The End of Lost as an End to Mystery

[NOTE: This post contains spoilers about the series finale. The usual precautions apply.]

Update: See also Tracie’s excellent re-cap/analysis over at Jezebel.

I think Charlie Anders’s response to the finale of Lost over at io9 is representative of the reaction many other Lost fans had last night:

In the end, it’s hard not to see Lost as the longest con of them all. Not because we didn’t get enough answers – it’s really true that after this episode, I don’t need any more answers than what we got. But because all along, Lost seemed to be a story. Until the end, when it wasn’t. In the end, it was just a bunch of stuff that happened.

[...] It just felt like a cheap, cop-out ending.

Slb over at Postbourgie has a similar take:

I haven’t encountered too many fans who weren’t at least a little let down by this resolution. The whole, “Surprise! You’re all dead!” thing seems far too convenient for a show that encouraged its audience to invest so much time cracking codes and trouble-shooting mysteries. If you think about all the websites with secret messages and comic book plotlines and DVD commentaries and literary references and numerical fake-outs this show employed over the years, in light of the show’s last few minutes, it’s enough to make you want to throw something at your TV.

Contrast this with Tyler Cowen’s take:

Most of all I viewed the ending as tragic.  It was not mainly about any particular account of the metaphysics of the island.  It was about how few couples had the chance to actually live together, love together, and stay together.  The perfect reunions of the couples in the “we’re all dead” scenario only drove this point home.  I found this contrast moving.

[...] Overall I thought it was the best final episode of a series I have seen, with close competition from The Sopranos.

I favor Cowen’s reading for several reasons, mostly because I think it captures what was resonant and frustrating to the viewers annoyed by the finale: the promise of an end to mystery left us with another mystery and that mystery was different than the mysteries proffered by the show before the finale.  But first some quick background on what kind of Lost watcher I was for context: I wasn’t a committed Lost fan over the entire series.  In fact, I began watching the series starting with (I believe) the Season 3 DVD and stayed with the show mostly because 1) I had enough character background and basic mythology that I could watch an episode and follow the rough contours of the mysteries and revelations while grounded in the character drama and 2) I was sucked in by the Lost cultural phenomenon and was curious to see how it would all end.

Five Guilty Pleasures, Music Edition

I’ve been tagged, so here are my worst music moments, courtesy of iTunes:

1. Angels and Airwaves, “The Adventure”

I have a soft spot for power-pop and layered pieces (a la wall-of-sound and prog rock).  I’ve always found myself liking Tom DeLonge’s stuff with Blink-182 in spite of the fact he writes some truly bad lyrics This one’s on my workout mix when I go to the gym.

2. Marc Cohn, “Walking in Memphis”

Best line from this song: “She said,’Tell me, are you are Christian, child?’/And I said, ‘Ma’am I am tonight.’”

3. Mike and the Mechanics, “All I Need is a Miracle”

I also have a soft spot for synth-heavy 80s dreck, and the best of New Wave.  This falls somewhere in between.

4. David Bowie, “Underground”

Taken from the Labyrinth soundtrack–a cool, if somewhat disturbing movie; it features David Bowie in very tight pants.  Not as cool as Bowie as Nikola Tesla, but guaranteed to creep out the kids.

5. Tears for Fears, “The Working Hour”

I genuinely like this song, but never heard it until I was in my early 20s.  I had heard “Shout,” “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” and “Head Over Heels” from Songs From the Big Chair , but nothing else.  Then I went over to someone’s house and listened to it on their record player.  I now also own the album on vinyl (80s all the  way!).

I tag Keith at The Projector is Ripping Your History since he actually knows a thing or two about music.

Hamlet: A Gay Fantasia on Danish Themes

Via Chris Blattman (whose econ development blog you should be reading) comes this picture from Stockholm:

Then again, I do have Angels in America on the brain as I’m preparing to teach it starting this week (and over the next several weeks) in my English 201 course. Yes, his father was murdered by his uncle and now has the throne, but it’s just such a wonderful day to go yatching.

