A waste of time? Who sez?

“TV is a waste of time,” said John Hennessy.  The Stanford prez added:

“Let’s face it. No one really loves watching TV, though we may do it occasionally.”

He came to that conclusion when he was interviewing, years ago, for a full-time faculty gig at Stanford. His interviewer was Donald Knuth, the “father of computer science.” Hennessy wondered if he was up to the job.  He asked Knuth how he managed his time.  Knuth confessed that he never watches TV.

“It was a great insight about using your time and doing what you really love,”  Hennessy’s told an audience at the Stanford University’s dedication of the new “Jen-Hsen Huang” Engineering building.  His comments were picked up by the Forbes blog here.  And boy, did they hit a pocket of resistance.

This, from Kym McNicholas of “Kym’s Faces of Tech”:

Those of you who bash television, you may talk about books on Picasso or Gauguin with people you want to impress. You may make sad sounds when people talk about the decline of the newspaper industry.  But no one is pulling the plug on TV stations. They’re thriving.  And guess what? We’re thriving online, too, on Hulu, YouTube, and Netflix. People love video! …

I also know of several Stanford graduates and Harvard graduates who never miss an episode of “Family Guy.” I hear it’s now preferred over the “Simpsons” for techies looking for a little humor as they decompress after a long day of programming. But are they any less intellectual because of that? No. Everyone needs an outlet. …

And one more thought. If television is such a waste of time, why are some of the largest companies such as Google, with Google TV, and Apple, with Apple TV, investing so much money it? Yes, to make it better. And yes, to make it more relevant for today, in terms of our Internet-centric world – a world that brilliant Stanford, Harvard, MIT, and other University graduates (or drop-outs) are helping to create.

So, I can imagine that the argument that “TV is a waste of time” is only going to get harder to defend.

Whew!  I guess John Hennessy really stirred the pot with this one. I caught “Family Guy” for the first time while waiting for my sons at their apartment about five years ago. I didn’t know what I was watching, but I was astonished at the crudity of the animation and appalled by the sexism and stereotypes. Do people really “decompress” with this stuff? The episode I watched included a veiled, seductive Arab woman snatching the father away from the mother in some sort of polygamous arrangement, in which the husband was mindlessly acquiescent.  Talk about stereotypes!

As someone who learned to “manage my time” the same way, many years ago, I can only say yes, John, yes, yes, yes, yes!

Articulate, passionate, energetic

I was warned that the first twenty minutes or so of Joumana Haddad‘s presentation at Stanford on Oct. 4 would demolish the stereotype of the Arab woman.  But I arrived late from another appointment, and so I missed the Lebanese journalist and author’s presentation of the stereotype that, to me, seemed a straw man … or a straw woman.

I know, I know … the cowering Muslim woman, wearing a burqa, submissive to her husband, her son, her houseplant.  Anyone seen one of these around lately?  Raise your hand.  Anyone?

I thought not.  I don’t have that stereotype, and I doubt that many educated people do.  And it’s partly because the distinction was blurred — even in my invitation to this event, sponsored by the Stanford Center for Innovation and Communication, which is interested in fostering conversations about women’s rights in “the Arab and Muslim worlds” — about who, exactly, we are talking about.  Not all Arabs are Muslim; not all Muslims are Arab.

D'accord

I was joined at the event by  a  high school friend, the elegant Turkish-American Erën Goknar — who is far from cowering, and even farther from burqa’ed.  Erën is one of my notions of the modern Muslim women, but I also think of Neda Agha-Soltan and all the determined women of Iran’s Green Revolution.  I think of Shahryar Mandanipour’s comment last year about them:

“He also thought of those who were still fighting — ‘brave students beaten with bottles,’ facing interrogation and torture in their struggle for human rights. ‘There are times the Iranian women are braver than the men. I think so,’ he said softly.

I think of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, too — even though she has forsworn Islam. Even though she’s been rejected by the politically correct.

And I also, too, think of the Iranian Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani, sentenced to be stoned to death, a political event which Haddad seemed to think gets too much focus, at the expense of the modern face of Islamic women.  True, true, but there’s the old journalistic saw: If you passed ten houses, and one of them was on fire … which one would you go back to the newsroom and write about?

None of these thoughts represents Haddad fairly, or justly represents her book, with the admittedly catchy title, I Killed Scheherazade: Confessions of an Angry Arab Woman. (Scheherazade, incidentally, is a legendary Persian queen, not an Arab one — so our confusion is understandable.)

The face of modern Islam

For balance, then, here’s what our new Nobel laureate, Mario Vargas Llosa, had to say about her book:

“A very courageous and illuminating book about women in the Arab world.  It opens our eyes, destroys our prejudices and is very entertaining.”

