John & Belle Have A Blog

The little picture books of the apocalypse that beguiled our afternoons

Give Our Regards to the Atomsmashers! contains mostly autobiographical musings, but there are significant stretches of phenomenological reflection, if you will.

Since I am writing about reading - e.g. what is it like to read literature, as opposed to appreciating visual culture in its variously dominant forms? - it is rather interesting to reflect on the modes of reception characteristic of this noble hybrid: sequential visual art with little talk and thought bubbles. Here are the passages I marked, plus hasty marginalia.

Randy Barnett r0x0rz

I think I speak for all of us here in the blogosphere when I say, "go Randy Barnett! Go Randy Barnett! Restore that lost constitution, dude! Let Californians have legal weed and let the federalist chips fall where they may! (I love the New Deal as much as anybody, but come on. "Interstate Commerce" wasn't founding father-speak for "any damn thing the Federal Gummint wants to do." I'm sure we can work around this. Innovative Blue state social programs and job creation will attract all the voters and then where will our low-tax Oklahoma friends be? Shit out of luck because no one wants to live in Oklahoma no matter how light the regulatory hand is. [Some Oklahomans not included.]

Take That, Hippie!

I really have to question whether this is in the best of taste. In the blogad (visible here) we learn  that

"the Marine who killed the wounded insurgent in Fallujah deserves our praise and admiration. In a split second decision, he acted valiantly. On the otherhand, the traitor, Kevin Sites of NBC News deserves our scorn. Sorry hippie, terrorists don't deserve the benefit of the doubt."

It's not every day you hear someone say "sorry, hippie" like that. Oh, and by "possibly not in the best of taste" I mean "makes you look like a bloodthirsty lunatic." On the buy page they suggest you can show support privately by wearing it "under your work shirt or under your business suit." That'll show those terrorists for sure! They should make underwear, too!

 

Thanksgiving

Here's my lovely family without me. I missed you guys!!!

He Got Weed! He Got Weed!!

It must have seemed like a good idea at the time:

A Newark father's attempt to teach his daughter a lesson about alcohol backfired when the teen led cops to a stash of drugs and illegal weapons inside his house.

    The incident began at 2:45 a.m. Friday when the unnamed 16-year-old came home drunk and unruly.

Her dad, Kevin Winston, called police, but when they arrived, the girl told police she feared for herself and her four sisters, aged 3 through 15, because her father stored drugs and weapons there. Cops arrested Winston after finding four semiautomatic guns, including an AK-47, plus 617 vials of cocaine.

She probably feels kinda bad about it now, but hey--she was drunk! He should have listened to Chris Rock.

Death of the Novel Open Thread

Interview:

PHILIP ROTH: Your role is to write as well as you can. You're not advancing social causes as far as I'm concerned. You're not addressing social problems.

What you're advancing is... there's only one cause you're advancing; that's the cause of literature, which is one of the great lost human causes. So you do your bit, you do your bit for fiction, for the novel.

JEFFREY BROWN: Why do you think it's become one of the great lost causes of our time?

PHILIP ROTH: My goodness. Um, oh, I don't think in twenty or twenty-five years people will read these things at all.

JEFFREY BROWN: Not at all?

PHILIP ROTH: Not at all. I think it's inevitable. I think the... there are other things for people to do, other ways for them to be occupied, other ways for them to be imaginatively engaged, that are I think probably far more compelling than the novel. So I think the novel's day has come and gone, really.

JEFFREY BROWN: I would imagine you would think this is a great loss for society.

PHILIP ROTH: Yes, I do. There's a lot of brilliance locked up in all those books in the library. There's a lot of human understanding. There's a lot of language. There's a lot of imaginative genius. So, yes, it's a great shame.

Perennial prophecy: death of the novel. To what degree do you think it will come true this time?

(I predict this thread won't get half the comments the Buffy one did.)

I have my doubts. I mean: we won't ALL turn transhuman cubical watermelon, surely.

Via Golden Rule Jones.

Watermelon Love

How odd. (via Long Story, Short Pier). Lust in translation problem, I should say.

Wow, Crazy People

That Adam Yoshida, he crazy. 

And, while I'm at it, I'll also ad [sic] that there are (unconfirmed) rumours that Obama himself is secretly a Muslim. Now, I don't believe them but, if Obama ever runs for President, I won't mind spreading them. There's also the more serious matter of his father's reported involvement with Mau Mau terrorists in Kenya, something else which would probably come up in a Presidential campaign.

Thanks, Matt Welch. Now stop being such a big liberal!!!

Hackerz

This is too bad and all, but doesn't it give you this cool, Gibson-esque vibe?

In June, a gang in Europe that calls itself "29A" released a virus called Cabir. It spread through Bluetooth, a feature on some phones normally used to synchronize phones and computers. It sends wireless signals up to 30 feet, so calendar and contact information can be updated without hooking devices together with a wire. But Cabir hijacked that function, sending Bluetooth phones on a search-and-destroy mission to infect other Bluetooth phones, spreading the virus.

The resulting virus called attention to itself through a text message that said "Caribe -- VZ/29a." It also drained cell batteries and killed the phone's Bluetooth feature. Members of 29A did not respond when contacted through e-mail addresses posted on their Web site.

Once a virus gets out, it's hard to contain. Cabir was sent to the labs of anti-virus companies but continued to spread. F-Secure said Cabir last month spread mysteriously from those companies' labs to phones in Singapore. Cases have since been reported in the United Arab Emirates, the Philippines, and last week in Beijing. There are no known cases in the United States, according to security experts.

For some reason (chain of associations on cyberpunk) this reminds me of this magazine that I saved, for no particular reason, a Cosmopolitan from summer '95. As with so many things, it is actually in storage in Savannah. It had a review of this immediately-cancelled show called "VR-5", in which an earnest starlet explained that "in cyberspace, everyone's barriers are down." Man, that is so true:

"VR.5", or Virtual Reality Level 5, is a region of cyberspace that hobbyist Sydney Bloom (Lori Singer) stumbles into with her homemade VR gear. She discovers by accident that she can draw people into a virtual landscape wherein events can subconscious effect the person's waking behavior, and can reveal information that the person may be hiding even from themselves. Seeking the aid of VR guru Dr. Frank Morgan (Will Patton) she hones her skills, and draws the attention of an invisible security organization, "the Committee", and finds her unique ability to enter the subconscious mind of people over the phone harnessed to the Committee's agenda. To avoid becoming lost in her newfound skill, she keeps the counsel of her childhood friend Duncan (Michael Easton) - part Zen master, part pop-culture maeven. His knowledge of philosophical systems helps to balance her instinctive rooting in technology.

