“Facts” are not always straightforward, as Talking Heads acknowledged in “Crosseyed and Painless”:

Facts are simple and facts are straight
Facts are lazy and facts are late
Facts all come with points of view
Facts don’t do what I want them to
Facts just twist the truth around
Facts are living turned inside out
Facts are getting the best of them
Facts are nothing on the face of things
Facts don’t stain the furniture
Facts go out and slam the door
Facts are written all over your face
Facts continue to change their shape

Anyone who follows the news can sympathize, where most of us I’m sure would prefer “the facts” served straight, but where those of those who have been news practitioners know that inclusion of some facts and exclusion of others — whether for point of view or for story length — results in very different perspectives on the same story. (A phenomenon I blogged about here.)

If this subject interests you, you should consider joining us for a panel we’re putting together at USC entitled “Truth, Lies or Scam — Can you believe anything you read?” More information below. Hope to see you there.

Here’s a story I found delicious because the misuse of language is only slightly less entertaining than Yogi Berra. The story is headlined “Giuliani faces tough NRA crowd.”

To begin with, reading the story reveals that the “tough crowd” didn’t exactly pepper spray the candidate, or even ask difficult questions; rather, they were reduced to tepid applause and wondering if perhaps they might be able to some day bring themselves to support him even though he’s from New York and “hard” on guns. If Giuliani ever becomes president, he’d better be prepared to face far tougher crowds than this.

Here’s my favorite quote from the story:

“I think he is sincere; I just don’t know if he truly believes it down deep inside,” said Thomas Crum, a retired trucking executive from Scottsdale, Ariz. “I have a little difference with him just beginning to realize what his position really is.”

Mr. Crum, here is what “sincere” means: “free of deceit, hypocrisy, or falseness; earnest.” So if you think he is sincere, then you should know he truly believes it down deep inside. If somehow you think he is sincere but don’t know if he truly believes it, then you are having thoughts that are disconnected from knowledge — not surprising given the environment you found yourself in during Giuliani’s speech. This may be a medical condition called psychosis, one you should have checked out.

Someone else at the NRA event struggled with sincerity’s close kin, truthfulness:

Sitting next to Bell at lunch Friday, Joe Rogers was keeping a scorecard for each of the presidential candidates on the conference’s brochure. While some speakers had check marks, Giuliani was the only one with a zero next to his name. The Wilmington, N.C. salesman said even Democratic presidential candidate and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson scored better during his taped remarks.

“I don’t think there’s anything he could have said and been truthful about to win over the crowd,” Rogers said of Giuliani. “To his credit, he spoke the truth.”

From this, I take it that Mr. Rogers is saying Giuliani could have won some of the crowd over had he chosen to lie, something some of the crowd would have welcomed (although not Rogers himself); most of the crowd awards no credit for truth. Given the track record of the GOP from Reagan to present, I believe the crowd is going to be delighted with what it’s getting. And that Giuliani would be better off drinking that particular flavor of Kool-Aid now so he can get used to it for the long months to come.

Just tried again and failed to elicit any enthusiasm in my kids for seeing “Mr. Bean’s Holiday” today.

My 5-year-old remained defiant: “I’m not seeing Mr. Bean,” he said, adding this time for my clarification, “It’s stupid.” My daughter sank deeper into the couch in a pronounced cringe, a response very much like the family dog’s when I raise my voice.

Here I thought Mr. Bean was funny. Evidently he’s deeply disturbing.

While I’m on the topic of the cartoons of Ruben Bolling, which I usually enjoy, here’s one where he misses by a mile. For the Village Voice he recently did this strip, which purports to be “Toy Story 3,” but written by Cormac McCarthy. While Bolling does get McCarthy right a couple of times, as with Woody’s line “I aim to,” for the most part he’s clueless about what distinguishes McCarthy. The abundant presence of commas is an immediate tipoff. McCarthy largely ellides them. Because he doesn’t use them he must find other ways to write sentences for clarity and it is this which gives him his rhythm. (Which I’ve just attempted to emulate, with limited success.) It is the spareness of the writing, the lack of reflection in narration, the surgical skill in selecting precisely the right word, the narrative drive unblocked by commas, and the wide-open spaces he uses for setting that make McCarthy’s writing seem existentialist. It’s not directly about God. Either Bolling doesn’t know anything about McCarthy (perhaps because he hasn’t read him), or in this case he’s got poor judgment.

