Books Read in 1997

One thing I haven't added to these lists, for fear of revealing my true obsessions: the number of pages I've read each year (because, of course, I've kept track of that, too). So, because I want you to notice that I read two--TWO!--gigantic Dickens novels in 1997, I'll start adding my total number of pages read to the actual list of books I read for each year. Not necessarily because I think anyone cares, but because someone in the future will want to know what books were all about.

Here's Bill's list.

Total number of pages read: 6890
Pages read in 1990: 7743
Pages read in 1991: 4870
Pages read in 1992: 5395
Pages read in 1993: 7568
Pages read in 1994: 4441
Pages read in 1995: 5417
Pages read in 1996: 4268

History by Hollywood: The Use and Abuse of the American Past by Robert Brent Toplin
The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
My Dark Places by James Ellroy
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
The Kiss by Kathryn Harrison
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
Star Trek: New Frontier--House of Cards by Peter David
Star Trek: New Frontier--Into the Void by Peter David
American Tabloid by James Ellroy
Ingenious Pain by Andrew Miller
Jukebox America by William Bunch
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
Obasan by Joy Kogawa
Daughters of Copper Woman by Anne Cameron
Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro
L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy

NASA Deletes Mention of Earth in Mission Statement

I find this story so appalling and disgusting and sad that I'm going to reproduce it here in its entirety. It encapsulates not only NASA's cowardice, but the incredible stranglehold the Bush Administration has on national science. If this is what it's going to take to get back to the moon, I'd just as soon forget the whole thing. The era of American exceptionalism is dead.

The New York Times
July 22, 2006
NASA’s Goals Delete Mention of Home Planet

By ANDREW C. REVKIN

From 2002 until this year, NASA’s mission statement, prominently featured in its budget and planning documents, read: “To understand and protect our home planet; to explore the universe and search for life; to inspire the next generation of explorers ... as only NASA can.”

In early February, the statement was quietly altered, with the phrase “to understand and protect our home planet” deleted. In this year’s budget and planning documents, the agency’s mission is “to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research.”

David E. Steitz, a spokesman for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, said the aim was to square the statement with President Bush’s goal of pursuing human spaceflight to the Moon and Mars.

But the change comes as an unwelcome surprise to many NASA scientists, who say the “understand and protect” phrase was not merely window dressing but actively influenced the shaping and execution of research priorities. Without it, these scientists say, there will be far less incentive to pursue projects to improve understanding of terrestrial problems like climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions.

“We refer to the mission statement in all our research proposals that go out for peer review, whenever we have strategy meetings,” said Philip B. Russell, a 25-year NASA veteran who is an atmospheric chemist at the Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. “As civil servants, we’re paid to carry out NASA’s mission. When there was that very easy-to-understand statement that our job is to protect the planet, that made it much easier to justify this kind of work.”

Several NASA researchers said they were upset that the change was made at NASA headquarters without consulting the agency’s 19,000 employees or informing them ahead of time.

Though the “understand and protect” phrase was deleted in February, when the Bush administration submitted budget and planning documents to Congress, its absence has only recently registered with NASA employees.

Mr. Steitz, the NASA spokesman, said the agency might have to improve internal communications, but he defended the way the change was made, saying it reflected the management style of Michael D. Griffin, the administrator at the agency.

“Strategic planning comes from headquarters down,” he said, and added, “I don’t think there was any mal-intent or idea of exclusion.”

The line about protecting the earth was added to the mission statement in 2002 under Sean O’Keefe, the first NASA administrator appointed by President Bush, and was drafted in an open process with scientists and employees across the agency.

In the National Aeronautics and Space Act, which established the agency in 1958, the first objective of the agency was listed as “the expansion of human knowledge of the earth and of phenomena in the atmosphere and space.”

And since 1972, when NASA launched the first Landsat satellite to track changes on the earth’s surface, the agency has been increasingly involved in monitoring the environment and as a result has been immersed in political disputes over environmental policy and spending, said W. Henry Lambright, a professor of public administration and political science at Syracuse University who has studied the trend.

The shift in language echoes a shift in the agency’s budgets toward space projects and away from earth missions, a shift that began in 2004, the year Mr. Bush announced his vision of human missions to the Moon and beyond.

The “understand and protect” phrase was cited repeatedly by James E. Hansen, a climate scientist at NASA who said publicly last winter that he was being threatened by political appointees for speaking out about the dangers posed by greenhouse gas emissions.