I’ll Let the Structural Engineers Explain

Via Crooked Timber, a familiarly shaped building planned for the Dublin skyline, courtesy of U2.  I figure Quixote should be all over this like the MSM on an outed Republican member of Congress, so I’ll leave the expert analysis to him.

And Another Thing: Sting Isn’t Even Spanish!

After taking a shot a Baby Boomers in my last post, I’d like to spread the criticism around and go after my own generation. This Blender list of the 40 worst lyricists in rock is a case study in intellectually lazy criticism, as practiced by Generation Y¹: snark and sneer, with a useless dash of contrarianism thrown in to annoy.

I understand that lists of “the best of” and “the worst of” are both inherently subjective and presented as the empty-calorie diversion of popular magazines, but something more than “assertion with attitude!” is called for here. You want to try and set up some sort of vague criteria or at least choose the most egregious and generally recognized offenders (e.g. something goofy like 50 Cent’s “I love you like a fat kid loves cake”). At least go for broke on the meaningless and viscously subjective, which, even when your readers don’t agree, can be pretty funny; arbitrariness alleviates the burden of having to legitimately defend your choices. If you’re going to be irreverent, you need to sell it.

But when Blender claims Sting is the worst lyricist ever, this is the best they can muster:

Surveying the Cold War, he found the West “conditioned to respond to all the threats/In the rhetorical speeches of the Soviets.” His rage at Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was so heated, he castigated the scoundrel in Spanish. Holy frijoles, was Sting mad!

Oh noes! He was “mad” and singing in another language! Oh, snap? If you’re going to assert Sting’s lyrics represent “[m]ountainous pomposity, cloying spirituality, ham-handed metaphors,” it would help if you cited examples, unless we’re to understand that mentioning Nabokov or referencing Shakespeare for an adult-contemporary audience as pomposity–in which case I’d like to thank Blender in advance for adding to creeping anti-intellectualism, or outright disdain for anything resembling the influence of poetry² on lyrics.

For more on my Generation’s critical follies, check out this Slate article categorizing this sort of criticism as a symptom of “poptimism”.

¹ Or whatever the hell we’re calling people born after 1980 but before 2000.

² Hahahahaha. “Poetry.”

In Praise of Charitable Deductions

Perhaps I’m misreading what’s intended as a narrow critique of a sub-set of charitable giving, but I think Ezra Klein’s support for this Robert Reich article is mistaken, as Reich’s proposal goes too far in his desire to support “real” charitable donations, not to mention that it would result in Very Bad Things for arts funding in America. I’m also surprised that Megan McArdle didn’t highlight some of the consequences to universities and the arts if Reich’s proposal of limiting tax deductions for non-poverty related non-profits to 50% of the donation was implemented (I assume she’s read her friend Tyler Cowen’s Good and Plenty).

Klein and McArdle rightly focus on the spectacle of Manhattan charity galas, which give patrons a chance to throw back some vintage wine and imported champagne with artists and celebrities–and then write an expensive party off as a government endorsed contribution–but I think this is as far as the critique can be taken, for two reasons. The first is that deductions are an indirect subsidy to lots of people who aren’t rich, including the middle class, artists, and those that benefit from the research done by universities, which might end up including poor people. The second is that if we eliminate these indirect subsidies (or make them costlier), some of the slack is going to be picked up by demands for direct subsidies, which would be bad for the arts.

Although rich folks may donate to universities to get their C average son or daughter into an elite institution, that money also helps kids whose families earn less than $40,000 receive free tuition from Harvard (and reduced tuition for those earning between $40,000-$60,000), which means greater social mobility for talented but financially strapped students. Not all of the donations are of the “now name an arts building after me” variety (and if major enrollment is any indication, most alumni are likely to fork over money for a science building or simply contribute to a project the university or college has already proposed).