Haddad spoke eloquently of the need for increasing not only literacy in the Arab world, but the practice of reading.  Beyond the skill of reading, she plugged for the wide availability of literature and magazines, reviews, newspapers.  Too much cannot be said on the topic.

Haddad (she was reared as a Catholic, not Muslim, and now calls herself an agnostic, “thank God … whoever He is”) is an appealing and very attractive figure.  The 40-year-old poet and journalist spoke about her creation, Jasad magazine, which wikipedia described as “a controversial Arabic magazine specialized in the literature and arts of the body.” She calls it “erotica.”  Not surprisingly, it is banned in Saudi Arabia.

For someone taking on the subject of stereotypes, I was disturbed by her reliance on cliché (especially troubling for a woman who considers herself a poet).  She spoke of the “free and emancipated” woman.  She spoke of how the internet “teaches you that the personal is universal” and that it’s “connecting the world together — I really believe in the power of that.”  She spoke of “empowerment.” So I wasn’t terrifically surprised when she said,  in answer to a question, “I never function by ‘outcomes,’ I function by fashions, needs, anger.”

She spoke of the goal of religions to “control” sexuality — but seemed to ignore that all archaic societies have extensive laws governing sexual behavior, as a way of preventing social chaos.  You will have a tough time finding an exception.  (Naomi Wolf’s now notorious 2008 article asserted that “Muslim attitudes toward women’s appearance and sexuality are not rooted in repression, but in a strong sense of public versus private” — it’s a point worth considering.)

She spoke of the dreadfulness Barbie with a burqa, but I think it’s also dreadful to have a “doll” with the equivalence of a 50″ bust as a “toy” for girls.  Far be it from me to defend the burqa, but I have wondered if it’s any more imprisoning than a string bikini, with the attendant starvation and head-to-toe waxing and worrying and body obsession.  If that puts my thinking in line with Osama Bin Laden & co. (as someone on a website pointed out vis-a-vis Wolf’s article), so be it.  Every word that proceeds from a criminal and terrorist is not necessarily crime and terrorism.  That’s where thinking should kick in.

She spoke of Scheherazade and the title of her book. Evidently, Haddad is agin’ her, because she has “negotiated her basic rights — one of the things we have to stop doing is negotiating basic rights.  We are equal to men — we don’t have to ask for that.”  True, true … we are equal.  But we still are the ones who get pregnant.  Access to universal, quality child care is still a more pressing concern for women than men.  Maternity leave, as well.  You simply can’t unhook the welfare of women from the welfare of children.  In the sense that we create life, we are more than equal; we are also less free.  Anyone who has been a single mother can tell you that.

In the larger picture, Scheherazade represents not only a female heroine, but a universal hero — precisely because we are all negotiating the terms of our existence, every single day.  She’s speaks not only to other women, but to the whole human family.  She is speaking to the power of the word, and the endurance of the story.  Those things exist beyond “fashion, needs, anger.”

So what does it mean when Haddad wants to “kill” her — even in a flippant, symbolic  way, for a catchy book title?

As the much much-maligned Naomi Wolf wrote, “it’s worth thinking in a more nuanced way about what female freedom really means.”  Maybe we need some kind of “empowerment” that goes even beyond “erotica.”

A bride at last...

By now everyone has heard what I learned at 4.30 this morning: sometimes even perennial bridesmaids catch the bouquet.  Mario Vargas Llosa has been on the lists for so long that no one even noticed him somewhere midway on the betting lists of Ladbrokes (on Sept. 29 he ranked 40th in a field of 75).

This is a safe, uncontroversial choice for the Nobels —  an eminent, 74-year-old writer with a lifetime of acclaimed work behind him.

This means Ladbrokes can pay all its bets now.  It means that Ted Gioia probably won’t be penning his Nobels from an alternative universe.  And Néstor Amarilla, the 30-year-old Paraguayan who had an unexpected international spotlight thrown on him for reasons we have yet to fathom (he is, in everyone’s opinion, far too young for the Nobel, despite the excellence of his work), returns to his pen in peace.  And Bjørg-the-Cyborg gets a well-deserved rest this year.

And Amazon.com wins, too:  I’ve ordered two books by Tomas Tranströmer‘s The Great Enigma: New Collected Poems; Saved by a Poem, the only book in English by Néstor Amarilla, and Seamus Heaney‘s Stepping Stones and Human Chain for good measure.

Meanwhile, the Nobel poetry drought continues.

Old dog ... new tricks

A few weeks ago, I got a short note from Hawaii — our new poet laureate, W.S. Merwin, had a quick  correction to make to his essay in An Invisible Rope.  He hoped he wasn’t too late, he had scribbled, but he only had snail-mail to reach me — he doesn’t do fax or texting.  He barely does phone calls.  The octogenarian poet still didn’t have email, “Thank God,” he wrote.

