Blog for the Achenblog

[grysar]

I rather enjoy Joel Achenbach's writing so here's a few choice quotes from recent entries:

Joel on Science:

Uh-oh. This can't be good:

Astronomers have found an enormous hole in the Universe, nearly a billion light-years across, empty of both normal matter such as
stars, galaxies, and gas, and the mysterious, unseen "dark matter." While earlier studies have shown holes, or voids, in the large-scale structure of the Universe, this new discovery dwarfs them all.

"Not only has no one ever found a void this big, but we never even expected to find one this size," said Lawrence Rudnick of the University of Minnesota.

[Update: I've been thinking about this all morning and have two rather obvious thoughts:

First, if we could penetrate this enormous void, we might not find ordinary matter or dark matter, but we would discover billions and billions of unmatched socks.

Second, the void was surely created by a technologically advanced civilization in which someone at an "open house" saw a mysterious switch on the wall and flipped it.]

Joel on Literature

Transitioning out of vacation. Went to the Elephant & Castle at12th and Penn and had dinner with a gaggle of academics and literati. Michael Dirda had the best line: He said he reads a lot of science fiction and genre literature "to avoid having to read another novel about adultery in Connecticut."

That gets to the main reason I don't tend to read a lot of non-genre fiction. Most of it seems to be about people with messed up lives telling stories that I'd find tiresome even if I were their friend. Both chick lit and lad lit tend to strike me this way as well. I do feel I should be reading a bit more proper literature, but for now I'm happy with reading a lot of book reviews and being willing to jump out of my genres if something sounds really good. I think a good part of it is that I don't read for aesthetics, I watch movies or listen to music for that.

Comments

[ninjadebugger.livejournal.com]

I want pictures!
Pictures of NOTHING!

[grysar.livejournal.com]

That would probably be a good name for an incredibly pretentious/ironic coffee table book.

[lirazel.livejournal.com]

I'm all with you on the modern novel thing. I am inexpressibly bored with all these unpleasant people and their adulteries. It's also the reason why I watch next to no TV, and why I watched only 1/2 of one episode of Dallas, back in the day. Where's the fun in watching rich, mean people be beastly to each other?

Which is not to say I demand a happy-ever-after ending. As my darlin' son once put it after reading a lot of Greek myths: "I like these stories because they don't have happy endings and they don't have sad endings. They just end."

[grysar.livejournal.com]

Right, a story with sympathetic characters certainly doesn't demand a happy ending.

[lilinthra.livejournal.com]

I left you a voice mail an hour or so ago, but to save us time, Do you own the card game "Pit"?

[grysar.livejournal.com]

Nope. Haven't heard of it actually.

[lilinthra.livejournal.com]

It's a card passing game, themed after the stock market. Figured that would make sense for the 80s.

[heuristicsinc.livejournal.com]

Pit has a lot of yelling in it and is not for quiet types :)
-bill

[lilinthra.livejournal.com]

I've played it, but it has been a long time.

[grysar.livejournal.com]

By the by, what should I bring for the party?

[lilinthra.livejournal.com]

Pick from chips/salsa (I have none, and wasn't planning on buying any until Sunday for Eberron), or drinks. I have some types of soda (diet & non-diet)and leftover beer, but not much else.

[capfox.livejournal.com]

Mmm. It's rather hard to really conceptualize nothing. I should learn more about the nothing.

I agree with the stuff about non-genre fiction, and I think my stance on it is familiar to yours. I've read a few this year, and they're probably on the whole for the most part outside of my favorites. I can't say that non-genre fiction is always terrible, because there's a lot of ground covered there, but if it's set in a contemporary city and there's no fantastic element, it'll probably not be so good.