The Bonhomie Page

Good Night, and Good Luck.

2008-08-07T09:11:00.014-04:00

Kindhearted readers, I bear sad news. Earlier this week the highest of the higher-ups at my place of employment released a memorandum officially decreeing it against company policy for employees to maintain blogs such as this one (to be clear: blogs of the semi-anonymous, semi-personal, link-heavy, sometimes opinionated, current-events-driven, politically mouthy, and generally frivolous variety). In the days and hours since its distribution to all employees, the new policy has been republished on several industry sites and has been the subject of much internal and external discussion. Prior to this, blogging guidelines at my office had been vague at best; it seemed safe to assume that my particular brand of bonhomie was a low-risk recreational endeavor. Several months ago, however, the controversial(-ish) personal blog posts of one worker bee on my floor brought the issue to the fore. The perp was promptly fired, and ta-da: A new no-blog bottom line emerged. What I'm getting at is that in the interest of bread and butter, I've decided it's best to not attempt to have my cake and eat it too, or something like that, so to speak. Until circumstances change, I'm putting this menagerie of friendly curios to sleep. But in the meantime, fear not -- I'll be channeling the energies that once made their way onto this page into raucous emails to the likes of you, old-school pen-and paper diary entries, and a couple of creative projects I've been meaning to get around to for some time. (And, I suppose, my "day job.") At any rate, be well, do good work and keep in touch.

Piano Tops, Flying Slippers, and Dymaxionmania

2008-08-04T01:13:00.008-04:00

A few months ago, Elizabeth Kolbert had a thoroughly enjoyable article about Buckminster Fuller in The New Yorker. Here's a paragraph from that piece that highlights just why this fellow was a through-and-through eccentric genius:

In addition to flying cars, he imagined mass-produced bathrooms that could be installed like refrigerators; underwater settlements that would be restocked by submarine; and floating communities that, along with all their inhabitants, would hover among the clouds. Most famously, he dreamed up the geodesic dome. “If you are in a shipwreck and all the boats are gone, a piano top . . . that comes along makes a fortuitous life preserver,” Fuller once wrote. “But this is not to say that the best way to design a life preserver is in the form of a piano top. I think that we are clinging to a great many piano tops in accepting yesterday’s fortuitous contrivings.” Fuller may have spent his life inventing things, but he claimed that he was not particularly interested in inventions. He called himself a “comprehensive, anticipatory design scientist”—a “comprehensivist,” for short—and believed that his task was to innovate in such a way as to benefit the greatest number of people using the least amount of resources. “My objective was humanity’s comprehensive success in the universe” is how he once put it. “I could have ended up with a pair of flying slippers.”

Though I wasn't able to mobilize myself to make it out to any of the Buckminster Fuller Institute lectures/celebrations in June, I finally did head to the Whitney this weekend to take a look at the very cool Fuller exhibit on display there. (If you can't make it to the museum, this slideshow hits some of the highlighted photographs and sketches that were on display).

Go Obama!

2008-07-30T18:31:00.007-04:00

Here's a bit of Hendrik Hertzberg's commentary on Barack Obama's "world tour" in this week's New Yorker:

Obama gained nothing in the polls during his nearly flawless, arguably triumphant grand tour. Still, after seven years during which, even among our closest allies, contempt for Bush bled into resentment of the country that returned him to office, one would have to be an awful grouch not to be gratified by the sight of a sea of delighted Europeans waving American flags instead of burning them and cheering an American politician instead of demonstrating against one.

Back home, one such grouch had ample reason to be grouchy. McCain’s luck last week was as bad as Obama’s was good. McCain rode in a golf cart with Bush senior; Obama rode in a helicopter with General David Petraeus. Obama was hailed by the German multitudes; McCain, his planned photo op at an offshore rig preëmpted by an oil spill and rained out by Hurricane Dolly, held a press gaggle in front of Schmidt’s Fudge Haus, in Columbus, Ohio. Obama got a big kiss (“Obama? C’est mon copain!”) from the new President of France, a dashing conservative with an exotic background and an unusual name; McCain stood athwart the cheese aisle of a supermarket, complaining.

The Apartment

2008-07-28T23:41:00.011-04:00

Speaking of public spectacles, I made it out to see The Apartment at Bryant Park as part of HBO's Monday night movie screenings. It was excellent. If you haven't seen it before (and why wouldn't you have? it only came out 48 years ago), here's an excerpt from the original New York Times review to whet your appetite:

YOU might not think a movie about a fellow who lends his rooms to the married executives of his office as a place for their secret love affairs would make a particularly funny or morally presentable show, especially when the young fellow uses the means to get advanced in his job.

But under the clever supervision of Billy Wilder, who helped to write the script, then produced and directed "The Apartment," which opened at the Astor and the Plaza yesterday, the idea is run into a gleeful, tender and even sentimental film. And it is kept on the side of taste and humor by the grand performance of Jack Lemmon in the principal role.

That's right. Taste and humor and one more elusive quality, ladies and gentlemen -- timelessness. What's great about The Apartment is that nearly 5 decades later, it retains just enough of the right cultural signposts to still resonate with an urban audience. The (mostly young, tipsy) Bryant Park crowd responded loudly when Jack Lemmon's Buddy Boy confessed what he paid for rent for his place in the Upper West Side. And Shirley MacLaine's sharpest lines (addressed to a lover) got a similar reaction. Apparently some things about 1960s New York are pretty much the same today -- like the desirability of prime real estate, the rituals of corporate culture, the hazards of dating, and the versatile wisdom of McLaine's final sweet words to Lemmon: "Shut up and deal."

Crowd Control

2008-07-25T20:06:00.007-04:00

As a tourist to the city years ago, I remember peering out on New York from the World Trade Center. "There are six million people down there," my brother told me, so I took a good look at the little buildings and vehicles and trains below and tried to take in the millions of huddled masses spread across the five boroughs. Since moving to New York, that unnamed multitude (now 8 million strong) has remained a source of fascination for me. And after three years out and about in about in the city -- and plenty of hours on ACRIS and Social Explorer -- there's still lots to wonder about, especially on sunny days when public spectacles bring out city-dwellers (and visitors) in droves. I'm talking about the free performances and movie nights and of course the annual Times Square New Year's Eve celebrations which fill public spaces with innumerable bodies. There's something great about the fact that city officials have trouble keeping count of city revelers in public spaces, the fact that no one knows exactly how many people and which people come out to partake in the collective celebrations. I hope to never see that never change in this city.

On Reliable Sources

2008-07-23T23:07:00.027-04:00

To round out the recent series of Wahoo-wa posts, I present to you this profile of Washington Post "Reliable Sources" columnist Amy Argetsinger which was recently published in UVa's Arts & Sciences magazine. Backstory: A few years ago when I was finishing college and trying to figure out what to do next, I scavenged the alumni career database and found Amy's contact info (at the time, she was working for The Washington Post out of the west coast). Over a series of emails and phone calls, Amy proceeded to give me some very candid and useful career advice like, "The frustrating thing about embarking on a journalism career out of college is that the hiring process is much more slapdash than what you see your classmates heading for the corporate or consulting jobs are going through." And, "The ugly truth is that I spent nearly a year living with my parents and waiting tables and substitute teaching before I got that first job." At any rate, Christina Tkacik's interview (which first appeared in The Dec) brought me up to speed with Amy's thoughts on her new position as DC's gossip columnist extraordinaire. (Incidentally, Christina also gives pretty savvy advice herself --"The Mister Darcy Delusion" totally has the makings of a bestseller/feature-length film/TV series, no?)

Miss Hoo?

2008-07-23T23:07:00.020-04:00

Speaking of college compatriots, the other day my brother forwarded along news that Miss New York is a UVa '07 grad (theater major) and former Miss Hampton-Newport News who seems to have grown up in my neck of the woods (looks like we probably squared off on the field hockey or soccer field at one point). Also, she lives in Manhattan, but actually won her state pageant crown (tiara?) by way of a victory in the Miss Brooklyn competition a few months ago. At any rate, she's clearly a winner. Congrats Leigh-Taylor Smith!

Go Obama!

2008-07-22T00:18:00.008-04:00

This afternoon Leah alerted me to this week's Talk of the Town. It showcases the GMail account of one of our college compatriots who opted to claim the address "barackobama@gmail.com" when he realized that all common permutations of his own name were unavailable. "From the beginning, I had no intention of manipulating anyone," Guru Raj tells The New Yorker. But then ...

New Museum Block Party

2008-07-18T17:37:00.007-04:00

This weekend The New Museum, the Bowery Poetry Club, the LES Tenement Museum, Chinatown's YMCA, Bowery Whole Foods and others are throwing a free block party. It's Saturday from noon til 7p. I hope they serve watermelon!

