If you’re wondering why I haven’t posted for ages then you haven’t been following my tumblog. Anyway, I’ve just broken a several-months-long spell of reader’s block. Not sure what it was. It probably started when I picked up “The Brothers Karamazov.” I wanted to read something hard. So I picked a doozie. As the page turning slowly decelerated over the course of a couple of months, I soon began to grow disillusioned. I’d told myself I wouldn’t go back to reading multiple books at a time. (I’d at one point had about a dozen books with dog-eared pages and could barely remember any of them.) But I also didn’t want to give up on the ol’ Brothers K. So fast-forward many moons and I hadn’t read much at all.

So I hid TBK under the bed and pulled out something a bit more colorful. “Filth” is the story of a man descending into disrepair of the soul and madness. It contains what must be the most vile and despicable antihero in all literature. The main character is a racist, misogynist, foul-mouthed cocaine addict, as well as a corrupt police officer with loose morals who’ll fuck anything that happens by and then berate them afterward. He betrays and sets up for disaster those he would feign friendship with, and then puts them down and says they deserve it. On top of it all, he abandons personal hygiene, has a nasty crotch rash, and carries a tapeworm around in his gut. But the tapeworm is more than just a parasite. It starts speaking to him, giving him instructions and even acting as his conscience when he does things particularly cruel.

“Filth” is the kind of book that when you reach the halfway point you realize that there’s no way this character can redeem himself to bring about a happy ending. Likewise, there’s no ending that could make the story feel more sordid than it already is.

I simultaneously was annoyed by and enjoyed the eccentric spelling and grammar meant to reproduce a heavy Scottish accent. At times I couldn’t even translate, and some cultural references went right over my sheltered American head.

In any case, this blue book with a $4.95 price tag on the front hopefully has restarted my regular reading schedule. I’ll try to get through some more quickly.

I’ve spent the last few weeks helping put together a year-end music compilation that The Bulletin is giving away. It’s one disc of Central Oregon bands and one disc of national acts. Of course, whether you choose to actually make discs is up to you. But I put some effort into the included printable sleeves! (Oh, and if you want the jewel insert version, e-mail me. I can probably hook you up.)

Visit www.bendbulletin.com/nearfar to download The Bulletin’s free two-disc compilation Near/Far, containing 30 MP3s from Central Oregon and national acts. No subscription required. Includes songs from The Shins, Arcade Fire, Aesop Rock, Band of Horses, plus Person People, The Roe, The Mostest, Coyo and more.

p.s. I apologize if your download is slow. It’s not my fault.

Banks panorama

Originally uploaded by andy z

Just uploaded another shot from New Zealand. I’ve had this folder full of pictures I’ve been meaning to stitch into a panorama for a while. Follow the link to the Flickr page for the full image.

Bioshock was the first game I got for the Xbox 360. Excited, I played through the first few levels and quickly became distracted by other fare such as Gears of War, Fight Night: Round 3 and Assassin’s Creed. For some reason, nothing drew me back. Finally, right about the time it became clear that Bioshock was going to win Game of the Year, I decided that it was high time I actually played through it. I’m glad I did.Although a standard shooter in many ways, the addition of the basic RPG elements added a great deal of depth to the gameplay. Instead of just looking for the next biggest gun and the next key a la Doom, I found myself strategizing over which plasmids and tonics I should carry into the next area. I began collecting everything I could see in hopes of being able to invent another tonic at the next U-Invent station. I made an early decision to rescue all of the Little Sisters instead of harvesting them, and I feel that if the game has any flaw it’s that it doesn’t do a great job of explaining why this makes a difference. As a matter of fact, the game doesn’t do a great job of explaining any of the protagonist’s motivations, especially early on. I had collected almost 900 units of Adam before I realized what it was even for.Visually the game is stunning, even on the regular definition television my Xbox is hooked up to. I felt like (and this is a complaint I have with all Xbox titles I’ve played so far) the text was almost always too small to actually read on a standard TV. I’m going to venture to guess that the majority of gamers have yet to upgrade to an HDTV, and most must be more or less guessing what most of the text displayed on screen actually says. Thank god Bioshock’s diaries were audio and not just text. I could have gone blind.The gameplay is top-notch for a shooter. There were almost no clipping issues, and the near-lack of artificial boundaries increased the immersive effect of the outstanding production value of the game. I did feel like I was basically fighting the same 4 or 5 enemies over and over again, and that I rarely met any of the people who were talking to me and leaving me messages, making my journey through Rapture feel a little lonely.Playing through on medium difficulty felt just about right for the first half of the game, but as my weapons and plasmids improved, I felt like the last half of the game was kind of a breeze in comparison. Since I played through and got the “good” ending on medium, maybe I’ll try to play through on hard and get the “bad” ending.Overall, I agree that Bioshock is easily one of the best games I’ve played this year, but it doesn’t exactly bring anything new to the table.

