Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Loose Knots

Apologies to regular readers. I haven't been on here much.

I started training bjj again regularly, but was sidelined last week with a persistent sinus infection. It has finally loosened its grasp on me, and I took a brief hike this morning in the local state park. It was an easy trail, but one of the most beautiful nature trails I've seen. It runs smack against various streams. There are plenty of bridges and beaver dams and sudden, unexpected, open fields. I wore my knee brace and brought walking poles with me, and my knee hardly seems to have been affected.

*

I finished Charles Portis's True Grit. An old Boston Globe review called it a perfect novel, and I agree. It is precise, warm, witty, and violent. There are enough slight digressions to make it feel human, while the pacing is brisk. Portis really knows how to work the language, how to make the words themselves a source of pleasure. He knows equally well how to give characters nuance and color.

Here's the breathless first paragraph:

"People do not give it credence that a fourteen-year-old girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avente her father's blood but it did not seem so strange then, although I will say it did not happen every day. I was just fourteen years of age when a coward going by the name of Tom Chaney shot my father down in Forth Smith, Arkansas, and robbed him of his life and his horse and $150 in cash money plus two California gold pieces that he carred in his trouser band."

This isn't music, so much. But the tension between the sounds of the words is masterful. A reading out loud will help reveal how dense the language is, given its simplicity.

I found myself laughing a lot while reading it. I tried to find some passages to read out loud to Jess so that she might understand, but all that I could find, when read out loud, sounded gruesome.

As Portis might put it, it is that kind of book.

*

My main goals now are to get back in shape and to get my teaching license so that I can start teaching high school English this fall. I am embracing the focus.

Additionally, homelife has been particularly good to me these past few weeks. I am a lucky man.

A walk around the house today reminded me of why we were drawn here. With a little heat and sunlight, the surrounding woods seem to hum. Already, this seems less the drab and dying place of an overlong winter, but a place of color and energy.

At the local state park, I stood alone in a vast field, with a bridge crossed stream on my right side on the mountains on my left. I lay down in the grass and let my sunstarved skin rest in the heat for a few minutes. I didn't feel, as I have recently, like a knot of sore joints. I felt ambitious, and eager to get back to the work of reading and writing.

*

For lunch, I made another various on Mark Bittman's anti-ramen soup, this time adding seaweed. Yesterday, I made it with carrots, celery, galanga paste, lemongrass, and fish sauce, along with the ingredients given in the recipe. It is a quick, easy, tasty lunch, and lends itself to leftovers or, in my case, veggies gone nearly bad.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

From Greensides into Darker: A Review of Bonnie "Prince" Billy's Beware

1. Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s new cd, Beware, was released on Tuesday and is perhaps the most anticipated recording of Will Oldham’s career. For those of you new to his music, I’ll give you the history in short. Oldham was a child actor and continues to occasionally appear in films. He took the photograph for the cover of Slint’s Spiderland album. He started recording under various Palace monikers – Palace Brothers, Palace Music, Palace Songs and, simply, Palace. He records under his own name, as well as under the name Bonnie “Prince” Billy. Famously reluctant to give interviews, Oldham was unexpectedly candid in a recent New Yorker profile. Oldham loves to visit hot springs and reportedly organizes his tours around them. This seems incidental, but if you were to attempt to explain his music to someone who hasn’t heard it before, the feeling of lying in a hot spring might be a good place to start. The music is circular and often spare. His voice is warbly and high, although when you hear him sing with other musicians, its clarity and resonance become apparent. Oldham is known for making his recordings with some of the band members unrehearsed. Sometimes, the musicians don’t hear the songs for the first time until they are actually being recorded.

2. I read something recently that suggested BPB isn’t driving music. When I used to drive a truck for a living, I often found myself hitting fast forward during his songs, even though I very much like them. There have a languid quality that makes the ride feel long and even claustrophobic. This is my first major point about Beware. You can drive to it. There is a steady, churning, insistent quality to the rhythms. BPB often counterpoises anachronism with the utterly contemporary. An example from the back catalogue: a loose, haunting piano waltz played against a drum machine is called, “You Have Cum in Your Hair and Your Dick is Hanging Out.” These counterbalancing tensions are found in other ways, and Beware is full of them: some of the musicians, particularly the backup singers, sound rehearsed and offer perfect, rich harmonies, while others play as though they are improvising. The lyrics are bald and almost uncomfortably honest, but, as with Oldham’s hero Merle Haggard, the precisely autobiographical blends into intimations of the Everyman and the Everyromance. The traveling rhythm I note above at times evokes trains or even wagons, but, on the songs where Oldham seems most inspired by Gram Parsons and Gordon Lightfoot, we are in the world of cars and open highways.

3. In fact, for his apparent archness, lyrically, Oldham seldom strays from basic themes of popular music: mostly sex, but God as well.