Real Lemons, Real Sugar, and Ice

2008-07-17T16:10:00.007-04:00

This week's New York Magazine features a series of interviews with lemonade stand proprieters on how to cope with the squeeze of rising lemon prices. A random slice of the cuteness (from 10-year-olds Elinor Weissberg and Oliver Goldberg-Lewis) below:

How do you make the lemonade?
ELINOR: Real lemons, real sugar, and ice.
Do you sell anything else?
ELINOR: We sometimes tell people’s fortunes.
What kinds of fortunes?
ELINOR: We usually pick bad ones. Like this woman walked up and we said, “You’re going to grow a beard.”
Where do you put the money?
OLIVER: In a jar, but you have to hide it under the table. Otherwise, they will say, “Oh, you already have too much money! We’re not going to buy lemonade!”

Philharmonic in the Park

2008-07-16T12:40:00.011-04:00

Last night at Manhattan's biggest and baddest tailgate, the New York Philharmonic in the Park, conversation turned to Didi and Oscar Schafer, the generous sponsors of the summer series whose names graced the cover of the concert program. How much does it take to sponsor such an event? According to the program, the Schafers contributed over $500,000 -- their exact gift, I confirmed today, was actually ten times more than that. Curious about these philanthropists, I dredged up their 1964 New York Times engagement announcement (click to enlarge) this morning. For the extra nosey: The wedding announcements of the parents and children of these long-time New Yorkers can be found in Times archives too. Enjoy.

What the Midnight Can Show Us

2008-07-15T16:00:00.007-04:00

By happy coincidence, I ran into Julia on the way home from work -- she said she'd just been scoping out Museum 52 on Rivington between Orchard and Ludlow, where several of her paintings will be on display as part of the gallery's What the Midnight Can Show Us exhibit (running July 16 through August 13). Now I'm having flashbacks to the art classes we took together as kids. Wild. In any case, I'm very much looking forward to the exhibit's opening!

The 14th of July

2008-07-14T16:35:00.010-04:00

From McSweeney's Bastille Day Party how-to by Jim Stallard:

The final event is obvious: Let them eat cake! If you're ambitious, you can serve it dressed as Marie you-know-who. Just make sure each "peasant" gets a fair portion or you may find a barricade in your driveway!

Yeah, that's a guillotine cake. Happy Monday!

Should We Talk About the Weather?

2008-07-11T17:56:00.008-04:00

It's sunny out! Have a great weekend.

Amigo! Amigo!

2008-07-10T16:59:00.009-04:00

This man puts the lame in lame duck like no other. From today's Times:

“Amigo! Amigo!” Mr. Bush called out cheerily in Spanish when he spotted the Italian prime minister. “How you doing, Silvio? Good to see you!”

More from Matthew Yglesias and ThinkProgress via my brother.

Go Obama!

2008-07-09T10:27:00.001-04:00

I don't know where my brother finds this stuff (click here for more Abraham Obama).

Eat More Beet

2008-07-08T07:52:00.011-04:00

Last week beets made the Well's list of The 11 Best Foods You Aren't Eating. Since I've recently been all about culinary experiments -- and I like beets -- I took it as a challenge and grabbed a bunch of them at the grocery store this week. But what to do with them? For starters, I rooted through the fridge and assembled a salad (spinach, beets, oranges, tomatos, feta, walnuts), and since the only dressing in the fridge had coagulated beyond rescue, I added some mustard to a bastardized microwave version of this recipe to make a honey mustard vinegarette. So far so good, but there are still 2 more beets in the fridge. Beet palaya is a simple classic, and the kind of dish that's hard to mess up. But if I had the time -- and one of these swish Benriner spiral vegetable slicers -- I would totally attempt this tasty-looking Beet and Feta Tart.

What the Heck

2008-07-08T07:01:00.002-04:00

From Andrew Sullivan's blog comes this bit of news about a technology being developed by the military. According to Wired:

The project is known as MEDUSA – a contrived acronym for Mob Excess Deterrent Using Silent Audio. And it should not be confused with the Long Range Acoustic Device and similar gadgets which simply project sound. This one uses the so-called "microwave auditory effect": a beam of microwaves is turned into sound by the interaction with your head. Nobody else can hear it unless they are in the beam as well.

Snail Mail

2008-07-07T22:30:00.008-04:00

I spotted this map stationary on Polly's lovely blog, Poor Couture (which, I should warn you, is full of all sorts of fun and eye-catching goodies). This envelope and letter paper set caught my eye because I totally had one just like it as a kid! In this era of GPS and email, it now strikes me as very quaint.

Happy Independence Day!

2008-07-04T09:27:00.010-04:00

Yesterday my brother emailed me the text of President Lyndon Johnson's remarks at the signing of the Hart Cellar Act, writing: "So, Dad was able to come to the US in 1969 as a result of the Hart-Cellar Act (also called the INS Act of 1965). It abolished the national-origin quotas that had previously existed. I came across President Lyndon Johnson's remarks at the signing of the bill in New York on October 3, 1965, and thought they were pretty good." I agree. Here are a few highlights of the remarks Johnson made on Liberty Island more than 40 years ago (the full text of the speech can be found on the LBJ Library's website):

Our beautiful America was built by a nation of strangers. From a hundred different places or more they have poured forth into an empty land, joining and blending in one mighty and irresistible tide. The land flourished because it was fed from so many sources--because it was nourished by so many cultures and traditions and peoples. And from this experience, almost unique in the history of nations, has come America's attitude toward the rest of the world. We, because of what we are, feel safer and stronger in a world as varied as the people who make it up--a world where no country rules another and all countries can deal with the basic problems of human dignity and deal with those problems in their own way.
Now, under the monument which has welcomed so many to our shores, the American Nation returns to the finest of its traditions today. The days of unlimited immigration are past. But those who do come will come because of what they are, and not because of the land from which they sprung. When the earliest settlers poured into a wild continent there was no one to ask them where they came from. The only question was: Were they sturdy enough to make the journey, were they strong enough to clear the land, were they enduring enough to make a home for freedom, and were they brave enough to die for liberty if it became necessary to do so?
And so it has been through all the great and testing moments of American history.

What You Looking At? NYT Style Edition

2008-07-03T12:59:00.040-04:00

Lan: do you think this guy is Indian
or did they just spray tan a model and send him down the runway?

b/c he looks a little orangey to me

me: he does look orangey

I vote whitey

Lan: so odd
oh fashion

What You Looking At? Fox News Edition

2008-07-03T12:59:00.033-04:00

True story: After New York Times reporter Jacques Steinberg reported that Fox News has been struggling to keep its ratings up, Fox and Friends aired photos of Steinberg photoshopped to transform him into a yellow-toothed ogre. And then they touched up his editor's mug shot too. From Media Matters (via my brother):
Fox News gave no indication that the photos had been altered. After putting up the photos of Steinberg and Reddicliffe, Fox & Friends also featured a photograph of Steinberg's face superimposed over that of a poodle, while Reddicliffe's face was superimposed over that of the man holding the poodle's leash.

What You Looking At? Scar Jo Edition

2008-07-03T12:59:00.031-04:00

True story: When I saw this cover, my first response was to feel bad about the modest but steady improvements to my figure that 6 months of good gym/food habits has bought. Because crickey, that waist-line is inhuman! Or ... photoshopped. Though I was hoping this link (via Jezebel) would provide even more concrete proof of photo tampering, the spread of non-glossy candids pretty much convinced me that Scar Jo is a real person who, you know, likes to eat cheese sometimes.

"Thirteen Hundred Rats"

2008-07-03T07:33:00.003-04:00

From the T. C. Boyle story in this week's New Yorker:

When he came back into the room, I thought at first that he’d slipped into some sort of garish jacket or cardigan, but then I saw, with a little jolt of surprise, that he was wearing a snake. Or, that is, a snake was draped over his shoulders, its extremities dangling beyond the length of his arms. “It’s a python,” he said. “Burmese. They get to be twenty-five feet long, though this one’s just a baby.”
I must have said something, but I can’t really recall now what it was. I wasn’t a herpetophobe or anything like that. It was just that a snake wasn’t what we’d had in mind. Snakes didn’t play fetch, didn’t bound into the car panting their joy, didn’t speak when you held a rawhide bone just above shoulder level and twitched it invitingly. As far as I knew, they didn’t do much of anything, except exist. And bite.

“So what do you think?” he said. His voice lacked enthusiasm, as if he were trying to convince himself.

“Nice,” I said.

Have You Heard of Peter Pan?

2008-07-02T13:38:00.003-04:00

My brother pointed out this adorable blog post from Christoph Niemann in the Times. Aww.

Rats with Wings

2008-07-01T23:54:00.006-04:00

About a year ago, Washington Square saw a spate of pigeon kidnappings. Ladies and gentlemen, this episode of "Law & Order: Avian Victims Unit" is over! The pigeon poaching perps have been caught! Or have they? Apparently the pigeon-snatching underworld is pretty extensive; the Upper East Side avian traffickers may be different from those downtown. But, uh, birds of a feather flock together, so maybe the mystery of the Village villains will be resolved soon.

Page Turners

2008-07-01T22:59:00.006-04:00

Last night I saw a very large, sturdy (and presumably IKEA) wooden bookshelf on the curb on my street and had to be talked out of bringing it home to join the ranks of the apartment's sundry adopted furnishings (the strays we currently shelter include 3 chairs, a toaster and a shower curtain). If I had another bookshelf I would stock it with Asterix & Obelix, Tintin and of course, Amar Chitra Katha comics. It would be great.

