Televised Football is Postmodern.

The question I'm discussing today is football postmodern. Football isn't but televised football is,
because thanks to television you see many different views of a given play and thanks to the new
cameras available, you get a number of different perspectives on the plays as they occur.

So there's a big difference between the game of football and the television version of the game.
The television version is highly mediated, with numerous reaction shots of coaches and players
and thus the game it turned into two dramas. In the first, there is the matter of the outcome of
the game. In the second, we become involved in the reactions, feelings, and emotions of the players
and the coaches.

Seeing something from a number of different perspectives is, by nature, a postmodern matter.
So many fans, who have never heard of the term, are actually caught up in a postmodern
activity...whose impact may go beyond televised football.

January 14, 2005

THE WRITER'S LIFE

For the past 35 years I've been involved with any number of editors in any number
of publishing houses. With some pubishers, the editors have come and gone, one after
another...They seem to have vanished into thin air.

There are various aggravations involved in writing...sometimes it takes years for
a book that has been accepted to be published. In other cases, editors send your
manuscripts to professors for evaluations. These professors are so busy that they
can't get around to reading your manuscript for months and months...and then
when they do, they often send very negative reviews...or indicate that you, the
author, really need them to co-author the book you have written.

One editor told me, "I've rejected better people than you!" and suggested I find
another hobby.

On the other hand, there are some wonderful people you deal with and so you
have to learn to accept rejections without getting depressed or blown away by them...
Just put the manuscript into an envelope and send it to another editor.

So the moral is--reject rejection and carry on.

I once had the idea of creating a reversal of the rejection slip--a
reject-rejection slip to send to editors who rejected my manuscripts. But someone
else actually did that.

Meanwhile, I have manuscripts that professors are dawdling over, that editors
are too busy to get to, and I carry on.

Tsuami Irony

There was an article in the Financial Times to the effect that authorities in Thailand
knew about the earthquake two hours before it hit Phukett, but didn't wish to disturb
the tourism industry, lest there wasn't a tsunami. So in this case it seems that not
wanting to disrupt tourism led to the deaths of many tourists--a tragic irony.

I am trying to figure out how to upload material so I can put some of my material that I've already written on, rather than have to retype it. I also have some art work I'd like to use. I've been away in Vietnam for a while, and then it took a month to get over the jet lag from the return flight.

Gabriel at cheesboard 

What I hope to do is eventually learn how to post material I have written elsewhere to my blog. I have a mystery that I would like to publish serially, but before I can do that I have to learn how to take material from files I've written with Word for Windows and post it on my blog.

I did upload a drawing I did but I don't know how I did it...so it will take a while for me to get up to speed on this blogging matter. I have a book I've got to work on so I'll be taking a break from blogging until the middle of July...or around then.
Once I learn how to upload files, I'll start "publishing" a mystery I wrote in my blogs.

I think I've learned how to post images. The only problem is I don't know what I did. But I'll give it another try another day.

Now, I've revealed that I'm a secret agent. I'll tell how I became one soon.

Arthur Asa Berger as Secret Agent 

June 15, 2004

I haven't posted a blog for ages...in part because I was waiting for new software
to be created to allow me to post images on my blog...and in part because I have
a lot of trouble figuring out how to do anything on computers.

In the six months that I've not done any blogging, I can see that the technology has improved considerable and this sheet on which I'm writing this blog is much different from the screen I used to compose my blogs on.

I've been writing journals for 50 years now...so the idea of writing every day is not a problem. What is a problem is writing and wondering whether anyone is there to see what I've written. I write books and never know what happens to them, either...but I have a notion that someone, somewhere, might possible read one of them. Or part of one of them.

If I can figure out how to post images, I'll put on some of my cartoons and other drawings. It was my friend Howard Rheingold, a writer who lives a few minutes away from where I live, who suggested I start writing blogs...I took a walk with him today and he urged me to go back to it.

THOUGHTS ON THE WAR IN IRAQ

Here are some random thoughts about the war in Iraq, now in its second week.

1. Are we "saving" Iraq by destroying it? As you watch the images of the bombing of Baghdad
and of the dead civilians, the fire fights, and so on, I can only wonder if this is the best way to "save"
Iraq from Saddam...he may be a monster (and there are many others like him) but is the medicine
we're using--blowing up Iraq--worse than the ailment?

2. What is is that led Bush to decide upon this war? American public opinion supported the war
only if the United Nations backed it...and Bush was unable to obtain this backing. Was this
diplomatic disaster on the Bush administration's part behind Bush's decision to go to war? Was
Bush's revulsion against Saddam's monstrous behavior behind it? If so, will Bush's revulsion
against various monstrous dictators lead to other wars?

3. How long will American public opinion support the war? We were told the war would be
"weeks, not months" and we were led to believe that this war would be similar to the last Iraq
war, that lasted 100 hours. But this time we've invaded Iraq and aren't repelling Iraqis from
Kuwait. The American public is very fickle and if we don't get a quick win, and a relatively
painless one--from our point of view, which means not many casualties--public opinion may
change.

SOCIAL CLASS AND NECK LENGTH

I've often thought it might be interesting to measure the length of necks of women in working class,
middle class and upper class women's magazines.

A number of years ago I made a brief survey and this is what I found:

Upper Class Magazines: Long, graceful, swan-like necks. Think Modigliani here. Think six feet models with 4% bodyfat.

Middle Class Magazines: Ordinary length necks--like the girl next store, unless she's a supermodel.

Working Class Magazines: No necks, to speak of. The heads of women in these magazines seem to be tacked
on to their shoulders without much benefit of neck.

So "class" shows. To get ahead it seems you need a long neck!

TOAST

What is toast--the product of a process or the process itself? That is, does bread become
toast (and change its identity somehow), or do we toast bread and thereby only modify its
character slightly? Is toast breat that has been processed (toasted) or changed (made into
toast)?

