At Home in the World

2006-11-08T21:15:00.000-08:00

Do you want to know about me?

Polling Station

2006-11-07T20:47:00.000-08:00

Tiny garage on Cortland Street with two long tables and a few ballot boxes. Two guys manning the tables with steaming coffees. A good dozen or so people milling around on the sidewalk. The garage crammed with people.
This was just as important as who 'wins' the election and has zero to do with politics or democracy.

A Man Escaped & Lancelot of the Lake

2006-11-06T21:01:00.000-08:00

are two awesome movies by Robert Bresson. In both, you hardly get to know or learn about the characters' personality. They do remarkable things (escape from nazi prison, knight of round table)and next to no ego is evinced. Only small glimpses of persona here and there. The characters are mostly just vessels of Belief and Will doing things without style or polish.
Man is a moral animal.

Lake Merritt - Herb the Banker

2006-10-20T23:46:00.000-07:00

Popped across the street to open a bank account. Got to talking with Herb the Banker. He said that at one corner of Lake Merritt you see "tons of dead turtles all the time." He also said "if you fall into Lake Merritt you are supposed to get a tetanus shot." "That thing is filthy," he said.
It's still mostly awesome watching the pelicans dive bomb for fish.

Lake Merritt - The Geese

2006-10-19T12:00:00.000-07:00

Eight geese just held up four lanes of traffic by taking about 45 seconds to walk across the road. They did not feel like flying.

Lake Merritt - The Golems

2006-10-18T14:27:00.000-07:00

14 stories up, sitting on the top ledge of the apartment building a throw to the cut-off man away, are 8 tan cement cousins to
The Golem. 4 look straight at me and 4 look out over the lake. I can't see their faces but I'm pretty sure they are smiling. They are The Lake Merritt Sentries.

Lake Merritt

2006-10-17T10:18:00.000-07:00

The lake is all diamonds and lava this morning. Pelicans' water landings trail fire behind them. The seagulls have not all taken up the pier yet. More joggers than usual. All urrounded by low trees close on and the Oakland Hills in the background.

Lake Merritt

2006-10-16T09:44:00.000-07:00

There is a squadron of ducks in V-formation spanning the length of the wide part of the lake. The few geese and pelicans move to one side. Seagulls, on their preferred pier and neighboring beach area, watch the ducks cruise on by. Fewer joggers are going by at this time of day. One man jogs then runs backwards. Do not see many people walk dogs around the lake. Maybe the shallow lake would be too much of a temptation.

Last Week on Lake Merritt

2006-10-16T09:22:00.000-07:00

A man who was about 6'7, mid-40's, thin, and wearing a red lumberjack flannel tucked into jean overalls was bent over at the waist to hold the hand of a monkey in a matching outfit. He was taking him for a walk. The monkey wasn't antic, just serenely looking out at the lake. The man talked to the monkey off an on.

San Francisco Tour

2006-10-09T19:53:00.000-07:00

A sunday of blue skies and a vehicle led to visiting some unvisited tourists point.
Fort Mason is one of the many mostly dormant portions of The Presidio (Sean Connery, thumb-punching) but it overlooks a nice portion of the bay. There is an open park area with five palm trees. Heard some unique bird squawks and started staring up into the trees to see what the birds might look like and i see a big, green parrot. i thought this a little odd and kept staring up into the trees. after about 30 seconds a small boy rides by on his bike, notices me looking into the palms, and says in a knowing way parrots like it was the most obvious thing in the world to him.
when i got home sister told me that the parrots are not endemic but that over the years enough of them have escaped or been "freed" that enough wound up going to typical parrot environments, they bred, and now they hang out in 2-3 parts of the city.
From there it was onto Fort Point. which is right under the Golden Gate. the beautiful view of bay and bridge and inside the fort is a museum that winds through dark brick walls into small rooms with simple history displays of the men and work of the fort full of cannons. There was a list of fines that a soldier could incur while at the fort and one of the more pricey ones was "irreverent behavior during worship."
Finally, it was onto Sutro Baths. What a place that must have been. Think of all the happiness a place like that gave. All that compacted human fun. Perhaps at a time when crowds were more exciting than daunting. All the boys being boys and girls being girls. The swimming outfits. Warm baths with an ocean view. A water arcade.

