For Those of You Who Love Lists (and other quirky things)

You may have come across the insanely charming letter that F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote to his daughter, Scottie (read it if you haven't, it's an excellent insight into a man losing the battle against his demons).

He concludes the letter with a list of things to worry about, not worry about, and things to think about.

"Am I trying to make my body a useful instrument or am I neglecting it?" seems a very present concern for a man who was soon to die from heart failure due to alcohol abuse.

That lovely list came to me via Lists of Note, a website devoted to lists great and small, young and old. The website includes everything from a scan of the original rules of basketball to writing tips by the noble and the ignoble.

Even through all that, I have a favorite. A new addition to my collection of the more bizarre traditions of etiquette in centuries past (the things my postage stamps are saying behind my back!): The Ethics of Eye Flirtation, from the National Library of New Zealand:

I particularly enjoy "winking left eye twice -- I am married." Apparently, back in 1891, New Zealanders were wandering around like a bunch of Sheldon Coopers...

Oh tumblr. What would we do without you? (that image c/o sheldony.tumblr.com)

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Music I've Never Heard Of

Good morning, folks! We at The Oncoming Hope are more than pleased to introduce Roopsie, colloquially referred to as R-Vas, destroyer of worlds, celebrator of music. We're glad to have her aboard to comment on music and other pretty ear-things.

Check it out! Best Album List of 2011:

www.brooklynvegan.com/archives/2011/12/brooklynvegans.html.

I'm excited it's given me so many new bands to explore; the Village Voice had a "Best Albums of 2011" list, but since it included "Ceremonials" at #60, it immediately lost credibility.

So far I've listened to tUnE-yArDs' "Bizness":

Are you channeling "Ke- dollar sign-ha" here?!

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Harbin Ice and Snow Festival, or, Awwwwwww Blogging Nostalgia

When I was 10 years younger, a wee lass armed with little more than a deadjournal account and a whole lot of indignation, my first ever blog post was, in fact, about the Harbin Ice and Snow Festival. Now, as then, I'm stunned by the majesty of these creations, the perfect marriage of nature's providence and human achievement.

The child in me is more than a little pleased at seeing a Mario 64 level come to life:

Made even more stunning with fireworks and embedded lighting:

A view from the top of one of the ice sculptures:

Please, please, check out the rest of the photos, then come  back and share our favorites.

(all photos credited and h/t to Boston.com, which you should click to, b/c holy amazeballs, batman!)

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Harry Houdini's Incredible Rope Trick

Although most of us are familiar with Harry Houdini, character of history, I'm sure that very few of us stop to consider that in his day, he was actually a colossal figure in pop culture.

PBS has posted this lovely graphic from Ladies Home Journal, June 1918, created by the great magician himself:

In spaces now reserved for hair and makeup and dubious tips on "how to please your naughty lothario", the venerable woman's mag once posted expert tips on how to escape from dubious BDSM situations.

"And not one of them observed the sort of shoes I wore!" That's the minimum price for being tied up by sailor boys, right?

Of course, the most troublesome part of Houdini's guide is that which we'd rather not know; cheating.

"A sharp knife with a hook-shaped blade should be concealed somewhere on the person, as it may be found useful in case some of the first, carefully tied knots prove troublesome. A short piece cut from the end of the rope will never be missed."

Thus spake Houdini, for all you "howd-he-do-dats" out there in the audience.

I suspect this means that I'll be expelled from the Magic Society. Much like this guy:

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Creating Magical Art From Light and Shadow

You can file this one under: "Holy crap!" and "Why didn't I think of that?" Azerbaijani artist Rashad Alakbarov takes the childhood mobile to magical new realms, using translucent objects to create wall paintings out of light. The work pretty much speaks for itself, and I know I'll be checking out the De Pury Gallery in the next couple of weeks.

Turn water bottles into David Lynch in 200 steps or less:

RIOT!

You can catch the show at the De Pury Gallery in London, through January 29th.

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Website Blackouts As Social Protest Tools

The internet as it exists today is the living embodiment of a libertarianism/near-anarchy that Americans sometimes dream about, a land as open and free as the wild west, only without that pesky native problem. Still, others want to impose their own laws on citizens of the web. Unsurprisingly, the internet is fighting back.

