The Nation’s editors Richard Kim and Betsy Reed have rounded up an army of writers who have contributed essays on the mavericky ex-governor’s brush with greatness. The collection is called Going Rouge: Sarah Palin – An American Nightmare and will conveniently also launch on November 17th.  The book is already making waves with its obviously similar book cover. In both covers, the plucky moose-mama sports the color red and gazes toward a brighter tomorrow. But there are also a few key differences.

First, the use of the word “Rouge” which alludes to Palin’s sex-appeal and sideshow antics during the 2008 election. In what may be a reminder of the how close Palin came to power, the ex-governor is shown with hair tied back and wearing more formal attire, unlike going Rogue’s more innocuous, homey look .

There is also the font size of Palin’s name on Going Rouge which at first glance makes it seem as though she is the author and not the subject. Then of course, the dark clouds and the word “Nightmare” which are pretty self explanatory.

Now many books quietly or inadvertently  use similar cover photgraphs. Take, for instance, the following well known examples. (Thanks to the awesome totallylookslike.com

Going Rogue’s #1 status on Amazon.com has been attributed by some to mass advance buys by right-wing organizations who plan on distributing the volume to their loyal sheep.

But what will the cover’s effect be on launch day? Is it just a playful dig, or a disingenuous and even unethical marketing tactic?

Would the casual buyer unwittingly pickup the wrong copy?

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The band survives this scrutiny with music that can be frightening in its sincerity.

But out of all of the ‘Head’s gloomy tunes, could one actually stand out as the gloomiest? Yes! and frontman Thom Yorke singles out Street Spirit (Fade Out) from the album The Bends for this honor.

Yorke is quoted as saying:

“Street Spirit is our purest song, but I didn’t write it. It wrote itself. We were just its messengers; its biological catalysts. Its core is a complete mystery to me, and, you know, I wouldn’t ever try to write something that hopeless. All of our saddest songs have somewhere in them at least a glimmer of resolve. Street Spirit has no resolve. It is the dark tunnel without the light at the end. It represents all tragic emotion that is so hurtful that the sound of that melody is its only definition. We all have a way of dealing with that song. It’s called detachment. Especially me; I detach my emotional radar from that song, or I couldn’t play it. I’d crack. I’d break down on stage. That’s why its lyrics are just a bunch of mini-stories or visual images as opposed to a cohesive explanation of its meaning. I used images set to the music that I thought would convey the emotional entirety of the lyric and music working together. That’s what’s meant by ‘all these things you’ll one day swallow whole’. I meant the emotional entirety, because I didn’t have it in me to articulate the emotion. I’d crack…

Our fans are braver than I to let that song penetrate them, or maybe they don’t realise what they’re listening to. They don’t realise that Street Spirit is about staring the fucking devil right in the eyes, and knowing, no matter what the hell you do, he’ll get the last laugh. And it’s real, and true. The devil really will get the last laugh in all cases without exception, and if I let myself think about that too long, I’d crack.

I can’t believe we have fans that can deal emotionally with that song. That’s why I’m convinced that they don’t know what it’s about. It’s why we play it towards the end of our sets. It drains me, and it shakes me, and hurts like hell every time I play it, looking out at thousands of people cheering and smiling, oblivious to the tragedy of its meaning, like when you’re going to have your dog put down and it’s wagging its tail on the way there. That’s what they all look like, and it breaks my heart. I wish that song hadn’t picked us as its catalysts, and so I don’t claim it. It asks too much. I didn’t write that song.”

Jeez…For once, I’m all out of jokes…

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Famous personalities, from d-list losers all the way up to the president himself take advantage of this medium to gab, jaw and shoot the shit about anything and everything…in 140 characters or less of course.

Inevitably, Twitter has also become a haven for narcissistic nobodies who tweet the joys of their last bowel movement or facebrag in quantities that their facebook status message just could not handle.

Could anything of value come from these one-liners, the chum of cyberspace?

Yes! And believe it or not, it’s poetry!

And Rimbaud wept.

The Longest Poem in the World is a site which assembles random tweets in couplets to form an endless rhyming monstrosity. It is constantly updated with fresh tweets and is one of the greatest contributions that tweetology has gifted the world. It is also a cool snapshot created by authors unknowingly collaborating on a momentary work…

http://www.longestpoemintheworld.com

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Featuring such jewels as panchymagogue: “medicine purging body fluids from the body” and tetanothurm: “a cosmetic for removing wrinkles”, the site may seem geeky at first, but is pulling for a worthy cause.