Uuuh, right. Prolly. Further chain of association reminds me that my friend Kara used to have a "Hackers" promotional keychain she got through her music-promoting work. That thing was so cool. We had an ironic, distanced affection for it even before the movie was released. I think the LED died eventually, though, so now she'll never use it to illuminate the path of some dude on a skateboard who's handing her a diskette of contraband information. Well, these youthful dreams have to die sometime.

UPDATE: VR5 episode guide. And Lori Singer fan site. With some pics. I'll presume to grace this post with another I found. Ah, those were the days.

I must say, I enjoyed her performance in Trouble In Mind. [No, you really want to click to see the picture.]

SECOND UPDATE: Dude, that is so fucking weird! I was just thinking about that movie the other day! Because I was thinking of writing a post about how you never see images of women breastfeeding in contemporary culture, even though this is something a woman may well spend 4 years doing, 8 times a day. You can go to a museum and see plenty of Nursing Madonnas, but in pop culture? Nada. EXCEPT, in the movie Trouble in Mind, when the Lori Singer character (notable mainly for resembling Darryl Hannah to the point of copyright infringement) wants to feed her baby in the diner run by hard-bitten wossname, and wossname's like, "hey, not in here", and lets her sit in the back, and that's how they become friends. Dude, we're like soul mates!! We should totally get married!!! I want to have your babies!!!!

My mind is farked

Is it just me, or does this picture of the Instapundit look like an obvious Photoshop fake? Maybe there isn't any Glenn Reynolds. Maybe he's just a fairly complex Eliza-style AI, built up around some fairly simple sub-routines. Indeed. Just like Ted says to Allegra in eXistenZ: "This feels like a game to me. And you, you're beginning to feel a bit like a game character." Just as too much game play makes everything feel like a game, too much Photoshop makes everything look like Photoshop. All pictures start looking like invitations to peel foreground objects off the background and plant them somewhere else: in front of a generic backdrop of trees, maybe.

Hypocrisy

Mark Schmitt has a vigorous post up:

The ability to simultaneously maintain the triumphalism of a mandate, and the sense of being an embattled minority has much to do with the continued political success of the far right. It allows them to maintain the energy and righteousness of opposition even while they claim the most autocratic control of American political institutions since the 1920s. It is also a defensive shield that made it very difficult for Democrats in the past election to treat the Republican right as what it is: the ruling party, and a particularly corrupt one.

I'm working up a long - long, long long long - post about this general topic. Short will have to do. Exhibit A: The Hindrocket, defending DeLay. How can you contemplate Tom DeLay, and all his works, and exclaim 'Damn you, Pelosi, and all your works!' (Bending over way further backwards than I have to: suppose it's right that the Democrats are hypocritical for accusing the Republicans of hypocrisy. Would it follow that Republicans like Hindrocket aren't doubly-hypocritical for hypocritically casting the charge of hypocrisy back at those accusing the Republicans of hypocrisy, given that the Republicans are actually guilty of hypocrisy in this case? Which they are. Poetic justice as fairness, even if this were that, which it isn't, isn't actually justice as fairness. And it gets confusing after about the third iteration of the vendetta.)

In the final line, all is explained:

Rocket's Political Dictionary defines "hypocrisy" as: What you can get away with when you control the press.

Add the a priori axiom that the left controls the press and you can derive, transcendentally, that every Republican must be innocent of hypocrisy and every Democrat guilty (who has ever done anything and not been punished for it.)

But the proposed definition was a bit of a joke, no? Well, yes. But that doesn't mean the Hindrocket doesn't derive moral wisdom from it. I can't imagine what else he can be working from to get this stuff.

And When the Pilgrims Came to Singapore...

So, tomorrow I'm serving Thanksgiving dinner to 16 people, plus four 3-year-olds, and four babies who aren't big enough to eat much yet. But I made them some pureed pumpkin, just in case. This is the largest number of people I've ever had to sit down. I'm trying to assuage the pain of not being in East Hampton with the rest of my family, breathing the crisp November air, mingling at cocktails over oysters and clams, sitting down to dinner with 48 of my closest relations. Plus standing rib roast on Wednesday (enabling me to have one of my favorite breakfasts, cold roast beef on a heavily buttered English muffin), game dinner on Friday, waffles at Uncle Jon's on Saturday, etc. etc. Waah. Oh, what was I saying? Right, in real ife I'm having Thanksgiving in Singapore. Here's the menu:
Cheese Snacky Crackies (I solved the re-rolling problem by forming a log of dough into a long rectangle, and then chilling it and slicing it thinly before baking)
crudités with tzatziki
cronbread stuffing
turkey cooked for 2 hours on the grill over hardwood charcoal, then finished in the oven
gravy
mashed potatoes
sweet potatoes mashed with orange zest and mango-orange juice
fine beans, blanched and reheated in butter
Hong Kong flowering chy sim, fried in olive oil
Parker House rolls
rosemary-parmesan biscuits
pecan pie
pie made with local pumpkin and macadamia-lime crumb crust
egg-nog ice cream
Other people are bringing:
some vegetarian protein
apple pie
cranberry sauce
stuffing with oysters
You are invited to leave envious comments. Unless you're in my family. Then you are invited to say, damn, that's weak! Why aren't you in EH?

SpongeBob & Patrick Confront the Psychic Wall of Energy

I post links to free Flaming Lips songs when I find them. Go listen to their track on the Spongebob Squarepants Movie soundtrack. The other stuff sounds great, too, although you only get snippets. The Shins, Motorhead, Wilco, Ween. Except for Avril Lavigne, of course. I'm not a big SpongeBob fan. But this looks to be a fine album.

Speaking of music, wonderful music, I was extremely amused when I got home today and Belle complained that I had gone and made a J&B Music sidebar and only included Lindsey Buckingham. Like we're insane or something. It's all part of my plan to trick her into contributing to our sidebar herself, you see. I figure she should be doing cookbook reviews and this is my way of provoking that behavior. So tonight she has selected two albums for you: Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys, For the Last Time; and Nightmares on Wax, Carboot Soul. But the former does not appear to be available on CD. So we'll just substitute this Bob Wills box set. 119 tracks for $22. That's a good deal. Me, I'm listening to Lindsey Buckingham. [UPDATE: Oh, there's For The Last Time. Great album. But the box set is a better deal.]

