What a strange feeling to meet people in the corporeal world that you previously knew only in the virtual one. How awkward to introduce yourself by name, then by blog?
Apologies to XO for having to ask twice for your name. I was honored to be in the presence of so much talent -- Greg, Michelle, Spyder, HIB, mToast, Cara and Eric.
I'm just sorry I had to leave early, but as I said family obligations demanded I head home early. I'll have to wait to see if that coward Tony showed up.
Anyway, it was great to meet you all, even the guys from The Pitch.
I've commented about RiffTrax, the video companions produced by the writers from MST3k. And I've mentioned Chad Vader in previous YouTube Tuesday features.
All of the comments I've heard about the story are true. It is dismal, and tragic and bleak. In fact, saying this story is bleak is like saying the Pope is a little bit Catholic. It's like calling Larry Moore "mature" (had to get a Larry Moore dig in there).
This is a raw cheerless book. And yet somehow, after consuming it in about a day and a half (I do have a job unfortunately) I wasn't depressed at all. In fact, quite the opposite.
In case you haven't heard about it yet, the story follows the struggles of an unnamed man and his young son as they trudge through a post-apocalyptic America on their way to the coast and what they hope will be a better life. Along the way, they face threats from starvation, freezing, sickness and (gulp) cannibals.
It seemed to me McCarthy was attempting to strip away everything but the essence of existence. He peeled off the unnecessary layers of luxury, money, success, power, religion (though not necessarily spirituality) and cheap sentimentality in an attempt to discuss the core issues of why we are here.
Reflective of this philosophy, the writing is sparse, like the landscape it is describing. Anything unessential has been left out -- even to the point of eliminating some punctuation and parts of sentences.
This is all to illustrate that there is one thing important in this story: The relationship between the man and his son. In the world that McCarthy has conjured, there is no reason to go on living other than their love for each other. They are "each other's world entire" as McCarthy writes.
And this is the hope and beauty of the story set in an altogether ugly world. That at the heart of everything, taking away all of that which we think is important, in the end love is what will sustain us.
There was much symbolism around the nature of God, good and evil, and all manner of ethical questions that smarter people than I will get into.
But for me, the book wasn't depressing. In fact, when I finished the final pages my only thought was that I wanted to pick up my 4-year-old daughter and give her a long hug.
And that's what I did.
Rating: Highly recommended PS - I was remiss in omitting these excellent and insightful posts about The Road by other of the smartest bloggers I know:
The following IM conversation took place between 11:30 p.m. and 11:59 p.m. Saturday between myself and Xavier Onassis from HSWG.
And yes, on second thought, it is quite lame.
XO: Are you coming to the blog meet on Tuesday?
EmawKC: Still unsure. I may have family coming into town. EmawKC: Of course they are in-laws, so it might be good to "get out of the house for a while"
XO: LOL! We used to call that "Going to Casey's". Could take anywhere from 15 minutes to 2 hours. No questions asked.
EmawKC: :clap: EmawKC: What time you gonna get there?
XO: Well, I'll keep an eye out for a chain smoking chimp. XO: I work down town so I will probably be the first one there. 5ish.
EmawKC: I just want to make sure you have a chance to buy me that scotch
XO: Hey, bub! I think you're having a dyslexic moment! XO: LOL!
EmawKC: Yeah, I guess I owe you a bourbon too.
XO: Actually, I'd be honored to buy you a drink. You were one of my very first commentors. Ever. And you can get off easy and buy me a coke. I don't drink and drive.
EmawKC: Me neither. I plan on taking Clay Chastain's new gondola home that night.
XO: ROFLMAO!!! Nothing like a drunkin gondola ride to cap off a blog meet!
EmawKC: What I don't get is how their going to dig a Venice-style canal from Union Station to Overland Park.
XO: LOL! What I don't get is where the demand originates for a light rail connection from the zoo to the airport! WTF???
XO: Hello. My name is Klaus. I just flew in from Berlin. This is my first time in the United States. What is the quickest way to get to the Swope Park Zoo? XO: Do you have any, how you say, gondolas?
EmawKC: "I got your gondolas right here!"
XO: EEEWWW!! LOL!
EmawKC: Overheard in Westport: "Dude, check out that chick's huge gondolas"
XO: LOL!
EmawKC: Now that I think about it, "gondola's" is a pretty funny word.
XO: Yeah, it is. Has a lot of possibilities. Sounds like post fodder.