The greater problem is that in place of the funding supplied by private donations, people might start demanding that those funds be replaced by direct subsidies like the NEA or some other centralized entity (actually, the NEA doles out its funds in the form of institutional grants–having done away with direct grants–but I’m worried about a general trend) which would choose the artistic winners, making for a less diverse artistic market.  For all you poets out there¹, imagine asking your parents or non-poet friends to describe a poem for you.  It sounds like some terrible cross between 19th century Romantic verse and tortured love poems as read by a sentimental teenager at a coffee-house open mike, right? Okay, now imagine those same people have to vote for officials whose job is to determine the head of this centralized agency.  Result: Dr. Seuss becomes your Poet Laureate², and the local dandy/Victorian literature enthusiast gets a $20,000 grant to write poems about the “the love o’er which I swoon/ and moves the heart betwixt my ribs”. Yikes.

In short, you’d be eliminating a lot of good donations provided by people who know a thing or two about the field to which they’re donating (e.g. the arts or research for a particular disease) or things people might actually be interested in using (thus matching supply with demand).  Though only 10% of donations go directly to the poor, I’d bet the other 90% benefit the poor (in terms of education and scientific research) by subsidizing public goods.

¹ Hey Keith.

² Though much beloved, he is, unfortunately, dead.

Real Foodies Don’t Eat Lean Cuisine

By Alicia Feuillet

I am a Foodie. I read the Washington Post Food section every Wednesday. The most exciting piece of mail I get is the month’s new Bon Appétit. I had to buy a new bookshelf just for my cookbook collection. I have thrown more dinner parties before the age of 25 than most people will in a lifetime. I cook nearly everyday of the week. In the hierarchy of importance, food is juxtaposed with politics.

I take my self-proclaimed Foodie status to heart, but last week I was incorrectly (in my mind) labeled a Food Snob. But then I thought, what exactly is the difference between a Food Snob and a Foodie? After much thought, I realized there are actually three groups: Food Snobs, Food Slobs, and Foodies.

Canon Fight! or What Became of the Epic Poem

I’m more than a bit tardy to the literary canon back-and-forth between young Zeitlin and Mike Meginnis, but I was busy with things associated with a graduate program focused on literature and writing (he said knowingly, suggesting actual expertise–for once).

A couple quick points about literary forms to set the stage, suggest some problems, then onto my central argument. First, it’s interesting that both discuss the evolution of the novel next to the largely defunct epic poem. The biggest factor in the demise of the latter was the introduction of the former; as literature progressed, people became more accepting of “mere prose” as a literary genre. Realistic novels began to supplant poetry as the medium for communicating narratives, as the Romantic tradition pushed poetry to the more introspective lyric mode, a mode which tends to dominate poetry today. We don’t read epic poems today because we’ve made a greater distinction between poetry and prose than was made in the past.

From the Greeks we received the idea of poetry as the essential mode of literature–prose was for newspapers and pamphlets. But this turn is as much cultural and aesthetic as it utilitarian; I don’t want to belabor the invention of the novel as an “evolutionary” step in narrative. Strictly speaking, one can write a narrative as easily understood in poetry as one could in prose (it just wouldn’t rhyme as much and would be less recognizable to readers today). The complicated category of prose-poetry comes to mind here, and demonstrates how hard it can be at times to list criteria that makes a work “definitely a poem” or “definitely prose.” But I don’t want to stray too far the core debate.

The Literary Effects of Empire

I’ve been hard on the Poetry Foundation’s blog, Harriet, in the past, so I wanted to point out some quality posts, many of them from Kwame Dawes. In his latest post, Dawes discusses a recent column by V.S. Naipaul on another West Indies Nobel Laurete, Derek Walcott. As Dawes notes, Naipaul’s praise for Walcott “is oddly muted, and somewhat underhand.” For Naipaul, there is no “there” there in the West Indies; what the empire left behind wasn’t enough to make literary greatness:

It was something we with literary ambitions from these islands all had to face: small places with simple economies bred small people with simple destinies. And these islands were very small, infinitely smaller than Ibsen’s Norway. Their literary possibilities, like their economic possibilities, were as narrow as their human possibilities. Ibsen’s Norway, provincial as it was, had bankers, editors, scholars, high-reaching people. There was nothing of this human wealth in the islands.