(If you can’t see the strip below, click here.)

Good friend and longtime finder of cool things in pop culture Rich Roesberg tells me I have to read this strip. It seems to concatenate several of my interests: comic books, literary revisionism, and that pesky God fella.

Now you can read it, too.

I don’t know what my kids have against Mr. Bean, but it’s got to stop.

Tomorrow I want to take the kids to the movies. Ordinarily we do something outside on Sundays: miniature golf, hiking, or shuttling comic books from storage locations in the garage to storage locations in my home office. But the past two days we’ve had rains of Biblical proportions, weather far too inclement for the safe transport of comic books. Hence, the movies.

On all 30 screens in Burbank, there is a grand total of one family friendly movie. Luckily for me, it’s “Mr. Bean’s Holiday.” Imagine my delight! To me, Mr. Bean is the cure for whatever ails you. Rowan Atkinson is a gifted clown who with this character has staked out his own territory somewhere between Stan Laurel, Harry Langdon, and Jacques Tati. So I showed the trailer to my two younger kids, a boy aged 5 and and a girl of 9, in an effort to whip up excitement about tomorrow morning’s excursion. Here it is:

My little boy grew belligerent and defiant, swearing that he would not be seeing Mr. Bean and I couldn’t make him. My daughter grew tearful at the prospect, then started to shake with convulsive crying. The last time I saw these same reactions from them was when I told them zombies were outside.

This reaction mystifies me. We enjoy Laurel & Hardy, Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton together; are those acts more preferable because they’re in black and white (and sometimes silent)? Is Mr. Bean too threatening in some way? Or is he so utterly uncool that the kids think that by suggesting this movie I’m talking down to them?

This reminds me of my experience seeing the wonderful Jerry Lewis movie “Hardly Working” in 1981; when I told friends and co-workers how insanely funny it was, they just shook their heads and walked away. The difference here is that I hold all the keys — to the house, to the cars, to things like food and allowance. If I wanted, I could just stuff them into the car tomorrow and take them to see this movie no matter their wishes, except for two things:

1. they’d probably ruin my enjoyment of the movie; and
2. I can’t get out of my head my daughter’s final words, said in a small sad voice before I packed both her and her little brother off to bed: “Please… don’t make us see Mr. Bean….”

—————-
Now playing: Bryan Ferry – What Goes On
via FoxyTunes

Three unrelated stories about our justice system, all of them updated today, none of them saying anything good about our system.

1. OJ Simpson, still apparently seeking the true culprit behind his wife’s murder, has made bail and is now out searching for other trouble to get into in his never-ending experiment to prove that he can, indeed, get away with anything;

2. The jury in the Phil Spector trial is deadlocked 7-5. This leads me to think that at least 5 people truly do believe either that Lana Clarkson chose that particular night and moment — in the home of a famous millionaire producer she’d just met — to kill herself, or that there is some other way Phil Spector doesn’t deserve the to be found guilty as defined;

and 3. The drycleaners who got sued for $54 million for having misplaced a pair of pants , and who incurred $100,000 in legal bills, are going out of business.

So thankfully, the system has levied a harsh punishment on one of these culprits.

This morning on the way into my office I had a flash of inspiration about what I could pick up to eat at my desk for breakfast: one of those small fruit-salad snacks at McDonald’s. Anything larger and more cholesterol-laden in the morning tends to put my energy level flat on its back, but I figured that a small container of apples, grapes, yogurt, and walnuts would do nicely, so I stopped and bought one.

Now I’m eating it. And I shouldn’t be surprised to discover that they’ve found a way to McDonaldalize what are rather normal, mundane ingredients into something that tastes saturated with chemicals.

My first indication should have been the sell-by date. It’s four days from now. I’ve cut up apples in my kitchen that don’t last four minutes before browning. My tongue tells me that these apple slices have a thin coating of lacquer that prohibits germs, rot, and enjoyment. The grapes are similarly preserved. The yogurt is clumpy as well as crunchily sugarified, and the walnuts are dosed with the preservatives “TBHQ and/or BHT” (which is suspiciously similar to Bachman Turner Overdrive, which I never want to eat). It’s amazing what can be done to fuck up fruit, walnuts, and yogurt.

