Irreligion (Book review)

     John Allen Paulos Irreligion (2008) Paulos examines the usual arguments for the existence of  a god, and demonstrates all the ways in which they fail. It’s worth reading for that alone, especially if you are one of those who has an itch to prove that a god exists. Paulos, unlike some of the more strident arguers against a god’s existence, accepts that spirituality is a human trait. I don’t know if psychopaths lack it; if they do, it would suggest why so many people tie good and evil to a god. Paulos admits that he has never had religious feelings, hence he doesn’t want to discuss spirituality more extensively. But his demolishing of the proofs of any god’s existence should comfort those who believe, as I do, that “God exists” is not a theorem but an axiom. What matters is what you derive from that and related axioms. The record of religionists is not good; their attempt to prove the existence of their god(s) doesn't help.
     There is of course a question that Paulos doesn’t deal with: What would be the (theo)logical consequences of a valid proof of a god’s existence? I think it would make that god contingent. The general form of the proof would be, “If this Premise is true, then 'God exists' is true.” But that would make that god’s existence logically dependent on the truth of the premise. Ontologically, that makes that god's existence contingent on the existence of whatever the premise asserts. That should give the God-provers pause.
     I think that we tell stories because that is the primary human mode of making sense of the world. Cause and effect are abstractions based on narrative structure or plot. Stories are models of what happened or what could happen. We demand that they have the ring of truth. Just as the smith knows the quality of the steel by the sound it makes on the anvil, so we know the quality of the story by how it feels when it collides with our experience, our sense of how the world works.
     Science is a communal story, created by the method of hypothesis testing. At any given time, the hypotheses we are capable of proposing are suggested and constrained by what we already know, ie, by what we understand of previous hypotheses tested and found robust enough to pass that test of truth. Our knowledge of how the world works is thus always limited. I believe it will always be limited.
     Myth is also a communally created story. It arises out of our sense that knowing how the world works is not enough. We want a satisfying answer to why.  Myth too must have the ring of truth. It must satisfy our sense of what it feels like to live in the world. We want to feel at home. We want to feel our lives have meaning and purpose. At any given time, our apprehension of a myth’s meaning is conditioned and constrained by our sense of the pattern of our life. This apprehension of meaning is limited. I believe it will always be limited.
     Read Paulos’s book if you want to free yourself from the trap of literalism and simplistic logic. ***

Malala Yousafzai

So the Taliban shot a 14-year-old girl to prove how tough they are. After all, they are fighting against the satanic evils of the world, right? That takes a Real Man, with a Real Man's courage, right? Only a Real Man can withstand those fearful forces of secularism arrayed against him, right?

The Taliban, like fundamentalists of all religious persuasions, are terrified. They are fearful of losing control, unable to face uncertainty, panicked by different beliefs. They make their religion a defence against reality. But religion used this way is mere superstition. It cannot protect from the fearful suspicion that the universe does not align itself with your desires.

In short, the Taliban have no faith. Faith is the confidence to accept people with different beliefs than one's own. Faith is the self-assurance to ground honour in oneself. Faith is the ability to tolerate doubt. Those who lack faith fear that other people think differently, are frantic that other people's behaviour will destroy their reputation, are spooked by the uncertainties of life and panic-stricken that they cannot control the world around them.

So they shoot a 14 year-old girl that wants to learn, to think for herself, to think differently. Who has faith that whatever she learns will deepen her understanding of her world and the people who live in it, and will enable her to do what is best for her and her community. Who wants education for everyone, including girls and women. She has the faith they lack. That's why they shot her.

Two links: Judy Martin and Steven Poole

Judy Martin is a textile artists  whome we admire. We have one of her peices. Her blog is here: Judy Martin

I became aware of Steven Poole when he was interviewed about his annoyance with self-help books that quote and wildly misinterpret neurological studies. Worth reading IMO. Find him here: Poole's web site

Nouvelle Vague (Art Review)

