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Seems like ESPN is promoting a different kind of “sport,” as Corey V. hears about a web site with the catchy slogan, “Life Is Short. Have An Affair.” Now, particularly compared to me, Corey is a relatively new father. Thus, I thought I’d help ensure matrimonial harmony in his home and check out the site in more detail — for research purposes only, of course.
At first I could see that his concern that the sanctity of marriage might be in jeopardy was valid. After all, the site promises that “if you don’t find someone within the initial 3 months after purchasing the ‘Affair Guarantee’ Membership Package, we’ll refund you $249.” Come on, even the most committed monogamous couples would be hard pressed to pass up a deal like that! But there’s always those darn details.
Among other things, to qualify for the 100 percent guarantee, “you must send or reply to twenty unique [site] members each month (‘unique’ meaning users you have not previously contacted).” You also must send at least 5 “AshleyGifts” per month and instant message on the site with other members at least 60 minutes per month.
Sorry, that’s way too much work for a guarantee. And an affair (excuse me, “responsible non-monogamy”) just ain’t worth it, effort-wise or survival-wise. That’s especially so since, as Corey noted, there are about 8.5 men for every 1.5 women on the site. It makes a person wonder if the guarantee might also require some other lifestyle alterations — not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Californians invented the concept of life-style. This alone warrants their doom.
Don DeLillo, White Noise
Although I strive to stay away from the political, the events of recent weeks, the presidential election and the focus of this year’s Blog Action Day force me to a brief diversion. Recently, I am almost daily reminded of what many call Franklin Roosevelt’s proposal for a “second Bill of Rights.” I think it fits in well with Blog Action Day’s Poverty theme, even though these should be nonpolitical issues.
The proposal came near the end of FDR’s 1944 State of the Union address. He said that although the nation was still at war, it had to plan for the future. No no matter how high our standard of living, he said, the nation could not be content “if some fraction of our people — it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth — is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill housed, and insecure.” FDR believed “true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence.”
As a result, FDR suggested we strive to guarantee the following to all Americans, “regardless of station, race, or creed”:
- The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the Nation;
- The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
- The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
- The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
- The right of every family to a decent home;
- The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
- The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
- The right to a good education.
Here we are nearly 65 years later and not only are we far from achieving most of these, we have moved in the opposite direction on some. Many of these principles continue to be political footballs. Recognizing that they are essential to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” is the first step in truly helping the all too many fellow citizens who experience being poor.
[Steps off soapbox]
Our fighting men abroad – and their families at home – expect such a program and have the right to insist upon it. It is to their demands that this Government should pay heed rather than to the whining demands of selfish pressure groups who seek to feather their nests while young Americans are dying.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1944 State of the Union address
Could you narrow down your reading to a favorite genre and author? Why, or why not?
I can from a historical perspective that may not fully reflect my current reading habits. At some point in 1975, I started keeping a handwritten reading log. With the computer age, the log was transferred into a computer program which not only keeps track of that information and the year, but the categories I created.
One downfall is that I break fiction into fewer categories: general fiction, alternate history, classics, foreign literature and science fiction, In contrast, I have a lot of non-fiction categories, going so far as to break “history” into 11 categories. I’ve combined the non-fiction subcategories in this list, though.
So from 1975 to present, there are 1,613 books on the list of which 583 were works of fiction and the remaining 1,030 non-fiction. Here’s how they break down in numerical order by category, using only those categories that hit double figures:
Science Fiction 307 (reflecting those years when my reading time was devoted almost exclusively to escapism)
History 189
Fiction 181
Autobiography/Memoirs 84
Humor 79
Biography 71
Foreign Literature 55 (well more than half in 2007 and 2008)
Current Affairs 54
Law-related 41
Religion 40
Science 39
Health 38
Music 38
Sports 38
Miscellany 35
The Unusual 30
Popular Culture 25
Personal Finance 22
Fantasy 21
Philosophy 20
Political Science 20
Alternate History 19
Computers 13
Crime 13
Foreign Countries 13
Media and Journalism 13
Regional 13
Horror 11
Compiling this made me realize I probably need to get new book tracking software because mine doesn’t have the ability to easily produce information breaking down the categories by year. I think that might provide interesting perspective of how tastes change with age.
Given the significant amount of SF I’ve read over the years, the list of the most read authors isn’t surprising. Here are the only ones to reach double figures:
Philip K. Dick 28
Kurt Vonnegut 26
Arthur C. Clarke 25
Isaac Asimov 16 (not counting those in which he was the editor)
Stephen King 11
I am somewhat surprised Dick came up on top, although I went on a real Philip K. Dick bender 2001-2002. I would have predicted Vonnegut. And while my four favorite authors are all dead, I predict it would take a long time for anyone to catch them on my list.
Sometimes the appropriate response to reality is to go insane.
Philip K. Dick, Valis
Bob Schwartz, the South Dakota blogger formerly known as South Dakota Moderate and who then moved his blog to Politics and Hypocrisy, has made a new move. It’s a move I congratulate him on as it means he may have joined my camp (to the extent we disgusted and disaffected have a camp).