Languages have been going extinct faster than ever and the global nature of the world today has ensured the steady debasement of even our own beloved English. How often do you hear the words “jussulent” or “primifluous” in daily life?  Today’s youth are more likely to shriek out: “pwned” or “l33t” before they go back to playing WoW and sniffing glue…

Aside from netspeak and archaic words, regular everday spoken English has taken a beating. Upon seeing an attractive girl, I’d probably turn to my friend and say: “Dude you should’ve seen this bitch. She was fuckin’ hawt man, I mean fuk bro..but she was like, cool too, you know? I mean, fukkkkkkk….”

And Byron wept.

Perhaps its natural evolution of language, but at the same time there’s a nagging feeling that we’re just being too intellectually lazy– that all these common words are really simplified stand-ins for a myriad of more nuanced thoughts. George Orwell explained this connection between thoughts and language well in Politics and the English Language, a wonderful essay that ultimately traces the misuse, generalization and oversimplification of language to its extreme end: authoritarian political control…

Anyways, geeks of the world unite! Pull an Angelina and adopt these most reviled and forgotten of outcasts at savethewords.org. Users can sign up and “adopt” a word, sealing their duty with the following oath:

“I hereby promise to use this word in conversation and correspondence as frequently as possible to the very best of my ability.”

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The main thing is the size. (The edition I read was 1359 pages). If this book was, say, 300-400 pages with similar style and themes, it would likely have been read, tossed aside, and forgotten long ago. But any book 1000+ pages in length is automatically considered as having more significance than it deserves in this quick-read-paperback-thriller age.

The story takes place in India, shortly after independence, and deals with the lives and interactions of the members of 4 families. It includes both their everyday problems as well as their direct involvement with the politics and issues of the day. However, the central theme is the forbidden love between the Hindu Lata and Muslim Kabir, and the story follows Lata’s mother’s attempt to find a more “suitable boy” before things end in disaster. Meanwhile, other members of the families deal with their own problems – from winning elections to finding the meaning of life to dealing with health problems, etc. The scope is huge, weaving these intersecting lives into a picture of the entire nation at the time.

Anyone who has read War and Peace will find themselves attempting to compare the Russian masterwork to this Indian version, not because A Suitable Boy deserves to be placed in the same category, but because the size, structure, and family issues can be seen as somewhat in parallel. Here the ‘War’ is the class struggle and litigation following land reforms imposed on authoritarian Zamindars, as well as Hindu/Muslim tensions in the time period around Partition. The Rostovs are the Mehras, and a capricious Natasha is here an insipid Lata. The novel maintains a wide enough scope perhaps, but not the depth of emotion, depth of language and depth of philosophical insight necessary for a classic.

Now War and Peace is in a category apart, (I sometimes jokingly say the best novel in English is the English translation of a Russian novel), and obviously it isn’t completely fair to compare a modern novel to an immortal masterwork. However, novels of this type are rarely written and an author who wants to take on the entire human experience within a culture must accept a higher burden than the average novelist. These writers attempt to go all out, maintain hundreds of characters, dozens of storylines, as well as philosophical observations on the minutiae of human actions and the broad nature of man. Booklovers, after investing a great deal of time in reading, will feel cheated unless the entire structure is maintained and they come away with a feeling of emotional grandeur. A writer who attempts to do everything in one volume must do everything well.

Clearly, one of the author’s main jobs is to make the reader interested in the characters presented. But the affection between star-crossed lovers Lata and Kabir seems forced and insincere, though this is supposedly the central thread in the narrative. Others are presented in a better light. The degenerate Maan and the brooding Rasheed are likely the best of the lot and Mrs. Rupa Mehra is dead on as the vexed Indian mother. Still other, minor, characters pop up as gems throughout. The shifty Varun, Anglophile Arun are not bad. The character of Amit, daydreaming poet, is clearly Seth himself, and through him and by other means unnecessary poetry is snuck in wherever possible. Stereotypes abound, but India is the indeed a land where living stereotypes can be found.

