After my rant the other day on the City of Buffalo and its haphazard pursuit of casino gambling, there comes a bit of good news in the form of possible economic development that is real and not just one more example of a reeling metropolis grasping at whatever it can graze with its bony, weak fingers. Buffalo is trying to get in on what is supposed to be the Next Big High-Tech Thing: bioinformatics. (I’m not entirely sure what “bioinformatics” is, but I know it involves advanced biological research and supercomputing.) In their pursuit of this endeavor, city and state officials have come up with a lot of money to jumpstart the project, beginning a research center and, according to this article from The Buffalo News, getting the right guy to head the whole project. I’m still a bit wary that this will be the next “silver bullet”; Buffalo leaders tend to focus exclusively on one large-scale project at a time, ignoring nearly everything else (an attitude which, just for one example, very nearly led to the demolition of a Buffalo house that was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright). The Center for Excellence in Bioinformatics may be the first step on a long and properous road that could give Buffalo some much-needed credibility in the high-tech world, but there are so many other things that need to happen for this city to finally move out of the doldrums. Anyway, here’s hoping.
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A couple of book notes:
:: Neil Gaiman’s American Gods is now available in mass-market paperback.
:: A few weeks ago I reviewed longtime White House reporter Helen Thomas’s book Front Row at the White House. She has a new book out: Thanks For the Memories, Mr. President. This is a “wit-and-wisdom” book, with a chapter devoted to each President that Thomas has covered in her long tenure at the White House. It mostly presents presidential humor, but there are some sober moments as well. This book is a very quick read, being basically a collection of anecdotes — I polished it off in a single evening. Nevertheless, it’s quite entertaining.
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The West Wing is ramping up toward the season finale, and is doing so very effectively. Last season’s end-of-year build-up was dominated by a single storyline, President Bartlett’s disclosure of the multiple sclerosis which he had carefully concealed during his first campaign. This year, though, Aaron Sorkin is weaving together a number of plots. The President’s reelection campaign is heating up, there is increasing tension regarding a possible terrorist threat, and someone is stalking CJ Cregg. Sorkin is an amazing writer, and I’m sure he’ll have this pot boiling quite nicely by the time the season finale airs.
My other favorite NBC show is on Wednesday nights. It’s not Law and Order. It’s Ed, a consistently smart and literate show about a former big-city lawyer who has returned to the small Ohio town where he grew up. With its quirky cast, Ed is reminiscent of Northern Exposure, without that show’s flights of fantasy. The season finale of Ed is next week, and I’m a bit apprehensive. The show has been developing a love triangle of sorts between Ed, his dream-woman Carol Vescey, and high school principal Dennis Martino. The problem with this triangle is that Dennis, who should be the odd man out, is actually a very likable character, and his romance with Carol has been handled with aplomb by the show’s writers. This should lead to a bittersweet ending, which is precisely the type of ending that can be really screwed up. Stay tuned.
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IMAGE OF THE WEEK
Olmec Stone Head, Mexico. (Photograph by Santha Faiia)
One of my guilty pleasures (actually, sometimes I wonder if all of my pleasures are guilty, but that’s for another post) is gonzo theories of human origins, the kind of theories that might be breathlessly expounded by Agent Mulder on The X-Files. Some of the most enjoyable such theories are currently found in the books of Graham Hancock, a British writer who has hypothesized that a great human civilization, technological in nature, flourished more than fifteen thousand years ago before the most recent Ice Age. This, needless to say, flies in the face of all established anthropological and archaeological theory. The Olmec stone head pictured above is one of many that can be found throughout Central America. What interests Hancock in this case is the stone head’s Negroid features, when there is no evidence at all of any Negroid dispersion from Africa to the Americas (before they were helped along by Caucasian slave-traders). This is just one piece of “evidence” for Hancock’s theories, which can be found in such books as Fingerprints of the Gods, The Message of the Sphinx, and Heaven’s Mirror. An earlier book by Hancock, The Sign and the Seal, proposed an intriguing theory of where the Ark of the Covenant currently rests. The photograph links to Hancock’s official website.
(I am actually very skeptical of theories such as Hancock’s; my recommendation of his books should not be taken as an endorsement of his hypotheses. I will recommend some good books on skepticism in a future post.)
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In possible violation of my “No Politics” policy, I’m going to rant a minute or two about my city of Buffalo, which has reached what I perceive to be a crossroads.