4. Few lyricists can be so blunt, and appear so cryptic. Much of this comes from the listener’s inability to determine what is lyrical (in the older sense, with an assumption of insight and autobiography), what is ironic, and what is ballad (again, in the older sense, involving a story). And, outside of the films of Eric Rohmer or the writings of Proust, you won’t likely find depictions of love so decentering. A rowdy song starts off promising for our young lover: “sometimes you like the smell of me or how my stomach jiggles/even if that smell is liquor . . . but you don’t love me.” Our anticipations are thwarted and we are disappointed as well. This man sounded so optimistic! But again, the unexpected: “that’s all right/because you cling to me/all through the night.”

5. Here is Oldham at his most Haggardesque: “I don’t belong to anyone/There’s no one who’ll take care of me/It’s kind of easy to have some fun/When you don’t belong to anyone.”

6. If this is the voice of Oldham or of his inventions, we’re not sure, but through the conflicted love, the lyrics convey a search for purpose: “if I follow the song I hear/will another come near,” “I’ll likely never know/The answer why/You are hello/I am goodbye.” The ambiguities between a personal search for the good life, the search for romance, and the search for transcendent meaning are often answered with a shrug and a turn to work itself, be it creative or otherwise. “Yeah work baby and all good things will gather/love to your buckets, to honor your father/and arms will hold you!”

7. I don’t want to waste time speculating on the title, but I will say this. A close listen to the music and a reading of the lyrics suggest what we might beware of: loneliness, pointlessness, and darkness of various sorts. I would have to imagine that the title adds tension to two words that recur throughout the songs: work and light. Given how prolific Oldham is, it isn't surpising to see work invoked as a stay against confusion. Yet it is clear that this work serves a higher purpose.

8. I also don’t want to waste time speculating on whether or not this will be the recording that pushes Oldham out of the constraints of a cult following into the mainstream. Listeners have known long enough that he belongs among the serious and challenging great American songwriters: Foster, Dylan, Haggard, and Hank Williams. I will say it’s a beautiful album that reveals more with each listen. I suspect it will seem a high watermark in the BPB canon.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Backburners on Fire!!!

When I left off working on the novel, the inevitable shake-up occured and I've been writing less in all arenas, including this blog. Now, after spending the morning working on applications for teaching jobs, I can at least offer hints of an update.

*

I spent Saturday at a judo seminar at Boston BJJ, and returned home to take Jess and the Dufflebag out for pho. The Dufflebag had never had Vietnamese food before, enjoyed it past measure. Nice to see how he's transformed from having a pickiness so profound that I heard about it before I met him to the current situation, where he's wondering why I'm holding off on frying up the eel housed in our freezer.

*

The new Will Oldham (Bonnie Prince Billy) cd, Beware, comes out tomorrow, and it will one of the few discs in the last five years or so that I'm so excited about that I'll pick up on the release date.

Check back for a review.

*

So, if I haven't been writing, what have I been doing?

Well, the applications are taking up some time. I put in three days of training last week -- about as much as I'd trained in the past three months. The knee feels sore when done, but healed the next day, and that's fine for now. I'm also enjoying bjj again, but I suppose that comes from not having the urgency of the novel pressing on me. It is a happier life without writing, I'll admit, although it feels somehow emptier.

I've continued to listen to music closely and with enjoyment in ways I haven't in years. For the past few days, I've set my ipod to play all my songs by The Fall and my interest is sustained.

*

You might note that there's not a lot of cooking going on. I'm still making dinner most of the time, but exercise, the job search, and a few photo jobs have pushed all that to my crooked little backburners.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

The Common Whore of Mankind

Is Karl Marx the first great intellectual of the twenty-first century?

Christopher Hitchens explains why this may be the case here.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

HVAC in the News

It isn't every day when you read about HVAC workers, particularly people who work on the supply end, so it's interesting to note that Michael McLendon, the Alabama man who murdered twelve people yesterday, not only was a former HVACer but went to two different supply houses while on his spree.

Since a small but significant percentage of the guys I knew in that field seemed capable of such an act, it comes as no surprise to me. This isn't to make light of a horrible situation, but a statement of fact.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Gator, Tater, Sprout Conclusion

I was more than pleasantly surprised by the fried gator. The best parts were the longer, thinner ones, which tasted very much like fried clams. The thicker ones tasted somewhere between chicken, pork, and tuna. I cooked them in the Fry Daddy after dipping the pieces in eggs and then dredging them in flour with fresh black pepper, salt, a cajun spice mix, and galanga powder.

The Dufflebag went for seconds.

