Author: Andrew Sullivan

There, I’ve plugged my new novel on Slate.Com, just as Andrew asked me to as part of the successful charm offensive that convinced me to do something — help fill in for him — that I swore I’d never do again when I dropped exhausted into bed after trying it the first time late last summer. But I have "product" now, as they say in Hollywood, and because my product is on the Web, just a click away from Andrew’s product, here I am. With my long, un-Webbish sentences, my inability to put up links and my lack of interest (based on inability) in delivering little excerpts from outside articles. These flaws and incompetencies were pointed out to me — massively, repeatedly, acidically– during my last stop here. Get connected, lazybones.

The Unbinding is my attempt to do that. It’s a novel that’s not just being published on the Web, it’s being written there. The whole idea seemed gimmicky at first (oh no, not hypertext; not pictures; not tricky sounds) but now I’m realizing that it’s not at all. It represents a return to fundamentals. Much as blogging is returning journalism to its arresting, imperfect, assertive origins, spinning a tale before one knows the ending, and doing so without the opportunity to double back and fiddle with the beginning, is storytelling in its wild, natural state. (Although The Unbinding has an expert editor, Meghan O’ Rourke, who trained at the New Yorker.) Next time you make up a children’s bedtime story, you’ll see exactly what I mean. The only direction is onward. Trust in inspiration, not second thoughts. In foresight, not hindsight. In spells, not science. And glance around the bedroom for ideas. That painting of a sailing ship? It’s time to send one of your characters to sea, perhaps. That other painting of an idyllic farm? That’s what your character dreams of once he’s shipwrecked on the barren Pacific island.

But long stories in prose have become confused with books, which is like confusing music with CDs or art with galleries. Books are merely shipping containers for stories. Unfortunately, the stories designed to fit in books are becoming, it seems to me, more and more like iceberg lettuce — genetically manipulated to travel well and not to rot, turn colors or change in taste (which motivates growers to first remove their taste) during the roughly year-long interval between being finished and landing in the store. To switch images, such stories are studio albums, not concert recordings. Poses, not performances.

I sound like a Beat poet. "That’s typing, not writing," Capote said of Kerouac’s On the Road, which fiction’s great jazz man, lacking a computer, poured out onto a scroll of teletype paper (after having meditated on it for ages). Well, whatever it was, at least his masterpiece wasn’t Breakfast at Tiffanys — a vaccum-packed little preservative-sprayed nodule of absolute elegance and pert inertia. Capote’s book became a movie, which kept it in print and spread its name. Kerouac’s book has never spawned a movie, and it goes on selling (wildly, unstoppably, to people who want to read it, not just own it) despite the fact. Because On the Road was a movie in the first place. A movie which swept up the present as it traveled and yet, paradoxically, still lives. All that’s left of Capote is Phillip Seymour-Hoffman.

And though On the Road’s maker was a famed outsider, he knew how to plug himself by appearing on programs such The Steve Allen Show (possibly while drunk or high) and inviting viewers to join the trip, man. Kerouac was a loner in lots of way, but one who believed in picking up hitch-hikers.

—Walter

For Iraq, I blame the managers, of course, but I also blame their reading lists. More than once, while predicting victory, Donald Rumsfeld has used the magic words “Tipping Point.” This new pop formula for achieving vast results from relatively limited efforts has turned out to be one disastrous abracadabra. Saddam goes, they all go. We don’t need a huge army. Iraq is ready for democracy — just give it a strategic nudge. The entire Middle East will follow.

Behind every failed war is a failed metaphor (remember The Domino Effect, the Vietnam-era version of The Tipping Point?) that mesmerized its masters into waging it, kept them waging it once they started losing it, and immobilized them with disbelief when it turned back into intellectual smoke. From business-section bestseller to Pentagon battle-plan. Only in America. And it was a phony, decrepit notion to start with, despite being updated for today’s executives and cleverly remarketed to every no one who ever dreamed of being a someone by working at home, in his or her spare time. The idea that one straw can break the camel’s back, that one well-placed lever can move the world, that one added particle can bring on “critical mass” is the delusion that wears a thousand faces. It’s the manic creed of the assassin: fire a single bullet, alter history. The principle rarely works when applied on purpose, but because it quite often works by accident (or seems to have worked, when viewed in retrospect; Henry Ford built his Model T and, presto, freeways!) it never loses its appeal.

What’s next? The Freakonomics war? The Six-Sigma attack against Iran? The Blink campaign against global terrorism? Capturing Osama the Warren Buffett Way?

–Walter

Call me cynical, but this headline from yesterday’s Washington Post strikes me as the week’s winner for non-shocking news: "Comparison of Schizophrenia Drugs Often Favors Firm Funding Study." Turns out that, with a bit of tinkering here and there, a comparative drug trial can be (and often is) structured to stack the deck in favor of the company footing the bill. Wow. Who ever would have guessed such studies weren’t entirely impartial? —Michelle

These are trying times for the Bush White House, what with their poll numbers drooping lower than Karl Rove‚Äôs third chin. As such, I‚Äôm always on the lookout for signs that this dangerously insular administration realizes exactly how desperately it needs to get its act together. Latest bit of evidence: Just starting this week, each time I open my email I find two or three new dispatches from the White House Communications Office, alerting me to some inspirational speech Bush is giving, some new initiative his folks are hard at work on, some sinister bit of misinformation the Dems are spreading, or some positive coverage the administration has just received from the typically-dismissed-as-hatefully-biased mainstream media. If the White House has decided to start wooing avowed critics like me, they really must be getting nervous. Good.  —Michelle