Nouvelle Vague: The New French Domestic Landscape (Art Review) At the Harbourfront Centre, September 29-December 23 2012. Admission free. A collection of furniture from France, where it appears that a generation of new designers has accomplished the kind of critical mass that leads to radical innovation. The pieces are elegant, beautifully crafted or manufactured, and certainly display new thinking and imagining. But, as always, my first question about useful objects no matter how beautiful, is, Do they work? The answer here is, some do, and some don’t.
     Item: a group of what appear to be intended as low chunky stools would I think be unstable, as the lower third forms a cone.
     Item: a couple of billowy, vaguely cloud-like organic shapes of Tyvek over a wire frame mounted on short legs, lit from within, would work well in a large room with minimal furniture. They are lovely, and shed sufficient light to live by.
     Item: a small desk whose legs at one end extend above the writing surface, with a horizontal lamp mounted at the top. This would work very well even in a small apartment. The matching chair uses the same materials and engineering. Unassuming in style, the ensemble would look good anywhere. About the only thing missing is a shallow drawer in which to store a few writing materials. And stamps. The desk begs to be used for written correspondence.
     Item: a coffee table that looks like a melding of two stools of different heights. My first reaction was, Neat idea for a plant stand. I didn’t know it was a coffee table until I read the show brochure.
     Item: a resin chair with cutouts in the back making it look like a skull. Cute idea. Would I buy one? No.
     In general, most of the lamps were successful, the other pieces not so much. I’m sure we’ll see many of the concepts adapted to more functional forms. Overall, worth seeing. **-½

War Horse (review)

War Horse (review) The Toronto version of the play first mounted by the National Theatre in London in 2010. It's based on a children's story by Michael Morpurgo. Arthur's father acquires a horse at a very high price because he wants to defeat his brother. Arthur names him Joey. In order to keep the horse, Arthur must train it pull a plow. He does so. Later, Arthur’s father sells Joey to the army for 100 pounds. Arthur joins up so as to find Joey. He does, eventually, just as Joey is about to be put down because of a foreleg injured on the barbed wire. Arthur rides Joey home. The End.

     But between the beginning and the end we see a play made to look and feel like a movie. Music and special effects, short scenes, split stage, all work to create an impression that sticks with you. One could also call it an opera without arias. There were a couple of singers who sang a ballad-like comment on and narrative of Joey's story, but I found I didn't need to get all the words; the songs were part of the ambiance of the production.

      Everybody must know by now that the horses (and some other animals) are represented by life-

size puppets worked by puppeteers that we see at all times. The puppets are semi-abstract, but their movements are lifelike. The effect is amusing, amazing, but above all moving.

     The war scenes are the most terrifying I've ever seen in a theatre. I don't like war movies, and this play was at times hard to take. I remember enough of the sounds of bombs that the simulations of shell fire made me shake. In many ways the play was depressing, despite the happy ending. Most of the audience around me did not react as I did: they weren't old enough to have had any direct experience of war. They were quite jolly. But a few found the prospect of Joey's life on the battlefield difficult to imagine.

      Do I recommend this play? Yes. Purely as stage craft it's impressive. It reminds me of Les Miserables, another attempt to create a multimedia effect on stage. But War Horse succeeds. It's an anti-war play, with the innocent horses standing in for all the innocent victims of war, including the soldiers, who are after all ordinary men used for terrible purposes by the wagers of war. ****

The Clock by Chris Marclay (Review)

     Chris Marclay The Clock (2010). At the Power Plant, Toronto, until November 25, 2012. Free admission in celebration of the Power Plant's 25th year.

      Marclay spliced together thousands of movie clips, timing them to create a 24-hour movie showing clocks synchronised to running time. You start watching it at 3:15pm, that's the time you'll see on wall clocks, wristwatches, spoken, etc. Clearly the result of obsessive persistence, but worth no more than an hour of one's time, if that. [Update 2012-10-08: Marclay hired a slew of researchers to view and scavenge the movie clips. One is a Paul Smith from Toronto (Canadian Art, Fall 2012, p.192). So a good deal of the credit for the grunge work of making this movie goes to other people.]

      The Power Plant's blurb says that the work ”ruptur[es] any sense of narrative sequence”. Nonsense. As far back as I can remember, movies have used multiple narrative sequences, switching from one to another, most often to create suspense. Will the hero arrive in time to save the heroine as water rises inexorably towards drowning depth? Of course he will. More complex movies show us multiple stories unfolding at the same time, converging, intersecting, diverging again. We are so used to reading movies this way that we automatically read Marclay's movie this way, too. Well, I do. How about you?

