Daleth Demented

Marriage is a Civil Right... DAMN Right.

2012-01-25T20:15:00.000-08:00

Because everyone has the right to feel like this. Especially dear Johnny. Infinite congratz to him and his hubby, Vitya, and thank you to the great state of New York.

Actress Hanna Cheek to Perform a Chapter of My Novel!

2012-01-11T18:45:00.000-08:00

See you in New York! Hanna is reading a chapter from my just-finished novel, Blue Guitar. Here's the press release:

Join us on Friday, January 20^th
at 7:30
for a free prize-winning reading!

Each year, a panel of New River writers awards the Donna Jo Davis Discovery Prize to honor a gifted emerging writer – emerging being defined as a writer whose work has been recorded on the New River Radio Show (on Art International Radio, http://artonair.org/series/new-river-dramatists) but who has yet to publish a book in the genre representing their work. The reward for winning is a reading of their work at The Players.

This year’s Fiction Donna is awarded to Daleth Hall. Please join us at The Players (16 Gramercy Park South on East 20^th Street) at 7:30 on Friday, January 20^th, where Hanna Cheek will read a chapter from Daleth’s new novel-in-progress Blue Guitar. This reading is completely free, and will be held in the Hampden-Booth Library at The Players (16 Gramercy Park, on East 20^th Street east of Park Avenue). We hope to see you there.

"Daleth Hall is a wryly funny, wise, wonderful writer.”
–Sharon Pomerantz, author of Rich Boy

Past Winners of the Donna Jo Davis Discovery Prize:
2010 Fiction: Alethea Black, for her story "I Knew You'd Be Lovely"
2010 Poetry: Reena Ribalow, for "Desert Light" and "Jerusalem of Heaven, Jerusalem of Earth," and Matthew Wells for "Manhattan Sonnets"

"Antmusic for Sexpeople"

2012-01-08T08:33:00.000-08:00

I'm rediscovering Adam and the Ants. Blasting songs and watching videos from Kings of the Wild Frontier. Conclusion: with his energy and theater, his camp, his wit without irony, Adam is the Ant-idote to the shoegazers who shuffle onstage in a ratty cardigan and stand there emoting while the audience grooves on how deep they are. But he's also the antidote to the over-choreographed plastic perfection of so much mainstream pop, the performances without soul and with barely even a body, just an airbrushed liposuctioned image of a body. In other words he's got the theater down, but it still feels raw enough--and playful enough--to be interesting.

For instance, "Antmusic":

"Dog Eat Dog":

Just to be clear, I own music by most of the shoegazers and have seen several of them live. How far gone am I on their music? Adore it. Once I even drove two hours (one way) to see Sigur Ros. It's great music, but... stage presence? No. Engaging performance? No. Theater? No, unless dry ice smoke swirling about the ankles counts as theater. Like the rest of the audience, I spent the whole Sigur Ros concert sitting down. Enjoying it, sure--it's great music to sit around listening to while [insert low-energy activity here: writing in your diary, thinking about things, daydreaming, hanging out with a couple of friends...]. But the shoegazers have never made me dance, or for that matter laugh. By way of contrast, I saw Adam Ant live three times and at no point during any concert was I sitting down.

And how is it that Adam and the Ants came up with some of the most original percussion rock music has ever seen--a cross between Burundi tribal music and 18th-century British military drumming, layered and complex enough that the band needed two drummers to perform--but nobody imitated them?* This should have been a MOVEMENT! I want to start a band! Does anyone know two drummers in need of a gig?

* Bow Wow Wow don't count, because their musicians were Adam's original Ants until Malcolm McLaren stole them.

Goodnight, George. Goodnight, Paris.

2011-12-15T20:26:00.000-08:00

We don't "always have Paris." One of its brightest sparks has gone out. George Whitman, who walked to Panama in the 1930s (wonder if he knew my grandparents there?) and then spent 60 years in the even greater adventure of running a legendarily weird Left Bank bookshop--which brought new American writing to Paris and offered a free place to sleep to penniless aspiring writers from the world over--has died. The Times has a great obituary.

George gave me a place to sleep, under a scratchy wool blanket on the top bunk of a jerry-rigged bunkbed in the back of his apartment--which was on the top floor, high above his bookstore--because I was an aspiring writer and shared his love of the Russian language. He showed me how to get into the apartment when he wasn't there: just slip a phone card between the door and its frame to jimmy the lock. He had aspiring writers on this bunkbed, on red velveteen benches below his looming bookshelves, in sleeping bags on the stone floor of the Sylvia Beach Memorial Library. Upstairs writers slept on floors and furniture; downstairs, in the shop, cats slept on piles of books. He charged us nothing to live there. And on top of this deep generosity, he gave us even more: the gorgeous obligation of working an hour or two a day in the shop, and reading an entire book--whichever one we wanted, off the shelves--every single day. (He allowed two days if it was a particularly hefty tome.)

He was the most frugal person I ever met--teabags were reused for days on end, he never bought anything other than books and the bare minimum of food, and if the hotplate was off but still warm you were expected to cook (slooowly) on its diminishing heat rather than wasting valuable electricity by turning it back on. The night I met him he offered me a cup of tea; when I accepted he said, "In that case, would you mind doing about ten minutes' work in exchange for the tea?" The work turned out to be something I would have paid him for the privilege of doing: sorting through papers that included a note from Anais Nin; hanging a photo on a mirror and noticing, as I hung it, that the scribbled handwriting at the bottom ended in Allen Ginsberg's signature and explained that the photo was one Ginsberg had taken of Lawrence Ferlinghetti in San Francisco. I was twenty years old and all my heroes were either writers or characters in books. I almost blacked out in ecstasy.

When I lived there, on one wall of his apartment hung a huge black and white photograph of his daughter, Sylvia Beach Whitman. She was 7 or 8, I think--so about 68 years younger than him--and she was an elfish, weirdly lovely child with pale curly hair, her face the girl-child version of George's own. As he told me and many others, sighing and sad, her mother had taken her back to England so he never saw her anymore. He was afraid she was lost to him. I used to have daydreams of finding her when she grew up and bringing her back, reuniting them before he died.

Then in 2006 I was in Paris with friends and I took them to Shakespeare & Co. I'd heard somewhere vaguely that George's wish had come true: Sylvia had grown up and come back to Paris to help him run the bookstore. We were there talking to the cashier, asking if George was around--he was, but he was napping--when an elfish, weirdly lovely woman with curly blonde hair walked in. She was friendly and familiar with the cashier, she looked to be in her twenties, and she had an English accent.
"Hello," I said. "You must be Sylvia!"
She said, "How did you know?"

Back to Black, For Good.

2011-07-27T20:29:00.000-07:00

Rest in peace, Amy.
And peace upon her poor family.

Two years ago I prayed she would survive her twenties.
She didn't.

There's nothing to say that wasn't already said better by Russell Brand. I couldn't even say this, until now, four days later.

So I'm just going to remember her astonishing talent. For instance, here's a song she wrote and recorded when she was nineteen. A 50-year-old blueswoman would be proud of this.

Thank you, Amy, and goodnight.

Portrait of the Lecher as an Old Man

2011-07-07T18:31:00.000-07:00

Here's a telling photo of transatlantic rapist Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK) at the 2009 G-20 summit in Pittsburgh. Saw it today on the Daily Beast. Points of interest:

The president's expression of mild disgust or disapproval;
The president's hand on DSK's forearm, as if to keep him from going further into Michelle Obama's personal space;
Michelle's expression of surprise (is that a "WHAT did you just say?!" smile?) and the slight backwards tilt of her torso; and last but not least,
DSK's lunging posture and a facial expression that looks like, shall we say, intense approval of what he's looking at (namely, Michelle Obama). All his attention and energy is directed towards her; it looks like he barely notices that the President of the United States (and the lady's husband) is right next to him.

Here's how my brilliant brother put it:

Obama's like: "Settle down there tiger. And by 'tiger' I mean 'asshole'."
And Michelle is like, "Wow, that was technically a compliment, but wildly inappropriate."
And DSK is like: "This smile means you can't get angry at what I just said, because then you're the jerk for taking seriously what I obviously meant as a joke. Except I didn't mean it as a joke, but this smile means you cannot prove that."
Sometimes a picture really is worth 1000 words.

And remember, folks, this is what DSK is like with the PRESIDENT AND THE FIRST LADY of the United States, IN PUBLIC, at a major international event covered by the international press.

So what do you suppose he's like with the average attractive woman, alone, in private? Ask the hotel maid. Ask Tristane Banon. Ask Piroska Nagy, a subordinate of his at the IMF, whom he relentlessly harassed. They'll tell you.

Rapist + Lily-Livered DA = Shameful Shitstorm They'll Never Live Down

2011-07-07T16:55:00.000-07:00

I saw an awesome bumper sticker the other day--it just said:

Ask Me About
My Opinions!

So I'm going to pretend that someone asked me about my opinions on the recent developments in the DSK rape case (the New York rape case, not the French one). My first thought was that this is exactly why women (and men) who live on the margins of society make such excellent crime victims: because by virtue of living on the margins there are almost always going to be a few things in their background and a few people in their social circle that are alien to "normal" middle-class people, and those things can always be used to cast doubt on the woman's character. In other words, with such victims it is almost always possible to engage in criminal defense via character assassination. Here's that tactic in action: "Strauss-Kahn's legal team has hired the world's best private investigators to ferret out every detail about the accuser's past."

But the worst thing here is that DSK is being aided and abetted by the New York City DA. It is appalling that the DA's office leaked information like "she is personally associated with drug dealers and money launderers" (see one of many articles here). That means she knows people who make money that way. So? I doubt there's anyone in this country who lives under the poverty line, and/or in the urban ghetto-ish housing that a Manhattan hotel maid could afford, who does NOT know anyone who sells drugs. I'm a lawyer with graduate degrees and a nice salary, and I haven't touched pot or anything else since college, but I know dealers (no, I'm not referring to my clients), and so do most of my friends and family members--at least pot dealers, and that's the drug in question here (the guy she was speaking to who's in prison is in prison for dealing pot). This hotel maid lives in public housing for HIV-positive people, and New York has not legalized medical marijuana; how much do you want to bet that some of her HIV-positive neighbors use marijuana for pain, appetite, etc., despite the fact it's not legal there yet? Oooh, she's personally associated with her neighbors who use and her neighbors who deal! That must mean she didn't get raped!

As for the money laundering, that could be duplicative of knowing drug dealers, in that drug dealers "launder" (disguise the illegal source of) the money they earn, or it could be a phenomenon sometimes seen in the social circles of immigrants from poverty-stricken countries: some people in those circles launder money for other people in those circles who do things like deal drugs, get paid to help smuggle illegal immigrants into the US, or--the most innocuous reason--try to get money back to their families in their home countries without declaring it to customs (you have to declare anything over $10k that you take out of the country), and/or without going through normal banking channels because they are illegal immigrants and thus cannot safely use normal banking channels. Oooh, she knows people who launder money! That must mean she wanted Dominique Strauss-Kahn's withered old dick in her mouth!

And could someone please explain to me how knowing drug dealers and money launderers, and being reluctant to disclose that fact to cops and prosecutors, makes you less credible about accusations of rape? Accusations that, by the way, are supported by DNA evidence and--well, let me quote the headline: DA Has Evidence Strauss-Kahn Bruised Maid's Vagina.

My mom has a way of seeing straight through nefarious political machinations and coming up with theories that are proven correct years later. I think her theory on this is right on the mark: the prosecutor's office and DA Cyrus Vance in particular were put under intense pressure by DSK's powerful friends and allies, such as former DA Robert Morgenthau, who helped Vance with fundraising for his election campaign, stumped for him on the campaign trail and was his mentor for years, but froze him out after DSK was charged. And then, once Vance publicly threw the rape victim under the bus, what happened? "Influential former DA Robert Morgenthau weighed in... to praise successor Cyrus R. Vance Jr.'s stewardship of the case," says NPR. My mom points out that the head of the NYC DA's sex crimes unit, Lisa Friel, who spent 30 years with the New York DA's office, resigned for unexplained reasons a few days before the DA leaked all this crap about the hotel maid. Mom's theory is that Ms. Friel knew the DA was going to publicly humiliate the hotel maid, couldn't prevent it and didn't want to be part of it.

I don't know what else, apart from pressure from DSK's friends, could have motivated such outrageously unprofessional behavior from a DA's office. You just do not leak all kinds of grotesque allegations about the victim ("alleged" victim, if you want to be neutral) in a rape case. Saying there are "problems with her credibility"? Sure, that's what you would say in such a situation. But this is outrageous: "when doubts arose about the accuser's credibility because she hadn't told the truth in other aspects of her life--primarily on her immigration application and her income statement to live in low income housing--before even going to the judge to ask that bail be allowed, DA Vance called in two New York Times reporters to tell them about the accuser's other lies."

Excuse me, but what the fuck?!

And to pile outrage upon outrage, the media is spinning Vance's totally unprofessional leaks like so:

DSK ACCUSER PERSONALLY ASSOCIATED WITH CRIMINALS!
Major credibility issues emerge because she spoke about DSK accusations in recorded prison phone call with pal jailed for dealing 400lbs of marijuana!!!!
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah!!!!!
Oh by the way when she spoke to the guy in prison, what she told him about the DSK incident is exactly what she told prosecutors: that he attacked her and forced her to perform oral sex...
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah!!!!!

What a wretched situation.
And what a lowlife coward the DA is.
And what a scumbag DSK is.
Sorry, but you asked my opinion. Or at least, I'm pretending you did.

Listen Up, World! Patti's Talking.

2011-06-19T18:10:00.001-07:00

So last night I got excellent parenting advice from Johnny Weir's mom, Patti, in the lobby of the Columbus, Ohio Nationwide Arena (whose parking, by the way, is pathetic). That's Patti in the photo there. I didn't get a photo last night because I didn't want to harass the woman or cause a crowd to gather; she and Johnny's aunt Diane were walking around the lobby incognito, or as incognito as Johnny Weir's mom can be at a skating event starring him. Skate for Hope, to be exact, an annual charity skate to raise money for breast cancer research. Speaking of which, I saw a bumper sticker that said "Save the Ta-Tas." Now I want one that says "Save the Nads," for testicular cancer research. Am I digressing? Yes.

Back to the point. Here's the conversation we had:
Me: Patti, hi, excuse me! I just wanted to say congratulations for raising an excellent son! I hope I do as good a job when it's my time.
Patti: Aw, thank you! Well, it's all just letting them be who they are!
...and she gives me a big hug!...
Me and my husband: Yeah!
Patti: Let them dance to their own drum.
Me: Absolutely!
Patti: You'll get a lot of criticism for it, though, so be prepared!
Me and my husband: Okay!

That's clearly advice that everyone should follow, assuming they haven't birthed a budding Charles Manson for whom dancing to his own drum means torturing cats. But I'm digressing again. Imagine a world populated by people whose parents raised them like Johnny's did: letting him wear his hair long in grade school and ride a girly bike with tassels streaming from the handlebars because that's what he liked, getting him the lessons he needed to become a champion skater, and giving him such unwavering support that with total confidence he brushed off the teasing and quasi-bullying of the other boys (and some girls) in his class. That's the kind of parenting that gets you strong, unique, creative people. Of whom we need way more in this world.

This is very basic stuff, folks. If you want to make the world a better place, and you have kids, start with them. Don't raise them to be fearful or cynical conformists. We have way too many of those. Give us more people like this:

New River Fiction at the Players' Club

2011-04-15T09:09:00.000-07:00

Monday, May 2 at 7:30

New River Fiction

at The Players' Club, New York City

invites you to an evening of two short stories

“Map of the City”
by
Valerie Laken
from her new collection
Separate Kingdoms

"A writer of vast compassion, and dead-on accuracy… This is life-changing work, the kind of reading one longs for and so rarely finds."
–Laura Kasischke, author of The Life Before Her Eyes

"A taut, beautiful book about very human characters struggling to find connection and to make sense of the lives that they’ve almost unexpectedly found themselves living."
–Adam Eaglin, KGB Bar Lit Magazine

and

“Ophelia’s Landlord”
by
Daleth Hall

"Daleth Hall is a wryly funny, wise, wonderful writer.”
–Sharon Pomerantz, author of Rich Boy

The Players
16 Gramercy Park
(on East 20^th Street
East of Park Avenue)

Free admission
Reservations at
212-475-6116
or
newriverdramatists@gmail.com

Japan, our hearts are with you.

2011-03-12T18:48:00.000-08:00

Red Cross donations for Japan (click link)

Ophelia's Landlord on the RADIO!