Dr. Hansen’s comments started a flurry of news media coverage in late January; on Feb. 3, Mr. Griffin issued a statement of “scientific openness.”

The revised mission statement was released with the agency’s proposed 2007 budget on Feb. 6. But Mr. Steitz said Dr. Hansen’s use of the phrase and its subsequent disappearance from the mission statement was “pure coincidence.”

Dr. Hansen, who directs the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, a NASA office, has been criticized by industry-backed groups and Republican officials for associating with environmental campaigners and his endorsement of Senator John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election.

Dr. Hansen said the change might reflect White House eagerness to shift the spotlight away from global warming.

“They’re making it clear that they have the authority to make this change, that the president sets the objectives for NASA, and that they prefer that NASA work on something that’s not causing them a problem,” he said.

Books Read in 1996

This will be the last of the embarassingly short lists. That is, until we get to 2002, the year I began my PhD program. In the meantime, please enjoy yet another humiliating look into my lazy reading habits.

Here's Bill's list.

Time's Arrow by Martin Amis
Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman
In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O'Brien
Star Wars: The Courtship of Princess Leia by Dave Wolverton
Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter
Star Trek Movie Memories by William Shatner & Chris Kreski
Borderliners by Peter Hoeg (trans. Barbara Haveland)
Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold
Star Trek: The Fearful Summons by Denny Martin Flinn
Earthfall by Orson Scott Card
Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg (trans. Tiina Nunnally)
Possession: A Romance by A.S. Byatt
Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie

Dear Mr. Abrams

Please don't fuck this up. (Great retro teaser, though.)

In other SF news, looks like Babylon 5 might be making a direct-to-video comeback. Yay!

And, in case you were wondering, Clerks II was everything I wanted it to be and more. Kevin Smith's conversational scenes (particularly Randal's summation of The Lord of the Rings) are hilarious, and are coupled in the film with scenes of real poignance and surprising depth. That is, assuming you've seen Clerks and fell in love with the characters. The sequel didn't do very good business this weekend, but it's well worth seeing (again, assuming you've seen the first; newbies should stay away.)

Looking for a car that's warm and dry 

Jailbait!

A few weeks ago, I started compiling a list of rock & roll songs that glorified the attributes and/or temptations of underage girls. My list encompasses the entire history of rock music, reaching back to the 1930's. I ended up making a 24-track mix that follows a more or less chronological exploration of the subject, and also provides a fascinating summation of popular music styles and developments. For example, most of the songs I found recorded before 1970 were fairly unabashed in regards to the speaker's/singer's feelings about "little girls." There is little, if any, guilt expressed in the lyrics or the music of the songs; in fact, these earlier songs seem to take the older man's attraction to the girl as a matter of course. The only question in these songs seems to be how or if the man will land his prize, a task largely left to the listener's imagination, due to (presumably) the broadcasting standards of the day.

After about 1970, however, the tone of most of the songs seems to shift, and though the glorification of the underage girl doesn't change much, the singer's conscience begins to be heard as well. Probably the best example of this trend can be heard in Al Green's "Take Me to the River" (later covered by Talking Heads) in which the singer feels the need for spiritual cleansing as a result of his lust for a 16-year-old. You can definitely trace the development of statutory rape laws in these songs, if only through the increasingly tormented and/or guilty feelings expressed by the singer.

As a whole, most of the lyrics to these songs seem to be delivered with a wink and a leer, despite the individual tone of the song itself. The gendered aspects of rock music have been discussed and debated for years, but the lust for young girls has proven itself to be an enduring subject for rock songs throughout the history of the genre, along with cars and drinking, to name just a few.

