Chekhov’s Mistess

July 28, 2009

New Study Shows that Caffeine Makes You Smarter

The study was conducted by me over a three day period from Friday to Sunday. The conclusion of the study is based upon the observation that when a long-time daily coffee drinker is withheld caffeine he becomes increasingly, head-spinningly stupid. Seriously stupid, like Elaine mesmerized by the spinning tire display in that episode of Seinfeld.

At the same time I read some unfathomably smart commentary [making me feel even more stupid] in The New York Review of Books by, among others, Michael Massing, who takes a sober look at the internet (“The News About the Internet,” 8-13-09) and how this whole “blogging” thing is shaping today’s news. As anyone who reads this blog knows I’m often exasperated by commentary by so-called professional writers on blogging. The low point was Bob Hoover’s article a few years back where he admitted that his research consisted of some casual sifting through blogs before he proceeded to to throw insults at those of us who devote our time to this endeavor, like a child lashing out at an inanimate object that’s hurt him.

Massing, in contrast, seems to have thoroughly researched his article and finds that, yes, blogging lends itself to experts in a niche that many newspapers can’t or don’t care to match. Reminding us in the end though that there is – at least in terms of news coverage – a shift from reporting to polemicism that is and should be troubling. Massing’s article was supposed to cover a couple of new books on the subject, but the article doesn’t read that way. Despite these books that pop up from time to time on how important bloggging is, or how bad blogging is, they are mere artifacts that can’t possibly say anything new, and the debate should be online.

Also in The Review is Adam H’s devastating “Rape of the Congo,” which reminds me that my client Lisa Jackson’s film, “The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo” has been nominated for an Emmy Award. As a bookend to that piece is Roger Cohen’s quite personal account of being in Iran recently.

Lastly of note is Fintan O’Toole’s “Oblomov in Dublin” (subscription only) on one of my favorite writers Flann O’Brien, following up on Joseph O’Neill and Roger Boylan’s earlier pieces, O’Tool takes a unique approach by looking at Oblomov’s influence on O’Brien as well as Beckett, drawing parallels between the two Irishmen who are really more a study in contrasts, if you ask me. At any rate, if you’ve never read At Swim-Two-Birds you’re missing out on a classic that, as O’Tool points out has a strong claim “to be one of the founding texts of literary postmodernism.

• posted by Bud Parr
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• related:
• “It’s kaleidoscopic”
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• Considering Flann O’Brien
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• My review of The Coffee Book published at INeedCoffee
• |
• What is the Best Procrastination Lit?
• |
• Why You Should Buy Fair Trade: The Coffee Book, by Nina Luttinger and Gregory Dicum

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