We're Back!

Yes, after months of legal wrangling, court depositions, exorbitant lawyers' fees, threats of bodily harm and injury, bribes, blackmail, the silent treatment, an unfortunate episode involving a live chicken, a dirty sock and a blender, accusations of fraud and mismanagement, mass hysteria, crying, pleading, whining, hunger strikes, and so on...

Entertaining Thoughts is back. You can thank the federal government bailout plan. I'll be putting your hard earned tax dollars to work. I hope not to disappoint you, but I'm not making any promises.

I'm Not Saying I Agree With It or Anything...

... but a friend of mine has started up a new political party which I personally find very thought-provoking, if not terribly convincing.

http://tlmldp.blogspot.com/

Those of politically delicate views or who are otherwise humor-impaired might do well to avoid it.

My Top Ten Favorite Books

1. Ficciones (Borges)

This collection of short stories is not only the finest example of prose in the Spanish language, but quite likely one of the most important literary achievements of the twentieth century. I’ve read and taught most of these texts dozens of times and they continue to dazzle. In an ideal world, I’d drop a few pages from Ficciones and replace them with a couple of stories from El Aleph, Borges’s follow up collection of tales, but this is about as good as it gets.

2. Don Quijote (Cervantes)

I had put off reading Don Quijote as long as possible before I took my MA exams. Because it was, you know, a classic, which meant that reading it would be good for you in the same way that eating your spinach or exercising is good for you. Needless to say, I was absolutely floored not only by the richness of Cervantes’ masterpiece, but how totally enjoyable it was to read. This book has only gotten better in the four hundred years since it was first published.

3. Crime and Punishment (Dostoevsky)

I’m not generally a fan of psychological fiction but Crime and Punishment is simply stunning. This is Dostoevsky at his finest.

4. Neruda (any good anthology)

Neruda was to poetry what Picasso was to painting: he was incredibly prolific and wrote seemingly effortlessly. There’s some dross among the gems, but no other poet has so excelled in mastering so many poetic idioms and making them his own. I love it all, from his early love poetry, to his avant-garde stuff, to his poems of outrage (and even the bloated excess of poems like “Alturas de Macchu Picchu.” Only Neruda could get away with such stuff—sorry Octavio!)

5. Collected Poems (Yeats)

I love Yeats, theosophic warts and all: from “The Happy Shepherd” to “An Irish Airman Foresees His Death” to “The Second Coming” and on and on… I’ve memorized more of Yeats' poems (or tried to) than those of any other poet.

6. Dune (Herbert)

I just finished rereading this for the first time since high school. I was simply amazed at the scope of Herbert’s vision and his tirelessness in creating not only a new mythology but a totally coherent yet radically alien history, culture, and technology for his worlds (which turn out to be, I think, not so far removed from our own as we would like to believe). And for a sci-fi writer (no, I don’t mean to be damning with faint praise), his style and facility with language is impressive in the extreme.

7. Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price (selections) [Joseph Smith]

Joseph Smith didn't think of himself as a writer, of course. He tended to think of himself as a translator of ancient texts. And that is part of the immense appeal of his religious vision. I concur with Harold Bloom's appraisal of Joseph Smith: he was an authentic genius in the creativity of his religious thought and is utterly without parallel in American culture. His brilliance lay in his astonishing capacity to repurpose ancient Hebrew scripture and boldly inscribe the history of the Americas into a Biblical framework. It is too bad that so many of Joseph Smith's detractors and defenders alike get caught up in sterile debates about whether or not there were horses in Mesoamerica or where the Garden of Eden was located. Infinitely more valuable and interesting is Joseph's radical rethinking of the Judeo-Christian tradition and his uniquely American and uniquely prophetic voice.

8. The Name of the Rose (Eco)

Had Borges written a novel, it would have looked more or less like this. I remember reading The Name of the Rose as an undergraduate and seriously considering changing my area of study from contemporary Latin American literature to medieval studies. That’s really saying something.

