We Don’t Want Stories with Good Taste, We Want Stories that Taste Good

This is an older one, but it’s worth another look. Here is Ira Glass of This American Life on the importance of persistence and stick-to-itiveness when trying to do anything creative (or really mastering any complex skill). He talks about the treacherous period early (or not so early) in one’s endeavors when one just isn’t very good at what one is trying to do. You have a clear idea of what you want to do and you can plainly see that your own efforts are not (yet) in that league. In short, your abilities fall short of your taste. What to do in this case? Continue. Work harder. Persist. Because everyone starts like this and the one way to ensure that that gap never closes is to give up. He advocates artificial deadlines, which I think are crucial, whether or not anyone else is even aware of them. I suspect the gap between one’s taste and one’s abilities never goes away completely, the goalpost just keeps moving further down the field as one becomes more adept.

By the way, this is part three of a four part series on the building blocks of storytelling. Here are parts One, Two, and Four. All of them are worth a view.

[Props=Dustin Curtis by way of Sweet Mojo]

Palin Drone

All the cool kids are hanging out at Vanity Fair today, checking out Todd Purdum’s piece on the ongoing drama that is Sarah Palin, “It Came from Wasilla.”

Here’s a taste:

It is an ironclad axiom of politics that if a campaign looks troubled from the outside the inside reality is far worse, and the McCain-Palin fiasco was no exception. As in any sudden marriage of convenience in which neither partner really knows the other, there were bound to be bumps. Palin had been on the national Republican radar for barely a year, after a cruise ship of conservative columnists, including The Weekly Standard’s William Kristol, had stopped in Juneau in 2007 and had succumbed to her charms when she invited them to the governor’s house for a luncheon of halibut cheeks. McCain had spent only a couple of hours in Palin’s presence before choosing her, and she had pointedly failed to endorse him after he clinched the nomination in March. The difficulties began immediately, with the McCain team’s delivery of the bad news that the pregnancy of Palin’s daughter Bristol, which was already common knowledge in Alaska and had been revealed to the McCain team at the last minute, could not be kept secret until after the Republican convention.

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Update: Another telling quote from the Purdum article:

More than once in my travels in Alaska, people brought up, without prompting, the question of Palin’s extravagant self-regard. Several told me, independently of one another, that they had consulted the definition of “narcissistic personality disorder” in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders—“a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy”—and thought it fit her perfectly.

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Update 2: Today’s entry in the Is It Satire? sweepstakes comes from commenter Borton in response to Marc Ambinder’s piece on Purdum’s article.

Hold your head up Sarah! Don’t let the haters get you down! First they came for Michael, and they destroyed him with their accusations of child molestation, etc. Now they’ve set their sights on you. Don’t back down! Take no prisoners! These “writers” are just a bunch of jealous nerds, who sit on the sidelines and make fun of those who have achieved the unbelievable!

Somehow I don’t think that this is a meme the Palin camp will be embracing.

What I’m Watching: Blindness

I rented this one with no expectations. I vaguely remembered seeing a trailer for it somewhere, something about people going blind unexpectedly. This is a terrific film, an intense, uncompromising, dystopian view of a modern police state as it responds to a mounting health crisis with fear and paranoia. Very dark, not particularly optimistic about the majority of humanity (with some tardy redemption thrown in to prevent it from falling into utter nihilism). It reminded me a bit of Children of Men, probably my favorite movie of the last few years (and another that dealt with the modern police state and, coincidentally, also starred Julianne Moore). Check it out and tell me what you thought.

This was directed by Fernando Meirelles, who also directed City of God, City of Men, and The Constant Gardener. Somehow in my travels I have missed out on his stuff, but I plan to change that.

You People are Sick

These Michael Jackson jokes are in Very Poor Taste.

For example:

Madonna sent her condolences to the Jackson family. Then asked how much they wanted for the kids.

Or this one:

Michael Jackson died of a heart attack. He really shouldn’t have looked at the man in the mirror.

Do NOT click here to read the rest. DON’T DO IT! (Unless you can convince yourself that it’s all part of the healing process. Yeah, that’s the ticket.)