2011-02-07T21:43:00.000-08:00

Sing it, Elvis (Costello): Radio, RADIO!
Because, yes... Once again... a story of mine is on:

The radio.

This time it's Ophelia's Landlord, brilliantly performed by stage, TV and movie actor Kelly AuCoin.

To listen, just click on the radio or the story title.

Brought to you once again by the (most excellent) New River Dramatists show at (the quite exceptional) Art on Air.

What do you mean, "groupie"?

2011-01-20T21:34:00.000-08:00

And here he is! Champion figure skater and god to weirdos everywhere, Johnny Weir, signing my ice skate!

I see absolutely nothing "groupie-ish" about driving four hours just to spend two minutes with Johnny Weir. I don't know what you're talking about. Please take your bizarre ideas elsewhere.

My favorite photo is of Johnny and my husband posing with their arms around each other, copping feels of each other's taut little man-waists. Delish! ...What?!... As I said, please take your scandalous thoughts elsewhere. Like to Facebook, maybe. This is a nice, clean blog.

ANYWAY. These skates don't fit, so I'm donating them to the Trevor Project for a celebrity memorabilia auction. But I'm keeping my other skates, which Johnny also signed. And the two copies of his memoir that we bought, which he also signed. And my breasts, which my husband suggested that I also ask Johnny to sign. But no. As stated previously, I'm not a groupie.

On the Radio!

2010-12-27T21:06:00.000-08:00

Sing it, Donna Summer: "Wo-oh-oh-oh, on the ra-di-o!"

Ok, actually, don't. But I'll just hum the chorus, anyway, because my short story "Theme from Titanic" is ON THE RADIO! Yes! It's wonderfully performed by Broadway actor Annie McNamara at Art on Air on the New River Dramatists show. Right here.

And I-ee-i will always love you-ooh-hoo-ooo... Wait, wrong song. Oops.

At Last!

2010-09-26T20:20:00.001-07:00

Sing it, Etta! Okay, she was singing about a whole different subject matter, but I sympathize. A mere 90-odd months after I wrote it, my 11,000-word novella "The Morris Dancing Blues" has been published by that fine fine journal, Talon Magazine out of the University of North Carolina-Wilmington.

So let's hear it for Talon Magazine! And the crowd goes wild... Including the morris dancers shown below, even though the story actually has nothing to do with morris dancing, per se.

Excellence #6: Be Hot Johnny Weir

2010-02-26T20:40:00.000-08:00

He's the most soulful male skater I've ever seen--as Slate put it, "the Maria Callas of ice skating." Is it silly to still be brooding about his unfairly low Olympic figure skating scores? Yes, but what can I say--the corruption inherent in anonymous judging, the gaping disconnect between the crowd (two standing ovations) and the judges (sixth place?! Lower than three guys who fell during their routines?!) ...it sticks in my craw. How can he beat the bronze medalist on technical scores (newscast idiots, please stop saying he lost because his routine was less demanding) and yet somehow lose on style and artistry? Scoring Johnny Weir low on style is like scoring Dolly Parton low on cleavage.

But I have a theory. It's not just because he's flamboyant and obviously, though not officially, gay that the judges robbed him. It's because he's sexy--Christ, I mean, look at his exhibition skate--and the (mostly male) judges didn't like the electric tingle he sent through their normally dormant crotches. Plushenko they can handle; his mullet and his sometimes obnoxious personality neutralize whatever mojo he might otherwise possess. Lysacek, with his grace and restraint, pleases their eyes--he's a geometric equation gliding across the ice (and he's exactly as boring as that sounds)--without sending the slightest intoxicating shimmer through their nads.

But Johnny Weir? He's out there in a black corset, ornamenting his brilliant skating with hip-flicks and a sultry gaze, his neck arched in ecstasy--and for them it's just too much. The judges, disturbed, cross their legs, uncross them, and cross them again. They can't concentrate. And they punish him, to prove they're not charmed by him. I'm not gay, they say. If I were gay, I'd give him the bronze, or the silver, or--but no, I'm not. I'm not.
So Johnny skates and I think, my god, the world would be a better place if everyone had this much confidence and pleasure in their bodies. But the judges rob him and slink back into obscurity with their anxious, fragile sense of manhood still (just barely) intact. Rhetorical question: who's more comfortable in their own masculinity, them or Johnny Weir?

For your viewing pleasure:
His Olympic short program **Edited to add: Here it is on Russian TV, since NBC in their infinite stupidity are making it hard to watch**
His Olympic free skate

Excellence #5: Quentin Tarantino

2010-02-20T13:10:00.000-08:00

The bad boy of 1990s cinema turns out to be a very good man, and for that he gets the honors in the latest installment of my series on everything excellent.

According to this article, a family by the name of Torgan has been showing classic and art-house double features in the New Beverly Cinema (see photo) for more than thirty years. With the rise of DVDs devastating movie ticket sales, they started having trouble making their rent. Enter Quentin Tarantino, who asked them how much they needed every month--the answer was a cool $5000--and started sending them checks to keep the place going. But in 2007 the Torgan patriarch suddenly died, and in the ensuing disarray their evil landlord found a buyer who wanted to turn this classic 1929 movie theater into a discount hair salon--a discount hair salon!--and kick the Torgans out.

Enter Tarantino again. His lawyers went head to head with the landlord, arguing that the Torgans' lease had a right of first refusal clause that let them buy the building themselves or find their own buyer if the landlord ever threatened to sell. The landlord fought back, but ultimately he gave in and Tarantino is now the proud owner of the New Beverly. Everything's back to normal for the Torgans, except that their new landlord is a movie star. Quote from Quentin: "As long as I'm alive, and as long as I'm rich, the New Beverly will be there, showing double features in 35mm."

Yet another example of what my husband once said: "The great thing about being rich is that if you see an injustice, you can just write a check and it's gone."

Letter to My Senator: Massachusetts Doesn't Mean What You Think It Does

2010-01-22T08:37:00.000-08:00

The results of the Massachusetts election are so disgusting that I feel compelled to write. Please do not misinterpret the results as a referendum on health care reform itself. What they are is a referendum on how badly Congress and President Obama have handled health care reform. I am writing to beg you in the name of all that is holy to get your act together.

I voted for you, despite the fact that I’m as strongly pro-choice as you are pro-life, because you were an early supporter of President Obama—to me that meant you had vision. And I voted for you because you see health care as a fundamental right; as the daughter of a quadriplegic single mother, I have seen first hand what a sorry mess our health care system can be.

But where is the vision on health care reform? Where are the great inspiring principles? I am a litigator—I argue for a living—and I am the truest of the true believers in health care reform, but I can’t argue for your plan because I don’t know what it is. The news changes every day; there are no overarching principles, no clear messages, no leaders. Your message should be simple, clear and inspiring—but the only concrete thing I can say about it is that it’ll stop insurance companies from excluding pre-existing conditions, and there will be some kind of subsidy to make insurance somewhat less unaffordable. That’s great, but does it stir the soul? NO. It’s just two clear details in what’s otherwise a mangled, blurry mess.

Let me sum up the problem:

1. You have no message. “Health care reform” is not a message—it’s too vague. And “insurance for the uninsured” is too feeble: it doesn’t speak to the 5 out of every 6 Americans who are insured. “Keeping insurance costs from rising quite as fast as they otherwise would” is not exactly inspiring. Do you folks even have so much as a marketing intern on board? Why is it that Coca-Cola can sell tooth-destroying sugar water to 300 million Americans, but Congress can’t even sell us something that’ll make our lives better and that every other developed nation on earth recognizes as a birthright?

2. You abandoned your base. We really care about the public option. If you can’t give us that, don’t call this health care reform—it’s insurance reform, which is great, but you need to be honest about what it is or we will feel betrayed. Either give us what we want, or give us insurance reform and explain that you can’t do true health care reform yet because you don’t have the votes. We’ll work to help turn that around.

See, Democrats need to quit complaining about how the Republicans pander to their base. They do it because it works: the base is passionate and will work unbelievably hard for you. I raised and/or donated thousands of dollars for President Obama’s campaign, and alongside me as I knocked on doors, watched the polls, etc. were fellow progressives, social justice-oriented Christians, environmentalists, die-hard union members, gay rights activists, ardent feminists and so on. We dedicated months of our lives to him because he stirred our souls; he spoke to our ideals and made us feel they could be made real. Centrists go to the polls if you give them hope and have a decent economic plan, but the base is who actually does the work. We lay the groundwork—or if we feel betrayed by you, we don’t, and we also either stay home on election day or show up only to vote for third-party candidates.

Sarah Palin understands that. The Democrats apparently do not.

3. You waste time on needless arguments. What’s the fight about abortion? So pro-lifers don’t want their tax dollars to fund abortion—that’s fine; abortion coverage can be an optional rider. How much could it possibly cost to buy a rider for an operation that usually costs about $500 and tops out at $3000, and that most women, if they ever have it, have only once or twice in their lives? Not much. So let it be a ten-buck-a-month (or whatever) rider, administered and paid for separately from the subsidized plan. Some people will still be mad—I don’t want my tax dollars used to fund the slaughter of Iraqi civilians, so it bugs me that pro-lifers get to control their tax dollars when I don’t—but it’s far better than spending months battling over this.

4. You gave up on the simplest solution before you even tried. Here’s a simple message: “People should have the option of buying into Medicare.” When the GOP starts ranting about a government takeover, here’s your response: “Not at all—everyone who wants to keep their existing coverage can do so, and we’re passing some other measures that’ll make your existing health plans work better. But for those who want a low-cost, no-frills option, here it is.” Of course the system would be swamped if you let 40 million uninsured people buy into Medicare immediately—so phase it in incrementally, and set premiums on a sliding scale so people have little incentive to replace private “bells & whistles” plans with no-frills Medicare. Would this idea have made it out of committee? I don’t know, but it would’ve had a chance if you had sold it to the American people first. At least it’s a simple message that makes sense, which is what you don’t have now.

And that is why a popular Massachusetts attorney general just got trounced by a former nude model. The reason she couldn’t get out the base is because she’s the January 2010 Democratic party in microcosm: no message, no inspiration, just a vague centrism that doesn’t even remotely stir the soul. The message of the Massachusetts disaster isn’t that you’ve moved too far left, it’s that since those first glorious months after President Obama was elected, you’ve forgotten why we elected him.

Remember it now. Please.

Mother Earth Bitch-Slaps Pat Robertson

2010-01-16T20:11:00.000-08:00

Ok, we all know Pat Robertson is an idiot. We all know that this moron thinks the all-knowing, infinitely loving architect of the entire universe--the god who breathed life into us all, etc.--is a petty-minded freak who's stuck in junior high school: "Omigod, some Haitians made a deal with the Devil instead of with me?!? Those BITCHES! I am SO gonna kick their ASS!"*

But let's not argue with him like rational people. You might as well argue with a bag of cat litter.

Instead, let's go right into his world view: ok, God protects people who make deals with God, and slaughters people who make deals with Satan. Christians = yay; infidels = must die!! Ok then. So, Pat... explain this: Why is it that during the Asian tsunami in 2004 the Indonesian tribe that had converted to Christianity was decimated, while the tribes that had kept their traditional earth-based religions got messages from their gods telling them to move to high ground before the tsunami arrived, and survived?!? Yep--the Onge, Sentinelese, Jawaras, Great Andamanese and Shompen tribes survived the tsunami without a single loss of life. The Christian Nicobarese? Not so much.

Pat? Pat? Any explanation?...Pat?... Where'd you go?

* "Or wait, no--I'll just chill for two hundred years, and then I'll kick their great-great-great-grandkids' ass! YEEEAAAAAHHH!" - God (according to Pat Robertson)

Bank Deposit Singalong

2009-10-16T18:24:00.000-07:00

Yeah, so, I had a singalong in the bank this morning. I was standing in line to deposit a check, and "It's The Same Old Song" by the Four Tops was playing--not a muzak version, the real thing. So I'm standing there bobbing my head, swaying a little bit in time with the beat, and then the woman behind me, a plump white-haired lady in her sixties, starts quietly--and I guess unconsciously-- singing along.

Lady: It's the same--
Me (turning around): --old song...
Lady (embarrassed): Oh! Excuse me! I'm sorry, I shouldn't have been doing that!
Me: No no, it's a great song!
Lady and me (singing and dancing): It's the same... old song... but a different meaning since you been gone, oh it's the same... old song...

When it went back to the verse and we weren't sure of the lyrics, we stopped singing but continued dancing. A thirty-something African-American guy and his young son, standing in line behind her, were smiling at us.

Guy: Is it because it's Friday, or is it just the song?
Lady: A little of both, I think. You can't beat the Four Tops.

Pink Umbrella, Abandoned

2009-10-15T18:09:00.000-07:00

Downtown, today.

Travel Map Created Through Procrastination

2009-10-04T12:27:00.001-07:00

Create your own travel map or travel blog

Deals on cheap airfare at TripAdvisor

What do they mean, 20 countries?! It's 23 if you count Andorra, Scotland and Northern Ireland as countries. Apparently Trip Advisor doesn't. Trip Advisor is going to get a punch in the nose if it ever shows up in Andorra, Scotland or Northern Ireland.

Back To Black

2009-09-20T08:08:00.000-07:00

If Billie Holiday and the young Mick Jagger had a savage drunken one-night stand, fucking while still half-dressed and screaming at each other in a hallway backstage, Amy Winehouse would be born as a result. And that's a compliment. I'm an absurdly late arrival to the fan base here, but this woman is electrifying.

The acoustic version of "Back to Black" makes you wonder, how does an 800-pound voice come out of a 90-pound woman? How is that possible?!

The live Eurockeennes version, performed at an outdoor rock festival in the foothills of the French Alps, makes you wonder why no one thought of this combination before: Start with a lacerated grotesque meltdown of a song (again, this is a compliment); play it like it's a Shirelles single released on Motown in 1964; and have percussion and piano provided by the Specials, circa 1982. And make sure you have dudes dressed like the Blues Brothers doing synchronized dancing throughout. With tasseled red bordello lamps decorating the stage. People, you can't make this shit up. It's amazing.

And then of course there's the official album version, in which she slinks ahead of the beat, behind the beat, on the beat, so sinuously it sounds like her voice is pole-dancing around the percussion section.

Kudos, Amy. I just pray this freakishly talented woman survives her twenties. "I took a troubled track," she sings--yes, indeed.

Blaxploitation pj's

2009-06-22T19:17:00.000-07:00

So today, I had a brilliant idea: since the drive back from our weekend away took longer than expected--we crossed the city limits after lunchtime, shortly before my husband had a meeting at work--I asked him to drop me off at the elegant hotel facing my office so I could dash into the ladies' room, change into my work clothes (conveniently stuffed in our suitcase, since we'd left town straight from work) and sashay over to the office. Part A of this plan went off without a hitch, although one hotel employee--wearing black tie and standing beneath crystal chandeliers with his hands behind his back--raised an eyebrow at what I was wearing.

But the ladies' room was locked.

So I spent the next twenty minutes wandering around the financial district wearing purple pajama bottoms trimmed with pink lace, and a blaxploitation t-shirt. Well, it's actually a Black Joe Louis and the Honey Bears t-shirt featuring the singer of that band wearing 70s pimp shades, sandwiched between two scantily-clad mamas with glorious towering Angela Davis afros. So, not an actual blaxploitation movie t-shirt, but close enough--you can tell from the official Black Joe Lewis Valentine's Day cards, which say "Bitch, I Love You," what the basic vibe is.

If I had consulted a fellow attorney as to the wisdom of crossing the threshold of my workplace in this outfit, I would have been advised in the strongest possible terms to call in sick, or throw $600 on my AmEx card for a random skirt and shirt at Saks (that Place Where People Shop Only if Their Views on Money are Totally Alien to My Own), or... do whatever it takes, but do not enter the workplace in that outfit, not even for the three minutes it would take to get to the ladies' room. So my wandering in the financial district brought some questions to mind:
- Why do so many businesses downtown not have public restrooms?
- Why do I dress like a crack baby when I travel?
- Is it a good idea to change clothes in the bathroom of the McDonald's widely known as a drug market, where dealers openly sit at tables plying their trade? Probably not. Dammit.
- Statistically, what are the chances of running into the managing partner in the elevator? It doesn't happen very often. But how often? And if you factor in the chances of running into a partner you work with? And what if he or she is escorting clients to a meeting...? Dammit!

So. Yeah. I was a little late to work.

The Gist Street Reading Series

2009-06-07T09:50:00.000-07:00

Want to know what to do this summer? Here ya go: the Gist Street Reading Series Annual Cookout Extravaganza. Find out more at my post at Fiction Writers' Review.

