31 December 2008

if you're a moody bastard like me, you love depressing poems during supposedly festive times.

Happy new year. I believe this one is from the 1920s or so. It has long been one of my favorites. Pour yourself an amber-colored dram of peaty scotch, and have fun reading it out loud.

Mr. Flood's Party
by Edwin Arlington Robinson

Old Eben Flood, climbing alone one night
Over the hill between the town below
And the forsaken upland hermitage
That held as much as he should ever know
On earth again of home, paused warily.
The road was his with not a native near;
And Eben, having leisure, said aloud,
For no man else in Tilbury Town to hear:

"Well, Mr. Flood, we have the harvest moon
Again, and we may not have many more;
The bird is on the wing, the poet says,
And you and I have said it here before.
Drink to the bird." He raised up to the light
The jug that he had gone so far to fill,
And answered huskily: "Well, Mr. Flood,
Since you propose it, I believe I will."

Alone, as if enduring to the end
A valiant armor of scarred hopes outworn,
He stood there in the middle of the road
Like Roland's ghost winding a silent horn.
Below him, in the town among the trees,
Where friends of other days had honored him,
A phantom salutation of the dead
Rang thinly till old Eben's eyes were dim.

Then, as a mother lays her sleeping child
Down tenderly, fearing it may awake,
He set the jug down slowly at his feet
With trembling care, knowing that most things break;
And only when assured that on firm earth
It stood, as the uncertain lives of men
Assuredly did not, he paced away,
And with his hand extended paused again:

"Well, Mr. Flood, we have not met like this
In a long time; and many a change has come
To both of us, I fear, since last it was
We had a drop together. Welcome home!"
Convivially returning with himself,
Again he raised the jug up to the light;
And with an acquiescent quaver said:
"Well, Mr. Flood, if you insist, I might.

"Only a very little, Mr. Flood—
For auld lang syne. No more, sir; that will do."
So, for the time, apparently it did,
And Eben evidently thought so too;
For soon amid the silver loneliness
Of night he lifted up his voice and sang,
Secure, with only two moons listening,
Until the whole harmonious landscape rang—

"For auld lang syne." The weary throat gave out,
The last word wavered; and the song being done,
He raised again the jug regretfully
And shook his head, and was again alone.
There was not much that was ahead of him,
And there was nothing in the town below—
Where strangers would have shut the many doors
That many friends had opened long ago.


Lovingly lifted from poetryfoundation.org.

30 December 2008

time, office, holidays

I've had a never-ending series of commitments when I'm not at work, but at work...? The slow drip, drip you hear is the sound of my work ethic collecting in a thin puddle at my feet. Sure, my phone's been ringing a ton, and I've had a few fires to put out here and there, but the driving challenge has been to find a way to make time go faster - something it turns out I'm completely unable to do.

Drip, drip.

Write a memo that no one will pay attention to? Send an email that no one will read till next week? Or simply sit here and stare at the wall, hoping something happens other than drip, drip, drip?

Tonight's excitement: green peppercorn beer from The Brewer's Art in Bawlamer and a re-fi on the condo loan. Five a and a quarter percent, here we come!

Tin and Tin again

Dealing with flawed works of art is challenging. Tintin fans know this quite well, for despite all the innocence in those books, there are several instances of ugliness.

Most good pieces about Tintin end up exactly where this Economist piece does: acknowledging that Herge was immensely flawed as a human, but that the Tintin books succeed exactly because of their flaws. Wildly imaginative - borderline expressionist, really - tales such as "Tintin in Tibet" stand as testimony to this. There's also a great POV on the topic, for all the PBS-lovers out there.

The oncoming Spielberg/Peter Jackson feature is already causing some predictable consternation. If this guy is right, I may be retiring my Captain Haddock shirt soon but I really don't think it will come to that. Lord knows a lot of things I've enjoyed quietly over the years are now BIG and SPLASHY: Revolutionary Road, Blindness, Watchmen, and now Tintin. I surmise that the next move will be someone filming a Glass family saga starring Ben Stiller as Seymour Glass?

Still, good for my tastes. They needed to see other people, and see other people they did. I'll be here waiting for them to come home.

29 December 2008

"Shit happens. People change."

Updating a previous item on my sister's (and hence, I assume, all of her sub-Y generation's) slang choices..."Shit happens, people change" is my sister's favorite new refrain, to be deployed only in relation to trivial topics. As in:

Me: Hey, I thought we had lunch plans today?
Sis: Well, you know. Shit happens. People change.

I love it and promise to begin overusing it starting right now.

24 December 2008

Christmas + Brazil = sexytime?

Google image result for "merry christmas."

Google image result for "feliz natal."

Two risque images to none, on the first page. The result is less lopsided than I would have thought. Maybe the nonstop tantric sex parties in Rio are slowing down a bit?

23 December 2008

A confusing read.

I've called attention to this article in non-virtual circles, but wanted to mention it here too.

The gist: man in Iran is spurned by woman. He gets back at her by throwing sulfuric acid on her face, leaving her disfigured and blind. She invokes Islamic law and turns down offers of retribution money: instead, she wants an eye for an eye. Literally. Courts agree, and the man is sentenced to have five drops of sulfuric acid dropped into each eye.

Huh? I get caught up thinking of the logistics of the punishment. What's the concentration of the acid? Is it one drop, wipe, repeat, or is it five drops in a row? What's the time interval between drops? Who carries out the sentence?

Also, you know the expression that says that an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind? Indeed.

2008: The year of my fantasy success

Stats on the year:
-gold trophy in 14-team fantasy baseball league (Carlos Zambrano's no-hitter on a Sunday night late in the season, in a stroke of cruelty, got me into the finals by helping me beat a huge Cubs fan.)
-gold trophies in both fantasy football leagues
-currently leading fantasy basketball league (though not for long)

Honorable mentions: 3rd place in rotisserie NL-only fantasy baseball league, somehow.

Yeah, me!

21 December 2008

Family! Family!

Grandmother and aunt are here from Rio. The cumulative effect at my mom's house - the two sisters and mom - is deafening and exhilarating. My aunt is loud, brash, playful - I guess there's some precedent in the family for that, but I'm never sure where it comes from. Also, she was wearing this weird necklace that looked like it was made of meatballs.

One of her favorite expressions is to refer to the U.S. as a "colossus." THis usually happens in relation to fairly trivial things, like...I don't know, good olive oil. "See this? It's Italian. Not like the cans of Portuguese mazola we get. That's what happens in a civilized country: you get choices. This country, I tell you, it's a giant. A colossus."

They are off, to big box stores and such, running down lists of want's from relatives: laptops, cameras, and so on. I think now I'm old enough to appreciate how much these trips mean to my mom, to have her sister and mother travel this far to visit her. I don't have any particular thoughts about it other than to say that this is the feeling I expect to get from the holidays.

But as a practical matter, I am much more worried about the fantasy football championship. I have been freakishly good at fantasy football - I can't remember ever finishing in worse than 4th place, and I am in the championship game in both of my leagues. I expect to lose both, just as I expect to be handily defeated for the first time in fantasy basketball this week. Ms. Citizen is struggling with a cold, trying to get some sleep.

Oh, look, the Titans' defense just scored. That's good for me.

Well, for once I started writing without a particular message in mind. Maybe later this week I will post some mixtape tracklists I've been working on. Life seems languid right now. I have half a poem sitting at the edge of my mind, and I know exactly 3 things that I want to say in it. But I haven't been bothered to write it down. Short weeks ahead, hopefully wintry ones. Our smart car got its first bumper kiss from some asshole last night, but I've forgiven him already. Off to the Verizon Center, for the ongoing punishment that is the 2008-2009 Wizards season.

Since it's a Sunday, I'll give you one more good line. I was talking to EDS about the complete Bill Evans / Village Vanguard sessions. There's a three disc set that collects all three sets from that Sunday afternoon - definitely one of my all-time favorite jazz events, and to have it all in one nice package is just so reassuring.

We were talking about the incredible vibe of that show - Evans playing slow, ponderous, gorgeous music. Scott La Faro chiming in melodically on the bass, ten short days before his death as the result of a motorcycle accident. Motian brushing the drums, afraid to cause too many ripples. Then we were silent. EDS offered: "It's a Sunday in there, you know? Everyone in that club has got to go to work the next day."

Good line, EDS. It's a Sunday in here too.

"I only like living, that's all." - John Ashberry.

18 December 2008

My corners are pretty bright. That's what happens when you're 31.

I'm happy that my 31st birthday landed pretty close to the release of the "Brighten the Corners" reissue. Owing to the Napa trip, I actually didn't get a chance to listen to it until this week. And in anticipation of the reissue, I had abstained from all but one song on this album for close to a year. (The one song is "Transport is Arranged," and that one ended up on a Baltimore-themed mix that I made this spring.)

