BlackChampagne -- no longer new; improvement also in question.: March 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
You don't say?
I read this short article on the UK Telegraph site, and by the start of the second sentence I knew I had to send it to the IG. So I copied the URL and opened and email and pasted it in, went back to paste in the first 2 lines for the relevant quote, and began to type a quick sentence about how this is bad news for her. Before I could finish that, I started to think a little more deeply about the article, and before I knew it I'd typed her several paragraphs, mostly concentrating on what a crappy article this was, and how the logic was backwards, and how the conclusions were a messy jumble of misstated and misapplied evo-dev. At that point it became clear that I had to turn it into a blog post, so I finished up, control+A, control+V, control+Enter, and then returned to the browser and clicked the Blogger icon on my bookmarks toolbar. And here I am.
The article is here, and I'll quote the whole thing, since it's very short. So short they had to defy grammatical structure and turn every sentence into a paragraph so it would fill the page even semi-acceptably. (I've reformatted it here, but not rewritten it, though the urge to improve it was almost a biological compunction.)
8.2 seconds needed to fall in love
The time needed for a man to fall in love at first sight is 8.2 seconds, scientists claim.
The longer a man's gaze rests on a woman when they meet for the first time, the more interested he is. If it last just four seconds, he may not be all that impressed. But if it breaks the 8.2 second barrier, he could already be in love they say. However the same is not true for women. They let their eyes linger on men for the same length of time whether they find them attractive or not.
Hidden cameras were used to secretly track the eye movements of 115 students as they spoke to actors and actresses. They were then asked to rate their conversation partner's attractiveness. The men looked into the eyes of actresses they considered beautiful for an average of 8.2 seconds, but that dropped to 4.5 seconds when gazing at those they rated less attractive, the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior reported. The female students, however, looked at the actors for the same length of time. The researchers believe that men use eye contact to seek out fit and fertile mates. But women are more wary of attracting unwanted attention because of the risks of unwanted pregnancy and single parenthood.
The longer a man's gaze rests on a woman when they meet for the first time, the more interested he is. If it last just four seconds, he may not be all that impressed. But if it breaks the 8.2 second barrier, he could already be in love they say. However the same is not true for women. They let their eyes linger on men for the same length of time whether they find them attractive or not.
It seems a fairly simple, straightforward piece, and that was my initial thought, as I started to forward it to the IG. It's funny to us (she and me) since she routinely gets the longest, least subtle, most awkward stares from total strangers. Men, usually, though sometimes women as well.
Just this week we had lunch at a Chinese restaurant in San Rafael, and the busboy almost tripped as he walked past our booth with his big plastic tub of dirty dishes. He came from behind me, and when he saw the IG's face he locked on, to the exclusion of all other sensory stimuli. And nearly walked right into a table since he kept moving forward while staring to his right.
She had a bit of makeup on, a remnant of a job interview she'd been to that morning, but was still very casual and natural looking, and she gets those kind of male reactions even when she's got on zero makeup and has bags under her eyes. I'm not going to post a picture of her, but that thumbnail to the right is the next best thing.
That picture is not the IG; it's one I saw online as part of a collection of "hot bartenders" or something like that. Click the thumb to see the full size, bartending version. I include it since the woman looks a lot like the IG. Facially, at least. I wouldn't mistake that woman for the IG, but they could certainly be sisters. In fact, I've met the IG's younger sister, and that bartender looks a lot more like the IG's sister than her own sister does. If that makes any sense. The IG dresses much more casually/conservatively, though she's got a body to flaunt it, if she were so inclined. (She is not, at least not very often.)
That exposition entered into the record, I'll return to the Telegraph article that started this whole train of thought.
My initial thought was how superficial the article was, and how they had the causality of the looks vs. love screwed up. It's not that men look longer at women they wind up being in love with, as if it's some kind of predictor of relationship longevity. It's a three-fold fact that's got zero to do with love. 1) Men like looking at pretty women. 2) Men look longer at women they find attractive. 3) Men are more likely to fall in "love" with women they find attractive.
Really, that's all the study found out, at least according to the article. And for that they needed a grant, hundreds of volunteers, hidden cameras, etc? No wonder tuition keeps increasing every year.
An article about that wouldn't be so bad, and in fact, this article isn't that much teh suck, if you just read the article. It's the headline that's so misguided. And misleading. After all, the study and the text of the article have nothing to do with "love." The study was purely about attraction, or perhaps lust, and it performed admirably in confirming that yes, men look longer at women they think are hot.
Again, let's pause to admire the quality of their research. I hope their contact info is readily obtained, for the convenience of the Noble committee.
Finally, the info about how long women look is presented, and it's not without value. That women don't look much longer at men they think are hot is an interesting tidbit. Again, it's not exactly a revelation that most women are more subtle about expressing their interest (and/or disintest) than are Big Bad Wolf-like men. But documenting it scientifically was a semi-worthy endeavor. The attempt to shoehorn in some elemental evolutionary-development psychology is pretty much a fail, though.
The article (which is probably not to blame, since I suspect its author was simply trying to summarize the abstract of a scientific paper in very few words) isn't exactly incorrect, but it grossly simplifies things. "The researchers believe that men use eye contact to seek out fit and fertile mates." Yeah, as the article says, current ev-dev theory posits that the root biological reason that men prefer young, slim, bright-eyed, "beautiful" women is that those are outward signs that said woman is healthy and biologically fit and capable of producing offspring. It's weird to phrase that as the reason men look longer at attractive women on the first meeting though, since no one, even the few men (like me) who have read enough ev-dev to give thought to their biological motivations, give it a thought at the time. We (men) just see pretty, youthful, slim, smiling, etc, and we like and we want to look longer since 1) we like, and 2) we want to express our interest.
By the same token, ev-dev says that women are more choosy about their partners since they bear the physical costs of pregnancy and since they can only bear the offspring of one man at a time, and since they can't count on having that many babies in a lifetime. A man can spray his seed around (figuratively speaking) very widely, since he can impregnate as many women as he can get hold of. A woman can't have 10 babies at once, so she has to be picky about whose baby she has, especially since human young aren't quick or easy to rear. Which is why women naturally try to choose stable, resource-rich mates who are likely to help in that process. Again, this is all biology influencing psychology/behavior. (Influence is all it does since humans have enough brain power to act contrary to their biological imperatives, for better or worse.)
That women aren't as prone to obviously advertising their interest doesn't stem directly from their biological imperatives, though. It's partly biological in origin; showing too much interest makes men think/know she's "easy" and while men 1) love and try to take advantage of female promiscuity, they 2) cherish it for it in short term relationships, but 3) select against it when picking a long term mate. But it's mostly a learned, socialized behavior, for reasons the article did mention. "...women are more wary of attracting unwanted attention because of the risks of unwanted pregnancy and single parenthood." That's self evident, but those are the results of choosing a poor mate, not the basis for mate selection itself.
So on that level, the article's ev-dev component fails. It gives a fundamental male ev-dev motivation, but then jumps to a socially and culturally second order explanation for female length (or not) of eye contact. The article is consistent in misapplying the faux ev-dev logic to female eye contact, though. No woman tears her eyes off of a hot guy while thinking, "I can't appear too interested since I would suffer adversely in case of an unwanted pregnancy." Nigga, as they say, please.