An upcoming vote by the Seneca Nation of Indians will decide if casinos are built in the downtown areas of Buffalo and Niagara Falls, NY, as well as a third in some as-yet undetermined location in Western New York outside of those two cities. The idea, of course, is that the new casinos will rejuvenate the moribund downtown sections of these two cities by drawing large numbers of people from the surrounding regions to spend (and lose) money. This will be just the latest in a long line of silver-bullet-style projects at which local politicians have grasped, each time promising that this is the one that will lift Buffalo out of the doldrums (the boom of the 90s completely bypassed Buffalo, a city that is still reeling from the losses of thousands of manufacturing jobs twenty years ago), each time lining up for state aid to get the job done (whilst teachers and school aides — and never administrators — are laid off and fire department precincts are closed), and each time chanting that wonderful mantra, “If we build it, they will come” (note to people who insist on using this cliche: It was a MOVIE, and the line is “If YOU build it, HE will come”, and the “he” refers to the main character’s father, not an unending flock of deep-pocketed tourists who theoretically could find nothing better to do than gamble). Casinos are a bad bet for any number of reasons. Of course there is the fear that gambling addiction will jump in this city, as well as prostitution; but what galls me are the claims that casinos will generate spinoff economic development as restaurants are opened nearby, shops move in, et cetera. Clearly people who say these kinds of things have never been in a real casino, where shops and restaurants and entertainment are all there under the same roof as the gambling machinery. The entire premise behind a casino operation is, “Get them in the door and then keep them here”. The benefit to other local businesses is negligible, if not downright nonexistent.
In the last fifteen years, Buffalo has built new sports venues, each time insisting that they will stimulate downtown business development. The ballpark is lovely and I really am glad they built it, but how a minor-league baseball stadium that is only open at most ninety times a year is supposed to jumpstart local business investment is beyond me. Buffalo has also built a light rail system which did, in fact, seem like a good idea — until they only built it along one street, and they stopped it virtually on the border of Amherst, Buffalo’s richest suburb. There was a big ceremony last year announcing the construction of a big new office building in downtown Buffalo, but that project’s other shoe dropped recently when the company behind that project — Adelphia Cable — suffered a calamitous drop in its stock value. And while cities like Cleveland, Baltimore, and Milwaukee have in the last ten years or so rebuilt their historical waterfront districts into exciting hubs of small business, entertainment, and residential activity, Buffalo’s waterfront development is still mostly on the drawing board. One other weird thing about Buffalo that I have noticed: our tourist literature always seems to point out, as a “selling point”, our proximity to places like Toronto, Montreal, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and NYC. You really have to wonder about a city that sells itself on the basis of how short a drive it is to someplace else.
There are hopeful signs on the horizon for Buffalo. The state has committed large amounts of money to help launch a state-of-the-art Center for Bioinformatics, which should — if the cards are played right, which is by no means a lock — help Buffalo get involved in what many say will be the next boom-sector in the high tech economy. Also, developers are currently renovating a number of buildings in downtown Buffalo into residential buildings, which seems to imply that the powers-that-be are at least starting to recognize that a city’s vitality lies not in how many people come there for a few hours at a time, but in how vibrant a community actually lives there. The County Legislature, usually quite willing to let the City of Buffalo twist in the wind, is actually scrambling to find some money to at least partially restore the city’s arts funding, which was cut off after the latest round of deficits. (Deficits are actually par for the course, but the State of New York is usually good to cover the difference — at least in years when the State Government isn’t preoccupied with other financial demands, such as rebuilding the state’s other large city which was the unfortunate victim of a terrorist attack last September.) Buffalo has an arts community that is larger and more vibrant than one would expect in a city this size. It seems to me that if a “silver bullet” exists, it is far more likely to involve the arts than sports or casinos. One striking statistic that I recently read in Artvoice is that while the HSBC Arena, the home of the Buffalo Sabres of the NHL, is open perhaps 120 nights a year for various events, the Shea’s Buffalo Theatre (the city’s largest theatre, where the largest traveling Broadway productions are mounted) is open over 220 nights a year. And whereas the Arena is ringed by parking lots, Shea’s is surrounded by restaurants and is within walking distance of Chippewa Street, downtown Buffalo’s “party area”. Any politician — indeed, any person at all — who can claim that the arts are a luxury to be dispensed with in times of fiscal hardship is simply unaware of reality.
From my perspective, the next five to ten years will make or break the City of Buffalo. At the end of that time it will either be a bustling community and a destination in its own right, or it will be a mere waystation on the way from Boston to Chicago on I-90.
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POETICAL EXCURSION #2
Randall Jarrell, The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
———-
This poem has stuck in my mind for years, ever since a high school English teacher forced it on us. I suppose the most memorable thing about the poem, especially to a young reader, is the visceral image with which the poem closes. But what makes it more remarkable, upon rereading it, is the juxtaposition of fetal imagery (“From my mother’s sleep I fell”, “I hunched in its belly”) with that of war (“I woke to black flak and nightmare fighters”). The poem’s first line is the most interesting, with its implication that the narrator — still a child, really — exists for no other reason than to die in the belly of an airplane. “From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State”, Jarrell writes — implying that we exist for the State, to live or die by its whims. The poem contrasts maternal instincts with cold, impersonal duty to Our Nation, and does so with a shocking image that is hard to dislodge. And all that in five lines.