The nice thing about this album is...that it's just so nice. Compared to Pavement's more abrasive sound, this is definitely the one that sounds the most mature and calm. That's also its downfall in a sense - that it's too pleasant to be anyone's favorite Pavement album. But it does contain a number of fantastic mid-tempo songs that feature some fine moments of Stephen Malkmus-isms. Through the distorted prism of his lyrics, you hear someone worried about aging, about finding a permanent place in the world. And if you don't agree, tell my why else would this album include a lyrics sheet for the first and only time in Pavement history?

Alex Ross has a great essay about rock lyrics in general and Malkmus's in particular here. My favorite moments on the album are the fragments of logic that emerge out of a seemingly light-weight moment. They cause you to re-evaluate the whole song - "Simply put, I want to grow old / Dying does not meet my expectations..." Malkmus declares in his quasi-aristocratic whisp in the same song where he confesses - or perhaps mockingly teases? - that he wants to cry when thinks about "the mental energy you wasted on these wedding invitations."

For all the sweet moments, there are some cruel ones - like the line, "this slap is a gift / because your cheeks have lost their luster." But there is, on the whole, a truly inviting warmth and playful spirit that inhabit the album (and the best outtakes, like "Harness Your Hopes.") I'm a sucker for Malkmus gently teasing the left - he sees elves though "the liberaaaaaaaaals claim they don't exist but I know they do, yeah," - and he complains about how he's "sick of being misread / by men in dashikis / and their leftist weeklies..."

The pure Pavement moments are the best. "One of us is a cigar stand / and one of us is an incandescent blue guillotine." No idea what that means, but when you get into the rest of that particular song ("Old to begin") you hear Malkmus repeatedly calling himself "old to begin / I will set ya back set ya back set ya..." This was as close as pre-Terror Twilight Pavement would come to a break-up song, with the implication being, I think, that one of the two people is about to be figuratively decapitated and smoked.

And I've always had a soft-spot for the cheekiness spoken-word joshing of "Blue Hawaiian" - which includes the meaning of aloha, warm thoughts about the definition of 'home,' and a great bit of self-referential wit: "If the capital's and it's followed by a T, then it's probably me!"

I was listening to "We Are Underused" this morning on my way in, expecting to hear in it the same snide commentary on being a hyperliterate over-educated affluent person whose gifts are going to waste in the professional world, when I heard the song in a different light entirely. The verses alternate between exhortations to thank the host for a great roast and droll commentary, in the stulted manner of polite dinner conversation. I had it all wrong - the "we" isn't a post-collegiate smart-aleck, and the people doing the under-using of the "we" aren't our parents' generation. The "we" is all of us, and we are underutilizing each other by engaging in soul-crushing dinner parties and polite banter instead of fully exploring each other's humanity. Maybe.

I should probably say something about the B-sides, but I won't. They're good. Prevous reissues of Pavement's albums have been successful because those albums sounds just as great now as they did then. The cool thing about this one is that an album that was only so-so at the time actually sounds great now.

And Malkmus was my age when it was recorded! Look at that. I just tied the whole thing up in a neat little package. I should change my screen persona to "no-unresolved-plotlines citizen."

Enough disjointendess for today. Till tomorrow, or some other day...

17 December 2008

The world is not what it should be.

Charles Lindblom, below, on one of the reasons why stat-driven policy analysis can lack authorativeness. I just love the last few sentences.

A common failure to achieve an authoritative solution to a problem arises because critics or skeptics of the solution can – and do – allege that the problem has been incorrectly defined.

Suppose we begin, as an excise in defining a problem, with the family “Why Johnny can’t read.” To specify the problem more precisely, someone will suggest that the problem is one of reading difficulties among certain urban ethnic groups. But then it will be said that the problem is one of inadequate family incomes for these groups. And to that it will be responded that income itself is not the problem; the problem is basically a deficiency in the family’s ability to implant an incentive to learn to read in children. Hence the problem becomes that of the inadequacy of the urban ethnic family as a social institution – an institution that is failing to perform its required functions. That may provoke the suggestion that the problem is one of defective socioeconomic organization; socioecomonic institutions do no integrate these families into normal social functioning. But perhaps, then, the problem is one of faulty political organization in the society at large, since presumably the right kind of political decision could remedy the faults of the economy, the structure of urban society, and the place of the family in it.

At this point someone is also certain to suggest that politics is not an independent influence on economy and society, being itself dependent upon them. It might then be proposed that the problem is one big interlocked problem of social organization – to which formulation one may or may not add some further problem specifications, such as that the phenomena of social class are the “real” problem. But problem definition at this level can perhaps be counted on to produce another abstract formulation. Any big interlocked problem of social organization, it will be suggested, can only be understood as a product of history and culture. The problem, then, is a fundamental one of a historically produced culture that is inadequate. From which it seems only a small step to the conclusion: the world is not what it should be. That is the problem.


Charles Lindblom and David Cohen. Usable Knowledge – Social Science and Social Problem Solving

14 December 2008

San Francisco and Napa in bullet-points

SF
-I had my first In n'Out Burger! Upon telling a room full of people about it just now, I was also told that this is far too cliche for me, but what can I say? I've been to San Diego and Anaheim a pair of times recently, and te In n'Out has eluded me. When we saw one right after passing the Golden Gate Bridge, I didn't hesitate.
-Visited University Village in Berkeley, formerly the site of the grad student housing where I grew up. It now looks like the suburbs rather than a joyously campy left-over from the Dharma Project or something. Also, it likes rules.
-One of the Pyramid brewpubs moved into the old neighborhood in Berkeley! I stumbled upon it and killed two hours in there. Yum.
-The BART is so simple to use that it's almost complicated.
-SF busing: good. People on SF buses: hmmm.
-"Ah-eet Ash-buuuhy": much funnier with a thick French accent.
-The actual Haight: eww. Wanted to wear a full-body condom.
-The two places where I felt somewhat unsafe in SF: Tenderloin, Haight.
-The two places where I dodged human feces on the sidewalk in SF: Tenderloin, Haight.
-The two places where I heard people talking about their probation officers: Tenderloin, Haight. Draw what conclusions you will.
-My first visit to Amoeba. Picked up a Townes van Zandt, Ted Curson's Tears for Dolphy on cd (already have it on lp), some Unrest-related sideprojects from Teenbeat, and some Smokey Robinson.
-If I lived in SF, the only reason I would go to the Haight would be to visit Amoeba.
-Maybe people who visit DC feel the same way about Adams Morgan that I do about the Haight?
-Lots of love for SF though. I love the seediness as much as I do the yuppieness.
-This one's a delicate point: in SF, I was pleased to find that I was sketched out by white people. On the east coast, it just so happens I think that most threatening people you see on the street are not white. I don't want to speculate about the many socioeconomic factors at play, but to this day I remember the first time I had a white cab driver who spoke fluent English. It was in Boston, by the way. I also remember the first time I saw a black man in a suit in Brazil. Both were equally jarring to me at the time. Anyway, in SF you actually encounter sketchy white people. This is a relief, especially if you derive pleasure from finding that you are a class-ist rather than a racist.


Napa
-Pretty. Boring. Spendy. But very pretty. I can't tell if a whole week here would be fantastic or deadening, but I would like to try someday.
-Domaine Carneros: fantastic, worth the visit. Go, Taittinger!
-Schramsberg: fantastic, worth the visit. Their rose is a bit sweeter than Domaine Carneros'.
-People in Napa are amenable to my motto: "Rose is the new microbrew."
-Chateau Montelena: didn't do the tour, just hit the tasting room. Well worth it, though. The estate/reserve cabernets are special.
-I love the fact that you can ship wine to DC.
-Stumbled upon a recommendation to Provenance, which was also quite nice.
-The petrified forest? Not actually rock-trees! Just trees which have had their molecular strucuture has been totally replaced by, uh, something resembling rock. Silica or something? Ash-y things? Anyway. It was a good non-wine outing in Napa.
-On the way out, we visisted a place called Bouchaine that was recommended to us a few weeks ago. It was 60 degrees or so. We sat out on a porch, tasting something called a pinot meunier, with palm trees and vines in sight. We went on a self-guided tour, picked grapes off the vine, and took lots and lots of pictures. The tasting was $5 a head. Not to be missed. A great place to stop by on your way out if you're heading back through Oakland.
-I would like to think I have a good palate, or at least a decent one. I think I do, but I also think that the best way for me to learn about a wine and to recognize its characteristics is by sitting down with it and drinking a few glasses. There's a sameness that creeps into the tasting routine, created as much by the progression (chardonnay-zin-pinot-syrah-cabernet-riesling/gewutrz, more or less) as by the fact that a little sippy sip of wine tastes like just that to me: a little sippy sip.
-Auberge du Soleil was memorable: I had foie gras, scallops in a curry sauce, and morrocan-spiced duck. We drank a 2001 syrah, in honor (cheesily) of the year we started dating. For contrast, we had some great mexican takeout too.

Photos and more thoughts to come later, I suppose.

03 December 2008

driving sideways

fun with shutter speeds from the shotgun slot. I just like blurry pictures, I think, but I pretend I'm going for "moody."