I served it with with roasted potatoes and brussel sprouts, which I cooked with rosemary, paprika, garlic, salt and pepper and dressed in a mustard sauce. A simple dish that I've made before, but it always seems to work well and somehow manages to seem both healthy and hearty. Since I don't watch much tv other than cooking shows, it's nice to be reminded that simplicity is sometimes best. Of course, everyone knows this, but everyone also forgets.

Back to working on applications!

Gators, taters, and sprouts

I've decided to stop working on the novel this Sunday.

It is driving me nuts, the combination of putting my life on hold while, at the same time, only making the slightest progress with lots of effort. It doesn't mean I'm giving up on the novel, only that I'm putting it on the shelf while I start the job search in earnest. I also need to start exercising again. Imagine a strange, immobile sea creature that rests on the ocean floor, eating bits of stray fishbones and the occasional starfish. That creature? That's me right now.

This doesn't mean I'm done with the novel, only that I'm letting it ferment for a time while I take care of other matters of increasingly vital concern. It also means that I can start acting like a human being again, I hope.

*

I'm going to fry up the alligator I bought, frozen, weeks at SS Lobster and serve it with roasted potatoes and bean sprouts. I'll let you know how it goes.

Half a Loaf of CF

For the first time since taking up nanny duties, I overslept today, and the Dufflebag was late to school.

Normally, I naturally wake up at the right time, but daylight savings must have thrown me off, and the cats failed in their duties to rouse me. Typically, they go right at my face when it's time to play, but today, perhaps sensing the deepness of my sleeping, they were rolled up at my foot.

And it was a very deep sleep, fueled by camomile and late night writing.

I put his cereal in a bag for a snack and poured him a glass of milk, which he stared at for a few minutes before I finally told him to chuck it.

My car immediately got stuck in the snow, and I had to, on the spot and in a rush, teach him how to drive so that I could push. He ended up doing a good job. It was too difficult and dangerous to explain the rocking technique of rapidly switching from reverse to drive, I had him tap the gas while I pushed as hard as I could.

"Driving is harder than I expected," he told me.

"Well, that's why you see so many bad drivers," I said, slipping into my grumpy old man mode.

The car extracted, the day began.

Monday, March 9, 2009

Fried Feet

My attempt to capitalize on Charlie's departure as the opportunity to write all hermit-like hasn't quite worked. Because of the snow, school was let out early. And, tomorrow, I have to wait around for a mattress to be delivered. Jess bought one -- the old one is so spent that we dream of sleeping on stormy seas.

But I'm determined to get through this draft. I'm drinking tea and gearing up for another hour or so of editing. TV off. Radio on.

I've been out of money for a few days. For dinner, I sliced some pickles and put them on the sourdough, with mustard and horseradish. Humble and good, but it made me want to eat fried chicken feet.

My tax refund overdue, I checked the IRS website and got an update. They claimed my refund, citing a law that allowed them to do so to if I owed money for child support or to the state or federal governments.

Since I certainly don't owe child support and thought I'd paid all taxes, I was surprised. Surprised, meaning it felt like a brick fell on my head. I needed that money. According to the site, they are sent me a letter today detailing the reasons why my paltry refund got crabbed. We'll see what new joys it brings later this week.

Plant Life

I've returned home to bake the bread. It didn't rise nearly as much as I hoped. It seems that the crust already hardened too much, even though I liberally coated it with olive oil.

It smells good. I suspect it will taste good. But it won't be what I'm after.

*

The snow continues to fall and it took me forty-five minutes to get back from Fitchburg, not even counting the multiple times I got stuck in Charlie's driveway. Last Monday it snowed, and I couldn't teach. I've been itching to get in and train, but I might have to cancel again.

*

For lunch, I sliced up the rest of the fennel, quartered some radishes, put them on a bed of spinach, and sprinkled the top with a fistful of carrots. This winter has killed me: bad knees, heavy food, lots of sitting down to read and write. I'm trying to switch to eating more plant life. I love eating plant life, thankfully.

I dressed the salad with some thai peanut sauce, combined with rice vinegar. It was luxurious, and I wish I had thought of doing it yesterday, since it easily topped the lousy store-bought yogurt and parmasan gloop we tried.

Cat Sat

Charlie is away at a conference, so I'm house sitting for him. His skittish cat took to me right away and we're both in the living room, keeping warm from the snow.

I'm hoping that the relative isolation will allow me a half day's concentrated effort on the novel. I've got about three to four hours before I have to pick up the Dufflebag, bake the bread, and head off to teach tonight.

*

Speaking of the bread, I was worried that my sourdough would rise because I went off recipe and substituted wheat for white flour. Supporting my theory that the house has bread goblins that do my work for me when I'm asleep, the dough had risen even more than the white when I checked this morning. A good sign, indeed.