Free speech advocates and civil agitators around the globe regularly emphasize how internet access opens up opportunities for dissent. Voluntary service disruption by internet companies is a wholly new method of dissent, this time from the world of business, who don't typically use populist tactics to achieve their aims. Let's call it what it is: wikipedia, reddit, and all the rest, have basically just gone on strike.

Digital disruption seems like the apotheosis of civil disobedience, despite the fact that the companies involved are not breaking any laws or physically challenging anyone.

They are corporations who are refusing to provide a service, in the name of a cause. If corporations are people, then they damn well have the right to act like people, to draw attention to their causes and to even cause disruption.

The fact that this disruption occurs in a realm that was practically fictional until a decade ago seems both climactic and anticlimactic. Universally disruptive protest now is in the areas that we resolutely can live without, and in fact did live without for centuries. Will the wikipedia blackout lead to worldwide starvation or even civil inconvenience? Certainly not. A few thousand high school students will be at a loss for whom to plagiarize.

And yet, this form of protest seems the literal definition of "hitting them where it hurts." You can occupy a dozen Zuccotti Parks, you can challenge inumerable City Halls, but in each instance, you're only affecting the local area. For whatever reason, we have all opted into this ridiculous airy-fairy wireless internet space, and so we are all affected by its vagaries. And have we really been exposed to its whims and fancies until now?

These blackouts are partially a victory for Anonymous. They may not be an organization to praise, but their extremist position has forced many neutral entities to take a stand of one kind or the other. They proved, to the surprise of many, that you can disrupt real lives simply by shutting websites down. For every social network that sells itself out to dictatorial governments, for every currency exchange that bows down to illegal censorship, there are dozens of companies fighting for free speech, if only to protect their own right to exist.

Hegemonic websites like Wikipedia are aware of their power in people's lives. In a rare event, these anarchic internet behemoths are on the same side as the people, against even larger media corporations who are looking only to protect their status quo. So what happens when other web companies start protecting their own interests in this manner? How about if WebMD goes down to protect women's right to choice? Or Gmail blacks out in protest of the Patriot Act? These are powerful political tools, and the government has no legal basis to force these companies to resume service.

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Saul Bellow Warns Against "Deep Reading"

Oh, I love the internet. Saul Bellow, writing in ye old New York Times, takes overzealous literary students to task for failing to see the forests for the trees, and he does so in fine form.

"Deep reading has gone very far," Bellow writes. "It has becomes dangerous to literature."

Bellow continues by illustrating his point with a story that cuts directly to the heart of the devoted grad student.

"'Why, sir,' the student asks, 'does Achilles drag the body of Hector around the walls of Troy?'

'That sounds like a stimulating question. Most interesting. I'll bite,' says the professor.

'Well, you see, sir, the 'Iliad' is full of circles - shields, chariot wheels and other round figures. And you know what Plato said about circles. The Greeks were all mad for geometry.'

'Bless your crew-cut head,' says the professor, 'for such a beautiful thought. You have exquisite sensibility. Your approach is both deep and serious. Still I always believed that Achilles did it because he was so angry.'"

Buuuuuuuuuuuurn. That student may not be the best example, as his analysis seems reasonable and serious. But beware the students of Moby Dick.

Are you a Marxist? Then Herman Melville's Pequod in Moby Dick can be a factory, Ahab the manager, the crew the working class. Is your point of view religious? The Pequod sailed on Christmas morning, a floating cathedral headed south. Do you follow Freud or Jung? Then your interpretations may be rich and multitudinous.

I recently had a new explanation of Moby Dick from the young man in charge of an electronic brain. "Once and for all," he said. "That whale is everybody's mother wallowing in her watery bed. Ahab has the Oedipus complex and wants to slay the hell out of her."

Yikes. Bellow proceeds to excoriate the "dabbler" in deep reading, warning them to "be sure that your seriousness is indeed high seriousness and not, God forbid, low seriousness."

Personally, I long for a new day when the New York Times pretends to any sort of seriousness whatsoever.

Go read the whole thing. The complete article is available here: 
http://mail.baylorschool.org/~dpadilla/Bellow_DeepReaders.pdf

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