Transhumanism is a Humanism

Bit rich of the Derb to get all righteously huffy about how liberals and the cultural elite - humanist types - are so anti-science. If you are so sad to see science and objectivity and inquiry suffer, sir, then you shouldn't have voted for Bush!

I'll just search in Brian Leiter's archives under 'war on science'. Lordy, look at all the posts. That oughta stuff yer gob. (I could also go search at Pharyngula. P.Z.? You out there? What's the horriblest thing the Bushies have done to the cause of science, do you think?)

I should also, at this point, reach over to my bookshelf and pull down a couple volumes and quote chapter and verse from canonical conservative thinkers about the dangers of the attitudes Derb praises - "driven by a kind of hypertrophied curiosity, by an innocent urge to understand the inner secrets of the world".  That's bad, because it leads to rampant rationalism, scientism, Englightenment hubris. Conservatives are very big on standing out in front of that train and shouting halt! Respecting the inviolable mysteries of the human spirit, human nature, not mucking with such clinical presumption. This is, at any rate, the official line. Leon Kass, anyone? The wisdom of repugnance?

Actually, there ought to be an addition, in Kass's honor, to the philosopher's proofs that P. -P -> ick. Therefore, P.

Let's just take as read that the Derb is the tipmost taper on the candelabrum of hypocrisy for presuming to jingle the science stick at the left. (I'm not saying he isn't pro-science, either. Just he could have the simple honesty to admit he's bucking his own party more than he is the opposition.)

That said, I suspect there is a tendency - more on the right, where there are explicit arguments to support it; but also from the left - to assume that something ethically inconvenient couldn't possibly be true. It's an oddly Panglossian twist of thought. (If you asked people whether they can deduce the way the world is from the way it ought to be, mostly they would say no.) What do you think?

Moving right along ...

The Life Of The Mind

Jacob Levy has given up blogging, and the Volokh Conspiracy is just not the same without him. But the pure scholarly life has its consolations, or so I have read. Jacob occasionally send me dispatches from the Ivory Tower. This stuff means a lot to me, obviously.

Folk of the Eighties

The eighties tarot.

Scary People

Wow. Furries and shapeshifters against evolution. Ummmm. Yeah, when I wind up on the wrong side of an issue from the Furries, that really inclines me to...um. Think I must be totally right?

Powerpuff Pirate Primitivism

The hawker center down the road has a new ride Zoë loves to death. A mini ferris-wheel, I guess you'd call it. Here, I'll show you:

The little seat goes up and around as the wheel turns. So you end up a couple feet off the ground, and you can sort of jiggle laterally for extra entertainment value. You see the familiar Cartoon Network heroic icons emblazoned on the disc. Click on the thumbnail to see a large version:

Obviously an unsanctioned product. Made in China. It's very interesting the way piracy and inspired primitivism converge ... sometimes. The music that plays when these things go is another case in point. A chorus of very young girls, Chinese, singing Western standards, but unable to pronounce the lyrics and clearly not understanding a thing. "Oh, Susannah!" particularly tongue-tied them. (I hope I never hear tell of any Chinese forced labor camps in which young girls are forced to sing  "Oh, Susannah!" for twelve hours a day, for a penny a day.) These music tracks are quite standard across this equipment. We have a Donald Duck-looking fellow downstairs, outside our mini-mart, who emits the stuff. Maybe I'll go sample it so you can all enjoy.

But not everything we did today was exotic. One activity was as American as apple pie.

In the curl of a teddyboy's lips - tonight

Here is a wholesome teenage link. Make sure to click on 'headlines' as well as looking through the fine galleries. "Girl blamed for 'Edwardian' Gang Fights"; "Tailors Attack Army's Ban On Teddy Boy Suits"; (that front page has an apparently non-ted related bonus headline: "An attack? How very odd, says War Office"; the tailors at work?) "Town Hides From Teddy Boy Terror".

Ortolans encore une fois?

But what should Mr. Thunder do if he tires of ortolans prepared in the traditional fashion? Curnonsky has a suggestion:
Ortolans au Roquefort
24 ortolans
salt and pepper
bread slices from a soft-textured loaf
goose fat
Roquefort cheese

Season the ortolans with salt and pepper and place each one in a fluted paper bun (cupcake) case. Put these paper cases on a sheet of oiled paper and place in the oven on a baking sheet. Cook the birds for about 25 minutes or until their melted fat sizzles. Fry the bread slices in the goose fat and spread with the Roquefort. Pour the fat from the paper cases over the fried bread and serve with the birds.

No! Not...the Batsignal!!!

I bet the MSM is shaking in it's so-called-alleged-boots right about now:

I haven't been able to learn enough about what happened [in Fallujah] yet, so I won't offer anything specific. One thing I will say is that unless you've been in that man's combat boots getting shot at, watching your buddies die, and struggling to stay alive amidst a several-day long journey into pure hell- DO NOT pass judgment on this individual. I know that the Geneva Convention forbids killing enemy combatants who are wounded and unable to pose a threat. I also know that on today's battlefield, with booby-trapped bodies, suicide vests, and an enemy who cares nothing for "rules of war"- the Geneva Convention needs to be reexamined and more specifically defined. A wounded enemy soldier can theoretically pose a significant threat if he simply has the ability to move his finger. Times are different and war is hell- let the facts come out and let the military authorities handle it. If the MSM starts to spin this into another Abu Ghraib, I will come at them with a cyberfury not yet seen. I know you will all be there with me. Call this an official warning to the MSM- keep it fair, or the blogosphere will activate the Bat Signal. [emphasis added]

This guy is 2cyberfast, 2cyberfurious for me. It's like if Vin Diesel were wearing this ridiculous coat with a big furry collar, and blogging. But less gay. Probably.

Roast Pork Tenderloin with Persimmon-Apricot Sauce

Well, this experiment turned out very nicely, and it's a chance to enjoy persimmons while they're in season. Put salt and pepper on your pork loin, and roast in a 350 oven for 25 minutes per pound. Better a tiny bit underdone than overdone, as it becomes leathery, and really, you're not going to get trichonosis. (If my dad is reading this he's probably just disowned me, being a firm believer in well-cooked everything. But then again, he likes burned toast.)