Acid People

Jess came along on my photo trip today. We ended up driving for six hours -- all the way to the southern part of the state and then back up, getting only slightly lost on back roads, before arriving home to eat a quick spinach and fennel salad before heading out again to pick up the Dufflebag from his dad.

My first sourdough turned out well. The taste was excellent. I forgot to slice the top of the loaf, and suspect it would have risen more if I had done so. I was going to make another batch tonight, but might have botched it. The recipe calls for mostly unbleached white flour, but I ran out, so I had to mix in about half wheat. Wheat flour is lower in gluten, making it harder to rise. The loaf yesterday rose so easily I'm going to have faith in it. I made it at ten tonight so that it will go into the oven mid-afternoon tomorrow. If it turns out well and if you train with me at the school, you may just get a loaf. I intend on giving loaves to those who have helped me out recently as a thank you, but I can only make so many at one time.

I annoyed Jess by talking so much about the sourdough. After going on about the simplicity (just yeast, water, and salt and nothing more) and the taste, the luck I felt for getting it right the first time, the honor I felt at seeing it rise and confirm to expectations, she was ready to hit me with a shoe, I gather, but showed saintlike restraint and I ended the conversation unharmed.

*

While on the road today, we listened to the ipod on shuffle. We stopped for a decent lunch outside of Franklin that looked like a converted barn. I had a reuben. Not the best I'd ever had, but I was hungry. Plus, I was able to avoid ordering the french fries and went instead for the cucumber salad, and that set off a wave of healthy eating, ending with my own spinach salad when we finally got home.

I learned a lesson from the salad.

For the first time in years, I bought a dressing from the supermarket, and it nearly ruined the dish. My original intention was to save time.

Make your own dressing. Say it with me. Make your own dressing.

To take something so pure and delicious and healthy and then pour factory glop on it? Foolish, faltering humanity. And it simply didn't taste nearly as good as vinegar, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper would have.

Jess and I were watching a tv show the other night, and the thought struck me: we're vinegar people. Acid people.

She asked me to explain myself.

Well, there are bases and acids . . . .

She got the point.

And the store bought dressing? Base. Cheese and yogurt. Not unhealthy. Just not tasty. Not light. Not possessing the wonderful, electric quality of a good dressing.

*

Jess sat down to watch the Devil and Daniel Johnston again, since she was so tired she fell asleep the first time. She loved the film, but falls asleep easily.

She fell asleep again, almost at the same part.

She was able to make it through nearly all three hours of Altman's Short Cuts on Friday. Perhaps the best movie ever made that you can call "a great little film" even though it's three hours long.

*

Along the ride, we stopped in Clinton to admire a pen of baby goats, and let them suck our fingers. See flickr.

*

Despite the busy day, I was able to process all the pictures from the weekend, along with some strays I took for my own pleasure, and also rewrite a few paragraphs from my novel. I didn't have a lot of time, but made major revisions. Sometimes, that is enough.

For reading, I abandoned the Nooteboom -- didn't say much to me although I admire it -- and picked up True Grit, a Portis novel I avoid for obvious reasons but it's so damn good it had me wanting to call people on the telephone and read passages to them. I mean. It's really good. Really, really good.

*

Writing, reading, watching good dvds. Making or in the process of making four sourdough loaves. Driving to Manchester, Portsmouth, Franklin, Bridgewater. Playing with goats. Moving furniture. Writing this entry. A full weekend. Bodes well for the week. Snow forecast tomorrow. I don't care. It'll warm up soon enough.

Saturday, March 7, 2009

Hi, How Are You?

Jess was curious about The Devil and Daniel Johnston. I've seen it before.

But not in this context.

I've been driving all over New Hamsphire today.

My friend Rob killed himself in the mid nineties. And one of my last memories of him was driving around New Hampshire, lost, and looking for Durham. We had one tape in the car -- Daniel Johnston -- and we listened to it on repeat and sang along with every line.

It's been a long time, man. Memories ferment, like anything else given the right conditions. But just because something is pervasive, doesn't mean it doesn't have some sort of added weight. A heaviness.

Is it distasteful for someone who aspires to write to cite this? Unspoken bits of matter.

As a human, you learn when to shut your mouth.

Here We Go. Aspire to Greatness. Ready 1-2-3.

I lost my ability to concentrate on most novels around 93, for complex reasons.

Partially having to do with me, partially having to do with novels.

Is there any other art form that demands so much attention and offers so little reward? Crackers.

But this is what gives me pause. Filtration. Immediacy. Impermanence. Glut. Pipelines. Hyperlinks. Buzz and static.

Maybe, just maybe, such mindframes are more necessary now, even more than in the past. This is what has me thinking. Maybe the problem of being able to sit alone in a room is old, old, old. And maybe we now have a solution, not quite obvious, that has been from us since just after Gutenberg.

At one time, we imagined, language as the house of being. Or we had it imagined for us.

