Moby Dick Blogging

Moby Dick is one of my favorite novels. It’s fascinating the way it combines a huge number of genres and sources of information into one cohesive whole, from the history of the word “whale” to discussions of (at the time) scientific theories about whales, the process of hunting, butchering and transporting whales, the place of whales in the global economy. And that is just the stuff surrounding the main narrative, the story of a man who’s barely there surrounded by a representatives from all over the globe, stuck on a ship captained by a madman at war with nature. It’s epic stuff.

Matt Yglesias and Ross Douthat are worried about a particularly dire sounding adaptation of Moby Dick into a movie. Of course it’s not going to be a good movie. Most great works of literature can’t be turned into successful films. It’s absurd to think that they could. Most great works of art are extremely medium specific. This is why it’s so rare to hear a great cover of a great song, especially one as idiosyncratic as something like Moby Dick. It’s much easier to turn a bad book into a great movie (say, The Godfather, Fight Club or The Shining) than a great book into a good movie (Wings of the Dove, perhaps. An okay movie, but an amazing book). I’ve only seen a couple of films that truly topped good to great novels that they were working from: No Country for Old Men to name a recent example, but also Blade Runner, Election and American Psycho.

If Patrick Stewart and the CBC couldn’t kill Moby Dick, I think we’ll live through this one as well.

Too Fast, Too Slow

Matt Yglesias, noting that most automobile accidents are caused by people driving too fast, suggests that we simply legislate it and make automobiles that can’t drive faster than, say, 75 miles per hour. This seems like a not at all bad idea that has zero chance of ever becoming a law. Democrats already have a problem being seen as overeducated killjoy girly men. Do we really want to hand the Republicans an issue where the Republicans can reinforce that idea? This is a quintessentially ‘Murican issue.

Optics aside, I do think it’s a good idea. I’ve been in cars that were going close to and (briefly) over 100 miles per hour, and I can attest: that wasn’t safe. Of course, in addition to those reckless escapades, I also wish the US would invest more in a light rail infrastructure (I use it all the time! It’s really great! You guys should check it out!), so my judgment is clearly skewed. There really aren’t any good reasons why people should be able to go faster than we can reasonably expect them to react to a sudden change in the situation. You can’t drive a car with snow chains on it in June, why should you be able to drive at 120 miles per hour? Aren’t they both hazards to people and infrastructure?

Quote of the Day

"May I just observe that while Barack Obama relies on having well-written speeches to make his oratorical performances impressive, Bill Clinton is just relying on pure skills of awesomeness to make texts that are pretty disjointed on the page seem incredibly compelling." -- Matt Yglesias over at Think Progress

My Uncoolness

I got to meet arguably my single favorite voice in the blogosphere tonight, Matt Yglesias who blogs for Atlantic.com and just wrote a kick ass book on American foreign policy called "Head in the Sand".

We were both at a DC zoning board hearing to discuss city parking (partying like a rock-star I am), and I talked to him for a quick minute as we were leaving. I was shocked to learn that he's a year younger than me (he's 27), and that he's kind of a dork, which is in no way a bad thing. Though I don't know if I'm one to be throwing stones in that area, as I'm the one talking about how sweet it is that I randomly met my favorite blogger.

Regardless, I thought it was really cool, and hope I get the chance to run into him in the future.