From Drop Box


From Drop Box


From Drop Box


From Drop Box

01 December 2008

What I learned from watching "The Holiday"

This chap?






















He has no compunctions about nailing you in his sister's bed.

30 November 2008

One thing I've learned from driving the smartcar in rural PA...

There is a certain class of male, driving a certain class of vehicle, sometimes sporting a certain kind of bumper sticker, who is loathe to be passed by a smartcar. This male will do everything within his power to keep this from happening. He may even pump his fist when he averts this perilous dishonor. And if he fails to prevent it from happening, he will trail the smartcar for as long as possible.

Otherwise, driving to Pittsburgh was smooth sailing...we got a few slack-jawed stares, but that was about it.

26 November 2008

Two Portuguese phrases most of you probably didn’t know about

1. To criticize someone’s general disposition – to call them nasty, petty, selfish, generally miserable – you would refer to them as being “pig-spirited.”

2. One way to tell someone they’ve done a lousy job at completing a task is to say, “You did it just like your face.” As my brother pointed out, this is a wonderful of telling someone that they are both incompetent and ugly.

“I thought I told you to clean your room!”
“But I did clean it…”
“Oh, I can see that. You cleaned it just like your face!”

23 November 2008

SMART!



Since we don't have a Barack Obama to fit our car into every night, the newest addition to the Citizen household is...a smart car. See if you can spot it in the picture above.

Re-evaluating my season tickets

Having Wizards season tickets this year is like a bizarre from of punishment. It's excruciating and, of course, self-inflicted.

It's not so much the financial commitment - our beer guy Ron sees to it that I don't have to pay the usual $7 for a draft ale. And we usually eat cheaply beforehand or we save money elsewhere and make a night out of going to games. It's really the time commitment that's driving me nuts. 41 games? I can't imagine what it's like to have basbeall season tickets, where you talking 81 total, and where the games are much longer.

I love having an excuse to go down to the Penn Quarter a couple of times a week. I love going to the library beforehand, or eating a sandwich outside the National Portrait Gallery on an unseasonably warm day, and I even love taking the 42 back to the 'hood after the game is over. But the time commitment is significant. Even when I'm well behaved, I'm out till at least 10, if not later. Then you get home and the mail isn't sorted, the cats aren't fed, you have to change and think about the next day but you're still sort of wound up, and next thing you know, a Tuesday night game is setting you back on Wednesday morning.

And it's especially infuriating with a team this bad. Bad isn't the right word, because they're talented, and this is certainly similar to the team which overperformed last year. So I guess it's not surprising that we're seeing some statistical corrections, but man does it hurt. And there's not much that can be done, unfortunately. Fire Eddie Joran? That won't accomplish much. He's one of the longest-tenured guys in the league, so it would be a "statement," but would it make the team any better? Probably not. Trade someone? Well, anyone we'd want to part with is not going to draw any interest from other teams (that's right, Andray, no one wants your sorry-ass.) So, what's there to do?

I literally groan every time I realize we have a game. It feels ten times worse than being told by your parents to clean your room, because in this case, you've actually signed up to clean your room 41 times between now and April, voluntarily.

We probably weren't going to renew next season anyway, for a number of reasons, but this certainly makes it easier.

21 November 2008

Iliac Crest

Iliac crest: No, not a cool geological formation. It is in fact the highest point of the pelvic basin - what most of us would think of as the the topmost part of the hip bone.

17 November 2008

The Mad Scene, by James Merrill

Again last night I dreamed the dream called Laundry.
In it, the sheets and towels of a life we were going to share,
The milk-stiff bibs, the shroud, each rag to be ever
Trampled or soiled, bled on or groped for blindly,
Came swooning out of an enormous willow hamper
Onto moon-marbly boards. We had just met. I watched
From outer darkness. I had dressed myself in clothes
Of a new fiber that never stains or wrinkles, never
Wears thin. The opera house sparkled with tiers
And tiers of eyes, like mine enlarged by belladonna,
Trained inward. There I saw the cloud-clot, gust by gust,
Form, and the lightning bite, and the roan mane unloosen.
Fingers were running in panic over the flute’s nine gates.
Why did I flinch? I loved you. And in the downpour laughed
To have us wrung white, gnarled together, one
Topmost mordent of wisteria,
As the lean tree burst into grief.

13 November 2008

Profiles in Internet Courage: Some guy named A.N. Roman

A few years ago, a co-worker and I found ourselves discussing the “Air Bud” franchise. Remember that dog? The one who played basketball? We ended up on Amazon looking to find out how many different films there had been. We were horrified to discover that Air Bud extended his paws into other sports, including soccer. “Soccer Dog,” apparently generated a mini-franchise, including “European Cup” and “World Pup.” I know, I know – I wish I had come up with the “World Pup” title too.

Scrolling down, we saw that someone had taken the time to write a multi-paragraph review of “European Cup.”

Thinking it was a joke, I started to read it out loud only to find that it was totally for real. He had me from the opening paragraph:

So earlier this week, I was dying to get Soccer Dog: THE MOVIE, as it has "THE MOVIE" in the title to remind you of what it is. It also has this in the title, as to not confuse you with the non-existant show of the same name. But, I got the wrong one thanks to it being misplaced, and instead, had to suffer through the atrocity that is Soccer Dog- European Cup.


Curiouser and curiouser. We started clicking through his previous reviews and found that this was someone who had literally taken the time to review almost every product known to humanity. Pop tarts. A “photography book” named “Panties.” And so on. A.N. Roman seems, from his collected reviews, to be a kind of benevolent Comic Book Store Guy.

Over time, this co-worker and I started using A.N. Roman’s name as a shortcut word, applied whenever someone had strongly felt opinions over relatively minor matters. It was handy and descriptive. I might say, “You know, not to get too A.N. Roman about this, but the new binder clips just suck. Is the plastic different or something?” We also used it to denote uber-geekdom, as in, "No, I'm not wearing a Rorschach mask to the Watchmen opening. Who am I, A.N. Roman?"

A.N. Roman’s tastes weren’t necessarily surprising – horror and action flicks, weapons, naked chicks, South Park/Comedy Central stuff, and the kinds of music most of us have outgrown (metal-y Primus-y kinds of things.) Sure, there’s an occasional surprise – he reviewed Cibo Matto’s “Viva La Woman,” quite favorably, for example, but I guess it’s interesting to me that he is largely predictable and entirely genuine in his likes.

And then, it all went sour when I found that he had reviewed flavored condoms. And that therein lay an embarrassing admission:

These are probably the worst things I've ever bought in my life. Even worse than this paper plate that had a picture of a rubber duck on it. After a few now-exes of mine used these with me, they said that there was hardly any taste. So to find out for myself, I opened the strawberry one and started chewing on it. They weren't kidding. It tasted more like old yogurt that had like one strawberry sprinkle melted on it. Yeah that was a stupid description, but that's because these are stupid condoms. And I advise against using them for actual sex because they end up making more of a mess than you'd make without them. Save your money and use flavored syrups instead.

These get 2 stars over the minimum of 1 because they can be used as back-up gum/mints. That's about the only other use I can see these serving as.


Emphasis added.

What drives A.N. Roman's determination to furiously catalog his every product-related like and dislike? Is Amazon his version of social networking? It must be, in a way - you can discern from his profile that he is about to have a kid. So, it’s working.

I guess I should expect then that A.N. Roman will be furiously reviewing cutting edge toys and the like from now on. But will having a kid cause him to lose his top-500 reviewer status on Amazon? Will real life get in the way of reviewing consumer goods? Only time will tell. Thus far, I have a very specific kind of respect for A.N. Roman because he has created - through intense labor - a bizarrely personal and shockingly intimate world inside of the vast maze of consumerism known as Amazon.

For further reading:
A.N. Roman’s Amazon profile

A.N. Roman’s blogger profile

12 November 2008

because I still feel like atoning for Taylor Swift

How good is this Townes van Zandt clip? The tears say it all.

Wait, forget the Samoa cookie ice cream...

It's the good people at Haagen Dazs who are doing the lord's work: white chocolate ice cream with peppermint bark? Holy Jeebus. May the timeframe of this "limited edition" be long and sweet.

11 November 2008

Armistice Day

It's bigger than Veterans' Day. This is a good take on it from 2004.

Public policy reading lists, courtesy of our google overlords

Is this what I'm getting myself into?

Tomorrow evening's trip to the MLK library (right before the Wiz get senselessly beaten up by the Jazz!) should be informative.

10 November 2008

FM Country

There are a couple of things you can usually say to a group of music snobs without risk of putting your foot in your mouth: one is to denigrate the 1980s phase of any artist whose career began prior to or ended after said decade (Miles Davis, Bob Dylan*, Elton John, Billy Joel, Bruce to a degree, etc.) The other thing you can almost always get away with is criticizing contemporary country while praising Johnny Cash, or Merle Haggard, or Hank Williams, or any number of other more “authentic” country musicians.