Last July, I wondered how effective our unworldy pineapple farmer (or former pineapple farmer) would be as a U.S. poet laureate, given these circumstances.  “I do like a very quiet life,” he said by telephone to the New York Times after learning of his appointment. “I can’t keep popping back and forth between here and Washington.”  It all seemed a fairly hopeless affair.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I saw W.S. Merwin’s name in my electronic inbox this morning.  Hell has indeed frozen over.

Although clearly a form letter, he wrote:

Thank you for your kind words.

I was deeply honored and moved by the warmth and generosity behind all the messages. I look forward to serving as your Poet Laureate and I hope our paths will cross over the coming year.

W.S. Merwin

What can we say?  I knew a few late adopters — while working on Joseph Brodsky: Conversations, I communicated with Sven Birkerts via his son’s email account, and Peter Dale acquired one expressly to work on our manuscript for Peter Dale in Conversation with Cynthia Haven — but both those cases were years ago.  Takeaway: Never underestimate the human capacity for change.

Best of luck, Bill — and good luck with the poet laureate thingumme!

Man of the hour ... perhaps only that

Ladbrokes’ site is up again, and the bets seem to be reshuffling in an inexpicable fashion.  Take a look for yourself.  America’s Cormac McCarthy has edged to the top spot for this year’s Nobel in literature, pushing Kenya’s Ngugi wa Thiong’o to #2.  Haruki Marukami and Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer remain stable in the #3 and #4 slots.

But Poland’s Adam Zagajewski has now dropped way down to #20, and some of the rest is pure craziness:  Néstor Amarilla (we’ve rather taken a shine to him) is suddenly at the bottom of the list, with the notation “closed.”  What does that mean, if anyone put any money on him at all? Which someone must have done, to give him any ranking at all a few days ago…

In an alternative universe, Unibets, puts the Kenyan Ngugi wa Thiong’o at the top, with Néstor Amarilla as #2.  Huh?  As Literary Saloon points out in its excellent analysis, why wouldn’t someone bet for the Argentinian at Ladbroke’s, where the payout would be higher?  (Maybe because it’s “closed.”) 

Péter Nádas has been added to the list.  Joyce Carol Oates is #9.  Other names have moved up and down the list.  Check it out.  Only a few more hours to go.

At UCI...

There’s no point in sleeping during Nobel week.  It’s a volatile year.  Ngugi wa Thiong’o has climbed from having a 1 percent chance of winning to a top spot — all in a couple of days.

In any case, this is a disaster for Ladbroke’s, which booked the odds at 75:1:

But it wasn’t long before those odds changed radically. It was, says [Ladbroke’s David] Williams, a “staggering collapse.” Bettors gambled more heavily on Thiong’o than they had at any other time in the history of Nobel betting. Before long, he had pushed  Thomas Transtromer out of the top position.

It also suggests some leaks, and opportunists, at the Swedish Academy. The Ladbrokes site is down for “scheduled maintenance” during Nobel week.

Other shifts: American novelist Cormac McCarthy is now in second place at 6-1, with Japanese writer Haruki Marukami coming in third position at 7-1. Last week’s favorite, the Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer, is now ranked fourth in the Ladbroke’s odds with a 9-1 chance of winning the award.

Who is the Kenyan mystery man?  The Nobel poetry drought continues — Ngugi wa Thiong’o is a novelist.  And also, “a post-colonial theorist and social activist.” He is currently the Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Irvine.

He was born in 1938 into a large peasant family.  He was educated in Kenya, Uganda, and Britain’s University of Leeds.

He launched his writing career in English, but following his arrest and imprisonment without charge at the Kamiti Maximum Security Prison in Kenya after the performance of his critical play, Ngaahika Ndeenda (I Will Marry When I Want) in 1977. In prison also, he decided to switch to his mother tongue, Gikuyu.

Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o describes in his book, Decolonising the Mind, what happened to students caught speaking their native Gikuyu at school: “The culprit was given corporal punishment – three to five strokes of the cane on bare buttocks – or was made to carry a metal plate around the neck with inscriptions such as ‘I Am Stupid’ or ‘I Am a Donkey.’”

Given the dramatic reshuffling of odds this year, I wonder … could someone placing bets  just to deflect attention from the real winner, or is that too Machiavellian?

Postscript:  The Literary Saloon doesn’t think it’s too Machiavellian at all.  And they’re plonking for UCI’s Ngugi wa Thiong’o.

Addendum:  A writer may bag the peace prize, too.  The imprisoned Liu Xiaobo would be the first Chinese citizen to get the peace prize.