The Visible Man

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
Going to read @CKlosterman's new book #Visible Man today in a day. Waiting for @magersandquinn to open at 10. Will live tweet w/ pg. #s.

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
And, yes, I will spoiler alert everything. I know you're all waiting to read it yourselves.
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
Leaving the house to pick up coffee (prepared), coffee (unprepared) and #VisibleMan.
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 1 I'm starting the novel with no previous notions of what it is about other than it's a @CKlosterman book.
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 2 Fiction v. Non-fiction. Veracity. Truth?
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 5 Unreliable narrator?
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 9 Has anyone tried e-mailing thevickster@gmail.com? Trying. Didn't immed. bounce back.
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 13 George Harrison "Be Here Now" youtube.com/watch?v=He2yrz…
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 20 "his pseudologia fantastica [footnote: This is more commonly referred to a pathological lying.]"
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 21 Book misuses Heisenberg Uncertainty in the usual way. Can't know bc of a mechanical reason, not theoretical.
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 22 Guilt vs sensation of guilt. Objective vs. subjective.
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert This book so far prompted me to look up and listen to The Jayhawks' "Blue" online.
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 31 "Tall people are naturally confident. History has proven this- Alexander, Wilt Chamberlain, Gisele."
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 46 Not trusting that the type of people who read his books would also be able to hang w/ theoretical ideas?
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 57 Ha! Ha, ha, ha. Small admission; I'd totally do that.
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 59 Another small admission; I do that too.
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 62 I've actually watched that Yao Ming documentary and have a hilarious & heart-touching story about it.
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 83 "He wasn't there, and then he wasn't there."
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 87 Now the book can start for real. Everything before this has been pretext, scene-setting. Now comes the book.
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 88 The narrative seems H.G. Wells until I thought about it. Its actually Henry James "Turn Of The Screw"-esque.
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 92 I find the word "she-wolf" funny.
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 100 Had an experience like this recently w/ my GF. Well, all the details are different. But it's close feeling.
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 101 Daniel Johnston - The Beatles youtube.com/watch?v=YbBXkF…
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 103 "agency"
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 105 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Deck…
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 105 Also, Mary Decker iconicphotos.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/davidb…
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 114 I wonder what McLuhan would think of "The process was always the problem."
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 121 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarahumara
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 146 Only kind of aware of what's going on. But this feels like the peak of the book coming up.
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 131 "It's like trying to using math to figure out history." I wonder what Bill James would think of that.
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 147 A little "There Will Be Blood" love has me turning on the soundtrack.
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 134 Made me think of edped.tumblr.com/post/753554181…
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#NowPlaying There Will Be Blood – Prospectors Arrive open.spotify.com/track/5gHu56UX…
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 160 "agency"
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 161 Jooky MaGoo is a real band. myspace.com/pistolwhipoffi…
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 167 Oh, hell no.
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 169 Reading this book thinking of WIM's book "Faking It". Chuck and I must read the same books. #humblebrag
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 179 This is like the personal propaganda from "I heart Huckabees".
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 191 I could've thought this up vs. I did think this new
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 203 Recondite is the perfect word there. merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rec…
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 224 The temptation must've been to leave things vague. To never resolve it. But this is fiction.
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 230 Finished. I liked it a lot. Looking at the book as a whole, it feels like a book about US involvement in...
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 230 ...torture and rendition. Reading too much into it? Yes, probably. But it feels like it.
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
#VisibleMan #spoileralert pg 230 Also, 1st thing I learned on 1st day of college in Shakespeare class: Appearances can be deceiving.
4 Oct

MichaelRHerman Michael R Herman
An excellent book. Feel like I'll be thinking of it for a while. #VisibleMan
4 Oct

CKlosterman Chuck Klosterman
@MichaelRHerman Thanks, man. Really glad you liked the book & did this experiment. It was extremely, extremely flattering.
4 Oct

Why I'm White

I finished Christian Lander's new book "Whiter Shade of Pale" A few months ago now and it's taken me a while to write about this a wonderful skewering of elitist liberal culture. An expansion and update of his super-successful Stuff White People Like blog and ensuing book deal, Whiter Shade of Pale takes us across the United States and into the womb-like pockets of true White America.

The amazing part about Stuff White People Like is it is the rare instance of the subject also being the target audience. Those amongst the right and the uncool aren't privy to what makes White America ridiculous so their criticisms lack wit. It is the type of comedy which doesn't come from Us vs. Them but Us vs. Us. As such you laugh at the same time as thinking "Am I really like that?"

Reasons I Am A White Person

1.) My family is Republican and I'm not.