(For the benefit of international oreaders, I should probably explain that that slang term means something like, "You must be joking, for your assertion was carved from pure unadulterated nonsense." And no, I wouldn't/couldn't verbalize that expression, cause I'm like, white. And stuff. But it's okay in a blog when I link to a sketch from the Chris Rock show because um... I have black friends? Anyway... moving right along.)
I'd say that the fact that women don't linger over their eye contact is much more a cultural, learned behavior than anything spurred by primal biological motivations. Every woman knows, especially the pretty ones, that men do not need any encouragement to show excessive interest. And since that's frequently aggravating to be the target of, women learn to be less friendly, non-flirty, dress down, avoid eye contact, etc. The IG engages in all of those behaviors, and still has constant unwanted male attention, on top of occasional outright harassment and stalking. Half of our conversations are her asking me why guys are so fucking clueless and persistent, and trying to figure how she can remain her normal, friendly, upbeat self when just talking casually to any of her co-workers results almost inevitably in her being hit on, pestered, bored with their sexual braggadocio, and on and on.
Sadly, I have not yet found many answers for her. My ev-dev reading has made me pretty good at explaining the biological root causes of those kinds of male behaviors. Sadly, that's not what she wants here, since the IG isn't doing that usual female thing of thinking aloud while she pours out her troubles and worries. She actually wants advice on how to be friends, or at least friendly with guys, without them always wanting to fuck her. Or at least without them making that fact so obvious that it overshadows all other interactions, in any circumstance. My usual inclination is to say that if she had a boyfriend, like me for instance, then she'd have a ready excuse/explanation to fend off the men. But that's 1) not a very useful strategy to deal with unwanted attention (the guy can even take it as a bonus, since that means sex wouldn't lead to the encumbrance of a relationship), and 2) I'd just be doing the same thing those other guys were doing, from my privileged best friend/imaginary big brother position.
As always, I'm left wondering what exactly it is that women see in men. Ev-dev answers that one too. Fortunately. For every heterosexual male on Earth.
I've done nothing with online dating for more than a month; nothing bad happened, but neither did anything good, and I've been very busy working on website stuff and fiction and various real life activities. Also, to some degree I've been denying myself dating since I wasn't getting enough fiction writing done, and felt like dating should be a reward for doing good work on important things, rather than a distraction from said activity. And I'm very good at letting it (and other momentarily enticing activities) become entirely too distracting, at the expense of spending time on what I should/could to spend that time on.
I also have held back since I don't have an approach I want to take in my attempts to entice complete strangers, women no less, into spending time with me. I've tried various different methods during my few months of online dating, and all have been roughly equivalent in their success. Or lack thereof. Longer, personalized emails. Shorter emails. Short form letters with a few details personalized. Longer mails musing on the whole process of online dating with a short personalized note at the end. Etc.
My natural inclination is to look at profiles of potential dates, read their personal info, and then write a couple/few paragraphs about what interested me in them and/or why I think they'd be interested in me. This doesn't work that well, or at least it doesn't elicit more replies than short mails, or form letters, etc. I've not noticed much of a qualitative difference either, which is more important to me than a qualitative improvement. I'd much rather send out 20 emails and have a couple/few interesting, intelligent, simpatico-enabled women reply, than get 10 replies from boring, average women I won't want to date once I get to know them. And that calculus has some impact on my approach, since while the longer, more intelligent/interesting mails get fewer replies, the ones who do reply are more likely to be similar to me in terms of personality, attitude, etc. At least in theory. (Not so much in practice, to this point.)
I think the most effective (on a quantitative level) approach would be pare back and dumb down my own profile info, claim a six-figure income in some suit-wearing profession, and send a short form letter. "Hey you look great! Do you like to travel and dine out and laugh a lot? Me too!"
Those 3 activities hit high on the "DO WANT!" list of about 98% of the female profiles I've so far seen online, as does a suit-wearing man with a high salary. Checking the boxes for liking puppies and wanting kids would pretty well seal the deal.
Now obviously that wouldn't last, since I don't own a suit and aren't about to liquidate my investments to artificially swell my bank account. (Though locking everything into a 2% checking account 6 months ago would have been a phenomenally wise course of action. Hell, so would lottery tickets, compared to the stock market.) That would, I'm quite sure, result in a huge uptick in first date prospects. Would I enjoy any of those dates, or be interested in actually dating any of the women? I have no idea. I'd have to try it to find out. In fact, the IG keeps subtly encouraging me to do that, which seems something of a betrayal to her gender. I ask her about that, and she's like, "Every guy lies about everything when he's trying to get a date, so you might as well join them."
Kind of depressing to hear the unvarnished truth of the dating game, from the PoV of a beautiful young woman, eh?
I'm not doing that yet, or much of anything else though. I'm posting today though, since I've had a few dating observations written down for months, and while going through my notes page today to find something for another project, I stumbled over them and thought, "Oh yeah. Didn't I used to have a blog that I posted words, and stuff, on? These would be good. There."
I don't say these are universal truths that can be used to divine the inner essence of a woman's soul, but they are all things I've noticed holding true in multiple trials.
1) You can tell a LOT from the first hug. First hug of a given date, but especially first hug of the first meeting. Yes, how she hugs you is partially based on what she knows about you, how interested she is in the date, how well she likes you, what she thinks of you 5 seconds after first seeing you, etc. But it's more indicative of her personality and uptightness.
(BTW, don't go for a handshake. I've never had a first date who wanted a handshake. Women don't do that to potential romantic dates. Friends, colleagues, etc, sure. But not on a date. Open your arms and see how she comes into them. Or not.)
Bad signs: If she gives you a sideways shoulder hug., Or an awkward, quarter-turned, high arm hug. Or the bend at the waist one, where only the top of her shoulder touches your chest. All bad signs. She's not comfortable about physical contact, she doesn't like you, she's frigid (emotionally and personality, though sexually too), etc. Women who start off with that sort of hug are generally uptight, don't like to talk about anything personal or intimate (I don't necessarily mean sex), won't give much in conversation, tend to be non-spontaneous and reserved, and are generally quite boring dates. On the first date, at least. I'm sure they're much less reserved and are more open and friendly and genuine with their real life friends and family, and some women are reticent about physical contact but not emotional/intellectual interaction, but I've had enough trials by now to say with pretty strong certainty that if a date starts off with such a hug, it's going to be a stiff one.
Two of my better first dates were with women who weren't all that bright or clever, but who gave me a big, torso-to-torso hug right at the start, and that hug was very indicative of their personalities. They were open, giving, flexible, enthusiastic, unabashed, and a lot of fun to talk to and interact with, all in non-sexual ways. I'm not a woman and I don't know exactly where the "pressing my boobs into a guy I just met" experience factors into their overall personality, but it's a very strong "tell" of how they'll behave on a first date.
2) Okay, #1 was pretty obvious. Here's a bit more of an odd one. If you can, somehow contrive to hear where they stand on the Angelina Jolie vs. Jennifer Aniston contretemps regarding Brad Pitt. It doesn't really matter who they side with. What matters is how strongly they feel about it (if a woman's strongest opinion is about stupid celebrity dating bullshit, it's a very bad sign), how they express their opinion (if they have original thoughts of opinions, or just parrot some ritual condemnation of X or Y), and most importantly, if they have any empathy or understanding of why Brad Pitt dropped Jen for Angie.
