By Nathan Bierma
Content & Context
The Books & Culture WeblogThis Week:
- Timeline: January 2003
- Places & Culture
- For Rent: 'The Good Girl'
- Calvin College's January Series
- Weekly Digest
TIMELINE: JANUARY 2003
Although January marked the end of the palindromic year 2002—whose latter two numerals are a mirrored reflection of the first two—it soon became clear we were not done seeing double. Clonaid, the company created by a cult that believes human life came from space aliens, heralded the birth of its second supposedly cloned baby just three days into 2003. By the end of the month, it announced the birth of a third baby, and testified in court to the arrival of the first, "Eve," in Israel—despite skepticism that the group was just a bunch of space cadets.
No sooner than one minute after midnight on New Year's Eve, we could see that January 2003 would be about seeing double. In Virginia, where the much-celebrated first baby of the new year was born to a lesbian couple, one of the mothers fielded a request from the media circus to get a picture of mother and child: "Sure, which mother would you like?" One minute before that, my wife and I, celebrating our first New Year's Eve outside the Eastern time zone, awkwardly clinked glasses and wished each other Happy New Year when the ball dropped in Times Square at 11 p.m. Chicago time, then repeated the gesture an hour later at midnight.
Replication started to take shape as the theme for the month. No sooner had the United States committed 150,000 troops to battle one dictator, in Iraq, than a second one, in North Korea, threatened civilization by pulling out of a global nuclear weapons treaty and appearing to retrieve nuclear ingredients from storage. Meanwhile, a German pilot attempted to reproduce the terror of September 11, veering his small plane around Frankfurt's skyscrapers before being coaxed down with no harm done. Popular culture also displayed a fascination with facsimilies, reincarnating once-upon-a-time sensations like MC Hammer and "Star Search", and pledging the duplication of the surprise hit movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding." Similarly proliferating in January were Harry Potter books (as J.K. Rowling finally turned in the manuscript for her fifth book), Neptune's moons (as three new ones were discovered) and Democratic presidential candidates (Gephardt, Edwards, Lieberman, and Sharpton threw their hats into the ring; Daschle kept his on). Only the Supreme Court sought to stem the tide of unfettered reproduction, upholding an extension of existing copyrights, thus preventing copycats from touching Mickey Mouse.
Clonaid critics were not the only ones worried about playing God in January. Two days before leaving office, Illinois governor George Ryan announced he was commuting the death sentences of all 167 people on his state's death row to life in prison. Given Illinois' notoriously error-prone justice system, Ryan told reporters afterward, having to choose who lived and who died would amount to "playing God."
But cloning, we gathered, may soon be necessary to perpetuate the species, because to hear the January issues of popular periodicals tell it, we're not doing it the old fashioned way as much anymore. Splashing the word "sex" across their magazines' covers is presumably a contractual requirement for the editors at Cosmo and Maxim, but publications no less austere than The Atlantic and Harper's, as well as New York, all got into the act with cover stories on the s-word—in particular, the lack of it in modern marriages. Now the nation stands to lose what little inspiration it had, after "Sex and the City" announced its upcoming season will be its last.
In January we learned that 100,000 people lost their jobs in December, thinning the ranks of working Americans to their lowest level in two years. K-Mart then added to the losses by laying off over 30,000 people. The number of unemployed increased by at least four more as Steve Case resigned as chairman of AOL-Time Warner, in the most symbolic evidence yet of the failure of the company's mega-merger, San Fransisco 49ers coach Steve Mariucci was rewarded for his team's division title by being fired, while Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond left their longtime Senate seats. But no doubt the most bitter sense of loss was felt by the woman who was told last month that her double mastectomy last year was unnecessary; her hospital discovered it had mixed up her test results and she never had breast cancer in the first place.
Maurice Gibb, whose songwriting and karaoke-defying falsetto harmonies helped the "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack become the bestselling album of its time, died in January. Mamie Till-Mobley died at age 81 in Chicago; she once insisted her murdered son's mutilated body be displayed in an open casket, and opened the world's eyes to the evils of racism. Al Hirschfeld disfigured his subjects' faces in his distinctive cartoons for the New York Times; he died at age 99. Snowboarding celebrity Craig Kelly was one of seven people killed in an avalanche in British Columbia. Gertrude Janeway, the last known widow of Union soldier, died at age 93 in her Tennessee log cabin.
