Jose Antonio Vargas in NYT - My Life As an Undocumented Immigrant

This piece in the NYT by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas is showing up every where today, and for good reason. Its a very moving account of an undocumented immigrant who has done everything he can to try and earn his place in the U.S. I, like everyone else talking about the piece, highly suggest reading it all but these lines at the end were the hardest hitting for me -

But the real reason was, after so many years of trying to be a part of the system, of focusing all my energy on my professional life, I learned that no amount of professional success would solve my problem or ease the sense of loss and displacement I felt. I lied to a friend about why I couldn’t take a weekend trip to Mexico. Another time I concocted an excuse for why I couldn’t go on an all-expenses-paid trip to Switzerland. I have been unwilling, for years, to be in a long-term relationship because I never wanted anyone to get too close and ask too many questions. All the while, Lola’s question was stuck in my head: What will happen if people find out?

I certainly don't have a solution to the immigration concerns and as a naturalized immigrant myself, my views are colored but the idea of "earning" your citizenship seems amazingly loaded with moral evaluations and value judgments to me. Why is economic output or education attainment deemed a viable path to citizenship? Like I said, i don't know the answer to this or any of the related questions, but I do think it is important to ask these questions.

Still Bill (2009)

While reading this Justin Timberlake interview I ran across a Bill Withers documentary called Still Bill. Here's what Justin Timberlake had to say about the film, and what it meant to him -

TIMBERLAKE: You should watch the documentary Still Bill.

PLAYBOY: That’s the Bill Withers documentary, right?

TIMBERLAKE: Yeah, and I’ve never watched anything else that made me feel someone was speaking not just to me but for me. He puts into words exactly how I feel about music. People asked Bill Withers all the time, “Why did you stop doing music?” Which is what I get asked all the time too. He said, “I don’t know what to say, because I didn’t stop doing music. I just started doing something else.” He also quoted Thoreau: “The mass of men live lives of quiet desperation.” Only Bill added, “I want to know what it feels like for my desperation to get louder.”

PLAYBOY: What does that mean to you?

TIMBERLAKE: Well, I relate to that because it means you need inspiration, you need to hear something loud inside yourself before you can create anything. Unfortunately, the business of music is what taints an artist’s desire to make music. I don’t want to paint a picture of being jaded, because I love making music. I honestly love it. But there is a level where making music becomes a total life-sucking commitment. For instance, to do an album and a tour, you have to be absolutely certain that whatever you have to say is from the heart, because you’re going to say it a thousand times—and on nights when you don’t feel like performing. You need to feel inspiration to get to a level where you’re performing like that. But I haven’t felt that level of conviction the past few years. And without that conviction it’s crazy to put yourself out there.

After watching the documentary, I couldn't agree more. The film features Withers imparting short bits of his own philosophy that seems amazingly pragmatic but not void of any of the emotion that sometimes pragmatism lacks. It was heartening to see a man who achieved so much in life seem thankful for it, but never seem like he felt he deserved it or that it was owed to him. Withers struggled as a child with stuttering, came from humble beginnings in a coal-mining town in West Virginia and worked as a factory worker before stepping into fame as a musician - and I think that lent a lot to his ability to make the most of his life instead of expecting the most from his life.

At one point he remarks, ""On the way to wonderful, you'll pass through all right. Stop and take a look around, because that's where you may be staying." As I move forward into my own career, I can happily take solace in this advice. I still plan on aiming at "wonderful" but I'm happy to take a look around and "alright" and appreciate it on its own terms. In any case, the film comes highly recommended.

Eric Whitacre interviewed by Intelligent Life

Eric Whitacre, one of my favorite composers since high school, has a new interview up at Intelligent Life. I love following his career but I've been sort of disappointed that a lot of his composing has been overshadowed by the glitz of his virtual choir forays.

In the interview, Whitacre talks about his nuanced relationship with technology. He claims that he still composes on paper, rather than on a computer, but that he enjoys being introduced to a lot of different kinds of music because of the web. I'm glad that he isn't the type of person to just be completely technotopian (championing technology for any and every use) or completely technophobian (read: Luddite).

This anecdote about Debussy stirred some thoughts for me -

In Paris, at the beginning of the 20th century, Debussy went to see a Gamelan orchestra and it completely changed his writing and basically blew his mind. But today I can go through 30 or 40 genres of music in one day, just by browsing the web, so the exposure to different kinds of music and therefore different ideologies is unprecedented. As a composer I know that all sorts of sounds I hear are making their way into my brain and soul, and later sneak into my music.

