Has anyone out there read DH Lawrence’s “The Fox”? Can someone tell me why this interminable and violently boring piece of pseudo-psychology is supposed to be a great work of fiction?

I am currently writing a paper in which I must apply four different types of literary criticism to a work. I chose “The Fox” as it lends itself well to feminist and lesbian/gay criticism as well as to psychoanalytic theory. After forty pages of this overwrought hand wringing it’s difficult to give a good goddamn whether women should in fact be like seaweed (“utterly sensitive and receptive within the shadowy sea, and never, never rising and looking forth above water”), or whether capturing a wife is anything like hunting (which apparently does not involve shooting an animal, but rather involves “a supreme wish, a supreme act of volition”).

Act of volition my ass. Sounds to me like a nearly unending quantity of repetitive and meaningless drivel.

Thanks. I feel a little better now.

My relatives (all from Québec) are visiting this week and I always enjoy being with them because I get a kick out of thier culture. It seems they have a fine little song for everything, something I find missing in English, we only have Christmas songs. This being Easter, I was introduced to to the following facinating song (translated for the French-impared):

J’aime la jambon et la sausise!
I enjoy ham and sausage,

J’aime la jambon, c’est bon!
I enjoy ham, it’s good,

J’aime encore mieux, les cuisses d’la grosse Alice,

I enjoy big Alice’s thighs, more than ham and sausage,

J’aime la jambon, c’est bon.
I enjoy ham, it’s enjoyable.

They’re so jolly, I love them, I love French-Canadians.

Before I dive into this topic, I’d like to point out that I am a hypocrite. I choose not to do recreational drugs which may have relatively minor side effects because I think they’re bad for me. But I have no trouble taking drugs that are “good” for me and my illness which have horrible side effects.

With that out of the way, I’d like to share with you my patchy research.

In the states in the US which have legalized marijuana, there are very strict guidelines one must follow. In my spotty research, I’ve found Crohn’s Disease on all the lists of diseases where sufferers get some relief.

In Canada, I understand that there are three types of people who can try to recieve legal marijuana. Group 1 are people with a terminal illness with 6 months to live or something like that. Group 2 are folk with a chronic disease and who get relief from weed. Group 3 is for everybody else who thinks they should be allowed to enjoy marijuana for medical reasons.

So. I’m feeling fine now (after the surgery), but since Crohn’s always comes back and is presently without a cure or a surefire drug, I might find myself on the non-lit end of a medicinal joint, legally, sometime in my future. Maybe I’ll even get a prescription for it. Go figure. If Crohn’s were contagious, people would smooch me in the street.

For Jennifer, avid aov reader, and beautiful human being.

Whether you think the space race was the logical next step in exploration or a complete waste of resources, you have do give this guy some serious credit.

The 5k competition 2001 entries are up at the5k.org. Some of the entries are completely amazing (including a working chess game that will play against you and a beautiful dolphin).

My entry is put to shame by the general excellence of the other entries (at least the comments about my entry are not totally insulting like last year).

I’ve admonished the unquestioned march towards 3D on the web before and the debate has bubbled up elsewhere as well. Yes, there can be good uses of 3D on the web, just like there can be good uses of flash. And yes, there will be very few effective uses of 3D on the web, just like there are very few good uses of flash and other plugins (but still there are still some excellent ones).

Regardless, the inevitable 3D web software is coming. Explicitly outlining the usually thinly veiled conspiracy to drive people to buy faster processors, this quote from the News.com article on MacroMedia and Intel’s 3D software initiative sums it up well:

“The focus was to get someone to go out and upgrade to a Pentium 4,” Benoit said. “We wanted to create new and compelling content that wasn’t out there and that would cause people to make a decision to upgrade their processors.”

Let’s hope it goes the way of “push ” web technology.

He designed Blogger.com (which I recently praised) and he puts vanilla ice cream in his coffee (every day). Derek Powazek is working on a book about designing websites for community called (brilliantly) Design for Community: The art of connecting real people in virtual places.

There are percilations of potential community-type features right here on aov. Do you have anything interesting to say, all you readers of aov?

In the mean time, read the preface to Powazek’s book.

A tip of the hat to islandedition.com for the aov pleasantries.