Persimmon Apricot Sauce
3/4 c dried apricots, chopped
a 1 1/2 inch piece of ginger, peeled and chopped finely
2 persimmons; just scoop out the flesh of the jelly-like when ripe kind (usually Hachiya), or peel and chop the edible when hard kind (like Fuyu, but make sure first!)
1 serrano chili, chopped finely, with seeds (unless you don't like spicy food)
1/4 c orange juice

1. Mix all ingredients in a small saucepan and cook over medium-heat for 6 minutes.
2. Cut the pork lion into little medallions and put three on a plate, slightly overlapping, and then put some sauce on them. Dee-lish. I reccomend sweet potatoes mashed with orange zest, butter, salt, and orange juice on the side, as well as some greens cooked quickly in olive oil. We eat some version of this meal a lot. John actually prefers it with deep-fried pork chops, but...

Neat Neat Neat

This is so awesome:

Captain Sensible and David Vanian will replace the usual choice of Christopher Biggins for the switch-on [of Christmas lights] at the Guildhall on Sunday. The Reverend at St Martin's Church said the seventies band was not appropriate.

But guitarist Captain Sensible said: "They could have booked Cliff Richard. How boring would that have been?"

Captain Sensible is due to join Father Christmas and city mayor Roger Dryden for the festive switch-on.

But the decision has led to fury among church leaders.

"It is not appropriate for Christmas," said Reverend Stephen Leeke, of St Martin's Church in Cambridge.

"They are a punk rock band with very doubtful lyrics."

Man, I want Captain Sensible to turn on the lights at my house too. Fun Belle fact for the day: I've seen Captain Sensible's penis! At a rock show, though, not, like, one-on-one. (via b0ingb0ing).

 

Buffy Open Thread

The other thing I did to make time pass on the 22 hour transit was watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer first season DVD's (just in case you thought I didn't take my own advice to buy when Amazon put them on 75%-off sale). I never got into Buffy when it was the new thing but I figure the massive pop cult must be about something. I'm only half through my discs and not exactly getting it. Oh, it's fun. I get the combination of action, romance, chronic low-grade parody, etc. The school setting plus episodic high adventure. (I don't think it's a coincidence that both Buffy and Harry Potter are popular. I get it.) Then again I don't. I don't see the archetypic greatness wossname. Xander and Willow seem distinctly sub-Breakfast Club, characterization-wise. This is particularly painful in light of Alyson Hannigan's more fully developed character in the American Pie movies. Basically the same character but with more nuance. It doesn't seem to me a good thing that I can say this - not about the movies or myself. But I did go to band camp for several years. And Cordelia is so one note. And Buffy's mom isn't fun. Giles is fun but his schtick is necessarily limited.

Is the Buffy cult due to something that happens later - in a later season, maybe? Is it some cumulative thing that builds on gradual twists and complications and developments of the slight and simple structure I'm seeing so far? I'm not threatening to quit. I'm curious. (I could google and get my answer, of course, but I prefer for our discerning readership to weigh in. When I get up tomorrow morning I want to sip coffee and read what you have to say about why Buffy is great.)

If all this is too erudite for you, an alternative exercise. Almost a year ago, Teresa Nielsen Hayden crafted a very nice definition in this delightful post:

MARY SUE (n.): 1. A variety of story, first identified in the fan fiction community, but quickly recognized as occurring elsewhere, in which normal story values are grossly subordinated to inadequately transformed personal wish-fulfillment fantasies, often involving heroic or romantic interactions with the cast of characters of some popular entertainment. 2. A distinctive type of character appearing in these stories who represents an idealized version of the author. 3. A cluster of tendencies and characteristics commonly found in Mary Sue-type stories. 4. A body of literary theory, originally generated by the fanfic community, which has since spread to other fields (f.i., professional SF publishing) because it’s so darn useful. The act of committing Mary Sue-ism is sometimes referred to as “self-insertion.”

My question: in retrospect, can Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit be helpfully classified as Mary Sue fiction for history fans, do you think? With the author self-inserting as 'World Spirit' (silly names are one of the litmus tests, after all.) Maybe you don't see where I'm going here, but I think it's a Kierkegaardian point.

That Sh*t is Old

I've always thought that modern humans must have lived in the Americas for 40 or 50,000 years, simply because of the diversity of languages among Native Americans. The descent of Indo-European into the various daughter languages gives us a rough idea of the rate of change needed, and there is just no freaking way that all the speciation into the extant Native American languages took place in the last 10,000 years. Not even if three totally distinct groups made the trip. A linguistics professor at Berkeley (where my ex-boyfriend was a linguistics PhD) elaborated this in a very convincing way, but now I can't remember her name. The fact that this discovery took place near my home, where my grandfather, Dr. A.J. Waring, Jr., was a respected archaeologist (We gave them the money for that!) has only a little to do with it. I have spent many happy hours of my life hunting for arrowheads on the banks of the May river and where new roads were being graded on Victoria Bluffs. I only hope that I'll spend many more the same way. Mmmm, Clovis points. (Full disclosure: my stepmom has found Clovis points, but I never have. I've been satisfied with a mere palm-length spear head of striated stone. Shellie spotted that Clovis point from horseback!!!)

Slightly foxed

Belle's libertarian love post got more hits than Badnarik got votes. And now, after so many people have read it and scribbled erudite marginalia - 'yes!' 'nonsense!' 'All this is already implicit in Spinoza!' - her work is looking slightly foxed. So say referrer logs. Hey, we're on Fox News. I mean: FoxNews.com. I mean, Radley Balko links in a column about fair weather federalism.

Don't Look Down

I love Changi Airport. Arrival is so efficient.

In a comment to this post, OOO opines it is no longer 1993. I wouldn't be so sure about that.

Persimmon Cake

So, as promised, here is the persimmon cake recipe I came up with. The texture is more like a pudding, actually; I bet you could steam it in a pudding mold. I have read a great-looking recipe for a lighter persimmon cake with the edible-when-firm type (Fuyu or Vanille), but I haven't tried it out yet because all I could find was the other type. (Brutally astringent when firm, tasty when ripe and jelly-like.) Persimmons aren't very popular in America. I think most people don't have access to good ones and that's why. Biting into an unripe persimmon is really a bad experience, one you might not want to risk ever happening again.