While it’s true that modern country is basically pop, I actually consider it a bit of a guilty pleasure. I enjoy thinking about the fact that there are people who professionally write songs for others – ghost songwriters, essentially. These are people who build songs carefully, with attention to detail, with the occasional bit of clever wordplay. The songs need to be well-structured, and they often have very formal bridges and solos. And a good one can be just as gratifying as a good pop song.

Three of my current guilty pleasures in this realm are Jamey Johnson, Taylor Swift, and Kathleen Edwards. Jamey Johnson writes dark stuff – his oft-quoted line is about how he had a wife and home but traded it all for “cocaine and a whore.”



Kathleen Edwards is Canadian and writes beautifully and honestly, with the occasional bit of wit: her song “I get the dough, you get the glory” has to be the only country song to mention Chateauneuf.



I only recently discovered Taylor Swift, convinced to give her a chance by Sasha Frere-Jones’s recent New Yorker piece on her. She seems like the real deal: she writes most of her songs. She’s got a great voice. The production on her album is good without being tacky. And she seems to relish playing all the roles available to her: seductress, bitter ex-, good friend, devoted lover. While anything produced in Nashville can get a touch saccharine very easily, none of the songs are outright offensive. The album has that great defiant attitude that you only get from someone who is young, talented, and knows it.

She had me from the opening song on her new album, named “Tim McGraw.” It’s a harmless song about a great summer fling. The rhymes aren’t that obvious, the chorus is generous and warm, and it had me thinking back to how Ms. Abstract Citizen was once fond of loudly playing Tim McGraw, back when we first met.

The second tune, "Just another picture to burn," opens with a bit that made me laugh out loud.

State the obvious,
I didn’t get my perfect fantasy
I realized you love yourself
More that you could ever love me
So go and tell your friends
That I’m obsessive and crazy,
That’s fine
I’ll tell mine
You’re gay


So, remember: Lyle Lovett is safe. Being into Taylor Swift? Totally edgy.^

*But not "Foot of Pride" or "Angelina." So help me God if you do so in my presence. In fact, let's just scratch Dylan from that list: you all should know by now that being into 80s Dylan is the new prog.

^Only applies to her first album, which I am two years late in hearing. The new one comes out...TUesday! And I probably won't get around to it till late 2009 or something, so, uh, stay tuned.

07 November 2008

Last hyperbolic statement of post-election joy (from me, at least)

via Hayden Carruth's poem "Ecstasy."

Ecstasy

For years it was in sex and I thought
this was the most of it
so brief
a moment
or two of transport out of oneself
or
in music which lasted longer and filled me
with the exquisite wrenching agony
of the blues
and now it is equally
transitory and obscure as I sit in my broken
chair that the cats have shredded
by the stove on a winter night with wind and snow
howling outside and I imagine
the whole world at peace
at peace
and everyone comfortable and warm
the great pain assuaged
a moment
of the most shining and singular sensual gratification.

06 November 2008

CODIS

So, if you're a convicted felon, you lose not only the right to vote - you lose your genetic privacy.

This has some troubling implications, sure. Once a convict, always a suspect? Maybe. It certainly says something that the government has so little faith in the likelihood that felons will be "rehabilitated" in prison, right? And the database can be used to determine whether, for example, DNA from an unsolved crime scene might belong to the sibling of a convict. The sibling of the convict might complain from a purely technical standpoint that this is unfair.

I don't want to make this too personal or dramatic, but an old co-worker of mine was recently murdered in her apartment. While initial reports were vague, we now know that the murderer was her building's super-intendent; he had access to all the apartments in the complex; he was a recovering addict with previous convictions for a number of offenses; and while initial reports didn't indicate a motive, we know now that he raped her before beating her to death.

Thanks to CODIS, this vile human should never see the world from outside a cell again. Virginia can seek the death penalty, which raises a number of other issues that are not worth getting into. What matters is that - at the risk of sounding like I'm trading freedom for security - a number of other single women who live in that same residential complex will know that they are safer in their apartments. And I hope that they will be able to demand that the management company disclose the kinds of historical information about this man that may have impacted Gini's or someone else's decision to live there.

Though I only worked with her for about a year, she was sweet, kind, and very generous. She was active in her church but fun-loving and always friendly. Looking back, I feel awful for my mild indifference to her, for being put off by her cheerful demeanor and for cynically scoffing at her unbridled optimism. The world needs more people like her and fewer people like me.

May she rest in peace.

truly, obama has long coattails...

how else do you explain the fact that the black cupcake won the cupcake wars?

04 November 2008

Blue and red: origins

Per Tom Brokaw on Scarborough this morning, NBC created the first electoral map for television for the 1976 election. They had Republicans as blue because they thought that the color blue was more closely associated with the right: blue chips, blue blood, etc. Red, on the other hand, was traditionally the color of leftist parties in Europe, and so they assigned red to the dems.

ABC changed up the scheme for the 1984 election, because they were concerned that they might be accused of trying to imply that democrats were associated with communists. So, the color scheme was reversed, and the other networks followed suit.

03 November 2008

Brand management: election 2008

I mentioned earlier that I thought the big story of the 2008 election might be brand management. Assuming the polls hold on Tuesday, here are a few thoughts:

Too many of the articles written about it will probably overemphasize the notion that the McCain brand was diluted in the general 2008 campaign. I have a hard time not buying the Frontline narrative which says that the McCain brand became heavily exploited shortly after the South Carolina primary in 2000.

Simply stated, imagine two terms of a McCain circa 2000 presidency. It's hard to think that democrats would be on the verge of a permanent lasting majority in both houses of congress, a shift so monumental that republicans routinely use "divided government" as a talking point. (Interestingly, no republicans I know were interested in divided government and out of control spending in 2004.)

A McCain presidency - had it happened in 2000 - would probably be fairly close to a Gore presidency, I think. But in truth, the McCain brand began to suffer shortly after the general election. "Maverick" moves became badges of honor rather than instinctive. McCain manifested a bizarre schizoid tendency, seemingly wanting to avoid his dishonorable loss by having a "come to Jesus" moment with the RNC orthodoxy and simultaneously sticking it to Bush by being a legislative contrarian. 2004 was awkward. And more and more, the McCain worldview seems, to me, to have become about his person, simply stated.

The other problem is that, I think, in hindsight, congressional quiescence will be seen as a major contributing factor to the growth of executive power over the past few years. This growth has largely served goals with which the old McCain would profess to disagree (torture, unaffordable tax cuts, etc) - and McCain, the trademarked maverick, was nowhere to be seen exerting his precious leadership.

So, flip the question. They want to know who Barack Obama is, but do we know who John McCain is? Really, who is this guy? Is he a fundamentally virtuous person who made a deal with the devil sometime between his loss in 2000 and his endorsement of Bush in the 2004 election? Or was he fundamentally flawed - his "maverick-ness" masking as a virtue when in reality it was just a display of his need to place his ego center stage?

I think, again, that if the story is brand management, the narrative will be simple. Figuring out just where McCain lost the weight of his brand, though, will be much more complicated.

No me llores, Argentina

Ms. Abstract Citizen has been dealing with a consultant in Argentina, which is a fantastic excuse for all of my vitriol to come out. I actually dreamt about this goal on Friday night - one of my all-time favorites. Heartbreaking that it is hard to find good video of it, but you can see Bebeto's beautiful form on the half-bicycle kick.

27 October 2008

How to cheer at a marathon

As we jogged down to M street on Sunday morning to cheer on a friend of Ms. Abstract Citizen’s in the Marine Corps Marathon, we pretty much decided that we would attempt a marathon before the end of 2009. I think it is a decision we will regret.

However, there’s another, bigger decision to be made: being there to cheer on a racer in particular isn’t an exact science. You’ll probably be standing out there for at least 30 minutes, maybe over an hour, waiting for your person to run by. The best way to make use of this time, if you don’t want to be a total prick, is to cheer on other runners.

You start out a little stiffly…sort of like the first song or two on the dance floor: it feels wrong, mechanical. Then things start to click. Your meek “Go runners!” becomes, “Alright people, you’re all looking fabulous out there. Team Asha, keep it up! Big Daddy, you got this! Shirley and Kate, keep it coming!” Of course, this is only made possible when people wear names or team info on their shirts – something I never do. It had never occurred to me that a runner might do this as a courtesy to the spectators – to give them something to do – rather than out of a desire to hear your name screamed out by strangers.

It is funny, though – especially when you can tell people have forgotten that their names are on their shirts, and they are startled to hear their own names being called out by strangers.

So, name on the shirt? Or go anonymous? I feel like this is crossing some sort of line – not as grave as, say, starting a facebook page, but perhaps more akin to using odious abbreviations when sending text messages. Is wearing my name on my shirt in conflict with my insistence on using proper punctuation and spelling out whole words when sending a text? Curse your upwardly contagious narcissism and love of convenience, Gen Y!

