the hrg files

I love Noah Bennet. And now I love Jack Coleman just as much.

(HRG stands for "Horn Rimmed Glasses")

yes

Bad Horse wants YOU to join the Evil League of Evil. Classic.

prep by curtis sittenfeld

Welcome to My So Called Life, the book. Curtis Sittenfeld manages to capture high school here like few others have. Childhood, Adolescence, Puberty, sure, there better and more intimate illustrations of those particular times in one's life (Rule of the Bone, Catcher in the Rye, etc.) but High School? The act and the place and the social structure? The fear and the pressure and the naivete? Sittenfeld gives us the real deal (often whether we want it or not). And she's generally pretty smart about it. Occasionally witty, always exacting. What she also gives us is a distinctly female voice, whereas in other great works of adolescence (see above) you'd be hard pressed to find something worth reading that wasn't from a male perspective.

The novel drags a bit in the middle, and I'm not entirely certain if I was satisfied with the last thirty pages or so. But it's a page turner. And I'd like to meet the person out there who doesn't flashback to being 15 while reading it.

so many people are turning in their graves right now

It's hard to say you don't like and/or appreciate the magnificence that is Johnny Depp. But... he's just been cast as TONTO in the new Lone Ranger movie.

I am struck dumb by this. Guys... fuck. Let's just say this: My senior thesis screenplay in college was about a Navajo kid who calls himself Tonto because it was the only character on TV or in the movies when he was growing up that was played by an actual Native American. And despite the gross misrepresentation, it was all he had to cling to in this age of pop-culture masquerading as actual culture. And now, apparently, he won't even have that much.

now that you mention it

Apparently "Heroes" is an allegory for Gen Y taking on the Baby Boomer's fuck-ups.

"These heroes are not driven to mistakes or misdeeds by their own personality flaws and weaknesses. When paranormal protagonists like Peter Petrelli (Milo Ventimiglia) get hurt, harm innocent people or put the fate of the planet at risk, it’s because they were deceived by evildoers who pretend to be on their side in order to betray and destroy them (credit card companies)."

fast forwarded thru about 99%

There is some expectation that I will comment on the Emmy's so...

The Good: Mad Men's win was well deserved. As was Barry Sonnenfeld's. And Bryan Cranston's win almost brought a tear to my eye. His category was perhaps the most difficult to navigate. Both Jon Hamm and Michael C. Hall deserved an award and if it had been up to me to pick a winner I don't know if I'd have been able to. But dark horse Cranston has been shafted for years, and his show, "Breaking Bad," is the best show that no one's watching. So hopefully this will get it a little more attention for its second season.

The (very very) Bad: Who's idea was it to have those idiot reality stars host the show? Whoever it was should be tarred, feathered, and relocated to a colder climate. Also (and I can barely mention this without yelling and/or cringing) Jeremy Piven? Jeremy Piven?! That statue rightfully belonged to Neil Patrick Harris and every one knew it.

If you missed it you can read the play-by-play at twop.

netherland by joseph o'neill

Why are all the good post-9/11 works from the perspective of Europeans? The only American I can think of who does the aftermath of that event any sort of justice is Jess Walter in The Zero (as much I love Don DeLillo, Falling Man missed the target).

A concise portrait of love, and of New York City and its place in the world. Certain moments stand out more than others only in hindsight, and serve to make up a quiet, but ferocious, glimpse into the thoughts we were already thinking. e.g. The act of using Google Maps to try and bridge distances (geographical and emotional), knowing that in reality these satellite images act more as yet another barrier. You can look down on loved ones in real time, but at a certain point you can't magnify any further. You've gone as far down as you can go. This desperate voyeurism now separates you from them even more than before you started.

rip dfw

I feel like I need to say something, but even still, a week later, I have no words.

So let's just keep it short: When I first read David Foster Wallace, I discovered I wasn't alone. For a nerdy little kid with a morbid streak and a penchant for solitude when faced with the alternative, this meant the world.

"sheer elegance in its simplicity"

"The Middleman" is campy, hilarious goodness.

How campy, you ask? Let's just say, Kevin Sorbo guest-starred on a recent episode. How hilarious, you ask? Let's just say, during the course of their requisite "bottle" episode (due to budget constraints, most every cable--especially scifi--TV show, is forced to make an episode that takes place entirely on already standing sets, usually by inventing some hostile threat that takes over the series' main location and forces a lock down): I actually lost count of the number of Die Hard references after the second commercial break. Everything from squealing out "we got Hans Grubered!" to crawling around in the air vents with a lighter and grumbling "come out to the coast, we'll have a few laughs."