I picked up this graphic novel months ago and it got buried beneath a pile of other unread magazines, comics and graphic novels. Finally I got through the stack and picked this one up and read it in two sessions.

I was excited about the release of the film version of this story from the moment I’d heard about it. What’s not to like? Sci-fi? Rachel Weisz? Stunning visuals and music always present in an Aronofsky’s picture? But then I read about how the production was going south. Brad Pitt decided it was beneath him or something and the studio decided to shut down the production. It looked like the end of a very promising project. But then Aronofsky took the story to Vertigo comics and they reinterpreted the story as a graphic novel with haunting paintings by a fellow named Kent Williams.

But then what? Aronofsky decided to rewrite the script into something he could make on a shoestring (by Hollywood standards, anyway) budget and hire actors who were willing to do the project for not a lot of money. The result was an extraordinary film and an extraordinary graphic novel, both born from the same seed story but developed in different ways. The back of the book declares it to be “the ultimate ‘director’s cut.” And it really feels like it at times. At other times it feels like the shooting storyboards for the film that eventually was made. In any case, both the film and the novel are worth the hour or two it takes to get through them.

This book is part of the Open Books project I’m working on.

My dad let me borrow a hardcover copy of “No Country for Old Men” several months ago, saying that I should read it before the movie came out. So I did, just barely. I finished the novel on Monday and saw the movie on Thursday. When was good, because the novel was still fresh in my mind and I was able to appreciate the careful adaptation of the movie. But before I discuss the movie at length, let me first touch on the book.

I’ll say that I really like McCarthy’s style. I read “The Road” and thought it one of the most original and literary entries in the post-apocalyptic sub-genre of science fiction. The author has a way with dialog (albeit annoyingly sans punctuation) that few authors can boast. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the majority of “No Country’s” story was moved along by dialog.

But I was also slightly disappointed in the overall story. I expected more. The central conflict is resolved barely halfway through the book, and the rest of the pages are devoted to an aging sheriff’s soliloquies on life and personal guilt, with only a little falling action after the climax and a glancing blow of a resolution. Maybe it’s my pulp novel sensibilities talking, but I wanted rewards for the “heroes” in the book and I wanted justice for the villains. But perhaps that is the point. Perhaps rewards and justice just don’t exist in McCarthy’s country.

This whole book/movie combo brought to head a very interesting argument: Whether to read the book first or see the movie first. If one reads the book first, one is more likely to pick apart the movie and be disappointed by even the slightest unfaithfulness to the original. On the other hand, if one sees the movie first, your image and opinions, especially when it comes to your visualization of the characters, will be forever skewed by the actors in the movie. The former choice allows you to use your imagination to bring the book’s story to life before seeing actors portray the same scenes, but will probably result in disappointment to the movie. The latter choice allows you to judge the movie for what it is before reading the novel, and there’s a better chance that you’ll enjoy both that much more.

A lot of it depends on the quality of the adaptation, and “No Country” stands as one of the most well-adapted films I’ve seen in some time. Obviously there are differences, but the main points and dialog are lifted straight from the text.

This book is part of the Open Books project I’m working on.

… I’ve recently been using my tumblelog for general posting.

 I know, I know. I’ve been on this nonreligious studies kick lately. What can I say. A lot of good books have been written about atheism lately.