     The fact is that narrative sequence is built into our brains; we can't avoid it. So this movie also creates narrative sequences. Marclay can't prevent this effect. In fact his method encourages it, because he has to use clips that themselves are parts of narrative sequences, simply to provide us with the images of clock faces showing us the current time frame. The stories are incomplete, is all, because Marclay wants us to note times, not plots. But time and plot are inextricably linked. Cause and effect may be an illusion, so the philosophers and quantum physicists tell us, but we can't avoid creating the illusion when we watch multiple series of movie clips.

      I don't know what Marclay wanted this work to demonstrate or show. It's a concept work, one presumably designed to present a thesis of some sort. The artist statements I've read in the past usually endeavour to assert that the work will disrupt our normal ways of seeing the world around us. Trouble is, most such attempts have failed: artists are no better than the rest of us in framing a disruptive thesis. In my experience, it takes a heap of scholarship and a weird imagination to see new patterns in the data. There aren't many people who have both a deep knowledge of some aspect of the world and the ability to change their points of view.

      Trouble is, the medium Marclay chose doesn't disrupt our normal way of decoding a movie: it emphasises it. That's probably why I was bored very quickly. I was able to maintain some interest in the clips themselves, playing a game of recognising movies, actors, and genres. As you might expect, action movies predominate.

      Marclay has an impressive c.v. He has been nothing if not busy. Despite the plethora of exhibitions, shows, and prizes won, this is the first time I've heard of him or seen his work. There are just too many artists out there, I guess. And I stopped following artistic fashion a long time ago. Is this show worth seeing? At the price, yes. It's interesting. It may engage you beyond mere interest. It did not do so for me. *

Opening Night (Book review)

     Ngaio Marsh Opening Night (1951) The old Unicorn theatre has been reborn as the Vulcan. We’re back in familiar territory: the great actor-manager, the leading lady, a number of skilled actors doing a professional job of the secondary characters, assorted theatre staff and stage crew, and the look, sound, and smell of a working theatre. The twist: a New Zealander, remote cousin of the actor-manager, ends up at the theatre after failing to get any work anywhere else. She starts as the star’s dresser, then becomes the understudy of the crucial second lead, played by the niece of the star’s husband, who plays the hero’s antagonist, and is the victim of a murder dressed up as suicide. There are assorted other relationships, past, present, and developing, that interfere with the investigation of the crime, but Alleyn and Fox and the rest of the team solve the riddle in a night of hard work.
     This book feels painted by the numbers: the puzzle takes center stage, in part because it echoes the earlier murder. Marsh is too good a writer to give us merely 2D characters, but most of this lot are only 2½D. **

Steampunk Nintendo case (link)

A story via Boing Boing about a nice uncle who made a steampunk case for an old Nintendo unit:
http://boingboing.net/2012/09/27/steampunk-nintendo-casemod.html
Hey, that's what uncles are for!


Steampunk is an art movement that uses faux-Victorian design and engineering styles to create an alternative-universe of technology. Lovely stuff purely as art, wonderful as fantasy, and inspiring for those who want to think about how the world might have evolved if tipping-point events had happened sooner (or later) than they did in our history. More at:
http://www.steampunk.com/

Help Kickstart a mod to Alien Swarm (link)

Check out this if you like games. Check it out if you like supporting struggling artists. My friend (and former student, so I know he's good) Tim Carter looking for support to develop a new campaign for Alien Swarm:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/70691618/reduction-the-bug-war-on-earth-sci-fi-game-campaig

It works as posted, I've tested it.

UPDATE: The campaign is now over. Unfortunately, only about 10%of the needed funds were promised.

Swing, Brother, Swing (Book review)