It's also one of the very very (very very very) few shows on television that happens to follow the Bechdel Rule, the Deggans Rule and the Morales Rule. (from the NPR piece:)

The Middleman follows the Bechdel Rule so well that it was the reason we began talking about the rule here at NPR. Mind-boggling: It's science fiction — that traditional fortress of geek-maledom — but the character we identify with is a young woman. (And an artist.) She talks to her roommate about art events, vegan protests and their mothers; they're concerned with politics and creativity as well as boyfriends. "I know that the hot show on ABC Family right now is The Secret Life of the American Teenager," says NPR editor Sara Sarasohn, "but if my daughter were a teenager, I'd be making her watch The Middleman every week." Bonus: By default it follows the Morales Rule, because Natalie Morales plays the lead.

Other reasons I enjoy The Middleman:
-Though this is your classic comic book hero tale, it's told from the point of view of the sidekick. This is her story, not the hero's. In fact, we (and she) never even know the hero's real name, let alone what his personal life or backstory is.
-Not since The Tick has there been so humorous a scifi/adventure/comic book style show. And god how I miss The Tick.
-No reference is too obscure, too geeky or too just plain wacky. (From the "Batter of the Bulge" pancake house, to "does usagi yojimbo kick serious ass?" to an entire Titanic [the movie] themed episode revolving around a cursed Tuba that makes its original player immortal--"It's like Highlander with a Tuba")
-In the alternate universe/bizzaro world episode, EVERY man sported a goatee (name that reference!).

It's kind of an acquired taste, but well worth the acquisition. (The pilot episode-- titled "The Pilot Episode Sanction"-- features a mind controlled gorilla that's really into mobster movies. Part of you cringes, maybe, but part of you LOVES it)

And it's on ABC Family!?!? Um... WTF?

hipsters read great literature too

LOL. Found inside the library copy of Edith Wharton's House of Mirth.


(Transcription: "OKAY. This is ill. All of this is ill. So I'm going to refrain from commenting on all but the most impressive shit.")

house of mirth by edith wharton

What I learned from House of Mirth: being a girl sucks.

Also: it used to be a lot less taboo to buy your friends. In fact, people were doing it all over the damn place, and they were proud of the fact.

I'm glad I finally read this. The novel is a tragedy to be sure, but manages to put the reader so completely in Lily Bart's mindset that you find yourself on the edge of your seat throughout, hoping every clever scheme and desperate attempt at making ends meet just might succeed, even though you know, ultimately, that they won't. Similarly, Lawrence Seldon, despite all his flaws and his literally fatal lack of good timing, is made just as much the hero in our eyes as in Lily's. In short, you know how this story is going to end from the very first page, but the language is gorgeous and the wit is often laugh out loud worthy, and the detailed portrait it paints of the turn of the century bourgeoisie still holds up as an equally intimate analysis of today's hip and wealthy. Wharton was the first woman to win a Pulitzer for literature for a reason.

Passages underlined as follows:

In the afternoon rush of Grand Central Station his eyes had been refreshed by the sight of Lily Bart. p1

Her simplest acts seemed the result of far-reaching intentions. p1

"How nice of you to come to my rescue!"
He responded joyfully that to do so was his mission in life. p2

Everything about her was at once vigorous and exquisite, at once strong and fine. He had a confused sense that she must have cost a great deal to make, that a great many dull and ugly people must, in some mysterious way, have been sacrificed to produce her. p3

"Other cities put on their best clothes in the summer, but New York seems to sit in its shirtsleeves." p4

She was so evidently the victim of the civilization which had produced her that the links of her bracelet seemed like manacles chaining her to her fate. p6

"But we're so different, you know: she likes being good, and I like being happy." p6

"It's stupid of you to make love to me, and it isn't like you to be stupid." p7

She paused before him with a smile which seemed at once designed to admit him to her familiarity and to remind him of the restrictions it imposed. p10

"A woman is asked out as much for her clothes as for herself." p10

Why must a girl pay so dearly for her least escape from routine? p14

It was the one subject which enabled him to forget himself, or allowed him, rather, to remember himself without constraint, because he was at home in it and could assert a superiority that there were few to dispute. p19

Most timidities have such secret compensations, and Miss Bart was discerning enough to know that the inner vanity is generally in proportion to the out self-deprecation. p20

She was like a disembodied spirit who took up a great deal of room. p23

Her whole being dilated in an atmosphere of luxury. p25

She had never been able to understand the laws of a universe which was so ready to leave her out of its calculations. p27

Lily was nineteen when circumstances caused her to revise her view of the universe. p30

"It's much safer to be fond of dangerous people." p45

That very afternoon they had seemed full of brilliant qualities; now she saw that they were merely dull in a loud way. Under the glitter of their opportunities she saw the poverty of their achievement. p57

She always entered the conversation with a handspring. p58

But her course was too purely reasonable not to contain the germs of rebellion. p58

