In Quiet Desperation

I just put up a "Status Update" on Facebook, which reads:

Sanjeev is having yet another anxious restless agitated distressed unsettled wasteful Monday! And thus, in quiet desperation, our lives drift along...

The "Quiet Desperation" comes, of course, from Henry David Thoreau's essay, Economy, from his book, Walden.

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation....... A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things. "

Facebook has been, in some way, my "game and amusement" these past few months. (By no means do I spend more time there than at my blog... but my blogging has been going on for 2+ years while Facebook is a recent addition. I got into FB to keep in touch with a cousin but now have a network of 50+ friends and acquaintances linked there. I do not spend much time there now except heading there couple times a day to update my "status" and catch up on what other people are saying through their status or other posts. I, however, did spend a lot of time at the site playing Scramble and Word Twist in June-July even as I was launching in what has proven to be a frustrating job-search process. Now, after 3+ months of not getting anywhere with the job search, I lie in wait of an uncertain future - disheartened with discontent and wallowing in quiet desperation.

I can't wait for the day when I do not have the time to go put up dumb Status updates on Facebook!

Summer reading

Summer already over and we are officially into Fall* but a good book is worth reading any time. So here's a collection of short stories, recommended in an NPR piece on summer reading.

My Mistress's Sparrow Is Dead: Great Love Stories, from Chekov to Munro, edited by Jeffrey Eugenides

If you only read one (gasp!) book this summer, make it this one. Like a great mix tape, My Mistress's Sparrow Is Dead is inspired and personal, a conceptually coherent gathering of seemingly disparate pieces that relies on Jeffrey Eugenides' artful curatorship to make it resonate as a whole.

By placing James Joyce next to Denis Johnson, Chekov next to Grace Paley, Nabokov next to Lorrie Moore and Stuart Dybek next to Miranda July, Jeffrey Eugenides makes familiar voices fresh and new and invites us to read authors we might not have picked up otherwise. He edits like a fan, not a scholar, and isn't afraid to pick favorites, which is exactly what makes this a book you'll want to keep forever and give to all your friends. Keep in mind, though, if it's romantic comedy you're looking for, you'll want to skip this collection and hit the movie theater instead. But if you're in the market for jaw-dropping, miss-your-train-stop, weep-in-front-of-strangers writing, you can do no better than this truly stellar collection.

Actually, there is another fine collection of short stories that I need to get hold of (or maybe buy) - The New Granta Book of the American Short Story, edited by Richard Ford. Its the "new" book because apparently, Ford had edited similar collection in 1992 of short and long stories. This "new" one has 44 stories, with an overwhelming majority of them written in the past 15 years.

* Aah...trust Wikipedia to teach me something (I *HAD to* look it up, didn't I!):

In the northern hemisphere, the meteorological start of autumn (fall) is on 1 September. The astronomical start of autumn is on the Autumnal Equinox (22–23 September) and ends on the Winter Solstice (21–22 December) in the northern hemisphere. Autumn starts on or around 7 August and ends on about 6 November in solar term.

So, summer may or may not yet be over depending on whether you take a meteorological or astronomical or solar look at it! :)

The American Idol of US Politics

As the US Presidential candidates head into the first week of post-convention rhetoric and back into the campaign trail, comes news that polls show a massive lead for Mccain post-convention and post-choice of Palin as VP. (I expected a jump but not this big!)

USA Today/Gallup Obama 44, McCain 54 McCain +10

But maybe this is easily explainable... like someone by the moniker Magnifico on the Docudharma blog wrote: "American elections are won by winning the low information voters."

It is actually a very good post and worth reproducing here in its entirety:

One week has passed now since Barack Obama gave his eloquent acceptance speech before an audience of 84,000 in Denver. It has been one week since John McCain announced his running mate would be Sarah Palin. In that time, the Democratic presidential campaign has been derailed and in the year of the celebrity candidate, Palin is the hot new thing. Conservatives have their "rock star" and liberals cannot help themselves from talking and writing about her. McCain has accomplished what he set out to do by choosing her: shake things up. His campaign was withering. Obama was not only reaching out to the middle and independents of the American electorate, but also over to disaffected Republicans. Obama was on his way to becoming the Democratic Party's response to Ronald Reagan. No longer.

To a large extent, the progressive blogging community has been entirely focused upon undermining, ridiculing, lampooning Sarah Palin. She has become the ultimate Republican troll. Posters cannot seem to help themselves from responding. She's too tempting, her life is too target rich. There are too many easy points to score off Palin.

What has this accomplished? The left has gone off the Democratic presidential campaign message. The focus on McCain is forgotten. The focus on his judgment is forgotten. The focus of the Bush legacy is forgotten. The focus on McCain being four more years of Bush is forgotten. The focus on the economy is forgotten. The focus on our country's wars is forgotten. The focus on the fact Republican leadership has gotten our country into this mess is forgotten. The focus on hope and change is forgotten. All that is remains are attacks on Sarah Palin.

These attacks have made Sarah Palin into a rallying cry for the opposition. These attacks have boosted Palin's celebrity status into a phenomenon close, if not equal, to that of Obama's own interest and popularity. Conservatives unite on pissing off liberals and that's what Palin's nomination has down. The left is pissed off. Insulted. Stunned.

And the left blogosphere has reacted with outrage. Collectively, it seems Hell bent on destroying Palin's legitimacy. I believe it will not matter. Many people will see it as mean spirited and hypocritical. Many people will see it as misogynistic and elitist. Many people will see it as an attack on Christians and small town America. For many people, defending Sarah Palin's right to be on the ticket will be enough reason to vote McCain-Palin in November.

