Two bits for today.  First is an excerpt from the highly-recommended ESQUIRE’S THINGS A MAN SHOULD KNOW ABOUT MARRIAGE (which actually manages to be witty and informative at the same time):

East Indian Hindu couples are married before a small fire, into which they toss flowers, water, seeds, and fruit, which are considered the four symbols of life.

Here in the West, we have replaced this poetic custom with a larger, metaphorical fire, into which we ritually hurl great piles of currency.

Amen to that!  Goodbye savings account!

Second is a fun spin on meat-eating as a reward for creativity by Dan:

For the last few years I’ve tried to force myself to write at least one page every day, which doesn’t sound like much but it’s actually pretty hard to manage. Because I’m not allowed to do a make-up day. I can’t do two pages the next day. The punishment for not completing my page is that I have to eat a vegetarian meal the next day.

A vegetarian meal as punishment!  That’s true dedication to craft, friends…
Probably won’t get much posted this week, as we’re working diligently on grad school applications, trying to get them all finished before Jesus’s birthday.  We also tacked up our big Wedding To-Do list on the front door (like some desperate manifesto).

Wish us luck!

The first two paragraphs of David Hajdu’s NYTimes review of Ivan Brunetti’s outstandingly awesome (Christmas gift of the year, hint hint…) ANTHOLOGY OF GRAPHIC FICTION, CARTOONS, AND TRUE STORIES:

Upholding its duty to officiate lay consecration in America, Time magazine recently assessed the latest candidates for anointment as the literary voice of the young generation, and the magazine found no writer worthy of the honor. “Every once in a while,??? the Time book critic Lev Grossman noted, there comes a novel that “feels as current as tomorrow’s e-mail, that gives readers the story of their own secret ineffable desperation with such immediacy??? that the work seems to encapsulate its era; it has the sound of its time. “Every once in a while,??? Grossman reiterated, “but not lately.???

Outlining some possible reasons for this plight, the Time piece cited the industrialization of creative writing through overabundant M.F.A. programs, literary brain drain to “better-paying media with bigger audiences??? like television, and the prospect that the muses are taking “a smoke break.??? All these are good theories. At the same time, Ivan Brunetti’s new “Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, and True Stories??? suggests something else: that Time was simply looking in the wrong place. These days, the novel — at least the novel as we have always known it, as a long (or longish) work of prose — is scarcely the only kind of book being made by smart, imaginative young (or youngish) people. Some deeply gifted writers and artists are working to evoke not only the sound of our time, through writing, but the sights, through the union of words and drawings that Brunetti’s anthology refers to as graphic fiction and most people call comics (and sometimes spell as comix). If anyone really qualifies as the voice of the current literary generation, he or she could well be using the language of cartoons, captions and word balloons.

Could be. Could be.

One of the things I love about holiday road trips is all the ridiculous stuff you see along the highway. I like to keep the digital camera up front with us, just in case we see some gold…

For the past month, there’s been a billboard over on Carnegie Ave (in between the Hot Sauce Williams BBQ and the QuikCash) that sends Meg and me into hilarious gut laughs every time we drive by:

It’s the design of this billboard that cracks me up.  With the overly-bright primary colors and a baby that looks absolutely ecstatic to be alive, it has to take the prize for the cheeriest pro-life billboard ever made.  But best of all is the caption: try saying it to yourself out loud. I can’t figure it out! I could understand, “What? Embryos are babies???? or “What? Embryos are babies!??? or even, “What! Embryos are Babies???? But the double exclaimation points just don’t make any sense.

The sign is by a group called Prolife Across America, whose mission is to “create an ‘Atmosphere of Life’ in a ‘culture of death.'” 

They should get Lil’ John to be their spokesman: “What!  Embryos are babies!  Yeah!”

This is the script excerpt from one of my favorite parts of the three-hour BBC documentary The Power Of Nightmares, where the godfather of the Neocons, Leo Strauss, is discussed, along with his favorite TV programs:

VO: Strauss believed that the liberal idea of individual freedom led people to question everything—all values, all moral truths. Instead, people were led by their own selfish desires. And this threatened to tear apart the shared values which held society together. But there was a way to stop this, Strauss believed. It was for politicians to assert powerful and inspiring myths that everyone could believe in. They might not be true, but they were necessary illusions. One of these was religion; the other was the myth of the nation. And in America, that was the idea that the country had a unique destiny to battle the forces of evil throughout the world. This myth was epitomized, Strauss told his students, in his favorite television program: Gunsmoke.

Professor STANLEY ROSEN, Pupil of Leo Strauss 1949: Strauss was a great fan of American television. Gunsmoke was his great favorite, and he would hurry home from the seminar, which would end at, you know, 5:30 or so, and have a quick dinner so he could be at his seat before the television set when Gunsmoke came on. And he felt that this was good, this show. This had a salutary effect on the American public, because it showed the conflict between good and evil in a way that would be immediately intelligible to everyone.

BAD MAN on Gunsmoke: Let’s see what happens!

JAMES ARNESS: No! [ SHOOTS bad man; bad man DROPS to the ground ]

ROSEN: The hero has a white hat; he’s faster on the draw than the bad man; the good guy wins. And it’s not just that the good guy wins, but that values are clear. That’s America! We’re gonna triumph over the evils of… of… that are trying to destroy us and the virtues of the Western frontier. Good and evil.

VO: Leo Strauss’ other favorite program was Perry Mason. And this, he told his students, epitomized the role that they, the élite, had to play. In public, they should promote the myths necessary to rescue America from decay. But in private, they didn’t have to believe in them.

ROSEN: Perry Mason was different from Gunsmoke. The extremely cunning man who, as far as we can see, is very virtuous and uses his great intelligence and quickness of mind to rescue his clients from dangers, but who could be fooling us—because he’s cleverer than we are. Is he really telling the truth? Maybe his client is guilty!

This is a fantastic documentary, that, of course, has never been shown on American television. You have no excuse not to watch it, though, as it’s available for free download/watching at archive.org and Google video.