History? Kill it, before it kills you

If you put me on the rack, I'll confess to a posse of very strange hobbies indeed. One of them is being shocked. Easily done, you may say, with the world being what it is. The machinistas in Honduras, 5 million jobless in a country of 80 million people. Children dying because they don't have access to clean water. Why, anyone can be shocked by an endless number of horrors and so am I. But I like to take it a little further. Today it is the stench of prosody decomposing that hurts my sensibilities. This is what David Yezzi has to say about it in his essay "The fortunes of formalism"

Some years ago, in a class I was attending, a well-known, well-published visiting poet gave an assignment to write a poem in blank verse. When the class reconvened and copies of the poems were handed around, one writer read out her exercise. The instructor’s polling of the class for comments on the success of the poem as blank verse was followed by the usual pause as people gathered their thoughts. Then, admitting to a certain confusion, I tentatively offered that it was a fine poem but it was not iambic pentameter. At this point, a low-level panic ran around the seminar table as people returned to the poem to weigh this fact against the text. Relief came when the renowned poet, our instructor, suggested to the group that blank verse needn’t be iambic pentameter.
The New Criterion (via Art & Letters Daily)

Let me refresh your memory with a quick definition:

Blank Verse: Verse in iambic pentameter without rhyme scheme, often used in verse drama in the sixteenth century (Marlowe and Shakespeare) and later used for poetry (Milton, Wordsworth's The Prelude, Browning).
The Literary Encyclopedia

Claiming to produce blank verse without writing it in iambic pentameter is like saying: 'Look at this neat triangle I've constructed; it has six angles that add up to precisely 370 degrees.' Does that tell us anything about the well-known poet and the student of Yezzi's anecdote - are they stupid? Shockingly enough, the answer is no. They merely live in mortal terror of the Total Perspective Vortex, history division.

In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy the wife of the dreamer and inventor Trin Tragula constantly tells him to get a sense of perspective. So Trin invents a device that extrapolates the fundamental connexion of everthing with everything (from a piece of fruitcake). When you are strapped in you get to feel your insignificance in respect to the rest of the universe. His wife is the first person to be strapped in.

To Trin Tragula’s horror, the shock completely annihilated her brain; but to his satisfaction he realized that he had proved conclusively that if life is going to exist in a Universe of this size, then the one thing it cannot have is a sense of proportion. (Douglas Adams, HHGG)

These days history tends to induce a similar kind of horror. If you sit in a poetry class and stumble over a literary brontosaurus like 'blank verse', you cannot afford to check it out. It will lead you to the iambic pentameter and from there to Shakespeare, or, goddess forbid, Chaucer. And you just cannot deal with such people. For crying out loud, they didn't even have typewriters! It is bad enough that you can't get your Father/Grandfather to use his mobile phone, but you can also foresee a future (5?, 10? 15? years hence) in which new technologies and new fads have become too much for you to keep up.

This is nonsense, of course. We may not have normality, but we have life-long-learning now. We will keep up, because we have grown up with More's law. But all the same, having to keep up puts us in the position of Alice Through the Looking Glass, when she and the red queen suddenly have to run as fast as they can - just to stay where they are. Running as fast as you can is no time to look back. It may only slow you down, but there is always the danger of tripping up...

None of this would be a problem, if (fledgling) poets were the only people afflicted with history horror. Unfortunately, it is an epidemic. But please let me off the rack now. Otherwise I might confess more of my deviant pastimes. Such as going on the odd tour de force or something.

History

Edit: Louis kindly reminded me, that it should be 'Moore's law'

Short-Term History Lessons

By way of experiment, I've just reread Douglas Couplands Generation X - Tales for an Accelerated Culture, published 14 years ago in 1991. The book created a great stir at the time. I wondered, if it was also prophetic in some kind of way. Look at this:

Historical Underdosing: To live in a period of time when nothing seems to happen. Major symptoms include addiction to newspapers, magazines, and TV news broadcasts.