22 October 2008

ready for the men chasing the bouncing orange ball around the hardwood...

Indeed, just one week away from the Wizards' season opener.

There's a pretty insightful take on their prospects this season here, and I certainly don't think the outlook is rosy.

At best, the Wiz can hope to stay slightly below .500 till December, and hopefully finish the season strong and surprise a few people. Many if's - Andray Blatche will need to step up, JaVale McGee will have to have a huge rookie year, Nick Young will need to mature right quick and the big three will need to stay healthy once Gilbert comes back.

But I already look forward to being there and to relishing the occasional improbable win. I still don't believe all the doomsday scenarios for this team - I think they'll be able to compete in the improving East - but I am not without concerns.

One of my favorite moments as a Wizards fan was tivo'ing this game and watching it by myself the next morning, which was December 24th.



And for those who prefer their Washington hoops old-school:

20 October 2008

the male emotional cycle

I’m coming out of a two-week period where I feel like most of my worst traits – well, not my worst, necessarily, but certainly those traits that I dislike the most in myself – have been on clear display. These include minor, forgivable flaws (displaying an unnecessarily surly disposition toward friends and co-workers, or being too quick to impose my opinion on a given exchange or social situation) as well as cardinal sins (seething with rage, bitterness, inexplicable contempt for people who probably don’t deserve it, being unable to communicate in an adult manner, etc.) I’ve also been unfocused, erratic, and just not particularly mature the past several days.

W.H. Auden’s In Praise of Limestone has long been one of my favorites – a poem that I inadvertently echo all the time, it seems. Setting the human landscape as rocky and immutable - god, I hope it's not - it casts the spiritual or sublime as fluid, watery, soluble. In the process, it hits the core of a particular kind of narcissism, and it may even forgive itself for that narcissism at its close:

I, too, am reproached, for what
And how much you know. Not to lose time, not to get caught,
Not to be left behind, not, please! to resemble
The beasts who repeat themselves, or a thing like water
Or stone whose conduct can be predicted, these
Are our common prayer, whose greatest comfort is music
Which can be made anywhere, is invisible,
And does not smell. Insofar as we have to look forward
To death as a fact, no doubt we are right: But if
Sins can be forgiven, if bodies rise from the dead,
These modifications of matter into
Innocent athletes and gesticulating fountains,
Made solely for pleasure, make a further point:
The blessed will not care what angle they are regarded from,
Having nothing to hide. Dear, I know nothing of
Either, but when I try to imagine a faultless love
Or the life to come, what I hear is the murmur
Of underground streams, what I see is a limestone landscape.


When I get in these funks – a version of the male hormonal/emotional cycle? – I also often think back to a New Yorker Talk of the Town piece from a few years back that I found totally arresting. In careful prose, Roger Angell absolves Sosa for his corked bat sin thusly:

Baseball is so implacably difficult to play well, day after day, that it almost requires a little cheating now and then to make it bearable, and it is in this regard—and this one only—that it may be said to imitate life itself...The only sadness here is the taint, the little doubt, that will always be attached to Sosa’s name now, despite his sunniness and those career five hundred and six home runs. We can forgive him, even if we question his tale of a batting-practice bat going unrecognized in the heat of the season (and an extended power outage at the plate), and late tonight perhaps forgive ourselves today’s not-so-white lie, last week’s unpardonable impatience with a boring old friend, and all the pot we used to smoke after the kids had gone to bed.

I am still reaching for the best way to move on after these stretches, to tell myself, “That’s ok, you’ll do better the next time you come up to bat,” despite mounting evidence to the contrary. Of course, it only takes a couple of nice hits to erase the funk, or to switch sports analogies for a minute, if you don’t like winning an ugly soccer match, imagine how much worse it is to be the team that loses an ugly match. I’m not winning pretty, but at least it’s not clear that I’m losing either. Not necessarily a good tagline, but one that I’m happy to live with for now.

Plants can blog?

via Andrew Sullivan's Atlantic blog.

This is just bizarre.

Imagine what a farmer's market would sound like if you could hear what plants are thinking.

a trip to the crafts emporium, part II





17 October 2008

Another half-

Ms. Citizen, no doubt encouraged by her strong solo performance at the Army Ten Miler while I was in Montreal, believes we can have another go at a half-marathon. I didn’t want to comment on our previous performance here until I knew whether we would have a chance to redeem it, but the truth is that very few things are as oppressive and disappointing as a bad long run.

We were spoiled, though. We had come out of a 5k looking forward to an 8k. Then a 10k, then a ten-miler. Then, finally, a half-marathon. Up to the half-, we had gotten better and better with every race. Our pace was improving, and we can honestly look back at a few those – like the Cherry Blossom – and feel the exhilaration of wildly outperforming our expectations. Especially because we started out poorly – unfocused, cold, shivering as a result of the awful weather. And at about an 11-minute clip. Around mile 3, we both realized that we desperately needed to pee – which cost us another 2-3 minutes (I timed it – it was a long one.)

We shot out of that restroom along the tidal basin as if out of a cannon, though, and proceeded to knock the crap out of the pavement – probably pacing around 8:30 or so – to finish the race at a 9:50 overall. Almost as thrilling: having a large Irish breakfast and three Guinness after the race. Also almost as thrilling: sleeping for three hours after the breakfast.

But so the Virginia Beach half-marathon was the opposite. We just never clicked into the race. By mile 6, we were already way off our ten-miler time, and it was obvious we wouldn’t be able to make it back. Months of preparation, and there you are, an hour into the race, an hour to go, and you basically know that finishing is not going to be a relief, it’s not going to be invigorating – it’s just going to be a huge disappointment. The panic is a further distraction, a nagging reminder that you are about to underperform, and motivating yourself in the face of that is hard.

We had good excuses - oppressive humidity and heat, for example. People often die at this race, and we saw dozens of runners being helped with oxygen masks, or being carried off to the shoulder. But that wasn't it. I think we just got beaten, psychologically, before the race ever started.

I was a little down on running for a few weeks afterwards, and we basically haven’t gone on a run longer than 6 miles or so since then. But the promise of another half- in the spring is good enough for me. It’ll, weirdly, help get me through the winter – it’ll keep me honest in terms of going to the gym (especially after long nights at Wizards games drinking two-for-one Sierras courtesy of my man Ron) and it’ll offer us a chance to finish the damn thing in just a shade over two hours. I hope.

And if that doesn’t happen, I’m going to be a sorely frustrated runner. Again.

a trip to the crafts emporium, part I



16 October 2008

Karen, I’m not taking sides…

I think the song “Karen” by the National is unimpeachable. And it opens with this great line:

Karen, I’m not taking sides
I don’t think I’ll ever do that again
I’ll end up winning and I won’t know why…

And it wasn’t until I was in an argument with Ms. AC a few months after I first heard the song that I realized what those lines mean. I’ve always had this great facility for arguing and debating – one of the things I’ve inherited from Papa Citizen, I guess. I didn’t realize until recently that this is one of the things I don’t trust in myself, because I can never really tell whether I’m making an argument that I really believe in, or if I’m just stretching a bad idea to its logical conclusion because I think the process of doing so – the argument’s unspooling – is elegant enough for me to disregard the outcome.

Basically, being able to debate well, or to score rhetorical points off of an opponent, is ultimately just an unbearable display of sophistry. It shows nothing, ultimately, and in the context or an argument with a loved one, it doesn’t put any admirable traits on display. It suggests that you have been secretly keeping score, and – most damning of all – that you are more invested in winning an argument than in finding a solution. And often times, you just come across as a bully – like this guy, apparently.


This is not a particularly artful statement of what happens in political debates, but it’s the prism through which I’ve always seen them, especially in light of the 2000 and 2004 debates and elections: smartypants win debates at the cost of losing the election.

I had high hopes for this year’s debates, because both candidates were, if nothing else, quick on their feet. And yet the clearest thought I could articulate after that first debate was that Obama, disappointingly, lacked a killer instinct, because he seemed never to want to land punches. I thought it made him seem unready or unwilling to fight – never a trait Americans want out of a president, I’m told - but the metanarrative has congealed around the notion that Obama is “unflappable,” “cool,” etc. Whether by design or not, this is one hell of a lucky break for the man.

Obama’s debate-mode also surprised me because someone who was clearly so comfortable with nuance and non-binary thinking should, I thought, be able to deliver some beautiful rhetorical jiu-jitsu, and would have to do so in order to prove himself ready for the proverbial “highest office in the land.” Either I was dead wrong and Obama doesn’t know how to do this, or he doesn’t think he has to in order to win the election. But what impresses me, I guess, is that he doesn’t feel the need to prove, to those of us who want to see him do it, that he can do it. He seems to lack the insecurity that typically lurks behind the brainy façade of so many bookish types: the fear of being mistaken for mediocre, routine, and the need to deliver an occasional flash of brilliance.