Show Respect

Mark A.R Kleiman is definitely right about this. On a separate, but related point, Zoë has so thoroughly internalized the inside=no shoes thing that it's hard to make her keep her shoes on in the doctor's waiting room, or the taxi. It's hard to explain religion to your children when you don't believe in god. What is it that people think they are up to? We often walk down the street to the Indian temple at the end of Depot road. Zoë loves to look at the statues, although she's afraid to enter the dim interior. We peer in at the priests, threading jasmine into ropes, their foreheads emblazoned with crimson and saffron. Zoë wants to know if they think the statues will really eat the food they offer. Weelll...should I say they it's a kind of special play, where they pretend to think the statues will eat the food? Or should I say they know the statues won't really eat the food, but they are just trying to say they respect the people whom the statues represent? But, they aren't actually people? Or...Christians believers, help me out here. C'mon, Russell Arben Fox, let start a dialogue.

UPDATE: read the comments for some helpful answers. Ancient Greek people sacrificed food in the same way, that is, the gods ate the savory smoke and the worshippers the specially blessed remains. I asked Zoë about it today and she said she thinks it's kind of like magic. Well, that's on the right track, I guess.

Aw, Crap

You know what would be cool? It would be cool if I wasn't a total fucking retard. Any day this last lunar month I could have gone down to Geylang Serai and eaten various fried treats. Any day...except this one. Hari Raya Puasa, the fasting is over, I figure it's a big blowout? I might as well have gone to Chinatown on the first day of Chinese New Year, which is to say, tumbleweeds were blowing down Geylang Road. Everyone is home with their families. But everyone. There were nice lights hanging over the street. Whoop-de-doo. Where were my fried treats!!!? I got to see lotsa foxy Vietnamese and mainland Chinese prostitutes on Joo Chiat, a plurality of whom were biologically female. I had the single most Thomas "Airmiles" Friedmanesque taxi ride of my life (and I've had plenty), in which I had a long conversation about U.S. monetary policy with a rather frighteningly well-informed cabbie. He was inclined to give U.S. policymakers too much credit, though, and thought that Snow was, while ostensibly talking the dollar up, actually talking the dollar down to give a holiday spending boost to U.S. citizens. He felt certain that Bush's reelection would be followed by a gradual ratcheting up of the U.S. tax rates until the deficit was tamed. I told him to buy gold. Man, next year I'm getting some fried treats. My only consolation is that Tena also thought it was on tonight, and she knows everything. This sucks. I thought of just going to Newton Circus to get some rojak or something for the principle of the thing, but in the end I got my cabbie to turn around and drive us all the way back home. I was telling him "left at the first block", and he was like "I know". Yeah, since he picked me up there. D'orrr. I made a nice persimmon cake today with the Chinese persimmons I bought yesterday in Chinatown. I'll tell you about it later. For now, just buy gold. GOOOOLD!!!!

Singapore Flavas

You know, for a blog in Singapore we don't really offer all that much local content. I think we need more restaurant reviews. Because it's all about the makan. I tried a quite chichi restaurant for the first time the other day called Whitebait and Kale, because it's on the ground floor of the Camden Medical Centre, where my doctor is. It's owned by a famous dermatologist. The service was excellent. I had the set lunch. I started with a salad with melon and grapefruit sections and pine nuts. It was fine, but I didn't think, where have the melon bits been all my salad-eating life? I had braised veal cheeks as a main course, and the texture was great, very succulent. The flavor was slightly lacking somehow, sort of boring pot-roast-ish. Steam table-ish. Hmm, I'm not exactly selling this restaurant, am I? Dessert was chosen for me; a perfectly nice cake with layers of chocolate cream and some blackberry stuff going on. Now that I reflect on it, I realize that it was only OK, and thus, overpriced (as the receptionist at my doctor's said: "$14 for fish and chips? Then how?"). I still enjoyed it because it's attractive, and I sat outside at a long white table under a tent, while a truly spectacular thunderstorm raged around. It was white-out conditions; you couldn't even see the other side of the street. Violet was very good the whole time, and I had a glass of wine; that always gives me an indolent, ladies who lunch feeling. So, you know, after you get the botox upstairs at Dr. Woffles Wu, maybe check it out. (Woffles is not my doctor, but he is a famous plastic surgeon. My doctor went to junior college with him. He's been known as Woffles "from young". I often read about him in the six-month-old copies of the Singapore Tatler at my dentist's office).

A restaurant you should definitely not check out is the wretched Windows on Club Street. I was down in Chinatown with the girls yesterday but it was still a bit early for dim sum (coz all the places open at 11:00), so we wandered around, and Zoë pointed this place out. There was a big piece of margarine wrapper in my eggs benedict, which were, additionally, not good at all. Zoë's fried eggs had gelatinous white on them, even though I asked for over medium. They were nice about the paper thing, and didn't charge me; I just sent my eggs benedict back, having lost my appetite, and then they sent two pieces of heavily-battered deep-fried fish out from the kitchen as a peace offering, but no fries? The thought was nice, but maybe they should have asked me to pick something? I mean, did they just figure they'd better send me something with equal caloric content? Service: friendly but scatterbrained (unable to bring my water, leaving us without menus for 3 minutes at the start). Never go here. Their speciality, they claim, is salt beef. Big whatevs to salt beef.

Hopefully tonight we'll do better; Tena and I are taking the girls to Geylang Serai for Hari Raya Puasa (the last day of Ramadan). Here is a very nice photo essay with film clips about the Gaylang Serai market. It really gives you a good idea of what Singapore looks like. If you're reading this, I hope your flight goes well honey!

New Orleans - The Big Easily Distracted

I've got on my patented, many-muscle, 'hush mother, this next part is very difficult for Johann' rictus - my smile - which I use for all digital auto-portraiture. (You must imagine my left arm looping, Reed Richards-like, outside the frame.) Timothy Burke appears relaxed, just along for the ride. What the Holbo-Burke historic, blogospheric '04 summit teaches is that great minds grow goatees and short-on-top alike.

Mmmm, Tasty

OK, I know this sort of sneering bi-coastal elitism is a serious problem for the left, but still. Do people really eat this stuff? According to the Nov. Family Circle, they do. Tuna Glop? Green bean casseroles involving Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup and French's Onion Rings? Crock Pot recipes involving (only) chuck steak and Pace Piquante sauce? Apparently so. And in this spirit, I bring you, the Carnival of the Wingnuts Recipes. Fucking A. That shit is nasty, people. I don't see any necessary connection between wingers and food that tastes like ass. What's the dilllyo? 