Historical Overdosing: To live in a period of time when too much seems to happen. Major symptoms include addiction to newspapers, magazines, and TV news broadcasts.
London, 1998, p.9

In 2005 we might give a different list of media. We might even think that the somewhat paradoxical attitude Coupland observed has long since turned into something else: The information singularity.

It may have started with the first Irak war. Princess Diana's untimely death certainly was an information singularity. Next came 9/11. My idea of an information singularity is that the whole world is watching with bated breath. Broadcasters have reacted to this. Take the BBC World Service that changed from hourly to half-hourly news after 9/11. And only recently the world stared myopically at a little picture-in-picture inset of a little chimney in vatican city. Ersatz-history in the making...

These days the media seem to be almost dependent on information singularities. They generate sales at the newsstands, high viewer ratings, and lots of traffic on the internet and in the blogosphere. Is it dangerous? Should anything be done about it?

In terms of information technology the world Coupland described in 1991 is irrevocably gone. I find it all the more surprising that he observed an attitude towards information that was only fully enabled thanks to the internet.

History

Competitive Happiness

Richard Layard is a highly respected scientist, founder and director of the Centre for Economic Perfomance and member of the House of Lords. He has also been consultant to various British government agencies since 1968. He has also written a book (Happiness - Lessons from a New Science) which may well influence policies of the (next? Labour?) UK government. You know all that already, but were you aware that his brains are run by a very sturdy 1985 Casio pocket calculator? A happy one, I'm sure.

The upshot of the book is that we can now measure happiness. And if we can measure it, naturally governments should measure it. After all happiness or well-being are more important than such harsh and mean things as GDP? Tony Blair's government is all agog: A Whitehall source confirmed that the Government was looking at introducing a well-being indicator to see what benefits there may be for policy-making.

"Will this actually make people happier?"
Please don't ask such silly questions! Maybe some funds for renovating the public swimming pool, or a district nurse here and there will have to be re-allocated. But think of the happiness of the economists! How their abacus, Texas Instruments, and slide rule brains click together in merry, if somewhat protracted, meetings. And then the bliss of estate agents frollicking as the regional well-being-index is published and they can finally get rid of that rotten hovel! The real fun, however, will only start once the design for the Ministry of Happiness is approved. For the neuroscientist, psychologists, sociologist, down to the humble researchers with their clipboards there will be good cheer all the year round. And then, my cup runneth over, the ecstatic day when the first EU-Commissioner of felicity is confirmed in office.

A note to sci-fi authors: Don't you dream of using this scenario as a treatment for your next book. The cornerstone for this delightful future is already a fact. Look at A well-being manifesto for a flourishing society, produced by a labour associated think tank.

I hate long posts, but I haven't finished yet!

Happiness in the Corridors of Fear I
We don't need Richard Layards book to know that many people spend their lives in those corridors: Schools (highest concentration near the staff-room), university (will the students pass exams, will the lecturers get tenure, will the professors get funding), and out in the workplace... Here are two tiny snap-shots of the new kinds of scene we are likely to witness once the Ministry of Happiness is established:

The place is an large board-room, but it is not impressive. The revolution of design was swift. Light colours dominate and the artwork on the walls are whimsical calligraphic interpretations of ancient jokes. The executives sport suits in soothing pastels. Only the labour representative wears a dark grey, slightly crumpled suit. But the shiniest of all is Penny Thrillbeam from the FlouriFul Consultancy:

"It is only a matter of weeks now till the FTSE will be linked to the well-being-index. But we have assessed your organisation very thoroughly and here are our suggestions: Indepth psychological examination once a year for every employee. If treatment is necessary it will be deducted from the wages. Religious doubt, marital disagreements, or nightmares have to be reported immediately. Oh, and divorcees will be happier elsewhere."

The union man crumpled a little more. He knew he would have a hard time selling a professional comedian during lunch break and a gift-bonus for Valentine's Day as a success.