Lawyer Lunch Adventure #1

2009-05-06T19:53:00.000-07:00

The scene: a busy, gritty city street. On a wide dirty sidewalk I am walking to lunch (at 3PM--busy day). It's overcast, and chilly for May. I've got nothing but roast chicken on my mind.

The characters: me, looking incredibly square in my wool overcoat and glasses. Some homeless people, not looking square at all--if I had to pick a shape, I'd say they look squiggly. Various young African-American people looking very street: the guys in do-rags and baggy clothes, the women with hair extensions that echo the plumage of tropical birds and jeans that appear to have been spray-painted on. One of these men is hanging out on the sidewalk holding up a gold necklace, which evidently is for sale.

The moment: two men are ambling up the sidewalk that I'm ambling down. I glance at the one nearest me, and vice-versa; we make eye contact. And I realize, Holy shit, that's [name removed for legal reasons], my pro bono client's ex--which is to say, that's the felon with a warrant out for his arrest, who everyone thought had left the state. And I think, Fuck, I hope he didn't recognize me. And due to my paranoia on that point, I don't turn around to get another look at him, which makes me one of the more useless witnesses in American legal history when I dial 911 on my cell phone:
Me-Hi, I just saw [name removed] at [location]. There's a warrant out for his arrest, so I thought I should call.
911 Operator-Okay, thank you, ma'am. You say he's at [location]? What is he wearing?
Me-...Uhhhh...
I ultimately was able to inform her that he was wearing, quote, "casual clothes." Well, that narrows it down. I could've described his face in detail--it is, as they say, burned into my memory--but a description of the exact slope of his jaw is, I guess, not useful to the cops out on patrol.

The aftereffects: the sight of him startled me so much that my eyes remained stuck in the "wide open" position for the next half hour.

World's Saddest Time Sheet

2009-02-08T21:04:00.001-08:00

Time Sheet:
Leave work early upon hearing that my pro bono civil client, "Sherrie," had just been convicted in her criminal trial and immediately remanded into custody; comfort "Sherrie" in jail and begin making arrangements to take care of her children, finances, etc.; comfort her weeping fiance and assist him with practical issues; visit her public defender to see what went wrong and if there is any possibility of an appeal

Twelve older white jurors convicted a poverty-stricken black single mom of a felony for an act of self defense that didn't seriously hurt anyone.

Oh god.

Most Blood-Curdling Movie Ever Made

2009-01-11T12:22:00.000-08:00

It's awards season again. There's no category for this in the Oscars or Golden Globes, but I think I'm qualified to determine what is the most spine-chilling movie ever made: I've seen thousands of movies from every continent, and I once had a long relationship with a Frenchman, greatly increasing my understanding of refined emotional torture. So here's my Munch-inspired statuette, which can only go to this: La Tourneuse de pages, by Denis Dercourt. It came on today while my husband and I were eating lunch. We watched, mesmerized with horror, until the end--at which point a woman's sanity, family and career had been quietly but purposely destroyed by this polite, well bred and outwardly obedient teenage girl:
American horror movies with their slashers and screaming co-eds have nothing on La Tourneuse de pages. In American horror movies, everyone knows that the villain trying to kill them is a villain trying to kill them--the only suspense is when and how, and in what order he'll go through his victims. Yawn.

But in La Tourneuse de pages, the woman whose life is destroyed doesn't know (and will never know) what hit her. She thinks that she went insane. She thinks that she became obsessed with the teenage girl she hired as a live-in babysitter over the school holidays, scared the girl away by telling her she loved her, and destroyed her own marriage and career over that impossible, irrational love. Nope. Everything that happened was purposely engineered by the girl, as vengeance for something the woman did to her when she was a child--an event the woman doesn't even remember; when they meet again, the woman doesn't recognize her and the girl doesn't refresh her memory. She simply destroys her entire life, so subtly and with such restraint that no one involved would ever be able to pin the blame on her; then she leaves.

No American could ever make this movie--not even George Cukor, who made Gaslight. It could only be French, or maybe Japanese. (I also dated a Japanese guy when I was in high school, so trust me on this.) Want emotional sadism at its most nerve-shatteringly subtle and restrained? Want revenge so exquisitely awful that the victim and everyone they care about thinks they did it to themselves? Then what you want is French or Japanese.

Prayer Answered

2008-11-16T16:00:00.000-08:00

It's been almost two weeks now.
We did it.

It's still overwhelming. What do you write? What is there to write, when more than half a century's effort--or, really, the effort of more than two hundred years--finally pays off? My mother was half my age, still a teenager, when she and a quarter-million other people marched on Washington with Dr. Martin Luther King. She remembers the word going around in the days before the march: Everybody make sure you dress nicely. If there's anybody who doesn't look nice, that's who the reporters will photograph--they're trying to make us look dangerous, dirty, abnormal. My mother marched on Washington in a wool dress and pearls, and nearly fainted in the sweltering August heat.

Twenty-five years later, when I was still too young to vote, I volunteered for Jesse Jackson's presidential campaign. That was twenty years ago.

I walked into a friend's office on the morning of November 5th so we could rejoice together, since we'd both spent Election Day pollwatching, and she was wiping tears from her cheeks. She's African-American, in her mid-forties, with two kids in grade school. She said, "I finally feel like I am a citizen of this country." And she said, "For the first time, I can look my kids in the face and tell them they can be anything they want." And she said, "We haven't just been watching Obama. Uh-uh. We've been watching how you folks"--i.e., white people--"react to Obama. That's what's been blowing our minds. Do you realize 67% of young voters voted for him? Sixty-seven percent! And that's who's gonna be interviewing my kids when my kids get out of school and need jobs!"

Two days earlier she'd said, "They're gonna steal this election. They're gonna steal it from us." But they didn't.

It's almost two weeks later and I still can't watch that "American Prayer" video without crying. The farthest I've gotten so far is to the part where Martin Luther King says, "I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!"

We as a people: not just one race, not just one generation or nationality, but one people. That video is my people. We are the people who have been fighting, forever, the fight Tom Robbins once described:

"The enemy of the black is not the white. The enemy of capitalist is not communist, the enemy of homosexual is not heterosexual, the enemy of Jew is not Arab, the enemy of youth is not the old, the enemy of hip is not redneck, the enemy of Chicano is not gringo and the enemy of women is not men.

We all have the same enemy.

The enemy is the tyranny of the dull mind.

The enemy is every expert who practices technocratic manipulation, the enemy is every proponent of standardization and the enemy is every victim who is so dull and lazy and weak as to allow himself to be manipulated and standardized."

- Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

American Prayer

2008-10-31T14:57:00.000-07:00

This is absolutely glorious.
Barack the Vote, everybody.

World Economic Crisis Slightly Ruffles the Hair of the Swiss

2008-10-13T18:31:00.000-07:00

There are two kinds of economists: the ones with a political or theoretical axe to grind, who will interpret absolutely all data as either supporting their pet theory, or false; and the ones who actually know what they're talking about. Needless to say, GW Bush went on a hiring binge to fill his administration with as many of the former group as possible.

I think most members of the latter group live in Switzerland, and/or are Paul Krugman.

I already had this belief that Switzerland knows more than anyone else about making and keeping money. You have to hand it to a country that's been free, rich and at peace for 500 years: they know what they're doing. (They even handled Nazi Germany pretty well, so I hear, saving about 50,000 Jews in the process.) So I went online to see how Switzerland's weathering the economic hurricane that has ripped the roof off the rest of the world. Is it bankrupt, like Iceland, and begging for loans from the Russian mafia (oops, I mean "Russia," wink wink--is "mafiosogarchy" a word yet)? Is its economy imploding, like ours, with jobs and money vanishing into thin air? Let's hear it straight from the Swiss:

The luxury car salesman in Geneva: "My Jaguar sales are down since August."
The financial-sector recruiter: "Most banks have frozen new hiring in about 80% of their departments. They're still hiring managers to handle client demands, and they're still warring with each other to attract the best talent. But generally speaking, they're trying to limit operation costs for the coming year." (Note the phrase "stopped hiring," as opposed to "had layoffs." And note that the other 20% of bank departments are still hiring. Banks are still hiring! They're going under everywhere else.)
Some banks: "[The private banks] Pictet and Mirabaud say that they are growing, though they no longer have the same serenity as they did at the beginning of the year."

Yes! The overall serenity of banks has decreased somewhat! I guess in Swiss terms, that's an economic crisis right there.

My big question is this: since the Swiss obviously have this down to an art form, why have America and Europe--but especially America--been wasting so much time spinning pretty new politico-economic theories, and repeatedly making laws based on those theories despite the fact that every single time they do it leads to a recession? (Reagan, Bush, I'm talking to you.) Why don't we simply observe what works, and then do it? I guess because Bush and all his trickle-down economists cling to their pet theories like Gollum clings to the One Ring. "Mussst have it, my preciousss!"

Haven't These People Seen Zoolander?!

2008-10-04T08:27:00.000-07:00

The joke in Zoolander was that Derek Zoolander, the male model played by Ben Stiller, believed himself to have a profoundly expressive and beautiful face. He spent hours in front of the mirror practicing "different" expressions and making up names for them, but in fact all his expressions were the same.

Apparently the folks at the New York Times fashion section haven't seen Zoolander (or maybe they just didn't get the joke?). Every week there's a new slide show on their website inviting readers to watch a model be "transformed." For example...

Watch Sigrid be "transformed" nine times!
http://themoment.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/03/model-morphosis-sigrid/
Features include:
* Seven photos of Sigrid wearing different outfits, but the exact same utterly meaningless facial expression. I call this expression "Blade."
* One photo (#4) of her doing a modified version, "Victorian Blade."
* One photo (#8) of her with her head in the same position, but this time she's smiling. I call this expression "Cherish," because Madonna first brought the expression to a wide audience 12 seconds into her 1989 video "Cherish."

And here's another slideshow, featuring the constantly changing face of Agnete Hegelund. I call her expression "Autobahn."
http://themoment.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/model-morphosis-agnete-hegelund/

And another: the many moods of model Anna J. This slideshow includes ten photos of her current expression, "Deneuve," and one of the expression used earlier in her career, a smile called "Britney":
http://themoment.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/30/model-morphosis-anna-j/

If anyone's still wondering why models rarely make it as actors... !

Todays' Favorite Person: Cheb Khaled

2008-09-21T17:05:00.000-07:00

Why aren't there more people like this on earth? Look how FULL OF JOY he is:
I've been watching and reading about him since 1991 and he's always like this. In pictures, in videos, in TV interviews, in random outtakes recorded on people's cell phones he's like this: Huge sweet smile huge sweet smile huge sweet smile HUGE! And this is a guy who had to flee his native country, Algeria, because Islamic fundamentalists threatened to kill him.

Video: Khaled, "Aicha"
We should all have to flee our native countries and take refuge in Paris, but still, that's got to be scary. This video and this record cover illustrate better than words could why fundamentalists threatened his life--because he made happy, loving, sexy music and played it for mixed-gender crowds. So he's like early Elvis, but with death threats.

And here's another video illustrating Khaled's greatness and the larger greatness of which he--and the woman singing with him, Asala Nasri--are a part: the greatness of people who go ahead and do exactly what they're on earth to do, despite pressure to the contrary from every direction--pressure from fundamentalists trying to kill them (apparently fun, beauty and love are sins); pressure from fearful folk who wish they'd do something more practical; pressure from serious-minded people who think there are far more important things to do than sing great songs.

Video: Cheb Khaled and Asala Nasri, title unknown

I find this simultaneously tragic and inspiring: there are people like this in the Middle East, and there are even outlets for their work in certain parts of the Middle East--that's inspiring. The tragic part is the same tragedy visited on--for example--gay teenagers in Armpit, Kentucky: what happens to the people like this who don't make it out? What happens to you when every native inclination in you is rejected by everyone around you? Watch the amazing autobiographical movie Persepolis to see what I mean: at the end you rejoice when the heroine makes it out of Iran and (like Khaled) becomes a refugee in Paris, but you also wonder, oh my god, how many people like her never got out?

But still: Khaled is today's favorite person, because he got out with his joy intact. And because he's being broadcast (openly or surreptitiously) all over the Middle East, reminding the next generation of people like him not to lay down and die. And speaking of the next generation, one of my favorite Khaled-related memories is this: I went to see him at a nightclub in Toulouse, France, and this nightclub contained not just the normal hip young concert crowd but also entire Algerian families, kids included, dressed to the nines to see their homeboy--the families had gotten there hours in advance with picnic baskets to feast outside, it was like a national holiday. But the coolest part was during the concert when I spun around dancing and saw a little Algerian boy, four years old at the most, all spiffy in his black suit, dress shoes and red bowtie, dancing his ass off beside his father and mother. Ahh, life is good.

Top 5 Reasons Sarah Palin Would Make a Great VP

2008-08-29T16:55:00.000-07:00

#5: Having spent the past year and a half governing a state whose population is nearly as large as Columbus, Ohio's, she is a seasoned leader well prepared to lead this nation during a time of war, balance the budget and resolve the economic crisis, keep America safe from terrorism, and meet the global challenge of climate change!

#4: In her entire twenty-one months as governor of Alaska, she has only come under investigation for ethical violations twice so far!

#3: She has demonstrated integrity and character by only lying about her office's involvement in said ethical dilemma a few times, and by more or less ceasing to lie about that as soon as the incriminating tape recordings were leaked to the press!

#2: She's tough on polar bears!

#1: She might help stop McCain from using the "C" word in public!

Bidenfest, a.k.a., I'm Gonna Get My Party On

2008-08-24T11:38:00.000-07:00

I'm not entirely sure what "I'm gonna get my party on" means, but it sounds enthusiastic, at least as sung in the English-language chorus of the Reggaeton hit currently on heavy rotation on my iPod. And now Reggaeton has a song specifically about Obama! Yes! Si! Como se llama... Obama... Obama... Excuse me while I cha-cha. And as a further expression of Hispanitude, I must share this fantastic Mariachi song, Viva Obama 2008. The hats alone are so magnificent they should be in the Smithsonian.

Anyway, I'm going strictly on gut feeling in this election. Obama had me at hello--I saw him on TV last year, a few snippets of him talking, and was like, "Yep, he's the man. I don't know what his policies are, but I'm sure they're fine. He's it!" Then I spent the primary season anxiously riding the roller coaster of Hillary's onslaught, alternating between indignant rage ("Get out of the way, Hillary--can't you see he's The One?!") and appreciation ("Thank you, O Hillary, for turning Obama into a dragonslayer--you are a far greater adversary than anything the GOP can muster.").

And because the last two elections left me a weeping, dribbling emotional basket case (flashback: mutely making and donning a black armband after Gore conceded; sobbing on my bed after Kerry conceded), I chose to mostly ignore the thing this year. I couldn't have picked Obama's VP options out of a photo lineup; I couldn't even have named more than one or two of them. So then he picks Biden, and I'm like, who? So I went online to take a look at the guy.
And there it is, the gut feeling: there's something absolutely right about him. If I may lapse into hippy-speak, the energy he brings is absolutely right. It fits perfectly. Yesterday at the gym--a place I never used to go, but then I never used to be a lawyer, i.e. a member of one of the most sedentary professions in existence--anyway, yesterday at the gym, where several TVs are arrayed in front of the workout machines and you can plug your headphones into whatever channel you want, I was grinning like an idiot on the cross trainer as I watched the news. Not because they were saying anything interesting--they might've been, but I was busy rocking out with my iPod--but because they kept replaying scenes of Biden jogging across the stage in Springfield, Illinois. And man, that energy--he just blows McCain right out of the water.

So, having now actually read some articles about the dude, here's the intellectualized version of what I mean: not only does Biden mesh brilliantly with Obama (youth and vision plus wisdom and experience--what more can you ask for?), he demolishes John McCain's entire argument. He just plain neuters the man. Like so:
McCain: Vote for me because I'm experienced and Obama's not!
Obama-Biden: Thanks, John--actually, we've got that covered. Joe not only has been in the Senate far longer than you have, he's the Chair of the Foreign Relations Committee and is close friends with leading statesmen worldwide, including several from countries that you, in your raging ignorance, would probably have trouble even finding on a map. Did I mention that last week, President Saakashvili of Georgia called Joe up to see if he could help take care of that whole war with Russia thing?
McCain: Um... vote for me because... Obama's too young and liberal!
Obama-Biden: Did you say something? Sorry, when you speak in that angry, desperate tone, your voice gets squeaky and I have trouble understanding you. Anyway, as you can see, we combine youth and vision with wisdom and experience. In contrast, you're just plain old.
McCain: Vote for me because I, reassuringly, am a grey-haired white guy with a normal-sounding name!
Obama-Biden: Thanks, but Joe's got that covered. And actually, John, your hair's white with age, and you sometimes grip the podium as if it's all that's keeping you from falling over. In contrast, watch as Joe jogs vigorously around the stage shaking hands with people, smiling with seasoned confidence, radiating a calm virility.
McCain: Vote for me because if you don't, I'll start screaming and my head will explode!!!!!!