Let's assume we start with a slice of packaged white bread. The question is--do we end up with a
variation of this piece of sliced bread or something that is different. In terms of the dynamics
of American culture, I would argue most of think that toast is different from bread itself. That is,
the process involves a major transformation (in the same way that grinding a steak turns it
into hamburger). We believe in the power of change and in our ability to change our
circumstances and status.

More on Toast later!

ARE HOT WOMEN ALWAYS COOL?

The language my students use...and young people, in general, interests me.
When they like something, when they approve of something, they say "cool."

But they also describe sexy young women as "hot" as in "that babe is really hot!"

So the question arises, is it cool to be "hot"? And if so, what does that mean?
Does the term have anything to do with sexual excitement, when people become
all hot and bothered...

Often, if we don't like something, we say it is "not so hot." For example, if someone
asks you about a party that was kind of dull, you might say it was "not so hot."

Or, answering the question, "how was your date?" you might say, "not so hot."
But "not so hot" is close to cool...does that mean "not so hot" is better than
"good"?

THE SEXUAL IDENTITY OF HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES

The great psychologist Erik Erikson once conducted an experiment in which he asked
boys and girls to play with blocks. The boys constructed towers and the girls constructed enclosures
of one sort or another. Erikson described these phenomena as reflecting penetratic (phallic)
and incorporative (vaginal) modalities.

It is possible to take Erikson's insight into the "incorporative" modality in women and use
this to identify the sexual identity of electric household appliances. Consider the kitchen, for example.
In kitchens we find:

ovens,
refrigerators,
microwaves,
dishwashers,
trash compactors,
garbage disposals,
toasters,
coffee grinders,
blenders...and so on.

all of which are incorporative. That explains why kitchens are a woman's domain,
even though increasing numbers of men cook. The only phallic appliance in the kitchen
is the electric knife. One of the ironies of present day life in the USA is the fact that
many women have expensive kitchens with all the latest appliances but hardly cook any more.
A lot of young women, so I understand, don't even know how to cook.

The domain of the male is the garage or tool room where various phallic
devices are to be found: drills, saws, etc.

Does the fact that so many men are now cooking suggest some kind of a weakening
of male sexual identity? I leave that for the psychologists to determine, but, as you
might imagine, I have my suspicions.

NOTE: Those interested in this kind of analysis might find my book Bloom's Morning
worth looking at. In it I analyze 35 different things, from king sized beds to garbage
disposals.

COMEDY AND CRIMINALITY

In a recent movie, there are precogs who are able to determine that a crime is about be committed...
I've not seen the movie but have read articles about it.

Curiously, I had an idea--elaborated in a mystery novel I wrote, The Mass Comm Murders that
was similar in nature. It developed out of a collaboration with a professor of criminality at the University
of California in Berkeley. I had written an article on jokes Italian-Americans tell about themselves
that was in the SF Chronicle...he wrote to me and we decided to apply for a grant to see whether the
sense of humor of criminals was different from that of non-criminals. We didn't get the grant.

But that gave me an idea. What if I were to do research and discover that the sense of humor of
criminals was different from that of non-criminals. Then I could develop a comedy & criminality
instrument (as social scientists would put it) and we could test people...if, for example, we found
adolescents with a criminality sense of humor, we could put then in jail BEFORE they actually committed
their crimes, thus saving good citizens from the sense of violation that comes from being robbed...and not
let them out until their sense of humor reflected non-criminality. At this point, we would have little
fear of recidivism.

This "modest proposal" is part of a speech I have a French postmodernist professor give at a
conference. I thought it was a good joke...

CLERIHEWS

Here are some comic poems I wrote, made out of the names of people.

Aga
Khan
But Immanuel
Kant

Dame Mae
Was Witty
But John Greanleaf
Was Whittier

Clare Booth
Was Luce
But Martin
Was Luther.

John
Was Gay
But Gerard Hopkins
Manley.

So much for that nonsense.

C L E R I H E W S

Here are some comic poems I wrote using the names of people.


Dame Mae/Was Witty/But John Greanleaf/Was Whitter


Clare Booth/Was Luce/ But Martin/ Was Luther

Speaking Truth to Power!

It's one thing to speak truth to power, but what's it like speaking truth to nobody?
That is the question I, and all authors, wonder about. To see whether anyone
is listening, I've installed (I think) a counter...Over the years I've published a number
of books and until I started putting my e-mail in them, I hardly ever heard from
anyone who had read my books. Maybe nobody wrote because nobody read them?
Now, thanks to technology, I'll know whether anyone is out there. And if there not,
it really doesn't matter.

THE EVANGELICAL HAMBURGER

In 1963 I wrote an article for "The Minnesota Daily" titled "The Evangelical Hamburger." I argued
that the dynamics of McDonald's resembled those of evangelical churches and discussed the
symbolism: the yellow arches, the sign with the number of hamburgers sold, etc. I speculated
that McDonald's would spread all through the world and said it represented what I called
"hambourgeoisement," a false notion that people had that because they were eating meat they
were middle class.

What I didn't realize at the time was that McDonald's would also have a terrible social and economic cost,
for as people ate more and more hamburgers and French Fries, they would become more and more obese
and this would lead, in turn, to other medical problems like heart disease and diabetes. When I had my
first McDonald's hamburger, it was a slight affair and cost something like twelve cents. Things have changed
a great deal since then.

I just found out about blogs and this is my first attempt to do one...I have to find out how to put illustrations
in my blog...since I am an artist and cartoonist as well as a writer. To tell you the truth, I don't know what
I'm doing or whether this entry will end up in my blog...but with a little help from my friends, this site should
start looking a lot better.

Arthur