Naipaul’s assessment, concisely summarized in his oft repeated assertion that “Nothing was created in the British West Indies,” strikes me cynical and deterministic. Although it’s true that the greater the level of economic development, the easier it is to support the arts (a better economy means more money and more time for cultural products), Naipaul misses the extent to which an empire leaves the tools of literary greatness behind as it retreats back toward the core. Human wealth is necessary to propagate cultural products, but not to create them. A Caribbean resembling Ibsen’s Norway would be more likely to produce a Walcott or Naipaul, but all it takes is one Walcott to remake the landscape of English language poetry.

Consider Walcott’s response to Naipaul (from a 1986 Paris Review interview): “Perhaps it should read that ‘Nothing was created by the British in the West Indies’. Maybe that’s the answer.” It is indeed the answer, and Walcott makes the reason clear earlier in the same interview when he states, “I am a Caribbean writer. The English language is nobody’s special property. It is the property of the imagination: it is the property of the language itself.” Once given the tools of an English writer–language and an education–a post-colonial writer is free to make the language new, and make work of as much creative force as previous, European generations.

Walcott’s success demonstrates that out of the remnants of empire and slavery, voices can emerge that become models for the former empire (or those in America who speak the language). It isn’t only that Walcott had to leave St. Lucia to have his work recognized (though to some extent, he did) it’s that Walcott truly is of a piece with Milton and Marlowe, and he is of the Caribbean too. The empire can’t help being influenced in return by those it has conquered.

Pennsylvania: Number One!

As a native Pittsburgher, I’m glad to see that Tyler Cowen is on to the many charms of the Keystone State. I’ve always thought of Pennsylvania as a sort-of microcosm of American life: small towns and rural areas mimic the South, with large  post-industrial cities (Philadelphia and Pittsburgh) approximating a lot of the East Coast and urban populations.  Cowen’s summation is also great:

The bottom line: Almost certainly, Pennsylvania is better than your state. If you are a foreigner, and want to understand what made America great, study and visit Pennsylvania.

Take that, Ohio.

Harry Potter is the Chosen One (But I’m Still Not Reading)

Though I’ve never read any of the Harry Potter books, this Jane Espenson essay in TNR¹ does a good job explaining why the story of a boy wizard is so captivating–he’s the Chosen One:

The Chosen One paradigm is the most positive, most comforting, most affirming metaphorical version of change, of growing up, that I can imagine.

And as Espenson argues, it’s also why Luke Skywalker and Buffy Summers have greater appeal than Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica; intricate worlds have their niche followings, but the Chosen One is a universal archetype.  Keep that in mind during your next pitch meeting.

For my part, I’ve never been much interested in reading Harry Potter because I found the strikingly similar Books of Magic before Harry Potter was published (and I was a little old to get caught up in the first wave of Pottermania, though it’s pretty common for adults to read the books now).  Besides, The Books of Magic also features everyone’s favorite trench coat wearing, chain smoking, itinerant magician.  Honestly, who’s a cooler mentor: Dumbledore or John Constantine?

¹  A BtVS writer!  In TNR! I nearly geeked-out.