But by "my family" I mean anyone I'm related to over the age of 50. Basically if you are from the generation ahead of mine in my family, they did a really good job providing for their children thru determination and hard work. Now that they've paid for my entire college tuition (all 5 years), I'd appreciate if they'd give back all of the money they earned. Not because they've stopped working hard. Just because I saw the enormous positive influence that money had on my life and can't imagine anyone else would have to go without those advantages either. The irony is fighting to keep it for themselves in the name of dedication and hard work is the same thing as fighting to eventually give most of it to me, someone who didn't earn it. So I'm going to be the unwitting benefactor of a system tipped in my favor while the future George Washington Carvers & Jonas Salks will have to deal with shoddy science books. Meanwhile the future Howard Zinn will just shake his head.

2.) I don't follow ANY religion.

Don't let my grandmother read this. But the last time I went to church when it wasn't a wedding, ordination or funeral was 2005. Not a big deal, you say? The Church isn't for everyone? More spiritual than religious? Yeah, I'm not into that either. Here's a quick rundown of my "religious" beliefs; If you're going to follow a system of values professed by a human, they should be the ones which focus on humanity. Any mythology not relating to life as we know it is irrelevant. I get that it was metaphorical and meant for a less-educated audience. I'm a more-educated audience and for me the holy trinity begins with Freud, Nietzsche & Marx. Our worldly problems have real-world causes and we have the very real capability and responsibility to fix them. Leave the ghosts to Hamlet. Or, even better, leave them to Scooby Doo.

3.) I like a lot of things that are listed in the book.

Including the first book, I'm guilty of liking the following:

Coffee, Barack Obama, Wes Anderson Movies, Having Black Friends, International Travel, David Sedaris, Not Having A TV, Wrigley Field, Architecture, Brunch, Arrested Development, Netflix, Indie Music, Sushi, Plays, Liberal Arts Degrees, Irony, Dogs, Documentaries, Japan, Bicycles, Knowing What's Best For Poor People, Recycling, Standing Still At Concerts, Michel Gondry, Mos Def, Difficult Breakups, Threatening to Move to Canada, The Idea of Soccer, Hating Corporations, T-shirts, Shorts, Having Gay Friends, St. Patrick's Day, San Francisco, Music Piracy, New Balance Shoes, Beards, Noam Chomsky, Self-Deprecating Humor, Integrity, The Criterion Collection, High School English Teachers, Free Health Care, Che Guevarra, Non-American News Sources, Subtitles, The ACLU, Platonic Friendships, Dave Chappelle, Nintendo Wii, The Simpsons, Avoiding Confrontation, Books, Music Festivals, Glasses, McSweeney's, Hardwood Floors, Bakeries, Modern Art Museums, Cheese, Self-Importance, Conan O'Brien, British Slang, Anthony Bourdain, Nannies, Messenger Bags, Punk Rock, Promising To Learn A New Language, The World Cup, Self-Aware Hip-Hop References, Trivia, Whole Wheat, Ugly Sweater Parties, Monty Python, The Onion, Short Stories, Alternative Newspapers, Losing Weight, Trader Joe's, Supporting The Troops But Not The War, Bob Marley, Road Trips, Girls With Bangs, Swimming, Google, Hummus, Olives, Facebook, Cult Movies, The Big Liebowski, Peacoats, Vice Magazine's Dos and Don'ts, Punctuality, Waiting In Line, Taking A Year Off, The Winter Olympics, The Office, Banksy and Being Offended.

Mea Culpa

And in the face of such glaring evidence I have to plea guilty because the truest mark of a White Person is the hypocrisy of believing you aren't when you very clearly are. One of my heroes is George Carlin and one of his funniest stories is of the night he heard a couple talking in the front row of his show. The husband was upset by one of Carlin's jokes and Carlin overheard the wife say to the husband, "It's okay, honey. He isn't talking about us." I laugh at Stuff White People Like because I get to laugh at an unobstructed view of myself.

A Joke Written for My Girlfriend

Last week I thought up a joke for Audrey. Not a joke for Audrey to tell as a part of her act. I wrote this joke for Audrey to think it's funny. Here it is.

Preface: Audrey does comedy open-mics. These open-mics are dominated by "bros" who are probably told by their friends "Dude, you're really funny. You should do stand up." The results are exactly what you would expect, especially if what you're expecting is a lot of unfunny date rape jokes. Wait, that's redundant. So I wrote this joke for her since I know how much those jokes agitate her.

When I was younger and more carefree in the world I did some hitchhiking. I spent one entire summer standing by the side of the road with a small "Need a ride" sign. At times the experience was great. Others it got a little hairy.