Anyway, here's the track list for my jailbait mix:

1. Motorhead: "Jailbait" (to get the party started, as it were)
2. Walter Davis: "Sweet Sixteen" (circa 1930s)
3. B.B. King: "Sweet Sixteen"
4. Muddy Waters: "Good Morning Little School Girl"
5. Chuck Berry: "Sweet Little Sixteen"
6. Sam Cooke: "Only Sixteen"
7. Johnny Burnette: "You're Sixteen"
8. The Crests: "16 Candles"
9. The Students: "I'm So Young" (not strictly a jailbait song, as the singer is, himself, underage)
10. Tony Bellus: "Robbin' the Cradle"
11. The Coasters: "Young Blood"
12. Chuck Berry: "Little Queenie" (Berry has a number of songs on this subject)
13. Elvis Presley: "Little Sister"
14. The Beatles: "I Saw Her Standing There"
(featuring the memorable lyric: "Well, she was just seventeen/You know what I mean")
15. The Union Gap: "Young Girl"
(marking the point in my mix where the singer's guilt is expressed)
16. Talking Heads: "Take Me to the River"
17. The Police: "Don't Stand So Close to Me"
18. Stray Cats: "(She's) Sexy & 17"
19. Spinal Tap: "Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight" (a brilliant parody of the subject)
20. Liz Phair: "Rock Me" (one of the few jailbait songs sung by a woman)
21. The Runaways: "Cherry Bomb"
22. Lynyrd Skynyrd: "What's Your Name"
23. The Replacements: "Sixteen Blue"
(also not strictly a jailbait song; the singer empathizes with the girl's lack of experience)
24. Steely Dan: "Hey Nineteen" (also not strictly jailbait, but the singer is middle-aged)

Other songs I thought of that I didn't put on the mix:
AC/DC: "Love at First Feel"
Billy Idol: "Cradle of Love"
Oingo Boingo: "Little Girls"
Rolling Stones: "Stray Cat Blues"
Kiss: "Christine Sixteen"

I'd love to hear from anyone who can think of other songs like these.

Books Read in 1995

Another slow year. But fuck you! I was in grad school and learning how to respond to bad student writing. I was reading a lot, just not a lot of, you know, books.

Not to belabor the point, but the Anne Rice novel was, in fact, 1043 pages long.

If you're keeping score at home, here's Bill's list.

A Simple Plan by Scott Smith
The Silent Language by Edward T. Hall
Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko
Star Trek: Probe by Margaret Wander Bonanno
The Ships of Earth by Orson Scott Card
Goodbye, Columbus and Five Short Stories by Philip Roth
Star Wars: The Truce at Bakura by Kathy Tyers
Ania Malina by Lawrence Osborne
ST Voyager: The Escape by Dean W. Smith & Kristine K. Rusch
Clockers by Richard Price
The Birth of the Elizabethan Age: England in the 1560s by Norman Jones
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Star Trek: Federation by Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens
The Witching Hour by Anne Rice

The Passion of the Clerks

There are some films that, for varying reasons, I am so hyped to see that the film has to end up being pretty bad for me to dislike. I suppose this is due to a combination of Geek Faith ("How could a movie about how Anakin becomes Darth Vader be bad?") and my more-than-willing suspension of disbelief for certain scenarios. (If you're going to watch a 3-hour movie about, say, a giant ape, there are certain critical faculties that simply become unnecessary.)

For a few months after I saw Episode I, for example, I had a hard time bad-mouthing it. It took me a long time to come to terms with how bad it actually was, because I had spent a disproportionate number of years after seeing Return of the Jedi imagining how cool the prequels might be. So there was no way I was prepared to deal with the emotional, spiritual, or intellectual consequences of Jar Jar Binks. At least at first. For a number of weeks, I kept a countdown calendar to Episode I on my office door, so you can imagine how reluctant I was to immediately disavow it. (I'm over that now, though. I fucking hate that movie.)

Anyone plugged into the Geek Zeitgeist will be familiar with the kinds of films that make it to my mental list of anticipatory classics, so I won't bother listing them here. But Clerks II is a clear favorite before it even reaches the gate (in fact, I was writing about how much I would like it back in May). I still haven't seen it yet (that will probably happen this weekend), but the critics' screenings are well underway, and reaction to the film seems generally positive.

That is, unless you're Joel Siegel. This story is all over the net now, but it's worth repeating. Apparently, at a recent screening, Siegel was so incensed at a discussion in the film regarding the proper way to fellate a donkey (in case you were forgetting this was a Kevin Smith film) that Siegel rose from his seat (remember that this is a screening for critics) and shouted, "Time to go! First movie I've walked out of in thirty fucking years!"

Naturally, once Kevin Smith got wind of this, he had a very choice response to Siegel's actions.