Bernal Heights, Andover St.

2006-09-20T19:51:00.000-07:00

Garages are good and close to the street in this neighborhood, right up on the sidewalk. Some folks cram the garage full of stuff and just treat it like a living room/porch. Two guys hang out in the doorway to this one garage; It has a car in it but it is completely surrounded by boxes and doo-dads. The car has not been anywhere in a long time. Dinner plates, newspapers, and drinks go on the hood. Just under the ceiling on top of the boxes is an old tv that is always on.
In another garage there are these two guys who are always practicing rapping in the empty garage. Just a boombox on the ground that plays beats and they make up raps.

San Bruno - Main Street as Cliche History Receptacle

2006-09-16T09:08:00.000-07:00

About five minutes on the 101 from Southern SF is San Bruno. It has a main street with one story buildings. Planes from closeby SFO overhead. Bollywood Fashion store. And Lullaby Lanes Baby Store that has been serving San Bruno since 1957. Out west main street, for me, evokes cowboys watering their horses and teams of horses pulling wagons. But a main street just like it but in say upstate new york evokes merchants in worn vests or a late-teen sweatily sack-stacking in the back room of a dry goods store/barn.
Pastoral west. Industrial east.
The past aint for demarcation.
Watching Little House on the Prairee might not have helped.

rio / san francisco / porto de galinhas

2006-09-10T17:36:00.000-07:00

you watch tv shows set in new york but filmed in california and you can tell just by the quality of sunlight that it is not new york.
san francisco has an unmistakable quality of light that is not too far off of what rio's was like; an urgent sort of brightness tempered by either the amount of pollution or proximity to a bay and cloud activity.

when walking the beach in porto de galinhas looking for a place to set up shop on beach chairs the first touter of beach chairs was this uruguayan dude; a real lusty, ruddy, chortling sorta good time guy whose pantomine of the drunk of person we would be (after drinking plenty of the local drink at his beach chair set up) was both hilarious but frightening because he was portraying being blotto as hilarious and something very desirable to be attained either in general and/or for a tourist in a beach chair. it was hard to know if he was touting or just telling the truth as he saw it. the line betw sales and sincerity was less clear there as irony isnt in operation at all.

ive really grown to like australians mostly. they just go about the business of having a good time. something ive noticed is that they dont complain about things. they just execute having the fun they want to have.
anyway, the last australians we met were a couple from Perth happy to be soon going back for the end of the australian rules football season. they insisted we eat vegemite the proper way; slathered on bread with a foundation of butter. couldnt get behind it, guys.

did not go on a tour of the slums of Rio. you could see them shoved up tight and high on the mountains of the city. driving out to the airport they became more and more frequent. i forget if that City of God movie was about the Rio slums/gangs or what but man that movie sure made them look "gritty" and beautiful. disgusting.

on a related note "The Constant Gardener" was viewed here the other night and fuck me if Africa The Character wasnt depicted in digital sepia (i mean is sepia and jumpy camera the new cinema verite? is that the aesthetic crutch i need to get through a lazily plotted and shortcut-logic movie?) as a bustling, beautiful, sickly place only defensible by lefty beautiful people. The stab the movie takes at an African character hardly ever (literally) comes into focus. He is shot in such a way as only to be a shadow, a mystery; a step above the savage. Hateable movie playing up the easy target of evil pharmaceutical companies and, broadly, Government.

on a related note i saw about fifteen minutes of "Crash" while in Rio hotel room behind locked room door, locked hostel front door that is set up an alley that is lock gated and under security cam.