On two different dates the issue came up (we saw a movie theater showing some new movie by one of the principles), both times the woman swung into an unprovoked tirade about that slut Angelina Jolie stealing away Brad Pitt, and both expressed puzzlement that any man could make such a decision. It's the last one that's the sign of doom. When I heard that for the second time, I might as well have just ended the date right then.
It's not that I don't think think Angie was a man-stealing slut, or that Brad wasn't a cad for dumping Jen... it's that their breakup and hook up serves as a wonderful litmus test for comprehension of human nature. You can think Brad was a total asshole and hate Angie, but if you honestly don't understand why Angie is about 5000x more enticing than plain white bread lumpy oatmeal Jennifer, there's a gulf between our personalities and understandings of human nature that will never be bridged.
The most boring first date I've ever had ("date" referring to the event and to the person) offered her only strong opinion all afternoon in regards to that celebrity coupling, and as I watched her opinion about how horrible Angie was and what a great girl Jen was and how she'd never see another Brad Pitt movie again, I bit my tongue and clamped my lips. It was hard not to interject with some sarcastic comments about how Jennifer Aniston was the most boring butterface in today's popular culture. It was harder not to laugh, or sigh, over the fact that a grown adult woman wouldn't understand male psychology enough to grasp why a famous, dashing, rich moviestar like Pitt was bound to be more attracted to a wild, gorgeous, edgy woman like Angelina, rather than a suburban housewife sitcom type like Jen.
I don't know if Angie and Jen are perfect, tarot card-like opposites (while still remaining within the realm of attractive slim white women), but they're a pretty good case study of extremes. Jen's image is wholesome and bland and cute and average. Angie's images is dark and wild and crazy and dangerous and knife-wielding. I'm far more attracted to the later than the former, and I think most guys share that urge, though most guys have to settle for the former, since they outnumber the later by about 5000 to 1. That proportion if probably for the best, since the Angelia types are generally unstable and crazy and dangerous and substance-abusing. But they have a darkly seductive vibe that no boring brunette like Jennifer Aniston can hope to compete with.
I didn't ask any of the good dates I've had their opinion on this issue, but I do have some evidence for the prosecution. Malaya practically idolized Angelina's looks, style, knife-fetish, attitude, etc, and since she'd always thought Brad Pitt was super hot, they were probably her favorite celebrity couple. Not that she had any other favorite celebrity couples, AFAIK.
The IG is much younger than Malaya (or me). She was too young to appreciate Brad Pitt in his golden-era, and doesn't find him that hot now since he's more than 20 years older than her. But she can see that women in their 30s or older would die for him, and she instinctively understands why he, or any man, would be much more drawn to exotic Angie than to white bread Jen. I didn't coach her to that conclusion; she brought it up herself at one point, and when I related my Angie vs. Jen for Brad observation after the aforementioned dates, the IG was like, "Of course Angie is hotter. What woman is so dumb she can't see that?"
I don't think this is a right/wrong preference, BTW. It's a personality test. I'm sure there are lots of men who would much prefer a woman who took Jennifer's side. It's a very plain, safe, uncontroversial view, and a lot of guys like those traits in their woman. I do not though, which is why this is a relevant Rorschach for my psychological screening of potential mates.
It might be a bad one to use in my current battleground though, since from what I can tell from their online dating profiles, FAR more of the women out there are Jennifers than Angelinas. There are very few artistic types, very few who express any sentiments out of the ordinary, very few who want to date a guy with original ideas and wordy proclivities, etc. And yes, obviously that's from my POV as just such a guy who hasn't had as many dates as he would have liked thus far.
It's also age related; single women in their late 20s/early 30s on online dating sites are going for the safe choice. They want a male version of Jennifer. Stable, well-off, conventional in likes and dislikes, unfree spirited, ready to settle down, etc. The sort of guy they ignored all through their teens and twenties while throwing themselves at every faux-bad boy who came along. And now the math is against them.
Reports stressing that women in their 30s and 40s have better odds to be killed by terrorists than married abound, and untrue or not, there's a popular perception that women had better find a man while they're still young and pretty, or they're going to die alone. That's changing, as seemingly everyone (in Western culture) waits until later to get married these days (and then reproduces below the replacement rate, thus dooming our country and culture, or so say various mathematically-disinclined alarmist racist/Christian propagandists).
That said, and digressed upon, there are an amazing number of never-married 33-38 y/o women on online dating sites, almost all of whom say they "definitely" want 2 or 3 kids and a male Jennifer Aniston type husband in his 30s. I don't think I need to point this out, but that's simply not going to happen. The numbers don't work out. There aren't that many eligible bachelors in their desired age range, and if those guys are that eligible they're looking at 26 y/os. There are a lot now, and in 5 or 10 years there are going to be a lot more single, childless women in their early 40s. Aside from serving as career advice (if you're a young doctor, start learning advanced turkey baster techniques now, cause white women with financial resources are going to place a heavy demand on your services), this demographic trend is an odd one for me to be caught up in.
I was prepared (and looking forward) to spend the rest of my life with Malaya. That didn't work out, for reasons not entirely unrelated to the subject matter of the previous paragraph, and now that I'm single and looking to date women in their late 20s and early 30s... I'm finding that most of them aren't datable. For reasons directly related to the subject matter of the previous paragraph. Most of the interesting ones are gripped by baby fever. They fucked around from 18-30, and now that they're 32, or 34, or 36, their ovary clocks are ticking, and they want to date their next husband.
Earlier this year I blogged about one woman who after a good date came right out and said that she liked me a lot and would have dated me in years past, but that she was looking for a husband (with a viable sperm count) now, and was going to keep making multiple first dates a week until she found him.) It was a pity, since she had slim thighs and a great first hug, too. She was 32 with a face going on 40, and to be honest, I didn't think much of her chances. I certainly wouldn't have considered her marriage material, (too flaky, no career or ambition, not that hot) even had I been actively looking for a wife.
This glut of would be moms in my demographic hasn't really modified my online dating behavior, but honestly... it probably should. I have changed a bit; when I look at a profile these days, I always check the age and what they say about kids. If they're over 31 or 32 and say they definitely want kids, then I cross them off the list. They're not looking to date; they want to get married, and whether or not that desire is going to help them actually find a mate, it definitely does much to DQ me from their boyfriend considerations. At least unless/until I start lying more about my job and income.
The funny part is that I'm sure those women are as or more likely to "put out" than single women a decade younger. It's not that these 33 y/os are saving themselves for marriage, or aren't interested in sex, it's that they're going to use their bodies to try to encourage their chosen man to marriage. They'd probably put out on the first date if I drove up in a Porsche and worked in a law firm. And not out of some cynical, conniving attempt to entrap or entice that hypothetical me; but because they'd be strongly attracted and would do what women (and men) do when they're on a date with someone they're strongly attracted to.
So it's kind of funny; the best way to get sex and dates with single women in their 30s is to appear to be completely interested in and eager to marry. Whereas a smarter, fitter, better-looking guy who was honest about his non-desire to marry would find a lot of friendly women who hugged him amicably at the end of the date and moved off like a Zerg queen, desperately seeking a man willing to be infected for the good of the hive. (I probably failed at that gaming metaphor, but hey, I didn't play Starcraft and haven't been following the development of Starcraft 2. A fact that would come as a great surprise to the beta-begging hordes who emerged from the woodwork this weekend, after the SC2 beta was just announced.)