9. Philosophical Investigations (Wittgenstein)

I took a course on Wittgenstein as an undergraduate and for many years afterward proudly identified myself as a Wittgensteinian. Everything about this book is fascinating to me: the problems Wittgenstein identifies; his totally idiosyncratic and intense way of addressing them. To read Wittgenstein is to watch someone thinking and to be obliged to think along with him.

10. Being and Time (Heidegger)

I hated Heidegger for a long time. More accurately, I grudgingly respected him because I knew I was supposed to (see Cervantes, above). Even a course that I took at Cornell dedicated exclusively to Being and Time didn't change my mind. It wasn't until I read some very good secondary material on the work (by Dreyfus and Wrathall) that I began to realize that Heidegger is likely to become indispensable to my future work.

Texts not quite making the cut: The Transfiguration of the Commonplace (Arthur Danto), Blindness (José Saramago), Sailing Alone Around the Room (Billy Collins), The Riverside Shakespeare, The Backslider (Peterson).

In Which My Influence Over the Basque Government Comes to an End

The EAJ-PNV, the only governing party Euskadi has ever known, appears to have lost its grip on power. I hope it wasn't because of the scandal of my friendship with President Ibarretxe. Suffice it to say that Patxi is not in my Rolodex and Arnaldo is keeping a low profile these days.

He Didn't Get the Gig with the Zeppelin Tribute Band...

... but he did get a job with a nice Korean pop band. In Mormon-lingo, you would say that this drummer is really magnifying his calling. Watch the whole thing.

"I Thought They Were Dancing!"

[Disclaimer: my posting of this video should in no way be taken to imply that I am making light of either epilepsy or dogs.]

North Korean Propaganda Art

[Translation: “Though the dog barks, the procession moves on!”]

[Translation: “Let’s extensively raise goats in all families!”]

Images courtesy of http://calitreview.com/875

Some things I really miss about Spain, France, and the Basque Country

My Funny Valentine

This poem began as a paean to your virtues,
A hymn to your body, brain, and being.
Sparkling images, each coolly reflecting your light,
every phrase and beat a gem your figure had cut.

But by the second stanza something had gone wrong.
The words lay crabbed and stricken on the page,
my thoughts confused, my metaphors limping along,
the whole thing lurching toward disaster.

When suddenly a sly tercet made a virtue of necessity,
my words' impotence became a tribute to your ineffable grace,
and my shortcomings served only to set off your perfection.

But now, at the end, I see irony cannot do you right,
and my words, as before, cannot utter your name,
not even in failure, not even in absence, not even.

Return of the Cyberpunk!

A former MA student of mine, Mike Wilson, was back in Provo after defending his doctoral dissertation at Cornell. For the last few years, Mike has been living in Chile with his family, where he has not only been teaching literature in the university system but has begun to develop a writing career of his own. His first novel, El púgil, has been warmly received and widely reviewed by a number of important newspapers and media outlets. In fact, Mike is very much at the vanguard of contemporary Chilean sci-fi and we were able to persuade him to give a talk at BYU on Southern Cone science fiction, which was absolutely fascinating. Kudos to Mike not only on his successful dissertation defense, but for having secured a tenure-track position at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.

Of course it's not like I've had a hand in Mike's success in any significant way, but it's been fantastic to see a former student go on to great things.

This is Not a Political Statement or Anything.

I just think it's kind of freaky.

25 Things You Might Not Have Known About Me

I'm not really a big Facebook fan. I check in maybe every two or three days or so. But I had been "tagged" by friends and asked to post a list of twenty-five random facts about myself. For the benefit of my readers without Facebook accounts, here is that list.

