For Weather Freaks & Geeks: the NOAA El Nino Page

Posted on December 9, 2011 by williamjcobb

So if there’s one positive spinoff outcome of our collective Climate Change fears, it’s a greater understanding and respect for the science behind understanding climate and weather. {All Republican presidential candidates can now leave the room (like they’d be here anyway!), as the following is for intelligent grown-ups.} Below is the url of NOAA’s El Nino status page, which being the weather geek that I am, I check often, because if you want some practical advice about predicting the weather in the West, this actually works. The latest report is that we’re in a La Nina cycle, no surprise there, although the fact that it’s now two years in a row is somewhat unusual, but not unheard of. But take a look at this pdf document. The charts and data are fascinating. In Tim Flannery’s excellent nonfiction book Here on Earth he describes how more and more weather sensors are being placed around the globe, in air/water/land, and how we’re getting more and more accurate in recording actual temperature/precipitation etc all across the planet. Personally I think it’s kind of cool to see the data on temperature fluctuations in the Pacific, and explanations of how it affects weather in the U.S. Plus it changes often. Colorado, for instance, has seen some improvement in its weather forecast for the next few months, while Texas is still in a serious drought.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf

Posted in Climate Change, The West | Leave a comment

On the Climate Change Front, a Good News/Bad News Day

Posted on December 6, 2011 by williamjcobb

So the latest hubbub on the Climate Change front is that global emissions spiked last year to a record high increase, while obviously we should be making those numbers go down (and they did, briefly, from the effects of the Great Recession), and here’s a link in the NY Times that explains the data: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/05/science/earth/record-jump-in-emissions-in-2010-study-finds.html?_r=1&ref=science
But there’s also some good news from the Climate Progress website, which tracks various scientific developments re: Climate Change and analyzes media responses to these, such as their point that Fox News viewers are the most misinformed about Climate Change, although that’s hardly a shocker. The good news is that renewable energies are increasing. Here’s a quote:
“Renewable energy is surpassing fossil fuels for the first time in new power-plant investments, shaking off setbacks from the financial crisis…. Electricity from the wind, sun, waves and biomass drew $187 billion last year compared with $157 billion for natural gas, oil and coal, according to calculations by Bloomberg New Energy Finance using the latest data. Accelerating installations of solar- and wind-power plants led to lower equipment prices, making clean energy more competitive with coal.”
Here’s the url to that article in Climate Progress:
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/11/26/376250/clean-energy-renewable-power-tops-fossil-fuels-for-first-time/

Posted in Climate Change, Politics, The West | Leave a comment

On Stuart Dybek's "Saint Stuart" and Kent Haruf's "Benediction": Books to Come From Two of Our Best Writers

Posted on December 4, 2011 by williamjcobb

So last week I had the good fortune of overseeing the visit to our campus and fiction reading by Stuart Dybek, one of the finest contemporary American fiction writers of all. Dybek is known as something of a “writer’s writer,” but that sounds too effete for how good he is, and he’s anything but effete: His fiction, set mainly in Chicago, is gutsy, earthy, nostalgic, funny, ribald, and insightful. During his visit he read excerpts from a nonfiction novel-in-progress titled Saint Stuart, which had some hilarious descriptions of being an oversized, outmanned boxer at a Chicago Catholic high school. And during the visit I found out Dybek is also friends with Kent Haruf, who has finished a new novel that should be out in the not-too-distant future, titled Benediction. I’ve no doubt it will be knockout, following on the heels of his two most recent novels that were published to much acclaim (and became best-sellers): Plainsong (1999) and Eventide (2004). Kent is one of the best American novelists, and writes about my adopted home-state, Colorado. Right now I’m rereading Stuart Dybek’s I Sailed With Magellan (2003), and am excited to look forward to two good books in the future.