Since I'm not that junior partner, and don't care enough to pretend to be him, I'm ruling out a lot of women I would otherwise have considered dating, since from their profiles and my previous first dates, they're not going to be interested in me. So now I'm looking at younger women (never a painful experience), and considering divorced women in my age range. I don't see myself marrying a woman with kids, unless she was interested in having another one or two with me, but for dating, they could be ideal. They're not gagging for remarriage or an immediate LTR, they don't need a lot of maintenance, they're not going to be dependent since they've already got people they love best, and they don't have so much free time that they'll expect more from a relationship than I'm currently looking to give. I've seen several single mom profiles that are like, "I'm very busy with work and my kid but I miss dating and it would be great to meet a guy who wanted to go out and have fun once or twice a week."
Honestly, that sounds about perfect to me. One of the things that wore one me with Malaya and living together was the time consumption. She wasn't high maintenance on gifts or activities, but she really wanted to spend a lot of time together, and it was usually up to me to amuse/entertain her. So we ended up watching bad TV, or driving to the mall, or going to movies, or out to eat a lot, simply to kill some time together and to get her out of the house before she got stir crazy. I didn't mind those activities, and enjoyed interacting with her, in the 2+ years since we split up I've never once missed going to the mall, and I gave away my TV last month after turning it on maybe 2 or 3x a month post-Malaya. (Less than that really, since I never subscribed to cable and didn't have an antenna on the TV, so it was only functional for DVDs.)
At this point, a girlfriend I see once or twice a week, for dinner or a movie or just hanging out, with occasional sex and emotional closeness that doesn't extend to deep love, sounds perfect. It just looks like I'll have to find that from a 27 y/o, or a single mom.
Finally, some related eye candy. I don't know if it's due to some new ad selling guidelines, or the collapsing economy killing off their usual booze/trucks/sporting goods advertisers, but lately every time I look at ESPN.com I see an ad for True.com. They're a personal ad, online dating service that I may or may not be a member of, and their ads amuse me. Maybe they have more balanced ads in other venues, but here's a random selection of the ones they run on ESPN.com, the #1 online sports site. Notice a common theme? Eighteen year olds with big tits, perchance?
I wonder about these ads. I'm sure the average ESPN.com reader enjoys the view, and savors the idea of horny college-aged girls, but 1) isn't the average ESPN.com reader (and ESPN viewer) a 49 y/o, married, fat, balding white male who desperately hopes his boss doesn't bother to check the internet monitoring software which would tell him just how much time his employees spend on ESPN.com vs. actually doing their work? (At least I assume that's their average viewer, based on the onslaught of Viagra, Rogaine, and indigestion pill ads I see when I do watch ESPN.) 2) Doesn't the average guy, no matter how horny, realize that 21 y/o women who look like webcam pornstars don't run ads on personal sites because they meet so many men in real life that they don't need to? And 3) aren't guys too young and/or dumb to understand #2 still young enough that they're meeting tons of girls at school or work or at parties, and are thus uninterested in online dating?
The choice of models, basically porn stars in porn poses, but with (some) of their clothing on, seems inappropriate to the service and the demographic at hand. Really, they look just like the webcam strippers you see pop up ads for. Never quite beautiful, but always with slutty eyes and usually with implants, as they loll around on beds or couches. The ad with 4 women was webcam like, with the 4 women all shown in a short movie, looking hungrily at the camera, shaking their shoulders to draw attention to their bobs, etc. I laughed. And then I took a screenshot. Which I pasted into the collage you see below. Enjoy.
Click to see it full size, if the subtle nuances of its appeal aren't percolating through the obfuscation I provided by slightly thumbnailing it.
Cool video of a new Depeche Mode song. Who even knew there were new Depeche Mode songs? At any rate, this is a cool one.
My only complaint is that they give away too much of the mystery before the end. It's pretty obvious what's happening before what should have been the final seconds of shocking reveal and crash ending, which robs it of some potential surprise. But it's a decent song, of the easy-listening, semi-catchy rock type that Depeche Mode is known for, and I liked the video. At least the first (and perhaps only) time I saw it.
Here's a link to an interesting (free) version of Tetris. I have always been good at shape manipulation puzzles and games, so I always liked Tetris and could play the old arcade version essentially forever. I haven't played the game in years, but I'm still so good that I started this one, played for a few minutes, and then went to make a salad, while leaving the game running. I returned 10 minutes later and played briefly, then left it running, with pieces falling, while I ate. I then took a screenshot and left it running while I fixed the shot in photoshop, uploaded the image, and wrote this post. And it's still running, and I'm still alive in the same game. Yes, my skills are l33t indeed.
If you want to give the game a try, have fun. One recommendation: maximize your browser window. You might want go out and buy a larger monitor too. Click the thumbnail for an actual size screenshot.
This compilation is in poor taste, but since that's basically what the internet is for... It's a list of the 18 "sexiest" (female) teachers who have been convicted for having sex with their (male) students. I skimmed over it idly, until something caught my eye... almost all of them are blonde!
Look for yourself: the first one is brunette, there are 2 or 3 with light brown hair, and one dyed red-head. But the other 14 or 15 (there are a couple of honorable mentions) are blonde, almost all from a bottle. That's way more blondes than you see in the general population, even controlling for the fact that every woman on the list is white.
This seems like more than a coincidence to me. I'm not going to suggest that bleaching your hair gives you pedophile impulses (Michael Jackson doesn't count since his hair is the only thing he didn't bleach), but the causation might well work the other way. The stereotype of blondes is that they "have more fun." In this case it might be more correct to say that they "provide more fun," or at least that's what they were incarcerated for, but that's not the point. The point is that in my experience, women who dye their hair blonde tend to be more interested in partying, acting younger than they are, doing wacky stuff, etc. It's almost like blonde hair is the uniform women put on before they cut loose; like middle aged men in sports cars. And in that light, it's not surprising that most of these hot teachers were blondes, since the same attitude that spurs inappropriate sexual encounters spurs bottle blonding...?
I should probably disclosure the fact that I'm not a fan of blondes, for reasons expressed above, and for stereotype accuracy. Name some famous blondes? Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson, Anna Nicole Smith, Pamela Anderson, Marilyn Monroe, etc. All famous for being busty bimbo airheads, and exactly the type of women I do not like, physically and especially mentally/personality wise. So of course I'm going to associate blonde hair with stupid behavior, since it so often comes atop stupid bimbos.
I actually had this conversation with a couple of first dates in recent months, since amidst the stated preferences on the online dating site is hair color. I did not select the blonde hair box, and two fair-haired semi-beauties asked me why not. To them I explained that I have nothing against blonde hair; it's "blondes" that I don't much care for. For reasons elaborated previously. Both were quite intelligent (and natural, and more light brown than blonde anyway) and understood my reasoning and anti-stereotype reaction. But it was odd that they'd even noticed; I've never once looked at the hair color preference listed by any of the women I view through the service, since it seems such an irrelevant issue. And yet, as my comments here demonstrate, it definitely matters to some people.
