I hate this blog post so much

August 12, 2012 by Southern Expat at 8:07 pm

Lev Grossman on the increasing niceness of literary culture:

I look at this book, which is expensively bound and covered and art-directed, and which in a few months’ time will be printed in vast numbers on thick creamy paper with tastefully ragged edges, and I think, God damn, a lot of people are going to buy this book. In every generation the literary world needs to crank out certain stories about writers, the same ones every time: the Wunderkind, the Outsider, the Mad Genius, the Somber Master, and so on. The machinery of literary fame has seized upon this guy to star in one of its stories.

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11 Comments Filed Under: cut and paste, litterachur

Comments

Matthew Lickona says:

August 12, 2012 at 11:37 pm

Nice. Right as Korrektiv Press is about to publish its fall catalog…

Reply
Angelico Nguyen, Esq., OP says:

August 13, 2012 at 12:10 am

My nominations –

The Wunderkind: Southern Expat

The Outsider: Potter (for perspective, not personality)

The Mad Genius: Webb (prose); JOB (poetry)

The Somber Master: Finnegan (mastery); Lickona (somberness)

Wunderkind Emeritus: Lickona

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Matthew Lickona says:

August 13, 2012 at 7:49 am

I like that, even in a short article about something as lengthy as a book, they have to break it up with links to other articles, just in case you’re getting bored:

(MORE: Brontë Bondage: Classic Literature Gets 50 Shades of Grey Treatment)

Bronte Bondage! Austen Auto-Erotic Asphyxiation! Eliot Erotica! Hardy Harlotry! Oh, the list is endless!

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- Angelico Nguyen, Esq., OP says:
  
  August 13, 2012 at 8:28 am
  
  Flannery O’Connor’s story ‘The Crop’ has some potential.
  
  Reply
Southern Expat says:

August 13, 2012 at 2:15 pm

My favorite part of the post was the people in the comments guessing what book he’s panning-but-not-really-panning.

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- Angelico Nguyen, Esq., OP says:
  
  August 13, 2012 at 6:03 pm
  
  Yes, it’s very cute how the commenters are playing along. Mr Grossman may be too diplomatic to name names, but you can tell how grateful and relieved everybody is that he — that anyone — is finally saying what we’ve all been thinking (some having come to the realization sooner, some later) about Tom Clancy.
  
  Reply
  - Southern Expat says:
    
    August 13, 2012 at 9:52 pm
    
    Angelico, you kill me. You need to go on the combox circuit.
    
    Reply
    - Angelico Nguyen, Esq., OP says:
      
      August 13, 2012 at 10:11 pm
      
      Thanks, Expat; I’ll be here all week.
      
      Reply
Big Jon, Bully says:

August 13, 2012 at 6:21 pm

Most books suck.

Reply
- Southern Expat says:
  
  August 13, 2012 at 9:53 pm
  
  Which is why I only read blogs.
  
  Reply
  - Angelico Nguyen, Esq., OP says:
    
    August 13, 2012 at 11:16 pm
    
    Of course, the best blog content can be collected in book form, and perhaps should be….
    
    Mr Webb, were you aware of this story from 2004? I only just found out about it:
    
    BRAIN IN A DISH FLIES PLANE
    A living “brain” of cultured rat cells can control an F-22 fighter jet flight simulator.
    
    by Jennifer Viegas
    
    ***
    
    A University of Florida scientist has created a living “brain” of cultured rat cells that now controls an F-22 fighter jet flight simulator.
    
    Scientists say the research could lead to tiny, brain-controlled prosthetic devices and unmanned airplanes flown by living computers.
    
    [...]
    
    For the recent project, Thomas DeMarse, a University of Florida professor of biomedical engineering, placed an electrode grid at the bottom of a glass dish and then covered the grid with rat neurons. The cells initially resembled individual grains of sand in liquid, but they soon extended microscopic lines toward each other, gradually forming a neural network — a brain — that DeMarse says is a “living computational device.”
    
    The brain then communicates with the flight simulator through a desktop computer.
    
    “We grow approximately 25,000 cells on a 60-channel multi-electrode array, which permits us to measure the signals produced by the activity each neuron produces as it transmits information across this network of living neurons,” DeMarse told Discovery News. “Using these same channels (electrodes) we can also stimulate activity at each of the 60 locations (electrodes) in the network. Together, we have a bidirectional interface to the neural network where we can input information via stimulation. The network processes the information, and we can listen to the network’s response.”
    
    The brain can learn, just as a human brain learns, he said. When the system is first engaged, the neurons don’t know how to control the airplane; they don’t have any experience.
    
    But, he said, “Over time, these stimulations modify the network’s response such that the neurons slowly (over the course of 15 minutes) learn to control the aircraft. The end result is a neural network that can fly the plane to produce relatively stable straight and level flight.”
    
    At present, the brain can control the pitch and roll of the F-22 in various virtual weather conditions, ranging from hurricane-force winds to clear blue skies.
    
    [...]
    
    FILED UNDER: THINGS TO DISCUSS WITH WALKER PERCY AND THE MAN WHO DESIGNED VOYAGER 19 OVER DRINKS
    
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