3), Middle Tennessee (3-3, 1-1), and UAB (1-4, 0-1). You’d think they could pick up a W from one of these teams, but I sure wouldn’t bet on it.

Today in hilarious things to complain about

Apparently, Frank Sinatra’s widow is upset that Mia Farrow suggested it was possible that Ol’ Blue Eyes fathered her son Ronan.

Generally speaking, it’s kind of skeevy to suggest that the father of record (Woody) is not someone’s father, and that a man married to someone else at the time IS, at least without some sort of obvious evidence.

Let’s go to the tape:

402700671529

Yup. TOTALLY Woody’s kid, and not Frank’s. I’m SURE of it.

TWINKIE ME, BITCH!

In the 70s and 80s, it was routine to see one-page ads in comic books for snack cakes; they’d take the form of mini-stories usually featuring the hero on the cover of the book, so you’d end up with Spiderman shilling for Hostess, for example.

Don’t you think this is an idea that needs to return? Yeah, me too. So does Brendan Tobin. Turns out, he’s a Breaking Bad fan, too. Enjoy.

Books of 2013, #42: The Revolution was Televised, by Alan Sepinwall

(I’m still catching up.)

If you think about for any amount of time at all, you’ll notice something about TV’s evolution since we GenX types were kids: the broad market has gotten worse (Honey Boo Boo anyone?), and shows in general define success with vastly smaller chunks of a larger market, but there are at any given moment a few shows on the air (now there’s an anachronistic phrase) that push the boundaries of the medium and eschew trite 42-minute stories that return all the pieces, unchanged, to their starting positions before the credits roll.

Look at it this way: In 1978, the Emmy winner for best drama was The Rockford Files, which was a completely legitimate choice. However, Rockford was pretty simplistic, and employed the usual tropes — chief among them was that Jim and his pals were always more or less in exactly the same position at the end of the hour that they were at the start. Continuity was for soap operas, not so-called “serious” TV.

Then something interesting happened: Hill Street Blues. it was the vanguard for a whole new kind of TV show for adults, one that featured solid acting, good writing, real direction, and tossed out the whole idea of the continuity-free world. Episodic TV could — and should! — exploit the sheer expanse of the form; after all, every season had 22 hours to fill. Why not try some longer stories?

Hill Street and St Elsewhere and LA Law and Wiseguy and other shows in the 1980s pushed these boundaries probably as far as they could go on network TV, and then 1990s shows like NYPD Blue pushed them a bit more. . . and then HBO noticed, and let David Chase to The Sopranos, and then the change was mainstream.

Alan Sepinwall’s The Revolution Was Televised, which is compulsively readable if distinctly flawed by a somewhat limited vision, is a study of these changes in quality TV. It takes the form of a chapter-by-chapter analysis of several key programs in the evolution of the modern TV drama, including Hill Street, but with a decided emphasis on the more recent examples. If you find media criticism and analysis at all interesting, this is a great book to pick up. I was disappointed that he didn’t go farther with the idea — Sepinwall mostly ignores broad trends in the medium, one of which is the implied subject of the recently published Difficult Men (why ARE so many of these elite shows centered on horrible people, like Tony Soprano or Walter White or Don Draper or Vic Mackey?). But what’s here is good, and is worth your time.

Books of 2013, #41: The Human Division, by John Scalzi

I’m super behind. Forgive the brevity.

This one’s easy: If you love the Old Man’s War universe, then The Human Division makes a tasty read, but I wouldn’t jump in here as a first venture. This time the shenanigans are mostly political instead of military, but our hero is still one of the genetically enhanced soldier types like those that staffed OMW itself. Lots of wry dialog, plenty of nerdy sarcasm, and a generally rollickin’ good yarn if you like this sort of thing.

My sense is that Scalzi is capable of much more “serious” writing, given his resume (and his work at Whatever). I think I’d like to see him stretch his chops and venture out of this witty-SF category and into a different world, just to see what he could do with a less completely genre work. My guess is that he’d do just fine, which is more than I can say for lots of SF types.

Anyway, a fun book. Enjoy.

What the shutdown is about

From Ezra Klein here:

This is all about stopping a law that increases taxes on rich people and reduces subsidies to private insurers in Medicare in order to help low-income Americans buy health insurance. That’s it. That’s why the Republican Party might shut down the government and default on the debt.