That said, the sexy teacher list was good for some eloels. I liked this one best:
Carrie McCandless Age at time of offense: 29 Location: Jefferson County, CO
Occupation: High School English Teacher Lover: 17 year-old male student
Crime: Having sex with a minor during a school sponsored camping trip to the Rockies. Pled guilty to tampering with evidence and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
Sentence: 45 days in days in prison, 5 years probation, 1 - two year deferred sentence, 1 – 4 year deferred sentence and 10 year registration as a sex offender
Odd Fact: Carrie’s husband was the school’s principal.
So some 17 y/o on a field trip nailed his English teacher, who was quite the hottie, and whose husband was the principle. Seriously? He just won high school. Possibly for all time. They should erect (heh heh) a statue to that kid out front, so that his actions might serve as an inspiration to the students of tomorrow.
On the larger and more serious issue of underage sex... I dunno. It's an easy and quick joke to do "hot for teacher" references and talk about how lucky those 16 and 17 y/o's are, and I don't think any heterosexual male can objectively evaluate this issue. I sent the IG this link with a comment about them all being blonde, and she replied to ask me if I thought the women were pretty, and I was kind of dumbstruck. I told her it was like asking her (aspiring baker and dessert fancier) to enter a bakery and say which cake looked the prettiest. It's worse than that though, since men just sort of short circuit when we think about this issue. Most men can't help but remember (and can't ever forget) how horny and insecure and unhappy and confused we were during much of our teen years. So when we're asked to consider how we would have reacted if an attractive adult women had wanted sex from us then? *ding ding ding tilt*
That's the automatic response, at least. The more nuanced, informed answer is to look at the actual follow up psychological studies of these boys, and to see that most of them are quite fucked up by the experience. It seems like fun and games to have a hottie teacher giving you private lessons, but for people who actually have that happen the results are usually pretty poor. They feel betrayed and manipulated by an authority figure, they have problems with intimacy in later years, they can't maintain an equal balance in a relationship since they were seduced and controlled in their first one, they have trouble trusting women, etc.
Not that we should let that sort of unfortunate reality stand in the way of making inappropriate jokes, or wild generalizations about women with blonde hair. Right?
Spurred by the upcoming (now arrived) film adaptation, I recently downloaded and read The Watchmen, the iconic, award-winning twelve-issue comic book series from the late 80s. It was, much to my surprise, exceptionally well done.
I've never been much of a fan of comics, and haven't read any of them regularly since I was in about fifth grade. As an adult the comics I've tried have been afflicted by rather underwhelming stories, and I don't care enough about the visuals (even when they were good) to get by on those alone. Most comics seem to have very threadbare, inconsequential or incoherent stories, stuff that would never stand in written form. It doesn't have to, since comics are a primarily visual medium, but too often the stories are sub-TV quality, and seem to exist primarily to showcase various "cool" scenes the author thought up, or cool images the artist wanted to illustrate. They're like porn or bad action movies in that way; existing solely for a few big bang scenes, with all the interstitial material just filler and the overall story largely irrelevant.
That's generally a feature, not a bug, as evidenced by the countless "Hero X vs. Hero Y" type titles. Most comics of that type are basically pro wrestling; there's some hype to build it up, some flimsy storyline to hang it from, but the fans and principles know that stuff's all bullshit to fill out the hour/issue. The whole point is just to get to the showdown.
For example, just today I skimmed through a short series of comics that presented horror movie characters Jason vs. Freddy vs. Ash. (You can find the download link elsewhere in the thread I linked to for the Watchmen download.) It bored me and was pointless, but it certainly did what it promised. Jason stomped around machete-killing teens in semi-amusing circumstances, Freddy haunted dreams and tried to break over into the real world, and Ash tried to find the Necronomicon-lite book to stop the both of them. The entire plot of the 4 (or 6?) issue series would take about a sentence to lay out. In fact, I did just lay it out in a single sentence. There are other characters of course, but they're just props. Dumb horny college kids for Jason to chop up, dumb useless cops to harass Ash, one vaguely competent hot female to motivate Ash and serve as a love interest, etc. Whoever wrote the series probably needed half an hour to lay it out, with 25 minutes of that spent storyboarding it out so the "plot" would fit into the big illustration boxes.
I'm not saying this to criticize, since as I said earlier, it's a feature, not a bug. The comic was exactly what it portrayed itself as, and (I suppose) was exactly what the fans wanted. (From what I can find online, it was very well received. I must admit to spitting water at the Amazon.com page listing two authors. Two? The story was absolutely, 100%, cut and paste, every horror movie cliche ever. Crediting two authors for this is like crediting two draftsman on a tic-tac-toe board.)
I found the mini-series boring and pointless, and while the art was pretty good, illustrations aren't enough to entice me to read comics that have no interesting plot/dialogue/characters/etc. Bad illustrations are, of course, worse than good ones; I recently read the original V for Vendetta series, and while it was overlong and less enjoyable than the film version of the story, the low quality artwork didn't help either. (I'd never have read the whole 12 issues if not motivated primarily to see how it differed from the movie, which I like quite a bit.) Bland drab dull colors, grainy image quality, poorly-differentiated faces, and it wasn't just due to a poor quality online scan; I had the same reaction when I flipped through the updated graphic novel version I saw in bookstores around the time of the movie's release.
Returning to Watchmen, I'll write an actual review of it at some point, since it was that good. It's the only comic I've ever read that I thought highly enough of to recommend to others, and that's despite the fact that I thought the artwork was largely blah. What I liked was the story, which was akin to a novel, rather than the sparse, action-heavy fare that most comics are. Better yet, it was a really good story, told in highly inventive fashion. The pages are very dense; most are 3x3, with lots of dialogue, narrative, character thoughts, etc in each. I read most 24 page comics in about 5 minutes, since there's so little to absorb or hold my interest. I probably spent 20-30 minutes per episode of Watchmen, and routinely reread pages or sections to figure exactly what was happening.
There are lots of major characters, they're all very unique and individual and full of personality, rather than just being superhero cliches. There are a lot of plot threads overlapping and interweaving, and there are great literary metaphors and stories within the story. The whole antique pirate comic book that a kid is reading in the story, with a plot that eerily echoes and works as a metaphor to the main Watchmen story, is just brilliant. As are all of the addendum materials; book excerpts, diary segments, critical commentary, all of it written within the fiction world and adding depth to the world. Plus the overall story is excellent, even on top of the brilliant techniques used to relate it. I'll definitely read the whole series again some day, and not just because it's got clever twists and reversals at the end that make me want to read it all again to look for clues and foreshadowing.
As for the Watchmen movie, I've not seen it, and don't know if I will. Reviews are middling and mixed, and the better written ones, whether positive or negative, make it sound unnecessary. The movie is slavishly loyal to the comic, preserving all of the characters, much of the dialogue, all of the non-chronological, flashback-filled presentation, etc. Sadly (but predictably), the film jettisons all of the literary metaphors, stories within the story, added reference materials, etc. That was probably necessary; the movie is overlong already with a huge, complicated story and tons of characters, but it's the bonus materials, the literary touches and metaphors and such, that really made the comic work for me. And since none of that's in the movie, and what remains is just a film version of the comic, with the violence and sex amped up, I don't really see the point? (Admittedly, I don't see how the literary stuff would have been filmable, so I'd probably have made the same choice if I were the writer/director.)