And all that we saw resolved to language, however tentative, however fragile. Even our psychological architecture. Even our architecture. Even the way we cooked our fish.

Now? Ones and zeros. Zeros and ones.

We can't be faulted for at least considering where the escape routes might lie.

I mean.

Can we?

If You Have Ghosts

My old employer called and hired me to take pictures of all the branches. I met him in Nashua and was reunited with the work truck, which I have all weekend.

After thousands of dollars of repairs, she is retiring and being replaced by a newer model. Since I left, business has been slow, and the odometer hasn't spun much more since I sat behind the wheel.

I spent all day driving New Hampshire, working on the project. Fortunately, the fastest way was slow and off the interstate, and I spent a healthy amount of time looking at cows and listening to Roky Erickson.

The Boss gave me cash for the project, and I returned with a few dollars in my pocket -- more than usual -- but was able to pick up garbage bags, kitty litter, supplies from Home Depot for the house, and a cup of coffee to fuel the journey home.

*

I'm rising dough made with my sourdough starter for the first time. I'm excited: no additional yeast, no sugar, no leavener. Just "the beast," water, and salt. And it's rising, smelling warm and beary. Fifteen hours to rise. Forty five to bake. My timing was off. She's coming out of the oven at midnight. But I'm going to assume that there's something in the house that makes the environment good for baking -- the temperature, the ghosts, the microbes, and I'll respect that spirit and see the project through to whatever hour presents itself.

Friday, March 6, 2009

Review of the Review of the Watchmen Continued

Following Mikey's dismantling of Lane, Anton wrote from New York:

Yeah, the graphic novel essentially deconstructs the idea of the American Hero, and actually investigates the very problem you and Lane are talking about: how these heroes end up mirroring the forces they are fighting against. (And it "deconstructs" all this in the best, most straightforward, nonacademic way). Thus the question on one of the title pages: Who Watches the Watchmen?

I would go so far as to say it is one of the greatest novels I've read. It is literally Miltonic, and full of references to Shelley and Blake (not to mention Bob Dylan and John Cale). If you haven't read it you need to get a copy of it immediately.

Can anyone lend me a copy?

As an aside, even I sometimes have problems posting to blogger, and anyone who knows me is welcome to send me their comments as an email and I will incorporate them back into the entries.

As for the matter at hand, I'm going to assume Lane hasn't seen the movie, and, since Moore distanced himself from the movie, is it possible that the movie misses the point as well?

I myself will not see the film. The Dufflebag had been anticipating this film for a year now and was upset that he couldn't see it. Since he was so let down, I made a pact with him that we'd see the film for the first time, together, when he was old enough. For whatever reason, this notion seemed to make him happy, so I'm sticking to it. I will, however, read the comic if someone might pass it my way.

*

Anyone with a shred of curiosity about contemporary literature and an extra half-hour on their hands should read D.T. Max's biographical essay on David Foster Wallace in this week's New Yorker. Max manages to pack an astounding amount of insight and information over its few pages: in some ways, the article serves as a time capsule and I suspect historians centuries in the future could read it as a pared down glimpse into how end of the century postmodernism, psycho-pharmacology, and publishing practices all had an immediate bearing on an actual, human life.

The issue also contains the Wallace story "Wiggle Room," which is taken from the unpublished novel he was writing at the time of his suicide.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Speaking of Scumbags

Speaking of scumbags, terrorist Bill Ayers made the news again today, this time defending plagiarist and phony Ward Churchill, who was fired from his position as an ethnic studies professor at the University of Colorado following an investigation into his academic misconduct.

The two have a history: According to a 1987 Washington Post article, Churchill taught bomb making to the detestable organization Ayers helped run, the Weather Underground, back in the sixties.

My own experience with academia has shown me how intellectually lazy and mean spirited professors who get caught gravitate to self-sealing arguments and otherwise insulate themselves from having to defend indefensible positions. Get caught plagiarizing? Blame politics. Cite free speech. But don't, you know, stop plagiarizing or anything.

Evil Beans, Evil Balls

I tried to remember why Pythagoras supposedly thought beans were evil the other night.

Jess and I were talking about beans. I'm too discrete to say why.

I found this interesting piece in which the author suggests that the whole problem might have come from an inititial translation error, arising because the word for beans and testicles was the same, and that Pythagoras might have been forbidding sexual indulgence.

Many Disguises

Since it seems half my readers now are the scumbags who work for negative option schemers, I just wanted to say hello to the good people at Adaptive Marketing, the marketing arm of the reprehensible Vertrue -- the company that tried, unsuccessfully, to snare me with their Vista Print scam.

All you people keep checking my site. Do I detect a little bit of concern? How fun. Sure beats playing Tetris while the innocent are fleeced of their money, huh?