As January drew to a close, a month of seeing double came full circle—the month that began with one New Year's Eve celebration ended with another, as China rang in the year 4700.
JANUARY 2003 IN HISTORY
Saturday, January 4, 2003
Ohio State wins first-ever overtime college football national championship game
Sunday, January 5, 2003
Double bombing kills 23 in Israel
Friday, January 10, 2003
North Korea pulls out of global nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
Saturday, January 11, 2003
Illinois Governor orders unprecedented blanket commuation of death sentences
Tuesday, January 14, 2003
Astronomers discover three new moons around Neptune
Thursday, January 16, 2003
First Israeli flies to space with the shuttle Columbia
Tuesday, January 21, 2003
Latinos surpass African-Americans as largest U.S. minority
Wednesday, January 22, 2003
Anti-abortion protests mark 30th anniversary of Roe v. Wade
Tom Ridge confirmed as first-ever secretary of homeland security
Saturday, January 25, 2003
Serena Williams becomes fifth woman to win four straight Grand Slam tennis tournaments
Timeline Links:
2002 in Review: George F. Will / Dave Barry
2002 in Review: The year in television: Steve Johnson
Newsweek: Cartoons of 2002
NY Times Magazine: 2002 in obituaries
Skip to January Series / Skip to Digest
PLACES & CULTURE
From the New York Times:
NEW DELHI, Jan. 23—The trains arrive with a whisper, speak with a computerized voice and at times are driven by women. Passengers board quickly and quietly at stations that are clean and airy, with graceful 30-foot arched ceilings and computerized entryways.In a city of 14 million people that otherwise tends toward controlled anarchy, it is a pride-inspiring marvel. New Delhi's new $2 billion subway system, barely more than a month old, is altering Indians' view of themselves and their capital. … Already New Delhi's system is being hailed as a political, managerial and engineering triumph.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/29/international/asia/29DELH.html*
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 28—Tourists with a yen for gorgeous architecture flock to see the Painted Ladies, as San Francisco's gracious, turreted Victorians are called. Few if any ooh and ahh over the relentlessly uniform stucco tract houses of Henry Doelger. Lore has it that the little houses built by Mr. Doelger, a San Francisco native and once the country's most prolific home builder, inspired Malvina Reynolds's 1962 antisuburban anthem, "Little Boxes," which starts "Little boxes on the hillside, little boxes made of ticky tacky." But it appears that views of ticky-tackiness evolve, and this spring, the city's Landmarks Preservation Advisory Board may declare the first Doelger house—as opposed to the 24,000 remarkably similar ones he eventually built—a historic landmark.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/29/national/29BOXE.html*
FOR RENT
In "For Rent," I hope to semi-regularly spotlight movies that probably weren't worth forking over full price for in the theaters but may be worth a trip to Blockbuster. I start with a "good," if not great one—The Good Girl. The first thing that strikes you about this movie, of course, is Jennifer Aniston's metamorphosis from the flaky, flirty waitress in "Friends" to sulking small-town wife in this movie—and Aniston indeed sheds most of the giddiness and mannerisms of "Friends"'s Rachel to portray the plodding Justine. Wasting her 30-year-old life away as a cashier at the Retail Rodeo, Justine is captivated by a brooding 19-year-old whose nihilism matches her own and becomes the foundation for their affair. Not to give anything away, but as the plot takes a couple of twists, Justine is strained by the tension between her own inner compass and the freedom and purpose she derives from her illicit teen lover.