Ned Silverton was probably smoking the cigarette of young despair in his bedroom. p60

With so much time to talk and no definite object to be led up to, she could taste the rare joys of mental vagrancy. p69

"Haven't I told you that your genius lies in converting impulses into intentions?" p69

"Names can alter the colour of beliefs." p73

"It seems to me," Mrs. Trenor feelingly concluded, "that most of her alimony is paid by other women's husbands!" p82

It is less mortifying to believe one's self unpopular than insignificant, and vanity prefers to assume that indifference is a latent form of unfriendliness. p128

She had the innocence of a schoolgirl who regards wickedness as a part of "history" and to whom it never occurs that the scandals she reads of in lesson-hours may be repeating themselves in the next street. p129

The civilized instinct finds a subtler pleasure in making use of its antagonist than in confounding him. p134

She was in disfavor with that portion of society which, while contributing least to its amusement, has assumed the right to decide what forms that amusement shall take. p136

All he asked was that the very rich should live up to their calling as stage managers and not spend their money in a dull way. p138

"The only way I can help you is by loving you." p144

"Ah, love me, love me--but don't tell me so!" p145

"Life's too short to spend it breaking in new people." p145

The scene in the Brys' conservatory had been like a part of her dreams; she had not expected to wake to such evidence of its reality. p146

The culminating moment of her triumph, the moment when she had read in his eyes that no philosophy was proof against her power. p147

She looked old; and when a girl looks old to herself, how does she look to other people? p189

And suddenly, as Seldon noted the fine shades of manner by which she harmonized herself with her surroundings, it flashed on him that to need such adroit handling, the situation must indeed be desperate. p201

How any one could come to such a damned hole as the Riviera--any one with a grain of imagination--with the whole Mediterranean to choose from. p201

Grotesque? Yes--and tragic--like most absurdities. p202

Moral complications existed for her only in the environment that had produced them... They lost their reality when they changed their background. p205

It was characteristic of her to feel that the only problems she could not solve were those with which she was familiar. p206

If he clung to her, it was not in order to be dragged up, but to feel some one floundering in the depths with him: he wanted her to suffer with him, not to help him suffer less. p213

Who but Seldon could thus miraculously combine the skill to save Bertha with the obligation of doing so? p215

"What is truth? Where a woman is concerned, it's the story that's easiest to believe." p237

"You asked me just now for the truth; well, the truth about any girl is that once she's talked about she's done for; and the more she explains her case the worse it looks. My good Gerty, you don't happen to have a cigarette about you?" p238

Little as she was addicted to solitude, there had come to be moments when it seemed a welcome escape from the empty noises of her life. p254

"I don't know two women less predestined to intimacy--from Bertha's standpoint, that is; for of course poor Mattie thinks it natural enough that she should be singled out; I've no doubt the rabbit always thinks it is fascinating the anaconda." p265

But the idealist subdued to vulgar necessities must employ vulgar minds to draw the inferences to which he cannot stoop. p266

It was easy enough to despise the world but decidedly difficult to find any other habitable region. p276

If she slipped, she recovered her footing, and it was only afterward that she was aware of having recovered each time on a slightly lower level. She had rejected Rosedale's offer without conscious effort; her whole being had risen against it; and she did not yet perceive that by the mere act of listening to him she had learned to live with ideas which would once have been intolerable to her. p277

Every step she took seemed in fact to carry her farther from the region where, once or twice, he and she had met for an illumined moment; and the recognition of this fact, when its first pang had been surmounted, produced in him a sense of negative relief. It was much simpler for him to judge Miss Bart by her habitual conduct than by the rare deviations from it which had thrown her so disturbingly in his way; and every act of hers which made the recurrence of such deviations mure unlikely confirmed the sense of relief with which he returned to the conventional view of her. p287

The situation between them was one which could have been cleared up only by a sudden explosion of feeling, and their whole training and habit of mind were against the chances of such an explosion. p294

However doubtful she might feel her situation to be, she would rather persist in darkness than owe her enlightenment to Seldon. p297

The smile with which she summed up her case was like a clear barrier raised against farther confidences; its brightness held him at such a distance that he had a sense of being almost out of hearing. p297

Since she had been brought up to be ornamental, she could hardly blame herself for failing to serve any practical purpose. p315

Call it blackmail and it becomes unthinkable; but explain that it injures no one and that the rights regained by it were unjustly forfeited, and he must be a formalist indeed who can find no plea in its defense. p318

Inherited tendencies had combined with early training to make her the highly specialized product she was: an organism as helpless out of its narrow range as the sea-anemone torn from the rock. p319

One of the surprises of her unoccupied state was the discovery that time, when it is left to itself and no definite demands are made on it, cannot be trusted to move at any recognized pace. p321