EmawKC: DIBS!
XO: You got it dude!
Here's the time and place for the blogger meetup. Be there or be somewhere else entirely:
Tuesday, April 17th Happy Hour until ???? Harry’s Country Club (Harry’s in the River Market, NOT Harry’s in Westport) 112 Missouri Ave Kansas City, MO 64106
This seems to make a lot of sense. I think this actress who played this character turned out to be gay. So maybe I really am a lesbian trapped in a man's body.
You Are Most Like Miranda!
While you've had your fair share of romance, men don't come first Guys are a distant third to your friends and career. And this independence *is* attractive to some men, in measured doses. Remember that if you imagine the best outcome, it might just happen.
Romantic prediction: Someone from your past is waiting to reconnect...
But you'll have to think of him differently, if you want things to work.
And I for one couldn't be happier. It's not that I really care what happens to Imus, or freedom of speech, or racial equality or the hypocrisy of cultural leaders or that the traumatized members of the Rutgers women's basketball team can now begin the process of healing and trying to avoid the fate of becoming crack whores because of the debilitating abuse of an old white geezer.
What I'm most grateful for is that now that our long national nightmare is over -- a nightmare that the mediots dutifully pasted wall-to-wall across the 24-hour news cycle -- we can begin to focus once again on the other important stories of the day.
As you can see, we've got a lot to worry about. But at least Don Imus won't be darkening the 9-11 terrestrial AM radio frequencies of irrelevance anymore.
They don't post any commentary, instead opting to go out on a limb with the press release issued by the Neslon-Atkins Museum of Art, but the images the feature are pretty amazing.
I'm not sure whether it's good or bad that I'm just now learning about this Don Imus fiasco.
I have F-Bombs and Dan to thank for cluing me in (interesting how I'm learning about the "news" from bloggers now).
If you're clueless like me, here's the 411: Don Imus is in Dutch with the Blacks because he referred to the Rutgers women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hos". Offended Blacks and the PC Police want him fired for using the racial slur "nappy".
Dan throws in with Jason (half)Whitlock who notes that this is much ado about not very much and that "the gangsta rappers and their followers in the athletic world have far bigger platforms to negatively define us than some old white man with a bad radio show."
I don't really have room to complain. I've got a good job, wonderful family, nice house, tons of hipness.
But being this awesome does have its drawbacks.
For one thing, I don't have as much time for free reading as I used to have. That's why it has taken me two months to read the 375 pages of Ross King's The Judgment of Paris, which has been on my reading list since at least last August.
I was interested in this book for the subject matter (French art and the introduction of what became known as Impressionism), but also for the author. I had previously devoured King's Brunelleschi's Dome and was impressed with his ability to bring out the juice of history.
I wasn't disappointed in that regard with The Judgment of Paris. King has an ability to take the potentially dry dates and places of history and weave in the perspective and personality of the historical characters to make the events interesting and meaningful. In this way, for example, he connected the historical dots between the Battle of Puebla in Mexico (which gave us the Cincode Mayo celebration) with the plight of starving French artists in 1860s Paris.
The account stresses the interrelatedness of events, attitudes and people and the affects of all of these on the course of artistic endeavor. It's not what I would call your typical Sunday afternoon page turner. The stories take an effort by the reader to keep track of names and time lines.
But the effort is paid off in an added interest and understanding of how and why the painters listed above became known as Impressionists (a pejorative term when first coined by Parisian art critics). It also gives a view, through the lens of history, of the fleeting nature of fame and the fickle nature of cultural fashion.
It also speaks to to the universal tendency of one generation to deride the artistic heights of the previous. Just like there was a disco record burning in Caminsky Park, there were calls by some French art critics burn all of Meissonier's work. It's interesting how history repeats itself.
King expounds further in this clip from a book signing courtesy of ForaTV:
We've featured poetry on YouTube Tuesday before, so this isn't unprecedented. Unfortunately, the poetry pickings on YouTube are kind of slim. There are a couple of good Khalil Gibran joints, lots of poetry of the Def variety, but a lot of it is tough to get through.
But just because poetry is bad, doesn't mean it can't be entertaining. Take this YouTube Tuesday submission for example. This clip, from the 1958 teen B movie High School Confidential, features Phillipa Fallon as a beat poetess. And yes, you're right. That isJackie Coogan on piano behind her (you may remember him as Uncle Fester).
"Turn your eyes inside and dig the vacuum. Tomorrow... drag."