The film seems to skew very male, which is no surprise. But it also skews older, which is unusual for a comic property. Ebert loved the movie knowing nothing about the comic. PZ loved the movie as a big fan of the comic. Malaya hated and was bored by the movie, knowing nothing about the comic. (I sent her the link to DL it and recommended it highly, but she's not into reading on her computer so she didn't get to it before seeing the movie in Imax on opening weekend.) She thought this review summed up exactly what was wrong with the film. In brief: The humanized super heroes concept was a revelation 20 years ago, but it's been done to death by now. The world setting and plot worked in the early 80s, but it's dated and antique post-Cold War/USSR. Missing the addendum literary elements the plot is weak. And the acting sucks since they cast it based on physical resemblance to the comic characters rather than acting talent, and the music is heavy-handed and distractingly awful.
I've got one other point of evidence. I recently read the Batman: Year One 4-issue series, that they based the plot/theme/mood of the 2 recent Batman movies on, and it (the inspiring comic) was okay. Better than the comic version of Vendetta, but not very well illustrated and burdened by weak colors and a general lack of visual style or panache. More importantly, to my priorities, the plot wasn't very good. Like the comic Vendetta, I read it mostly to see how the movie differed from the comic that had inspired it. And like Vendetta, the Batman comic set the tone and mood and theme very nicely, but failed on most of the details. Too much plot in the comic, in both instances. To my surprise.
So, here's my grand unified theory of comic book > to > movie quality. The movies are better when they don't have to try to adhere to an actual storyline. Most film adaptations of novels are usually pretty lame, since the movie tries to cram the whole 400 page book into an 120 page screenplay. This necessarily entails removing most of the subplots and character depth and other elements that make the novel work. Watchmen seemed to suffer this fate, at least in the eyes of most of the critics who liked the comic but not the movie.
On the other hand, the good recent comic movies have been reinventions of the characters or world. They've jettisoned most of the comic mythology and complicated background and world fiction, and stripped the story down to the main character, their origin, and one of their classic villains. They've gone serious; no bat-a-rangs or Robin in his comical, colorful, bird-themed outfit. And they've focused on realistic (relatively speaking) origin explanations. They show how the heroes come to be, what their motivations are, how they get their gear and secret hideouts, who their friends are, etc. It's still a superhero movie, but it's basically grounded in reality. I'm talking about Batman, but Iron Man did much the same, and I'll even throw in the 2 recent James Bond movies, which had a very similar aesthetic as they grittily relaunched the often overly-ornate secret agent.
It doesn't always work that way, of course. Arguably Elektra and Catwoman did the same thing, or at least tried to, and those were both disasters. I'm not sure where X-men falls on that scale; I spent the whole movie wondering who built Xavier's plane and the other gadgets, but the characters (at least the good guys) were largely real people, while the stories are fairly ridiculous and most of the bad guys (mutants or government agents) were just cartoon props set up for the heroes to knock down. I wasn't much of a fan of the Spider-Man movies, and never saw the 3rd one, but they were hugely popular, and went fairly realistic on the characters and settings. I can't comment on the recent Superman or Hulk movies since I didn't see them, but they weren't very popular or critically acclaimed.
Anyway, ignoring the facts that are inconvenient for my argument, here's my thesis. Comic book movies are better when they just take the archetypal themes and write a whole new, movie-friendly story. Ideally a classic story taken from the comic, but one that the screenwriters don't treat as a holy icon they dare now depart from. That's what Batman did, as did Iron Man. Watchmen did entirely the opposite, and only the fact that it's such a good comic kept the movie at all tolerable?
Batman Year One is a great illustration (so to speak), since the comic does a fine job of establishing the mood and theme and setting of crumbling, crime-ruined Gotham. The movie adapts that exactly. The comic also establishes Bruce Wayne's character; young, somber, recently returned to his old home, idealistic about saving the city but realistic about the difficulty. Detective Gordon's character is well-established as well, and he essentially co-stars in the comic, with much ink spent on his life, his "one honest cop" personality, the vulnerability of his wife and family, and his potential to lead a comeback for the good cops, if Batman can start the pendulum swinging back towards right and justice.
On the other hand, the plot of the Batman Year One comic series is a mess. They've got a lot of plot, it's just misguided. There's a long subplot about Gordon almost falling in love with his super hottie blonde co-detective (before she conveniently and painlessly transfers out of the city), there's much fighting between Gordon and this giant Aryan corrupt cop, there's way too much of Gordon worrying about the world he'll soon be raising his (unborn) son in. There's no real villain; just a lot of bad guy crooks and cops and others. There's a distracting and irrelevant, half-hearted sub-plot about an angry, Amazonian, black, gymnast, whore, Catwoman. And so on.
The comic is more notable for what's missing, compared to what was in the movie. The comic provides zero info about how Bruce Wayne got his training or skills, where he gets his (stripped down) equipment, what he's done since his childhood in Gotham, why he's so devoted to saving the city, etc. So the whole childhood fear of bats, the restless ennui-filled youth, the Tibetian prison, the ninja training, the secret organization he's recruited to, etc... all movie invention. Back in Gotham, his love interest is entirely added in the movie. Nothing about the childhood friend who becomes the assistant D.A. The movie villain(s) are not in the comic; there's no Sandman, nothing about the Arkham Asylum nor the secret brotherhood coming to destroy Gotham, Wayne Manor is not destroyed, all the inventions and gizmos from Wayne Enterprises are movie inventions, the subplot of Bruce regaining control of Wayne Enterprises... all that was invented for the film (some of it came from earlier Batman comics, but none was in the Year One series).
And that's the point. Find good character ideas and established archetypes in the comics, take a few plot elements that translate well to cinema, give it a realistic, gritty patina, and do everything else from scratch. That works better (providing the people doing it are talented writers) than trying to adapt any particular story to a screenplay, or hewing too closely to the original comics, most of which originated in the 40s or 50s and have a terribly dated, goodie-goodie, archaic vibe to them. (I recently read the first 3 issues of X-men and they're laughably cheesy. Incredibly dated. Literally LOL painful in the characterizations, action, plotting, etc. Thematically akin to the campy 60s Batman TV show, with the "POW" and "BLAM" visual pop up graphics.)
That said, I shall now await rebuttals from more comic-knowledgeable readers, in the form of in the form of counter-examples by that disprove all or most of my points. And a girlfriend who liked action/comic/horror movies wouldn't hurt either; I've not seen any new films since well into last year, lacking anyone to provide me with the motivation to go out/not wait for the DVD.
It's not often that I literally laugh out loud at a news headline, but I did tonight.
Alaska Gov. Palin's daughter, fiance break up
WASILLA, Alaska – Levi Johnston and Bristol Palin, the teenage daughter of Gov. Sarah Palin, have broken off their engagement, he said Wednesday, about 2 1/2 months after the couple had a baby.
Johnston, 19, told The Associated Press that he and 18-year-old Bristol Palin mutually decided "a while ago" to end their relationship. He declined to elaborate as he stood outside his family's home in Wasilla, about 40 miles north of Anchorage.
...his MySpace page has given the media plenty to feast on. He reveals on it he's "a fucking redneck" and, worse, that he didn't want children. The latter statement – "I don’t want kids" – appears to contradict Governor Palin's insistence that the young lovebirds plan to marry soon. However, Johnston's mother, Sherry, says that while no pressure has been put on her son to marry Bristol, the teenagers had made plans to wed long before it was known she was pregnant.