Pride (In the Name of Love)

2008-06-30T10:11:00.010-04:00

The excitement of yesterday's pride parade (which, thanks to Emily, I had a spectacular front row view of!) got me thinking about the tenuous position of the LGBT community in India today. This weekend saw Bangalore and New Delhi's first-ever gay pride marches -- monumental events in a country that has legislated its LGBT community into the closet for many years. From the AP:

While small groups have marched in the eastern city of Calcutta in recent years, Sunday's events were the first gay pride parades in Bangalore and New Delhi. Several hundred people turned out at each of the three events.

The marches came days before the Delhi High Court is expected to hear arguments on overturning a law against homosexual sex that dates to the British colonial era. The law, which forbids sexual acts "against the order of nature," carries punishment of up to 10 years in prison.

The law is rarely enforced, but activists say it sanctions discrimination.

And as the Deccan Herald's terse coverage of yesterday's march in Bangalore suggests, this is just a very small first step. But an important one!

Whoosh

2008-06-25T10:35:00.005-04:00

Whoa, looking forward to seeing this (more pics here). Mayor Mike says, "One of the great things about the best public art is that it encourages us to rediscover — even just briefly — some of the parts of our city that we often take for granted." Yeah!

The Dalai Lama's Little Brother

2008-06-24T17:38:00.014-04:00

This interview with the youngest brother of the Dalai Lama, Tendzin Choegyal, comes via BoingBoing. Apparently Choegyal is bipolar and a recovering alcoholic -- a "rebellious soul" who dropped out of college and was once a paratrooper in the Tibetan contingency of the Indian army. A slice of the conversation below:

GR: What are your hobbies?
TC: I used to take photographs, and I used to like editing movies. But right now, my hobby is reading. I’m reading a book in English right now on Buddhism and world history. I don’t read fiction—my time is mostly spent reading about Buddhism and inner transformation. I also read The New York Times, The Herald Tribune, and the BBC on the Internet. Oh, and People’s Daily. I want to know what the Chinese are saying!
GR: Anything else you’re really into?
TC: I like useful tools. Until a few years ago, I used to fix my own car—I was a good mechanic. I used to drive an old Land Rover; now I drive a Suzuki station wagon. I used to wash my car every day, and my friends used to say, “Don’t do that, the paint’s going to come off.” When I’m doing something, I do it whole-heartedly. And then when I leave it, I just leave it. Just this evening my son called me an eccentric. I think he’s right. We all have our extreme sides. I used to take an interest in anything that was mechanical, but now, I don’t think these material things are all that important. I’m interested in human beings now.

Left Wondering about the Upper Hand?

2008-06-23T09:29:00.013-04:00

Today's New York Sun hones in on an interesting bit of trivia that unites John McCain and Barack Obama: They're both left-handed. Which means that the next president -- like every president since 1974 (except for George W. and Jimmy Carter) -- will once again be a leftie. That's right: Ford, Reagan, H. W. Bush, Clinton and our next president-to-be're all lefties. So what? Well, since only 10% of the population is left-handed, the recent spree of lefties in the Oval Office is a statistical anomolie that may very well have a biological explanation. The Sun pokes around for evidence linking left-handedness to other presidential traits like ambition or problem-solving skills but comes up only with ... hair whorls:

[Amar Klar's] research shows that the whorl for right-handers curls clockwise in 92% of cases. In left-handers, the distribution is random, with half exhibiting clockwise whorl and the other half spinning counterclockwise. Mr. Klar said he could spot a counterclockwise whorl from seeing Mr. McCain and Mr. Clinton on television and looking at the way they appear to comb their hair.

Also? Apparently those hair whorls have been linked not only to electability in recent decades but also to sexual orientation. This all must mean something, but I'm not really sure what.

A Pulitzer: What is it Exactly?

2008-06-19T18:47:00.009-04:00

Junot Diaz was on The Colbert Report last night. Today The New York Observer linked to the clip and cross-referenced Diaz's triffid allusion -- a reference which spurred Colbert and Diaz to some (cute) bonding over their shared geekiness. If you missed it last night, check it out now!

Microfameballers Unmasked

2008-06-19T09:28:00.012-04:00

As more than a few of you know, I have had my share of awkward run-ins with various New York fameballs, including one who lives in my building (our conversation at the grocery story earlier this week was typical: "Hey, what's up?" "Oh, you know, pretty good"). So I was amused to see the phenomenon of microfame get parsed in New York magazine this week: "Though an element of luck often plays a role in achieving traditional fame, microfame is practically a science. It is attainable like running a marathon or acing the LSAT. All you need is a road map." I guess not everyone can content themselves with being just an Average Homeboy?

(Self-)Reliance is a Blockbuster

2008-06-18T06:09:00.021-04:00

So one thing that struck me this past trip to India was the explosion of Reliance Industries -- in 2005, when I was last in the country, the company didn't particularly cross my radar, but three years later, it was impossible to miss. Mobile phones, gas stations, grocery stores -- even Mumbai's IPL cricket team is under the Reliance brand (a fact Royal Challenger fans in the Bangalore stadium pointed out in their signs as Sachin Tendulkar and his buddies womped their team). What, I wondered, was left for Reliance -- or, more specifically, its head tycoon, Mukesh Ambani* -- to take over? The answer, friends: Hollywood. And by Hollywood, I mean Steven Spielberg. From Defamer:

Reliance is apparently taking over Hollywood one A-list player at a time. Its film funding arm, Reliance Big Entertainment, made headlines at Cannes last month when it announced development deals with the likes of George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Tom Hanks and others, splitting with studios the costs of new productions costing up to $1 billion. Reliance's latest venture is decidedly more ambitious, expanding its vast media footprint to claim what will be roughly half of the new DreamWorks: Six or so films a year through a studio to be determined (probably Spielberg's old stomping grounds at Universal, where he still keeps an office).
Under this new venture, the The Wall Street Journal reports, Reliance would provide Spielberg and DreamWorks with $500-$600 million in equity to finance their departure from Viacom's Paramount Pictures. Is your head spinning yet?

*Correction: Hollywood dominance is the plan of Anil Ambani, not Mukesh. From the New York Times:

The parent company, with assets of $29 billion, is controlled by Anil Ambani, the younger brother of India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani. The elder Ambani runs a conglomerate involved in old-line businesses like oil refining and agriculture. As Mukesh’s company, called Reliance Industries, expands in India, his younger brother Anil has increasingly eyed foreign growth.

A Little Civilization

2008-06-16T14:41:00.003-04:00

From Marilynne Robinson's Gilead, which I read (and liked quite a bit) a few weeks ago:

In every important way we are such secrets from each other, and I do believe that there is a separate language in each of us, also a separate aesthetics and a separate jurisprudence. Every single one of us is a little civilization built on the ruins of any number of preceding civilizations, but with our own variant notions of what is beautiful and what is acceptable -- which, I hasten to add, we generally do not satisfy and by which we struggle to live. We take fortuitous resemblances among us to be actual likeness, because those around us have also fallen heir to the same customs, trade in the same coin, acknowledge, more or less, the same notions of decency and sanity. But all that really just allows us to coexist with the inviolable, untraversable, and utterly vast spaces between us.

Happy Fathers Day!

2008-06-15T22:39:00.017-04:00

Click to enlarge.

Bangalore Train Junction

2008-06-13T14:32:00.007-04:00

Did I mention that I was recently in India? When people ask about my trip, I'm never sure what level of detail they're interested in -- or how to quickly convey a real sense of the experience without being a bore. Lo and behold, this week BoingBoing comes to my (partial) rescue with this excellent video of a Bangalore train junction. Click to spend 3 minutes and 58 seconds on an intersection in the capital of Karnataka.

Butt of the Joke

2008-06-13T10:15:00.007-04:00

From my brother, via Andrew Sullivan's blog.

Scary Sadshaw

2008-06-13T10:14:00.009-04:00

I was out of the country for the Sex and the City movie's grand summer-in-the-city opening, but I read Manohla Dargis's review ("All is right in this carefree world until Big casually asks Carrie if she would like to get married, a question that leads to the usual luncheon postmortem (oh my gawd, he proposed) and then the usual rom-com clothing montage and a staggering number of product placements (Louis Vuitton co-stars.)") from the other side of the globe with much amusement and a twang of homesickness. Now that I'm back, I still haven't seen the movie, and today I decided I probably won't, just because I don't think it will make me laugh harder than Anthony Lane's review -- which I finally got around to reading -- did. In the past I've suspected that Anthony Lane is a bit sexist (turns out I'm not alone in this opinion). The thing is, he's also hilarious. (Lane introducing Carrie and her pals: "there are four of them—banded together, like hormonal hobbits, and all obsessed with a ring"). The start of his review below:

Secrecy has clouded “Sex and the City” since it was first announced. When would the film appear? Who would find a husband? Would one of the main characters die? If so, would she commit suicide by self-pity (a constant threat), or would a crocodile escape from the Bronx Zoo and wreak a flesh-ripping revenge for all those handbags? As the release date neared, the paranoia thickened; at the screening I attended, we were asked not only to surrender our cell phones but to march through a beeping security gate, as if boarding a plane to Tel Aviv. There was even a full-body pat-down, by far the biggest turn-on of the night. Not a drop of the forthcoming plot had been leaked in advance, but I took a wild guess. “Apparently,” I said to the woman behind me in line, “some of the girls have problems with their men, break up for a while, and then get back together again.” “Oh, my God!” she cried. “How do you know?”