There’s a movement here in LA to save Charles Bukowski’s bungalow from redevelopment by naming it a cultural landmark. This should strike anyone who has read his books as deliciously ironic: Bukowski was always tearing down cultural landmarks of one form or another, as when he said that writers like Camus always wrote as though they were sipping fine wine. (While Bukowski was guzzling rotgut, which I suppose was somehow better.)

If you’re of a mind to get involved in preserving said bungalow, the necessary information follows. You’ll also note the poem below, which is so bad that it works against the main argument.

For those who can’t be there, you can send your letter and/or email of support before September 20 to:
Attn. Mary Martin, 200 N. Spring St., Rm. 620, Los Angeles, CA 90012
(or edgar.garcia@lacity.org)

In a poem dedicated to his publisher John Martin, Bukowski wrote: “and thank you/ for locating me there at/ 5124 De Longpre Avenue/ somewhere between/ alcoholism and/ madness./ together we/ laid down the gauntlet/ and there are takers/ even at this late date/ still to be/ found/ as the fire sings/ through the/ trees.”

—

Bukowski fans–there’s a meeting to try and save the Hollywood Bungalow where the dirty old man lived and wrote for many years:
Thursday, Sept. 20th, 10 AM, LA City Hall

Lend your voice to preserve the cultural heritage of literary LA. More details and article links are below.

May the Muse be with you,

Nicole

Explosive PR wrote:

Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2007 20:18:51 -0700
From: Explosive PR
To: “esotouricbustours@esotouric.com”
Subject: [Esotouric] Charles Bukowski’s Bungalow in Time;
Preservation hearing on Thursday

Gentle reader,

Matt Kettmann of Time Magazine has covered Lauren Everett’s campaign to save
Charles Bukowski’s bungalow apartment, saying “The little bungalow at 5124
De Longpre Avenue in East Hollywood was the epicenter of a cultural
earthquake that continues to rock Los Angeles’s literary landscape. It is
the house where Charles Bukowski went from blue-collar postman to full-time
writer, eventually becoming world famous for his bawdy tales of lust,
liquor, and love.” Richard has some nice quotes, too.

On Thursday morning, the city’s Cultural Heritage Commission will decide the
building’s fate, and we’d like to invite any interested people who can get
there to join us for the hearing, and to speak if they feel moved. Hearing
details are below.

The Cultural Heritage Commission has agreed to put 5124 De Longpre Ave. on
the agenda for their September 20th meeting. They will hear a presentation
on the property, and will decide whether to proceed with the landmarking
process.

Members of the public may attend the hearing, and following the formal
presentation that Lauren Everett will be making, can speak up in favor of
the preservation of this building. If you wish to speak, please contact
Lauren so that all interested parties can meet on the morning of the hearing
and plan the best possible presentation to our friends at the CHC. Reminder:
this Commission has nothing to do with boarding up De Longpre, can help us
enormously, and should be treated with respect and appreciation.

Hearing information: Thursday Sept. 20, Room 1010 of Los Angeles City Hall,
200 N. Spring St., 90012. Meeting starts at 10:00 am.

Contact link

Time Magazine article

yrs,
Kim
Esotouric

In the 20 years I’ve been in LA, there have been about 20 self-help fads. To my knowledge, not one yet has embraced the handbook of the stoics, which involves actual self-discipline, which is hard. Rather, they are based upon fuzzy feel-good philosophy ungrounded in logic, science, or rigorous thinking. (Which always brings to mind Mr. David Bowie’s retort, from “Fashion”: “I’m okay, you’re so-so.”)

The most recent of these fads is The Secret. This book, with accompanying cult, purports that all human success is linked by one phenomenon — which turns out to be the Power of Positive Thinking. Why anyone would think this “secret” eludes me; hasn’t this been practically canonical for 75 years?

I could go on about the cult of The Secret, which is claiming friends and colleagues left and right, but I think media theorist Douglas Rushkoff has already done an excellent job. Below is a posting he sent via his newsgroup. (And thank you, Doug, for saving me the time in writing something similar.)

