Other People's Postings And Stuff

The best article yet on Achewood, my favorite webcomic! (Also talks about free ink available in Portland, OR.)

The October Harper's has an excerpt/abstract from Naomi Klein's new book. (Links to Harper's homepage; article available on newstands and behind a paywall for subscribers.)

Just finished George Saunders' new book, The Braindead Megaphone. (Oh, snap! Saunders got David Rees on board! I've just found that out! Match made in heaven.) It's worth at least an attempt to read through cover to cover, although if you get frustrated with some of the short "experimental" pieces (which, frankly, come off like his fiction with most of the charm and warmth removed -- which arguably may be the point) please do yourself the favor of reading his appreciations of literature (Johnny Tremain, Vonnegut, Huck Finn, a Barthelme short story he workshops) and the three reportage pieces. The third of those -- about a young monk meditating for months on end in Nepal -- is really good, and I think I liked it more for having gotten through the entire book to get to it. There's a good balance between a sort of cheerful cynicism (thankfully not the other way around) and awkward optimism (especially in the face of the awe-inspiring, and even in the face of what inspires awe in the other) in his thinking, which is what I really like about him, over and above all the consumerist satire that hooked me in the first place.

One Month!

Yay! I've been on the road a month! And in Boston for a week, which is really too long to go without a post talking about it, but I'm afraid we might all have to wait a little longer for that to happen. The weather has been great, though, which, after this hellacious summer, is a very, very welcome respite.

Oh, and hey -- remember this?

More Richmond & Virginia Beach

Have I ever said anything too negative about the Guitar Hero game franchise? Because, man, please forget it if I ever did! I've had so much fun playing it here at Devon and Anders' house. (Also I'm not nearly as good as the guy in the video, just so we're all on the level.)

We also went to the beach yesterday (Saturday). It was nice -- not too crowded, not too hot -- and we were pleasantly surprised by the Blue Angels, which is the Navy's exposition flight team, doing some practice exercises or something right over the beach where we were. It's sorta decadent, I know, but it's majorly impressive to see those guys doing their thing. And I mean, I did used to read Tom Clancy a lot, so I have some background into which I can regress.

So there's my Richmond experience in a nutshell: fake guitar playing, Top Gun, and Anders' and my own never-ending stream of internet meme-spouting and movie quoting. Oh, and drinking lots of beers. My life is like a rainbow in my eyes so nice I like it.

I'll Get Back To The Travelogue But First A Little Food For Thought

A short film meant to accompany Naomi Klein's latest book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.

(via the wonderfully redesigned BoingBoing)

Hello From Richmond, VA!

Maybe it's just the breezy late summer weather, but while walking around Richmond's cute little shopping district, Carytown, it suddenly struck me how much of a beach town it seemed like -- like a more natural and lived-in Seaside. Granted, I think I had this epiphany while strolling past a rack of sale bikinis, but it really does hold up. The shops -- especially the two story, row house ones -- seemed strangely scaled (boutiqued, I guess), there's a typical overabundance of women's clothing shops, including one solely devoted to bras, some corner antique stores, and . . . well, maybe all those things are everywhere now, not just touristy beach areas.

In any case, the other parts of town I glimpsed yesterday as Anders and I went out shopping for groceries and a grill seemed far more typical of your burgeoning cityscape, if also belying the town's agri-center past: lots of old processing plants, including one that made vanilla extracts and ice cream, being chopped up into lofts and stores.

But to backpedal a little, I spent the latter part of last week and the weekend in Washington, D.C. Well, mostly in the Virginia suburbs, but I did go to the Natural History museum and saw a 3D Imax movie about sharks and other oceanic life. It was too preachy, I think, even though I basically agreed with their message. Plus they undermined that message (sharks aren't really a threat to people, we shouldn't be scared of them, we should protect their numbers and habitat, etc.) with their actual presentation of sharks like the Great White, which they soundtracked with -- you guessed it -- scary, ominous, threatening music. I mean, not that they should have used Yakkity Sax or anything, but they could have tried something a little more neutral.

The best footage -- in the sense that the 3D stuff seemed to work the best -- was of a sea turtle gliding gently over a reef. It's size and speed allowed for a lot of slow pans, and all the coral and sea floor bric-a-brac added lots of layers in the background. The filmers wasted too much time beneath creatures, pointing the camera surface-ward. Without any real background, it hardly looked different than TV. I would also sometimes get the sensation that I wasn't far away enough to focus on whatever they were trying to get me to focus on, but maybe that's my fault. It sometimes felt like trying to decipher those Magic Eye pictures, which I was never really good at.

So I'm in the process of firming up my Boston plans, but I bet y'all will hear from me again before I leave Richmond. Anders and I will try to get into some interesting trouble for everyone to be amused by! See you then!