Additional thoughts: As I was pulling up the links for this post, I discovered that while I was away, the ostensible misogyny of this particular review generated quite a bit of discussion, neatly summarized here in New York magazine. But in this case, I'm inclined to agree with the commenter who writes, "Lane's review is so far from being sexist that it actually supports feminism." Rereading the review, I kind of got the feeling that Lane, in his weird way, actually had my back. After all, he concludes:

... there is a deep sadness in the sight of Carrie and friends defining themselves not as Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, Celeste Holm, and Thelma Ritter did—by their talents, their hats, and the swordplay of their wits—but purely by their ability to snare and keep a man. Believe me, ladies, we’re not worth it.

Virginia is for Lovers

2008-06-12T18:22:00.009-04:00

June 12 is Loving Day! On this day in 1967 interracial marriage became legal across the United States with the Supreme Court's ruling against anti-miscegenation legislation (such as Virginia's Racial Integrity Act) in Loving v. Virginia. "Under our Constitution," Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote in his decision, "the freedom to marry or not marry a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed upon by the state." Richard Loving was killed in a 1975 car accident; Mildred Loving died last month. The couple had three children, eight grandchildren, and eleven great-grandchildren.

"A True Dispatch from the Brink of Insanity"

2008-06-11T09:19:00.007-04:00

A dear friend (who shall remain unnamed) sent me an email with the above subject line yesterday. Her missive (edited for anonymity) appears below in its entirety.

I am not making this shit up.

It is possible that my bizarre older cousin Marshall will drive me to insanity if he does not leave today. I fear that he will stay until Friday. Last night was his second night here. The first night, I was quite charitable and gracious - EVEN ON THE INSIDE. Even when he tells obvious lies, and rambles on and on about himself, and wakes me up for no reason at 8am by shouting my name loudly a few times. Why, Marshall? What is the purpose? I really want to like you. Why do you make it so difficult?

My attitude changed last night.

He comes home after touring the city, and immediately pops some medicine (methadone and oxycodone) for the chronic back pain that prevents him from working regularly, but not from driving all over the West Coast visiting people. But whatever, we all have our own demons. We chit chat about his day. It becomes obvious that he is just plain lying about certain things. Maybe he isn't. Maybe he did get into a fountain and play with children, and then find a pool downtown and go for a dip. Maybe his friend is building nuclear subs. It just sounds like lies. He talks some more about his duckboat tour of the city. Then, "I've never been to Oregon before. Are we in Oregon?" No, Marshall. We are not in Oregon. I cannot believe you just asked if we were in Oregon. "Oh wait, I HAVE been to Oregon before." Liar.

I ask him if he would like to go out to eat or stay in. He says stay in. He brought some ham and cheese and says he'll just eat that. He also brought a movie, and suggests we watch it. OK. That doesn't require talking. I am down with that. So I set up the projector and finally get my computer to work with it. He brought "What Dreams May Come" with Robin Williams and some pretty actress. So - it's a little cheesy, but I can get absorbed into any story; the CG effects are really good, the movie is kinda fun, and Robin Williams is engaging.

But Marshall won't stop talking.

He waits until the most critical dialog and then - "So how many years did you play soccer?" He is the total master of the non sequitur. Ah - 1 sec Marshall - both kids just DIED in a fiery car crash - I want to catch this crucial bit of dialog between the distraught father and mother. So, after the kids die, Father dies and goes to heaven and Mother commits suicide and travels to hell. Father is unhappy in his idealistic Heaven and against all odds journeys to Hell on a futile mission to rescue his damned wife. At the gates of Hell, he discovers that his trusty guide that has come with him from Heaven and who appears to be a middle-aged black man is actually his teenaged white son! Amazing! And there are Hell zombies they have to battle! With gnashing teeth! Marshall comes in from the kitchen (he can't sit still and makes 5 ham and cheese sandwiches over the course of an hour and a half) right as they start to breach the gates of Hell - "Have I ever told you about my house layout?" Are you fucking kidding? For serious, Marshall? Now? Yes? OK - I'll pause it. So I PAUSE the ephing movie. And watch him draw his fucking HOUSE LAYOUT in the only pen I could find at the moment - a purplish sparkley one I found while cleaning the house before his arrival. For some reason, the purple sparkles enrage me even more. Finally he stops talking. I resume the movie. I only say "Shh!" once. I am a paragon of restraint.

I won't bore you with more movie details. But this farce goes on. And ON. And the ham sandwiches! How many is he gonna eat? Ding! There goes the toaster again! My house still smells like burning ham.

Finally, the movie stops. I sit quietly working on my laptop. Marshall says something about Hell. I make the mistake of mentioning that I don't believe in Hell. A two hour session ensues. You can imagine what it was like. But Marshall - what do you think. "I don't think - it's in the Bible. Reason is from the devil." Really? You're gonna go there? At least in the end it was just him reading to me and me working. Marginally better than actually trying to have a dialogue.

Finally the time has come to go to bed. Speaking of Satan, it is as hot as hell-fire and damnation here. Hotter even. And of course, no A/C. I do have a fan. I actually have two fans, but I can find only one. The gracious host that I am, I install my guest in the living room with the fan, so that he can reap the benefit of the rapidly cooling night air. But there are no native breezes tonight, and I am roasting. My windows are wide open, but there is not even the tiniest puff of refreshment. I've got to get up early to take the cat to get her infected tooth extracted, and I'm tossing and turning and sweating.

Then the cat starts yaking. Not just one puke, but a massive and total voiding of stomach contents, and then some bile and water. Poor baby. It is a bit irksome, but I am more concerned that she feels ill. Yak, yak, yak, all over the house. So I get up, get a wet towel and go clean up all of her vomit. Oops - there goes some more. Poor baby. Finally, she stops puking. I get a clean wet washcloth to baste myself with and return to my miserable little bed. I'm drifting off, and Marshall starts - he really starts - LOUDLY babbling: "Oh Lord Jesus! Our Salvation! Save us from sin! Lord!" This goes on intermittently over the span of 10-15 mintues.

OMG.

OMG.

SHUT THE FUCK UP. Just shut UP! I want to scream this, but I am trying to be the gracious hostess. I can't bury my head under the blankets. It is too hot. The only ear plugs I have are covered in cat spit (they make great kitty toys!) and I need to hear my 7am alarm so I can get up and take the cat to the vet. The last time I look at the clock is says 1:30am. Great. I drift off sometime after that.

"Spssssspssssss!!" A vague hissing noise enters my foggy consciousness. It subsides. I begin to drift off. "Spssssssspsssss." Louder. More insistently. Fuck. What the fuck is that. It's Marshall - trying to get the cats to come lay with him on the couch. Obviously it is not having the desired effect because the noise continues. I am having trouble falling back asleep. But maybe I should get up...there is light streaming through the windows. It's probably 7 already. I fumble for my glasses. "Sppppsssssspppss!"

It's 5am.

I lay back down, not too gently, boiling inside with fury. I genuinely want to murder him.

You think I'm overreacting?! You weren't there. The hissing noise stops, but then he starts PRAYING OUT LOUD. Like he was doing last night. "Lord, our salvation, our hope, save us, Jesus! Salvation, sinners - no NO!...Save us!" It sort of sounds like speaking in tongues except the words are all intelligible; the syntax makes up for this. I am not making this up. I begin having fantasies about getting my Cutco cleaver. I want to creep up behind the couch and slowly enter his field of vision. I will gently press the shining tip into the ruddy flesh of his Adam's apple, and bear down ever so slightly. Bet you wish you were in Oregon NOW, motherfucker. "Marshall," I will softly say, "I am not a morning person. Please try to keep your voice down. It's 5am." I'm surprised at myself. I've never actually imagined threatening someone like this. It's kind of nice. All I do is get up and shut my door, which has been slightly ajar.

The talking continues. "Hey kitty. Spsspspssssss." Then he starts pacing back and forth from the kitchen to the living room. Some humming. I hear the clink of bowl and spoon and the rustle of the cereal box. "Maaarrrssshhallll," I think in my most evil sing-songy mind voice, "if you are using my yogurt, and leave it out on the counter for hours like you did yesterday, I will eeennnddd you..." OMG. SHUT UP. Eat some goddamn cereal, but please, PLEASE, just do it quietly. Please. I'm really starting to feel mentally unstable.