There was one time a semi pulled over for me and as I was running up to the cab I saw the "Ass, grass or gas: Nobody rides for free" bumper sticker which I was sure they didn't even print anymore. I didn't have a lot of money and what I did have I wanted to spend on weed. So as I was pulling myself up into the cab by the mirror (something I later learned is a faux pas) I thought to myself I would go for the "ass" option and see about calling the truck driver's bluff. I was a good looking 20 year old but noone would ever confuse me as feminine.

Well, the truck driver and I totally fucked. But I must not have been very good at it because at the next rest-stop she still made me buy her a tank of gas.

Is that funny?

I love that joke and not just because I wrote it. I love it because it contains three inversions and one negation. In other words, there are three points where what you would normally expect is flipped on its ear and once where the absurdity of the underlying point is exposed and used to destroy the point itself.

The first point (and it's a sneaky one which isn't revealed until the end) is when the truck driver is a woman. It reminds me of that "brain-teaser" where the son is in a car accident with his dad and yet the doctor at the hospital can't operate on him because the boy is also the doctor's son. Truck drivers are assumed to be men in the same way doctors are.

Secondly the traditional idea of the feminine sex drive is inverted. This is the idea of women wanting sex and wanting random sex outside of a relationship writ large. In the traditional morality, women who want sex and who want non-relationship sex are either weak-willed and easily-manipulable or whores and home-wreckers. Basically there's no room for a woman to act like we easily assume a (male) truck driver does. This joke inverts the traditional idea by giving a (later-revealed) woman that same and equal interest in sex and random anonymous sex at that.

The third inversion (and the root of this joke) is the idea of the male being made into the object of sexuality. The aforementioned date rape jokes are "funny" because if the woman (and these "bros" are never date raping dudes) is made from a subject into an object she loses her humanity and her rights. The reason rape is a crime is because it infringes on the right of an individual to choose their sexual partners and the extent of their sexual activities. However an object doesn't share those rights. So the making of a male into a sexual object (something which could be done to these "bros") makes that denial a two-way street and the "bros" are driving into traffic.

Which is why the negation is my favorite part. It takes the idea of the male as infallible sexual subject and eliminates it completely. The "I" in the joke isn't "the male as sexual god" whose prowess doubles as ascendancy and overwhelms any *cough* complications along the way. The "I" is an inexperienced 20 year old on the side of the road. While the virility of a 20-something male is sanctified under the traditional morality, in reality a truly experienced individual knows it's not something worth sanctifying.

For that reason the entire system is negated. If the value it holds up as the pinnacle of virtue is something of no value at all, then the system itself is of no value at all. That includes the aforementioned "male as sexual god" paradigm used as a justification for the unfunny date rape jokes. Wait, I already said that term was redundant.

Thirty By Thirty #30 - Read "Macbeth"

It's weird as an English Literature degree-holder to have never read "Macbeth." It's even stranger because the first class I took in college was Dr. Zahorski's EN335 - Shakespeare. There are plenty of classics which I've missed in my years of reading contemporary books for fun and pleasure. "Macbeth" is just the most egregious example. So I sat down, cracked open the play and realized where Kurosawa drew his inspiration for "Throne of Blood".

Thirty By Thirty #29 - ZAIREEKA!!!

In 1997 The Flaming Lips released "Zaireeka", an album meant to be listened to on four separate CD players at once. It's no small feat to get four different CD players and stereo systems together and so I set it as a goal to organize a "Zaireeka" party for 30 by 30. But sometimes your motivation will similarly motivate someone else. As my "Zaireeka" idea did Josh Dibley. He put all the pieces together, invited the people and brought it all together. All credit goes to him for fulfilling number twenty-nine. I just sat in the middle of the room and listened.

Thirty By Thirty #28 - Get Glasses

As you get older, your eyes aren't as sharp as they once were. I can still see fine without glasses. There are just certain low-light situations where I can't see fine details at a distance. For example, I can't read the score on the television across the room in a dark restaurant.

Two years ago when I worked for the insurance agency and had better health coverage, I'd gone to the eye doctor. I got a prescription which I hadn't filled because money got tight as the economy went south. But now that I was on better standing financially, I got a super-duper cheap pair for under $100. Now I'll be able to read subtitles at foreign films more easily.

Thirty By Thirty #27 - Exercise My 2nd Amendment Rights

Gun culture and its attendant hunting culture is something which is handed down by generation. Since neither of my grandfathers or my own father were really into guns or hunting, I somehow skipped over having ever discharged a firearm in my life. Make sure that, if you haven't yourself, you tell your friends who own guns. You will eventually find yourself standing at a gun range unloading an entire ten round 9mm clip into a target. Yeah, it may not be your comfort zone. But that's the point.