Images follow one after another: a Nawab contemplating a crumbling way of life, frenzied devotees crushed in a tragic pilgrimage, plus the standard mix of marriages, deaths, religious ceremony, betrayals and a stabbing for good measure. One especially well done episode portrays a rustic Muslim village as seen through the eyes of the character Maan. The pace of the story is reasonable, although chapters devoted to the courtroom, while important, can stretch tediously and a certain blandness pervades all.

The last line of Seth’s poetic contents describing the players taking their bow is apt, as the general lifelessness of the characters makes the reader feel he’s witnessed a well costumed cast, poorly performing a lengthy play. Props to Seth for picking a realistic over a romantic ending, but to be harsh, by that point the reader has lost interest in the robot-like Lata.

There are nevertheless, a number of good points. Few if any books will give you such an extensive buffet of Indian history and law, humorous and tragic vignettes, religious commentary, and glimpses into the lives of musicians, politicians, courtesans, and working families. Also, this is a period novel, taking place a few years after independence, and the ‘feel’ is maintained believably throughout. This is especially important in context of the transition period after 1947 when the Brits were out but still in, landowners were in the middle of an identity crisis and Hindu-Muslim tensions were continually boiling. Incidents sometimes rich, sometimes affecting, and too numerous to mention here dot the narrative, but nothing can change the final impression: that this is the magnum opus of an average writer.

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My first thought was that it was some kind modern hippie protest against materialism, similar to a satanist’s or political protester’s inversion of the cross or flag.

But it turns out that trees were hung upside down in Germany in the 12th century and may have had some religious symbolism attached to them.

Many consider such trees to be offensive to the Christmas spirit, and ugly to boot. The rebellious conifer is even the reigning champ at http://ugly-christmas-trees.com/, a website that does indeed exist…But its anyone’s guess if they’ll be making a widespread appearence this Yule.

images: thegreenhead.com

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Enter the Museum of Bad Art, a collection of works so bad that they’re good. Well not really–they’re just bad. The stated purpose of the MOBA is “to bring the worst of art to the widest of audiences,” a promise they fulfill admirably. From loathsome landscapes to poopy portraits, the works have only one thing in common–they must be cleansed in fire.

http://www.museumofbadart.org/

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How interesting that in Wilhelm Staehle’s art the same thing happens even thought the subjects are missing!

Each picture is in a old washed out style, often with Victorian elements but with modern punchlines.

http://silhouettemasterpiecetheatre.com/

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The popularity of Phillip Pullman’s trilogy His Dark Materials has increased lately because of the release of a movie based on Book I, and as a result of the explosion in mainstream atheist literature (Dawkins, Hitches, Harris, etc.)

The plot of Book III: The Amber Spyglass, rolls along, though slow and dark at times, but Pullman’s greatest triumph is the world he has created, not the storyline. The daemon system, (whereby a human is paired to an animal which acts as an external soul) by this third book has become entirely natural and poignant. The connection between Dust/Original Sin/Dark Matter is stirring, but might not be sufficiently tied together for the casual reader.

The plot so far has carried heroine Lyra and her daemon to a cave where she is being held by her apparently evil mother. Lyra’s friend Will, aided by a knife which can cut through dimensions, comes to her rescue and they set off to find answers to the chaos around them. Lyra’s father, Lord Asriel, is making war upon heaven and the fate of the future world, and all worlds apparently, hangs on the choices made by Lyra, a neo-Eve. Aided by witches and gypsies, Lyra and Will adventure to different worlds including the world of the dead in search for answers.

As for the characters: Mrs. Coulter is so robotically evil and erratic readers are unsure of what to think throughout. Similar inconsistencies with Lord Asriel cause us to shout “Dammit! are these people good or bad!?” But that is probably the question Pullman wants us to wrestle with. Lyra jumps back and forth between being a goofy, bratty kid and a mature serious woman, but again this may be intentional as Pullman has to keep her hovering on the edge of sexual discovery. Will is rocklike and unlikable (though with good cause) but for this reason his expected love for Lyra in the final chapters is somewhat awkward.

Readers of the first two books might remember points here and there where Pullman drives the strangeness of his world home. For example, in Book I where Lyra eats a raw kidney or in Book II when Iorek eats his friend Lee’s corpse. These act as exclamation points that Pullman nonchalantly throws in so the reader might catch his breath and say: ‘Yes indeed, this is a strange world, so different from our own.’ Dr. Mary Malone’s time among mulefa (somewhat of a rip off of Gulliver’s last journey, complete with bird yahoos?) seems to continue this, as a kind of originality/weirdness for originality’s/weirdness’s sake. This compounded weirdness, (having no archetypal root in the reader’s mind), tends to ‘thin’ a story as it goes on, and though you will applaud the originality, I think most will find this story fading faster in memory than comparable fantasies, unless reread at least once.