Then, he starts signing the words to my roommate's holiday song that we have stuck on the fridge door. This was gently amusing. Was he puzzled by the command between stanzas to light the Yule log with Diwali match guns? Hmm, having some trouble with that "Then we won't be evil, we'll be good" line? The phrasing IS tricky. Then I hear the sounds of more cereal being made. I hear these sounds 3 more times. Five ham sandwiches. Five bowls of cereal. Five times I want to stab you in the face, Marshall. Then he gets in the shower and begins singing.

I lay there stewing until 6am. I finally get up and go into the the bathroom to brush my teeth and find that he has dismantled my Sonicare toothbrush. I'm not even going to ask. I use another toothbrush. I go into the kitchen for a drink of cold tea, and find one of my little yellow citronella bug-repelling candles that normally lives outside sitting on the kitchen table. WTF?

I come out into the living room and very civilly tell him that I am not a morning person and that he should try to be quiet before 7am. "What, no singing in the shower?" he asks with a big smile." No, I say. I answer in monotone and with monosyllables where possible. "Your cats are hungry." No eating before surgery. "Really, I will pull that tooth for you - nothing to it. Seriously." Thanks, but I'm just gonna take her to the vet.

I begin typing this e-mail. He natters on, showing me cars in magazines and packing for his second day trip into the city. He carries all his cash in $25 rolls of 1 dollar coins. No, this does not enrage me. I am a reasonable person, after all. It does make me think, however, that he is weird. He natters on. Then, a blessing: "Well, I had 5 bowls of cereal. I think I can settle down now."

There is a God.

He puts on his little eye mask and lays down on the couch. After no more than 15 seconds he starts snoring. The snores are obviously fake little stage snores, and they are really, really annoying.

There is no God.

Why am I related to this man? Is he punishing me for not believing in Hell? Why is he doing this? He snores for about 1 minute and then shuts up. I have a blissful 10 minutes of silence. Marshall then sits bolt upright and takes off the mask. "How long was I out?" Only 10 minutes, but it's OK if you want to sleep more, I say. Sleep, you fuckface, sleep, I will silently in my head. He does not sleep. "Nah," he says, "I feel good now." I hate you, I think. "Look at my finger." He has his index finger bent. "Nerve damage - but it goes away." Hmm, interesting, I intone. Ten seconds later, "Oh look, it's gone!" He straightens his finger.

Natter, natter - cars, my gravel company, the state is paying me to get my PhD as a certified financial planner, my IQ is 152, I'm SUCH a fast learner, I can do just about anything, I dug this pond once, my ex-wife is a bitch - she tries to keep my son away from me. Marshall, honestly, I'm beginning to understand why. I do not say this.

Finally it's time to take the cat to the vet. I drop her off at the vet, go work out, and when I come home, he is gone. Thank JESUS. Wait..speaking of Jesus, why is there a giant golden Jesus coin on my computer? Huh. This is a giant golden Jesus coin. On my computer. Marshall is so weird. I set it aside. More citronella candles have popped up on other surfaces. I get online. There are some weird computer screens up. Dear God. Did you give me a virus? Worst of all my Google toolbar is missing from my Firefox browser page! What. The. Fuck. What did you do? I reinstall Firefox. No toolbar. I install a new Google toolbar, but it's in the wrong place, and I can't get that little function where you can search in Wikipedia. I just now realized what is wrong with my browser window - it has no back buttons, or home or stop. That whole top section of a browser window - gone. I try to make them come back. They won't.
I seethe.

***

I have roughly 6 hours till he returns. Maybe I will crowd the little citronella candles into a group and and immolate myself on their tiny fragrant flames. Maybe I will cut pungee sticks from our bamboo curtain rods, dip them in cat feces, and wedge them in the couch cushions. Maybe I can taint the yogurt.

But maybe, just maybe, I can take that golden Jesus coin to Wal-mart and buy a cross-bow or a toy arrow set with real metal tips or a fish-hunting harpoon. I'm not entirely sure how to use a cross bow, but make just one peep tonight, Marshall Boy, and you'll get to see how fast I can learn...

Fucker.

Zoom Zoom

2008-05-26T08:45:00.005-04:00

Landed! A little jet-lagged but thrilled to be here.

Over the River and Through the Woods

2008-05-24T15:01:00.008-04:00

The modern world is changing fast. But some things don't change: A passage to India still takes a really long time. I'm out of commission through Monday. I hope to keep the posts coming from the subcontinent, but no guarantees ... stay tuned, true believers!

It's a Peculiar World

2008-05-22T14:40:00.028-04:00

Speaking of birthdays, Morrissey turns the big 4-9 today! Check him out here in a woefully awkward 2006 BBC interview. I was a little stumped about what video would be most appropriate for this post. My roommate suggested "The Headmaster Ritual" or "First of the Gang to Die." But I figured that (in the spirit of commemoration) I'd go with "Hand in Glove," which debuted as the first single from The Smiths 25 years and a week ago, instead. The video's totally foggy-looking but as Virginia Heffernan says:

... YouTube is neither a nascent art form nor a video library but a recently unearthed civilization. Everything’s muddy and looks kind of ruined. If you don’t have firm convictions about visual art, you won’t come on them just by poking around; everything will seem worthless. But while most of the stuff being dusted off and put into baggies at YouTube are indeed bent spoons and dime-a-dozen arrowheads, an archeologist with his eyes open can still be surprised by treasure.

Brooklyn Bridge Bash

2008-05-22T14:40:00.027-04:00

The Brooklyn Bridge is turning 125! The big day is Saturday, but festivities kick off today with fireworks, etc. The bridge's mega birthday present is the $300 million cosmetic surgery and structural renovation set to begin in 2009. This cool slideshow (in The Chicago Tribune, actually) has some good shots of the bridge over the years. Did you know that a week after the bridge opened, fears that it would collapse caused a stampede which left 12 dead and 35 injured? Or that it was originally called the East River Bridge? For those sticking around the city over the long weekend, BAM will be screening the 1981 Ken Burns documentary "Brooklyn Bridge" on Saturday (which I imagine will include many such tidbits) ...

I Recognized Her From the Gym

2008-05-21T11:17:00.009-04:00

News that the Lower East Side has been named one of the country's most endangered historic sites by the National Trust for Historic Preservation got me thinking about the changing face of nearby St. Mark's Place. Over the years, the stretch of 8th St was the hangout of everyone from Thelonious Monk to W. H. Auden to Jeff Buckley, but today, New York magazine sums it up thusly: "It's tacky. It's garish. It's crawling with tourists and trend-starved teenagers." Just 25 years ago, however, it was the place where you might see a still unknown Madonna leaving the gym, as Amy Arbus did:

The picture of Madonna was taken before her meteoric rise. “I stopped her on the street because I recognized her from the gym,” Ms. Arbus said. “She was the one sitting around naked in the locker room the longest. I remember looking at her and thinking that with a body like that, I would too. In the picture she looks as if she knew what was about to happen to her.”

Mulberry St. Library

2008-05-20T23:58:00.009-04:00

Shameful confession. The NYPL's newest branch at Mulberry Street has been open for a year to the day tomorrow and (though I have managed to feebly poke my head through its restored 1886 brick and cast iron entrance way) I have yet to touch a book from its shelves. Or sit in one of those super comfy-looking reading chairs. Looks like I better check it out before all the laptops are gone!

Skip Lunch Fight Hunger

2008-05-14T14:11:00.006-04:00

I really like the simplicity and efficiency of City Harvest. The Skip Lunch Fight Hunger drive they're holding today is a good example of that -- last year it brought in some $460,000. As of my lunch hour, the organization is well on its way, with $111,241 in donations in today so far. Anyway, that's my plug: Feed the children!

Things that are Younger than McCain

2008-05-13T10:48:00.007-04:00

It's not nice to make fun of John McCain for being old. Still, Things That are Younger than McCain is a very good idea for a blog. For example: The chocolate chip cookie. Scientology. The slinky. Spam. Alaska. Bugs Bunny. The polio vaccine. Both of Barack Obama's parents. McDonald's. The AARP. Israel. Superman. And much much more. Here are my additions to the list: Nike. The Lawrence Welk Show. Honda. Charlie Brown. Tupperware. Isn't this fun?

Eleven, Twelve

2008-05-12T22:05:00.007-04:00

Though the Twelve Song (aka the Pinball Number Count) is actually Sesame Street genius, when I saw that The Electric Company was making a comeback, it was the first thing that came to my mind. Where it has subsequently stayed. Catchy shit!

Happy Mothers Day!

2008-05-11T22:26:00.003-04:00

I've linked to Postcards from Yo Momma before, but this being Mother's Day an' all I'll do it again. Below, my favorite entry from the site:

me: MOM!
me: i have internet in my room!!!!
Mom: what
Mom: wow
me: WOW IS RIGHT!
Mom: right on mf
me: what is mf?
Mom: my fruitcup
me: oh of course

Adventures of Mr. Bones

2008-05-11T21:59:00.006-04:00

My brother's adorable pup, Mr. Bones, has his own blog. The latest Bones Blog entry documents Bonesdiggity's first and second run-in with a turtle. It's good stuff. Please welcome Bonesy to the World Wide Web!