Apparently, I’ll be Feminist in the Post-Patriarchy

I ran across this post on Feministe while clicking through blogrolls¹. While the post is a fairly unremarkable reflection on dating a hetero guy (after years of relationships with female and transgendered partners) and said hetero guy’s open embrace of feminism, many of the commenters’–er–”skeptical” comments made me wince:

And yes, I’ve seen this. We’ve all seen it, repeatedly, if we’re honest. And maybe it’s just that that pathetically grateful relief that women can act out when we’re confronted with one man who seems even halfway not-a-shithead illustrates like nothing else just how very, truly fucked we are by this society. Christ, we meet one guy who WON’T defend gang-rape and might be talked out of thinking that all rape victims are lying, drunk sluts, and we fucking capsize ourselves kissing his goddamned ass. It’s that bad. IT’S THAT BAD. THIS SOCIETY REALLY IS JUST THAT BAD.

I know sometimes hyperbole tends to have it’s own momentum. But gang-rape-defending momentum? Who is seriously going to defend gang rape? Oh, you mean the Duke lacrosse rape case? Yeah, no–pick something else.

More on the topic of men as potential feminists or feminist allies:

The Spirits of ’76

by Matt Spaley

“Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants to see us happy.” -Benjamin Franklin

On the day that we celebrate the birth of our nation I thought it would be a good opportunity to look at the document that seperated us from British tyranny (such as the erection of a multitude of New Offices) and the men behind the founding. But who wants to read that on a holiday? (For those dedicated nerds out there who need a history fix, you can check out Alan Dershowitz’s short but excellent book America Declares Independence) So instead, in the spirit of our forefathers (8oz of alcohol a day was the average), I offer you some patriotic beer selections to go with your cookout:

Mad Anthony’s Ale- Erie Brewing Company offers this tasty, medium bodied American Pale Ale. The quote from General “Mad Anthony” Wayne on the box says it all: “I’ll storm Hell if you’ll only plan it.”*

General Washington Tavern Porter and Thomas Jefferson Tavern Ale- Finding anything by Erie Brewing Co. might be difficult depending on where you live, so Yards Brewing Company’s offerings based upon period recipies (Jefferson’s Ale comes from his own papers at his Monticello estate) should be easier to find.

Commodore Perry IPA- Ok, this one isn’t a Revolutionary War hero, but he did kick British butt in the War of 1812 (which is kind of a sequel to the Revolution) and I thought this list could use an IPA. Also, his middle name was Hazard.

Jefferson believed that drink stimulated conversation, so have a few while you reflect on independence. And if you can’t find any of these there’s always brewer/patriot Sam Adams.

*I’ve seen the pot they used to boil Mad Anthony’s bones. Why would anyone do that? He was buired in two places.

Facebook is Populated by Preps, Jocks, and Goody Two-Shoes

 by Matt Spaley

A doctoral candidate at the School of Information at UC Berkeley, danah boyd (she spells her name without capitalization), has written a blog essay on class divisions between Facebook and MySpace. The essay asserts that “hegemonic teens” (middle/upper class with some education) are all on or are flocking to Facebook whereas “subaltern teens” (poor, less educated, minorities, and those that identify with various teen subcultures) are on MySpace. Though she is careful to point out that her essay is not meant to be an academic paper, it quickly becomes clear that boyd’s essay suffers from some sizable problems.

The choice of “hegemonic” and “subaltern” as terms are an obvious issue which boyd anticipates:

“Yes, I know that these words have academic and political valence. I couldn’t find a good set of terms so feel free to suggest alternate labels.”

At best this caveat is a cop-out. By borrowing terminology from post-colonial theory boyd loads the essay with unnecessary baggage. Describing a group as “hegemonic” is obviously pejorative and boyd proves it through her descriptions:

The Superman Question

 

Tyler Cowen has a thought experiment over at Marginal Revolution:

Let's say we had an altruistic and incorruptible Superman, how should he allocate his efforts to improve the macroeconomy?  He is really strong, he can fly very fast, leap tall buildings at a single bound, has incredible vision, and somehow he is immune from Einstein's theory of relativity and time dilation at near-light speeds (his most impressive achievement, if you ask me).

Even though Prof. Cowen gives us the caveat that our Superman is "altruistic and incorruptible," there are some deep ethical and political quandries that a macro-meddling Man of Steel poses.