What if the reason that Debussy had his mind blown was because he hadn't spent all that time being exposed to different kinds of music on the web? What about the possibility that Debussy was so entrenched in one form of composing that he reached a saturation point before he could truly have his mind blown by the Gamelan orchestra? I think claiming (although I don't think Whitacre is claiming this, but some have) that similar results may happen in a completely new cultural and information milieu is unreasoned.

Fareed Zakaria on Planet Money at NPR

Fareed Zakaria is on a book tour for the re-release of The Post American World and he stopped by the Planet Money podcast recently. The podcast features an interesting conversation between Zakaria and the hosts Adam Davidson and Alex Blumberg. I've never really thought Zakaria is a remarkable scholar or thinker but he is certainly one of the more impressive voices in the media (although that doesn't seem to be a difficult task to accomplish given our abysmal media landscape).

A short excerpt about the future for the U.S. I found interesting. This is something people have been saying for a while but as California's position worsens considerably and as the U.S. runs up against challenge after challenge, these words move from mere prognostication to reality -

Think of California as a metaphor. California has the most dazzling private sector in the world, really. If you think about Silicon Valley, plus Hollywood, plus all these things that spawn from it. It's amazing. And yet when the state is collapsing, when the infrastructure is collapsing, when you build more prisons than you do college campuses ... after a while it becomes very difficult to be a viable economy.

The Epidemic of Mental Illness

In the NY Times book review, Marcia Angell reviews 3 new books on the topic of mental illness and the existing medical treatments. In one of the books, the author goes so far as to claim

the relatively small difference between drugs and placebos might not be a real drug effect at all. Instead, it might be an enhanced placebo effect, produced by the fact that some patients have broken [the] blind and have come to realize whether they were given drug or placebo. If this is the case, then there is no real antidepressant drug effect at all. Rather than comparing placebo to drug, we have been comparing “regular” placebos to “extra-strength” placebos.

I think just as with advances in neuroscience based on increasing reliance on fMRI technology (including forays into fields like neuro-economics and so on) all of these claims are no better than theoretical conjectures at this point. However, the big difference between neuroscience and treatment for depression/anxiety/mental illness is that these treatments have real and sustained consequences for patients.

Louis CK on why he loves Bill Clinton

In this interview with Louis CK, he mentions, among many other gems, why he and Chris Rock love Bill Clinton -

Me and Chris try to study a lot of different kinds of people, not just comedians. We both love Bill Clinton — Clinton is America's headliner. One of the greatest things I ever saw was him at Coretta Scott King's funeral. Jimmy Carter, George Bush Senior, Hillary — all these people making speeches, and then Bill Clinton goes on and he says, "Let's all remember that that is a woman lying right there." And he points at her.

It was audacious. "That is a woman who had her dreams and her pain and her passions," and I think he said "lust." He said really personal shit about her and you immediately heard the black people go, "Yes!"

He says, "There's her family — think about what they're going through today, and everything that's happened to them since their daddy got shot. The burden that must have been hers."

Holy shit. I hope to have any of that skill as a comic. He just found this short circuit. You try to have this nature the way water does — finds the lowest place and spreads the fuck out. That's what he did.

This is of course not the first time I've heard someone say such things about Clinton, but it may be the first time I've heard a comedian say them.

Cornel West vs. POTUS

Cornel West has come out recently against President Obama, calling him out on his pro-corporate behavior and overall disappointment as POTUS. In this interview with Chris Hedges he has two main grievances with Obama, personal and political/ideological. Basically, West feels slighted by Obama for his inattention during the 2008 campaign and (more importantly) disappointed that Obama hasn't reigned in the influence of banks, corporations and the like on government over the course of his time in office.

Not merely a knee jerk reaction, but this just seems petty to me. Melissa Harris-Perry has some thoughts here that I think may be important to consider (although this piece is somewhat petty in itself). My initial reaction to West's words earlier today was "ugh" and I stand by it.

Incendies (2010)

Over the weekend I watched Incendies (2010), a French-Canadian film based on a play about a pair of siblings who are hurled down a journey down their mother's past in Lebanon, to answer some very important questions. The film is set up right away with an obvious MacGuffin regarding an unknown father and brother, and it follows this quest along a path of historical events centered on the Lebanese Civil War. The film is enhanced by a knowledge of the basics of the Lebanese Civil War, but can certainly be understood without.

I really enjoyed the film and recommend it highly. It is certainly not for the faint of heart, but the story is masterfully crafted and the film is beautifully put together. Trailer here. Reviews here.