And also this:

Democrats won more votes than Republicans in the last election. That was true in the presidential campaign. It was true in the Senate campaigns. And it was true in the House campaigns.

That doesn’t mean the Republican Party is under any obligation to stand back and let Democrats do as they please. But imagine if the Republican Party had won the 2012 election and Senate Democrats threatened to breach the debt ceiling and cause a financial crisis unless Republicans added a public option to Obamacare. Does anyone think a President Mitt Romney would find that position reasonable? Does anyone think that position would be reasonable?

Marcella Hazan, 1924-2013

If you’ve eaten at my house, you’ve certainly eaten a bolognese or a risotto. They were the first things I learned to cook well enough to serve confidently, and remain staples of my kitchen.

I am not a great cook, but I can follow directions. If you’ve enjoyed those dishes at my table, you have Marcella Hazan to thank, because the recipes I use are from her Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, first published in 1992. There is no better starting place. Prickly and opinionated, Hazan’s recipes may chide you for using the wrong pot, or the wrong kind of pasta, but it’s useful to know how to do something right before you launch out on your own.

Serving from her book, I also extend a chain of reference, friendship, and food; I learned of the book from my friend Carl sometime in the late 1990s, whom I suspect picked it up from his friend Chris, who in turn credits another friend he was visiting in Milan in 1994. I’m sure the chain goes ever backward, and includes many more links forward — I know I’ve given copies as gifts many times myself.

Food and friends and fellowship are the essence of a good time. Hazan’s book helped me create no small number of delightful evenings including all three, and for that I’ll be eternally grateful.

Marcella Hazan died on Sunday in her home on Longboat Kay, in Florida. She was 89.

The most disappointing fact I learned today

Basically, it’s probably not possible to get enough Ricin into a single Stevia packet to ensure lethality in a 125 pound victim.

While staggeringly lethal when inhaled or injected — like, less than 2 milligrams for the average adult human — Ricin is WAY less toxic when eaten. You need 30-40 milligrams per kilogram, which works out for about 2 and a quarter grams.

Stevia packets are light; they contain only a gram of the sweetener. I can see doubling the weight and not tipping your mark, but slipping in more than 225% additional weight to a single packet strikes me as troublesome to the point of implausible.

Oh well.

How is it that James Clapper still has a job?

From TechDirt:

Once again: the director of the intelligence community flat out lied to Congress about it, admitted it, and there have been no consequences at all. What that teaches Clapper and others is that they can continue to lie, and, in fact, that they are effectively encouraged to lie, because there’s no downside risk in doing so.

Here’s a better question: Why is Clapper not in jail?

The Border Patrol are Criminals

Read this and tell me if you come to any other conclusion.

Everyone they detained was an American citizen, coming back to the US after attending a wedding of a cousin. They were treated terribly, put in a cold room with no food or drinks, and no information on what was going on. CBP demanded they hand over their electronics, and made it clear they might not get them back. The thing is, this isn’t a unique situation. As the report notes, there’s almost no oversight over CBP actions, allowing them to act with impunity. In the report, the story is told of a 4-year-old girl, an American citizen, who was detained for 14 hours, in a cold room, without being allowed to speak to her parents and given no food beyond a cookie. And then she was deported. Even though she was a US citizen. She was allowed to come back weeks later, but now has symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Abdurrahman’s own story is perhaps not that crazy, but is still ridiculous. She tried to find out information during the detainment, but was repeatedly told “it’s not your right to know.” She wasn’t even allowed to know the names of the CBP agents who detained them. When she asked, agents turned their backs to her so she couldn’t see their name tags. Multiple attempts at getting Homeland Security or CBP to respond to questions failed.

These people are TSA agents with the power to arbitrarily confiscate your belongings — with or without suspicion — and have effectively no accountability to anyone, least of all US citizens they mistreat. These goons should be personally liable for damages.

Hey, look! Abuse of warrantless searches! Surprise, Surprise!

Remember how the border goons insist that they can confiscate and search your electronics whenever you enter the US, even without suspicion?

Yeah, turns out the Feds are actively exploiting this loophole. They watched airline manifests until someone they wanted to search, but had no legal reason to detain or search, was coming back from overseas — and then used this border bullshit to sift through his shit.