Onion Rye Flatbread

This is a nice flatbread which I sorta modified from Gourmet. I haven't read Gourmet in quite a while, and I must say it's improved a lot under Ruth Reichl. I think that you really need to make this in a stand mixer, or in a very dry climate, because the dough is very soft indeed. Tasty, though.

Onion-Rye Flatbread

1 large onion, minced
1/4 c olive oil
1 c milk, warmed to 110-115 degrees
1 T honey
2 1/2 t yeast
2 t salt
1 c bread flour
2 c pumpernickel rye flour, coarsely ground (like Bob's Red Mill)
up to 1 c more flour, either bread or whole wheat
1 egg, beaten with a little water
poppy or caraway seeds (still sowing the seed, Carraway...)

1. Cook onion in oil for 10 minutes until limp. Let cool.
2. Mix milk, yeast and honey in the bowl of a stand mixer, and let stand for a minute. Mix in 1 c bread flour, and salt, with whisk. Switch to spoon and mix in rye flour and onions (with their oil). Add rest of flour as needed. Knead with dough hook for 8 minutes, or knead by hand, but damn that is some sticky dough. I couldn't even get it to clean the sides of the bowl, but the humidity here is about 100%, so maybe you guys could swing it.
3. Put dough in big greased bowl (use olive oil) and turn to cover with oil. Cover with a clean cloth and let rise in a warm place till doubled in bulk (up to 2 hours if it's cold. If your kitchen is really cold, I recommend putting the dough on top of the stove and turning the oven on really low. Or put it in with the hot water heater. Needless to say, I don't have this problem.). Punch down, divide in two, and roll out to 1/2 inch-thick rounds. Prick all over with a fork.
4. Let rise under a cloth for about 30 minutes. Brush with egg wash and sprinkle the seeds over the rounds. Bake in 400 degree (200 celsius) oven for 30 minutes or so, till brown and toasty. Switch the pans front to back and top to bottom halfway. Mmmm.

There's more to life than blogs, you know (but not much more)

Flight from Singapore went as well as could be expected. Leave 6 AM, arrive at hotel approx. 22 hours later at 6 PM the same day. Wander Canal and Bourbon. Five minutes after I figured out where Bourbon was someone asked for directions to Bourbon and my softly drawled reply put me well on the way to becoming a local. Ordered catfish in a likely establishment. Slept.

I'm having lunch with Timothy Burke, in town for a different conference. I figure the thing to do is live photoblog our lunch. (I noticed the Krystals around the corner has free wi-fi, unless I misread the sign.) In case we decide to eat somewhere nice, this is how I figure it would have gone.

[JPEG of Burke looking distracted]

Tim: Sorry, what? I was just typing that interesting thing you said before.

[auto-JPEG portrait of John connecting camera cable to his iBook]

John: [polite, but abstractedly connecting cable to upload JPEG from camera] Oh, what was that?

Tim: You said something. [Resumes typing, conceals mild irritation at interruption.]

John: We don't have Krystals in Singapore. Have you tried the local cuisine?

Tim: [looking for material] Here or in Singapore? So what got you started blogging?

John: [worried] Do you think bits of slider are bad for firewire ports?

Tim: [typing] Decide her what?

John: [dabbing with a napkin] Oh, nothing.

And so, in the spirit of the aptly named Flora Post, I go forth to gather the material of life, to do with it the one thing the wise of all ages have determined can be done (the immortal Goethe concurring in a passage I don't have handy.) Put it in blogs. As Schopenhauer said to Goethe, 'Life is a nasty business, sir. I've decided to spend mine blogging about it.' But we needn't be so pessimistic in a town where it's legal to wander the streets with humoristically-named technicolor alcohol ice-slurries in open containers. If only there were also free wi-fi in the middle of Bourbon street. What deeds might be done.

Procul Este, Supervillans!

What if Michaelangelo's sybils and prophets were actually part of...the Justice League! Then, I guess they'd look something like this. Two amusing comix-related factoids about our lives: first, Zoë's favorite bedtime story of the moment involves Super Zoë and Super Mei-Mei saving lots of kittens from fires and drowning people and what not, until they are invited to become the youngest ever members of the Justice League! (Super Mei-Mei can fly, but is notably weaker than Super Zoë.) Second, when we play with Zoë's dollhouse, the daddy is always "katyting" (typing) on the computer. (The vagaries of dollhouse furniture have landed us with what is obviously a wooden Windows machine...shudder. I've thought about making my own G5 iMac out of papier mache, but it'll just mold in this climate...) Often, daddy's "katyting about comic books". The daddy dolly is kind of an absent-minded professor type who doesn't know what anything in the house is or how to work the stove. He often has to be corrected by the Zoë dolly. Readers are invited to draw their own conclusions. And if you're checking this, honey, I hope your flight was OK and that you're rocking New Orleans with Timothy Burke! Beacuse absent-minded professors kick ass! Eat an oyster po'boy for me! Mmmm, oyster po'boys....

Rock and Roll

I just thought I'd share with everyone that the Luna album Penthouse is one of the ten greatest albums of the 90's, maybe ever. Especially Chinatown and Moon Palace. And Lost in Space. OK, and the cover of Serge Gainsbourg's Bonnie and Clyde with the Stereolab chick. I lost the CD for like two years, and then yesterday I found it in the most random place ever, in a sleeve with some VCD I borrowed and never returned. Sorry, Grishma! You and everybody else should ease the pain by listening to Penthouse. Mmmmm, droning guitars.

We're number #18!

Brian Weatherson thinks it's so fancy that Cornell is #11 on the Leiter report. He's missing the international picture. The Times Higher Education Supplement says The National University of Singapore is #18 and Cornell is paltry #23. Gooooooo Merlions! (If we had a team.)

Goin' Down to Nawrlans, get myself lost and found (click, clack)

As you can see from the accompanying illustration, I'm flying out of Singapore's lovely Changi Airport.

Actually I don't leave until Thursday, 6 AM.

I'm flying to New Orleans to attend the ALSC conference. I'm part of a wossname about film adaptations. Here's my very short paper (PDF). Plus I want to talk to people. Plus I want to see New Orleans. I hope it's fun.