All her resentment of his fancied coldness was swept away in this overwhelming rush of recollection. Twice he had been ready to help her--to help her by loving her, as he had said--and if, the third time, he had seemed to fail her, whom but herself could she accuse? Well, that part of her life was over; she did not know why her thoughts still clung to it. But, the sudden longing to see him remained; it grew to hunger as she paused on the pavement opposite his door. The street was dark and empty, swept by the rain. She had a vision of his quiet room, of the bookshelves, and the fire on the hearth. She looked up and saw a light in his window; then she crossed the street and entered the house. p322

In her strange state of extra-lucidity, which gave her the sense of being already at the heart of the situation, it seemed incredible that any one should think it necessary to linger in the conventional outskirts of word-play and evasion. p324

"But I may not see you again for a long time, and I wanted to tell you that I have never forgotten the things you said to me at Bellomont and that sometimes--sometimes when I seemed farthest from remembering them--they have helped me, and kept me from mistakes, kept me from really becoming what many people have thought me." p326

"There is some one I must say goodbye to. Oh, not you--we are sure to see each other again--but the Lily Bart you knew. I have kept her with me all this time, but now we are going to part, and I have brought her back to you; I am going to leave her here. When I go out presently, she will not go with me. I shall like to think that she has stayed with you; and she'll be no trouble, she'll take up no room." She went toward him, and put out her hand, still smiling. "Will you let her stay with you?" She asked. p328

She could feel the countless hands of habit dragging her back into some fresh compromise with fate. p340

last night's episode was stellar btw

Man Men have Twitter accounts... Even Cosgrove!

last night: los angeles plays itself

Finally saw (on the big screen) Los Angeles Plays Itself over at the Aero theater. QandA with Thom Anderson following. Worth every penny, every mile over the 10 travelled, and every block away from the front doors we had to park (because it's fucking Santa Monica).

last night: jenny lewis at the echo

I'd forgotten how much I dislike all-ages shows. Still, Jenny was a treat. As always. Her new album sounds even better than her last one.

Since I'm not in the habit of taking photos with my cell phone while at concerts (insert snide remark about people who do take photos with their cell phone at concerts), above is a picture of the (once upon a time) heart-shaped balloon I grabbed on my way out with the title of the new album stenciled onto it. If you don't know who Jenny Lewis is, look her up. She is sweet and wonderful. Her music either makes me want to dance or want to nap peacefully under a tree.

jeffery donovan (told ya!)

Angelina Oscar bait to be sure. But what interests me about this trailer is the male lead. Um, Jeffery Donovan? YES. You're on your way my man. (Totally called it.)

some kids have all the luck

I can't decide if I really hate her or really like her.

freestyle battle translated

turn the other cheek?

NML sent me this in the body of a petition addressed to Barak Obama.

I tend to be all about the fight. Aggression is fun. But do I want that in a leader? I don't know. See subject line.

my show!

Presenting the efforts of my current workday.

joey's book

Lockpick Pornography (the book) is now available as a free pdf. This is exciting. It's a decent book. A first book, to be sure, but filled with such classic lines as:

"It feels good to smash the TV, though. It feels like I'm participating in the political system."

And:

"I stand there wondering why I let my knowledge that violence only makes things worse prevent me from being violent."

And that's just the first page!

Dre, if you're out there, I think you should read this book.

howard zinn = the man

Zoe sent me this.

"However strong a military machine it is, power does not ultimately depend on a military machine... Ultimately power rests on the moral legitimacy of a system and the United States has been losing moral legitimacy."

the week so far in television

Mad Men continues to delight. And my man Cosgrove finally got an actual storyline! Huzzah!

True Blood is a faithful (if grittier and HBO-ified) adaptation of the book series. Anna Paquin is annoying at first, but somewhere along the lines you start to believe her in this role. Like io9 says, she pulls off virginal in a way most other actresses can't. And the character is supposed to be (to quote my mother, who's actually read all the books) "awkward," so in theory she completely works. I had seen the unfinished leaked pilot a while ago and was less than impressed. But they changed the intro (for the better) and they recast the role of Tara (you're still not going to like her, but trust me: soooo much better than the original actress) and somehow the aired version comes together surprisingly well. Ultimately, I will be tuning in next week, if only out of sheer curiosity. TWOP sums it up thusly:

Sure, the books are cute, who doesn't like the books? (My favorite part of the books so far are the lack of skin-sparkles and spine-devouring devil-babies with retarded names.) [A reference to the Twilight saga.]
Mostly I just like the idea: What do you do? What would you do? Now, of all times, I'm excited about watching the story of people who are present for a cultural change of sweeping intensity. Terrifying -- the apocalypse always is -- potentially gratifying, certainly edifying. This is a story about the moment everything changes.
There's something there for everybody, because it's not really about what the vampires are, their themness, because they've got it under control: they've been vampiring around behind your back forever. It's about what happens to us when things change, which is really the only story there ever is.