These negative option schemers operate under endless disguises. It isn't just that they hide behind so many names (Experian, how many webpages do you own? How many different ways to hide?) but that they hide behind the law as well.

*

Bertolt Brecht wrote this small poem. Please enjoy!

On my wall hangs a Japanese carving,
The mask of an evil demon,
decorated with gold lacquer.
Sympathetically I observe
The swollen veins of the forehead, indicating
What a strain it is to be evil.

Vertrue, Trilegiant, and Webloyalty: Goo Goo is Hunting Foxes!

After finding out that three of the major players in negative option schemes, Webloyalty, Vertrue, and Trilegiant (all three changes their names with alarming frequency, and work under the auspices of countless websites, so who knows what they'll be called a few years from now or even next week!) are based in Connecticut, I wrote to the state's Attorney General Office.

I will await Richard Blumenthal's response and, if appropriate, post it here, along with my email.

In the meantime, feel free to send a quick message yourself!

Another Negative Option Alert: Trilegiant

I checked my statcounter today and was surprised to see a lot of traffic from Trilegiant. I had never heard of them, but, since they share an Norwalk, Connecticut address with the scumbags at Webloyalty, I had to google them.

Of course, what I found was highly disturbing.

So, my hero for the day is Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox. Mr. Cox, how about a little jail time instead of just settlements? Treat thieves like thieves.

I can't help but to notice how many of these vultures are based in Connecticut. Here's the webpage for CT Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. Maybe we should write and ask him why his state seems to be the safe haven for the Negative Option jackals?

Punky Retreads

Charles Portis holed up in a fishing shack to write. Some go to Norway. Some to the mountains. I can't get a fucking break.

I went to the Westford Starbucks, but there wasn't a single empty chair. Closest nearby was Chelmford. They are selling some of the Clover drinks on special there. Best cup I've ever had.

But, as luck would have it, there aren't a lot of seats. I sat down and almost immediately some douchbag with a cellphone sat next to me. Even with the noise cancelling headphones I can't drown him out.

*

Hey, that's magic! Whenever I blog about annoying people in coffee shops, they get up and leave! It's happened three times. So long, db!

*

Anthony Lane's review of the Watchmen is worth reading. To paraphrase and boil it down: No one over 25 will enjoy its adolescent violence, and no one under 18 ought to see it. Good stuff.

Lane makes a point I agree with: comic books and comic adaptations only become unintentionally silly when they leave out the comic from the comics.

The critic also takes a stab at how teenage male rebellion has an odd tendency to see fascism everywhere and to unintentionally mirror it. Thus, we have so many films geared to this audience in which the enemy is a Big Brotherish government. The good guys fight back by acting like monomaniacal or sociopathic seventeen year old skinheads.

Since I am not above seeing the occasional, qualified, necessity of violence and aggression to solve conflicts -- and even reluctantly cede the value of conflict itself and the problems of merely avoiding it qua conflict -- I can't buy entirely into Lane's point. At the same time, it seems worth of serious consideration.

I haven't seen the Watchmen, but when Lane states "the film winds up twice as fascistic as the forces it wishes to lampoon" I couldn't help but to think of Coraline, another recent film in which the unconscious message is directly at odds with the conscious. Yes, I know. Films don't have "messages." They do and they don't. Emphasis on "they do." A topic for another day.

*

I don't see enough contemporary movies to claim to see a pattern here, but it's worth noting. After seeing the trailer for the new Terminator, it makes me think: part of Lane's argument, if I read him correctly, manifests itself when violent fantasy films take as their theme not the nuanced, complicated problems of individuals, but of the whole human race.

Even great philosophers, such as Nietszsche, are at their most intolerable when they attempt to see problems in such broad, elastic nets: humanity as a cause? Be cautious with those who take it up, it seems.

Particularly when they wear rubber suits and shoot lightning from their eyes.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Boycott Webloyalty Partners

Please join me in boycotting all Webloyalty partners: Priceline, Fandango, Classmates, EB Games, Staples, Lane Bryant, Petco, FTD, and Allposters.

Let me know if there are any companies we need to add to the list, or if any of these companies cease doing business with Webloyalty (1-800-FLOWERS.com has reportedly dropped them.)

You Can't Argue Virtue with Vultures

My statcounter indicates that I'm suddenly getting traffic from the webloyalty.com server in Connecticut.

So, since I know they are reading this, I just wanted to say hi. Hope you sleep well at night! Remember that what you do is hardly different from what a mugger, pickpocket, or swindler does! Even if you manipulate the letter of the law, you remain, in spirit and in essence, criminals.

If you have any notion of divine justice, then consider what you're doing and look elsewhere for honest work. Since I suspect that anyone hollow enough to get involved with negative option schemes in the first place doesn't have enough of a conscience to be appealed to, these are likely wasted words. If there are any employees working for Webloyalty who aren't sociopaths and wanna-be pirates, then maybe you can appeal to your better self and realize what you're doing.