Here’s what Bob said Sunday on his retitled blog, Bob Schwartz Online, in a post called The End of Politics As I Know It:
Well after over 2 years of blogging on politics I have come to the realization that my heart is no longer in it. I thought that writing about the hypocrisy displayed by our elected officials would somehow be therapeutic when in fact it had the opposite effect. Reading the hate, the lies, and the spin that both parties try to pass off as policy has finally turned me off to the process altogether.
With that said, my Politics and Hypocrisy blog will slowly fade into obscurity (Ok it was always there) and instead I will try to get back into blogging about whatever I find interesting at the moment. That will still include politics from time to time but I will now focus on other items as well.
Why does this strike such a chord with me? Here’s part of what I said some three and a half years ago:
Yet watching political discourse, particularly as more recently demonstrated by political blogs, has simply reinforced my prior views and further convinced me little or nothing can or will be done to honestly address the problems facing our nation and state.
Politics is politics and those who play and live it are welcome to wade in it all they want. I may comment occasionally on a smattering of issues and will leave up links to political sites for those so inclined. But I am tired of the stench. Thus, I will move this blog away from politics and toward things that actually bring pleasure, meaning and nuance to life.
Welcome to the world of the undeceived and to the important things in life, Bob. The air smells much better, the stress of fighting and becoming angry over things you know won’t change is alleviated and, all in all, your blog moves from the dark side into the light.
[T]he whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.
H.L. Mencken, In Defense of Women
“Write what you know” is an adage that can both help and handicap writers. It clearly seems a source of Mathias B. Freese’s collection of short stories, Down to a Sunless Sea, and may also serve as a handicap.
Freese is a psychotherapist who will tell you that these stories take us “into the minds of troubled, complex human beings.” He uses a variety of styles because the stories are were written “to express emotional states, thereby requiring different approaches and voices. Yet while many of the characters might well be composites of people he dealt with both as a psychotherapist and as a licensed clinical social worker, they are also reflections of his own life experiences.
For example, the character in “I’ll Make It, I Think” suffers from cerebral palsy, as did Freese’s cousin. The character in the short story gives names to various body parts, calling his damaged right hand and arm and his damage left leg Ralph and Lon, respectively, while naming his penis David. While he refers to himself as “Schmuck,” it is clear he has worked to cope with his disabilities. At the same time, he recognizes the reality of his struggles from the story’s opening sentences:
It’s always been this way; it’s always going to be like this. I know it, and there’s no changing it.
Sometimes I can take it, almost, and sometimes, you know, I can’t take it and I want to cut my throat.
Such harsh reality is present in the minds of many of the characters. Freese even expresses it from the harsh realities of his own life. “For A While, Here, In This Moment” was written for his daughter, who suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome and eventually committed suicide. In it, the character openly ponders the purpose of existence. “Which is worse, death or the disease itself? …. The appalling choice is all I have, or it appears.”
Some of the other damaged psyches that appear include the award-winning “Herbie,” the story of a boy physically and psychologically abused by his father with the added impact of an almost emotionless mother; “Echo,” which explores a man who, for whatever reason, cannot maintain attachments with anyone; and, “Nicholas,” with whom we share time in his “slow learner” class and begin to grasp his desire for respect.
For me, though, the two strongest pieces are “Alabaster” and “Little Errands.”
The former uses a nine-year-old boy sharing a bench with a wooden bench with an elderly Holocaust survivor as the vehicle to explore the woman’s loss of childhood. It is a concise yet insightful view into how her numbered concentration camp tattoo is an external representation of what can not otherwise be easily seen — that even the children in the camps who survived are missing the life experiences of growing up.
“Little Errands” takes us inside the world of an obsessive compulsive through essentially one simple event. The story is basically the thoughts of this individual as he worries about whether the parking ticket and carpet payments he put in a mailbox were actually mailed and will actually arrive.
Other stories are not as strong, perhaps because they reflect Freese’s belief that he isn’t writing for the reader, but for himself and his own understanding. This permutation of the “write what you know” idea means the stories provide glimpses into events and personalities that can seem without context. In fact, that is one of the downfalls of Down to a Sunless Sea.
Not only is this largely a sunless world view, we are seeing snippets of life. Snippets can provide insight but not necessarily comprehension. For example, although the foreword to the book tells us that “For A While, Here, In This Moment” is about his daughter’s “physical agony and despair,” outside research is required to learn the cause and end result. Readers need not require an author to expose or reveal all aspects of their personal life. But in writing for himself the average reader may be deprived of greater understanding of the character, something that would not otherwise prevent grasping the more universal elements of her feelings.
In the end, though, these flaws do not detract from the fact that even a sunless world view sheds light on the human experience.
Life only asks that it continue (I inflict meaning).
“For A While, Here, In This Moment,” Mathias B. Freese, Down to a Sunless Sea
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Additionally, some links on this blog go to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. There is no additional cost to you. Contact me You can e-mail me at prairieprogressive at gmaildotcom.
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