In terms of early publicity, you couldn't ask for a better rallying point than a critic like Siegel not only disliking the film, but disliking it enough to act unprofessionally in front of his peers (certainly not the worst of Siegel's crimes as a critic). Living in our cynical age, part of me can't help but wonder whether this is some elaborate punk to generate buzz. But I honestly don't think Kevin Smith would be that manipulative to his fanbase. I mean, this is a guy who makes movies featuring conversations about the proper way to fellate a donkey, so he's really not in a position to risk losing those fans, you know?

Kevin Smith (whose name, by the way, must be invoked in full, like JonLee, with all the adulation and attendant worship such an intonation implies) has always come across as the kind of guy who would be willing to hang out for a while and discuss the best Batman artists or, uh, the proper way to fellate a donkey (an image I'm sure he is careful to maintain), but that doesn't diminish, for me, the sensation that I'm getting away with something, meeting in some kind of underpublicized equivalent of a cinematic speakeasy, when I watch his films.

I'll say it again. I can't fucking wait to see this movie.

War Poetry

War Poetry
The class has dropped its books. The janitor's
disturbed some wasps, broomed the nest
straight off the roof. It lies outside, exotic
as a fallen planet, a burst city of the poor;
its newsprint halls, its ashen, tiny rooms
all open to the air. The insects' buzz
is low-key as a smart machine. They group,
regroup, in stacks and coils, advance
and cross like pulsing points on radar screens.

And though the boys have shaven heads

and football stripes, and would, they swear,

enlist at once, given half a chance,

march down Owen's darkening lanes

to join the lads and stuff the Boche--

they don't rush out to pike the nest,

or lap the yard with grapeshot faces.

They watch the wasps through glass,

silently, abashed, the way we all watch war.

--Kate Clanchy

Photos: Reuters (old woman), AP

Books Read in 1994

1994 was a busy year for me: got married, rented a house, entered graduate school, and commuted to a full-time job. So you will perhaps understand why this is, so far, the shortest of my annual reading lists.

In my defense, I will point out that the Joan D. Vinge novel was 949 pages long, and the Thomas Hardy novel seemed at least that long.

Here's Bill's list. (UPDATE: Billville isn't coming up for me at the moment. Please stay tuned.)

Star Trek TNG: The Devil's Heart by Carmen Carter
The Memory of Earth by Orson Scott Card
The Summer Queen by Joan D. Vinge
Strange Devices of the Sun and Moon by Lisa Goldstein
Star Trek TNG: All Good Things. . . by Michael Jan Friedman
The Call of Earth by Orson Scott Card
Montana 1948 by Larry Watson
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams
Star Trek Memories by William Shatner with Chris Kreski
The Chinchilla Farm by Judith Freeman
Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee
Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

The Graying of the Record Store

As if to underscore my earlier comments about my being part of the last generation that will buy CDs, the Sunday NYT ran this piece on the challenges faced by record store owners in a downloading nation. Check out the photos of the customers. Fuck, I look like those guys!

BTW, if you ever stop by Cedar City, be sure to pay Groovacious a visit. This town doesn't support much in the way of independent media outlets (or, for that matter, corporate media outlets), but Groovacious is like a shining oasis in a barren land.

Books Read in 1993

I'm pretty sure my brother and I are the only people who give a crap about these lists, but I like the idea of having them posted here, in case my precious hard copies get burned or, as seems more likely, become the unfortunate victims of a termite infestation and/or an accidental urination event.

Anyway, just wanted to remind the rest of you that I usually post these lists just after I've posted another, hopefully more substantial, entry, so be sure to, you know, browse beyond the headlines.

Here's Bill's list. He's already up to 1996, so I need to catch up. I'm totally going to crush his average once I get around to posting my lists from the mid-80's, Doctor Who novels notwithstanding.

A Sort of Life by Graham Greene
Star Trek TNG: Reunion by Michael Jan Friedman
Concrete Island by J.G. Ballard
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Shoah: An Oral History of the Holocaust by Claude Lanzmann
The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge
Troublemaker by Joseph Hansen
The Man Everybody Was Afraid Of by Joseph Hansen
"And So It Goes": Adventures in Television by Linda Ellerbee
After Dark, My Sweet by Jim Thompson
Star Trek TNG: Grounded by David Bischoff
Tartuffe by Moliere (trans. Richard Wilbur)
Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place by Terry Tempest Williams
The Great War and Modern Memory by Paul Fussell
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (annotated by Alfred Appel, Jr.)
Star Trek DS9: The Siege by Peter David
Disappearing Acts by Terry McMillan
Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
Star Trek TNG: Descent by Diane Carey
Gerald's Game by Stephen King
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison
Possessing the Secret of Joy by Alice Walker
All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Star Trek TNG: Imzadi by Peter David