Green Porno

2008-05-10T18:19:00.015-04:00

From the lovely and talented Lulu: Green Porno! In these short videos produced for the Sundance Channel, Isabella Rossellini brings her old-school elegance and poise to some spiffy bug costumes as she -- with the help of some spiffy cardboard bug dummies -- acts out the mating rites of insects. Yeah, it's weird, but it's funny and edifying too; there's just something riveting about bug sex. And Rossellini's performances in this series are nothing short of inspired. Fun fact! Rossellini's son and his buddies are Green Porno extras:

Bees are so complicated and they are so much of a community that I couldn't really play all [of them]. I needed some actors, so I hired my son and his friends to play the male bees.

Good Enough for Me

2008-05-09T11:04:00.006-04:00

Good ol' Cookie Monster. "As opposed to many of us who need many things to try and make us happy, he only needs one thing, and that's a cookie," says Frank Oz. "That is his one obsession, and he's insatiable." This NPR interview and article on the "sensuous" muppet is cute cute cute. (Among the features, Cheryl Hansen's explanation of where all the cookies go and Cookie Monster singing the "C is for Cookie" song were my favorites). It's Friday! Have a cookie, you deserve it.

SkyMall Murder Weapons

2008-05-07T11:35:00.004-04:00

Via Jezebel and completely self-explanatory.

Christopher Columbus is Stranded

2008-05-06T08:50:00.012-04:00

Well, the scaffolding is down, and the face of the newly renovated Museum of Arts and Design (formerly the American Craft Museum) at Columbus Circle is ... Eh? (f)eh? he(h)? I'm not sure. Looking at this quick history of the building's design and construction, it seems that given architect Brad Cloepfil's limited parameters (he needed to work around the building's original infrastructure as he spruced it up but also pay homage to its original historic design in his update), he's done a decent enough job. The renovation appears to free up more gallery space inside, and the new building certainly "fits in" with the others on the block. But as this grouchy Tom Wolfe Op-Ed rant from several years ago insists (Wolfe was reacting to Cloepfil's then-proposed plans), the Columbus Circle aesthetic itself is still a touch ludicrous:

... the buildings beside, behind and across from the museum, make Columbus Circle, minus the museum, look like the Downtown Renaissance of some decaying midsize Rust Belt city from which the factories have decamped to Mexico and the retailers have fled to the malls. In a Downtown Renaissance the terminally weary buildings left stranded downtown get ''revitalized'' by a couple of new, ludicrously colossal glass-box towers done in the 1950's Modern mode . . . such as Columbus Circle's Trump International Hotel and Tower, originally the Gulf & Western tower, and the Time Warner complex. So many roadways cut into and right through the Circle itself, the marble statue of Christopher Columbus out in the middle looks like a stranded pedestrian who has shimmied up a 77-foot pole to keep from getting killed and is waiting for the marble people lounging about the base of the Maine Memorial at the southwest entrance to Central Park -- Courage, Peace, Fortitude and Justice, by name -- to come rescue him. So if that is what Architect Cloepfil and the Museum of Arts and Design want their brainchild to ''merge'' with and have a ''dialogue'' with (a favorite coherently challenged theoryspeak term -- nobody ever reports what the ''environment'' said), they might want to brace themselves for an earful and a half.

Oh Doo Da Day

2008-05-05T05:54:00.006-04:00

From Mark Halperin's blog via my brother (of course):

Hillary Clinton enthusiastically picked a filly named Eight Belles to win the Kentucky Derby and compared herself to the horse. Eight Belles finished second. The winner was the
favorite, Big Brown. Eight Belles collapsed immediately after crossing the finish line, and was euthanized shortly thereafter.

Fog Lifted Early

2008-05-05T00:20:00.010-04:00

Loyal readers, apologies for the drought of posts of late. Busy times for the blog proprietress. This weekend was spent cleaning, dismantling and discarding old stuff; purchasing, assembling, and organizing new stuff; riding utility elevators, climbing stairs, bargaining, finagling, cursing, celebrating and so forth. Hard work for soft hands accustomed only to the gentle demands of the mouse and keyboard! At any rate, while sorting through my stuff yesterday, I stumbled upon this poem. It's from Nobel Laureate Czeslaw Milosz's Collected Poems 1931-1987 and it's called "Gift":

A day so happy.
Fog lifted early, I worked in the garden.
Hummingbirds were stopping over honeysuckle flowers.
There was no
thing on earth I wanted to possess.
I knew no-one worth my envying him.
Whatever evil I suffered, I forgot,
To think that once I was the same man did not embarrass me.
In my body I felt no pain.
When straightening up, I saw the blue sea and sails.

In the Belly of the Beast

2008-05-02T21:42:00.003-04:00

Via New York Magazine's Approval Matrix: Jane Smiley and Curtis Sittenfeld agree to pen Lexus-themed literature for Lexus Magazine. What? Also, 51% of Lexus owners spend more than 30 minutes reading each issue of Lexus Magazine. What?

Party Time

2008-05-02T13:16:00.005-04:00

From Matthew Yglesias's blog (via my brother):
The chart illustrates the fact that, contrary to myth, the Democratic edge with young people has usually been pretty small but now it's huge. In a micro-sense, of course, anyone whose experience consists mostly of eight years of peace and prosperity under Bill Clinton followed by Bush acceding to the White House under dubious circumstances and then leading us into inept governance, failed wars, and a shaky economy is bound to favor the Democrats.

1st in Class

2008-04-28T12:19:00.010-04:00

Have you ever wondered what the results of a Google image search for "bonhomie" would bring? You're looking at them.

Imports vs. Exports: Bring it On!

2008-04-24T11:50:00.013-04:00

The "Indian Premier League," a brand new 44-day 59-match cricket extravaganza (and "one of the largest and most- promising new business opportunities in India in recent years," according to Bloomberg's Andy Mukherjee) is quickly gaining on "Barack Obama" in Google Trends rankings! This surely in part due to the controversy erupting around the IPL's decision to import cheerleaders -- like those of the Washington Redskins (who apparently, may not even have Indian work permits) -- to spice up the sidelines. "What the cheerleaders are doing during cricket matches is ten times more vulgar than what used to happen in dance bars of Mumbai," Nitin Gadkari, leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Maharashtra told Reuters. (As for "what used to happen in dance bars of Mumbai," well, the BJP worked to ban it.) The counterpoint of course: "Our stars wear skimpy dresses in movies but nobody seems to protest. Why this double standards?" Why indeed? As the spectator interviewed in this Washington Post video puts it, "Sexuality and cricket is the way forward!"

Brevity is the Soul of Wit

2008-04-23T22:35:00.001-04:00

Happy 444th Birthday, William Shakespeare!

From First Lady to Lady Macbeth

2008-04-22T22:00:00.008-04:00

From an article in The Nation entitled "Why Hillary Makes My Wife Scream":

It is as if Hillary Clinton is engaged in a toxic transmission onto Barack Obama of every outrageous insult and accusation ever inflicted on her by the American Right over the decades. She is running against what she might have become. Too much politics dries the soul of the idealist.

Home of the Brave

2008-04-21T11:49:00.006-04:00

This New Yorker article about the U.S's future role in global affairs and this New York Times article about retired military generals being recruited to spout Rumsfeld-friendly talking points on Iraq as network television "military analysts" ... well, read them.

Missing the Train

2008-04-20T23:59:00.011-04:00

The Subway Crush site might be new, but the experience -- and documentation -- of sudden strong feelings among underground commuters isn't. This passage from Subwayland by Randy Kennedy describes the work of a man named Neil Goldberg, who would wait on subway platforms with a Sony handheld video camera for the sole purpose of filming the facial expressions of MTA passengers who missed their train:

Most interesting and striking in some of the 17 hours of footage Mr. Goldberg has taken so far is the way that commuters briefly let down their subway masks, allow their faces to register real emotion and then, realizing where they are, quickly bring the masks back up again.

"It makes it almost hard for me to watch sometimes," Mr. Goldberg said in his studio, where he will eventually distill the hours of recorded faces into probably five minutes of pure disappointment. "Somehow, it's almost sad."

Go Obama!

2008-04-18T11:29:00.004-04:00

From my brother: Robert Reich, Bill Clinton's first Secretary of Labor, is going to formally announce his endorsement of Barack Obama later today. "She's an old friend," Reich told New York magazine (on the subject of Hillary Clinton), "I've known her 40 years. I was absolutely dead set against getting into the whole endorsement thing. I've struggled with it. I've not wanted to do it. Out of loyalty to her, I just felt it would be inappropriate." What pushed Reich over the edge was the Clinton campaign's ad response to Obama's "small town" comments:

We have three terrible traditions that we've developed in American campaigns. One is outright meanness and negativity. The second is taking out of context something your opponent said, maybe inartfully, and blowing it up into something your opponent doesn't possibly believe and doesn't possibly represent. And third is a kind of tradition of distraction, of getting off the big subject with sideshows that have nothing to do with what matters. And these three aspects of the old politics I've seen growing in Hillary's campaign. And I've come to the point, after seeing those ads, where I can't in good conscience not say out loud what I believe about who should be president. Those ads are nothing but Republicanism. They're lending legitimacy to a Republican message that's wrong to begin with, and they harken back to the past 20 years of demagoguery on guns and religion. It's old politics at its worst — and old Republican politics, not even old Democratic politics. It's just so deeply cynical.