If I can't appeal to you on moral grounds, then remember that the public outcry is growing and people are tired of seeing well-connected con artists get away with their crimes. Your riches might protect you from the clink, but they might not, either. They shouldn't.

That's it! Back to work.

Cat Attack

Big D is acting sheepish. We got into a wrestling match this morning and he ended up leaping off the bed with bits of my flesh dangling from his diggers. He returned fifteen minutes later, mild and questioning. All is forgiven.

Day Seven, no work on the novel. The Dufflebag is home sick.

I'm going to try to use the time wisely, and write my second application essay. I might watch a movie. Clean the house. Drink a cup of tea. Finally get some reading done.

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In a study in the dynamics of idiocy, following an "incident" in which Obama was seen drinking a beer at a basketball game, the media picked up on a few muddleheaded callers phoning in to a sports talk show as a controversy. Scare quotes again, please.

When a handful of dolts object to something or other, it gets covered, as long as it makes a good story. That is, as long as it pushes the right buttons. It's much easier to weigh in on inconsequential topics like whether or not Obama should be able to enjoy a beer while watching the game (the correct answer, for the curious, is YES) than, to, for example, figure out ways of putting the jackals at Webloyalty behind bars.

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Webloyalty and Negative Option Schemes

I have continued to research the pernicious Webloyalty. There are countless sites on the net exposing them, so it is easy enough to see the big picture. The problem is, their scam works when it isn't noticed. Once you notice, and have the time and certainty to challenge their confidence scheme, then you've pretty much figured it out yourself. I was lucky enough to check this morning. Imagine the many Americans who simply assume that their online transactions are being handled honestly. Such people might not notice the recurring twelve dollar fee. It's such a small amount, one can see how it might slip by unnoticed for months.

Here's the great part.

Webloyalty's payment processor is located in Lowell, MA, the town where I was born.

Here's what the execrable Rick Fernandes, CEO and Chief Swindler over at Webloyalty has to say about Litle & Co.:

"Litle & Co. is more than a processor. They are a partner. In every step of our relationship, they have added value in many, many ways. They have assisted us in understanding the nuances of the processing environment. They strive to enhance the value of our business by ensuring that processing through them is a value-added proposition."

This was taken right from the Litle & Co. website! They post a quote from one of the biggest perpetrators of legalized Internet theft in the country right on their homepage, as if it was a point of pride! So, if Litle & Co. is not just a processor, but a partner, then they are equally guilty and equally worth of opprobrium.

Litle & Co is located at 900 Chelmsford Street, in Lowell. Stop by and say, "Howdy, partners!!!"

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In case you're curious, along with Fandango and allposters.com, here are some other companies that work or who have worked with Webloyalty: EB Games, Redcats USA (online retailer for Lane Bryant and Brylane Homes), movietickets.com, petco.com (yes, Mom!), ftd.com, and staples.com.

My experience with the swindlers at Webloyalty reminded one of my readers of the controversy surrounding freecreditreport.com.

Type in "freecreditreport.com" and "scam" into google and you'll get 425,000 hits.

The most succinct article my search revealed was posted by a man named Mike. He notes that this site was investigated by both the Federal Trade Commission and the Florida state attorney general's office.

Despite paying out a massive settlement, FCR continues to conduct business as usual.

As do Webloyalty, Vista Print, and others that operate "negative option" schemes.

Why this cyberpickpocketing continues, often in such a glaringly "steal from the poor and give to the rich" way, should be a cause of great concern because, to my mind, it seems impossible to imagine this going on without help from corrupt government agencies. Or, let me put it this way: either the government regulatory agencies are corrupt OR they are inept.

Well, okay. I can imagine a third solution. Some decent minded attorney general has these bastards in his or her sights, and soon, heads are going to roll.

I hope this is the case.

Water for Milk

While I haven't gotten any work done on the novel, I did write an application essay for a teaching job that seems perfect for me. It requires a second essay, as well -- I'll get started on that after I proof some yeast for bread.

Today's variations: using water instead of milk, adding fresh rosemary, trying out a secret leavening agent. Nothing sinister -- I just want eaters to judge first.

Reservation Rewards II

Well, aparently, a few things have changed since the blog I linked to below was posted. As soon as I called Reservation Rewards, I got an automated answering service. Cancelling my membership was first on the list.

I had to take note: Once I tried to cancel, the first, number one option, was an oddly phrased choice: Yes, I would not like to cancel my membership at this time. I can't remember the specifics, but, even as a former English teacher, I had to think about the option a few times to realize it merely allowed me to . . . do nothing. Option two was the one to cancel, and I did.

