Michael Lewis’s Flash Boys: Once Upon a Time on Wall Street

 The seductive appeal of Michael Lewis’s book about high-frequency trading on Wall Street – and the group of guys that got together to investigate and make the system fairer – is not merely the promise of learning more about the financial system and getting angry at how screwed up and misaligned the incentives are, although you will do that.

Obviously Lewis’s writing is a major part of it – the elegant effortless surface only partially concealing the structural and research muscle underneath, so that I am put in mind of a sleek but powerful mammal, an otter perhaps, or a mongoose.

Others have written very good reviews of the book as a whole (I’m a fan of John Lanchester’s, for instance). But what I want to talk about here is the structure, the narrative arc. I know that teaching people about the system, its problems and potential solutions is important for Lewis because that’s what he talks about in multiple interviews – and because anyone with any sense of justice or fairness should be outraged and want to know more about how the system has been rigged. 

But putting that complex explanation into a form that is not just simply expressed but has forward narrative momentum – that’s important too, or no matter how good the writing is people won’t keep reading. It came to me in a revelatory flash 12 hours after finishing the book (at 4am, I’m hoping this is one of those ideas that survives post-insomnia) that what Lewis has produced here – the sugary flesh helping us to swallow the hard seed of an idea that he wants to spread - is an aspirational fantasy as powerful (and as fictional in its way) as any 'Twilight' or '50 Shades'. The fantasy, though, is targeted not at romance-seekers but at disillusioned white-collar workers.

Book Review: Unspeakable Things by Laurie Penny

Laurie Penny’s Unspeakable Things: Sex, Lies and Revolution is a thoughtful, inspiring and revolutionary book and I would recommend it to anybody even the slightest bit open to the idea that society’s structure maybe needs changing a bit.

In a fiery, urgent style that makes it sound like she’s furiously getting her reasoning down so everyone can just read it and stop bothering her with the same old objections already, Penny lays out the need for activism (not necessarily feminism) because of the problems with the status quo – problems of sex, gender, and love that hurt women and “outsiders” like the queer community or those (including many men) excluded from mainstream society due to poverty or ethnicity.

Parody as Genre Entry Point

I.                     

Q: What do these books have in common: Murder on the Orient Express; Watchmen; The Colour of Magic; The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy? 

A: They’re all, to varying degrees, parodies or deconstructions of the genre that they represent  - crime fiction; superhero comics/graphic novels¹; fantasy; and sci-fi, respectively. They are also, pretty much, the first of each of these genres that I encountered, certainly the first as non-kids’ books, and I've never looked back. 

I’ve been thinking about parody and deconstructions as a genre entry point for a while now, I even started writing a thing last year, but didn’t get very far. And then I saw Amanda Palmer’s blog on “Weird Al” Yankovic and discovering some music genres via his parodies, and it has kicked my arse into gear (I mean if she can finish her book, I can do a single essay, right?) 

The First What the Function? episode of the Brain Scoop, and the Confidence Gap

Scooping up the wrong brain

I just watched the The Brain Scoop “What the Function?” video with Destin from Smarter Every Day, and my reaction was along the lines of the very similar but swearier phrase that that is playing off. I was disappointed, and a bit confused.  

I love these videos and I love that Emily Graslie is getting out there making her name as a young, female science communicator with genuine knowledge and enthusiasm. I sympathised about, and wanted somehow to help with, the “Where my ladies at?” edition, which talks about the ongoing abusive comments and discussion of her appearance that she has to put up with as a woman, and rues the fact that there aren’t more women (and girls) out there doing these videos about science and engineering and getting watched. I agree, that would be great – and when there are, it will be because of people like her. 

And so I was disappointed that the most recent Brain Scoop video was mostly given over to letting a male guest, outside his field of expertise, bluster through guesses with corrections and hints from the more knowledgeable ladies, and then explain basic stuff they already knew! It seemed to be deliberately reinforcing the idea that “guys can come in and solve problems without knowing that much”. 