6.5 Biiilllllion Dollars!

This is just a straight-up, I don't know the answer question:

Suha's outburst was only the latest in a volley of accusations and counteraccusations that have the press relishing the murky details of the many power struggles that are under way. Al Jazeera published a report saying Arafat had signed a will leaving his fortune—which it estimated at $4.2 billion to $6.5 billion—to Suha's family, but that top Palestinian officials insist the money belongs to the Palestinian people.

Where did Arafat get $4.2 to $6.5 billion? That's a lot of skimmed aid. Do the Palestinians really get that much in aid dollars? Did fellow Arab leaders just fork it out, with the understanding it would be used in the 'struggle for national liberation'? What's the story?

The candy-sampled clone they call bassoonman

I'm fooling with Apple's GarageBand; it's addictive. Tonight I am not too shy to offer to a dubious public (drumloop please) "The candy-sampled clone they call bassoonman" (MP3), my first composition. I aspire to a sort of Beau Hunks do Raymond Scott sound. With talent and a little luck someday I will bother to acquire the knowledge needed. In the event, I settled for Beau Hunks slumming their way through Lemon Jelly. Or something.

It took approximately three hours, plus forethought, but including time spent figuring out what the buttons do. Plus you've got to have Audacity (see Belle's bleg) if you want samples from your own record collection. Of course you do.

I'll tell you a little story about the bassoon and bells loop around which I constructed my opus. (Painless incongruity plus parallel fifths my motto.) It's snagged from this album which I converted into MP3's some years back. And now some fine someone out there is letting me show you the cover. Isn't that nice? The thing to notice about the cover is that maybe the girl is a guy. Notice the wide shoulders and big hands (I admit it's not easy to judge from the jpeg).

This guy's album cover site is great. Check out this cover. I admire the man for not only scanning the things in but inputting liner notes. Check out Music From Mathematics. (We've got an old early synthesizer album somewhere with a Moog version of "Wichita Linesman" on it. Yeesh.) Moving along, Come Spy With Me. Also, Music To Read James Bond by. There's a notion. (And volume 2.) But best of all may be The Age of Reliability. Not for the cover so much as the notes:

Magic As Vocation

I'm a few hundred pages into Susanna Clark's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell; bit early to be writing my review. But the opening is a soft-pedal philosophical satire, or allegory, distinct from what follows. Yet a kind of keynote to what follows. Not a key to the plot but to the tongue-in-cheek (but not parodic) aesthetic of the overall subcreation. Why turn Jane Austen into J.K. Rowling? Indeed, gentle reader, why?

Reviewers - Henry Farrell, for example - have already tried their hands at expressing what is new and admirable about this. See John Clute for more qualified praise than Henry offers. (Bits of plot spoilage, too - be warned.) I'll say what I have to say about the opening.

The setting is late 18th Century England. Once upon a time, there was real magic, but no more. Hence such comedy as the York Society Of Magicians:

They were gentleman-magicians, which is to say they had never harmed any one by magic - nor ever done any one the slightest good. In fact, to own the truth, not one of these magicians had ever cast the smallest spell, nor by magic caused one leaf to tremble on a tree, made one mote of dust to alter its course or changed a single hair upon any one's head. But, with this one minor reservation, they enjoyed a reputation as some of the wisest and most magical gentlemen in Yorkshire.

Somehow We Missed Out On That Pot of Gold

Do you need more love of Rush? How about Styx? Listen to the wisdom of the Poor Man (his friends call him "teh Poor Man", but I won't push it, coz we've never met).

At the suggestion of my parole officer, I will likely be away from the computer for the weekend. This vacation is dedicated to the lyrics of Styx. While I'm gone, feel free to share your favorite Styx lyrics, imagine lyrics Styx might have written had they not all been tragically eaten by cannibals in 1983, compose a rap sequel to the futurist concept album "Kilroy Was Here", or think about how history might have been different had Styx, Rush, Genesis with Peter Gabriel, The Moody Blues, Genesis with Phil Collins, Queen, and King Crimson all formed a prog super group so massive it would have blotted out the Sun! They could have called themselves "Emerson, Lake, and Shitty Songs".

In the same ironic spirit in which I like Rush, I also like Styx. "Come Sail Away"? That song fucking rawks. This is the kind of guilty hipster liking songs where you pretend you just ironically like it, but secretly you really actually like it. I have a friend who took this too far and would always slap on Cristopher Cross' "Sailing" when he DJ'ed, and really be into it. That's just wrong. Now, if it had been Boston...

Not One Red Cent!

In unrelated news, the Treasurer of the Pennsylvania Libertarian Party was arrested for tax evasion. Maybe he shouldn't have publicly announced that he would "never file an individual federal income-tax return again." I find it's best to keep on the down low with that sort of thing.

I Heart Libertarians

I know Randy Barnett is too busy to respond to this now, but I thought in light of recent provocations by Prof. Bainbridge I would invite libertarians to join...the dark side of the force. I mean, the Democratic party. It is...your destiny (spooky wiggling fingers). Look at me, reliable Democratic voter! I support 2nd amendment rights, think drugs should be legalized, support means testing of social security, and think running permanent trillion-dollar deficits is a bad idea. What's more, I favor the elimination of all agricultural and industrial subsidies! And free trade! And abortion rights! I think people should be allowed to form unions, and also not form unions. I don't think it's good that the teacher's unions should forever stymie potential reforms in the US educational system, but I also think NCLB is an invasive federal program wedded to testing for its own sake, which imposes costs on the states and doesn't supply federal money to pay for them. I think market-based solutions to environmental problems, such as pollution credits, can be great, in the context of stern enforcement of existing environmental protections. I don't think the feds should subsidize grazing, logging, or mining on government-owned lands. I favor innovative traffic-mitigation schemes involving variable road pricing! Ooh, ooh, and I think prostitution and gambling should be legal! And I love gay marriage! Come here, gay marriage, I'm going to give you a big wet kiss. And the firm separation of church and state! But I don't support hate crime laws. Nor do I think the government should force private businesses to hire homosexuals if they don't want to, because they are gay-hating nuts or something! Go on, be gay-hating nuts, I say! Just leave actual gay people alone, and let them have fancy weddings with Vera Wang gowns and little packets of pastel-colored Jordan almonds, if they want. No one's making you read the NYT weddings section, after all. It's like that because it fills a market niche! And so is CBS; it's a triumph of the marketplace! If people don't want to watch sneering liberal condescension towards their heartland, gay-hating values, they can watch Fox! See, everyone's happy now. So what do you say, Libertarians? Feel the love. Feeeel the love. I'm not the only Democrat who's like this. No, there's, like, 100 of us! OK, 5. Still, don't you want to feel the love? OK, this is my last concession: I kinda like Rush. I mean, in an ironic way, but still. "Invisible airways crackle with light/bright antennae bristle with the energy!" Let's come together, people. You have nothing to lose but your insulting, theocratic, soi-disant Republican allies.