Whateva

Last April, in an attempt to maintain the illusion that I'm some kind of academic, I presented my paper on "Clean Flicks: Issues of Consumption in the Video Rental Market" at the annual conference of the Utah Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters. (I firmly placed myself in the Arts category, mainly to avoid the overcrowded Letters sessions.) I was the only male in the session, and I heard papers on "The Transition of Dancers," "Theatre's Critics," Isadora Duncan, and saw a fascinating presentation on "Exploring Social, Historical, and Political Issues through Movement" that should be turned into a book.

Anyway, I mention all this as prelude to news of a recent ruling against the film-editing practices of video rental outfits like Clean Flicks, which have taken on the responsibility of editing profanity, nudity, and "suggestive situations" out of major Hollywood films, so pious churchgoing hypocrites won't feel left out of the cultural zeitgiest (which is pretty much what I say in my paper, only in more stilted academic prose). The story of the ruling helpfully includes a non-nude image of Kate Winslet from Titanic, the film which spawned the misguided and pretentious Clean Flicks movement.
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I don't own an iPod, though I've just finished reading a book about the history of its development. I remain entrenched in my world of physical music products: CDs, vinyl, and the occasional cassette. (Just yesterday, I dug out my small cassette collection of 80's and early 90's Bob Dylan albums, in order to evaluate their condition before attempting to digitize them.)

But I have delved into the world of music downloading, and I'm about to mark the one-year anniversary of my first (legal) download. I generally limit myself to between 5 and 10 downloads a week, just because it's easy for me to get overwhelmed by all the music available out there in e-space. However, in that relatively short timespan, I've managed to download a total of 196 songs, amounting to 13 hours, 2 minutes, and 47 seconds on my laptop hard drive (or 913.06 MB). If I happen to buy a CD which contains one of the songs I've downloaded, I delete the file on my hard drive, so the current stats don't necessarily reflect the true amount of downloading I've done in the last year. And these donwloads are only a small fraction of the amount of music I purchase, stuck as I am in the CD generation (and probably part of the last generation that will feel any sort of attachment to those shiny aluminum discs).

I know anyone reading this who owns an iPod will be incredibly underwhelmed by my collection, but I hasten to point out that there are only a few artists (less than 10, actually) who are represented with more than one song, and none with more than two songs. So I at least have variety working in my favor.

Anyway, if none of that grabbed your interest, let me recommend one of my latests finds to you, a song I initially heard on XM Radio 47 and one which, in just a minute and a half, represents everything you will ever need to know about rock & roll: Liam Lynch's "United States of Whatever." Holy shite, it's hilarious. And the video is even better. I need to find out more about this dude.
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In other music news, I can't believe I didn't post on this earlier. I've never been a big Pink Floyd fan, although I occasionally find some of Roger Waters' stylish screams rather energizing. But I'm of the opinion that Pink Floyd, as an entity, became approximately 75% less interesting after the departure of Syd Barrett, and 20% less interesting after the acrimonious fued between Waters and, er, everyone else in the band. The remaining 5% interest I have in this band is roughly equal to the amount of interest I would have watching a frog twitch to its death in biology class, or waiting for a fatal accident in the next NASCAR event.

Anyway, as the bandmates who summarily dismissed him once said, shine on, Mr. Barrett. You deserved better in this life.
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Summer rerun doldrums have me peeking at spoilers and rumours for some of next season's programs. I'm excited that Jimmy Olsen is going to become a regular character on Smallville, and unnerved at the prospect that Battlestar Galactica's season opener is going to make yet another leap in the show's chronology (some spoilers in the links, if you care).

Haven't been watching much so far this summer, other than this show, which I totally shoulda tried out for. DOH!

Books Read in 1992

I'm starting to warm up to the idea of posting these lists, though as I've been doing so I've found myself making some disturbing projections on the number of books I will conceivably be able to read before I die. Maybe it's time to look into that whole books-on-tape thing.

Here's me brudda's 1992 list.