Happiness in the Corridors of Fear II
The second snap-shot: A dingy room. Lots of old-fashioned metal and light grey. The personell manager's smile seems a little worn:
"Thank you, Mr. Poynter. Your previous experience and your know-how are really impressive. And I think you could be a welcome addition to our company. But there is your well-being-questionaire to consider. You are not married, it seems?
"No", Carl looks radiantly happy. His eyes gleam.
"No community work?"
"I played in a pop band when I was twelve."
"But you stopped?"
"Had to, the lead singer kept imitating Marilyn Manson."
"And no regular religious practice?"
"There is this relaxation CD I sometimes use."
"This looks bad, Mr. Poynter. You see, we largely depend on government funding. And in such a small company as ours you would really mess up the statistics. If I ever were sorry, I'd be sorry to tell you that you will probably be happier elsewhere."
Carl kept smiling while he left. He knew a DVD rental where you could get Ingmar Bergman films, if you knew how to ask. Tonight he would indulge himself and first thing on Monday morning he'd find himself a decent happy happy joy joy coach.

Happy Horror
Back to the here and now. There are hundreds of sites reviewing Layard's book. Some take it at face value and simply agree. Oh yes, the world out there is so cold and ruthless. It is time someone finally acknowledged that. It may be true that people were happier in the 1950ies, but I'd really like to know how the scientists Layard relies on managed their double blind studies.
Thankfully the study was also criticised left right and centre. The Economist thinks that happiness is a private matter. The Times online berates Layard for

"perpetrating the myth that a grand utopian vision imposed from above by the Government has the slightest chance of increasing the sum of human joy by so much as a single bar of chocolate (which is, I find, by far the best measure of bliss)."

The LA Times sees the book as an excuse for right wing fiscal politics:

If money really causes more problems than it solves, Bush's second term will provide even greater happiness to the middle class and something approaching euphoria for the poor.

But by far wittiest take on Layard was that of the Denenberg Report. It uses the author's own rankings for happiness and unhappiness to argue that happiness would be enhanced, unhappiness practically eliminated, if we all had lots of money and no work to do.

None of the reviews and blogs I looked at pointed out that Layards thesis almost looks like a secularised version of the christian rich man's difficulty of getting into heaven while the poor man always gets a backstage pass.

And there is always a suspicion that nostalgia is at work when you are told to look back to the toothless, unheated, MTV-free 1950ies. And I'm sorry, Lord Layard, nostalgia is as old as the hills - probably a bit older.

How happy was Holden Caulfield?
In the 1950ies, I think, you were expected to have a cheerful outlook. If you were there at all, it meant you had survived WWII. Psychoanalysis was a pastime for fevered intellectuals. The majority would have been ashamed to confess their unhappiness to wandering psychologists. But it boiled underneath. How happy was Holden Caulfield? How happy were the beatniks? After 1968 and Vietnam there was no holding back. Finally you could publicise your innermost feelings. At first this felt so good that you stuck flowers everywhere and smiled a lot. But once all those feelings were out in the open it turned out that not all of them were all that blissful...

technorati tag: Economics

Communicating Engineering?

I listened to the first of this year's Reith lectures on BBC radio 4 a couple of days ago. Lord Broers is convinced of the triumph of technology. However, he deplores that 50% of British graduates wish to work in the media when they leave university, because the media still seem so hip while engineering does not. I smell a rat? No, I smell the continuation of the Two Cultures discussion, triggered by C.P. Snow in the late 50ies. Yes, there are problems of communication, not least because the sciences and the humanities respectively tend to self-select people with different brains and abilities.

However, there is another problem even graver than communication malfunction: the economy. Machinery must be written off, before new technologies can even be contemplated. Workers must be trained and clients found for new technology. This is expensive and the costs of it can be calculated. In many cases new technology is easier on the environment, but the costs of not implementing them can neither be calculated nor attributed to economic units very well.

If it is true that technology has brought us to the brink of global environmental catastrophe then it must jolly well do something to avert the impending doom. But technology must be implemented before it can do anything. Instead of droning on I shall - again - point out this overwhelming collection of new materials (as did treehugger). If you are dazed by the sheer mass of materials you can subscribe to the newsletter featuring the product of the week.