By 2008, I believe American elections are won by winning the low information voters. By focusing the attention on Sarah Palin, the left has derailed the Obama campaign and given a boost to Palin's celebrity. She provides an alternative to Obama for low information Americans. She's the barracuda, the hockey mom, the spitfire, the 'hot babe', the white woman. It will be enough.

The proper response to Palin would have been meh. A reaction that was muted and underwhelmed. Her inexperience would have spoken for itself. We should have kept the focus on McSame, the economy, and change. She is a distraction and a most effective one at that.

The election landscape has changed now — it is now Palin versus Obama. Palin is America's hot new talent. Obama has been around now for eighteen months. His popularity is being eclipsed by the Palin phenomenon.

Palin doesn't need to be successful over the next four years. She only has to win the next two months. And if the left continues to stay off message and feed her with all our energy, she will win this election for McCain. I believe in order for Obama to win, Palin must be ignored.

Welcome to the American Idol of politics.

P.S. The Associated Press asks: McCain-Palin becoming Palin-McCain?

A fulfilling life

Apropos of nothing, a question for the day

Would you rather live a full life, full of fun and frolic, and live to be 90+ writing numerous mediocre short pieces, and a few mediocre novels or live a troubled life and die at age 44... but write what is arguably the greatest American* novel of the century?

Note: The examples I link to are only illustrative and I do not mean to compare the two writers. You could write the greatest Indian novel or greatest country-of-your-choice novel, for all I care!

A nuanced story of triumph

Between reading the book Douglass and Lincoln (and so far only the introduction to another book about Lincoln - Lincoln and Douglas) and getting engaged again in following the US Presidential election campaign, I am in the mood to read more and more about US history these days.

Since I was already reading about Lincoln, I thought it would be good to go backwards in time...from the Civil War to the War of 1812 and then back to the Revolutionary War....and I started this past weekend by reading online about some of the battles of the Civil War. However, strolling through the new books section at the public library last week I ran into two books:

American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic by Joseph Ellis

and

A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, America's First Presidential Campaign by Edward Larson

Considering that Amit Varma had recommended that I read Ellis's Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation for a good introduction to the early years of the US and we had also briefly talked about the controversial 1800 election, in the context of the 12th amendment to the US constitution, I could not resist picking both books up.

So, finally, much necessary education on US history may happen; late but better now than never, especially considering I live so close to where 'the shot that was heard around the world' was fired on April 19, 1775.

But don't hold your breaths... there are too many distractions and very little discipline!

P.S. Amit also has just pointed me to a 1-hour podcast where Joseph Ellis..

...talks about the triumphs and tragedies of the founding of the United States. His goal in the book and in this podcast is to tell a story for grownups rather than for children, where the Founders are neither saints nor evil white, patriarchal slave-holding demons. It is a nuanced story of triumph--a military victory over a seemingly unbeatable vastly more experienced army, the creation of the first geographically large republic, a nation without a state religion, a nation that creates a party system with a loyal opposition, a Constitution with the virtues of ambiguous sovereignty, and tragedy--the failure to resolve the slavery issue, and the tragic conflict with the Native Americans. Some of these outcomes were intended by the Founders, others emerged unintended.

Now, an hour I can, should, and will spare.

The tedium of the quotidian

Salil Tripathi writes in The Mint about having...

...the space to explore the self within, savour happiness, process agony, and give shape to ideas that simply cannot emerge out of the tedium of the quotidian.

He did this at his friend's farm in Vermont. Wonder where I will find such a space. We all need such a space and lucky are those who can emerge out of the "tedium of the quotidian."

P.S. Salil writes about Walden Pond, where Thoreau found his peace. I was there last month. Thankfully I was not assaulted by souvenir stalls and other myriad touristy traps but the "beach" and the trails around the pond were bustling with people. It was as if all of Bostonian suburbia had poured into that area to seek refuge all at once and reduced it to the anti-thesis of everything it was meant to be. Thoreau must be spinning in his grave!

The Politics of Resentment - II

A follow-up of sorts to my earlier post about the politics of resentment, with this post from Huffingtonpost.

McCain-Palin = Nixon-Agnew, With Some Buchanan For Seasoning
John McCain and Sarah Palin are tapping into the angry, conservative, anti-government populist tradition represented in recent years by politicians ranging from George Wallace to Richard Nixon to Spiro Agnew to Pat Buchanan.

...

Robert Shrum, a Democratic consultant, had a different take. "Swiftboating is back, but now it's not disguised by a 527 [a third party independent group]. The keynoter [Rudy Giuliani] and VP nominee [Palin] are doing it," Shrum said. "The rawest attacks are coming from the podium. This is really personal, the anger and resentment toward Obama."

The following paras are further exposition of what this video demonstrates about the way Faux News has portrayed Democratic candidates (Kerry then and Obama now); not that I expected anything different from a channel that had this discussion)

The fury at the press; the resentment of 'elites,' especially 'liberal' and 'Washington' elites; the denunciation of Democratic leaders as too timid in a dangerous world, presented in colorful and sometimes powerful language - all of this goes back to 1968 and 1972, when the Republican Party first tapped into a stratum of national discontent in the aftermath of the civil rights movement, rising rates of crime, a new and aggressive feminism, and a massive anti-war movement. The Nixon landslide of 1972, and the subsequent decades of conservative domination of American politics, demonstrated the power of conservative, race-tinged populism.

It has been a long time, however, since the dreaded "Washington liberal elite" has been in a position to impose an agenda on the American people. Republicans have controlled the White House for five of the last seven administrations. Nonetheless, this election appears to have become a testing ground for the viability of this core Republican strategy.

Lot more interesting stuff in the article...will not cut-n-paste everything here. Go read it if you have the time. (Am assuming someone is reading this blog and has read this post right till the end, I guess!)