Ngaio Marsh Swing, Brother, Swing (1949) Lord Pastern, an eccentric peer, develops a passion for drumming and persuades Breezy Bellair to let him play with his band. His stepdaughter Felicity falls for Rivera, the oleaginous accordion player and drug dealer. Rivera is murdered during a performance at the Metronome in full view of the audience, which includes the peer’s family, all of whom detest Rivera. Alleyn and Troy happen to be present also, which makes Alleyn a witness in his own case.
      The puzzle is more ingenious than usual, mostly because Lord Pastern, an egocentric clever idiot, attempts to misdirect the police: he wants to produce the correct solution when the police have given up.
     But as usual it’s the characters that fascinate. I came across an interview on New Zealand radio, in which Marsh said she started composition of her crime stories with a group of people, not a puzzle. She claimed not to be very good at inventing a puzzles, an observation confirmed by some of her readers. Her focus on character explains the charm of her books, at least for me. The Golden Age of detective fiction is stuffed with books and stories that are little more than abstract puzzles, like word problems concocted for algebra class, but with the characters given names rather than letters.
     Marsh is very good at using dialogue to show how people can be their own worst enemies, frustrating their chances at happiness, delaying the police in their inquiries, and causing present hurts and preventing past hurts from healing. It’s odd but true that Alleyn and Fox are usually the most colourless and least imposing characters in the room. This follows partly from their technique of cool but ruthless pursuit of facts, and partly from their role as investigators. We want to know the facts, but we also want to know about the investigator. This creates a tension, a division of interest, which creates a narrative problem. Marsh solves it by asides, scenes interposed that show Alleyn and Troy, or Alleyn and Fox alone. These advance the back story: we find out that Troy is pregnant, and that Fox will be godfather.
     One of Marsh’s best. ***½

Bonk! (Book Review)

Mary Roach Bonk! (2008) The subtitle, “The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex” both describes the book and sets the tone. It’s a history of scientific research into sex, research
made very difficult by the fact that humans are the only mammals who feel squeamish about coupling in public. The result is both a compendium of well-established facts and more or less dubious speculations,  many of which are still circulated in school playgrounds, sex-ed classes, and doctor’s offices.
     It’s clear that Roach likes sex, but likes research and reporting even more. She has a mordant wit, exhibited in asides and footnotes that demonstrate that she pays attention not only to the facts, but also the subjects’ feelings. She likes puns, too, a weakness I share. Our embarrassment about sex promotes euphemism, arch allusion, and jokes, a fact that Freud misinterpreted to mean that all humour is sexual. Recommended as an addition to one’s knowledge of both history and sex. I’m sure that the book could help relieve the anxieties of the naive and untutored. ***

Dugald Train Disaster (Book review)

The Springfield Women’s Institute Dugald Train Disaster, Memories from 1947 (n. d., internal evidence indicates 2006 or 2007) 55 years ago, a train carrying people returning from the cottage country of Minaki to Winnipeg failed to take the siding at Dugald and crashed head-on into the eastbound Continental that was waiting for it there. The subsequent inquiry found that the Minaki special had been running too fast, and that the signals had been functioning, hence the engine crew were to blame. But a few details recalled by the survivors suggest that it was at least partly mechanical failure that caused the collision. 31 people, including the engineer and fireman on the Minaki special, are known to have died; some of the people quoted in this book think there were more.  The wooden coaches of the Minaki special burned; 23 people could not be identified and were buried in a mass grave, now marked by a cairn.
     The effect of these memoirs is heart breaking. The stories are factual accounts, with no or very little embellishment of the kind some writers use to generate horror. People are simply telling their stories, many of which sound as if they were transcribed from speech. It’s the omission of details and emotions that make these stories so effective. I have the impression that these survivors have lived with horror and grief for many years, and have coped with it by reducing their memories to as purely objective factual accounts as they could. That leaves the reader to imagine how it must have felt. It’s what we imagine of the scene at the time, and the aftermath of recalled horror, that makes us grieve, too. The sub-text throughout is that of a the happy ending of a carefree weekend turned into mutilation and death.
     The booklet bears all the evidence of an amateur production, but that makes it even more affecting. The Dugald disaster has been the background of daily life in that farming community for over 50 years. Not an easy collective memory to live with. ***

More Losers (Book review)

Ben Wicks More Losers (1982) A collection of weird news, accompanied by Wicks’ charming cartoons. Wicks does not, like Chuck Shepherd, guarantee factuality, but none of the reported incidents are obvious urban legends. One can read the book in about half an hour; it’s a pleasant way to spend 30 minutes. It’s also fun to dip into again.
    And while there are a plethora of losers, there are also some winners: “Calvin Coolidge was once approached by a young girl who excitedly gushed, “Oh, Mr. President, Poppa says if I can get three words out of you he will buy me a fur coat.” The president snapped back, “Father wins.” **