Rio / San Francisco

2006-09-08T15:47:00.000-07:00

Got in from Rio via Miami this afternoon. Good to be stateside with the stateside peeps. Some pell mell:
Flying somewhere over the Gulf of Mexico heard Dylan's "Blowin in the Wind" or whatever the title of that song is. There was match-spark lightning all around. Little oil super tankers spotted the gulf. This was the second time in two return trips from foreign lands that I heard a Dylan song and it just moved the hell out of me. Felt this really strong evocation of Hope, the ability to really hope (and implicitly work and search) for good, whether it be personal or global, and however illusive or ephemeral.

The slog of cynical, jaded times obscures the value of small good things. It's a load of crap that we are all bogged down with too much information and media. We suck up the simple little packages of information/image with greed and yearn to Name and Categorize and draw and cozy up to CONCLUSIONS.
Hope requires imagination. How ugly, huh, a POLEMIC.
=> A lit theory teaching prof I had once came down hard on me in a paper for being too much of a polemicist. There should be, he said, a kinda diplomacy and cooperation and respect among ideas, even if you found most of them pernicious. Disgusting.
Next up from Zizek might me "Paradox and Polemic; Two Sides of the Same Coin." (word to
The King for Zizek recom)
In the Miami Airport a Cuban lunch and coffee counter was the only thing open this morning...and it was Hopping. That great feeling of a precious oasis humming with chatter and light while most else is shuttered and dark. Got myself the Papa Rellanas which were large hush puppies filled with hamburger and mashed potatoes. This plus hot sauce (Chilly Willy Sauce) was superb and not too too far from the street food sampled in Salvador, only those giant hush puppies were cut in two slathered with a sort of bean paste and topped with very slimy okra and something else that was sorta slimy. It was delicious but had consequences.

Ilheus, Brazil

2006-09-01T13:43:00.000-07:00

Had a strong ice cream. one scoop mango, the other chocolate. Ilheus is chocolate country so i was obligated. Tomorrow onto Rio.

Itacare, Brazil

2006-08-21T13:47:00.000-07:00

Beachtown with one main strip walked by surfers and hippies (who i cant tell the difference between anymore). The Women´s Surfing Championship is in town.
Got ourselves a small chalet in the junglish forest. Full of throaty birds and supposedly monkeys. Swam the hell out of one beach today, moving onto another beach (same town) tmrw.
Swim.
Lounge.
Fruit juice.
Lounge.
Root like heck for the portly young boy afraid of the water who is taking swings at the water with his plastic tube and full of nervous joy.
Swim.
Play chase the coconut.
Lounge.
Swim.
Freckle and tan (?!)
Do not remove flipflops except to shower, swim, or sleep.
The boozy guys on the bus here set the tone. (Note: you can bring beer onto the bus. And apparently the drinking age is low if not non-existent.)

Bahia, Brazil

2006-08-18T12:32:00.000-07:00

Beautiful colonial (portugese) city full of african influence due to thriving slave trade for 300 hundred years. Colorful and baroque churches. (Sounding a lot like the guide book here). Just kinda wandered around for a bit today. All the beauty rollng by. Ready for a beach. The christening ocean.
There was a slimy okra dish at lunch that did not taste good but was fun because it was slimy. And a hot chutney of malintent. Banana chew candy for dessert.

A Salute: to the coconut tree. They have self-renewing clusters of coconuts for food and provide really excellent shade. Also the long, lolling fronds are relaxing.

Brazilian elections are in full swing. Candidates have candidate-cars with their pictures on them play very loud music and messages from the candidate. Sometimes the songs played from the car are about the candidate.