Not Really a Review of Credible Likeable Superstar Role Model

In which I find a difference between performance art and theatre, and family matters are discussed

I recently went to the Credible Likeable Superstar Role Model show by Bryony Kimmings in one of its last few performances, at the Soho Theatre. This is the show where Bryony Kimmings and her 9-year-old niece Taylor encounter the current media situation for young girls: the sexualisation of women in pop culture, the continuous onslaught of marketing messages and incidental exposure to violence and misogyny. After a terrified and terrifying reaction involving eye-gouging, [1] together they create a new popstar/palaeontologist, Catherine Bennett (performed by Kimmings), to be a better role model for girls. The show touches on themes of family, how to help young girls, and the meta-commentary on the development of this show and Taylor’s work with her aunt.

Expectations are Dangerous

I went to see CLSRM because, well, I will at least consider seeing whatever is recommended by all-round cultural influences Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer, whose live-on-twitter ever-loving marriage meanders back and forth across the line between envy-inducing and inspirational. Even though I don’t like everything they recommend, I will at least have analytical fun-times[2] working out why, so it’s pretty much always a net win. In this case other reviews were positive too: lots of people mentioned tears, laughter, wonderfulness, etc. And even though I don’t have kids, it still seemed like an interesting take on culture.

A Tale of Two Lears

Review (sort of) of King Lear at the National Theatre, seen 14 June 2014

After seeing the female 'Lear' at the Union Theatre (see previous post), I saw the more usual (king-related) form of the play (the better known Sam Mendes/Simon Russell Beale production at the much larger National Theatre) nine days later. So, this is not so much a review, more a sort of comparison analysis.

Think of it as a "play-off" [heh, sorry] - and like in sport, there’s a bit of violence, a plucky little underdog, and the spectators just get to enjoy the contest, admire the talent, and avoid the (fake) blood. 

First, some brief[1] comparisons:

• Edmund is better done as a character at the Olivier, for me. It's a brilliantly cold, smart, sociopathic performance from the mesmerising Sam Troughton and the bit where he puts on a voice to pretend to do astrology, complete with rising inflection, was pure comedy. Gloucester in contrast was better at the Union because he comes across more as one of the good guys and a man of integrity making choices, where Gloucester at the Olivier had a bit of "i'm doing this cos it's what the text says" about him. 
• Cordelia was good - and fairly similar - in both productions but I think the National has the edge. It justifies her refusal to speak at the start by having Lear as a military dictator-type, and her rebellion comes across as both a child's sullenness and a political protest - that by compelling protestations of love by sheer military power, the King has overstepped (perhaps for the latest time) a mark.
• The trial-in-the-barn scene is amazing at the Olivier and I will not spoiler it, but it worked and I think was the key scene of the play. Sheer Mendesian genius.

Queen Lear - it works, bitches!

(title shamelessly adapted from XKCD)

SPOILERIFFIC & UNSTRUCTURED THEATRE REVIEW: ‘LEAR’ at the Union Theatre

Show: 5^th June 2014 (their 2nd ever! - so some things may change)

Let’s get the main bit over with first: Lear played as a woman worked. (For those wondering, Lear is the only gender swap in the production.) One of the main reasons it works so well is the acting. Ursula Mohan’s Queen Lear is outstanding and I hope gets seen by a wider audience – vivid in her portrayal of an ageing, powerful woman of increasingly doubtful sanity. I had no trouble accepting that she had been the all-powerful ruler of the kingdom even when her presumed husband was alive, yet there was also immense vulnerability on display as she wandered in slippers and a nightgown through Goneril’s castle, losing her grip on power and on reality, or when she wakes confused at Cordelia’s war-camp. 

I reread the play over the two days prior to going to see this production, with the possibility in mind, and it actually made a lot of sense in the text. In fact, I think the clash of mother and daughters (as with fathers and sons) can be far more intense, far more brutal in the sense of betrayal and expectation, than a father and his daughters. And a woman with power being tracked for weakness or signs of frailty? Yep, that happens. 

In textual terms there were swaps of “king” to “queen” (and sure, what was lost from “ay, every inch a king” was more than made up for by the increasingly uninhibited queen wanting Oswald’s “service”, so no worries for those who like their Shakespeare with as many innuendoes as possible) and a few pronouns altered, but little else.