Art Major Mess

2008-04-18T07:56:00.026-04:00

All art is quite useless. -- Oscar Wilde

Alright. It's icky, but (for reasons not entirely clear to me), I feel I have the duty to post on Yale student Aliza Shvarts and her senior art project. Shvarts' project was billed as a provocative exploration of the relationship between art and the human body featuring layers of plastic sheeting smeared with the blood from a series of self-induced miscarriages. Shvarts said she filmed these miscarriages over a 9-month period when she alternately inseminated herself and took over-the-counter abortifacient drugs, and that she planned to project the footage onto the plastic sheeting. "Sure, some people will be upset with the message and will not agree with it," she told the Yale Daily News, but it's not the intention of the piece to scandalize anyone." Anyway, some scandalized parties came knocking, and the project was ousted as "creative fiction." Grossed out yet? Slate's Dana Stevens, who knows a thing or two about abortion and all along suspected that this was a scam, has assessed things nicely:

Hoax or not, I guess Shvarts’ installation is an accomplishment by some negative measure: In a single attention-getting move, she’s managed to make the pro-choice movement, feminism, performance art, and Yale all look bad at the same time ... Was Shvarts' point simply to trick people into being horrified that a young woman might really have done this to herself (and, depending on your point of view about abortion, ended the lives of several incipient human beings in the process). And if so, was her piece a success?

I suspect Shvarts just thought she could get away with pretending she had those abortions in the name of art, but if the deception was part of the project itself I'm a little more intrigued -- her work then becomes more like a highly-effective booby trap for reactionaries on both sides of the issue than just a tasteless and hollow fake-out.

High Five!

2008-04-17T09:51:00.005-04:00

Another Dec alum reminded me that today is National High Five Day, a glorious holiday that traces its humble origins to UVa circa 2002 (and more specifically, this manifesto). High five! If you're stuck at a desk and aren't feeling the fingers-and-palm connection, I recommend this video from 2005 (which admittedly isn't actually all that funny but still really made me laugh).

That Model First Lady

2008-04-16T09:53:00.009-04:00

This week Hillary Frey advocates for Carla Bruni as a "useful" and "modern" "model of feminism, and femininity." I'm not convinced. Yes, she looks great naked; yes, she's savvy and sophisticated enough to seduce politicians and rockstars alike. But what about the part where Bruni moves in with her French writer lover then goes on to have an affair -- and a child -- with his already-married son? She may be a bold icon of style, but Bruni's not exactly raising the bar for womankind with her accomplishments. As former French Vogue editor-in-chief Joan Juliet Buck says:

Versailles was conceived as a magnificent showroom for French goods, because around 1678, Colbert said to Louis XIV: We have to prove the French do things better than anybody. In 2008, at last, a model is married to the president, which is great PR for the further global extension of French luxury brands.

Or, as NYU European Studies professor Tony Judt puts it, Bruni is a "neat encapsulation of [Sarkozy's] presidency: eye-catching, over-compersatory and more than a little lacking in taste."

Pamela Anderson Reads! Unmarketable!

2008-04-14T19:06:00.009-04:00

When my buddy Jyothi emailed me this picture of Pamela Anderson reading Unmarketable -- a New Press title by Anne Elizabeth Moore (not your average "beach read," y'know?) -- I was quite amused. Of course I asked, can I stick it on my blog? She gave me a "YES please do!" but before I could get around to it, someone else posted about it (and took the high road):

Even when Pam Anderson, whose career has traded on the “ditzy blond” stereotype, decides to do something worthwhile with her time — say, for example, digging into an intellectually rigorous exploration of the commercial infiltration and co-optation of marketing into nearly every aspect of independent culture, as Unmarketable offers — entertainment writers and blog readers still relate to her as if she should never try to be anything more than a staple for low-brow punchlines peddled by Comedy Central boys. Let Pammy read and lay off the slut jokes, why don’tcha?

May Wah Healthy Vegetarian Food

2008-04-13T19:21:00.007-04:00

I've recently been cooking more, and in the course of restocking the fridge this weekend, I discovered that the li'l vegetarian "mock meat" store around the corner, May Wah Healthy Vegetarian Food has its own adorable li'l blog. Though some of May Wah's products are a li'l daunting, I'm a total fan of this place, so it was nice to learn that not only was it the first of its kind (over a decade ago), but that it's also -- as the largest vegetarian distributor in New York -- probably unlikely to go out of business any time soon. Good news for me!

DeLorean Machine

2008-04-10T09:43:00.002-04:00

If you're going to own a car in (mid-town) Manhattan, it might as well be one of these.

Plus! You're Fat! Feed Him Mints!

2008-04-09T21:27:00.003-04:00

From Jezebel (click for details, there's a lot to laugh at).

Woof

2008-04-08T13:33:00.005-04:00

I just realized that this blog has been alive for a full three months.

Loyalty Vexed

2008-04-08T12:40:00.012-04:00

The New York Observer has had an awful lot of articles about Facebook lately. Too many. Boring! Anyway, this week's NYO Facebook coverage consists of a little rant about the (admittedly annoying and, yes -- like most Facebook features -- "creepy. And, in fact, invasive") new "People You May Know" feature. Though the piece says little of note, it manages to end with a great quote on why "People You May Know" is so insidious:

Its infernal machine logic taunts you with people who could, theoretically, be your friends—but aren’t. Your page once served to document the extent of your social support network. Now it advertises the people you never connected to—the friends you don’t have.

Portrait of a Lady

2008-04-07T21:55:00.007-04:00

File under: Black Sheep Alumni. Harvard's Ted Kaczynski can claim he was traumatized by psychological research conducted on him as an undergraduate, and sometime Stanford student Ted Bundy can blame heartbreak, but (according to HoosOnline), UVa's eminently industrious Temeka Rachelle Lewis -- the former English major responsible for scheduling "dates" between Emperor's Club VIP clients and employees -- has only Madison House volunteer experience (and all those sordid literary classics) to blame. "She's just too clean," Lewis's stupefied uncle told the Daily News when he learned of her line of work. "Even when she does the dishes, she puts on gloves. It just don't make any sense." But the UVa English Department website's careers page tells it like it is:

The notion that English majors are unprepared for interesting, productive, lucrative employment is an unfortunate, unfounded myth.

Soggy Pie

2008-04-05T15:11:00.005-04:00

I very briefly met Wong Kar-wai earlier this week. He exuded cool and didn't take off his sunglasses; I was not disappointed. Yesterday I saw My Blueberry Nights. It was awful -- actively, laughably bad. Oh well. Maybe next year's effort will be better.

Unaccustomed Earth

2008-04-04T21:25:00.007-04:00

She's got a new book out! This from Slate (via my brother):

In her fiction, learning "to not build walls around ourselves" doesn't begin to cover the challenges that await her characters. They are wanderers navigating elusive borders, bumping up against barriers and testing ties, uneasily wondering if they will hold or not. That doesn't prevent Lahiri—or Hema and Kaushik, or plenty of others in these impressive stories—from finding "kinship and beauty in unexpected places." But it inspires a perpetual vigilance and an awareness that, even as the globe shrinks, vast distances will never disappear.

Garfield Silenced

2008-04-04T19:22:00.005-04:00

Today I came across this new variation on a classic exercise.

The Anecdote File

2008-04-04T12:54:00.007-04:00

From the Memphis Commercial Appeal:

It is a small, green cardboard box, about the size of shoebox, its corners frayed and lid tattered. The cursive marker scribble on top is fading, and doesn't mean anything unless you know the box's provenance: "Mss 178," it says. "Box 51a. Anecdote file." The box's home is on the fourth floor of the University of Memphis' library, in special collections, among a trove of items collected by the Memphis Search for Meaning Committee following the April 4, 1968, assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Inside the box are notecards, numbered 1 to 347, and on them are typed, according to the archive's notes, "a collection of comments, overheard remarks, 'sick jokes,' eyewitness reports of incidents and first-person accounts of experiences that occurred before, during or soon after the period we are documenting."

Brooklyn Flea

2008-04-03T18:33:00.005-04:00

I'm excited to check this out this weekend.

It's Not Easy Being Green

2008-04-03T10:37:00.031-04:00

Vowing to make New York City the center of the scientific universe — as it is for commerce, art and expensive dining — a panel of university presidents, Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein of New York, the actor Alan Alda, the Columbia physicist Brian Greene and a Muppet announced plans on Wednesday for a World Science Festival to be held here at the end of May.