What lingers however is pure poetry. The final image of Lyra sitting alone in the Botanic Garden knowing Will is doing the same in the overlapping world is absolutely haunting, and it is a cynical son of a gun who can’t shed a tear at such a time. The weird factor plus childlike discovery factor plus the backdrop of abstract philosophy add up to many other beautiful dreamlike images which I feel are the final residual treasures in the series.

Social philosophy:

Readers may note concepts in the book including homosexual angels, few examples of married couples as compared to lovers, a nun who throws her crucifix into the ocean and later moves in with a man, anima/animus ideas etc, and accuse Pullman of having a not so subtle social agenda. Those who rage against the machine often have a tough sell, but Pullman is no more “right” or “wrong” than his critics in this area as these critics will attack his social philosophy with their own religious philosophy. Few will dare to think “beyond good and evil” (“God” bless quotation marks!)

Religious Philosophy:

Numerous fantasy authors attack churches indirectly (e.g. Robert Jordan’s Children of the Light) or do not touch God at all. Others, like C.S. Lewis, supported Christianity by being masterful but ‘original in an unoriginal way’. That is to say, Lewis took something ready made and confirmed it in the hearts of his accepting readers with allegory. Pullman, the anti-C.S. Lewis, throws subtlety and allegory out the window with an all powerful church centered in the money capital Geneva, an assassin priest who performs preemptive penance and, even the suggestion that the church cuts out the sexual organs of children.

Pullman’s slip is identifying the God he is using specifically as Yaweh/Adonnai. This gives the Christian church reason to attack his religious ideas when the core of the book is its philosophical ideas. You could attack Jesus(Da Vinci Code style), the Church(historically or with certain controversies today), Mohammad, Buddha, anyone you want, and make some progress one way or another, bunk and debunk endlessly, though believers and skeptics would multiply. This is why Pullman’s enemies are foaming at the mouth, because they feel they can refute him with substantial argument……..

Abstract Philosophy:

But ‘God’ is simply too abstract to ever be created or destroyed by man’s philosophy or argument. What Pullman has done here is take an entity considered infinite, omnipotent, omniscient, etc and presented him as merely a powerful though mortal imposter. The true question of God is not touched, and even some characters in the book express doubt over the nature and existence of a possible “true Creator” beyond and above the presented imposter. Pullman, wanting to destroy God, has taken the abstract concept of God, humanized and personified it, and destroyed it instead.

Now, within the confines of a story this is no problem, and if the author wants “blaspheme”, more power to him. He can and does score legitimate points off the church, and the concept of a “Republic of Heaven” is too stirring to ignore. But the concept of God taken outside the book, when the story ends and the philosophy continues, is just too weak to stand up. Christians can lose or gain faith in the church or angels or humanity, but would be foolish to lose faith in God over this book. Atheists and giant-killers should look for more potent ammunition.

Note: Book I, The Golden Compass a.k.a. Northern Lights and Book II, The Subtle Knife must be read before reading this final Book in the trilogy.

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Never fear, for Seventh Sanctum has a number of random generators which can be used to combat this dastardly disease. Much like a game of mad libs, the site creates unexpected elements: from characters and setting to plot ideas.

For example, I gave the Romance story generator a click and here’s what it came up with:

This story takes place in a town in Cuba. In it, a cruel physicist attends a social event and meets a gas station attendant who inherited a family curse. What starts as contempt quickly becomes a passionate affair – all thanks to a failure. What role will a chest being opened play in their relationship?

Ooo la la…What’s that I smell? Could it be the next bestseller? Though the generators are likely for humor purposes, you never know….the kernels of some of the greatest works of literature are made up of some fairly stock components, and nearly all can be succinctly and irreverently reduced:

Romeo and Juliet: Boy Meets girl. They die.

Moby Dick: Dude chases whale. Everybody dies.

The Bible: Guy dies. Comes back to life. Sequel held up by publisher.

Well you get the idea.

http://www.seventhsanctum.com/

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