The Dark Half by Stephen King
Look into the Sun by James Patrick Kelly
Philadelphia Fire by John Edgar Wideman
Night by Elie Wiesel
Good-bye to All That by Robert Graves
Four Past Midnight by Stephen King
The Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum
Aftershocks: A Tale of Two Victims by David Haward Bain
Saturday Night: A Backstage History of "Saturday Night Live" by Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad
Dawn by Elie Wiesel
Star Wars: Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn
Stopping at Slowyear by Frederik Pohl
Star Trek: The Covenant of the Crown by Howard Weinstein
Fadeout by Joseph Hansen
Death Claims by Joseph Hansen
Teenage Wasteland: Suburbia's Dead End Kids by Donna Gaines
Ironweed by William Kennedy
The Death of Rhythm & Blues by Nelson George
Rich in Love by Josephine Humphreys

"Son of a Terrorist Whore"

Details are starting to emerge about just what prompted Zidane to viciously headbutt Italian player Materazzi in Sunday's World Cup Final. Two UK newspapers, The Daily Mail and the Times, employed lip readers to determine the nature of the words exchanged on the pitch between Zidane and Materazzi during the game. Evidently, while Materazzi was holding Zidane away from the ball, he taunted the French star by saying, "Hold on, wait, that one's not for a nigger like you." (Zidane is of mixed French and Algerian heritage.) Soon after, Materazzi continued with his slurs, saying, "We all know you are the son of a terrorist whore. So just fuck off."

For Materazzi's part, he claims he was only responding to an arrogant staredown and snide comment from Zidane beforehand.

I don't particularly care what was said between the two players (though Materazzi's comments, if those were his actual words, are beneath contempt) because the resulting effect on the game was to diminish the athletic challenge that is the nature of the World Cup itself. It also, needless to say, diminishes the players and demonstrates a weakness in their professionalism. Trash talking is part of any sport (anyone who has ever played Monopoly with me will attest to this), and one would think a player of Zidane's experience would be able to channel his anger at Materazzi, however justified, into his game rather than Materazzi's chest. Materazzi, in successfully baiting a French player who would certainly have been a danger to Italy in the PK round, has shown himself to be a savvy practitioner of foul-drawing, leading an opponent to commit a greivous mistake in the crucial final moments of overtime. Materazzi may or may not be a bigoted asshole, but he's certainly an asshole. But, then, isn't that part of being a professional athlete on the field?

On a somewhat related note, here's a look at some of the front pages of Italian and French newspapers on the day after the Final (via kottke.org).

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Speaking of harrowing incidents, two of my blogging chums have witnessed some disturbing events recently. Schrand, the maestro of Chronicle West, observed two city workers blatantly dumping a brain-damaging toxic substance into a canal that empties into a local creek. We hear about this kind of thing all the time, but Schrand's outraged eyewitness account is a reminder of all the other environmental crimes that we either don't see or choose to ignore.

Indelible Soul reports on another classic American pastime: the SWAT team invasion of a neighborhood where some troubled loner with a gun has barricaded himself and his family in their home. The fun begins, appropriately enough, on the eve of Independence Day.

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On a lighter note, check out these awesome t-shirts.

Books Read in 1991

If you're tuning in late, go here and here to catch up.

No comments this time, though I'm still highlighting my faves and most influential reads.

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
The Folk of the Fringe by Orson Scott Card
The Dark Tower: The Drawing of the Three by Stephen King
The Harlan Ellison Hornbook
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
Mystery by Peter Straub
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Eye of the Heron by Ursula K. LeGuin
A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Sign of Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Hiding Place by John Edgar Wideman
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley
Star Trek TNG: Unification by Jeri Taylor
Hocus Pocus by Kurt Vonnegut

The Not-So-Beautiful Game

Zinedine Zidane, one of the world's best players, ends his career in disgrace during the final minutes of the 2nd overtime in the World Cup Final. In so doing, France loses one of its most reliable PK strikers during the final shootout. Zidane's brutality was worthy of an English player and will forever taint his career. Kids, this is not the way to win the Cup.

According to the NYT live blog of the game, Zidane may have had his nipple tweaked by his Italian opponent, Materazzi:

Materazzi reached around and twisted Zidane’s nipple! That’s what got Zidane so steamed! Materazzi tricked Zidane! Or so it seems from the replay. Can’t be totally sure though.