Terminator, season 2, premiered with a bang last night. If memory serves, I do believe there were three major car accidents in the course of about three minutes (if that), in addition to finally getting to see the aftermath of the FBI bloodbath, having our wacky robot teenage girl from the future turn bad (due to getting blown up) and chase our intrepid heroes all over the damn place with intent to kill, the chick from Garbage (no joke) cameo-ing as a Terminator 2 style evil villain CEO/men's urinal (no joke), and said wacky robot teenage girl from the future, when about to bite the big one, declaring her love for our male lead (who, in the end, brings her back to life while holding his own mother at gunpoint in order to do so). All of this culminating in John Connor going all Keri Russell while his mom breaks down on the other side of the locked bathroom door and tells him "happy birthday." Ha. I love me some ludicrously action packed FOX shows.

And to end this on an even more frivilous note than all of the above combined, TWOP's response to last night's Gossip Girl: "In order to keep her Lord boyfriend, Blair has to blackmail his bitchy Duchess step-mom, who is conveniently sleeping with Nate. We really missed this show." Oy. Sometimes ironic trash is... still trash. But funny! Very very funny trash. And laughing makes you live longer.

i'm either the cat or the girl

Has there ever been a cartoon that has described me better?

...Sigh.

the hype machine

Laura sent me a link to this article. I say: read Roland Barthes. I say: you can never win.

I say: NML once told me she "hates all music." And at the time I thought "Yes. Good. Carve yourself a little island out of this bullshit ocean. Pretend the waters don't even exist."

paging liz lemon

How much longer must I hold my breath for 30 Rock's return? Guest stars for the beginning of this upcoming season now include: Will Arnett, Jennifer Aniston, Oprah and the cast of Gossip Girl.

they sound like they work for nasa, don't they?

Ah man. Remember Leeroy Jenkins? (I swear, this is the stuff that gets brought up in writers rooms)

tree of smoke by denis johnson

Let the extraneous quoting continue!

You'll notice by the sheer number of quotes here that my inclination was to underline and transcribe the entire book. I came this close. In the end, I settled for the following.

“I came across this ocean and died. They might as well bring back my bones. I’m all different.” P12

“This world spits out a beautiful man like was poison.” P15

“Let your doubt be your calling. Then your doubt will be invisible. You’ll inhabit it like an atmosphere.” P21

He spoke as if he were teaching. As if nobody ever learned anything. P23

Hao made out the colonel’s intent, and, Yes, he wanted to agree, it’s all simply water coursing into larger and the still larger seas, and only what we do in this moment can save us… His vocabularly allowed him to say, “It’s true. I think so. Yes.” P24

Listening for his murderers. P27

It had been long enough since he’d stopped attending classes that he didn’t know anymore what he was saying. P 29

Look at you, he thought, from your births to your deaths only exile, wandering, war. P30

In fact he was no longer persuaded that blood and revolution made useful tools for altering the concepts in a person’s mind. Who said it? – probably Confucius- “I can’t beat a sculpture from a stone with a sledgehammer; I can’t free the soul of a man by violence.” Peace was here, peace was now. Peace promised in any other time or place was a lie. P32

“These people are like demented children.” P42

“War is ninety percent myth anyway, isn’t it? In order to prosecute our own wars we raise them to the level of human sacrifice, don’t we, and we constantly invoke our God. It’s got to be about something bigger than dying, or we’d all turn deserter. I think we need to be much more conscious of that. I think we need to be invoking the other fellow’s gods too. And his devils, his aswang. He’s more scared of his gods and his devils and his aswang than he’ll ever be of us.” P54

“I’m religious about my cigars. Otherwise… religion? No. It’s more than religion. It’s the goddamn truth.” P56

“It’s Armageddon by proxy.” P57

“Sometimes I wonder if it isn’t the goddamn Alamo. This is a fallen world.” P57

“I’m a patriot. I believe in liberty and justice for all. I’m not sophisticated anough to be ashamed of that.” P57

“Eddie Aguinaldo,” the colonel said, “is the Filipino equivalent of a goddamn liar. Any other questions?” p59

The colonel said, “I went to Alaska once, you know. I toured the Alaska-Canada road they built there during the war. Fantastic. Not the road, the landscape. The mighty road was just this insignificant little scratch across that landscape. You’ve never seen a world like that. It belongs to the God who was God before the Bible… God before he woke up and saw himself… God who was his own nightmare. There is no forgiveness there. You make one tiny mistake and that landscape grinds you into a bloody smudge, and I do mean right now, sir.” P63