A stark irony regarding the current so-called "culture wars" emerges when you watch both The Good Girl and the strikingly similar Unfaithful (with Richard Gere and Dianne Lane, set in New York City—Good Girl is basically Unfaithful in the holler). Here are two cases where Hollywood, usually accused of glamorizing immoral behavior, has taken strong steps to portray the horror of adultery and affirm the sanctity of marriage—and does so more vividly than any straightforward Sunday school lesson. Not only does Hollywood do this without an eye to the box office—each movie was relatively modest in expectations, budget, and marketing—but it has taken this interest in the tortured souls of the lusting seemingly by its own volition, not at the end of the pointing fingers of moralistic scolds. In each movie, we are inclined to sympathize with the moping wife, physically and emotionally neglected by a distant (in Unfaithful's case) or immature (in Good Girl's) husband, and even to understand her newfound excitement and freedom her affair provides. And yet each movie deftly directs us to feel a slight inflammation in our souls as we see adultery's numerous unintended consequences made manifest. The makers of these movies have touched on a moral question that transcends our crude understanding of who are the "good people" and "bad people" in the world, illustrating the reach of sin into every heart. Moral complexity, it turns out, makes for more genuine drama.
CALVIN COLLEGE'S JANUARY SERIES
The January Series of Calvin College is one of the finest lecture series in the country, a broad-minded mix of experts on current events, science, media, and theology. You can listen to all of this year's speakers, including S. Frederick Starr on "What's Really Going On In Afghanistan" and N.T. Wright on "St. Paul in the 21st Century," at www.calvin.edu/january/2003. Two student correspondents check in from Calvin with their reports on two of this year's speakers.
Barbara Brown Taylor: "The Preaching Life," January 10
Reviewed by Elizabeth Rudolph, Calvin College junior, marketing major, English writing minor
"Speaking about God is a risky business," said Dr. Barbara Brown Taylor, "especially in a world as religiously on edge as the world we live in." The dynamic preacher-turned-professor noted that when human beings engage in topics of a divine nature, we enter a holy ground upon which we want not only to be challenged, but also changed by what we hear, and that this requires substantial trust in both our God and our clergy. Yet, as Taylor remarked, there is something the matter with preaching, and "whatever has been the matter with preaching has been the matter for a long time." In a stirring discourse at the January Series, Taylor, named by Newsweek as one of the 12 most effective preachers in the English language, addressed the increasing boredom, fatigue, and pride of preachers as key examples of what is wrong with preaching today. In contrast, Taylor offered reverence, courage, and detachment from self as three virtues essential to good preaching; "The preaching of the gospels," she noted, "has never depended upon the eloquence of great preachers, but always upon the determination of ordinary men and women to live lives that matter in the face of considerable, but not impossible odds." While Taylor failed to offer a more concrete methodology for reforming the state of preaching, her message was nonetheless inspiring and rejuvenating, replete with good advice for preachers and congregants alike.
• Listen to Taylor lecture
Stanley Hauerwas: "Dietrich Bonhoeffer on Lying; Reflections on America," January 15
Reviewed by Matthew D. Ooms, Calvin College junior, engineering student
Christians have become so accustomed to placating people that we have lost the vocabulary of truth and the courage to use it, said Stanley Hauerwas in a lecture on lies in America. Drawing on the writings of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Hauerwas, Professor of Theological Ethics at the Duke University Divinity School, said the church has lost its conviction to testify to truth. Intimidated by society's newfound ideal of tolerance, the church now features therapeutic sermons free of offensively honest material. Hauerwas contended that Christians need to rediscover how to speak the truth, recognize lies, and develop the courage to speak out boldly against such lies, regardless of the potential to offend. Still, Hauerwas neglected the complexity of the different ways Christians discern and interpret biblical truth. In a comment in a student session prior to the lecture, Hauerwas said, "Reality is different from concept." Which is exactly why churches and denominations can have trouble reaching consensus on the truth to which they need to testify. Fighting and sacrificing for truth is a noble and necessary cause for Christians, but the reality is somewhat more complicated than Hauerwas portrayed.