Hitchens book is no exception. While he’s much more of an ass than either Sam Harris or Richard Dawkins, Hitchens brings up many of the same points. He, however, does not merely shrug off religion as an unnecessary byproduct of a social species. No, he finds it to be much more sinister. Hitchens argument is that religion is the true root of all evil. He cites instance after instance of death and violence at the hands of the religious zealot, both in remote history and modern times. He picks on Christianity quite a bit but leaves no faith undisturbed. He even finds examples of violent Buddhist monks. He attacks Mother Teresa and Ghandi as hypocritical and ineffectual.

Hitchens spends about half of the book poking fun at people who see the world as more than chemistry in action. He spends the other half making serious accusations against particular faiths and even particular religious figures.

What I do appreciate about Harris, Dawkins and now Hitchens is that they all emphasize not the importance of rejecting religion and adopting atheism, but of encouraging free thought and not accepting “because it’s always been that way” as an answer. This is the most important lesson I’ve learned from these and other “new atheism” writers. Yes, it’s true that most religious practice and even faith itself doesn’t stand up to the test of critical thinking. But that’s not the point. The point is that everyone should decide what they think for themselves based on the best evidence that they can find or be shown. And even the most fundamental Christian can’t argue with that logic.

Of all the ridiculous things that Hitchens hammers on, the one that stands out the most to me is the attack on faith. Faith by its very definition is believing in something despite lack of or even contradictory evidence. What purpose does this serve? If you think something is true, and yet there is overwhelming evidence that it is actually false, what virtue is there in continuing to think it is true? And the obvious follow up to that question is why try to convince others to think it is true as well?

Agh. Anyway, it was a good book. Great for starting conversations, that’s for sure.

This book is part of the Open Books project I’m working on.

Michelle and I will be traveling to New Zealand for the last two weeks of October. Check out the stops we’ve already planned. If you know anything about the places we’re visiting, by all means, help us get the most out of it.I’ll have a digital camera and I’ll be taking as many photos as I can. If and when we get access to the Internet, I’ll attempt to upload photos as we go. Check out our New Zealand travels photoset for that.I won’t have my cell phone (doesn’t work there), but I may check my voicemail once.If I write anything it will probably be on my tumblelog at zeigert.tumblr.com.Wish us luck on our travels!(Aotearoa is the Maori name for New Zealand, I think.)

It’s not that I didn’t already know Mormons had unusual beliefs, or that some “fundamentalist” Mormons have taken it a step further. (Or, more accurately, stood their ground while greater Mormonism has taken steps toward mainstream.) I’ve known many Mormons, and it seems to me that their being Mormon has very little to do with whether or not they’re assholes. Let’s face it, assholes come from all walks of life, religious or not.

I guess what really surprised me about Krakauer’s portrait of this unique little American cult is not how unusual their beliefs were, but how violent and callus some of its believers can be. The book centers around Dan and Ron Lafferty, who claimed God told them to brutally murder their sister-in-law and her infant daughter by cutting their throats, even though the brothers had perfectly good non-divine motives for wanting at least the mother dead. The pages describing the murders and the immediate aftermath are enough to make the reader cringe.

I have nothing personal against religious folk. I even find some religious rituals to be charming, and a good sermon or homily can be as inspiring as any good lecture. But religion is dangerous, as well. And Krakauer’s book examines the birth and growth of an original, sometimes ugly, American religion. Most major world religions were begun thousands of years in the past, so their prophets and histories are veiled in the haze of ancestral memory and translated texts. Mormonism is different in that respect. It’s less than 200 years old. It was created after the age of enlightenment, in the era of mass communication and the daily newspaper. Krakauer was able to research the major characters and events in the history of the Mormon church to such a degree that would be near impossible with other religions.

If you have any interest in Mormonism or the history of the Mormon church (or the state of Utah, for that matter), then I would recommend this book whole-heartedly. Krakauers style and pacing are reminiscent of Mark Bowden, and there is very little unnecessary material in the book. I may have to pick one or both of his other books: “Into the Wild” and “Into Thin Air.”

I don’t know why I’ve been on a religious non-fiction kick lately, but it’s definitely been educational.

This book is part of the Open Books project I’m working on.