So marvelous. I'm going to go cha-cha some more. Como se llama... Joe-Bama... Joe-Bama...

Ancient Wisdom for the Fourth of July

2008-07-04T08:53:00.000-07:00

To mark the fifth Fourth of July since we invaded Iraq, here's a fragment from the Greek poet Philemon:

What is the real Good?
It is Peace!
How loving is that goddess, and how kind!
Marriages, festivals, kin, children, friends,
Food, wine, health, riches, happiness she gives.
And if of all these things we are deprived,
Dead is the life of men, while they yet live!

- Philemon (368 BC - AD 264) (excerpted from "Peace is Happiness")

Joy, Joy, Joy.

2008-07-04T08:33:00.000-07:00

Ingrid Betancourt, at last back home in France after being held hostage in the Colombian jungle for six years.

One of the many stories: After Six Years, Family Reunions for Ex-Hostage
Updated to add: The New York Times also has video, guaranteed to reduce sensitive persons to blubbering wrecks, of her calling her mom on a soldier's cell phone just after she was rescued to tell her, "Mom! I'm free! I'm free!"

Wow, Socrates Was Really Smart!

2008-07-03T08:58:00.000-07:00

And so was Plato. Such is my articulate and original conclusion upon reading part of The Glory That Was Greece, which is Vol. II in this fantastic 80-year-old eighteen-volume set that I dug up at a used bookstore. The set is called the Columbia University Course in Literature, originally published in 1896, with my edition--in its forest-green leather covers embossed with classical artwork, the titles printed in gold--dating from 1928. Vol. I is The Wisdom of the East; the other volumes present more of the Western canon than you ever knew existed--not just obvious topics like Romance and Realism in Modern France, but also The German Mind, Scandinavian and Slavonic Literature, The Voice of Italy, The Great Literature of Small Nations (Spain, Portugal, Latin America, Holland, Switzerland, Romania, Ireland(!), Finland, Yiddish lit and more), and of course, eight solid volumes on English (5 volumes) and American (3) literature.

And so, yeah, wow: Plato and Socrates, smart dudes indeed! This discussion of evil people seems especially timely, in a political season during a war:

"...And most of those fearful examples, as I believe, are taken from the class of tyrants and kings and potentates and public men; for they are the authors of the greatest and most impious crimes, because they have the power.... Yes, Callicles, the very bad men come from the class of those who have power. And yet, in that very class there may arise good men, and worthy of all admiration they are; for where there is great power to do wrong, to live and die justly is a hard thing, and greatly to be praised, and few there are who attain this."

Wow! So on target, so elevated (and moderately convoluted) in his syntax--it's like listening to Yoda!

Peep Show

2008-03-30T14:52:00.000-07:00

You think Peeps can make it on Easter sales alone? No way, Jose. This is what they have to do to make ends meet for the rest of the year.

Wombat Rape: Blame the Victim

2008-03-28T14:28:00.001-07:00

This is the most magnificent news story I've read in... well, in a very long time indeed. Pictured at left, to allow you to imagine the following story more vividly, is a common wombat.

A New Zealand man who claimed he was raped by a wombat and that the experience left him speaking with an Australian accent has been found guilty of wasting police time.

Arthur Cradock, 48, from the South Island town of Motueka, called police last month to tell them he was being raped by the marsupial at his home and needed urgent assistance.

Cradock, an orchard worker, later called back to reassure the police operator that he was all right. "I’ll retract the rape complaint from the wombat, because he’s pulled out. Apart from speaking Australian now, I’m pretty all right you know. I didn’t hurt my bum at all."

He pleaded guilty in Nelson District Court to using a phone for a fictitious purpose and was sentenced to 75 hours’ community work. Police prosecutor Sergeant Chris Stringer told the court that alcohol played a large role in Cradock’s life. Judge Richard Russell said he was not sure what had motivated Cradock to make the extraordinary claim. In sentencing Cradock, he warned him not to do it again.

Wombats are native to Australia and are not found in New Zealand. Although powerfully built and about the size of a small pig, they are very rarely dangerous. There are three species: the widely distributed common wombat and the much rarer southern and northern hairy-nosed wombats.

I am not making this story up. It's from the Daily Telegraph (U.K.). Here's the link.

Mozart of the Courtroom

2008-03-17T18:39:00.000-07:00

Today in the courtroom, I witnessed a master at work. Closing arguments, our last chance to talk to the jury... the courtroom packed with curiosity seekers and the media... and this lawyer, whom I can't name, this lawyer gave a closing statement that made spectators cry. I couldn't tell if any jurors had tears in their eyes--I was thirty or forty feet away--but I do recall half a dozen of them laughing out loud at the cracks this lawyer made about the government's misconduct in this case, and eight or nine of them turning to glare at prosecutors when he pointed out an especially egregious thing they'd done.

And he made people cry.

This guy--let's call him Nameless Genius, Esquire--is to the courtroom what Mozart is to music, Tiger Woods to the golf course, Sarah Hughes to ice (here's her Olympic Gold-winning performance, as a point of reference: a sixteen-year-old girl landing jumps that usually only men can land, with the supreme grace that most women can only wish they had). I'm describing other people because I can't say in detail what this guy did--it's highly unwise to blog about your job.

So a fuller description will have to wait until I put it, slightly disguised, in a novel. Look for it. And note--I'm talking about the same lawyer I was talking about in my last post. We think he has seventeen personalities. Most of them are good; today, I must say, he was making the right people cry.

Dark Night

2008-03-11T02:46:00.000-07:00

It's March 11, 3AM. I am still at work. Thus far this month, I've worked more than 115 hours, billing all but five of those. I didn't mind it--in fact I liked it--until today. It was motivating; we're trying to prevent a gross miscarriage of justice fueled by blatant prosecutorial misconduct. I wish I could say more about this case, but obviously I can't.

Here's the review I wish I could give to a certain partner: When you're in a good mood, you're great. Smart, funny, slightly eccentric, highly principled, down to earth, charmingly old school. But when you're not in a good mood, you're the reason associates flee law firms. Suggestion: Try not venting your frustration with that malevolent judge on your underlings. Try not yelling at people for doing work that you yourself describe as "brilliant." Try not making associates cry. That would be a good start.

Update on My Latest Opinions (Excellence #4)

2008-02-25T20:31:00.000-08:00

I Heart: Daniel Day Lewis and his wife, Rebecca Miller.
Greatest (and most gorgeous) actor on the face of the earth shows up at the Oscars in pirate earrings, brown suede shoes and a tie that looks like a dead bat. The Missus is upholstered in the mourning clothes of a Wild West brothel-keeper, her chest and shoulders for some reason festooned with Christmas bows. What can I say? I love these people. Repeat after me: "What-evah! I'll wear what I want!"

I Heart: Tilda Swinton.
As stated previously. This time, I heart her for wearing some sort of Addams Family muu-muu to the Oscars and giving one of the most genuinely witty acceptance speeches I've ever heard (I'm thinking particularly of her affectionate teasing of George Clooney). She even managed to work the words "buttocks" and "nipples" into it. Enjoy the clip.

The Problem With Hillary

2008-02-25T20:20:00.000-08:00

Loved this woman ten-twelve years ago. Utterly disillusioned now. She's doing fine in the Senate--I can't go higher than "fine" because of her vote for the Iraq war--and she'd no doubt be great in the Cabinet of some future administration. But the problem with Hillary is that she's auditioning for the wrong role. She's not the future president; we in this country don't elect people with her personality. We want the sunny optimist at least, and if possible--if one's available in an election year--we want the visionary leader. This is not because she's a woman; it's not only women who have to choose between being competent and being likable--look at Bush, look at Reagan, look at Quayle for god's sake. Apparently millions of people find them likable, would have them over for a barbecue, etc. etc., but they're not what you'd call competent. And look at Cheney: quite competent at his evil workings, but universally disliked (and rightly so). For whatever reason, American voters want the sunny optimist; if that candidate is also competent, or if there's a package deal including a competent VP, that's a great bonus. But the main thing we want is hope.

Does Hillary radiate hope? Jesus god, not at all. Sure, she's pretty, she's golden-haired, she has a big smile. But in her aura is a constant undertone of bitterness and intense ambition--not what you'd call a likable vibe. So Hillary is not the future president. But here's what she is, or could be, if she'd accept it: she's the Democratic equivalent of Karl Rove or Condoleeza Rice, the pit bull attack dog who combines ferocious protection of the administration's priorities with devious back-room political strategizing that gets the damn job done. This is a compliment: we need someone like that. We need it badly. And I can't think of a better person for the job. She showed her chops recently with her despicable anti-Obama tactics. To recap, she blitzed him with the harshest criticisms for, among other things, correctly stating in a campaign mailing that she used to be a big NAFTA supporter. In other words she publicly shamed him for telling the truth. If that's not a Karl Rove tactic, I don't know what is. So, yes: with Obama for president and Hillary accepting her true calling as the Democrats' Karl Rove, we'd win by a landslide.

Sartre Kitchen-Stabbing Poetry

2008-01-04T22:08:00.001-08:00

This is a new game I just came up with. First let me explain what inspired it: my husband and I came across a French movie on TV and started watching. It starred Isabelle Huppert, which is shorthand for "it involved blood-curdling extremes of existential coldness, and sex so affectless it verged on psychopathic." With the help of Google I figured out what movie it was: "Ma Mere," whose plot summary is as follows: "When his father dies, a young man is introduced by his attractive, amoral mother to a world of hedonism and depravity." Meanwhile my husband asks, "Are all her movies like this?"

So I click on various movie titles listed under her name on imdb.com, which, for each movie listed, includes a blurb summarizing the plot and a list of keywords. Here are some randomly chosen plot synopses and keywords from movies she's made within the last ten years (I am not making this up):

Blood / Young Boy / Actual Animal Killed / Letter / Grave
A prostitute and her teenager daughter, will have to run away after the girl stabs her mother's pimp.
Self Hate / BDSM / Pianist /Female Musician / Self Inflicted Injury
Great movie about coldness and distance in human relationships!
Switzerland / Chocolate / Car Accident / Attempted Murder / Sleeping Pill
Idiosyncratic, infuriating non-linear autobiographical fantasia
Male Nudity / Gag / Female Nudity / Femdom / Urination
Fashion executive Dominique's obsession for Quentin, a young bisexual hustler, fills her desire for physical love but leaves her taxed emotionally
Nephew / Corruption / Gloves / Sabotage / Suicide Attempt

So here's the game: pretend you have a set of poetry magnets featuring keywords or words used in plot summaries of Isabelle Huppert movies, as described on imdb.com. Now write poetry using nothing but those words (and, if needed, link words like the, to, and, etc.). It's amazing! Anything you write this way will end up sounding like Sartre wrote it while stabbing himself to death in some grimy, fluorescent-lit kitchen!

A great game for parties and road trips, I think.

Celebrate Good Times - Come On!

2008-01-04T08:00:00.000-08:00

From Obama's victory speech:
"You know, they said this day would never come. They said our sights were set too high. They said this country was too divided, too disillusioned to ever come together around a common purpose. But on this January night, at this defining moment in history, you have done what the cynics said we couldn't do. You have done what the state of New Hampshire can do in five days. You have done what America can do in this new year, 2008. In lines that stretched around schools and churches, in small towns and in big cities, you came together as Democrats, Republicans and independents, to stand up and say that we are one nation. We are one people. And our time for change has come."

This is about how I feel (click on the play button, and make sure your sound is on):

This morning when I saw the headline, I even spontaneously performed some of the fancy footwork seen around the one-minute mark.

Pants Paradise

2007-12-22T12:01:00.001-08:00

In the spirit of holiday giving, I share this with you, my loyal readers (reader?). These are my celebrity crushes--I only hope they give you as much joy as they give me: Jemaine Clement and Brett McKenzie, a.k.a. Flight of the Conchords, "New Zealand's Fourth Most Popular Satirical Folk Duo." Sit back and enjoy (click play and make sure your sound is on).

"A Kiss is Not a Contract"

"You can buy me a burrito/And some beans and rice/But that won't get you into pants paradise... Just because I'm in/a two-man novelty band/doesn't mean it's all about poontang!" If Barry White were a part white/part Maori comedian from New Zealand, he would be Jemaine Clement.

"The Tape of Love" (a.k.a. "Pencils in the Wind")

"Another way that love/is similar to tape..." Check out Brett's meaningful facial expressions. I particularly enjoy the end, where he loses it, most soulfully, in an explosion of strangulated singing.

"Think About It" (crazy Kiwi take on Marvin Gaye's "What's Goin' On"):

"They're turning kids into slaves/just to make cheaper sneakers/but what's the real cost/'cause the sneakers don't seem that much cheaper... "

"Business Time" (now THIS is what I mean by "Jemaine Clement = Barry White.")

"For the Ladies of the World" http://youtube.com/watch?v=hFjrbmj0CUc ("I don't care if you're ugly, or you're skanky, or you're small/I just want to do something special for y'all")

"Inner City Pressure" http://youtube.com/watch?v=7wqfcwgT0Ds&feature=related (Monty Python meets the Pet Shop Boys in a 21st-century dystopia)

"Motha Uckers" http://youtube.com/watch?v=Y3fD6CYCFV8 (the boys get even more urban, rapping on bicycles as they speed away from the Indian grocer so racist he won't sell apples to New Zealanders)

High Five, Ousmane!

2007-12-10T17:09:00.000-08:00

My Senegalese vegetable farmer, Ousmane Ndiaye, has paid back the microloan I helped fund so he and his four buddies could start a farm. I'm just posting this here to plug Kiva.org--now get over there and find a third-world entrepreneur you want to help! You scroll through photos of the entrepreneurs, read descriptions of their projects, and pick which one to loan money to. You can loan as little as $25, and when it's paid back, you can either get the money back or loan it to another third-world entrepreneur. Since the World Bank is somewhere between oblivious and corrupt, it's not going to do the right thing (did you see this New York Times article on Malawi, which ended a huge famine by ignoring the World Bank's pressure to worship at the shrine of the "Free" Market?). So we might as well do the right thing ourselves, $25 at a time...

Our Cat is Shane MacGowan

2007-11-26T15:27:00.001-08:00

Today's big discovery was made while driving down the interstate with a yowling cat in the back seat, and the front seat, and then wandering into the back seat again, and then making her way once again to the front seat, yowling the whole time. Happy Thanksgiving! She only did this for, let's see... roughly the entire five hours we were on the road.

She yowls because she's elderly and deaf and has no concept of volume. She yowls because trees, fields, and cows are going past at unnervingly high speed; because we're surrounded by other cars and trucks, any of which could swerve and kill us in an instant; she yowls because life is short, love is precious, and she isn't completely sure we're taking her home: perhaps we're going to the vet, instead? Or perhaps to a highway rest stop where we might accidentally forget her, so she'll have to spend the rest of her days foraging in the rain for scraps from the rest-stop Au Bon Pain? YOOOWWWWL!!!

But the discovery is this: she yowls right on key with any number of old Pogues songs! Put on "Dirty Old Town" or "A Pair of Brown Eyes," and you can barely hear her! It just sounds like someone trod on Shane MacGowan's foot during the chorus, making him cry out. Or sometimes it sounds like an Irish fiddle in the background adding its pain to the overall lament. (How does that quote go--"The Irish are the people that God made mad/For their battles are all merry, and their songs are all sad.") Our cat's an Irish singer! On our next trip, we're going to see if she can yowl to Sinead O'Connor.

Any bands wishing to rent our cat as vocal talent, please drop me a line. Very reasonable rates assured.

In Memoriam, Goddammit

2007-11-06T19:01:00.000-08:00

On Halloween, one of my former professors--an upbeat, funny, hyper-intelligent shaggy-haired Jewish guy--died of a massive heart attack at the age of 48. Today, at his memorial service, I shook the hand of his delicate, elderly mother hand and said, "I'm so sorry." Then I shook the hands of his teenaged children and said, "I'm so sorry."

If people have to die of heart attacks at 48, why can't it be a certain cardiac-impaired Vice President? Why can't it be a certain effectively anacephalic president? Why can't the human race be carefully pruned away such that the world becomes a better place?