Sao Christovao, Brazil

2006-08-17T05:29:00.000-07:00

Beautiful old town with the old part on a hill full of old, old simple churches. Got in last night not seeing anywhere to stay but via amberlanguage sleuthing we got into the only hotel in town. A responsible and practiced eight year old girl showed us the rooms and had us fill out the proper forms. The place is run by a nice family.
Right outside our window was a recently spruced up square where the town had gathered to listen to live music and cruise and stroll. Motorcycles and cars cruised the town. A proud night i think for the town.
In praise of mosquito nets: without them the legion of mosquitos looking for openings in the net would have had another easy feed on me. thank you hotel owners for having them.
We just walked the town and in one church (where amber almost crushed a lizard underfoot) there were thousands of small wooden arms and legs hanging from the ceiling. A woman told us that people come from around the world to give thanks. The walls were stuffed with notes and pictures.
People here are very nice and surprised to see us. Looking at visitor books it appears not many tourists come through. Though the sprucing of the churches probably means thisll be a Unesco Cultural Site soon and that will change.

Maceio, Brazil

2006-08-16T06:08:00.000-07:00

moving on to Penedo today as the steady trail to Salvador continues.
weve spent all of our time within about 5 blocks of the sorta garbaged beach here.
got in some beach-life yesterday before the rains came.
had some expensive coconuts and a sea-weedy swim.
some professional ice cream eating, internet, and vh1.

on those cabrides from the bus-station to the hotel or hostel you often get a tour of the part of the city you do not spend any time in. the tourist flows of traffic. makes me wonder how much is being missed.

Maceio, Brazil

2006-08-14T16:28:00.000-07:00

Got stuck in Ipojuca today.
Recieved some directions but no timetables and landed in Ipojuca which was a crossroads of a crossroads of bus and van traffic. a town unattractive to the tourist but a town full of good people with good motives like just about anywhere else.
anyway, after more heroic translating/ciphering of portugese by amber we headed back up north to Recife to take the bus back down further south here. the buses are getting more grueling. the scenery helps a lot. today hills of cane fields and chunks of dense forest. at one roadbusstop monkeys or some longtailed animal were coming down some trees.
in the small towns i try to pick out the most ragtag of soccer field setups. todays best was about fifteen yards by ten yards of high snake-grass with four posts of aluminum cans.
a few towns ive seen look plainly poor but there is a soccer field in really good repair. <- this does not necessarily mean anything.
on the bus from porto galinhas to ipojuca the ticket/money taker would announce and shout the destination of the bus in a booming voice ey-po-JUUU-ca! and then EE-po-JUUca! he hung out by the entry door and waved out a window to see if people wanted to take his bus.
I like that someone comes around with cold drinks and snacks for sale on the bus.
I like that in brazil that thumbs up is a really dominant way of showing approval, gratitude, happiness, or even affection. It isnt a fonz thumbs up just a steady held out thumbs up. better still is the double thumbs up.

Porto de Gallinhas, Brazil

2006-08-13T13:33:00.000-07:00

This booming tourist trap with beautiful beaches was an old school entry-port for slaves. The slave boat would pull into the town, probably upto the same sea-wall still extant, and announce that the chickens had arrived. chickens being code for slaves. now the town mascot/image is a chicken. tshirts, carvings, etc.
A good day is getting to the beach dog tired with your dog tired travel partner and sitting under an umbrella (after running the gauntlet of umbrella touters) and going in for dips and drinking cold fruit juices and then being taken out on a raft to reefs about 100 yards out from shore with all sorts of natural pools full of sea-life. this includes the sharp-spoked urchin and the unnamed fish used getting tossed food pellets. part of the reef mini-tour was getting goggles so you could snorkel for a bit while the pellet-savvy fish surround. snorkeling is probably my new favorite pasttime. a gigantic unknown, ungoverned world down there.
after that you go to lunch of heavy fry and salt sauces and eat a lot.

baseball people: while trying to get to sleep i tried to think of lefties i would term CLASSY. ill start with larry gura and jimmy key for starters.

