The oldest and most obscure weblog. Probably. Lovingly maintained and neglected by Shawn Kilburn.
I keep getting all of these great book recommendations at Brad DeLong’s website. Here, he writes about his famous Paul Krugman essay, which in turn pulled up a book by Edward N. Wolff called Top-Heavy: A study of the increasing inequality of wealth in America, which I mean to read.
Well, and I intend to browse through Krugman’s latest, as well.
I just finished reading Neil Gaiman’s last novel American Gods.
It was good, though I thought that it lacked a certain something. It had a sort of distant feel to it, that I wasn’t sure that I liked. Gaiman sort of sort of addresses what I’m getting at in this essay, and it’s entirely possible that others might not find this to be much of a problem at all.
I like Neil Gaiman. I’ve read almost everything that he’s written–those Sandman books; Smoke and Mirrors, his brilliant collection of short stories, and other random things.
It’s probably heresy among the Gaiman fans, but I just don’t think that he does as well in the novel format. I think he has a unique vibrancy to his writing that is uniquely suited to the graphical marriage of text and image in comic books. He’s also quite good at pinning an idea down (like a bug on a tackerboard) and fleshing it out over 20-30 pages. I found that his language lost a lot of its gumption when scrawled out over 300-400 pages. It grated a little.
So, if you’re going to read something by Neil Gaiman, I wouldn’t recommend American Gods. You’d do better off reading a short story or two from Smoke and Mirrors or cracking open one of his graphic novels.
Still, I think that Neil Gaiman is one of the most charming writers that I’ve ever seen speak in person. He came to town two or three years ago and attracted a huge crowd. I flashed on Charles Dickens, for a bit, the performative aspect of the reading was so strong.
These interviews give you a taste of what I’m talking about.
after walloping down the stairs, and walloping up them again, i fell back into december… “my mother birthed me far too soon…” feel those lps scratching out your eyesockets, boy. but, damn, that fellow has a sweetly disposing sideways smile and his 12-stringer really strums allways.
still, there are some catacombs that even cagliostro would go out of his way to avoid. were it up to me, but it’s not. that’s so. cheese on tomato. yes. take that, goatmonkey! (eat your filthy italy smirking in the daylight and keep the shadows from out your hands: we don’t trust ’em)
is that some sort of chill on the hands as the sun goes down? still, that invisibility seems to be holding up strong: note taken: there was that old crankster (with the wooden amber-topped cane/what symbol was that emblazoned there? avert avert!) scrabbling after everyone for attention or money or cigarillos. ignored me once, twice, thrice. i was staring at traffic lights and that weird pollen sculpture to put it generously…
bookend as i was on both sides by that madman and that madwoman, scabbered she was. and that handkerchief man only started lerping in my ear once that quaintcher set herself down in my only empty seat. )12?( but only seemingly. and that man’s boy fresh-returned from the desert.
perhaps he needs a winker at this one, soundtrackin’ those wastes
still, that yang makes my skin tense. and i’m wondering what she’s doin’ thar. not up to chatting with a forble. plenty of empty ones, yet she’s sitting in mine.
but that quashing noise only happened later, she followed me even there, burrowing underground, i escaped that plane and swarsaparillad beneath, grouched into a corner.
later, the wreckers that i couldn’t remember. now.
someday soon, i’ve been feeling: “strange how the ears ring…after a night of wrongdoing?” and who is that blue lady, after all? all that’s left is a sense of something coming….
can’t remember how it all shaked down, after.
felling those slats, whilst dreaming about ghosts and cats that gnawed on my knuckles, only to turn into her fingers grasping, speaking of ghosts and well, who wants to see those in the dead of dark? pondered opening the eyeholes to let the wandering greyhoke in, but then decided against. opened the eyehokes anyway, partially, and squinty. for a brief, felt that porous suggestion floor the pathways, spook of a man, then only the tracky glimmer of the stereo lights. then to sleep again.
all in all, there’s some sandwichy happenings. and yours t. can feel that greyrope tugging back and forth. and it’s not only a two-way anymore, like and but who or what’s gonna get lurped into the soup? the soup being briney and a bit hackneyed these days, full of flotsam (or jetsam, is it?). beware the squeaker.
even though the nightime scurls betrayed a deeper secret, all we can be recollectin’ is that cat nibble on my knuckle. it turned out even the heftiest, neerdowells, emblazoned caricadoes. ‘streuth! figgered the ol whing might be crouching in the back, liveries and sausage guns at the ready.
catch it all, damnital–the newest pokey solvent throatballcleaner on the marketye–fresh from the slime o’ darkest peru. there’s a hoboken in it fer ye, if ye can stomach that thin grue. (beware the thin grue, he’s twice as hungry as the fatted grue.)
not to speak it, but this one’s nowt sayin’ his dream-farthings
are any nearsight cleaner than those seven fat cows/seven thin
cows/eaten seven fat cows dreaming ould. speak it, but don’t say it, catch me? spoke, spake, spak. drink, drank, drunk. it’s all the same to us.
but at least there’s a big fish on the horizonal.
I just finished reading Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions by Clyde Prestowitz and I have to say that I think this is perhaps the most holistically coherent book about US foreign policy that I have read in a long time.
The title of the book is deliberately provocative (sells more books, eh?) and one would think that the author was some kind of raving leftwinger. Not so, says the clam. You can read a brief biography of Mr. Prestowitz here. He considers himself an old school conservative, which I can respect and only wish that there were more like him around. This guy has a keen grasp on the intricacies and context of foreign policy and the book makes a compelling argument a more multilateral US foreign policy and that it is the US’ interest to do so.
Some links:
A radio interview where he talks about his book. The link takes you to the audio file, so click with care.
A print interview with Globalist magazine.
A collection of links about the book.
An article that C. Pretowitz wrote for the Boston Globe, 8/10/2003.
And finally, ye olde Amazon dealie.
Methinks the Democratic candidates for president should have a sitdown chat with this fellow. Especially dynamo ex-governor of Vermont, Howard Dean! (Who makes being a political junky fun again, I have to say.)
I guess I’m sort of interested in economics (in a hobby-horse sort of way) because my mum teaches it. I just finished readingthis long article by Paul Krugman on the method behind the fiscal madness that are tax cuts, currently.
I can’t think of anyone who writes about the conjunction of economics and politics with greater clarity and reason than Paul Krugman.
UPDATE: A recent interview with Krugman over at Calpundit that fleshes out his views some more.