Different Strokes

2007-09-22T07:49:00.000-07:00

So, my law firm had a four-day training retreat for all the new hires from around the world. The best part of it was a seminar on Myers-Briggs personality types during which the startling range of human possibilities (including the possibility of totally failing to understand each other) stood out in stark relief. We were split into four groups, depending on our Myers-Briggs test results, and given an exercise to do: each group had to plan our own training retreat for new hires. Results:

* NF: we didn't actually plan anything, just came up with two general themes: (1) we should have the retreat somewhere gorgeous (Switzerland?) that offers lots of different activities so everyone can find something they enjoy; instead of making everyone go bowling on Tuesday night, as the firm did, we would offer 4 or 5 different activities at the same time so as to maximize the chance that everyone would enjoy themselves equally. And (2) we would incorporate more social-bonding activities: perhaps set up a buddy system, put everyone on the same floor of the hotel, and have an introductory event similar to speed dating (except without the buzzer or bell that speed-daters apparently use to end the interaction early, because that would make people on the receiving end of the buzzer or bell feel bad). Then we spontaneously put together an email list so we could keep in touch, because we all felt a little out of place in a law firm--ours was the second-smallest of the four groups, after all--and we thought we could support each other in adapting to our new jobs. So basically our Myers-Briggs results could be summarized as "you are total girls," though actually about half of us were men.

* SJ: they drew charts on an easel that they found nearby, illustrating how the retreat should take place at a particular West Coast office because, out of the firm's offices that are large enough to accommodate such a large group of new hires, it is the only one that is roughly equidistant between the firm's various locations (which stretch from China to Europe). They also wrote out a schedule stating when new hires from each different location would arrive, based on flight schedules and time zone differences, and when each activity--all of which were mandatory--would take place. This was the second-largest group among the new hires.

* SP: thought the retreat should be in Hawaii (i.e. about 3000 miles from the nearest office), with surfing and whatnot available to those who wanted it, but no mandatory activities. The only concrete event they mentioned was having drinks on the beach the night everyone arrived. They used the word "chill" at least four times during their three-minute presentation ("that way everyone can just chill out on the beach," etc.). This was the smallest group.

* NT: the largest group, by a long shot (this was, after all, not the general population but a room full of lawyers). They refused to do the exercise because they couldn't see the point; it struck them as a touchy-feely waste of time. Spent the planning time entertaining themselves by making fun of the groups that were taking the exercise seriously (i.e., everyone else). When they realized that they had about thirty seconds to go before they would have to present their plan, they came up with a short list of purposely goofy, ironic suggestions.

Edited to add: here are links on each temperament type: NT link; SP link; SJ link; NF link. Sounds about right!

Honeymoon

2007-09-19T19:20:00.001-07:00

Wedding Trauma

2007-08-14T11:31:00.000-07:00

Way back when, the joys of getting married came hand in hand with life-altering trauma for the bride: leaving her parents' house, where she had lived her whole life, and moving somewhere else with a man she did not know very well; abruptly setting aside a lifetime of modesty and chastity for sudden plundering in the marriage bed by the same little-known man (who most likely was no foreplay ninja, thus compounding the trauma); and so on. I may be getting married in a different era, but I too am working through certain traumas, such as:

* My bangs. For my last haircut before the wedding I chose to economize, being already slightly traumatized by the cost of the wedding itself. So, forgoing my fantastic $85 French hairdresser, I went to a competent $32 hairdresser, figuring the haircut didn't matter because I'll be wearing a veil the whole time. All that would matter is my bangs, right? So naturally, while my back was to the mirror, this hairdresser savaged my bangs, which now look much as western Asia did after a rampage by Attila the Hun. My bangs are one inch long. I look like a Roman emperor.

* People's inability to hear me when I say I don't care. Whether the bridesmaids wear open-toed shoes? I don't care; as long as they don't sprain their ankles walking in the woods, they could wear fuzzy bunny slippers or Flamenco shoes, I don't care, but please, please don't email me pictures of ten slightly different pairs of black shoes from which I am expected to choose! What color cummerbund my father should wear? I don't care. Tie dye? Gold lame? Chainmail? Whatever floats his boat. What our wedding colors are? What? I do not understand this question. Our wedding colors are "pretty colors and lots of them." Our wedding theme is "come have fun, eat fantastic organic food, dance, lie giggling under the table while hopelessly drunk, wear a crazy costume if you want, wear a bikini if you want, enjoy." Our colors are pretty, our theme is enjoy. Everybody, please feel free to improvise from there.

* My Republicousins. For various reasons, fifteen of my Catholic, Reaganomics-loving cousins and their families will be unable to attend. This means we won't get to expose the only Republicans I'm closely related to, and their impressionable youngsters, to our big fat Pagan hippy Native-AmeriWiccan wedding ceremony in the woods, presided over by a Pagan priestess and shaman, with some gay bridesmaids to boot. The sheltered red-state youngsters, my first cousins once removed, also won't get to see my gay uncle dressed as the Mad Hatter. They'll be at Sunday school or something. Oh, how sad.

I am working through these various sorrows psychologically, and, with the help of my therapist and a strong community of supportive friends, I hope to emerge from all this as a better, stronger person.

Today's Most Beautiful Thing

2007-08-06T13:30:00.000-07:00

Paul Potts, a cell-phone salesman from Wales, is today's most beautiful thing. This melancholy, unconfident, overweight Welsh phone salesman in his late thirties auditioned for the British version of American Idol, "Britain's Got Talent." He stood there with horrendous teeth and an awful suit that didn't fit and announced to the judges that he was going to sing opera--two of the judges exchanged a sarcastic raise of the eyebrows, as if to say "oh god help us." And then he did this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k08yxu57NA

A few weeks later, he won the entire competition. Here's his finale performance; after this, millions of people across Britain phoned in their votes, and he won. http://youtube.com/watch?v=EfVImoJSAMo

Yes, yes. There is grace in the world.

Bar Exam Bliss

2007-07-25T17:40:00.000-07:00

How to celebrate that the bar exam is over? Walk directly from the convention center to a bar two blocks away with other bar exam-blitzed friends, and over mojitos, margaritas and so on, share the secrets we all had to reveal to the state Board of Bar Examiners as part of our character and fitness background check: "Wow, so you got deported from Scotland, and I almost shot my wife's boyfriend in the face--" "WHAT?! Holy shit!" (Full details followed, the entire saga). We're jealous of the people whose job it is to read the deep dark secrets on our bar applications. Thousands of bar applicants each year, spilling their hidden craziness out on paper--we have to tell the truth, whole and nothing but, because if it's later discovered that we lied on our applications, we could be disbarred. You could base a whole screenplay on some of these secrets, and there are people sitting in an air-conditioned office in the state capital, getting paid not only to read them, but, if necessity (or curiosity?) requires, to send follow-up letters requesting more information. Lucky bastards!

And how to celebrate, last night, that it was half over? Spend an hour in a gym (I hadn't set foot in a gym in ten years), working myself over completely to dispel the stress from muscle and bone; then go see a rock concert, because... well, why the hell not. So what if I had to get up at 7:30 the next day and go spend another eight-hour day taking the bar exam--life is short.

Bad Reputation

2007-07-12T18:01:00.001-07:00

Song In My Head Right Now: Joan Jett, "Bad Reputation."
Why: I'm reviewing evidence law, in particular character evidence: the defendant's reputation, past arrests, etc.
Song In My Head This Morning: Prince, "Delirious."
Why: I was in a lecture review of family law.

Wait. That latter one sounds like it doesn't make sense. But it does; it makes sense because the man giving the lecture had a particular combination of formal language and bawdiness that would put any rational person in mind of Prince (illustrative lyrics: "Dig, if you will, the picture/of you and I engaged in a kiss..."). This despite the fact that physically today's lecturer was more evocative of Drew Carey twenty years from now. And the song represents the often febrile emotions of our hypothetical couple, Harry and Wanda, whom he trotted out for every possible example. Here is how he explained one aspect of family law:

"Another ground for annulment is if one spouse lied or misled the other about his or her sexual proclivities. For example, say Harry and Wanda are fiances, and though they're remaining virgins until marriage--maybe they feel like they have to, maybe they think there's something kinda sexy about waiting, whatever--they have no reticence in discussing the issue. So Wanda says, 'Tell me, Harry, how do you view the role of sex in marriage?' And Harry says, 'Well, I think it's very important. It's a beautiful metaphor for the intimacy and pleasure of marriage itself. So I would want robust, missionary-position sex as often as possible.' They get married, go on their honeymoon to Hawaii, and in their hotel room Wanda excuses herself to slip into the proverbial 'something a little more comfortable.' When she returns 15 minutes later in her Victoria's Secret negligee, she sees Harry sitting on the bed wearing a pair of Pampers and holding a bottle of Wesson oil. Now... Wanda can leave right there and nullify the marriage, because THAT is grounds for annulment. Or... NOT! Since this is one of the grounds that is waivable by the parties, Wanda, upon seeing Harry with his Pampers and his Wesson oil, could choose to waive it, and just... take things from there!"

Tribute to America for this 4th of July

2007-07-04T19:38:00.000-07:00

A few words on war from a great American:
"There has never been a just one, never an honorable one - on the part of the instigator of the war. I can see a million years ahead, and this rule will never change in so many as half a dozen instances. The loud little handful - as usual - will shout for the war. The pulpit will - warily and cautiously - object - at first; the great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, "It is unjust and dishonorable, and here is no necessity for it."

Then the handful will shout louder.

A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity. Before long you willsee this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers - as earlier - but do not dare to say so.

And now the whole nation - pulpit and all - will take up the war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open. Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception."
- Mark Twain, Chapter 9, The Mysterious Stranger

La vita e bella

2007-06-16T11:09:00.000-07:00

Today's bandwidth will be dedicated to odd and/or wonderful things. For example, the flock of geese in Colchester, England that mugged a student and stole his cellphone. After pecking at him until he dropped the phone, one of them grabbed it in its beak and "disappeared into the undergrowth" with the rest of the flock close behind. Is this some kind of gang initiation ritual for geese?! Story here.

Let me raise a toast to "Paris je t'aime," which accomplishes the strange feat of being at the same time a wonderful date movie and also a work of art that culminates in an epiphany of infinite compassion for the human race. What a delight.

And another toast to five-year-old Hannah Klamecki, who was lost in a boating accident with her grandfather on Wednesday night, only to wander out of the woods on Saturday morning naked, covered with scratches and poison ivy, holding a handful of wild raspberries. Her grandfather's body had been found in rapids not far from their boat; the family was reeling from that grief and from the expectation that her body would be found next. But no: after the accident she grabbed hold of a branch, pulled herself from the river, and walked through the forest for two and a half days. As she put it, "I went searching all over the world" for help.

Getting Laid: A New Hallmark Niche Market?

2007-05-15T15:07:00.000-07:00

I thought they made greeting cards for every imaginable occasion, but as I discovered recently, there are no greeting cards with which to congratulate a friend who has just gotten magnificently laid for the first time since the traumatic end of a major relationship over a year ago. That being the case, I had to make do with what was available: one of Hallmark's Cinco de Mayo e-cards. So after my friend's new lover left--after she changed the sheets on her bed, smiled at her ridiculous bed-head in the mirror, applied various lotions to her newly chafed nether regions, settled in with some coffee to read her email, and gave me the low-down on her hot date--she got an e-card featuring a mariachi band playing some wildly festive tune while the words "Sing... Dance... Celebrate" appeared on the screen. So the card actually wasn't all that off the mark, but still. Hallmark? Can you say "untapped market niche"?

Bus Stop Symphony

2007-05-04T15:41:00.000-07:00

Today the sky is turquoise, like tropical waters, with a fine mist of cirrostratus clouds high above. The sun is strong and perfect, not overwhelming as it sometimes gets later in summer. My grandmother's wedding ring throws out an aurora of rainbows from my right hand; my engagement ring, on my left, is blue and gold and brilliant like the day.

I'm sitting on some church's concrete steps, waiting for the bus and listening to my summer mix. Bjork's "All Is Full of Love" just sent me into a state of god-breathing ecstasy, simultaneous waves of immense reverential gratitude for all the love given and received in the past year, and of immense depth, the depth of this world itself that I'm sitting in: cracked concrete hot in the summer sun, a dried apricot inexplicably lying on the sidewalk, people of all different ages and races, colors and shapes walking by--the adorable skatepunk with his skateboard and attitude and skin-tight purple jeans, the sporty black guy with little dreads like black caterpillars and pectorals as full as breasts, the old man in white bent over his walker, and the beat-up working-class guy who peers at me with the permanent faint suspicion of a life-long underdog, but then--in response, I suppose, to the look in my eyes--his gaze softens; he seems to emerge tentatively from behind a wall of defensiveness, as if realizing, "Oh yeah, we are both human beings, aren't we."

And the grass is rich and lush, and the trees are spangled with little yellow-green leaves shining translucent in the sunlight, and I love life.

Quote of the Day

2007-04-25T20:51:00.000-07:00

See for yourself
What brings you contentment, clarity, peace.
That is the path for you to follow.
- Gautama Buddha

Remedy for Spiritual Exhaustion (Easter Special #2)

2007-04-08T21:09:00.000-07:00

Why are we Americans such a gregarious but lonely people? My friend Alliekatt McPoguemahone, previously mentioned here in the "America, the Nincompoop" post (see archive), has found both the answer and the remedy in her adopted homeland of Ireland:

"I have finally gotten it. The Irish respect self-sufficiency and motivation, but it is not the light that they fly to. They fly to the light that breaks through when our armor breaks down and reveals common human ground of mortality, difficulty, struggle, grief, and heartbreak."

Read the rest on Allie's blog.

Peeps Show (Easter Special #1)

2007-04-07T19:11:00.000-07:00

For Easter, the holiday of fertility and bunny love (named in honor of the Germanic goddess of spring, Eostre), I post a link to this special video for you, my two or three loyal blog readers. Yes: marshmallow Peeps going at it in true bunny style. Enjoy! Make sure you have the music on.

A bit of Easter reading for the more scholarly among you:
Dr. Carol Cusack (U. of Sydney, Australia), "The Goddess Eostre: Bede's Text and Contemporary Pagan Tradition(s)" (abstract)

Miss Marilyn Monroe Pees Only in her Litterbox

2007-03-22T23:11:00.000-07:00

Or, the fine art of eavesdropping...
The scene: a sushi restaurant in Japantown, San Francisco, Wednesday night (yesterday).
The players: two men in their late twenties sitting in the next booth. One blond American who looks like he walked out of a Ralph Lauren ad. One tall, dark Frenchman in a form-fitting cream-colored turtleneck.

Frenchie: Listen, I got home, I was exhausted, it was ten o'clock at night, and my room was full of cat piss.
Ralph: It was eight o'clock.
Frenchie: It was ten o'clock! My plane was delayed! I got in at nine, so--
Ralph: You were on Burbank time.
Frenchie: I--wait, Burbank is the same time zone.
Ralph: No it's not.
Frenchie: Well, but--wait, yes it is. Fuck! Listen! I got in at nine, so I'm home at ten, I'm completely exhausted, and you've locked my fucking cat in my room. The cat has pissed everywhere and shat on the bed. What would you do if I locked your cat in your room when you were gone?
Ralph: I'd laugh. I'd get the fucking joke. Except it wouldn't happen to me, because Miss Marilyn Monroe is a princess, she doesn't pee anywhere except her litterbox. Your cat is psycho. It was pissing everywhere. It was my bed or yours. If you want it to stop, get it neutered.
Frenchie: Listen, I was saving up. Do you know how much it costs to castrate a fucking cat?
Ralph: Yeah, it's free.
Frenchie: It's five hundred fucking dollars!
Ralph: No, it's free.
Frenchie: No, look, I called. It's five hundred fucking--
Ralph: Yeah, because you're a moron and you didn't call the SPCA.
Frenchie: Listen, I'm working on it! This doesn't mean you can just lock my cat--I mean, there was cat piss everywhere!
Ralph: Well, at least it got you out of your room for once.
Frenchie: Why do you care if I'm in my room? I come home at the end of the day, I'm tired, I don't bother you, so why is this such a problem?
Ralph: Why is it a problem that there's a French bastard in my apartment who spends all his time locked in his bedroom masturbating? Look, yeah, that bothers me! I try to have fun, I say "Hey, let's go get something to eat," I invite friends over--
Frenchie: And then you tell them I have been in my bedroom masturbating. This does not make me feel so sociable, you know?
Ralph: Look, they knew I was joking.
Frenchie: Listen. I have thought about this thing you said. I understand you were drunk, I'm not going to be mad at you for what you say when you're drunk. I will let this pass. But my cat--

Etc. This conversation continued the entire time we were there, eating our sushi in the adjacent booth and trying to stifle our laughter. As we were getting up to leave:
Me (to Frenchie): 'Scuse me for eavesdropping, but you guys should write a screenplay, seriously. Listening to your argument is so entertaining. It's like something out of a Tarantino movie.
Frenchie: Well, thank you. But it is not an argument, really. It's--you know, two people working out their issues, I don't know what you would call it, but--
Me: A discussion?
Frenchie: A discussion, yes. Not an argument.