“St. Paul says there is one God, he confirms that, but he says, ‘There is one God, and many administrations.’ I understand that to mean you can wander out of one universe and into another just by pointing your feet and forward march. I mean you can come to a land where the fate of human beings is completely different from what you understood it to be. And this utterly different universe is administered through the earth itself. Up through the dirt, goddman it.” P63

His love for his country, his homeland, was a love for the United States of America in the summertime. P65

Did he realize? He’d offered his nickname. Trouble would never touch him again in this town. P82

She wasn’t steady, and he expected her to fall off into the dark. P98

The dry season hadn’t come yet, but it didn’t rain. P99

But good or bad, a strong man causes trouble. P107

The visitor, sitting on the bench among them in his khaki pants, his dirty white T-shirt, shone forth as if he were the last American, sincere, friendly, a close listener, but at the very center of his eyes a terrified loneliness. P111

“You can put me on a nice clean desert anytime you want to. It’s honest heat there, ain’t it? It’s dry and burning.” P122

She had nothing in this world but her two hands and her crazy love for Jesus, who seemed, for his part, never to have heard of her. P139

Skip stared at the ranks of the players. Men who raced from the benches to collide with one another in joyful bloodshed. Who let themselves be hammered and rounded into cops and warriors and lived in a world completely inaccessible to women and children. They stared back at him. An old ache sang its song. Only child of a widowed mother. Somehow he’d entered their world without becoming a man. P155 (while staring at a photo of notre dame football players)

More grown-up, but not in a good way; instead in a way that reminded him of middle age. P166

He rushed through an hour like a physical thing, a hallway. P166

War and war and war like a series of typhoons against their lives, and now, on the other side of it all, a distant peak of safety, a place to travel toward. P178

He’d always had a dogged sincereity, but this was deeper. His silences were searches. They were inspiring. “There’s been a lie told. I’ve told it. I’m going to let truth reclaim me. If I can’t survive that process, so be it.” P181

Why hadn’t he know he could hurt this giant? So ignorant of these older men: Why don’t I have a father? P185

“Philosphical obsessions win wars.” P188

“Did you graduate?”
“Fuck no,” Jimmy said. “Do I look like a graduate of anything?” p191

“Is this an interrogation?” the colonel said. “Then let’s have cocktails.” P193

“The land is their myth. We penetrate the land, we penetrate their national soul.” P194

“It’s obscene-isn’t it obscene?-to take something that reaches down and rips at your heart, and call it a ‘domestice dispute.’” P195

He was like that, that’s all, mostly when he drank, which was most of the time; otherwise he was just mostly young and mostly stupid, like most of the rest of them. P219

Recovering to the third dimension the flattened cardboard boxes. P228

Sometimes he heard distant choppers, fighters, bombers, and felt himself captured in a rainbow bubble of irrelevance. P231

“Come on,” Evans said, “we’re in a war. We’re men.” P235

Now that he’d come to where the humidity was awful and the beer cheap and infinite, he really understood beer’s meaning and its purpose. P236

“Believe it or not, I like it better here. In this country there’s nothing left but the truth.” P240

May Christ stay his feet till the last soul on earth be saved. The last soul saved might be one of her boys. Of that there was every indication. P260

Prayer was all she had. Prayer and Nescafe and Salems. This was the only time of day she didn’t feel crazy. P260

“The people’s thirst for freedom has driven us to drink bad water.” P264

He’d concluded that wanting something was generally less painful than hauling it. P282

They were glad to hear Hanson’s voice talking about this very moment as if it could be understood and maybe even survived. P287

But now this big-headed, half-faced tragic miracle stuck in the breach, coming out already ravaged by the strife. P288

And Minh often felt of the Americans that behind their actions lay no thoughts anyway, only passions. P299

“When the world ends, and Jesus comes down in a cloud of glory and all that shit, it’ll be the second most incredible thing that ever happened to me. Because I will remember that night at the Purple Bar.” P310

“Meanwhile, I’m a pogue. Reading Dickens, as you know.”
“And Ian Ian Fleming. Sorry I couldn’t get the Tolstoy.”
“Anything big and fat, or full of suave secret agents.”
“Have you read Shell Scott?”
“Sure. You mean the series. Richard S. Prather.”
“What about Mickey Spillane?”
“Everything. A dozen times.”
“Henry Miller?”
“Can you get Henry Miller?”
“He’s legal now. He went to court. I’ll get you Henry Miller.”
“Get me Tropic of Capricorn. I’ve read Tropic of Cancer.”
“I didn’t like Cancer. Boring. Capricorn’s really good.”
“Wow. I didn’t know you stayed so current.” P339

Skip felt his mouth hanging open as he regarded his uncle--drunk, obsolete--absolutely unkillable. P342