I was informed that I hadn't been charged and would not be charged. I was given a confirmation number.

The only problem? Why is the pending charge still listed on my bank statement?

So I'm calling Bank of America to make sure they cancel the charge and all future charges from the swines at Reservation Rewards.

I was given an estimated wait time of three minutes to speak with an operator. I've been on the phone for twenty minutes now. At least it gives me time to update the blog.

When I had the problem with Vista Print, once I actually got to a human being, they were friendly and helpful. Those weight times, though . . . .

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Okay. Talked to the Bank of America rep, and the charge hasn't been "hard posted" yet, meaning that it is still pending. I need to keep checking, because I can only file a claim once it posts. I asked if there was a direct number to the claims department and there isn't.

So that's that. I'll have to keep checking my bank account this week to monitor to see if the fraudulent charges post.

*

For the record, I finally remember the website where I inadvertently fell into their trap: it was Fandango -- the site I used to buy the Coraline tickets.

I read this excellent article and discovered other websites that willingly work with these con-artists: priceline.com, hotels.com, and classmates.com.

The article notes that, as of the post date, at least one company did the right thing and ended their relationship with the reservation rewards program: 1-800-FLOWERS.com.

Reservation Rewards is a run by a company called Webloyalty. They might just as well be called Orwell's Nightmare, with a name like that.

The most sinister part of the article concerns the company's CEO, Richard Fernandes, who told author Peter Dizikes, that he refused to change his business practices on the grounds that, ""Our approach is generally to make transactions simple for consumers."

In a just society, Mr. Fernandes would be doing time in prison for theft and fraud. But not for punitive reasons: I simply want to make sure he gets his food and shelter as simply as possible.

Reservation Rewards I

I checked my meager bank account balance this morning and found a charge to a company called Reservation Rewards. I learned to check my balance long ago and to scan for small charges after I got ripped off buying business cards through a company called Vista Print, who at the time were the princes of these hidden charge scams. I remember doing research on them and finding out the owner had used the company to amass a fortune and was a close associate to George W. Bush. That seemed to be the only viable explanation, to me at least, for why such scammers could operate so brazenly and so openly without the feds cracking down on them.

These people are, after all, thieves. The owners, the reps, the employees. They are thieves, pure and simple. Just because you fill out a W-2 form when you go to work for the first day doesn't give you the right to rob people. But this is obvious.

Twelve bucks. I never bought anything through Reservation Rewards. Their number was listed as 800-732-7031.

So a quick and easy google search lead me to this website. What a way to start the morning. What's great about the scumbags you deal with at these places, is that they always try to make it seem like they're making an exception for you because of YOUR mistake, even though they are dogshit scam artists.

Now I'm going to drop the Dufflebag off at school and come home and try to clear the charges.

Monday, March 2, 2009

Winter Warming

As the next draft of the novel nears completion, I'm going to start focusing on freelance food writing -- I've already secured a name and a site and I'll update you as soon as there's anything worth reading up there.

Today, I'm baking bread, using the autolyse method Charlie suggested, as well as making a few other modifications: I'm using wetter dough, I'm not using a bread pan but a stone, and, instead of punching the bread down, I've been letting it rise and folding it on itself every 20 minutes or so, a technique suggested on some artisinal baking sites I visited. I'm also playing with the baking times -- starting with a high temp for the first fifteen minutes then switching to a lower one for half an hour. It is baking now, so I can't speak for the results.

The bread is a simple, unbleached white with no added ingredients.

It's snowing too hard for me to head in to teach (four hour commute? Sorry, guys. I'll be there in spirit) so I'm also making a sausage lentil soup: I've added tomatoes, roasted cumin and coriander, dijon mustard, celery, a single lime leaf, and other standard spices. I'm slow cooking it. I didn't have access to stock, so I'm using water. I add pepper about ten minutes from completion -- overcooked pepper adds an unpleasant, bitter taste. A pinch of salt, and I'm serving it up with the bread for a snowy night's feast for the family.

Sourdough

Day five without working on the novel. Very frustrating.

School was cancelled, so the Dufflebag is home. I have to go out and shovel and work on the house electrical problem before teaching tonight.

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After spending a great deal of time reading about sourdoughs, I started a starter last week and, as luck would have it, it is now bubbling and stinking up and doing all that it is supposed to. I spent some good hours reading about the history of sourdoughs: San Francisco, the miners, the European variations.

My first attempt, after I let it grow for a week, will be to make an olive bread. I love olive breads, and olives in general, so it seems a fitting way to begin.

I nearly finished off the last of the wheat bread this morning. It is heavier, but not too stale, which is surprising given how quickly homemade breads will go bad. I toasted it and ate with with some raspberry jam. If that won't get me through the snow shoveling, I don't know what will.