Understated Sexiness

2007-03-15T12:48:00.000-07:00

This decade's award for Understated Sexiness in a Musician or Band goes to: Britta Phillips and Dean Wareham. Why this quality of theirs is quite apparent when seeing them live, but barely perceptible from the few publicity photos I'd seen, I don't know. I guess that's where the understatedness comes in.

Those who want more photos, or who wish to view my video of them singing "Bonnie and Clyde" in the original French, just say the word; your inbox will rejoice. Moi, Bonnie, je tremble pour Clyde Barrow...

Foot in Mouth Disease

2007-03-15T09:30:00.000-07:00

So far my engagement ring has triggered two attacks of foot-in-mouth disease. I don't mean the kind of foot-in-mouth that afflicts cattle and is treated by veterinarians. I mean the kind that afflicts me, making me wildly embarrassed, and is apparently untreatable. Here's how this works: I run into someone who either does not know I'm engaged or hasn't seen the ring, and I have to explain the ring to them, because for some reason people are confused by engagement rings that fail to conform to the platinum/diamond solitaire expectation. It's like so:

My interlocutor: Oh! A, uh, a blue stone! That's really pretty! So does that mean you're engaged? And is that a, uh, what is that?
Me: It's a sapphire. It was made in a lab, and the gold is recycled--he had the ring made by this hippy outfit that's all environmental, so nothing's mined.
My interlocutor: Oh. And those are little diamonds?
Me: No, they're moissanites, which we got because I object to diamonds.
My interlocutor: Oh.

It is at this point that I notice that my interlocutor is wearing a diamond ring. Why it does not occur to me to glance at her finger before opening my big yap, I have no idea. And how I've managed to do this twice already--twice in the past week--is truly mystifying. Is there a support group for people with foot in mouth disease? Please can I join?

Quote of the Day

2007-03-14T14:31:00.000-07:00

It's Einstein's birthday. That has nothing to do with this quote, maybe.

"We all have skeletons in our closets and monsters in our hearts....
When a relationship is soulful, the soul's irrationality will be revealed for all to see.... Such love of the soul, sometimes felt as nothing more than tolerance of its unreasonable demands, is the basis for intimacy."
- Thomas Moore, Soul Mates

Mountains of the Moon

2007-03-13T21:24:00.000-07:00

While I realize that only about three people on earth ever read this blog, so it truly doesn't matter what the hell I post, I still want to call the attention of those three people to my favorite song of the moment. I just listened to it four times and am listening to it again: "Mountains of the Moon," by Michael Holland, from his CD "Tomorrow's American Treasures" (that link is to an excellent review). Folks, it's on iTunes: it couldn't possibly be easier to buy. Oh, and he's opening for Dean and Britta these days. Check 'em all out.

Hamosexual

2007-03-08T19:56:00.000-08:00

Is it safe to blog while inebriated? We shall see.
Tonight, at a French restaurant, I faced a basic truth about myself. It is a truth I denied for many years--specifically, the five and a half years I spent as a vegetarian.
I am hamosexual.
I am a flaming hamo.
Put me in front of a French saucisson. Or a slice of pate. Or a serving of jambon cru, France's equivalent of proscuitto: dry-cured ham. Or even bacon. The result? I am totally enslaved.
To deny this, would be to deny some of my most basic desires. I will not do that anymore. It is time for me to come out.

Crotch District Attorney, and Reverend Haggard

2007-02-06T11:39:00.000-08:00

Two related emails have arrived in my inbox. The first is spam, or at least I infer that it's spam from the fact that the sender is unknown to me and the subject line, in its entirety, is: "crotch district attorney." I mentioned this to my mom and asked if she thought I should open it--not because I want computer viruses, but just because I'm curious what text could possibly correspond to that title--and she said, "Not without a condom."

The second is a New York Times article headlined, "Haggard Pronounced 'Completely Heterosexual.'" This article contains an extremely interesting definition of "completely heterosexual," which boils down to something like "Reverend Haggard is completely heterosexual in the sense that, during the three years he spent having amphetamine-fueled sex-fests with a male prostitute, he was only acting out. And it won't happen again, we don't think." Aren't these the same people who mocked President Clinton for quibbling about what the definition of "is" was? Apparently rhetorical hair-splitting is only allowed if you're a Republican McEvangelist.

The Mama Manifesto

2007-02-05T11:45:00.000-08:00

I just had a brilliant idea, I think. Here it is: if I have kids, then no one, but no one, is ever allowed to refer to me as "mom." They must use the word "mama" instead. Cool women of America, unite: we should all do this! I could go on and on about the reasons why, but here are the main ones:

Reason #1: No one talks about "mom" and eroticism in the same breath. But people do say "she's one sexy mama," "one hot mama," etc. Okay, I gotta admit that no one I know says that, but still: it's in the lexicon.I don't know what's up with this weird Anglo-Saxon desexualization of mothers--remember how people flipped out when Demi Moore posed nude for a magazine cover when she was heavily pregnant? Notice how in this culture it's okay to display acres of cleavage in public, but much less okay to breastfeed in public? I don't know what's up with that and I'm not even going to go there, nor will I let anyone put me there by calling me "mom." Instead, muchas gracias, I'll stick with the hot and womanly Spanish/Italian/French word: mama/mamma/maman. As in, "That's one sexy mama over there by the cafe window, breastfeeding and reading a novel."
Reason #2: When parents talk about each other with their children, they use titles instead of names ("Don't cry, mom's coming right back," etc.). I do not want the father of my children referring to me with the same word he uses to refer to his own mother. That's just too weird, not to mention unsexy.
Reason #3: As evidenced by the fact that some black and Latino dudes standing on urban sidewalks in the summertime address every hot grown woman who walks past as "mama" (or little mama, pretty mama, mamita, whatever), a "mama" is a woman who may or may not also be a mother. A "mom" is a mother, first and foremost, period, case closed. Presumably she's female (though the movie Mr. Mo m suggests she might not even be that), but the main point, the fulcrum of her identity, is that she's someone's mother. But I've been on this earth for over thirty years without being anyone's mother. I have an identity. I understand that having kids is a life-changing event, that it changes your sense of who you are, etc. etc. But it doesn't kill who you were and replace that with a whole new identity. Not unless you let it, that is.

Excellence #2: Zeus-Worshipping Greeks

2007-01-21T18:44:00.000-08:00

This photo depicts a Greek priestess worshiping Zeus and Hera at a temple built nearly 2000 years ago. Apparently it's a holiday in the Ancient Greek religious calendar: the celebration of Zeus and Hera's wedding. If you weren't aware of that, don't beat yourself up for your ignorance--this is the first time Greek rites have been celebrated there since the ancient religion was banned in the fourth century. CNN has more.

Apparently, until last year the Ancient Greek religion was banned in Greece, of all places (someone please explain that to me). Then last February Ellinais, a group of Greek pagans, won a court case they had brought to get the ban overturned so they could come out of the closet about their religious practice. (More on that here.) And a few months later, Greek law made another nod towards religious tolerance: the Greek Orthodox Church, which used to have the legal authority to prevent other religious groups from building places of worship (!), was stripped of that authority. (I bet the planning meetings for building non-Orthodox places of worship used to be pretty short: "Can we build a synagogue?" No. "Mosque?" No. "Catholic church?" No. "Ancient Greek temple?" No way, and if you ask again I'm calling the police on your pagan ass.)

Any evidence that the world is getting weirder and more pluralistic, that organized religion is losing its grip on political power, and that weirdos are coming out of the closet... baby, anything like that is a breath of fresh air to me. Yay Greek pagans!

*Edited to add this link to a Guardian article on the virulent reaction of the Orthodox church.* Interesting quote from one Pagan: "The Christians hated pagans so much that from the fourth century to the ninth century they destroyed their temples and libraries, killed their priests, closed their philosophical schools and, in one case, set up a death camp. It was genocide but priests don't want to talk about that today." Instead, he says, the Orthodox church insisted that Christianity had been spread, and accepted, peacefully.

Quote of the Day (on the Art of Living and Dying)

2007-01-18T20:04:00.000-08:00

"Whether it's the best of times or the worst of times,
it's the only time we've got."
- Art Buchwald

**************

Here's an article, best described not as an obit but as a celebration of the art of living, as exemplified by Art Buchwald. I don't ever recall being impressed by the way someone died, but now I am: the way he spent his time in hospice sounds like he scheduled his wake early, actually prior to his demise, so he could play host to friends and loved ones and better enjoy his last few weeks on earth. The New York Times described his deathbed as the "hottest salon" in D.C. Kudos, Buchwald!

Glamor Shots From My LA Vacation

2007-01-18T19:18:00.000-08:00

Things to Do in Pasadena:
Go to Huntington Hospital, which despite the do-gooder vibe of its website is, in fact, some kind of Hospital-to-the-Stars. It's got a pink marble fountain in the entry hall; it's got pink marble everywhere it possibly can. The gift shop (featuring pink marble checkout desk) must be the only hospital gift shop in America with no cheesy stuffed animals or nauseating Precious Moments figurines; instead it sells Japanese objets d'art too expensive to have price tags on them, fine jewelry, and kitchenware from ultra-kooky Paris boutique Pylones. (Nothing says "get well soon" quite like an anthropomorphic cheese grater.) These glamor shots were one of my forms of self-entertainment while waiting in the examination room.

Most surprising of all: I showed up in the ER and spent barely half an hour in its sunlit waiting room. This inconceivably short delay includes the time spent being taken from the life-threatening trauma ER to the garden-variety complaints ER (yes, they have two ER's, each separately staffed). Everyone I encountered-- doctors, nurses, et al--listened, took their time so things got done right, and in all other ways behaved like human beings genuinely interested in my well-being! What magic is this? How does Huntington do it? More to the point, why doesn't anyone else do it?

Season's Greetings

2006-12-19T17:03:00.000-08:00

Some festive seasonal imagery for the blog...

Jesus is the Reason
For the Season
And He's Also the Reason
YOU Are Going Straight to HELL!
* Courtesy of Landover Baptist *

This Year,
Enjoy the Communist Party!
(Please Enjoy RESPONSIBLY)

Putting Their Money Where Their Mouth Is

2006-12-15T09:33:00.000-08:00

This week's example of the all-too-rare phenomenon of actions matching rhetoric: the response to the murders of five prostitutes in small-town eastern England. It's so basic: it boils down to, "Yes, prostitutes are real people! They don't deserve to die!" Contrast this with the American response to the Green River murders, in which at least four dozen women died. "Police really don't care," said the mother of one victim, whose body has never been found. That killer, when he pled guilty in 2003, explained to the judge that he targeted streetwalkers "because I thought I could kill as many as I wanted to without getting caught."

Meanwhile, in Ipswich, England, Detective Chief Superintendent Stewart Gull urges prostitutes to stay off the streets: "It's not safe to engage a client at this time." Those are the words. And here's the action: "Prostitutes in Ipswich are being given money by police and drug workers to stop them risking their lives by touting for business on the streets... As officers continue to hunt for a serial killer feared to have murdered five women, it was revealed that women who work in the red light area... are receiving cash handouts." According to various European papers, police, county employees, and charity workers are handing out cash, phone cards, food stamps, and methadone to prostitutes, to reduce to zero their reasons for working the streets.

And more actions: "While the streets of Ipswich were largely deserted after dark, there was a sizeable police presence. Everywhere were uniformed officers in pairs, police vehicles and even unmarked cars - single male drivers were stopped and their details checked." As for the public response, in a single day, Ipswich police got more than 2,000 calls from people phoning in tips.

Prostitutes are people (thank you, England, for acknowledging that); prostitution should be legal; but prostitution is sad as hell. As a Guardian columnist writes, "It is difficult to equate this idea of liberal, easygoing men with an innocent itch to scratch, with the more solid and real portrait of emotionally destroyed women, anaesthetising themselves with heroin and crack in order to get through the psychologically harrowing work of having sex for money. This split reveals a vast and damaging denial going on in the minds of men who use prostitutes. It is a psychological denial... which seems to be necessary in order for men to maintain a halo of eroticism around something that in reality is steeped in sadness."

Propaganda? You Tell Me

2006-12-11T20:19:00.000-08:00

Which of these news sources is accurately reporting the news?

CNN: Annan Says Bye, Tells U.S. to Use Power Wisely
ABC News: No Kudos for Bush in Annan's Farewell
BBC News: Annan Chides U.S. in Final Speech
Le Monde: In One of his Last Speeches, Annan Severely Criticizes the Bush Administration

What Annan Actually Said: No nation can make itself secure by seeking supremacy over others... both security and development ultimately depend on respect for human rights and the rule of law.... As Truman said, "We must, once and for all, prove by our acts conclusively that Right Has Might."

That's why this country [the U.S.] has historically been in the vanguard of the global human rights movement. But that lead can only be maintained if America remains true to its principles, including in the struggle against terrorism. When it appears to abandon its own ideals and objectives, its friends abroad are naturally troubled and confused.... When power, especially military force, is used, the world will consider it legitimate only when convinced that it is being used for the right purpose – for broadly shared aims – in accordance with broadly accepted norms.

No community anywhere suffers from too much rule of law; many do suffer from too little... This we must change. The US has given the world an example of a democracy in which everyone, including the most powerful, is subject to legal restraint. Its current moment of world supremacy gives it a priceless opportunity to entrench the same principles at the global level. As Harry Truman said, "We all have to recognize, no matter how great our strength, that we must deny ourselves the license to do always as we please."

My vote's with Le Monde on this one...

Crumpets Rule!

2006-12-10T09:20:00.000-08:00

'Nuff said.

Wes Anderson and the Brood of Glass Owls

2006-11-05T08:42:00.000-08:00

One part of last night's strange, complicated dream: I'm visiting movie director Wes Anderson and his tall, pale-haired actress girlfriend in their New York City apartment, a dream apartment so physically impossible that it’s difficult to describe. A subway ran right under it, old-fashioned green train cars. On the roof: a menagerie of tiny animals. A family of tiny glass owls, translucent, brown; the mama owl no more than an inch high, the great brood of babies half that size or less, all rushing forward peeping for food. I think I fed them something, a liquid, from the tip of a blade of grass. Much congratulations, from Wes et al, of this feat.

Also a large insect, at first a shiny brown beetle several inches long; it removed one of its own legs to perform an operation on itself; then it turned out to be a female spider, tarantula-sized, and she’d used the leg to cut open her own abdomen, performing a caesarian, to get her baby or babies out. She stood, or Wes stood her, up on one side so we could see her underbelly, the red slash. How was she going to sew herself back up? Or was she going to slowly bleed out, had she sacrificed herself for her baby?
Hmm, says Freud.

My Jack O'Lantern 2006

2006-10-31T22:09:00.000-08:00

All Hallows' Eve

2006-10-31T00:18:00.000-08:00

In honor of the holiday, a poem in the voice of a ghost:

NOCTURNE
By Daleth Carey Hall

I am here, and not.
The difference is tiny:
A tilting of sunbeams, a settling of dust.

When you dream of my house,
I enter: rooms jumbled,
Dream-skewed,
Not at all as it was.
In your confusion I find
My chair, and sit gratefully.
If I wink, your eyes flutter.
You turn in your sleep.

When I left, in a step
I crossed galaxies. At the thought
Of returning, I returned,
But not to what I’d left:
You’re a flicker of pictures,
All shadow and light.
The skin beneath fingers, the heat
Of your breath,
Are beyond my ken.

As you sleep, I rest
In your dream-chair, the only one
That holds me, or walk
In the only house
Whose walls I don’t pass through.

When you wake, the hint of me
The memory of weight
Burns off in an instant
Like a night’s fog at sunrise,
Like a note that’s been sung.

***************************

Edited to add: published in Earth's Daughters issue #72, 2008

Pink Flamingos

2006-10-30T09:09:00.000-08:00

Apparently the company that's been making the classic pink plastic lawn flamingo is going out of business after nearly 50 years, casting the future of kitschy lawn ornaments into doubt. Folks, there may not be any more pink plastic flamingos adorning America's lawns! People just aren't buying enough of them, so the company's going under!