Real vs. Virtual I

Women, but especially young girls everywhere take a good look at these two examples of retouched photos. Of course we know it is going on, but it is fascinating to see how much is done to transform perfectly natural human beings into sisters of Lara Croft. Sometimes I wonder why they do not make living models redundant in the first place.
Via boingboing.

Japan Blacklash

This is the story of the Japanese schoolgirl who insisted on going to class with non-black hair on her head and the teacher who sprayed her with black dye. I posted elsewhere on backlash in Japan.

Changes

As you can see I finally managed to get a background image for my title. I found the amazing typogenerator which gave me picture below.

Then I tweaked it a bit and am fairly pleased with the colours, but I still wish I knew how to keep the image from tiling. Ah well.

Then I went even deeper into the html undergrowth to create a new list. As blogrolling will only give me one free list (fair enough) I had to do it myself. When I fiddle with html it feels like a cross between rummaging in someone's guts and speaking chinese without a dictionary. In this new list you will find aesthetically pleasing interactive and/or moving things (if there is any rhyme or reason to the selection process it is all fuzz and no logic).

The one item on this new list which I have not mentioned yet is Bootstrap the Blank Slate. It is the most exciting internet art I have seen yet. You start with lots of coloured tiles on which you click or mouse over, then you end up with something like this:

And I did lots more, created poems, rumours and my very own personal map of the world (I'll have to work on that one, the sea is not quite the right shade of pink in the late afternoon), but I must have some sleep before I go on with my show and tell session.

Chain Reaction

I don't know what it is all about, how it works, or why it was created, but have fun with the gridgame and then try to get away while you can.
I found it at pen-elayne. Backupbrain has provoked a kind of high-score list in her comment section.

For Once, Something Really Important

I finally started blogging after I read an article in wired about anil dash's feat with blumarine nigritude. Oh, I thought, if blogging is that big, I want to be where the action is. And now I can at least help to push sites up the ominous page rank that really matter to me. As yet no-body speaks of tightening abortion laws where I live or make it illegal again, though I can remember when it was. But the way conservative forces in America fight against roe vs. wade scares the shit out of me.

There is far too much brain washing going on, if you go here, you will find objective, factual information on:

• Roe v. Wade


• abortion

Remember, the page-rank is a mighty thing! It can boost businesses and it can lobby the world. Join me in Bombing for Choice. I only wish someone would come up with similar campaigns to help more women in more continents.

I've Had a Gender Change

Completely painless. I went to the Gender Genie and said: Unsex me here, ye algorithms. And they did.

For most of the blogosphere this genie may well stink of old hat, but for those new to the realm of the blog, it could open interesting new prospects. Moreover, there is the club-of-a-hundred-male-white-political-bloggers-debate to consider.

I submitted this post to the genie. To the mere human eye it is not exactly a he-man text. But the genie has VIP-algorithms working for it. Here is my score:

Words: 1186 (NOTE: The genie works best on texts of more than 500 words.)

Female Score: 1769
Male Score: 2590

The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male!!

And look what I got for my pains:

Turn in your grave, Freud, but you can't take that cute little thing away from me.

(What she said put me on the scent)

Mind Shrinking Device Discovered

Ah, this is utter failure. I can't do this April Fool stuff.
If you want some of that go to boringboring, a lovingly recreated spoof of boingboing (where I found it). But I also like subzero blue's promise to devote his blog to the beauties of public toilets from now on.

So what about this mind shrinking device? Well, if you want minds shrunk you will still have to use minds to do it. There is a project to get rid of your innermost secrets by putting them on a postcard, have them scanned and put on the postsecret site anonymously. I'll tell you my secret right here: I'm voyeuristic enough to have looked at them all. The one that really got me was the one that said: Everyone I knew before 9/11 believes I'm dead.
How can one be so trapped and straitlaced into an unsatisfactory life, that you need Ground Zero to get out of it?
Via kottke.