Before I get to that, let me float one more idea: That we should never discount the Power of Negative Thinking. By that I mean good old skepticism, the sort that keeps most of us from buying swampland in Florida or bridges owned by the government. Positive Thinking has its obvious benefits, but it’s skepticism that keeps us alive and well and not falling for the lure of snake charmers.

New Pseudoscience Patina, Same Snake Oil
The Secret’s self-help message is just common knowledge.
by Douglas Rushkoff

As the saying goes, opposites attract, as when an electron races to a positively charged ion, or the north pole of a magnet pulls the south pole of another. But try telling that to proponents of The Secret, the latest in a long line of spiritual systems aimed at selling
personal prosperity through faulty scientific reasoning.

In case you’ve missed it on Oprah or Larry King Live, The Secret is a self-help DVD and companion book synthesizing the pitches of a few dozen of today’s most prominent self-help gurus. Its creator, an Australian named Rhonda Byrne, claims there’s a single truth
underlying all these systems. It’s more ancient than the Bible and has been intentionally hidden from human beings for just as long. The great secret? Positive thinking. Abundance is a state of mind: Think healthy, and you’ll be healthy. Or more to the point, think rich, and you’ll get rich. Most of the spiritual teachers in The Secret are wealth-seminar leaders who display the book’s logo on their Web sites. The Secret has certainly worked wonders for its marketers: More than 1.5 million DVDs have been sold, and the book hit number one on The New York Times best-seller list of hardcover advice books.

While positive thinking no doubt has its benefits—from the placebo effect to good old self-confidence—The Secret tries to justify itself
not only in the language of pop psychology but in that of modern physics. According to the book, happy thoughts will do more than
affect behavior. It claims the interrelatedness of matter and energy (a principle proven by Einstein) allows people to change reality to
their liking by changing the way they think about it. (Thought is presumably energy in this schema, and reality is matter.) For most,
however, this potential for cosmic transmutation is limited to attracting more money into their personal bank accounts.

To be sure, it’s entertaining to marvel at Masaru Emoto, a Japanese alternative healer who claims that crystals grow more symmetrically inside bottles labeled with positive messages than in those with negative messages attached. But such “results” can be explained by the observer’s tendency to notice the crystals he is looking for rather than the ones that don’t fit his expectations. That’s why people basing psychiatric therapies on pseudoscientific research will get mixed results at best. Stick a Post-it note with a positive
message on a schizophrenic’s forehead and see how far you get changing the water molecules in his brain into happy ones.

Meanwhile, a growing arsenal of healing machines based loosely on tenuous nonlocality theories from the fringes of quantum physics have become an increasingly popular alternative to the discomfort of scientifically verifiable chemotherapy. With names like SCIO and
Rife, these machines don’t even need to be in the same room or city as the patient they’re treating—since, as their proponents reason, quantum mechanics doesn’t recognize physical distance. Sure, if this “energetic medicine” makes a person feel better or more optimistic— and doesn’t delay or replace therapies that might actually work— there’s no harm except to the wallet.

So why bother condemning all this wishful thinking? After all, who of us hasn’t ever experienced a bit of The Secret’s real power? Wearing an expensive suit to an interview or flying first class, as one of The Secret’s featured instructors suggests on his Web site, can make you feel and act differently. Sometimes spending more money does seem to bring more money in, and speaking positively often leads to better results than whining about how tough life is.

But such techniques are hardly new, let alone secret. Like mastering the will through self-hypnosis or better negotiating through body
language, the “power of positive thinking” has nearly a century-old track record among car dealers, admen, and others for whom attitude means as much as, if not more than, attributes. It’s from this universe of phantom values and socially constructed truths that The Secret derives its ultimate power. Try sharing The Secret with some refugees from Darfur; you’ll probably find the results are not
terribly impressive.

No, The Secret is best applied in the same foggy arenas from which it emerged. It’s great for self-help gurus, spiritual evangelists,
salespeople, and multilevel marketers because it’s based in the same kinds of mythology on which they’ve always relied: There’s a timeless principle, a preexisting law of nature only now becoming understood by science but completely easy for you to use to make your life better.

Just pay me, and I’ll share it with you.