On not wearing a t-shirt - an open letter to Topatoco

Hi Topatoco,

This is the first time I ordered stuff from you, and the stuff I bought knowing what it was came swiftly and is awesome! I’m glad there’s this forum for some of my favourite independent creators to sell stuff and get support for their work. However, I wanted to tell you why I won’t ever be wearing my special discount “mystery you don't know what you'll get end-of-line” t-shirt in public, ever.

Problematic

I don’t want a refund or anything, and I certainly am not going to ship it back (I’m in the UK. Shipping costs are totally not worth it!), I just want to maybe influence you slightly to not stock this line again.

Short reason: It’s sexist.
Longer reason: It’s subtly sexist.
I got the mystery shirt 3 days ago. It’s a nice colour, and it presents the message “I like books” – no problems so far. It even pretty much fits. So, why did I feel a bit uncomfortable? Why was I reluctant to actually wear the shirt? Well, it’s taken me time to parse this out, but here goes (and for those of you who instantly knew why it was bad, feel free to skip the rest):

There’s a theory of humour that says some jokes are about resolving the incongruous – you expect something but get something else, and reconcile the discrepancy. This shirt is meant to be funny in that sense. Specifically, the humour that the shirt evokes relies on the viewer’s having knowledge of the usual (expected) context of “I would hit that” – a reference by a heterosexual male to an attractive female person and his desire/willingness to have sexual relations with that person (see Urban Dictionary, if you really want to). The incongruity lies in the fact that on the shirt the “that” is referring instead to a (presumably attractive) book, with which the wearer, it is implied, would like to have some sort of closer relationship.

In the expectation lies the problem. It’s fairly clear that any male seriously using “I would hit that” to refer to a female, is objectifying her and seeing her as a target. It would not be acceptable to me to wear a shirt saying “I would hit that” where the “that” is a human being (of any gender). However, the shirt you sent relies for its impact on people having enough knowledge of the objectifying usage to derive humour from identifying and resolving the incongruity. If I wear this shirt, it is dependent upon an objectification of women being commonplace enough to be ‘expected’. If that expected usage is removed, ie if "I would hit that" becomes unacceptable and unused, the  meaning of my shirt is destroyed. And that means that logically, wearing this shirt and wanting people to understand it is implicitly assuming, and requiring, sufficient continued usage of the phrase in its expected context. I do not want to require that, implicitly or otherwise. And so the shirt is not on - in any sense.

Apart from the logical problem, it's risking setting up a subtle negative association with both yourself as wearer and with books: the message is not so much "I like books", as "I like books - and hey, you should briefly think about how guys commenting on a woman's body in an objectifying fashion is still a thing. yaaay, books?"
I mean, reminding people of the imperfect state of the world is fine but it should probably be a little more coherent.

I would, naturally, support other pro-reading merch that does not have these issues. And look, it’s possible the whole reason this is a mystery shirt is that you’ve realised the problem yourselves and are never going to make this product again and are getting rid of remaining stock (I couldn't find who the original creator was btw). In which case, no problem! But in case you wanted to know why i won't be walking around as an advertisement for your stuff quite so often, this is why.

All the best - and thanks for reading.

I'm writing this post so I can post the next one

I've wanted to start blogging for some time. There's a lot of stuff on the internet and in real life that is interesting and that I could be a part of. Plus, creative outlet, trying something new, writing experience, Amanda Fucking Palmer says to try to make art, etc.
But there's also barriers, the practical "think of a name that isn't taken and choose a platform and do i need a pseudonym" type ones and the "do i need a defined topic"/"fear of failure"/"other people already say everything great" biggies.
It turns out that what has really driven me to it is the need to process why something was bugging me - to "analyse my own impressions" to paraphrase G.K.Chesterton (and in no other way do I compare myself to a fictional Catholic priest).
So, I do not know what this blog will define itself as - hopefully some sort of curation and some sort of thinking and writing about original stuff, too. I don't want to constrain subject matter, because where would be the fun and learning in that? Let diversity of interests rule. 

[Sidenote: This first post-intro post feels like it's way too trivial and slight to really be the first content post of a blog, but think of it as the straw for the camel. I did try the non-committal way of Facebook Notes, but found that "public" does not actually mean public but "we only count people with a Facebook account as the public", so had to move to a proper blogspace. Hence, this is all somewhat basic and rushed and a Friday afternoon job.]