I owe to Instapundit the following link to the book, All Known Metal Bands. Check out the product description:

Product Description

This volume contains the names of over 50,000 metal bands. Presuming that each of these bands had an average of four members, and multipling that by the number of bands, one might figure that at least a quarter of a million humans have pledged allegiance to one of them at some point is his or her lifetime. Never has a genre of music relegated to the underground of a civilization had so many devotees; no radio needs to transmit the power of this music, for it is sought out fiercely and freely by the doomed and the dispossessed, whose ears are never soiled by songs of love and weakness.

These names are invisible tokens to be spoken aloud, each representing a human quest for superhuman spectacle: shaking floorboards and quivering walls, split ears leaking blood, with faces painted and ornaments pointy, voices uttering eternal truths shunned by woman and man alike.

Is it redundant that this book is hardcover?

…and why does that passage remind me of the following:

Theognis is the only writer represented in this volume whose poetry has come down to us by a regular manuscript tradition.  His works are to be found, in whole or in part, in more than forty manuscripts, the oldest and best of which belongs to the early 10th century.  We have almost 1400 lines of elegiacs, which are variously divided to form between 300 and 400 poems, most of them single couples, the longest two poems of 30 lines.  At last, the novice might think, the critic’s task is straightforward: he is dealing with compete poems instead of stray fragments and he can ply his trade in peace.  But alas!  the field of Theognidean studies is battle-scarred, strewn with theories dead or dying, the scene of bitter passions and blind partisanship. Welcker in1826 divided the poems into a small corpus of ‘genuine Theognis’ and a large mass of poetry by other writers, earlier and later.  Separatists of various shades of opinion held the field till 1902, when Harrison published a vigorous defence of the unity of the  corpus, and since then combat has been continuous, except for interruptions due to real wars. (emph. mine)

-D. A. Campbell, Greek Lyric Poetry. 343-344.

I once met a wise dwarf who was fond of making gnomic statements.

Propriety

In an earlier post, I opined that a large problem for American society is that social space occupied by the concept of “Taste” has been usurped by Radical Free Speech and PC Speech.  I think I’ve hit upon a slightly more coherent formulation of that idea.

We can define “Taste” as “Variable Self-Censorship”, wherein the variability is a function of one’s awareness of one’s social circumstances.  Radical Free Speech advocacy seeks to nullify “Censorship” part, whereas PC Speech attacks the “Variable” part.  The latter might need an extra word of explanation: Political Correctness is all about the increased codification of speech, which in turn decreases the range of legitimate expression available to the individual(*).  Both attacks, however, decrease the space available to individual for expressing himself on the basis of his perceived relationship with the social network in which he operates.  In other words, the modes of personal expression advocated by Radical Free Speech and PC Speech encourage solipsism and mechanism, respectively.  The basis of Radical Free Speech is the isolated individual, and the basis of PC Speech is the universal impersonal code.  As a result, neither fosters actual interpersonal engagement or understanding.

(*) Ok…so I’m aware that this is a blunt over-generalization, esp. in light of the potential counter-examples from societies founded on a highly structured sociolinguistic apparatus (cf. levels of politeness in Japanese).  But even there, one could make the argument that such highly structured speech conventions have over time contributed to the minimization/marginalization of the role of the individual in Japanese society.

Sci-Fi Miscellany

This morning I found an article in a Chicago Jewish newspaper announcing that in honor of Charlton Heston and his role in “The Ten Commandments”, William Shatner would be in town to do a dramatic reading of the book of Exodus. Be afraid, be very afraid…

Incidentally, the erstwhile Captain Kirk’s name provides fair fodder for a Tom Swifty: “Tom, use the name ‘William Shatner’ in a sentence.” “ok. William Shatner the bushes because there was nowhere else to go.”

…and while I’m on the topic of Star Trek: My memory’s a bit hazy on this since I haven’t consistently watched the show in years, but why were the holodecks equipped with safety settings that could be turned off so as to render participants vulnerable to severe harm and/or death? Perhaps it’s mere poverty of imagination on my part, but is seems to me that the risk/reward ratio there is pretty highly skewed…

Finally, get a load of the latest Time magazine cover:

I haven’t read the article yet, so maybe they really are trying to evoke Highlander…and if so, that begs the question of WTF is wrong with the people at Time magazine. Then again, given the number of times this season Hilary Clinton has “come back from the dead”, as it were, maybe some people are legitimately scratching their heads as to whether she’s an Immortal. And as for Obama…maybe there’s more than meets the eye to his reluctance to debate with no moderators…

Incongruous

The other day I was at the market square in Cambridge, England, and there was this table of Marxist activists advertising for the 2008 “Festival of Resistance”.  Think about that one for a bit.

The Obligatory Video Game Post

Although it’s been several years since I actually bought anything really cutting edge in the world of video gaming, I still manage just barely to keep abreast of new developments, mostly in order to shake my head and lament that games aren’t like they were “back in my days”, which sentiment is probably far more a function of my imagination than an accurate reflection of reality. In any case, I doubt that I’m any time soon going to succumb to the encouragement of a couple of my friends and plunge head first back into the scene. For starters, I just don’t have that kind of money to throw down. But more importantly, for reasons that I haven’t really thought about too much, I’m just not that interested in spending my time that way anymore because, frankly, I find it kind of boring (no, foreign language versions of old games don’t count. But that’s a topic for another day.).

But that’s in no way meant to knock video gaming as an absolute waste of time. In fact, I am frequently amazed at what some people end up doing with the more creative aspects of the field. Anyway, that’s all kind of a BS preamble to saying that I this ad really clever and funny.

Hmm…

If the movie “Prefontaine” had a sequel, would it be called “Fontaine”?

Where in God’s name is Carmen Sandiego?

Not too difficult…

Unrealized idea #40628

I thinking opening a Jewish-Mexican restaurant called “Haba Nagilah”.

Smirk

 While looking up Shea Butter on Wikipedia, I ran across the following disambiguatory disclaimer:

 ”Karite” redirects here. For the religious movement, see Karaite Judaism.

Also, be sure to check out the table of “Edible Fats and Oils” at the bottom of the page.

(Hmm…maybe I should just go ahead and inaugurate and “cosmetics” category…nah.)