Thirty By Thirty #26 - See Morzart's "Requiem"

Nik called me and asked if I wanted to go see Mozart's "Requiem" performed by a full choir at a church in Wayzata. I had a copy of a performance my cousin had been a part of in my car for years. Yet I'd never seen it live. Since it's my favorite classic piece (or 1a and 1b with The Brandenburg Concertos), I said "Yes," in a heartbeat.

Thirty By Thirty #25 - Visit Paris

If you haven't heard about this one yet I apologize. It was awesome. Everywhere I went it was ridiculously beautiful. The highlights were having the Eiffel Tower out my window as I went to sleep/waking up, visiting The Palace at Versailles, seeing all of the art museums and getting to visit Europe finally.

Thirty By Thirty #24 - Bowling League

Bowling is what my mom's family does together. If we're not sitting at one of my aunts' houses having a meal, we're bowling. This goes back to when we would all go to Arizona for X-mas. We would go bowling each night after dinner. If you doubt our seriousness, know that when we all grouped back up at my grandfather's house after his funeral the thing we all agreed to do was go bowling. So when Eric asked me if I wanted to be in a bowling league, I accepted quickly and without hesitation.

The best part about bowling in a league is you get to bowl after league is over and get a lot of practice. So, if you're like me, you learn how to hook the ball like a pro would. Results may vary but it's a work in progress.

Thirty By Thirty #23 - Eat A Fig

So I was at brunch as hosted by a couple of my dinner party friends. They were serving figs which I'd never had in non-Newton form. As I had with the meat raffle, I thought "30 by 30." Figs are even better as fruit without the cake.

Thirty By Thirty #22 - Get My Passport

So there are two reasons to get your passport. The first is so you can travel internationally and we'll get to that. The other post-9/11 reason is to verify your American citizenship when taking a new job. Since I knew I was going to do the former and in this down economy you never know when you're going to be doing the latter, it seemed like a good time to get my passport.

Thirty By Thirty #21 - Run A 5K

During the summer I bike everywhere. I also used to do cardio five days a week. So taking on a 5k would be no problem, right? I started strong. Then reality set in a bit. To get my entire body mass moving, I can't jog. My stride is too long. I either need to walk or run. I alternated between the two and finished in 33 minutes. That's a pretty good time apparently.

Thirty By Thirty #20 - Win A Meat Raffle

The lady approached the table Katie and I were sitting at and asked us, "Do you want to do the meat raffle?" I thought in my head "30 by 30." I took $5 out of my wallet and had Katie pick the numbers. One of the numbers she picked hit. Participate, yes. But also win.

Thirty By Thirty #19 - Swim Across Cedar Lake

Sometimes you begin something without even knowing it. Then you get close enough to the end, you think "Why not just finish it?" I was reading a book at the library when I got a call from Dr. Thom. It was a nice day out (how appropriate I was inside reading) and he wanted to go enjoy it. So we met up with some friends who were lounging at Hidden Beach.

He and I took to the water. Then we swam out past the nets. Then past the buoys. Then we were halfway across the lake. Then we got to the beach on the far shore. Then it's an even longer walk back around Cedar Lake to where our friends were and where the car was parked. So we just swam back across the lake.

Thirty By Thirty #18 - Go To A Drive-In Movie

Drive-in movies are big. Not in the really popular sense though they were once that. I mean big in the sense of physically large. It's appropriate then to see really big movies at a drive-in. So we packed up four cars of friends and drove out to Cottage Grove for the two biggest movies of the summer, "G.I. Joe" and "Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen."

Thirty By Thirty #17 - Try A New Recipe

... tried a new recipe. Audrey and I went to Rainbow at The Quarry and got a huge piece of salmon. Then I went to Epicurious and looked up the easiest and most delicious way to prepare it, broiling. After brushing it with butter and cracking a little salt and pepper over it, the fish was met with rave reviews.

Thirty By Thirty #16 - Host A Dinner Party

I have a group of friends who are very good at hosting dinner parties. Everyone has the rest of the people over and we all enjoy wonderful food. To this point I had not hosted these same people for dinner. So I had Sarah, Don, Patrick, Morgon Mae and Jason over and...

Thirty By Thirty #15 - Kayaking

A kayak is a different boat than a canoe. You sit much closer to the water and you feel closer to it too. My friend Katie let me borrow her kayak and take it out on Lake Nokomis while she went for a jog around the lake. I wish it had been a better lake. I need to try it again on a different lake.

Thirty By Thirty #14 - Go Skinny Dipping

I'd been swimming. I'd been naked. But I'd never been swimming naked. So one night over the summer, a friend and I went behind Coffman Union at the University of Minnesota and went down to the Mississippi River. We shook off all of our clothes and ran into the river. Then we turned right back around before either mosquitoes or campus security knew we were there.