The View from the Spaghetti Factory

About a year ago, I wrote a few paragraphs in an attempt to summarise a few things about 2004. I may write one for 2005, we’ll see. However, re-reading that piece just now, the bit that grabbed my attention most was the list of books I’d read during the year. With my usual inability to stick to schedules or resolutions, I haven’t managed to read any of the stuff I intended to read back at the beginning of the year, but that’s not a problem; I’ve had fun regardless. The last book I read in 2004 was “Jane Eyre”, which I figured I ought to be at least aware of before reading “The Eyre Affair”, so appropriately enough, Jasper fforde’s book is first on the list for 2005…

The Eyre Affair - Jasper fforde
The Year 1000 - Robert Lacey & Danny Danziger
Voices of Time - JG Ballard
Vermilion Sands - JG Ballard
Man & Music 1: Antiquity and the Middle Ages - ed. James McKinnon
The Terminal Beach - JG Ballard
The Little Girl who was Too Fond of Matches - GaÈtan Soucy
House of Leaves - Mark Z Danielewski
Music in Medieval Europe - Jeremy Yudkin
Joe Meek: The Telstar Man - John Repsch
The Complete Dorothy Parker
How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered the World - Francis Wheen
Lost in a Good Book - Jasper fforde
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men - David Foster Wallace
The Girl With Curious Hair - David Foster Wallace
Oblivion: Stories - David Foster Wallace
Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again - David Foster Wallace
Enigma - Robert Harris
A Void (La Disparition) - Georges Perec
The Well of Lost Plots - Jasper fforde

See the patterns? In common with my music listening habits, I’ve decided to approach books (at least some of the time) with more of a completist, less of a random, attitude. I find that if I just read one isolated book by an author (this is also true for music) I’m more likely to forget that author altogether and never return to him/her. However, if I grab as much as possible in one go, the collected work is much more likely to make a deeper impression on me, and it’s fun to see the progressions in an author’s work without interruption.

So… I worked my way through as many early JG Ballard novels and short stories as I could find in the local libraries. For me, Ballard represents a way of appreciating something that might conceivably be called Science Fiction. Lots of speculative ideas about future worlds, but without all the “Star Log Sigma Beta XQZ17, Commander Zirkon Quiklok reporting” stuff. Later, I re-read a couple of David Foster Wallace books and took the opportunity to tackle the mammoth (and utterly brilliant) “Infinite Jest” while hoovering up all the short stories as well. I couldn’t find “Broom of the System” at the time, but was given a copy for my birthday, so that’s a definite for early 2006.

Oh, and the last one on the list… I haven’t finished it yet, so it doesn’t really belong here. I just liked the symmetry :-)

Merry Christmas! And if you don’t do Christmas, just do whatever makes you happy.

I have a drink in my hand, I’ve just watched Disney’s version of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ (I can rarely stand to watch Disney animations, but that one is a real cracker… I’m assuming LSD was legal at the time) and olfactory evidence of dinner is wafting through from Mum’s kitchen…

Still in pre-Christmas lazy mode, so I’m just offering a few links for your amusement until I have something original to say. This chain letter parody (via Jamie Zawinski) made me laugh like a donkey.

MAKE PENIS FAST

The parent site, complete with more serious information about chain letters both online and offline, is also worth a browse.

Via DHM, here’s an absolutely fascinating, well-argued and downright terrifying article by novelist Jane Smiley, outlining just what damage George Bush is doing to the US, and therefore to the world we all live in…

A Ten-Step Program|*|

I’m not a consumer of “Reality TV”. I watched the first series of Big Brother, as it seemed like such a great idea for a social experiment. Everything else I’ve seen of the reality genre has made me want to kill people. However, the new Channel 4 series Space Cadets intrigues me.

On the surface, it’s nothing new… a bunch of ambitious, misguidedly self-confident young adults, with the usual personality types. If you’ve seen any reality TV shows since 2001, you’ll know the stereotype we’re dealing with here… student in some pointless media-related subject, likes clubbing and shopping and wants to drive a Formula 1 car and be famous. Yep, we once had beauty pageants for this sort of stuff, but now we have reality shows. Johnny Vaughan fills the Davina MacCall role by being more or less as cringingly irritating as Davina. And as ever, the contestants are aiming to survive all the challenges, overcome all the interpersonal struggles and win the coveted prize… in this case the chance for four people to go into orbit in a Space Shuttle.

Except, of course, it’s all a hoax.

They think they’re training in Moscow, but they’re actually in Suffolk. Apart from one genuine ex-KGB fitness instructor, all of the instructors and “experts” are actors. The Shuttle is a Hollywood prop, as is much of the equipment they’re using for training. This could be the perfect antidote to the whole sorry reality genre. Rather than squirming uncomfortably as stupid triumphs over stupid, we can now delight in the fact that they’re all being well and truly had.

I really cannot emphasise enough just how stupid, blinkered and self-obsessed these people are. Well, maybe not “stupid” as such… several are students and they mostly seem quite wittily articulate. They just seem so smug and self-satisfied in their worldly wisdom, their cat-got-the-cream delight at being in the Space Cadets shortlist. After a few days of very basic training, and with no background in the military or aeronautics, they’ll be going into space, following in the footsteps of a very select bunch of highly trained and specialised people. No, wait… they’re stupid, utterly stupid. Forget the hoax. Fire them into space.

Apologies for the lack of blog content just lately… the usual combination of busy and lazy.

It was my birthday yesterday, and my (combined Xmas/birthday) present from Nicola was a weekend in Cork. I’ve been wanting and intending to go to Ireland for years and years, so it was good to get there at long last, and with the price of Easyjet flights from Gatwick, it’s actually cheaper and more convenient to fly to Cork than it is to get the train to most large cities in England.

In summary… great weather, friendly people, fantastic architecture and scenery, loads of food and beer. I can’t wait to go back to Ireland and do some more exploring. Here’s a few photos…

Cork, December 05 set on Flickr.