Cherry Loot told Sergeant Burke, “I’m gonna make the best of this fuck-a-monkey show. Don’t mean fuck to me if it’s illegal, unjustified, and sinful. Today we’re heroes, tomorrow we’re the Nazis. You never know. Nobody on this ball knows shit.” P346

The Cherry Loot didn’t seem the least bit cherry. He didn’t know what country he was in, but he was at home in the universe. P346

In the glory of war, in the bliss of combat, in the truth of war we see that might makes right. And that our respect for principles is based on eloquence and superstition. P356

He’d passed three weeks in the Phoenix lockup awaiting trial on a charge of assault and found nothing behind bars to complain about. They served you three meals there and the people were decent—criminals, maybe, but sober and well-fed criminals didn’t behave too badly. Anywhere but his mother’s house. Her zealous hope of Heaven made it hell there. P358

Did he need a lawyer? He doubted it. The woman had burned her way into his heart, but two weeks hardly counted. He didn’t intend to complicate the adventure with a divorce. P359

With all that had come along to disillusion him, the dismal realities of his work, it lit up his heart to be called a “spy.” P360

These were the thoughts that ravaged him as he tried to figure out how to deal with his overwhelming happiness and lust, his buzzing fingertips, clenched heart, dizziness. Not that he thought she’d mind a pass, but she was nuts—at the very least complicated—hidden-wounded, phony-cynical, overpassionate. Definitely angry. P364

(In regards to sex:) As in the time in Damulog, they didn’t speak. Everything they did was a secret, especially from each other. P365

She wasn’t, herself, beautiful. Her moments were beautiful. P366

“Disaster’s just around the corner. For a lot of people it’s already here. It’s a terrible, terrible situation. You get used to it and plod along, then one day you wake up and you’re not used to it anymore. Then after a while you get used to it all over again.” P367

Then remorse crushed him physically, the blood pounded in his head, he struggled for breath—he hadn’t called, hadn’t written, left her to ride to her death on a gurney all alone in helplessly polite apologetic Midwestern confusion and fear. P395

He didn’t want her, but something like this was necessary. He’d learned on these operations that he came as a predator, he must violate the land, he must prey upon its people, he must commit some small crime in propitiation of the gods of darkness. Then they’d let him enter. P408

“We are absolutely thoroughly prepared for one year ago.” P409

“And—Dirk.”
“Yes, Charles.”
“It’s a war. Go ahead and use a gun.” P424

Skip was aware of feeling as a child before an adult—before his mother, for instance, in her fits of loneliness—of wanting only to get through the moment, waiting to hear, That’s all, you can go, waiting for an end to this violating intimacy. P428

“So one minute I want to be a natural woman, and ten seconds after I’ve been one, behaved like one, I want to run away to God. Whom I don’t like that much, I like you better.” P436

Without the fact of the colonel looming between his sight and these Americans, they stood up clearly as empty, confused, sincere, stupid—infant monsters carrying loaded weapons. The idea that they fought on anyone’s side was foolish. P438

To be outsiders had made them close as only children are close, without any sense that time could shake them loose from one another. P442

Skip preferred the myth. It told the truth. P450

But I entered a land where my mother was dead and all others pretended not to be. My legs carried me over the mountain, but I never got home. P467

A few days later sorrow attacked him again as he realized the old man was still dead. As if some part of him had believed his father could die and later one could visit him and talk about it. P473

Fest resented that the scenario seemed to center on the cleanup operation rather than on the actual killing. P475

Well, you were sad about the kids for a while, for a month, two months, three months. You’re sad about the kids, sad about the animals, you don’t do the women, you don’t kill the animals, but after that you realize this is a war zone and everybody here lives in it. You don’t care whether these people live or die tomorrow, you don’t care whether you yourself live or die tomorrow, you kick the children aside, you do the women, you shoot the animals. P504

The mission had made sense until it had been accomplished. P513

There was a line. He’d bully young kids and he’d steal from them, he might even have stabbed one if he’d had to. But he’d never deal drugs. P517

“Right there I kind of agree with you, James. I don’t really think it’s highly advisable to turn you loose on the United States. I’d say keep you right here till you get killed. But if it ain’t bass-ackwards, it ain’t the U.S. Army, is it?” p523

He was pretty sure he would eventually shoot the woman living across the way but he felt there was nothing any human power could do about it. P527

Patterson explained that robbing a casino out in the desert, in the night, would have some of the quality of warfare. James said, “All right.” P529

But he enjoyed losing, enjoyed a sort of righteous lethargy while he curled in a ball and somebody kicked him in the head and back and legs, enjoyed lying with his face in his own blood while voices cried, “Stop it! That’s enough! You’re killing him! You’re killing him!” because they were wrong. They hadn’t come anywhere close to killing him. P538