Even more confusingly, Obama seems happy to be a mediocre debater. I’m not sure if this is how he’s chosen to manage his brand (more on that in a later post, I think) or if he is just that calm and collected. And I’m not sure whether this was his plan all along, or whether it was just a perfect combination of circumstance – certainly much can be made of the fact that voters seem to want something stable and flat during times of uncertainty. Though it still doesn’t explain why I walk away from every debate feeling as though I’m about to see a bump for McCain and find instead that the populace at large feels overwhelmingly that Obama carried the day.

To the good people at Dreyer's/Edy's:

You are doing the lord's work out there. I agree with this review - that the actual ice cream isn't exactly life-altering. But that won't stop me from consuming as much of this "limited time" ice cream as I can...

15 October 2008

Now that Hitchens has endorsed Obama...

...is it safe to say that Barry has locked up the single malt vote?

13 October 2008

Further Evidence of My Lack of Bad-Assness

Returning to the States from Canada this past Wednesday with Sprucey, a co-worker. This is my first time traveling using my "parole" documents, and just a note to clarify: for some reason, flying back from Montreal to DCA, you go through customs and immigration on the Canadian side. I have no idea why, or if this is true for all flights going back to the U.S., but without that bit of knowledge, this story won’t make too much sense.

As you may recall from a previous post, according to the forms, the agent at the border is making a decision as to whether I should be "paroled" into the States or not. Accordingly, I hand over all my paperwork and wait nervously for questions at the passport control booth. The agent flips through my passport, stops to look at my visa. I mention that it's expired, and he nods. "I saw your advanced parole," he says. Then he snaps my passport shut, gets up, and says, "Ok, follow me." And he leaves his little booth and starts leading me somewhere. I hesitate, and he says, "We need to get this stamped now."

So, I'm still not sure if I'm in the clear, and as I'm being led into this glass-encased room, my colleague Sprucey has a somewhat confused look on her face. She gives me a half-wave and a half-quizzical smile, maybe thinking, "Just in case this is the last time I see you..." I don't want to shout out, "Hey, don't worry, I'll catch up in a second," so I half-wave back because I'm still not sure what's going to happen. But then the agent asks her if she'd like to join me in there, which she very kindly does. So there we sit, waiting for me to be called in for a mini-interview.

When I do get called in, here's how I remember the exchange:

Him: So, sir, where you are going today?
Me: To DCA.
[silence]
Me: Uh, National Airport.
[silence]
Me: Home to my wife...?
[he perks up]
Him: Oh, home to your wife? So who's that out there waiting for you?
Me: Oh, no no no...she's a co-worker. We were here for a convention and wanted to sight-see, so we -
Him: What's your social?
Me: xxx-xx-xxxx.
Him: And what's your occupation?
Me: Well, I work for a health care organization that is primarily a standards-setting and accreditation body for blood banks, cellular therapy, and other parts of the lab. My primary job function is -....
[he gets up, leaves without saying a word. Returns two minutes later.]
Him: Well, Mr. Noonyez, have a nice trip.

So now, we’re positive that we are in the clear. My parole is good, and Sprucey – well, she’s like a human version of mom-and-apple-pie. I can’t imagine anyone taking any kind of issue with her. She is sweet, kind, warm, genuine – a shining example of the best that the American South has to offer. We make our way to the secured area for our security check, and suddenly agents are converging on Sprucey. The minute she approaches the conveyor belt and puts her stuff down, a female security guard approaches her, asks for her boarding pass, and basically pulls her aside. Meanwhile, no one even looks at my boarding pass! I am chopped liver. I go through security without a problem, while Sprucey is being given the treatment – so much so that I'm surprised there was even anyone left to look at my bags when they were being scanned!

Now I'm standing off to the side, putting my belt back on, tying my shoelaces, while Sprucey is being scrutinized. They're emptying one bag, and then they're emptying the other. They've got their hands all over her. They're speaking to her in hushed tones, she is nodding or shaking her head, and I'm standing there with this dumbfounded look on my face because Sprucey is LAUGHING THE WHOLE TIME. She's got her back to me, so I can't see everything that's going on, but if you were there, listening to her laugh, it would have you believing that this is about the most enjoyable thing that could happen to a person.

Afterwards, she mentioned that it was a little ticklish, all the reaching and groping, and that the woman's running commentary on her carry-ons was worth the price of admission. As in:

Security: Oh my, you certainly have a lot of things in here.
Sprucey: It's ok, you can take it out.
Security: But then I have to put back in!!
Sprucey: Oh, that...yeah, I like jewelry.
Security: Yes, this I can see!
[Security takes out her make-up bag]
Security: Why, you have every color here!!

And so forth. In any case, the woman also warns Sprucey that she will be subjected to this a second time because we are flying to National. We are confused and unsure as to how this will take place, considering that we are now on our way to the gate, but alas. Meanwhile, I'm feeling totally invisible - remember that no one even checked my boarding pass to make sure I was in the right terminal. Clearly, this is a little emasculating for me, since I'd like to believe that, between the two of us, I am the one more likely to be perceived as a threat. But no, it turns out that a blonde Southerner with a kind disposition has been keeping these security folks up at night, while I'm barely an afterthought.

Onward to the terminal bar to blow the last of our Canadian dollars on family-sized gin and tonics. When we finally make it to the gate, we find that it is encased in glass with - you guessed it - a second security set up. I am instantly and uncomplicatedly waved off to the side, while Sprucey is again subjected to the vagaries of airport security for a second time. At this point, I’d just about had enough. Why aren't they worried about ME??? I’m the FOREIGNER! And I’ve been working out! I'm STRONG! Well, almost strong…but I am taken with radical notions about how health care ought to be a right, and how diplomacy is not such a bad thing! Except no, I'm not. I'm puny, and Sprucey is the threat. Outgunned by kindness, once again…

10 October 2008

A partial list of the animals whose products I consumed while in Montreal

Forgive me.



Salmon
Cod fish
Venison
Pig and piglet
Beef and veal
Duck
Wild boar (first time!)
Goose
Chicken

Said "no thanks" to pigeon, and I've excluded sushi. Also, I only tried the sauce on some escargot dishes because I'm partial to Al Caparra's escargots across the street from my dad's apartment in Rio. All in all, though, not bad for a 6-day trip. Had me looking and feeling like this.

30 September 2008

Why I can’t wait for Blindness

1. I loved “La Peste” and Saramago has proven himself to be equal parts Bulgakov, Tolstory, and Camus. This one is like “Children of Men” but it doesn’t sell itself short at the end. It just hits you again, and leaves you to wonder what horrible aspects of the human animal have been rendered visible by contagious blindness. It promises to be bleak, and utterly terrifying.

2. I’ve had this thing for Julianne Moore and her character is pretty central. Andbeyond Ms. Moore, the cast is pretty much entirely composed of actors that I enjoy - Mark Ruffalo, Alice Braga, Gael Garcia Bernal. Solid.

3. Fernando Meireles.

4. Back to Saramago – his narrative voice is one of the more compelling and original voices I’ve come across in a while. It’s cinematic, for sure, but also familiar, confident, and long-winded in a reassuring way. I’m betting this doesn’t translate well, but god do I hope they try to capture. Just attempting to capture makes for an exhilarating motion picture to me, regardless of whether the outcome is successful or not.

Having said all that, what's the over-under on me actually making it to the movies to see this?

Official site.

24 September 2008

I love grana padano

Been living non-virtually the past few days, in a whirlwind that leaves little time for recreational writing. However, I just wanted to drop by and tell anyone who reads this that if you're not using grana padano instead of parmiggiano-reggiano, you're missing out on one of life's most exciting treats.

16 September 2008

I love Zambrano shirt guy

He was previously discussed here. For some reason, his best moments happen when we're talking about analogies. Tonight's involved a nice, clean-shaven fellow - we'll call him Mr. Clean.)

Teacher: So, here we have FUSELAGE:AIRPLANE. What's a good bridge there?
Mr. Clean: That the fuselage is a part of the airplane?

Teacher: Ok, let's try it.

[They run down the answers and find that every answer is something that's a part of something else.]

Teacher: So we need a more specific bridge, right?

Mr. Clean: Yeah, but...I don't know what a fuselage is.

Zambrano Guy: Oh, I've got it. The fuselage is the outer shell of an airplane.

Teacher: Excellent!

Zambrano Guy: Well, I watch Lost, so that was easy.

Teacher: And which answer fits?

Zambrano Guy: HULL:SHIP.

Mr. Clean: Wait...so a fuselage has, like, something to do with the fuel?

Teacher: Not quite...

Mr. Clean:...see, I don't know, because, uh, I don't watch Lost.

Advice columnist's nirvana

Enter sidetaker. Read about a couple's argument, get both sides of it, and then pick whose side you're on.

If something virtual can take the place of crack cocaine, this site would have to be in the running.

13 September 2008

The two best statements of the weekend, thus far:

"See, that's what I hate about our country. Isn't it awful? Michael Phelps had, like, this great accomplishment, but now I just hate him!"

-The Arygirl

and...