Forgot to sign my earlier Rummy post. Hazard of co-blogging–and not enough caffeine. Don’t blame Walter for it. All me. —Michelle

I‚Äôm generally uneasy when any entity winds up with as much concentrated power as Wal-Mart. So my head tells me to root for regulators to reject the global retailing behemoth‚Äôs pleas this week for permission to start dabbling in the banking business. Then again, we‚Äôre not talking about Wal-Mart going up against the corner hardware store. We‚Äôre talking about the banking industry‚Äîan industry that arrogantly clings to a shameless screw-the-consumer business model filled with unnecessary user fees and handy accounting tricks that somehow never seem to work in the customer’s favor. So I must admit there‚Äôs a certain gut appeal to the thought of the cost obsessive Wal-Mart jumping into the banking game and forcing a little industry-wide soul-searching. Currently, Wal-Mart is asking only to set up a bank that would process credit card transactions, but critics insist–and, are probably correct–that such a move would inevitably lead to the retailer‚Äôs entry into consumer banking. And say what you will about Sam Walton‚Äôs evil empire, it unquestionably knows how to cut the fat (in this case, think absurdly high ATM fees) out of whatever business it touches. The New York Times‚Äô David Leonhardt did a compelling column on this issue a few weeks ago. Still, I realize that a banking industry controlled from Bentonville would have its downsides, so financial experts feel free to send along your thoughts on this. No gratuitous anti-Wal-Mart profanity, please. —Michelle

Let‚Äôs talk about Rummy. Yet another former military bigwig has slammed the Defense Secretary‚Äôs leadership skills and even called for his enforced retirement. In this case, retired Army Maj. Gen. John Batiste said in an interview yesterday on CNN, ‚ÄúWe need leadership up there that respects the military as they expect the military to respect them. And that leadership needs to understand teamwork.‚Äù Not that we should expect any of this to make a dent in Rumsfeld‚Äôs belief in his own infallibility. Batiste, much like poor little Condi, probably just suffers from ‚Äúa lack of understanding‚Ķof what war is about‚Äù‚Äînot to mention of the management genius required to bungle things so thoroughly.  

Daily Dish devotees apparently already know Walter, but since this is my first time subbing for Andrew, I’ll quickly add a bit of personal info to his kind introduction so you all will have a sense of the background and blinding prejudices informing my posts.

Unlike the dishy Mr. Sullivan, I am not British, conservative, Catholic, or gay; I don‚Äôt own a dog; I never supported the Iraq war; and I‚Äôm not all that crazy about men with loads of body hair.I am, in fact, a transplanted red-stater who nonetheless tends toward blue-state politics– especially when it comes to all the self-serving moral-values blather we‚Äôve had to endure from Tom ‚ÄúAnointed-by-God‚Äù Delay and Co. these past few years. (Sorry, but just because Big Tom gets the willies thinking about ‚ÄúBrokeback Mountain‚Äù and fought to keep poor Terri Schiavo tubed for another decade doesn‚Äôt make him a good person.) But lest anyone accuse me of being unfamiliar with the will of the Lord, please note that I was raised a devout Southern Baptist (is there any other kind?), although I long ago abandoned the belief in biblical inerrancy–along with pretty much every other aspect of the religion. Still, a childhood full of fire and brimstone leaves its mark, putting me in the theologically unsettling position of not being sure that I believe in God but being utterly convinced in the existence of Hell.

I’m an out and proud breeder with two wee tots committed to ensuring that I never get more than four hours of sleep a night or accomplish more than four hours of work a day. I have two ancient cats that, for a variety of reasons, have been exiled to our basement, where they spend their days trying to drive my journalist husband insane with their meowing, shedding, and strategic defecating. I never bought the Bushies‚Äô rationale for the Iraq war, and I always kinda figured they‚Äôd botch the execution. As for the body hair thing, although I do have my preferences, at heart I believe it‚Äôs a personal matter between each man and his god. —Michelle

Post-book edit break and Easter are taking me and the other half to England. While I’m gone, I’m happy to say two guest bloggers will take my place. Returning to this space is Walter Kirn, novelist, critic, occasional essayist for the corporate overlords. His latest novel is "Mission to America" and the movie of his novel, "Thumbsucker" is now available on DVD. An extra reason for inviting Walter is that, after we threw him in the deep end of the blogosphere last year, he has become more enmeshed in the medium. He’s writing an online, real-time novel, "The Unbinding," on Slate. Think Dickens with a modem. I.e. he hasn’t written the end yet. Guest blogger Number Two is Michelle Cottle, a fellow senior editor at The New Republic for the last seven years, and contributor to Time. She has also written for the Atlantic, NYT, Slate, and Beliefnet.com. They both have access to the email in-tray so keep emailing. But, as a hard-hatted worker in the Simpsons’ gay steel mill once put it, "Be nice." They’re our guests. If you hate them, take it out on me when I get back. On the other hand, if you love them, and you will, don’t hesitate to let them know.

Geitner Simmons has several other such maps, portraying the religious landscape of America. I love maps and found these fascinating.