I Return

To My Loyal Reader:

I've been slacking in updates for no particular reason. Maybe the transition from winter to summer has made me feel less creative/productive.

On that front, I'm really looking forward to this summer in the City. Last summer I was dealing with a bed bug infestation and the accompanying move. I spent May/June/July sleeping on Ashley's parents' couch and on a crappy sofabed in my sweltering, windowless apartment. I spent most of the month of July searching for apartments, and a good bit of July/August moving into the substantially larger apartment where I currently reside.

This summer I'll be free from the bedbugs and I won't be moving, so I'll have a lot more time to devote to pleasurable activities: hanging out, going to the beach, lounging, seeing concerts, and doing all the other free stuff that NYC is supposedly famous for. I'm sure there will be plenty of updates to be made. In addition, I have several vacations planned: North Carolina with my grandparents in July, Ocean City with Ashley's parents in early August, and a late-August trip to Mt. Tremblant with Ashley.

Anyway, here's to summer. And screw the swine flu.

Colbert being funny

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Better Know a District - New York's 25th - Dan Maffei
colbertnation.com
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Cats are Hilarious

Banquet at Delmonico's - Barry Werth

I recently read a book by Barry Werth entitled Banquet at Delmonico's. It purports to explain the big debate in this country about evolution at the end of the 19th century. That debate, after all, was extremely important. Edmund Spencer's phrase "survival of the fittest" was used to justify imperial expansion all over the world. Both Spencer and Darwin himself were extremely famous and influential men on both sides of the Atlantic.

Werth attempts to describe the debate as it moved to this side of the Atlantic and increasingly became accepted not as a fantastic theory, but as solid fact. To do that, he follows the lives of several men over a span of more than a decade.

He does a good job explaining their daily movements and personal correspondences, but the book mystifyingly lacks any detailed discussion of the particularities of either Spencer or Darwin's ideas. He sets up an ideological competition between Darwin and Spencer, but the reader is never treated to its nuances. We assume it exists, but we never learn its particularities.

Instead, Werth primarily concerns himself with where the main characters were, who they were debating with, and what books they were writing. He spends chapter after chapter describing in exhaustive detail about the alleged affair between Henry Ward Beecher and one of his female parishioners without explaining why the affair was important to the debate concerning evolution. Was it because the affair had a transformative effect on Beecher himself? Did it discredit him? Did it change his viewpoints concerning evolution? Werth never explains.

It's a well researched, pretty well written book. But Werth's apparent insecurity with discussing the ideological debate - the very subject of his book, no less - is a big flaw. It's interesting to read about the comings and goings of famous men, but in the end that's all the book has to offer.

Broadway in Front of my Office

This is a glary, but pretty accurate, photo of Broadway in front of my office.

Bruce Springsteen Covers

If you're into Bruce, which I'm not really, you might be into this. Lots of covers of his songs by more contemporary bands. Even if you're not a fan, some of the interpretations are interesting.

http://www.brucespringsteen.net/news/hanginout.html

Old Color Photos

A collection of old color photos, circa 1910, from Russia. So, so sweet:

http://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2009/03/some-of-worlds-first-color-photographs.html