growtown

In the midst of much bad news--Iran launching missiles with the capability to reach Israel and then photoshopping photographs of the launch to make it seem like they launched more missiles than they actually did; Rice delivering very thinly veiled threats in reaction to Iran's launches; Obama voting for a bill that gives legal immunity to telephone companies that participated in the government's unconstitutional wiretapping, rendering any legal action against those companies effectively useless; massive suicide attacks in Afghanistan, forgotten almost as soon as they happen (hey, you can now download applications directly to your iPhone?)--it does a body good to read something simple and hopeful like this.

ecce homo

Zadie Smith has written an excellent review of a new "biographical essay" about Franz Kafka in The New York Review of Books. In it, she considers the the way Kafka has come to us, through biographers and editors. Looming over all the commentary and criticism is Max Brod, the friend who refused to burn the manuscripts but may have damaged them in other ways:

For when it came to editing the novels, Brod's sympathy for the theological would seem to have guided his hand. Kafka's system of ordering chapters was often unclear, occasionally nonexistent; it was Brod who collated The Trial in the form with which we are familiar. If it feels like a journey toward an absent God— so the argument goes—that's because Brod placed the God-shaped hole at the end. The penultimate chapter, containing the pseudo-haggadic parable "Before the Law," might have gone anywhere, and placing it anywhere else skews the trajectory of ascension; no longer a journey toward the supreme incomprehensibility, but a journey without destination, into which a mystery is thrust and then succeeded by the quotidian once more.

Smith also considers how a biographical leveling of Kafka might inform or alter a critical appraisal. Kafka, it turns out, enjoyed exaggeration, positively reveled in accentuating the negative:

For Kafka, the prospect of a journey from Berlin to Prague is "a foolhardiness whose parallel you can only find by leafing back through the pages of history, say to Napoleon's march to Russia." A brief visit to his fiancée "couldn't have been worse. The next thing will be impalement."

And her discussion of Kafka's daily schedule makes Kafka especially concrete--a physical and fallible person prone to frittering away his free hours:

Begley is particularly astute on the bizarre organization of Kafka's writing day. At the Assicurazioni Generali, Kafka despaired of his twelve-hour shifts that left no time for writing; two years later, promoted to the position of chief clerk at the Workers' Accident Insurance Institute, he was now on the one-shift system, 8:30 AM until 2:30 PM. And then what? Lunch until 3:30, then sleep until 7:30, then exercises, then a family dinner. After which he started work around 11 PM (as Begley points out, the letter- and diary-writing took up at least an hour a day, and more usually two), and then "depending on my strength, inclination, and luck, until one, two, or three o'clock, once even till six in the morning." Then "every imaginable effort to go to sleep," as he fitfully rested before leaving to go to the office once more. This routine left him permanently on the verge of collapse.

six miles

A nice route for a pleasant bike ride. Highly recommended for lazy Saturday afternoons.

Bob Dylan, "I Pity the Poor Immigrant"

I pity the poor immigrant
Who wishes he would've stayed home,
Who uses all his power to do evil
But in the end is always left so alone.
That man whom with his fingers cheats
And who lies with ev'ry breath,
Who passionately hates his life
And likewise, fears his death.

I pity the poor immigrant
Whose strength is spent in vain,
Whose heaven is like Ironsides,
Whose tears are like rain,
Who eats but is not satisfied,
Who hears but does not see,
Who falls in love with wealth itself
And turns his back on me.

I pity the poor immigrant
Who tramples through the mud,
Who fills his mouth with laughing
And who builds his town with blood,
Whose visions in the final end
Must shatter like the glass.
I pity the poor immigrant
When his gladness comes to pass.

Bob Dylan, "I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine"

I dreamed I saw St. Augustine,
Alive as you or me,
Tearing through these quarters
In the utmost misery,
With a blanket underneath his arm
And a coat of solid gold,
Searching for the very souls
Whom already have been sold.

"Arise, arise," he cried so loud,
In a voice without restraint,
"Come out, ye gifted kings and queens
And hear my sad complaint.
No martyr is among ye now
Whom you can call your own,
So go on your way accordingly
But know you're not alone."

I dreamed I saw St. Augustine,
Alive with fiery breath,
And I dreamed I was amongst the ones
That put him out to death.
Oh, I awoke in anger,
So alone and terrified,
I put my fingers against the glass
And bowed my head and cried.

The Titfield Thunderbolt

Without knowing anything other than its title and that it was made at Ealing Studios, the fact that this movie exists should make anyone a little happier.

open/close

For those who have doubted the utility and raison d'etre of Twitter, witness the Tower Bridge's Twitter posts:

I am closing after the SB Lady Daphne has passed upstream.
I am opening for the SB Lady Daphne, which is passing upstream.
I am closing after the SB Gladys has passed upstream.
I am opening for the SB Gladys, which is passing upstream.

It's sort of endearing in a way that's difficult to explain. Perhaps any personification of an inanimate object lends that personified object a certain quotient of cuteness.