Unfortunately, little is known of Levi – his MySpace page is now only accessible to friends - apart from the fact that he is something of a local hockey hero and that he did not graduate from Wasilla High School, Alaska. Sherry Johnston wants that situation to remain. Of the media interest, she said: "This is out of my league. I’m just a country gal and I want to keep it that way."
Right from the start, Levi was quite obviously every small town jock douche bag, and a shining example of small town wing nut morality. A minor sports success in a hick town, a high school drop out with a junkie mom, a boy-child in no way shape or form ready to settle down, Levi had grown accustomed to nailing sluts like Bristol and walking away. His downfall came when he screwed the mayor's governor's daughter and was to stupid to use a condom properly. Worse, her moms was improbably propelled into the Vice Presidential slot on the Republican ticket, a turn of events that forced (and doubtlessly enriched) Levi to go along with the "of course we're getting married" charade.
It's possible there was someone more relieved than Levi when McCain/Palin lost, but I wouldn't bet on it. He might have been pressured into marriage if his baby momma's momma was the Veep, or perhaps the wingnut welfare would have been lucrative enough to make a few years of a sham marriage worthwhile. When Palin lost that dream/nightmare came to a merciful end, and after weeks of rumors leaking through friends, he finally had to make a public statement today.
I don't know if this Jerry Springer episode has a moral, other than underlining the absolute essentiality of getting your wild teenaged daughter on reliable birth control, but the tragedy of these events for the principles is largely offset by the amusement they've given to the nation as a whole.
In response to my last book review, Josh Warren made an interesting comment:
I've got a question for ya. I have a long flight coming up soon, and I'm wanting to buy a book for it. I'm a total newb when it comes to fiction(I typically read how-to books and biographies), and since you seem to have a lot of knowledge in this department, I'd like a recommendation. What's your favorite book?
I've been a reader of your blog since about '02, and I typically share your opinions(and I love the fiction you've written), so I'm confindent I'll enjoy whatever book you recommend.
I've been interested in getting into fiction for a while, but I have no idea where to even start. I don't share the mainstream taste in movies/music/etc, so I'm sure I can safely assume it will be the same for fiction.
My favorite book is a different question (and answer) than which book I'd recommend. And which book I'd recommend depends a lot on who I'm recommending it to. Ordinarily I know something about the person asking, or can at least ask which genres they enjoy, or which authors they like. In this case the recomendee is almost a tabula rasa. Not only doesn't Josh have a favorite author, he doesn't read fiction at all, so he doesn't know what type of book he likes. He doesn't even know what type of book he doesn't like!
I'd say, to Josh or anyone in his situation, to pick a book in a genre you like. What type of movies do you enjoy? If you like spy thrillers, or romantic comedies, or horror movies, or historical drams... try a book from one of those fields. You can probably find any number of novels that were made into movies you've seen, and since novels are usually better (and always more complicated) than their movie versions, that's a good place to start.
In Josh's case, he says he enjoys various types of nonfiction, including how-to books and biographies, so that's another area to look at. I don't know how good a parallel there is to how-to books; some novels are very step by step in their descriptions of things; lots of historical novels make very clear their author's research into the field. Just to throw out one example, Jean M. Auel's Clan of the Cave Bear novels are almost anthropological in many sections, with detailed descriptions of the cave people technology, cultures, formation of languages, domestication of animals, etc. I'm not recommending those since they're basically romance fiction set in like, 20,000 BCE. Besides, the last book in the series is the only one I've ever reviewed, and while I didn't give it a score, it would have probably been a negative number, since I only made it through 30 pages. And was still offended enough to write a lengthy denunciation.
Biographies have some nice parallels to fiction as well, and you can certainly find fictional biographies, but that seems more likely to indicate an interest in detailed, realistic, three-dimensional characters. Which is a good thing in all types of books.
So, finally getting to it... I don't have a favorite book. I'm not even sure I have a top five or ten. I like different books for different reasons, and almost none of my favorites are in the reviews section, since I've primarily posted reviews of works I've freshly consumed in the 7 or 8 years this website has been online. (And my reviews section hasn't been updated in 2 or 3 years, since Blogger added category tags to this blogging script, and I've just been tagging the movie reviews and book reviews as I post them, pending some future remodeling of this outdated website.) Most of my favorites, books or movies, are older than that, and are films/books I've seen many times in the past. I should still review them, though. It's dumb to have reviews of hundreds of random, disposable, forgettable films/books with my name on them, and almost no reviews of the work I actually recommend.
Oh yeah, recommend. That was the point here, initially.
I don't have a favorite book, but if I must recommend just one title, it's Clive Barker's Imajica. It's not my favorite book, but it's probably the best written, most intriguing, most complicated, philosophically and metaphysically brilliant novels I've ever read. It's also hugely long, upwards of 1000 pages in paperback (it's often sold in volume 1 and 2, though I'd recommend looking in a used book store for an older paperback or hardcover, for less money). Technically Imajica is horror, but it's got as much fantasy as horror, even though it's set in the modern day, and much of it takes place in the real world (more or less). I recently reread Imajica for the first time in 6 or 8 years, and was happy to see that it held up; in fact a number of elements, especially on the father/son dynamic and the religious elements, worked very well for me now when they hadn't resonated for me in my early/angry 20s.
I'll also say, fairly unreservedly, that Clive Barker is my favorite author. Although looking at his bibliography, I should really amend that. Or find a new favorite author. Barker's first decade of published works was pretty much unrelieved brilliance, but Galilee was dreadful maudlin fauxmance paup, Coldheard Canyon was celeb-studded crap with flashes of brilliance, and everything since then has been a children's story or some sort of concept/novelty book.
If you want more conventional horror, it's hard to go wrong with anything Stephen King wrote in the 70s or 80s. I've not cared for much of his production over the past two decades (Christ, has it been that long?), but YMMV.
Looking over my reviews page for a memory prompt: The various Jeffrey Deaver mysteries are pretty good and fairly intellectually rigorous. I scored them fairly critically, but that's in comparison to each other; they're all good, if fairly formulaic, crime thrillers. Terry Pratchert's Disc World series is excellent, lively, amusing, creative semi-SciFi, but it's very British humor and certainly not to everyone's liking. The Harry Potter series is an enjoyable journey, though the first 2 or 3 books are fairly simplistic since they were written as (smart) children's books. The first 4 or 5 books in Orson Scott Card's Ender's series are all excellent, with Ender's Game standing out as my favorite SciFi novel of all time, perhaps closely followed by it's sequel/continuation, Speaker for the Dead. (And this is despite the author having more or less lost his mind to fanatical, religiously-motivated bigotry over the past half decade.)
My strongest series recommendation though, goes to George R. R. Martin's ongoing Song of Ice and Fire series. It's high fantasy with a vast cast and a sprawling, multi, multi-PoV narrative, but it's written with such intelligence and gritty detail and realism that it stands well above any other fantasy series I've ever read. Unfortunately, Jordan's about 2 years late with book 5 in the 7 or 8 volume series, he's in his 60s, and it's looking entirely possible that he might pull a Robert Jordan and croak before he finishes writing it. And that would be a hell of a shame, since while Jordan's Wheel of Time series had lost its focus and he'd wandered aimlessly through the last few books (before his untimely demise), books 2 and 3 in Martin's series are both in the top 10 books I've ever read, and book 4 wasn't bad, though it mostly existed to advance some plot threads and set up the great pending action in book 5. If we ever get to see it. Not to mention the ones after it.