1. The right side of my body looks almost exactly like the left side. On the outside, at least. I don't know about the inside.
2. I think you have to admit that Chariots of the Gods gives you a lot to think about.
3. I have never eaten human flesh and I have no desire to do so.
4. I am not very good at making lists with more than 17 items on them.
5. My favorite day of the week is Thursday. Favorite time of the day: 5:21 pm.
6. I once dreamed that someone confused me with Judd Hirsch. I decided to just play along.
7. I used to wear a t-shirt with a picture of Wittgenstein on it.
8. I am fond of pointing out the parallels between Strange Brew and Hamlet. Just ask me.
9. If you get a couple of drinks in me, I get pretty wild. Wait. That's not me. I don't drink. Never mind.
10. I'm married to a woman who once arm wrestled the bass player from New Order. She won.
11. I guess I like Mickey Rooney okay but not as much as some people do.
12. I don't own a cell phone and I don't know anybody who does.
13. (This is an unlucky number so I don't have to do this one)
14. It's kind of hard to explain, but there's something about chocolate pudding that I find immensely satisfying.
15. I have eaten roasted guinea pig and enjoyed it. I have also eaten live guinea pig and didn't like it as much.
16. I have been known to wear a lady's suit to work (wait, that wasn't me. That was Michael Scott).
17. I have an unshakable testimony that Arrested Development is the greatest television show of all time.
18. When I was very young, I used to watch boring shows on PBS because I was afraid no one else was watching and I didn't want the people on TV to feel bad.
19. I sent Roddy Frame a wedding invitation. He couldn't make it but he sent a nice card (no money, though).
20. When I was about five years old, I would marvel for hours at the fact that my hand would move just because I would think of moving it. I still marvel for hours at this.
21. If the temple recommend questions are ever changed to forbid drinking Diet Coke, I'm going to have a hard choice to make.
22. I don't get the point of "texting." So that's what, like typing with your thumbs? Is that supposed to be funny?
23. I have finally come to grips with the fact that I probably will never make an NFL roster. I knew it was unlikely I would ever be drafted since I never played anything beyond Jr. High football. But a guy can dream, can't he? I guess not.
24. I can read with my eyes shut. That is very hard to do.
25. I have a short attention span, which has now been maxed out.

Gone!

Eva finally got her hair cut yesterday. She had been growing it out for quite some time but she had decided she wanted to make a donation to Locks of Love, a non-profit organization that creates wigs and hairpieces for children with a medical condition that causes them to lose their hair. She took right to her new look and, although I'm biased, I think her new style looks great.

Ghost Image Capture

I retrieved this image from Eva's camera and tweaked it a little bit: I have no idea what it is but I like it.

I Know I'm Starting to Sound Like a Broken Record ...

... but if you lived in Utah County and voted for Obama, you'd know what it feels like to be besieged by subtle, and not-so-subtle, accusations that your political and religious views are not only incompatible but contradictory. To which I can only respond that I found this account of the participation of Elders Uchtdorf and Ballard in President Obama's National Prayer Service quite moving (not to mention feeling somewhat vindicated).

[update on Jan 22]
To sum up:
Elder Ballard: "I left with a feeling that the people of America are going to unite behind this new president and his administration and that we need to pray for him."

Rush Limbaugh: "Four words: 'I hope he fails.'"

Happiness is a Best Friend ...

... who totally knows what it feels like to be missing your two front teeth.

Eva's (Inadvertent) Photo Montage

LDS Church Leaders on the Day's Events

Elder Uchtdorf, who attended the inauguration with Elder Ballard, said the following:

"It was inspiring to be an eyewitness to this peaceful, impressive transfer of power and the swearing-in of the first African-American president. We pray for President Barack Obama's success in these challenging times and join in his expressions of hope and optimism."

For more on the story, click here. Of course it's pretty boilerplate stuff, given the church's strict political neutrality. But if Elder Uchtdorf is anything at all like the vast majority of Germans, I suspect he would be capable of personally expressing his support for Obama's presidency yet more forcefully. I've got no privileged inside info on this: I'm jus' sayin' (I won't venture a guess on whether we'll start to see Joseph Lowery-type benedictions in General Conference!). Of course I would be happy just to see ordinary LDS church members show a similar degree of thoughtfulness and appreciation for the truly historic events of the day, whatever their political persuasion.

