Saturday, October 5, 2002

You Know Everyone's Laughing at You, Don't You? Tomorrow's New York Times reviews Keith Bradsher's High and Mighty, a book about the unfortunate rise of the sport utility vehicle in America. Bradsher has much to say: It isn't so much that the average S.U.V. is underengineered, inept, unsafe, polluting, fuel-guzzling and sociopathically aggressive, he laments, as that it's so knowingly, cynically, avoidably so. Call it planned mediocrity. The average S.U.V. certainly cocks a snook at our entrenched belief in the ever-upward Darwinian ascent of automotive progress. It reverses progress, Bradsher says. The "utility vehicle" part of its designation bespeaks the rough-and-tumble life, justifying such rough-and-tumble mechanicals as an antediluvian body-on-frame chassis design, lifted intact -- along with myriad other key components -- from that humble industrial tumbrel, the pickup truck. This saves hundreds of millions in new tooling but results in a top-heavy boxcar unstable in anything but a straight line, overpowered and underbraked, its high seating position imbuing drivers with a false sense of omnipotence that contributes to a disproportionately high accident and death toll. All it supports is a mass fantasy: that the S.U.V. liberates its driver to go thundering through fen and bog in a 4-by-4 Thoreauvian cabin on wheels, when in fact only a ridiculously tiny number will ever leave the familiar blacktop of suburbia, and the most popular versions incongruously swathe their occupants in posh that mocks every notion of the active outdoor life. In brief, it's too high a price for this country to pay -- in environmental damage, in precious oil squandered, in flouting state-of-the-art vehicle safety standards -- for a legion of affluent Walter Mittys to release their inner Paul Bunyans. As for a consumer revolt, don't hold your breath. Self-indulgence verging on antisocial behavior is called freedom of choice, the very thing that separates America from the Axis of Evil. I think that we knew all of this, though it is nice to have it clearly laid out in one place. But then again, if we did know all of this, why are so many people buying S.U.V.s? Knowing that owning and driving an S.U.V. in all but a very few cases is foolish at best and dangerously selfish at worst, it's difficult to watch so many people drive them so poorly and so obnoxiously in traffic without sharing Eric's view that recent human development, like that of the S.U.V., contradicts Darwin's theory of evolution. 5:28:08 PM     What do you think? ()

Is Adam Sandler Capable of Artistic Expression? Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love is opening at the New York Film Festival this weekend and nationwide next weekend. It sounds very good, and I can't wait to see it. I loved Anderson's last movie, Magnolia, precisely because it was everything that the more celebrated American Beauty was not--that is, smart, complex, and rich. I look forward to Anderson's take on the recently much abused genre of romantic comedy, and I look forward to seeing Adam Sandler stretch a bit. I may go to an actual movie theater for this one. 4:52:57 PM     What do you think? ()

Not Hearing Enough From HBO IT? I have wilted under the geeky peer pressure, and started a blog. I may not have a Bluetooth phone like Eric, but at least I have a blog. And with that, Kyle's in the house. 8:59:53 AM     What do you think? ()

© Copyright 2003 Morgan N. Sandquist. Last update: 11/2/03; 10:28:53 AM.

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