That's from the lead of The New York Times story about the late May event. The Muppet Newsflash confirms that the Muppet present at the announcement was Dr. Bunsen Honeydrew, pictured above. Unfortunately Dr. Honeydrew is missing from the list of the festival's speakers. Those included in the line-up: Francis Collins, Ira Flatow, and Oliver Sacks (but not Kermit). Dr. Greene, whose last book is on string theory -- and who is among the festival's speakers -- told the Times that the festival will not be about "fun" science. "This is the real thing," he said. (Soon after, Dr. Greene was sprayed with a can of silly string by Dr. Honeydrew).

Lady Liberty

2008-04-02T09:01:00.006-04:00

Outside Liberty Income Tax in Cleveland, Ohio yesterday. When my brother saw this shot he was reminded of this Statue of Liberation in Memphis, which tells a whole other story.

Cumpleaños Feliz

2008-03-28T23:56:00.004-04:00

So life has its novelistic side, does it? Indeed it does! -- Mario Vargas Llosa

Mothers are great. Mine reminded me this morning that today is Mario Vargas Llosa's birthday.

Here's a pretty good interview with him and here's a better one.

Here are his observations on producing television.

To the left is a poster from his 1990 bid for president. Doesn't that font look like Helvetica?

A Wal-Mart Free Zone

2008-03-25T19:01:00.006-04:00

As per the New York Sun, "ordinary New Yorkers" are being unfairly "deprived" of Wal-Mart and its every day low prices because the New York City Council is in "thrall to labor unions." Pointing to a story about volunteers driving senior citizens from the Bronx's Highbridge Center to a Wal-Mart an hour outside the city, the Sun complains, "In other words, the same City Council that is preventing Wal-Mart from opening a store in New York City is using taxpayer money to pay a non-profit group in the Bronx to drive senior citizens an hour outside New York to shop at Wal-Mart." Hmmm. Sounds like an okay arrangement to me. But this cool li'l video (via BoingBoing) makes it seem like just a matter of time before the Sun sees a Wal-Mart in the city anyway.

Le Loup at Union Hall

2008-03-25T18:06:00.001-04:00

The New York Times ("This seven-piece from Washington loves body-quaking, tribal rhythms as much as banjos and simple keyboard hooks, and keeps full catharsis just out of reach") and Gothamist had both flagged last night's performance by Le Loup and the Ruby Suns at Union Hall (as did others), so I was pretty sure that some sort of review would be online somewhere in blogville today. Ta da! A thorough report I can endorse. (As some music critic once put it, "One nice thing about the Internet is that you don’t need to do all of your own thinking anymore." In my defense, when it comes to Le Loup, I already know what I think, and am a little wary of adding to the alleged din of erm,"faux omniscience re: a cultural moment" or something.) Whatever, it was a great show!

Go Obama!

2008-03-25T05:25:00.006-04:00

From George Packer, writing in this week's New Yorker:

Obama’s ability to contemplate the contradictions in Americans of all colors without going mad—to be made stronger by them—accounts for his power as a politician. He also pays the electorate the supreme compliment of assuming that it, too, can appreciate complexity. ... But it was Nixon’s Checkers speech, with its cheesy confession that he owed his parents thirty-five hundred dollars with interest (and loved America), that carried the day in 1952, and has more or less defined successful campaign rhetoric ever since. It isn’t clear that Obama’s elevated dialogue last week is in the long-term interest of his campaign. ... Obama is a black candidate who can tell Americans of all races to move beyond race. As such, he is uniquely positioned to put an end to this era, and uniquely vulnerable to becoming its latest victim.

Happy Dyngus Day

2008-03-24T11:25:00.004-04:00

Don't forget your bucket of water and willow switch!

For Love and Money

2008-03-24T07:37:00.007-04:00

Alright! Wait no more! This month's issue of the Boston Review is online! Hooray!

Granny Peace Brigade

2008-03-19T21:52:00.008-04:00

An impressive collection of little old ladies gathered in Times Square -- in the rain -- this afternoon to knit stump socks for amputee soldiers and protest the Iraq war. I particularly liked this granny (pictured here in the purple poncho) who will be celebrating her 89th birthday in April:

Molly Klopot, 88, who was also arrested in 2005, addressed the group, saying, “The grannies have a special responsibility to say, ‘Get off your fannies and get on the street and stop this thing.’”

The Worst Poem Ever

2008-03-19T08:04:00.014-04:00

Further proof that John Updike is a dirty old man (just in case you still needed convincing): This "brutally dismissive" review of The Best Erotic Poems in The New York Times (via Begley the Bookie) calls Updike's poem "Fellatio," "perhaps the worst poem ever written on any subject" -- which, for a writer known for his "seeming inability to write badly" is really quite a feat. Begley goes on to cite the poem in its entirety, so I won't. If you're curious and need a laugh, click here! If you'd prefer to soberly mourn the collapse of literature and the descent of literary studies into "trendiness itself, trendism, the desperate search for anything sexy," click here instead.

Triple Canopy

2008-03-18T22:09:00.013-04:00

Not long ago a friend asked me if I knew of any online literary magazines with innovative web design. This is a toughie -- in my experience, literary geekiness and web-programming geekiness seem to be the domains of ... well, different kinds of geeks, I suppose. However, once in a while a site like Triple Canopy pops up to testify that when geeks of different species do join forces, the result is formidable ...

Midtown is a Jungle

2008-03-18T22:09:00.011-04:00

I have been wanting to see the elephants march through midtown ever since I moved to New York, but every year something stops me. This year is no different. Here is what I am missing:

The ribbons around their ears secure the medallions emblazoned with the circus logos on their foreheads. One year they wore red and white “I Love New York” skirts.

I'm Just Sayin'

2008-03-16T21:49:00.010-04:00

If you try to go buy this month's Boston Review at one of these upstanding establishments, you will learn that it won't be in stock til March 29 ... save your pocket money and stay tuned, friends!

Friday Pi Day

2008-03-14T18:58:00.007-04:00

3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510582097494459230781640628620899862803482534211706798214808651328230664709384460955058223172535940812848111745028410270193852110555964462294895493038196442881097566593344612847564823378678316527120190914564856692346034861045432664821339360726024914127372458700660631558817488152092096282925409171536436789259036001133053054882046652138414695194151160943305727036575959195309218611738193261179310511854807446237996274956735188575272489122793818301194912983367336244065664308602139494639522473719070217986094370277053921717629317675238467481846766940513200056812714526356082778577134275778960917363717872146844090122495343014654958537105079227968925892354201995611212902196086403441815981362977477130996051870721134999999837etc.

Eliot Imagined

2008-03-14T12:21:00.005-04:00

My brother sent me this great read from The Washington Post in which Richard Russo begins to imagine the rich story beyond the basic Spitzer plotline:

I cannot speak for the real Eliot, but some part of my Eliot has known all along he's no saint, that he's not anybody's best hope, not even his own. He knows this even as some other part of him believes what people are telling him because, of course, he wants to. This has been his true conflict all along, and finally, explosively, it's been resolved.

Fresh, Delicious, and Kosher

2008-03-13T12:45:00.006-04:00

From New York magazine: Help find this falafel joint (formerly Chickpea) a new name! The prize is $3,000 -- which would get you 504 kosher hummus and falafel plates! Or, like 1,538 pieces of kosher baklawa! Or an hour ... nevermind.

That Skeevy Girls Gone Wild Guy

2008-03-11T23:04:00.012-04:00

When the Girls Gone Wild kingpin heads for Florida, you know spring time is on its way. The AP is reporting that Joe Francis (that's him in the brown t-shirt on the right -- not to be confused with this other guy) has made his way to the hotbed of spring break scandal that is Panama City, Florida, to take care of some legal business this week. The Panama City News Herald says Francis is expected to enter a plea tomorrow. After reading this thoroughly creepy LA Times story from a few years back (recommended to me by Genevieve), I say, lock 'em up!

Gubernotorious

2008-03-11T15:03:00.020-04:00

A few things you might not have known about Eliot Spiter (from The New Yorker's December profile):

He wears only white button-down shirts, which he buys at Brooks Brothers. He bought a blue one once: “It was unnerving. Never wore it.” He gets up at five in the morning to jog; he’s known for it, and wants you to know it, but if it’s a pose it’s a hard-earned one. His first thought upon waking each day, he says, is a wish for two more hours’ sleep.

A few things you might not have known about the Emperors' Club (from Slate's Josh Levin):

For the john who just can't make up his mind, Emperors' Club's site map lists a buffet of options. Along with the requisites—"millionaire dating," "billionaire dating," "billionaire introductions"—there's a healthy supply of nonsexual fare, including private yacht charters and "authentic art for purchase." The site's contemporary art page claims that Emperors' Club represents "artists of superior mastery," linking to dedicated pages for Andrew Wyeth and Jeff Koons. Emperors' Club is a model of efficient Web design: The site's artist portfolios have the exact same layout as the prostitute portfolios.

And the observation that says it all (right up there with former New York City Mayor Ed Koch's assessment that "there's a screw loose"), from Douglas Muzzio of Baruch College in The New York Times:

Here’s a guy who won an overwhelming electoral landslide and has inflicted fatal wounds on himself publicly and privately. I’m not a psychologist, but this is just utterly, completely reckless.