There was no use carrying a gun. You were always outnumbered. P565

The rain stopped. It didn’t matter—sweat or rain, he’d be wet. P565

Somewhere along the odyssey of years he’d negotiated a crossing without acknowledging its keeper or paying its necessary tribute. You don’t recognize these entities for what they are until after the crossing. Until after the dissemblances dissolve. P591

“Here in this area, where the trees are so tall, where the vehicles cannot come, where no one comes, this area is quite different. God is dealing with them differently in this area.” P593

She suddenly remembered a time when the question of her own survival hadn’t interested her even marginally. That glorious time. P597

“Once upon a time there was a war.” P602

He was impressive at a glance. Prowess, a word she’d never used, came immediately to mind. Dangerous, but not to women and children. That type. P610

And Kathy reflected, certainly not for the first time, that the war hadn’t been only and exclusively terrible. It had delivered a sense, at first dreadful, eventually intoxicating, that something wild, magical, stunning might come from the next moment, death itself might erupt from the fabric of this very breath, unmasked as a friend; and she mourned the passing of a time when, sitting in a C-5A Galaxy airplane as it bounced into paddies suddenly as solid as rock, hearing the aluminum fuselage tear itself into jags and swords, she’d pitied only the children around her and regretted only the failure to get them out of the war, when breaking her own legs had meant not shock or pain, but only bitterness that she couldn’t help the others. P612

SPOILER ALERT. The final paragraph of the book (which, if you plan on reading this book, I beg you not to read the last paragraph here because how much more powerful and fulfilling it is when at the end of such a long journey) is thus:

She sat in the audience thinking—someone here has cancer, someone has a broken heart, someone’s soul is lost, someone feels naked and foreign, thinks they once knew the way but can’t remember the way, feels stripped of armor and alone, there are people in this audience with broken bones, others whose bones will break sooner or later, people who’ve ruined their health, worshipped their own lies, spat on their dreams, turned their backs on their true beliefs, yes, yes, and all will be saved. All will be saved. All will be saved. P614

life is hard

Whatever you have to say about John Mayer (I prefer saying nothing at all about the guy - or else just nothing good), you have to admit he's got a sense of humor.

See more John Mayer videos at Funny or Die

in defense of hamlet 2

It was damn funny. Also, it both began and ended with a dig about Tucson (ha!). I don't always care for Steve Coogan much, but he makes this role work. Catherine Keener and Amy Poehler never go wrong. And Elizabeth Shue... Oh Elizabeth Shue. She rocked my world. Almost more than Jesus did.

a crazy scotsman

Flipping through the July 28, 2008 issue of Time, I came across the article "How to Save Afghanistan" written by Rory Stewart. It's a good piece. It inspired me to go back and re-read his two books--The Places In Between and The Prince of the Marshes--because they are both those profound sort of nonfiction reads that come around so rarely as to make them practically endangered.

If you don't want to read the whole article, here are a couple pieces from it:

"Afghanistan produces 92% of the world's opium (used to make heroin) and 35% of its cannabis and has a flourishing trade in looted antiquities."

"Many of these problems cannot be solved by the West, however many billions we spend or thousands of troops we deploy. Our money and expertise, which have helped make the central bank and the Afghan National Army professional and competent , cannot prevent the wide-spread corruption in the police and legal system. A central bank is relatively small, dealing with narrow issues such a currency and interest rates on which international economists can offer practical, technical advice. An army is able to develop its esprit de corps and drills in barracks, isolated from the broader society. But policemen and judges are much more connected to society and much more exposed to local politics and corruption. This is why most developing countries have relatively effective central banks and armies but corrupt and despised police forces. It's also why every one finds it easier to build roads than to create rule of law, easier to build a school than a state. Afghans deal with most crimes outside the court system, using a traditional leader as an arbitrator. No amount of legal training can help a judge faced with drug lords who are prepared to kill his family. It is almost impossible for outsiders to reform this kind of system."

drunk history

How am I only just now finding out about this?! Talk about missing the boat.

okay this is mildly amusing

Help John McCain vet Sarah Palin. Hey, somebody's gotta.

for not liking this show i sure bring it up a lot

Best line in television so far this week, actually not said on television:

"What if you started writing fan fiction about some homo and his ex-girlfriend's cancer-ridden grandmother? Would you win the internet?"
-TWOP in regards to Gossip Girl

P.S. Gawker makes a good point about this show. No matter what it does from here on out, it will never be as good as the AD CAMPAIGN.

in excelsis deo part deux

Rick Cleveland is going to be writing on my show! Guys! This is HUGE! When I was 15 he was my HERO!

Question: When he comes into the office for the first time... do I tell him?

mccarthy was on oprah?

Helen DeWitt on punctuation.

"It's hard to be sane. One tries not to write about King Charles' head. It was good to see the interview."