Posted in books | Leave a comment

My Short Story, "The Lives of Gofers," in The Superstition Review

Posted on December 1, 2011 by williamjcobb

So I have a short story titled “The Lives of Gofers” out today in an online literary magazine, The Superstition Review, set in a hardscrabble Colorado. It’s available for all to read at this url:
http://superstitionreview.asu.edu/n8/
This fall I also have a short story titled “The Lousy Adult” (set in Taos, New Mexico) published in The Hopkins Review, but they don’t post all their material online for free. Here’s the url for the excerpt, and you can order the story/journal from this webpage:
http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/the_hopkins_review/v004/4.4.cobb.pdf

Posted in books, The West, writing | Leave a comment

"The Muppets Movie" Meets "The Human Centipede": Now That Ain't Right

Posted on November 29, 2011 by williamjcobb

So the title for this post should be “The Muppets Movie cleanses the horror of The Human Centipede,” but oh well. These two happened to be the films I saw this weekend: The Muppets Movie at a local cineplex, where the real fun of the (silly, sweet) movie experience was watching how totally engrossed my daughter was in it, and later seeing The Human Centipede on Netflix. One of my students recommended it, which should have been a warning. And I actually really knew nothing about it, except that it’s a “cult” film, which often means a good thing: Dead Man and The Big Lebowski are both considered cult films, and both are great. The Human Centipede? Seriously disgusting, odd, disturbing, awful, and so over-the-top it makes one shake one’s head and say, as Hank Hill often says in King of the Hill, “That ain’t right.” My students have since informed me there’s a sequel, and plans for another. If it’s any indication of my “rating,” I won’t watch the sequel. I don’t want to give it all away by describing it in detail, but suffice to say it’s a British-Dutch horror film, with one memorable mad-scientist dude named Dieter. It was banned in Britain. I can see why. By the end I wanted to rush back and rewatch Amy Adams in The Muppets Smalltown one more time, just to remind myself there’s some goodness left in the world.

Posted in Film | Leave a comment

On HBO's "Enlightened": Or The Resurrection of Laura Dern

Posted on November 22, 2011 by williamjcobb

So Monday night has become one of those rarities: the premier night of must-see TV. I mostly ignore network TV these days, because the many commercial breaks get so tedious that once you get used to programs without them, they seem too intrusive to put up with. That leaves most of the TV series, then, to the movie networks, as in HBO, Showtime, etc., and those can be hit-or-miss. I like Boardwalk Empire, which has still not quite reached the heights of The Sopranos, though it is the product of some of the same writers/producers. My new favorite show is Enlightened, now in its first season, which features nothing less than The Resurrection of Laura Dern’s Career—as in once again showing what a dynamic actress she is/can be. She seems most noticeable in the Jurassic Park films, which are fun in their own way, but she’s a much better actress than that. The last film I can remember where she was used to her potential was Alexander Payne’s Citizen Ruth (1996) in which she uttered the famous line, “I slept on some babies!” She was also great in Recount (2008), doing the famous Florida Republican stooge Katherine Harris to a tee.
In Enlightened she plays Amy Jellicoe, a frustrating/sad/agonizing/narcissistic/New Age train wreck of a character, who alternates between being profane, funny, heartbreaking, and self-destructive, all in the space of a half-hour show. It’s not quite a comedy, not quite a drama, not quite a dramedy: It’s painful at times to watch, because I know people like Amy, and they can be frustrating. It has an up-to-date feel that anchors it in the here-and-now. It’s not another Medieval wetdream targeted at withdrawn teenagers daydreaming of swords and talking unicorns. There’s a realness to the events/people that makes for great TV. The recent episode about a kayaking trip was maybe the best yet: both comical and heartbreaking.

Posted in Good TV | Leave a comment

"The Blood People": On Horror Creeping in Netflix, With Nods to "Night of the Demons," "Primal," and the Awful "The Awakening"

Posted on November 18, 2011 by williamjcobb

So the other morning my five-year-old daughter wakes up and the first thing she says to me is, “People are made of blood.” She’s right, actually. And I kind of like the poetry of the line, although the way her eyeballs glowed an iridescent yellow was a bit disconcerting. I encapsulated her sentence into “The Blood People,” good title for a bad horror movie. Which is what Netflix has become for me: A zone where I creep around (a la Facebook ‘creeping’) and search for the worst horror movies (or close to worst) I can find, in the hopes of finding one in the So-Bad-It’s-Good category. Primal, Night of the Demons, and The Awakening come to mind, while Pelt doesn’t make the cut, in the category of So Bad It’s Just Bad. Primal and Night of the Demons play on the tried-and-true plot setup of horny college students turning into monsters and/or getting their just desserts by being ripped apart by said monsters/demons, and The Awakening (which, I must confess in the interests of “transparency,” I could not finish) is so goofy it’s likable: too-old (thirtysomething?) deadbeat slackers get invited to a rave by a sexy girl (read: demon) and end up battling a flurry of demons, awakened by the discovery of (you guessed it) an ancient Aztec amulet (alliterative, too), or perhaps an ancient omelette, I forget which. (Omelette horror? Now that would be different. “Those aren’t eggs you’re beating! They’re eyeballs!”)