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While channel-surfing I happened on that Seventy-Five Years of NBC special, only tuning in long enough to hear a comedy bit by Mr. T, of all people. And to my amazement, it was hilarious. He presented a list of “Fools I’ve Pitied”, in keeping with his trademark line “I pity the fool”. He mentioned how he pitied the guy who cancelled Baywatch; he mentioned Jennifer Aniston who — like Mr. T — had her talent overlooked in favor of her haircut; and he pitied Screech from Saved By The Bell, because “We all pitied Screech”. The line that got the biggest laugh from me, though, was “I pity the East Wing. I mean, does anybody know what they do in the East Wing?”
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I’ve been watching The X-Files the last few weeks out of some sense of obligation. I’ve loved the show since I got hooked, midway through the third season, but this year has been one dull and boring episode after another. The feeling that the show was definitely moving toward some specific plot resolution, that The Truth really was Out There, seemed to dissipate entirely after the birth of Scully’s child and Mulder’s exit. The mytharc just seemed to grind on in lifeless fashion, and the Monster-Of-The-Week episodes were dull primarily because of the show’s new dynamic. The X-Files didn’t necessarily fall apart merely because David Duchovny left, but the resulting lack of chemistry between Agents Doggett and Reyes coupled with the lack of a clearly defined new role for Scully only made the dificiencies in the increasingly-lukewarm scripts all the more glaring. Had the show been announced for a tenth season, I likely would have abandoned ship entirely. But since the series is ending, I’m watching all of the remaining episodes (two left, as of this writing). And even still, with the clear knowledge that the show will soon be over, the recent episodes have not been very good. There was a wrap-up episode to the cancelled Lone Gunmen spinoff, which contrived an amazingly unbelievable scenario in which the paranoid trio give their lives for the world, or some such thing. Then there was an episode revolving around Scully’s baby and its supernatural powers which ended with the child’s powers being neutralized forever — but then Scully, realizing that her child will always be a target, gives the child up for adoption. This was so stunningly out of character for Scully that when it was over I stared at the end credits in disbelief, made doubly strong by the fact that the episode was written by Chris Carter, the one person who should know Scully better than this. My expectations for the show have fallen incredibly low, so imagine my surprise when tonight’s episode proved to be one of the best the series has done in the last few years.
The episode involved the nine-year-old murder of Agent Doggett’s son, a crime which has (until now) gone unsolved. A young FBI cadet who apparently has some kind of ability to see things in case files (and autopsies) that are missed provides Doggett with some uncannily accurate information on another case, the success of which prompts Doggett to show his case information on his son’s murder to the seemingly clairvoyant cadet. But the cadet already knows of the Doggett case — he wallpapers his apartment with photographs of unsolved crimes, Doggett’s son being one of the ones on the wall — and in a fairly spooky moment he tells Doggett that the two cases are not unrelated.
This episode was remarkably well crafted, with nicely building suspense and a final resolution that is moving and sad. The story kept me guessing — is the cadet what he claims to be? is there more to the mobster who keeps avoiding prosecution? is the Assistant Director on the take? — and the story’s supernatural element is very muted, much more so than usual for an X-Files episode. The unbelievable plot developments that have been the mainstay of X-Files scripts for this entire season were nowhere in evidence. It’s nice to see that the folks at Ten Thirteen have not completely forgotten how to construct a story.
The episode is carried, though, on the strength of Robert Patrick’s acting. John Doggett’s cynicism, the way he can’t allow himself to believe in anything, is well established by Patrick, so as the episode progresses and Doggett goes more and more out on that limb we can strongly sense his strong emotions and his powerful desire to keep them in check. Patrick gets a lot in this episode to really sink his teeth into, and he does so beautifully. I wonder if it was frustrating for Patrick to get this script, read it, and realize that only now that there are a handful of episodes left before he’s back on the Hollywood unemployment line does he get some material that he can really use to delve into his character. I never disliked the John Doggett character; he was sufficiently different from Mulder and the chemistry was sufficiently different between him and Scully that I was always fine with him. But there was still a sense that Doggett wasn’t entirely thought out, as if he were thrown together by Chris Carter and the Ten Thirteen writers after it became clear that Duchovny was really leaving the show. This episode dispelled all that, and as such it should have been done last year.
So, as The X-Files prepares to end at last, a little hope is renewed. Maybe, just maybe, The Truth really is Out There. We’ll know for sure in two weeks.
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I’ve added a permanent link at left to ScoreLand, a film music review site maintained by a man whose thoughts I enjoy greatly. (Just don’t stare for too long at those spinning CDs that are at the bottom of each review. Trust me on this point.)