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April 25, 2006
Jane Jacobs
Jane Jacobs died today. I'm ashamed to admit that I've never actually read all of Death and Life of Great American Cities but I did read Dark Age Ahead when I was on a collapse-of-civilization kick last year. Even in a book not actually about cities, she had so much to say that it boggles the mind.
I really do love cities -- not just what they are, but what they stand for: the idea that we are richer when we are in contact and communion with one another. Even as someone who doesn't spend a lot of time thinking about urban planning, you can see every day how Jacobs' explanations of how cities work -- or don't -- is spot-on time and time again. She made me understand communities as eco-systems and how, like eco-systems, they can be devestated by thoughtless changes in their environment.
Net/net: Jane Jacobs makes me feel much better about not being able to afford a car. Why live in a city if you're not going to go for a walk in it?
There's a great obit in the NY Times today. I suggest you give it a read.
Posted by Drew at 10:41 PM | TrackBack
April 17, 2006
Awesome new site.
The problem with liberals, I've long maintained, is that they're all wimps. Well, not all, but too many. I suspect that's why no one who calls himself a liberal has gotten elected outside of San Francisco for the last 25 years, and the Democrats we do get stand up for liberal values the same way Jello stands up to a falling anvil. I also suspect that the namby-pambyness of the left is why we've lost religious communities. There's a way to speak to liberal values without resorting to the black-hole of moral relativism.
I'm therefore pretty excited by Faith in America. It's a pro-gay Christian group that's going about their messaging the right way: they deal with religion-based bigotry with religion-based language. Anti-gay rhetoric, they point out, isn't just anti-eqality, it's immoral and anti-Christian. They're not trying to win a political battle, they're trying to win a religious battle, which is much more difficult and infinitely more important.
Conservatives don't win elections because they've got better candidates or better talking points or more money: they win because they've made America conservative. Really conservative. Scarily, nightmarishly conservative. They've transformed the religion of the masses into a cult of reactionary zealotry, and they've done a great job of it.
Christianity in this country has been hijacked by close-minded chauvinists, and a religious, not a secular, argument is what it will take to get it back.
Posted by Drew at 11:02 PM | TrackBack
There can be only one!
As you may or may not know, I have of late been on a kind of cultural quest. For almost a year now, I've been sporting, on a semi-regular basis, colorful bow ties. I've been doing this for several reasons: (a) it's easy to keep a sense of humor when you look ridiculous, (b) people are way nicer to you on the metro, although not on the bus for some reason, and (c) tying bow tie at a bar is a great party trick.
My commitment to the cause has led to the accumulation of several bow ties in a rainbow of colors. People were, indeed, much nicer to me whenever I wore one, and my coworkers learned my name much more quickly than I believe they would have under other circumstances. The only problem was that, almost without fail, people assumed I was a Republican.
For some of you, this might not be a problem, but I prefer that people not think of me as a soulless, tax-hating crypto-fascist. Even at last weeks immigration march, where I chose an uber-classy bow tie / t-shirt combo, people were calling me "Tucker."
No more.
Last week, obviously reacting to the power of foppish stylings, Tucker Carlson abandoned his bow tie, thereby ceding the territory of sissy neckwear back to bookish liberals who read The Nation, talk about global warming at the dinner table, and listen to NPR during sex. Take that, I say!
I'm sure you can imagine that since that day, I've been walking with spring in my step and the gleam of victory in my eye. In celebration, I'm having a little gathering with Justice John Paul Stevens, Mayor Anthony Williams, Councilman Jim Graham, the ghost of Senator Paul Simon, and Opus the Penguin.
You're welcome to come along, but leave the clip-ons at home. Real men tie.
Posted by Drew at 10:27 PM | TrackBack
April 09, 2006
Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo.
This weekend I returned home to exotic Orchard Park, NY to attend the engagement(!) party of my friends Dave and Kara. When we were in 9th grade, Dave was the one who told my mother that he wouldn't drink Mountain Dew because it would shrink his testicles. Now he's getting married. Life is crammed full of the unexpected. It was great to see them, though, and I'm terrifically happy for the both of them.
Anyway, it was a lovely, if brief, trip back home. Just long enough to see some friends, have dinner with my parents, and blow $50 at Target on socks and underwear. (I know what you're thinking. Actually, Danger's my middle name.)
Posted by Drew at 07:41 PM | TrackBack
April 05, 2006
Victory is soft and fuzzy.
So guess who, despite his total lack of interest in team sports, won his NCAA women's bracket at work and placed third in the men's? That would be me.
Some people would allow this to go to their heads. Not me. Whenever I feel a little puffed up, I remember that my first thought upon winning was, "Awesome! I'm totally going to blow this on socks." What's really depressing is that that's still the plan.
Posted by Drew at 10:40 PM | TrackBack
April 04, 2006
If the novel is dead, why am I spending so much money at Olsson's?
A friend at work forwarded me an interesting article. Apparently a bunch of authors -- including Dave Eggers, Jane Smiley, and Rick Moody -- are founding their own political action committee called LitPAC. They're going to endorse and donate to liberal congressional candidates, presumably in a take-back-the-House fashion.
I can't argue with the good sense of getting involved in politcs, but I think it says something that these authors see their role in the political life of our country as money-raising celebrities. While I don't really want the author of The Ice Storm setting our domestic policy agenda for the next four years [Ed. - Eww.] it seems to me that authors should be able to play a roll in the national conversation that's more valuable than a drop-in-the-bucket financial contribution.
During the Clinton administration, Tony Kushner was invited to the White House and consulted on the State of the Union address. I'm not saying that the Clinton years were the golden age of American letters, or even that a book since Uncle Tom's Cabin has changed the focus of the nation, but despite the tyranny of the soundbyte in the present moment, I still think a good author can inform us in a powerful and meaningful way.
It's sad to be so distinctly in the minority.