"I put my pants on both legs at a time. Because I'm different from everyone else. Wait, not different - better."

-Ms. Abstract Citizen

12 September 2008

Friday is link-day at AC

James Fallows makes the point that politicians ought to be conversant in areas of government not because they need to show off, but because it shows that they are interested in the dynamics of the debate surrounding those topics and it suggests that they may be actively participating in said debate, which means that they are in some way engaged by the topic. Even if all they're doing is defending a static position, they are aware that there exists a debate on the topic, and they would need to see how the other side's arguments are evolving over time.

Gait

via unfogged -

what does your gait say about your sexual history? Something else for the neurotic to fret about, no doubt.

10 September 2008

and as long as I'm writing mawkishly about bikes and music


here's the aforementioned huffy, in all of its circa 1982 glory.

Only the river stared back...

I just am not getting sick of Okkervil River. Usually I gorge on a band and it ends up being a consumable, quickly digested and discarded. But listening to "The Stand Ins" for the first time today, I really did think that this Will Sheff fellow has done something pretty impressive, which is going from relative obscurity to a bona fide super-songwriter, in my estimation, on the strength of three albums. (Out of a number of memorable lines, I'm going with "you've got taste / yeah you've got taste / man, what a waste that it's all you've got..." or something close to that.)

And I know I've touched on this before, but while his style of songwriting is perhaps a bit affected, it's also surprisingly formal and erudite. It's dripping with references, and anyoneon who enjoys the careful development of literary themes should be able to sit down with their albums and the lyric sheet and just have a field day following the narratives, which are richly layered, full of details and knowing winks.

And Sheff manages to avoid fatuousness or obviousness. For all his apparent sincerity, the songs tend to be shrouded in ambiguity. For a good read, check out this pitchforkmedia (I know, I know) interview with him, which is sprawling and insightful. For a good listen, look below.

Goodbye, Raleigh M50

You were a good bike. Though I only came to truly appreciate you in the past few years, we hung in there together for quite a while – since 2000, if my memory is correct. I only took you out on true dirt trails a couple of times – remember that trail around Sugar Loaf that was like a grade 5 and was totally murderous? It totally kicked our asses. But we had fun on some neighborhood trails along Sligo Creek and near the parental household. You were definitely a good bike, and only the second one I’ve ever owned.

The first was a BMX Huffy, black and gold. As a kid, I thought I could pedal fast enough to travel across dimensions. We built ramps, and we popped wheelies. We thought we were like the BMX Bandits of Berkeley or something. We skidded everywhere, and generally rode like hellbent children (no helmets!) determined to tackle the winding streets of our little Albany neighborhood streets like…well, like impatient children. No metaphor really works here.

So, I have owned two bikes in 30 years. I’m sure there are men out there who have had 10 bikes in that same span of time, but I guess I’m old fashioned. A serial monogamist in the bicycle world.

And now some dickless piece of shit stole you, and I am not sure what I ought to be feeling - anger, sadness, disappointment, all of the above...In any case, goodbye, Raleigh M50. You were a good bike.

08 September 2008

Food, morals, questions

I often think about what I’m going to eat, or what I’ve just eaten, or what I may eat several days from now if there’s a restaurant I’m particularly looking forward to visiting, and over the past few years, we’ve tried to adopt a more locally-based diet, for all the usual reasons. John’s post really gets me to thinking about the broad spectrum of different concerns that I rarely contemplate. Namely, eating meat – something which I don’t do often, but when I do eat meat, I certainly don’t exercise any particular zeal to ascertain the origin of that meat and, in fact, I am thrilled when I find a whole chicken at Harris Teeter for under $6, though I’m sure this is a “chicken” churned out by some vast sprawling industrial chickenarium somewhere.

And yes, this is partly because I was freaked the eff out by Jerome Groopman’s article about MRSA, aka, drug-resistant bacteria.

Read if you’re into paranoia, and kiss that bottle of Purell’s hand sanitizer goodbye (except for truly dire circumstances, I believe.)

PS. John, I meant to ask for permission to link, but since you're an assiduous readers, there's a good chance you'll be the first to see this anyway - let me know if you want it taken down!

04 September 2008

This month in, “Remind why I don’t subcribe to the Atlantic again?”

This post-mortem on the Clinton campaign is fascinating.

The impressions I took away: the first, and obvious one, is that running a campaign is hard work. More and more, it seems to me that it’s fair to draw analogies between how campaigns are run and how that candidate would govern. I used to think this was media reductionism, but the more I think about it, the more fair it seems to draw these extrapolations. For example, Bush-Cheney were a ruthlessly effective team, but they also arguably relied on a cynical view of voters: the old 49.5+1 equation that sought a simple majority but not necessarily a wider base from which to govern.

The other thought I have is that these long, protracted campaigns can also explain the negative aspects of recent administrations. The Clintons were notoriously paranoid – and it’s hard not to see this as an unfortunate downside of the lovable “War Room” mentality that was so well-captured in the documentary of the same name. Ditto the Bush-Cheney team, who have governed as if they are on a permanent campaign. So, campaigns can showcase effective managerial styles – but they can create intellectual ruts that extend into the actual administration once the campaign is over. Sen. Clinton’s campaign seems to have suffered from a number of organizational problems, but the net result of the article humanizes her in a flattering way (to me, at least.) I think it’s a must-read for anyone curious about the election/campaign process (and yes, I know it’s old news by now, but I don’t do topical, ok?)

Next, this brilliant and surprising argument that an Obama presidency would actually not move us past the age of partisanship, since it would likely also mean that the Dems would have more than 60 votes in the Senate and a comfortable majority in the House – and that we would see fewer moderate Republicans in both Houses of Congress – likely the Republicans that Obama would be most likely to work with. The resulting one-party rule would do very little to encourage moderate bi-partisanship, the author argues.

The flipside is that a McCain presidency would still involve a Democratic majority in both Houses – a slim majority, but an undeniable one. McCain would need to reach out to the Democrats and would, arguably, represent a more post-partisan style of governing (out of pragmatic need) than Obama’s would.

As a reminder, the Abstract Citizen is not expressing any political leanings, nor does the AC make it a habit of speak on sensitive issues concerning American politics. Rather, these are presented in an agnostic manner as interesting (to me, at least) insights into the political process.

03 September 2008

GRE class: also good for soul-crushing career advice, apparently.

Instructor: So, ____, what analogy do you think has the strongest relationship to the one in the question?

Guy who wore a Carlos Zambrano shirt to the first day of class: Uh, I went with PORPOISE : FISH. Although I’m not really sure if a porpoise is a fish or not…

Older woman in front of me: It’s not…

Instructor: That’s ok, but let’s focus on why the relationship isn’t a strong one -

Older woman in front of me, continuing: … it’s a mammal.

Guy who wore Zambrano shirt, turning around to look at her: Really? [looks crestfallen for a minute, and then says in a wilting, earnest tone] And I was hoping to be a marine biologist too…oh, man.

29 August 2008

humbling though

Olympic record for the marathon, set this year: 2:06'32.

Our finish time for a HALF marathon, if we keep our target pace: 2:10'00.

Before congratulating us, remember that someone can run twice as fast as we hope to for twice the distance!

28 August 2008

closing in

Ominously, the last run before the big one was not good. Slept restlessy, only sneaking a cat nap during the two hours between 4 and 6 on account of stress, whatever else. The weather for the weekend in VA beach looks to include some rain, so I guess it's good that I ran in the rain this morning. I shuffled through thirty minutes and gave up.

A great trick that I learned from E(M)GK is to keep your old running shoes around when you buy a new pair, and wear the old ones out when it's crappy to make sure you'll get your 300-400 miles out of the new pair. Not sure what to do about Sunday thought - it seems really foolish not to wear my newest pair, which have fewer than 15 miles on them, but not at the cost of needing to replace them that much sooner.

Also, maybe I'm in the minority, but I really feel like the DNC has gotten very little mileage in my household. Political inclinations aside, I was just out-tv'd by the Olympics and the knowledge that football season is almost upon us.

So, I need to sleep, but I've found that sometimes fatigue is a nice distraction while running - it actually allows the mind to wander from the body a bit more freely. And with the rain this morning, I was definitely stumbling down some bizarre mental corridors, only to come back and realize that because my glasses were wet and I couldn't see very far ahead of me, I would have no idea where I was. Pleasantly disorienting.

26 August 2008

Back to school

It's officially the end of the summer at Abstract Citizen hq, in the least fun way imaginable: after a long hiatus, we're both in classes. Ms. AC is beginning an arduous process that will likely culminate in a career about which she will be truly passionate. I, on the other hand, started my GRE classes tonight, still a little unsure of what I want out of graduate school but pretty confident in the fact that it's realistically the only way I can move forward personally and professionally. And maybe, who knows - move elsewhere, physically, since there's always a remote chance we will be looking outside of the DC metro area...