Posted in Film | Leave a comment

On Thomas Friedman's "Hot, Flat, and Crowded 2.0": A Disturbing Vision of the Future

Posted on November 15, 2011 by williamjcobb

So I must first confess that I am NOT a Thomas Friedman fan, which I think makes my enthusiasm more authentic for his nonfiction book Hot, Flat, and Crowded 2.0: Why We Need a Green Revolution—And How It Can Renew America. Why am I not a fan? As a columnist for the NY Times, and author of The World Is Flat (2005), among others, Friedman sometimes seems a bit of a Globalization huckster, arguing how the U.S. should be more like India and China (which I think is becoming true, that Globalization is having that effect, of all countries becoming more like each other, sharing the problems of disproportionate wealth, for one thing). But, begrudgingly, I agree with much of what he says, and at times I think I simply find him rather unctuous, perhaps too self-promoting—smug, even. So big deal.
Hot, Flat, and Crowded (the updated version, published in 2009, which has been retitled Hot, Flat, and Crowded 2.0: Why We Need a Green Revolution) is simply quite good—clear thinking, wise, and cautious. I don’t agree with everything he says, but his overall point is right on target. Our politicians should be reading it. He dissects the current financial turmoil, our oddly symbiotic/parasitic relationship with China, and the dangerous path we’re on to devastating climate change.
On that subject, check this out, a rather disquieting fact: Greenhouse gas emissions rose (we should be making them drop, obviously) by a record amount last year. (How do they calculate such a thing?) See here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/nov/04/greenhouse-gases-rise-record-levels
http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/11/09/364895/iea-global-warming-delaying-action-is-a-false-economy/

Posted in books, Climate Change, Politics | Leave a comment

On Werner Herzog's New Film, "Into the Abyss," and the One Currently Opening Wide Its Maw at Penn State

Posted on November 12, 2011 by williamjcobb

So I teach at Penn State, a position which will be uncomfortable to admit for some time. Suffice to say it’s been one bizarre, disheartening week. I’ll let others shout bromides about the charges and the conduct of officials, but I will suggest some understanding for the plight of our students: The night JoePa was fired, people were upset, and understandably so. Most of the students in the crowds outside were simply there to see what was happening. No one can quite believe it. Jack Cafferty called them “punks” who should be expelled from the university. What about some compassion? A man they’ve admired for years, for generations even, has been brought down, and they don’t know what to make of it. The overturning of a news van is wrong, of course. But it’s not so difficult to understand: They’re lashing out at the public spectacle that our campus has become. I’m ashamed of it, and I know most of us are. But the protests aren’t motivated by simply some kneejerk adoration of football, good God. They’re people, young people, who are seeing their heroes brought down. It hurts. We’re all blindsided.
So in this light, along comes a new film titled Into the Abyss by the great Werner Herzog, on crime and punishment in Texas, about a death penalty case, no less. Just last May I blogged about the Cave of Forgotten Dreams, a fantastic film that it seems no one else saw; no one I know, anyway. Here’s the Times review of Into the Abyss. I’m seeing it first chance I get.
http://movies.nytimes.com/2011/11/11/movies/into-the-abyss-by-werner-herzog-review.html?hpw

Posted in books/film, Education, Politics | Leave a comment

Christo's Next Art Project, "Over the River," Gets Approved, and Will Be in My Backyard

Posted on November 9, 2011 by williamjcobb

So there’s good news for art lovers of the world: Installation-art guru Christo has finally got approval for his project titled “Over the River,” which will be located about twenty short miles north of my Colorado home, on the Arkansas River in Big Horn Canyon! His last project was the Gates project in New York’s Central Park, and was a huge success. I think it will be way cool: A shimmering river of mylar panels hovering over the Arkansas River, which Zebulon Pike explored in 1806-7, right after Lewis & Clark’s exploration of the Louisiana Purchase in 1804-1806. Here’s a url to the Times article about its approval:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/08/us/United-States-Approves-Christos-Over-the-River-Project-in-Colorado.html?src=me&ref=general
Big Horn Canyon is beautiful, and Christo has said he searched the entire Western U.S. to find just the right conditions, and found it there, in my back alley. (I know the distance is more than an alley, but we often drive 60 miles to go to the supermarket out there, so exaggeration keeps it in context.)

Posted in Art, The West | Leave a comment