PS Did I mention I don't think porn should be censored? C'mon, who do you relate to more, Catallarchy guys: me or John Derbyshire? Give it some thought. You got 4 years to get back to me.

UPDATE: Katherine's comment below has me wondering if it's really true I don't think it should be illegal to discriminate in hiring on the basis of sexual orientation.

Corporal Downsizing & Other Moral Matters

Not a lot to add to Radley Balko's takedown of Frum - mostly just, 'toldja so.' (Yes, another link back to my perennial epic Dead Right post; here's part II.) But this can be an occasion for general ponderations.

Oh, sweet ursinality of lifelessness

Well, I can't just keep staring at those election returns. It's not healthy.

Bleg

Hey, it's like I'm Rich Lowry! Except about a hundred times cuter! And not full of Republican triumphalism! I figured, since I can never look at the interweb again since if I did I would have to read what Hugh Hewitt has to say about how the MSM's attempted coup failed, why not learn about Garage Band? Yeah, and it's pretty cool, and it has lots of fun samples, but what the hell? How do I sample existing tunes? Oh, I don't? Thanks, Jack Valenti! I'll burn some incense to you and Fritz Hollings at my little "Fair Use Is The Way of The Devil" shrine! That'll be awesome! But really, can someone direct me to some Mac-compatible software that can sample music from my iTunes, and create little modifiable loops out of real songs, that Garage Band can then read? I don't even want to break the law, much. But how else can I make mash-ups? C'mon, Dr. Memory, help me out here.

Joker to the left of me, Clown to the right

I just noticed that in The Poor Man's blogroll, we come right between Jesus' General and Kaye Grogan. I would say that's an unusually dramatic study in contrasts.

Dreams

Bad bad day.

At least Republicans will now be held to the standard any toddler should: cleaning up a few of their own messes, not in any real hope they'll do an adequate job, but as a sort of lesson to be filed away for future reference should adulthood be attained.

Sore loser snark aside, for me the very faint silver lining is that the reading project I independently set myself will have morose relevance for the foreseeable future: classics of conservative thought, starting with Russell Kirk's The Conservative Mind. I've never read it, but I checked it out two days ago and started last night. So far, not believing a word, but it's interesting. The style flows.

Tonight, however, I'll flyspeck a post at Redstate, which I clicked over to because Tacitus recommended it. (I'm a little disappointed with good old Tacitus for that.)

Shorter trevino: liberals demonize conservatives as deluded because liberals are deluded and demonic.

Glad we got that cleared up. (I must confess I am amused whenever I see what strike me as bizarro reflections of my old Dead Right posts: conservatives alleging the left scrapes the bottom of the cognitive barrel, while right-wing brains fairly percolate with notions. And yet the opposite seems to me true. We can't both be right, I fear.)

Plus some really rancid stuff. "We know that insurgent bands cannot defeat or humiliate the United States - only Americans can do that." So in the event that anything bad should happen in Iraq, anywhere really, we'll know who to blame. Lovely sentiment. (Oh goody. Wouldn't want to let it be the case that, just because liberals are out of power, they can't take all the blame.)

Getting back to toddlers, there is difficulty convincing the young at heart to take the blame. Zoë is quite well potty trained these days ... but there are times. Then the wheels of the mind turn, and who knows what will pop up. "Mei mei pooed in my pants." [Violet is known as Mei Mei around here.]

I fear we liberals are going to be blamed in quite implausible ways in the months and years to come. By those whose exclusive and executive privilege it is to wear the pants of power.

Sigh.

I would have thought that Tacitus was above this stuff. He's cranky, but in a sort of proto-avuncular way that I can deal with. Geeze.

Sigh.

Oh well, back on the horse. Buck up. You know who deserves a big round of applause, even though his efforts came to naught: Kos. Thank you for working so hard to make our country a better place, Kos. Even if it didn't work out. Next time it will go better.

John & Belle's loyal conservative readers will forgive me for comparing them to toddlers. I've had a bad day.

Why Don't I Just Kill Myself Now

OK, this sucks. All I can say is that it looks as if Bush has won convincingly, and though that's far, far worse than his having lost convincingly, it's still much better than his having won in some sketchy, vote-supressing way. I may disagree violently with the choice my fellow Americans have made, but at least I feel confident that they have made it. Still, this sucks. I can't say what a disaster I think this is for my nation and for the world. It is also obvious that Bush is going to take this as a mandate for his wildest, nation-recreating dreams. Um, Edwards/Clinton 2008? Fuck. I'm going to get another drink. Don't tell John.

OHIO

Ohio. Gotta win Ohio. Please, Lord, let Kerry win Ohio, in a convincing way. Errg. Can I start drinking now? It is after noon... I guess I'll be satisfied as long as we don't have to wait five weeks to know who the president is, and Bush doesn't have to make a recess appointment to replace Rehnquist with someone so the Supremes can decide the Ohio election cases. Errg. Ooog. I'm chewing my cuticles. I stopped chewing my cuticles when I was like 19. Ooog. I tried to explain the election to Zoë today, about how being the president was a very important job, etc. Her response "so, George Bush is too dumb to have all that wesponsibility?" Right, honey. That's it. She's like the anti-Gnat. In short: OOOOOG!!!

UPDATE: Fox has called Ohio for Bush. That's just Fox talking. Must breathe deeply.
SECOND UPDATE: Fuck no. Tell me this is not happening. I can't take four more years of this shit.
THIRD UPDATE: Fucking fuck me. Fuck. Me. Two thoughts: is now the time to start sewing maple leaves on all my clothes? Secondly, and more on the silver lining tip, I can hope that GWB has to clean up his own mess. Or, at minimum, be stuck with the consequences of his spectacularly bad decisions. The thought that a fiscally responsible Democratic administration would have to take the fall for the obviously inevitable tax hike was very distasteful, and I don't know whether anyone can fix the mess in Iraq now. Still, when your silver lining invoves a lot of people dying, it's not so silvery. More br