If so, this marks another brilliant perversion of the game by Italy, a team that, it must be said, took full advantage of every opportunity it got in this Cup. Even if those opportunities were sometimes on the shady side of fair play. But, to my mind, that kind of opportunism is part of the Game, and my hat is off to Italia for knowing the game so well.

Zidane's maneuver is a sad capstone to a brilliant player's career and an entertaining and surprising tournament. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the days to come.

In the meantime, I'm taking a break from TV for a while. My eyes have seen the glory of the 2006 World Cup, and now they are burning.

Viva Italia!

Books Read in 1990

Billville has an engaging essay--an introduction, if you will--to his and my practice of keeping lists of the books we've read. I've kept up my list since the day I graduated high school; on June 6, 1985, rather than attending noisome graduation parties, I finished Watership Down. Bill's essay brought me to the stunning realization that I've kept my lists now for over 20 years, two decades of reading.

The annual tally of books I read has dwindled a bit since I started work on my Ph.D., and I don't count most of the dry academic texts required by my program on my lists (for one thing, I rarely read them cover to cover). I also don't list plays or collections of poetry, since they're not designed to be "read" in the traditional sense of sitting down somewhere and being silent with a book for a while (at least, I don't think so). Recently, however, I started including graphic novels on my list, since the kind of reading I do with those texts seems at least as complex as reading lines of words (if you don't believe me, check out any volume of Lone Wolf & Cub or Dave Sim's Cerebus--your eyes will not want to rest).

In 1990, I had started working for the Internal Revenue Service, and many of the books I read were chosen to both make me stand apart from my co-workers ("What is he reading?") and to be digested in 15 or 30 minute chunks with my lunch or a snack. I had also just started to delve into my history minor, and I was particularly interested in the history of Native Americans. And I was reading a lot of science fiction, as you will see from the list below.

I've highlighted the titles of those books that were particularly influential on me and/or those that I would recommend to others who are not me in the year 1990.

Neuromancer by William Gibson
Generation of Swine: Tales of Shame and Degradation in the '80's by Hunter S. Thompson
(Thompson has long been one of my favorite writers.)
Perfume by Patrick Suskind
Doctor Who: Silver Nemesis by Kevin Clarke
(This was one of the last Doctor Who novels I read for quite a while.)
All the Lies That Are My Life by Harlan Ellison
(A novella that, for better or worse, affected my worldview and creativity for many years.)
Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation by John Ehle
The Day of Creation by J. G. Ballard
(Another of my favorite authors, Ballard's work now seems disturbingly prophetic.)
When Gravity Fails by George Alec Effinger
"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" by Richard P. Feynman
(After reading this, Feynman quickly became one of my personal heroes. Read more here.)
Call It Sleep by Henry Roth
The Stand (Complete and Uncut) by Stephen King
(This also shows up on Bill's 1990 list. Must've been the book of the month.)
"I Will Fight No More Forever": Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce War by Merrill D. Bean
The Nexus by Mike McQuay
What Do YOU Care What Other People Think? by Richard P. Feynman
(I ran out to find this as soon as I had finished his first book. I couldn't get enough of the guy.)
Titmuss Regained by John Mortimer
(An adaptation of this was playing on Masterpiece Theatre at the time.)
Victim: The Other Side of Murder by Gary Kinder
Phases of Gravity by Dan Simmons
(A beautiful novel and one of my all-time favorites. It's about an astronaut who's questioning the purpose of his life.)
The Dreaming Jewels by Theodore Sturgeon
The Cosmic Rape by Theodore Sturgeon
Venus Plus X by Theordore Sturgeon
Godbody by Theodore Sturgeon
(About a messiah who preaches and practices open sexual relations of all kinds. A book for our times, and one that should be read by all regular churchgoers.)
The Boat of a Million Years by Poul Anderson
Cat Chaser by Elmore Leonard
(Another of my favorite authors.)
Everett Ruess: A Vagabond for Beauty by W.L. Rusho
(A very romantic biography of a young artist who disappeared into the wilderness of the American Southwest.)

24 books. Not a bad year, though there have been better ones. I still have many of these books today; I've been looking through some of them as I've been typing in the titles. I've already decided that Sturgeon, Ellison, and Ballard are worth re-reading. (I re-read the Simmons novel three years ago, and will probably read it again sometime.)

I don't know if I will keep posting these lists as my brother says he will do, unless I can demonstrate that, once upon a time, I read much more than he ever could in 12 months.