My first thought is that Kaplan has terrible customer service, and my instructor is...awkward. My second thought is, wow - I love that I can hop on my bike and be there in 10 minutes. My third thought is that Ms. AC's butternut squash soup has kept very well in the freezer for the past several months.

And my fourth thought is that this officially marks the end of the precocious phase of my life. I was always the youngest in school: my last day at college, thanks to some high school IB credits, was actually the day in turned 21. My first year, I was on several occasions the only freshman in classes full of seniors. I was featured in this "year one" magazine as part of a panel of freshmen and nominated to this really silly "emerging leaders" seminar. Within 3 months of turning 21 and getting out of dodge, I was working at the place where I now (still!) work. At 23, I was the youngest director on staff and, as far as anyone can tell, ever. And since then, I've been...almost totally stagnant.

So, I'm not the oldest person in my GRE class, and I probably won't be the oldest person in whatever grad program I enroll. But no one will ever say that I am so ______ for my age. And I don't mind that - I'm happy to say goodbye to the precociousness. But it takes a little bit of getting used to, at least for now.

What you may have missed during the weeks-long celebration of Michael Phelps

Olympic village booty. Lots of it.

Every 4 years, there's an article like this. If I recall correctly, the issue in Athens was a general concern that the plumbing in the Olympic village might not be sturdy enough to withstand the number of condoms that would be flushed down toilets.

I guess it's heartening to think that regardless of bronze, silver, or gold status, latex will always be the winner.

25 August 2008

Find a city, find yourself a city to live in

StopSmiling's reviewof "The Dark Knight" is a shining example of why that particular magazine is the coolest magazine on the planet. But more importantly, I think it correctly grasps what is the most important theme in the new crop of Batman films: urbanism.

Nolan's unsubtle play in the new Batman series suggests that Gotham is our collective soul - hopelessly complicated, easily corrupted, given to mass hysteria and savagery, and not necessarily a place worth saving. Virtually all of my favorite superhero stories have an element of this "urban landscape as heart of darkness" - certainly Robocop and The Watchmen, but also some less high-minded fare like Darkman.

I also note that the modern city becomes especially scary to the consumer of pop culture sometime around the late 1970s and early 1980s, though I'm not sure what broader conclusion suggested by this. An economist would talk about the fact that this tide shifted back sometime in the mid-90s, during a period of massive growth. A two-bit sociologist might point to the end of the cold war and the advent of political correctness leading to an embrace of the "other." Truth is, there are so many trends - the rise of hip hop and the use of the word "urban" as code for black culture, for example - that it seems silly to say that it happened for any one reason. But what does interest me is that in other countries, living in the city is often perceived as a happy accident borne of necessity, whereas in America, there are a number of people who see cities simply as an inconvenience, a distraction from their real lives.

The gap between urban and non-urban was one of my "themes" a few years ago - I saw just about everything as evidence of this, from consumer behavior to gastronomy and national election results. My formative years were spent in a teeming mess of a city, where I was routinely mugged, where bus routes were fluid and open to interpretation, and where being a self-described native means that you have successfully navigated one of the most complex environments invented by humans.

Even when I thought I was likely to move away from urban areas entirely, I still thought cities were absolultely vital to human enterprise, while suburbs were the opposite of all authentic human experience. Moving to the U.S. suburbs in the early 1990s was disorienting, like being placed into a sealed container or something. Where was the streetlife, where did people congregate, why weren't there more bus routes? But I did grow accustomed to that rhythm after a while, at least until graduating from college and realizing that I didn't want any part of a suburban life.

I had a professor in college who used to describe the ideal suburban weekend: car rolls into garage, garage door closes - family is sealed in. The door will not open again until it is time for work and school on Monday morning because the family is in a self-contained unit. This is facile and I don't want to suggest that everyone in the suburbs is drab while all in the city are vibrant - far from it, in fact, and I think the line between the two is fairly blurry.

I didn't know Rubert Putnam's "Bowling Alone" or anything about social capital, nor had I read Jane Jacobs at this point, but I could see that I thought living in a city would mean, in the most basic terms, more entertainment. More action that had little to do with me, and a greater likelihood that I would be a supporting actor in another story (as opposed to always feeling like the protagonist of my story.)

There was a New Yorker "Talk of the Town" piece where Wynton Marsalis, speaking to a school assembly in New York City, used the word "cosmopolitan." Someone asked him what it meant, and he replied something like, "It means that you belong wherever you go." Or something along those lines, I can't seem to find the exact wording. But clearly, it's an idea I like - not because it implies that there's a universal fraternity of urban centers, but because it suggests to me that cities teach valuable life skills: about talking to people directly, about living outside of your own head, about asking questions and about not being such a bumbling idiot just because you happen to be out of your element, and also about the individual's relationship with their environment being a two-way street.

Of course, you can learn these skills and lessons elsewhere. And I've always thought that the people who pride themselves on their urbanity are the most likely to be from Des Moines (no offense, Iowa!) Seriously - remember that Bill Murray's character in "Groundhog Day," who made it clear that he hated central PA, was from Pittsburgh - not exactly a cosmpolitan center, though it is a city that kicks Washington's ass in terms of regional pride and strength of character.

I spent a good chunk of the summer outside of cities, in between them, or in cities that I plain just don't like a lot (hello, San Diego!) It feels good to be home, picking thai chilies off the pot that grows on our windowsill, our tiny spice garden overlooking an infinitely more messy and unweeded garden gone to the proverbial Shakesperean fie.

Run

It's half-marathon week, so expect some run-talk. Meanwhile, there's this, written shortly after a long run.

I was wheezing, left
right. The buttons
called nothing. Fights
on billowy terrain,
light taut. The run
was overwrought,
an arrival ingrained,
the time for precision.

Your names were elisions,
and I was skidding. Laterally
speaking, I wasn’t budging
but through the fog below
I knew left right. Draining
out of me were vowels,
decisions, and deeds. Pace.
Write left in little trowels.

Tamer visions fleeing.
Linear on the grid, topheavy
dimensions. Logging
real hours to sealed rhythms.
Open closed, close to them.
Are the names really done?
Sunbeaten trod, muddy grass
waving follicles at our pass.

Redolent, gamin-toed trot
weathered well. Right. I left
without going anywhere.
Arrived through no threshold.
Thinking I had picked daisies
without ever touching a flower,
traipsing gaps in fear, beads
in shower. The finished end so near.

Covering distances vaster,
the apartness moving faster.
It was farther or further,
though I didn’t know. I knew
little, but I knew well
how the shell formed, and why
scorned, we are in flight. Left.
Right. Left. Right.

24 August 2008

Of fenceposts and crumb trails

Is there a word for the great feeling you get for a few seconds when you get that feeling that you're on the right track? I'm sure there is a word for it in German, since they seem to be the best at combining disparate words into high-falutin concepts. Something like "feelings-consorting-thoughts" or "connected-object-mindfulnes" maybe.

This can happen when you get a strong feeling of deja vu. I have always assumed that the most logical explanation for deja vu is that you've dreamt about something before it happens. This is not mystical - it's rather the result of the fact that the brain is a powerful computer, repeatedly analyzing myriad scenarios, and occasionally it hits on exactly what might happen a few weeks or months later. I recently had a little bit of this feeling, sitting in my office, talking to a co-worker about a silly work drama.

The other time I get this sort of feeling is when I get the feeling I'm the only person who knows a song that a performer is covering. I don't know why, but I was just so proud of myself for recognizing Nick Lowe's "cruel to be Kind" at a relatively lame corporate function in San Diego. (Well, the people were lame - the open bar and fist-sized truffles being shaved onto the scallops on my plate were awesome.) The guy playing it on a casio-type set up with a microphone looked as generic as could be expected, but I just had this feeling about the fact that I had been recently introduced to the song by a friend for the sole purpose of enjoying that moment more than anyone else at the party. (The great sidenote is that I mentioned this to someone at the table with me, and she nodded, telling me that the first concert she ever attended was Nick Lowe opening for The Cars. So maybe I wasn't so special, but for a few seconds, I was.)



I also recently listened to Mike Gordon's new band for the first time - great, upbeat, quirky pop. On the particular show I found, he does a cover of a Kasey Chambers that I am sure no one in the audience would have known, and I got this feeling that my brief interest in Kasey Chambers - even seeing her on her first US tour, when she was pregnant - was somehow retroactively legitimized by Mike Gordon, several years later.



And finally, Okkervil River covering John Phillips' April Anne has to take the cake. I had just come acros the John Phillips reissue no more than a month or so before I started taking Okkervil River. I loved the L.A. conjured in John Phillips' album - somewhere between Gram Parsons and Joan Didion. Okkervil River's version, on their covers mixtape, is just as sad as you would expect, but I think the song sounds best with John Phillips' crystal-eyed vocals about his ex-wife shacking up with Dennis Hopper. When I saw that Okkervil River had released a covers album, I wanted to skim the tracklist. Seeing that song listed as the opening track was all the convincing I needed that I was, as I suspected, on the right track.