The Humor of Discomfort, Perfected

Zach Galifianakis is burning up the sliver screen in his role as the creepy future brother-in-law in The Hangover. We here at HVNH have long been fans of his creepy interview show, Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis. In each episode, he pushes his patented Humor-of-Discomfort brand of comedy well past the point of acute discomfort and right into the realm of chargeable offenses. The Michael Cera episode is especially egregious. Here is his interview with Natalie Portman.

This is by no means safe for work. Or even home, really.

Next Time, Hire a Branding Consultant

Russian energy giant Gazprom has formed a joint venture with Nigeria’s state-operated energy company NNPC (Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation). What is the name of the new joint venture?

The new firm, to be called Nigaz, is set to build refineries, pipelines and gas power stations in Nigeria.

No word on whether the new firm has Attitude.

[Props=Talking Points Memo]

Color Me Relieved

From the land of strange headlines comes this entry from the Huffington Post: “White House Breaks Silence on Jackson’s Death.”

The White House did not issue a statement following Jackson’s death on Thursday. [White House press secretary Robert] Gibbs did not mention Jackson until asked about him at Friday’s regular White House briefing.

No statement?! No press conference?! Didn’t mention Jackson until asked?! This was the King of Pop we’re talking about here!

Where is Eric Cantor on this mounting crisis?

Our First Nerd President

John Hodgeman’s tribute/roast (call it a ‘troast’) to/of President Obama at the 2009 Radio and TV Correspondents’ Dinner has been all over the web over the last week but I didn’t get a chance to watch it until last night, thanks to Baer at Sweet Mojo. What a brilliant piece of work this is, both as satire and ultimately as a celebration of learning, erudition, enthusiasm, and all things geeky. But then I’m a sucker for anyone who’s got the balls to make a joke about the Kwisatz Haderach. I agree with Baer that one of the funniest aspects of the speech is the reaction of the correspondents. They really have no idea what to make of Hodgeman’s shtick, though President Obama gets it. The problem with the Washington press corps is that they are nerds who think they are jocks, or, more accurately, nerds who dream they are jocks, which is probably why they fell so hard for Bush.

Their nonplussed reaction to Hodgeman is not so surprising if one recalls how some of these same correspondents responded to Stephen Colbert’s now legendary takedown of the Bush administration at the 2006 Washington Correspondents’ Association Dinner. The term ‘polite laughter’ would be an overstatement (Colbert himself referred to the response as “very respectful silence”). As a hint to how Colbert’s routine went down with this crowd, recall who was asked to speak the following year: Rich Little. Those Nixon impersonations never get old (hey, he also did Reagan and Carter).

By the way, the answers to Hodgeman’s three Dune-related trivia questions (at 11:30) are, in order, Shai-Hulud, a thumper, and the Water of Life. It’s perhaps a sign of my own geek-cred that I knew two of those without looking them up at the Dune Wiki (couldn’t remember the Water of Life).

Don’t Joke with Cops

After visiting the post office, I thought I would wet my whistle with a cup of Amherst’s best coffee. I got in line behind two of Amherst’s finest, whom, I had already noticed, had parked their police cruiser across the street in the post office parking lot. This is not an uncommon practice, as you’d be more likely to find a Cheney supporter at Town Meeting as find a parking space in the tiny lot outside Rao’s. They got their coffees and I got mine, and as timing would have it, I walked out behind them and thus followed them across Kellogg Avenue and into the post office parking lot.

As they approached their cruiser, I called in a mock stern voice, “Officers, this parking lot is for official post office business only.” This was funny because a. they were cops and thus were fully aware of the applicable statutes, and b. I too was carrying a cup of Rao’s coffee in my hand.

The officers did not smile. The officers did not laugh. Instead, the officers gave me a look that was halfway between ‘Who is this clown?’ and ‘What say we beat this guy with nightsticks?’

Not content to let things rest, the scamp in me added, “Now don’t make me call the long arm of the law on y’all!”

They got in their cruiser and I got in my car. They sat there for an long while with the engine running, but there was no way I was exiting that parking lot before them. Finally they left, and I pulled out right behind them, taking long cool sips of my iced coffee. It tasted like Freedom.

Hey