But wait! I have an idea. Here's how to save the pink plastic lawn flamingo: make them out of recycled plastic; give them a woo-woo alternative lifestyle name (a la "Spirit of the Everglades"); and have them manufactured by some feel-good cooperative. Then sell them in a "rich hippy" lifestyle catalog such as Gaiam, like so:

Spirit of the Everglades: heal the earth while paying tribute to a wilder and more innocent America. These classic garden ornaments, in recycled plastic the vivid rose of a Caribbean dawn, are individually handcrafted by an indigenous women's cooperative high in the Andes. While evoking the spirit of Florida's wilderness--and the kitschy sincerity of Kennedy-era America--you can let the whole world know that you support recycling and economic independence for the native peoples of the Andes. $125.

Place your orders now, folks! Just visit www.cynicism.com!

Go, Madonna! And critics be damned.

2006-10-21T09:59:00.000-07:00

The situation: a dirt-poor onion farmer and his wife, in an African nation shattered by poverty and AIDS, had their third child, David, in 2005. Their first two children had died of malaria as toddlers. Six days after David's birth, the mother dies. The father can't afford milk to feed David, and no extended-family network is available to help, because AIDS has destroyed that traditional safety net. So the father puts baby David in an orphanage, because there, at least, David will get food and basic medical care.

Recent developments: a self-made multi-millionaire and married mother of two--that is, Madonna--expresses interest in adopting David and bringing him to live with her family in London, where he will have a mom and dad, two siblings (one half-British, one half-Cuban--this is already a mixed, international family), a top-notch education, fantastic food and health care, and every opportunity in life that money can possibly buy. So instead of dying in childhood or becoming a hardscrabble farmer like his dad, maybe he'll be the next Barack Obama. Oh, also, Madonna and her husband want to make sure David stays in touch with his dad; they promise occasional visits. Also, they're donating $3,000,000 to orphanages throughout the country, to help the kids who will never be adopted.

How the nutjobs have reacted:
(1) So-called "children's rights" groups in Malawi have filed suit to block the adoption, over the objections of David's father, who asks, "Where were these people when David was struggling in the orphanage? As a father I have okayed this. Who are they to cause trouble?"
(2) Controversy explodes over the fact that a child with a living father is being adopted. Everyone seems to have forgotten that here in the developed world, that's how almost all adoptions work: children whose parents are both living are put up for adoption because the parents are unable or unwilling to raise them.
(3) And last but not least, wackjobs the world over have accused Madonna "of 'American colonialism' for transplanting the boy from an African orphanage to a life of western luxury." ("If that's colonialism," say the orphans of Africa, "sign me up!"). Analogies to slavery have been made, as have statements that interracial adoptions are selfish and unwise; Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema, who spoke to journalists in the apparent but inexplicable belief that his opinion was in some way relevant, compared David's adoption to a "kidnapping." And get this idiotic, breathtakingly arrogant blog posting by an NYU professor: "This Malawi child is leaving his heritage, his people, his language, his family. Yes, he is poor. But now he is also impoverished. The soul of the motherless child is co-opted... Sounds like colonialism to me."

My response, a.k.a. the only rational response: Nutjobs, shut the hell up. It is not your business if a child's only living parent gives him up for adoption. It is not your business if the kid's father, having seen his wife and first two children die, decides that life with an adoptive family in London is preferable to life in an African orphanage. If you're not going to step in and support this child yourself, shut up.

The best summary of the situation: Andrina Mchiela, of the Malawi Welfare Ministry, compared the decision David's father made to the story of baby Moses being placed in a basket and floated downriver in hopes that someone would save him. Moses, a Jewish child, was rescued by an Egyptian princess and raised in luxury in a foreign land; he grew up to become the liberator of his people. I, for one, agree with Mchiela and with David's dad that David should be given the same chance.

How Do You Say "Hell" in Japanese?

2006-10-07T22:03:00.000-07:00

You don't need to. It is understood from context: everything is hell in Japanese. Let me illustrate how to look up new words, for instance:

The scene: Me at my desk with a 430-page coursepack, which I have to review in its entirety before moving on to the actual work I have to do for class. "Review" is a misnomer, as I have never laid eyes on this coursepack before. This is what I get for convincing a teacher to teach me a class for which I never took the prerequisite.

Some background for those mercifully unfamiliar with Japanese: This fine language has two different alphabets (hey, why not? the more the better) and thousands of Chinese characters ("kanji"). In any given sentence, all these elements may be thrown together in an orgy of linguistic confusion. Kanji do not seem to follow any pronunciation rules whatsoever; the exact same character may have three or four completely different pronunciations. Not satisfied with this level of complexity, well-meaning western teachers have also transliterated written Japanese into "romaji" (the Roman alphabet). Unfortunately they disagree on how to transliterate it, so, for example, in different romaji dictionaries, "zyaa" and "ja" might actually be the same word. Perhaps the romaji dictionaries are just trying to prepare you mentally for the sheer frustration of Japanese itself.

The issue: This coursepack is full of kanji I have never seen before (the teacher's explanation: "we get so many Chinese and other Asian students studying Japanese, and since they already know kanji, we start out at a high level.") In other words, those of us who don't already read another Asian language just have to figure this out for ourselves. The kanji are printed in text 1/8th of an inch tall; many of them look like nothing so much as tiny centipedes crushed flat on the page. There is a conspicuous absence of handy-dandy furigana (phonetic characters), so I have no idea how the kanji are pronounced, so I can't even try to look them up in the only dictionary I have, which is in romaji (though it has Japanese writing next to every word). So in addition to not knowing how they're pronounced, I don't know what they mean.

The solution: Complicated. Breaking the process down, it goes like so: (1) attempt to count how many strokes were used to write the teeny-tiny, crushed-centipede kanji. If there's another kanji next to it that might happen to be considered part of the same kanji, count those teeny-tiny strokes, too. The usual result is that it might be, say, 13 strokes, although it could also be 12 or 14. (2) Look in the small kanji-pronunciation dictionary in the back of my textbook, under 13-stroke kanji. When I don't find it, look under 12 and 14 strokes too. In the unlikely event that I find it, move to step 3; otherwise skip to step 5. (3) Read the hiragana (phonetic Japanese) next to the kanji in the back of said textbook; then (4), having transliterated the hiragana into the Roman alphabet, look the word up in my romaji dictionary. Or (5) if I don't find the exact kanji I'm looking up, but I find the first big chunk of it contained within other kanji, notice the multitude of ways in which that chunk can be pronounced; say, for example, it could be pronounced shin or ka or ga. Then (6) start looking in the romaji dictionary: read every word that starts with shin, then every word that starts with ka, then ga... and hope I find it.

The result: This method ain't pretty, but it more or less works. On the other hand, spending an evening this way is roughly as much fun as spending it getting into a bar fight and being rushed to the hospital minus your handbag and two pints of blood. I think I am beginning to understand the high suicide rate in Japan--is that what they mean when they say learning a foreign language teaches you about the culture, too?

Goodbye, Crocodile Hunter

2006-09-05T17:59:00.000-07:00

Man, this is just sad. I really have nothing to say other than that it's sad. Excuse the sentimentality, but as my friend Jesse said, "He brought light into the world."

It's not easy to live your life better than he did: doing work he adored, leading a completely original life, instilling a sense of fun and adventure in his children, entertaining people worldwide, helping preserve nature and wilderness, and, oh, saving a stranger's life here and there. He probably even would've liked to go out like this, in mid-adventure--but couldn't it have happened forty or fifty years later instead?

In a minute I'll go pour myself some port and raise a toast to him. Good one, Steve. Wish there were more like you.

Tarts, Where Are Your Hearts?

2006-08-12T08:34:00.000-07:00

Will someone please tell me what the hell is wrong with some women? This says it all: How to Find a Rich Husband. (Translation: "how to be a prostitute, but without the social stigma.") I don't see any web sites about how to find a brilliant, funny, strong, warm, protective, sexy, loyal husband--why is that? Surely that's much harder, so we need all the help we can get in the search...

Anyway, here's my money manifesto, in the unlikely event that anyone cares:

Don't waste your time on this earth: either work at a job you really care about, or find a way to pay your bills while doing what you love on the side. So my man-finding website would be called, "how to find a man who's a competent, fulfilled adult," i.e., who has found a way to both do what he loves and pay for his own life. If his income dictates that his life be rather spartan, so be it: better a low-earning happy man than a rich asshole. If you want more money, earn it yourself.
"From each according to his abilities," as the Marxists say--a.k.a., seriously, do NOT waste your time on this earth: if I earn twice as much as my eventual husband, as seems likely, then I should pay two-thirds of the bills. Why? Because money is arbitrary; only time is real. If I pay only half the bills, and, say, it takes me five days of my life to pay half the mortgage each month, then it'll take him ten. That wouldn't be fair. What couples should split down the middle is time, not money.
Quit using divorce as a way of avenging your disappointment by financially raping the one who disappointed you. Alimony makes sense when a couple has kids or has been together twenty years, but what's with these bimbos and toy boys (e.g., Liz Taylor's weird ex, the handyman) who want a pile of cash just because they lived with a rich person for a few years?

Okay, that's my rant of the day. Now back to real life: a sunny afternoon, roses outside, and (oh god no!) more Japanese to learn.

Language Learning as a Shinkansen to Hell

2006-07-12T19:10:00.000-07:00

It's late and I have a Japanese tutoring session tomorrow, therefore it's time to procrastinate about studying Japanese. And/or time to vent on the same subject. What is WRONG with the people who made this language up?! Any other language I've ever studied can be organized into at least semi-rational flash cards: you get a word on one side and then, on the other, maybe two or three English words that are unmistakeably conceptually related to each other. As in, "River; stream; to flow."

But Japanese flash cards look like gag items or practical jokes: you get an aesthetic sequence of brushstrokes to memorize and then it says, "This can be pronounced waka, maka, matashita, or ohoro. As a verb, it can be hueri, roto, shinsenwa, or tokeiko. Depending on context it can mean hairbrush, carburetor, to enumerate, to consider, mung bean, puberty, or harsh."

I have a theory that any Japanese word can mean "carburetor" if it's used in the appropriate context. Linguists may want to check this out.

Quote of the Day

2006-07-04T11:46:00.000-07:00

"It is important to live as if we are always on the eve of a great discovery,
and prepare to welcome it as completely, intimately,
and ardently as we can."
- Maeterlinck

Diamonds & Blue

2006-06-30T19:22:00.000-07:00

Before tonight, I had never held a handful of loose diamonds or tasted Johnnie Walker Blue. And if I'd had to guess where such things would eventually occur, I certainly wouldn't have said, "Out in the countryside, in a ranch house owned by a retiree from the state's department of transportation, in the company of a quantity of Irish musicians and a very friendly sheltie." But that's where it happened, at a party held to wish my friend Alison bon voyage for her move to Ireland. The host is taking advantage of his post-retirement free time to pursue his hobby, jewelry design. He pulled a crumpled envelope out from behind the small bar in his small living room and shook the contents out amongst the beer bottles and the tray of cheese cubes: easily a hundred little red stones. "They're rubies," he said. "From Burma!"

I was going to post a photo of my hand full of diamonds here on this blog, but the photo wasn't taken. It wasn't taken because, while my friend Jeff was fiddling with my new Lomography Colorsplash camera, I dropped (!) a quarter-carat round-cut diamond onto my host's slightly glossy, champagne-colored carpet, which turns out to be perhaps the worst possible surface on which to drop a diamond. I cannot blame the Johnnie Walker for my dropping and losing a flawless quarter-carat diamond, because first off I'm on the clumsy side even before you add alcohol, and second, I was deprived of the opportunity to become pleasantly toasted on sixty-year-old scotch when I offered Alison a taste and she, thanking me profusely, grabbed my shot glass and necked it all. I forgive her: she was too bevvied to know what she was doing and in any case, since the whole party was for her, my excellent scotch might as well be for her too.

I spent several minutes on hands and knees patting the carpet in search of the diamond, without success. Our host, very merry and magnanimous: "Oh, get up off the floor. We'll find it later. Check out this one, it's harder to lose." I stood up, checked out the two-carat marquis-cut diamond he placed in the palm of my hand, then got back down for more futile patting of the carpet. I hesitate to imagine how many thousands of bucks I would now owe our host if Jeff had not used the Force to locate the lost diamond in a glossy, champagne-colored tuft partway under a leatherette footstool. Maybe the diamond jumped from my hand because it sensed that I don't particularly like diamonds. It felt rejected, and flounced away in a huff. Sorry! Sorry! Oh dear.

Bus Portraits #4: Ghetto Accountants

2006-06-25T11:46:00.000-07:00

This happened a while ago, but it deserves to be immortalized (?) here because it's so much fun to have your expectations turned on their head. So, I'm on the bus going home when two gangsta-looking baggy-pantsed black guys, age 19 or 20, get on, do that urban swagger down the aisle and sprawl in seats nearby. Their conversation, infused with ghetto rhythm and phraseology, is just a pleasant background noise until one of them catches my attention by saying, "Yo, man, cuz ideally you want to get your PERSONAL funds taxed at the CORPORATE rate, cuz the individual tax rate is, DAMN, I mean WAY high." He explains: "Cuz, as a corporation, yo, if you can get your personal funds passed through a corporation, you get taxed like in a whole other bracket than a individual, or even a partnership for that matter." Then he fielded tax-related questions from his friend, who I'll refer to as Gangsta 1:

Gangsta 1: "Well cuz I heard Reverend Charles, he don't pay NO tax at ALL."
Gangsta 2: "What, on his personal money?"
Gangsta 1: "Naw, man, church money."
Gangsta 2: "Aw, yeah, dawg, cuz that's nonPROFit."

They also shared tips, apparently from Reverend Charles, on how to select an accountant: "Yeah an' he tole me, you wanna check out by askin'--you know, in church, people be comin' up to a little money an' all, so they contribute. An' if you ask an accountant to contribute, if he don't come up with at LEAST ten grand, he ain't--you know. He ain't the one you want. Cuz if he can't make hisSELF ten grand, how he gonna make YOU ANYthing?!? You know?!?"

My hat is off to people who surprise me...

Courthouse Portraits #1

2006-06-20T18:43:00.000-07:00

We summer associates get paid to go on field trips. We get paid to meet people who are interesting and/or scary and/or bizarre and/or... (insert panoply of human behavior here). For example, yesterday... (all names changed to protect my anonymity)...

"Judge Grandpa": white-haired, round-faced, with a hardcore local accent. He came in to provide insight and guidance for the future to us fresh-faced, suit-wearing, overpaid summer associates. His guidance was to get out of the big firm and work in public service, a.k.a. follow his example: before being a judge he was the DA; before that, he was Chief of Police; before that, he was a beat cop. Given that resume, he probably knows the underbelly of this city almost as well as he knows himself, if not better. I wish this guy would write a novel, what stories he must have. He rambled pleasantly and dispensed pearls of wisdom like, "Before I was a judge, I thought judges were the dumbest things God ever gave breath to. Now I'm a judge, I know they are! Heh heh. Don't you go thinking that just because I put on this robe, I acquired wisdom and understanding of everything. I'm just up there fakin' it like everybody else."

"McGuire, the Aggressive DA": that's my nickname for the polar opposite of Judge Grandpa's affable, rough-hewn humility. This guy is six-four and completely bald; I assume he shaves his head not just to hide the fact he's losing his hair, which is evident from the outline of five o'clock shadow on his pale scalp, but also because it makes him look mean. He has big blue kewpie-doll eyes beneath eyebrows knotted in permanent anger. He swaggers around the courtroom chewing gum with his mouth open, even in front of the bench. The way he walks makes you wonder if he's having a contest with himself that involves trying to get his shoulders to go as far left and then as far right as possible with each step. He glares at everyone and threatens to slam the law down like a hammer on the head of the least little jaywalker. He treats pathetic ghetto kids dragged in for simple possession of narcotics like they're Slobodan Milosevic. On his lapel is an American flag pin nearly an inch and a half wide. To entertain myself the next day, I casually say, "Oh, hi, McGuire" when I happen to see him on my way out of Starbucks. This is entertaining because he has no idea who the hell I am, so my greeting alarms him: his eyebrows squinch up in wary confusion, he looks slightly destabilized. He doesn't ask who I am, presumably both because that's impolite and because he's too control-hungry to admit when he's confused. So I'm going to make a point of saying hi as I walk past any time I see him from now on.