So, lots of words, lots of books, and a few that I recommend almost without reservation. You'll seldom see higher praise from me; I'm too nuanced and conflicted and consumed with all that tortured artist reviewer stuff.
Religious Belief Contines to Decline... Even in America!
The results of a very large survey into the religious attitudes of Americans is in the news today, and the results are, I think, encouraging.
Fifteen percent of respondents said they had no religion, an increase from 14.2 percent in 2001 and 8.2 percent in 1990, according to the American Religious Identification Survey.
Northern New England surpassed the Pacific Northwest as the least religious region, with Vermont reporting the highest share of those claiming no religion, at 34 percent. Still, the study found that the numbers of Americans with no religion rose in every state. "No other religious bloc has kept such a pace in every state," the study's authors said.
The article also says that fewer people are having religious weddings or funerals; more than a third say they did not marry that way and don't want to be disposed of in that fashion. I think that's more telling than the self-reported religiosity; most people say they're religious when it costs them nothing, (such as on the phone to a survey taker) but when the proverbial rubber hits the road, and it's time to get a priest or not for some major life (or death) event, more and more are choosing not.
As many people have argued, self-reported religious surveys are highly suspect, since most Americans were brought up religious, and as Daniel Dennett says, people have faith in faith. They don't really believe it anymore, for fairly obvious reasons, but they want to believe it, or they think they should believe it. So they say they do, which is why actual church attendance figures run far below reported church attendance on surveys. (Like this one.)
Interestingly and unsurprisingly, it's the moderately religious who are gaining the strength to drop out entirely (or who get ritually dunked and double down into fanaticism). The ranks of mild religions are being gutted, with all of those people becoming non-religious, or else going fundie.
Evangelical or born-again Americans make up 34 percent of all American adults and 45 percent of all Christians and Catholics, the study found. Researchers found that 18 percent of Catholics consider themselves born-again or evangelical, and nearly 39 percent of mainline Protestants prefer those labels. Many mainline Protestant groups are riven by conflict over how they should interpret what the Bible says about gay relationships, salvation and other issues.
Mormon numbers also held steady over the period at 1.4 percent of the population, while the number of Jews who described themselves as religiously observant continued to drop, from 1.8 percent in 1990 to 1.2 percent, or 2.7 million people, last year. Researchers plan a broader survey on people who consider themselves culturally Jewish but aren't religious.
The study found that the percentage of Americans who identified themselves as Muslim grew to 0.6 percent of the population, while growth in Eastern religions such as Buddhism slightly slowed.
The continuing influence of various religious blocks on US politics and cultural issues is another interesting issue. Atheists and the non-religious are essentially ignored in US national issues. There aren't any major non-religious lobbying groups, there's exactly 1 US senator or congressman who admits to being irreligious, and failing to strongly and repeatedly profess your faith is a disqualifier for anyone seeking national office in the US. Yet the non-religious population is at least 16%, and certainly far higher, since people under report their own lack of belief in these surveys.
Our culture's outward professions of belief and the very organized and noisy protest blocks from the various major (but fading) religious groups ensure that state of affairs, but I think another factor is that (admitting that you don't) believe in any God or Gods doesn't give any insight into what you want politically. Plenty of Catholics don't actually oppose abortion or birth control (or capitol punishment), as common scriptural interpretations say they should, but self-appointed Catholic leaders can (and do) act as though the tens of millions of Catholics agree with those points, and that supposed voting bloc gives the leaders power. Not to mention how handy it is to be able to claim a religious affiliation or inspiration when fund raising.
Not only do Atheists not give money to any unified Athiest political cause, nor have any such organization to give to if they wanted to, there's no real agreement amongst them (us) about which political positions to push for. There's not even any general opposition to government funding of faith-based initiatives, or ending tax breaks for politically active churches. The non-religious are liberal, conservative, and everything in between, and while many former conservatives were driven away by the fundie Bible-thumping wing that's come to dominate the Republican party on a national level, plenty of others hold their nose and vote Republican for economic or cultural or foreign policy reasons. Plus there are lots more non-religious who are drawn to pseudo-right wing ideologies, such as the me-firstism of Libertarianism. Enough to equal or exceed the non-religious liberals voting Democrat, for lack of any actually liberal option in the US? I have no idea, but probably not. After all, people under 30 are the least religious and most Democratic of any demographic group.
Another interesting aspect is that they apparently counted the Mormon 1.4% of the population as non-Christian. That might be technically accurate, but the Book of Mormon is just an updated plagiarism of the New Testament, and the beliefs of Mormons are actually closer to fundie Catholics and Protestants than those of any liberal Methodist or Episcopalian sect. True, they'd engage in some fairly amusing arguments about doctrinal beliefs, the Angel Maroni and Joseph Smith being a prophet and all that, but by cultural behavior and voting patterns Mormons might as well be lumped in with the 30-odd% of the population who are born again Southern-style Baptists.
Finally, the enormous size of the cultural and political footprint swung by the tiny sliver of the population who are Jewish, (ethnically or religiously) is amazing. There are half as many Muslims as Jews in the US, and with the Muslim numbers rapidly increasing from birth rate, immigration, and evangelism, and Jewish numbers continuing to fall, their relative ranks in the population will likely be reversed in the not too distant future. Yet the Jewish lobby and Jews in positions of power must outstrip US Muslims by what, 1000%? 10,000%? More? The US is really the only nation on earth that supports (financially and politically) Israel in every dispute with various of their Muslim/Arab neighbors, and whether you agree with that support, and/or Israel's actions on the world stage, you've got to be impressed by the level of support, as well as the prominence of Jews in the entertainment, finance, political, and other influential fields in the US.
Clearly (unless you subscribe to various conspiracy theories) the Jewish race/religion/culture pushes an amazing level of over achievement in US culture. The irony is that the religion itself is continually shrinking, in the US, worldwide, and even in Israel. The numbers keep shrinking since (generally speaking) Jews don't have large families and don't evangelize and convert others to their faith. Judaism has obviously been a very successful faith, to have persisted so long in the face of such persecution (chiefly by adherents of Christianity and Islam, two religions that were ironically spun off from the Hebraic origin). But it seems like it might be on the way out, in the foreseeable future. Not entirely, not with one nation largely devoted to its preservation, but given current demographic trends, the % of people worldwide, and in every nation but Israel and maybe the US, who consider themselves religiously Jewish is going to be down around cult levels in another few decades.
Whether this leads to a rebirth, a "the few and proud" stasis, or an eventual disappearance remains to be seen, but I find it fascinating to observe how religions evolve and transform, rise and fall. Zoroastrianism is in the same boat, but they're taking on water ever faster. There are no more than a couple of hundred thousand left, scattered through pockets around the world. They've got no real homeland or stronghold anymore (Islam out-competed the religion in Mesopotamia) and that monotheism, which greatly predates Christianity and Islam, might vanish from the earth (in numbers significant enough to distinguish it from vanity religions like oh, Egpytology or Scientology) in our lifetimes.