• Listen to Hauerwas lecture
DIGEST
For links with an *, you can enter "bcread" for both member name and password
- The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth has been turning heads for its uncommon conveyance of art and architecture, says the New York Times:
The building causing this commotion stands 40 feet tall and dominates a windswept 11-acre site on the edge of town. Tadao Ando, the celebrated Japanese architect who designed it, has grabbed attention for Fort Worth the way Frank Gehry did for Bilbao, Spain, after his Guggenheim Museum opened six years ago. The two buildings could not be more different. Gehry's is wild, shiny and curved. Ando's is stately, serene and meditative. … From a distance it looks like the headquarters of an industrial corporation in a design-conscious country like Germany or Japan. As soon as visitors step into the cavernous lobby, however, the Ando experience begins.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/29/arts/design/29ANDO.html* - The most familiar Democratic face in the 2004 presidential primaries may also be the most spiritually distinct, assuming Joe Lieberman continues to stress his faith as an asset to his politics, says The New Republic:
In his own words, Joe Lieberman is running for president as a "different kind of Democrat." And one of the most obvious differences between Lieberman and the rest of the Democratic field is his open and deliberate display of religious faith. An Orthodox Jew, Lieberman has strongly hinted he intends to play up his faith on the campaign trail, something Democrats have historically shied away from. In Lieberman's case, however, it just might work.
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml … * - Is Antarctica thawing or freezing? Its vastness and climate seem to defy analysis, says Time:
That Antarctica is so little understood is not surprising, for it is a remote, otherworldly place that in many ways resembles early Mars more than contemporary Earth. And no place is more Martian in character than the McMurdo Dry Valleys, a wedge of rugged, rocky terrain stippled with ice-covered lakes and overhung by glaciers. No diminutive alpine plants cling to the slopes of these valleys. No rodents scurry amid the boulders and scree. No flies or mosquitoes whir through the air; no fish, mollusks or crustaceans dwell in the lakes and streams. "A valley of the dead," declared explorer Robert Falcon Scott after discovering Taylor Valley in 1903, and at first glance it would seem he was right.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/ … - The Web worm that crawled across Asia and Europerecently exposed a delicate Internet with its digital pants down, says Business Week:
While the chaos caused by the Slammer worm on Saturday, Jan. 25 has subsided, the tiny program that gummed up the Internet leaves some painful insights into the immense damage a voracious invader can inflict—not only on its direct targets but to secondary ones as well. Above all, Slammer, which infected the ubiquitous Microsoft database software used to manage corporate information, was a further demonstration of just how vulnerable the Internet remains.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/ … - Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither was its virtual reconstruction at UCLA, says Newsweek:
A funny thing happened to the Forum: it went digital. Thanks to a team of UCLA scholars, the world now has a 3-D inter-active reconstruction of the heart of imperial Rome. Using PCs and off-the-shelf modeling software, UCLA's Cultural Virtual Reality Lab re-created 22 temples, courts and monuments—perhaps the most complex historical VR re-creation ever attempted. Loaded onto a SGI supercomputer and projected on a special spherical screen that fills your field of vision, the model creates a simulated journey through the ancient city-scape. The computer operator can take you anywhere you want to go. "This is a kind of time machine," says Bernard Frischer, a classics professor who heads the VR lab.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/864421.asp - Debt-ridden Berlin needs to cut its budget—no small matter in a city whose opera houses and other cultural riches are on the city dole. And what about that dastardly Palace of the Republic, the relic of East Germany which was budgeted for demolition last year? From the Times:
Thilo Sarrazin … is the top financial official in Berlin, a city of soaring ambitions that have fallen to earth in recent years. The restored German capital, he never tires of noting, is buried under debt—in fact, it should have gone bankrupt years ago. It is Mr. Sarrazin's job to tell Berliners that they can no longer afford their state-subsidized luxuries: three opera houses, two zoos and 150,000 city workers where 100,000 would do.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/24/international/europe/24BERL.html* - An icon in a sport whose desecration of history is almost routine, Fenway Park will undergo renovation that includes putting seats on top of the immortal Green Monster, says the Times:
At every Boston Red Sox home game this season, 280 fans will have a chance to watch their team from a perch 37 feet above Landsdowne Street, just behind one of sports' most fabled landmarks. For the first time, there will be seats—three rows of pale green metal bar stools, actually—atop the Green Monster in Fenway Park.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/29/sports/baseball/29MONS.html*
Nathan Bierma is editorial assistant of Books & Culture.
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