"Guido Sarducci, Esq.": he's with the DA's office too. He looks like Father Guido Sarducci in a cheap, shiny grey suit. During our field trip to watch hearings and an attempted homicide trial, the judge's clerk put us in the jury box so we could better see the goings-on, and Mr. Sarducci came over, leaned against the box, and started telling jokes in a slightly anxious voice as if he secretly really, really wanted us to like him. When he found out what firm we're from, he said, "I tell ya something: I've been with the DA 22 years, and as summer associates -- summer associates! -- you guys are getting paid more than me. Never work for the government. Never."

Hockey Ass

2006-06-13T19:38:00.000-07:00

Outtakes from my summer job will be few and far between, because blogging about your employer is unwise. But here's a bit.

My office mate: Republican, but embarrassed by Bush. College hockey player, total jock; his nickname is "Knuckles" from the number of fights he got in during college--but he has a frequently deployed sense of irony. He refers to a certain part of his anatomy as his "hockey ass," and this topic is not uncommon in conversation because another summer associate--also male--is for some reason obsessed with it ("Your ass looks like a shelf"). My office mate has been known to stay out drinking until 5AM and yet arrive at work on time, and approximately functional, the next day.

Today he taped a photo of Reagan to the wall facing my desk just to razz me, so I've started greeting him with a fist-pumping "Keep hope alive!" in my feeble attempt at a Jesse Jackson voice. I say this, complete with rousing fist-pump, every time one of us enters the office, every time we pass each other in the hall. He joke-mocks me for eating sakura mochi for breakfast at my desk ("What is that? A rice ball wrapped in a leaf?! This is AMERICA! Can't you eat a goddamn Egg McMuffin?!"). Lately we've started ambushing each other with our camera phones, trying to get absurdly unflattering photos. This habit of harassing each other in a friendly way occupies enough of our time that we wonder aloud what billing code we should use to account for that time: probably "Attorney Personal." (The firm bills out our time at more than $100/hour... given our utter lack of experience, surely that is some kind of sin.)

This office mate of mine was an anthropology major as an undergraduate. (As that song goes: How bizarre, how bizarre). The least anthropologist-like anthropology major I've ever met.

Haplotype V

2006-06-03T11:25:00.000-07:00

So, in April, in a bid to simultaneously help out National Geographic's latest research efforts and explore my genealogical heritage in more depth, I forked over $107.50 and sent them a cheek swab with which to analyze my mitochondrial DNA. And the results are now in! Using the latest gene-sequencing techniques, National Geographic has cleverly deduced that I am of... wait for it... Western European heritage! They're thinking kinda more to the northern side of Western Europe.

Amazing! At last I understand why I'm white, why I have a bunch of Irish cousins, and what's up with all these Irish, Scottish and Welsh surnames on my mom's side of the family tree! Oh, the marvels of modern science. Thanks to National Geographic, I now have a printed certificate that says I'm white, or, to use the fancy, DNA-related term, I'm "haplotype V." There's also a tricolor map showing that my ancestors started out, like everyone's ancestors, around the middle of East Africa; then they cruised north for about 4000 miles, took a sharp left just after the Black Sea, and headed west-northwest into Europe. (Just like the ancestors of every Caucasian on earth.) Wow! Who knew!

*Ahem*. Excuse the sarcasm, but I thought for $107.50 modern genetic analysis could go into a little more detail...

The Agony of Defeat

2006-04-28T15:40:00.000-07:00

Can you believe it?! I slaved away all day at a hot computer... well, at least for half an hour... to produce my advertising masterpiece (the Chevy ad), and look at the response I just got from Chevrolet!

"On behalf of Chevy and the all new 2007 Tahoe, we’d like to thank you for your outstanding effort in the Chevy Online Apprentice contest. Thousands entered, millions checked out the Tahoe site and your response was overwhelming. The commercial you submitted was strong but, after careful deliberation, we’ve decided to go in another direction... [yada yada]... Thanks, Ed Peper, Chevrolet General Manager"

They even took my ad down from their site! Have they no decency? (Rhetorical question: remember, they make planet-wrecking SUVs).* Thankfully, before they took my lovely creation down, a talented computer-hacker friend of mine managed to convert the ad to a format that can be saved, so I have a copy. My efforts were not for nought.

* Email your complaints re: the indignities Chevy inflicts on the planet and on my ad to Ed Peper at the following address: Chevrolet@email.chevrolet.bfi0.com

Another Reason Never to Complain Again

2006-04-21T08:30:00.000-07:00

Question: Who's having a rougher time during the run-up to exams than I've ever had or am ever likely to have?

Answer: Adam Polk. He has exams next week, but right now, he's spending his days on the witness stand being cross-examined by his deranged and probably mentally ill mother, who is representing herself in her own murder trial, having been charged with stabbing Adam's father to death during an "ugly divorce" (are there any pretty divorces?). Excerpt from the article:

As Susan Polk spent a third day sparring with her eldest son during her murder trial Thursday, it was clear his patience was wearing thin as she quizzed him about trivial matters and her belief that she's been framed in the killing of her husband. "You're bonkers!" Adam Polk, 23, told his mother in Contra Costa County Superior Court.... [she] asked her son if he knew of her belief that county investigators used Adobe PhotoShop image-editing software to alter autopsy photographs of his father. "I don't think the whole county would conspire to convict a housewife," he replied.

San Francisco Moments

2006-04-17T14:06:00.000-07:00

(1): My brother and I take my German friends to a Brazilian restaurant, Canto do Brasil. As we park, a homeless man breaks away from a cluster of homeless people, runs across the street, kicks the rear bumper of our car, throws himself onto the sidewalk and lies there yelling, "Ow! Man! I'm hurt! Call the police! You hit me!" He reclines on one elbow, the tips of his Marley-style dreadlocks brushing the pavement, and points at a particular scuff (among many others) on his beat-up shoe: "Look what you did to me, man! Call the police!" My brother, long since accustomed to this scam--when it works, the scammee offers the scammer cash in exchange for not calling the cops--says, "Wow, yeah, why doncha call them right away? We'll be in this Brazilian restaurant. Send them in for us when they arrive." The homeless man sulks, then meanders away.

(2): As we're eating our fried yucca, feijoado, and similar delicacies, the lights go down, the sound system blares to life with samba music, and two smiling women appear in carnaval dancer outfits (high heels, a few dozen strategically placed sequins, and several hundred brightly colored ostrich plumes) to dance among the tables. The character of girlfriends is instantly revealed: one woman laughs at her boyfriend's response to the dancers, eggs him on, applauds his fancy footwork when he accepts a dancer's invitation to get up and samba with them. (He was heavyset but a real twinkle-toes, amazingly light on his feet.) Another girlfriend sat stiffly with a taut, artificial grin and an expression that seemed to say, "I'm too repressed to say anything about this now, but I'm sure as hell going to get in a fight with you when we get home." Her boyfriend wasn't leering, just looking at the dancers now and again. I danced around the restaurant in a conga line twice and her sour expression never wavered. Someone should let her know her face will freeze that way if she doesn't relax...

(3): Slim's, live music club, South of Market: we went to see Heathrow, whose drummer is friends with my brother. A woman my brother knows recruited me to help throw panties on the stage: she had made two pairs, both red, one with the band's name on it and the other--a g-string, too small to fit the band's name--with a glittery Union Jack. My job was to sneak up front, throw the g-string at the singer, and flee. Mission accomplished. The singer told the crowd, "Now I can die a happy man."

(4): The Alley, dive bar, located on Grand Avenue in Oakland since 1935. The walls are covered with thousands of battered business cards stapled there by patrons over the decades: "Roto Rooter Cleaning Service/The Modern Cleaning Method/With Radio-Dispatched Trucks," etc. Pianist Rod Dibble, a skinny, craggy old guy pushing seventy, has been playing there five nights a week since 1955. People belly up, set their drinks on his grand piano beside the bar, leaf through battered songbooks, and make requests: "Hey Rod, how 'bout 'That Old Black Magic'?" Rod tickles the ivories and the patron, microphone in hand, sings. If it's a tune Rod particularly enjoys, he mouths the words or sings along. Then the mike moves to the next patron and Rod segues into whichever hit from 1922 to the present day the patron has requested; he is said to know over 5,000 songs from memory, "And I try to learn two new songs a day." People applaud regardless of the singer's talent--I should know, having received thoroughly unmerited applause: when Rod played "Michelle Ma Belle" he switched effortlessly between different keys in order to complement my voice wherever my voice happened to be (note to self: in the future, first sing, then drink). Hmm, maybe that applause was meant for Rod.

San Francisco Nouns

2006-04-17T13:55:00.000-07:00

Smells: Eucalyptus. Lemon trees. Fog. The ocean.

Colors: Ground and trees a thousand shades of green, dotted with light orange California poppies. The Marin Headlands blue in the distance. Chinatown: red, gold, verdigris.

People: Grimy runaways sitting at the mouths of alleys with their grimy dogs. A white man with indigo Maori-style tattoos covering the right half of his face. In a boutique, a prosperous lady with meticulously sculptured hair caressing $300 shoes. In a single concert crowd at a club south of Market: 4'8" Japanese grandmas (one of the bands was Japanese), 6'8" German journalists, and virtually every demographic in between, except for midwestern housewives, big-haired Texans, and uniformed members of the clergy.

Chevy's Global Warming Apprenticeship

2006-04-01T11:26:00.000-08:00

Words cannot express how pleased I am with the new "Chevy Apprentice" contest. Click on the link below to see the anti-global warming Chevy Tahoe commercial that Chevrolet's website just let me make. They provide tiny snippets of filmed images, letting you choose the ones you want and splice them together; they offer eight different soundtracks for you to select from; and then, with incredible foolishness, they let you insert whatever text you want! If commercials had titles, this one would be called "Global Warming: It's the Macho Thing to Do."
http://www.chevyapprentice.com/view.php?country=us&uniqueid=67487780-1303-1029-98eb-0013724ff5a7

Excellence #1: Tilda Swinton

2006-03-23T19:19:00.000-08:00

I'm starting a new series about excellent people, places, ideas, things, and other nouns deserving of that adjective. So, to kick it off: Tilda Swinton is an excellent human being. (That's me with her the other week--thanks to Photoshop my privacy freakitude is protected by the overlay of me-as-maiko from last June in Kyoto).

Tilda Swinton is 5'11", and she was wearing interesting caramel-colored, elfishly-pointed boots with multi-hued, very sculptural wooden stack heels at least three inches high. She had to crouch down to put her arm around me (which she did spontaneously--I didn't ask her to--out of innate human warmth). The woman is statuesque, and/or I'm exceedingly small. But I'm going off on a tangent here.

Apparently two of her oldest friends live in the same city I do, which is why she was here. They put on a Q&A with her, which only maybe fifty people came to (is everyone else in this town insane?). That, plus the fact she was flanked by her friends and obviously enjoying their company, made the whole thing feel very relaxed and intimate. She just sat up there having a conversation with the audience and her friends for about an hour.

And here's why she's excellent: she's unpretentious, extremely intelligent, 100% bullshit-free, and possessed of a wonderfully understated sense of humor (e.g., of the movie Caravaggio, she said the budget was so tiny she bought her costumes herself, and "I actually spent more on costumes... for that film... than I was paid!"). She's lived an adventurous life, taking off to random foreign countries in search of people willing to contribute a few dollars (or rubles, francs, etc.) for her and her friends to make a movie, and improbably, against all odds, she's pulled it off. And when people went up after the Q&A to talk with her, she seemed not at all bothered about requests for autographs and the like. She was genuinely friendly, not in the smiley American sense, but in the sense that she actually listened to people and responded with whatever was (as far as I could tell) her genuine response. She looked at even the most ordinary strangers with a sort of mercurial, birdlike curiosity and paid attention to what they did and said. I've never met another famous person who was so there, so alive to the people and things around her.

She kept asking me why I had a Scottish accent. It took me two days to figure out the answer, which is that, having spent an hour listening to three different British accents (her and her friends) and various American ones (the audience), my syntax and inflection went British but my accent didn't quite make it: with slightly warped vowels and audible R's, it sounded vaguely Edinburgh.

I shared my theory that they should've cast her as Legolas Greenleaf, the main elf in Lord of the Rings, and she said, "Ooh, I can't talk about that, I haven't seen it. But I feel quite elfish." Yes indeed. Once you meet her, you can't help but believe in elves.

The Art of Procrastination

2006-03-21T16:35:00.000-08:00

Activities that indicate there is something else I need to be doing:

(1) Posting on this blog. I have eight short stories to read and one to write before 10AM tomorrow morning. Doesn't "elective" mean you get to decide whether to do the work or not? No?

(2) Sending out a flurry of emails. Note to people who got lots of emails from me in the week preceding my March 14 Asian Contract Law exam: please understand, I am not just using you to procrastinate. Out of all the people I could've sent flurries of email to, I chose you.

(3) Exploring the outer reaches of neurology and alternative healthcare web sites. Temporal lobe epilepsy questions? Speculation on the link between omega-3s and ADHD? Mad cow disease conspiracy theories? Consider me your "go-to person" on these and many other fascinating issues. Today's health-related story: a team of scientists using the latest research protocols has demonstrated the truth of the hypothesis whereby if Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. CNN has more.

(4) Making minor improvements to the immediate physical environment. When I shared an apartment in France with the wonderful Beate, my German best friend of the butter-colored hair and the Ph.D. in neuroscience, we had exams during the same week, which meant we could procrastinate by giving each other makeovers. Now, if one of us mentions that we have an exam/ paper/ article/ conference to prepare for/etc., the proper response is, "Oh, you must look beautiful. And your apartment must be so clean!"

(5) Taking online personality tests. Readers have assailed me with questions... well, no they haven't... but here are the answers anyway: I am either an INFJ or an INFP, depending which version of Myers-Briggs I take and when I take it (once INFP, all other times INFJ, and INFJ makes a lot more sense). In the Star Wars version of Myers-Briggs, I am Yoda. Yes! I pity the poor Lando Calrissians. In Tolkein's Middle Earth, I am equal parts (81%) Arwen Evenstar and Eowyn, with Samwise, Gandalf, and Aragorn rounding out the top five. Rats. All those characters are cool, but I was hoping Gandalf would be #1. Maybe I should take the test again. Or... maybe I should write that story? And read those eight stories? Or maybe I should go make some more toast. Yeah. Toast.

True story: I once took a complicated, half-hour-long online IQ test that ranked your "intelligences" (verbal, visual, mathematical, etc.) from strongest to weakest. (The fact that I bothered taking this test indicates that I must have had an exam or paper due the next day). It included "time management" as a type of intelligence, and in that, I scored as... I forget the exact number, but it boiled down to profoundly retarded. Not being satisfied with what one little online test had to say about my skills in that area, I proceeded to prove the point by spending another three hours taking online intelligence tests and looking up information on time management, which I duly bookmarked and then never looked at again.

Create Reality... Or It Will Be Created For You

2006-03-05T09:37:00.000-08:00

Today's post is an object lesson in how malleable reality is. First, some context: in middle school gym class, I was known as "Butterball." This nickname was shouted by groups of classmates, mostly boys, as I ran laps, played kickball, or approached other people for any reason. It was meant as a comment on my chubbiness, and the chubbiness was due, I long assumed, to the fact that I reached my adult weight (110 lbs) before reaching my adult height.

Then this past Christmas, at my mom's house, I started organizing her photo albums for her. They have never been in any kind of order in my lifetime: photos lived in shoeboxes, in plastic bags, in piles stuffed between the unused pages of photo albums that we had bought with the intention, never realized, of organizing the family photo collection. But finally, at Christmas, I put the 1960s, 70s and 80s each in their own album in basically chronological order.

Can you tell what's coming next? Yes: there are hundreds of photos of me between the ages of 9 and 15, because my brother and I got crappy (i.e. suitable for rambunctious kids) little cameras for Christmas 1979, and we got a Polaroid when I was 12. I am depicted in Flashdance clothes, horrifying preppy outfits, and a comprehensive range of bad haircuts (poodle perm, anyone? Blue hair? Actually, the blue hair was kind of cool). But there is not a single photo in which I look chubby. In other words, I was not chubby in middle school. It's no surprise that people called me Butterball for no reason, since many kids that age are just evil. (I know they're only evil because they're insecure, but the fact remains that they're evil). The surprise is that for more than twenty years I believed them, despite having had mirrors and photos to tell me otherwise. This belief was like a post-hypnotic suggestion induced by peer pressure.

I now invite all my readers (maybe "both" is a better word... I doubt this blog is heavily trafficked) to discard whatever beliefs you may have that are your personal equivalent of thinking you were chubby in middle school. Those beliefs might be just plain wrong. As Tom Robbins says, "It's never too late to have a happy childhood."