Currently
Reading:
- The Long Emergency, by James Howard Kunstler. I’ve been reading his blog (the aptly titled “Clusterfuck Nation”) for several years, and even read his novel, World Made by Hand; this is the book where he lays out his ideas for the future, and how the problems of peak oil, compounded by global warming and geopolitics and the collapse of petroagriculture and the super-economy, are going to dramatically affect our way of life. Where Kunstler is normally quite polemic on his blog, he reins it in for this book; you can tell he believes in the importance of his message.
As for the actual content, Kunstler’s knowledge of the subject matter is near encyclopedic, and his analytical ability is quite impressive; he does tend toward doom and gloom - but, again, not nearly as much as on his blog - with some predictions seeming a bit too apocalyptic, such as the US splintering into several countries within my lifetime. One takes the book with a grain of salt. That said, most of his facts check out, and his assertions seem accurate. It makes me want to move to Oregon. It’s a book everyone should read; even if his worst assertions never come to pass, it forces you to reconsider your place in this country and this country’s place in the world. - The Martians, by Kim Stanley Robinson. A collection of short stories that fill in some blanks of the Mars trilogy. I’ve said several times that the original trilogy is one of the best things I’ve ever read, regardless of genre, and this is a welcome return to this world. Only two stories in, and I am stunned on every page at Robinson’s intelligence, his unsurpassed grasp of character, his psychological depth, the beauty of the worlds he creates.
- In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote (on audiobook). The famous “nonfiction novel” of the 1959 slaying of a family of four in a small Kansas town. Its alleged inaccuracies aside, the book gives a bone-deep portrait of the killers and their victims, crawling into their heads and raking over every detail of their pasts, so that their tragedy becomes your tragedy; Capote’s eye for detail and character is amazing.
- Nickel and Dimed: on Not Getting by in America, by Barbara Ehrenreich. A middle-class Harper’s writer “goes undercover” for a year, working the worst kind of blue-collar jobs and bringing back her experiences to share with us, the monocle-wearing cognac-sippers. Haha. It’s actually not condescending at all. It fills me with intense horror at the kind of jobs I used to work, but had forgotten about. I hope three years of sinecures followed by a year of unemployment don’t wreck me completely. Good god, our society is so rich, the richest that has ever existed in history, and still so few people barely scrape by, and many of us in the middle class still find time to feel sorry for ourselves. Go to Cambodia, you jerks, and see what real poverty looks like.
- Next: Homicide, by David Simon, Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson… etc etc ad nauseum.
Playing:
- Assassin’s Creed II. So good. I’ve never played a sequel so improved. The first game was all right, it had some good ideas and some amazing design, but they had no idea what to do with it, leading to the tragedy of having big, detailed worlds with nothing to do. The story also got a little drunk on its own importance from time to time. The second game has a better script, a better story, amazing levels, delightful gameplay, varied and interesting missions, and tons to do. Bring on the third. And set it in outer space or something. Just kidding. Set it in Arlington, Texas! Just kidding. That would be horrible. People would ask, why did Ubisoft spend millions of dollars building this suburban wasteland? For that matter, why did Arlingtonians? Ha ha! We live in a car-dominated void utterly bereft of community or beauty! Ha! Seriously, though. The games are unique for bringing to life the world’s great cities, the unique locations that humanity has raised into history, so it is amusing to imagine our horrible cities receiving that same treatment. You have Florence and Venice, havens for and repositories of art and genius and the spirit of human inventiveness, and then you have Arlington, which has more fast food chains per capita than any other city in the world.
- Bioshock 2. It would raise nerd ire to assert that this game is far superior to the first, if anyone really cared that much. But, dammit, it is. The story is better. The gameplay is more polished. The moral decisions are more complex and interesting. Everything is better. It only lacks the originality of the original, for obvious reasons.
Watching:
- Season 3 of Breaking Bad. This show matures, getting more complex and richer with age. The third season is even more rewarding than the second, which stands as one of the greatest narratives ever told in the medium of TV. Best show on the air right now.
- Season 5/32 of Doctor Who. No one knows about Matt Smith yet, but I think Steven Moffat is doing a good job of running the series. So far we’ve had a handful of great episodes, some pretty good ones, and one or two clunkers - but it’s always been fun.
- I still have to watch the finale of Lost. Can’t wait to be done with this show forever, and to exorcise my bile by writing a vicious retrospective for RevolutionSF.