The Right President at the Right Time

I had to let my class out early this morning and we pulled the kids out of school to go home and watch the inauguration together. Incredibly, BYU scarcely even recognized that the inauguration was taking place and offered no accommodation to students and faculty to view the proceedings or even alter previously scheduled events and classes. And the kids' school--ostensibly a civic-minded school--did absolutely nothing to take advantage of the opportunity for their students to witness history in the making. I guess it was better that we got to view the inauguration ceremony as a family anyway. President Obama's speech was (dare I say "predictably"?) eloquent: I think that few presidents in recent history have so thoroughly appreciated the art of oratory and so mastered its potential to bring listeners together. There is a sense in which a nation such as ours--in which we are not bound together by ethnicity or race or religion--requires us to continually reforge the bonds that give us a common, shared identity as Americans. Presidential rhetoric plays an essential role in this ongoing project (I continue to believe that it was not just president Bush's policy decisions but his inability to master the rhetoric of leadership that proved fatal to his tenure). There's no doubt that there are tough times ahead but I'm absolutely convinced President Obama is the right man for the job.

Is This Tomorrow?

Well, technically it's the day after tomorrow. But you get the point.

Maggot Cheese That Tries to Eat Your Eyes!

(could there ever be a cooler blog post title than that?). Somehow, this story, posted on boingboing.com, really spoke to the 14-year old in me. Here's the scoop:

"Casu marzu is an illegal Sardinian cheese that is served riddled with writhing maggots that try to jump into your eyeballs as you eat it. Casu marzu is considered toxic when the maggots in the cheese have died. Because of this, only cheese in which the maggots are still alive is eaten. When the cheese has fermented enough, it is cut into thin strips and spread on moistened Sardinian flatbread (pane carasau), to be served with a strong red wine.Casu marzu is believed to be an aphrodisiac by local Sardinians. Because the larvae in the cheese can launch themselves for distances up to 15 centimetres (6 in) when disturbed, diners hold their hands above the sandwich to prevent the maggots from leaping into their eyes. Those who do not wish to eat live maggots place the cheese in a sealed paper bag. The maggots, starved for oxygen, writhe and jump in the bag, creating a "pitter-patter" sound. When the sounds subside, the maggots are dead and the cheese can be eaten."

An "illegal Sardinian cheese." I just love the idea of cheese on the wrong side of the law. Buon appetito!

Before Jack Bauer, there was this:

The Tornado-Punch, courtesy of MacGyver.

Mikel Laboa hil da

Okay, it's not exactly news now, but it happened last month when my blog was on hiatus and I've been meaning to post about it. In December, renowned Basque folk singer Mikel Laboa passed away. It would probably be fair to say he was the Basque Country's Pete Seeger or perhaps even Bob Dylan (appropriately enough, his final concert took place in 2006, when he opened for Bob Dylan in Donostia at a concert for peace). His signature piece was probably "Txoria txori" ("A bird is a bird"). Originally a popular folk tune about a bird that couldn't fly, Laboa's interpretation of it during the last years of the Franco regime turned the song into a political allegory for the Basque nation. It has become one of the most familiar and beloved songs in the Basque Country and I confess that I find it tremendously moving (I used to sing it to my kids at bedtime, so they'll either grow up loving it too or having vaguely troubling recollections of their father trying to sing).

Here are the lyrics:

Hegoak ebaki banizkio,
nirea izango zen,
ez zuen aldegingo.
Bainan honela
ez zen gehiago txoria izango,
eta nik txoria nuen maite.

Here's a rough translation:

If I had cut its wings
It would have been mine
It would not have flown away
But, it would have been a bird no longer
And I loved the bird.

This is the original version of the song from 1974:

Txoria Txori (from Bat Hiru).mp3 - Mikel Laboa

And here is a full orchestral version from 2000. I'm usually not a fan of such arrangements, but I think this is really effective. Note how the fragility of Laboa's lone voice stands out against the powerful backdrop of a large choir of united voices: it underscores quite nicely the aesthetic and political dimensions of the song.

Txoria Txori - Mikel Laboa