Olinda, Brazil

2006-08-10T13:46:00.000-07:00

Bused into nearby Recife today and then a short cabride to the one-time and brief national capital on this hill of an old town chock with beautiful dutch and portugese-made churches circa late 1500´s and 1600´s. love the old sacred statues and frescos in the shadows of the old stone churches of the stubborn and devout colonizers. rows of seats where people have prayed for centuries.
Beautiful view down on the pretty huge neighboring Recife from one of the churches.
Mosquito and bug paranoia via a couple of bites makes me a bit of a crabapple of hypochondria. The vaquieros (cowboys), bandareintes (prob. misspelled -> dudes who struck out into the dark jungle way back in the day to capture slaves), gauchos, and, rightly, maybe you would scoff at such worry-warting. And Robert Mitchum wouldnt approve either.
Something about taking a lot of buses and getting to see the country is that it would require a lot photos to really remember what the land you see looks like. there has been hilly bread-basket sort of farms, dense forest, palm tree groves, swamps with palms, palms here and there all about, the beach. A huge country to apprehend with memory or word.

Encarnacion, Paraguay (Backtrack)

2006-08-09T06:41:00.000-07:00

At the ruins of the 17th century Jesuit Church/Compound in Jesus, Paraguay an older gentleman named Rafael (and he was a true gentleman) insisted on taking us through the ruins and explaining things. He is from Spain, and an economist who is working on a study of communal-economic practices of the old jesuits and how it could be useful today. He was so enthusiastic to explain and share and have us understand things. He had the energy and enthusiasm everyone should get to have in their life´s work. An inspiring gentleman.

Jaeo Passeo, Brazil

2006-08-09T06:12:00.000-07:00

Spot of catch-up here from the internet room with hefty-bag wall and rooster cockle doodles in background.
Got into Fortaleza early in the morning and slept on the floor til the city woke up. Baseball almost always being the best relaxer/sleep inducer i thought about lefty curveballs. sweeping, looping, biting, diving. the ride down the slide and away from the lefty batter. word to those who know dennis (pronounced denny) rassmussen, rod scurry, and greg cadaret.
I already hardly remember Fortaleza since we´ve been in 3 cities in 4 days. Fortaleza had a pretty beach. saw a nice sunset there as what was apparently the traditional pop song that accompanies played over the pier loudspeaker.
Saw a museum exhibit of the vaquieros (probable misspell) who are brazilian cowboys. Id side with the vaquieros in a fight against the gauchos as their styles are more spartan and they seem like they give a damn even less than the gauchos.
On the bus from Fortaleza to Natal there was a twenty minute convote between riders where this one guy said Fortaleza about forty times like he had a real opinion about the place. Guess is it was about soccer.
Walked the pretty, high-duned (as in like hundreds of feet high) beach in Natal, did some splashing. The Brazilians that sunday really were having a good time dancing, drinking, sunning, paddle-balling, and footballing on that beach.
And now in Jaeo Passeo soon to check out their beach. Weather has been a little drab, so no fullforce beach-life yet. word to north america.
more catchup soon.

Asuncion et al

2006-08-02T12:20:00.000-07:00

Sleepy from topnotch vegetarian chinese lunch.
This morning we were taken in a van to five towns within 10-20 miles of Asuncion.
They were mostly non-descript but for the stop at the very pretty Lake Ypicarai (spelling from memory probably very wrong). One town, San Bernardino, was founded by five German families back in the day and the small church and some of the architecture reflected their early influence.
The van driver said that military service (as of ten years ago) is no longer compulsory, you must attend school thru sixth grade, Olympia of Asuncion is his soccer squad, and that his sister lives in Richmond, Virginia.
There were road policemen with hand and machine guns.
Ive become a fan of ¨comido¨ (see amber for proper spellings) with milk. this is mate tea sweetened that you add warm, frothy milk to.
Tmrw flying to Sao Paolo then up to Fortaleza, Brazil.

Asuncion

2006-08-01T09:36:00.000-07:00

Out taking pictures of what we didnt yesterday.
Walk through the historic city center.
There was a horse parked and grass-feeding in Plaza Independencia with the recently completed, modern Congressional building in background (supposedly designed to look like ship), and the river separating Paraguay and Argentina not much further back. Across from the street two large retired cannons point into the city. Military men carry evident guns, sometimes large machine guns on city patrol.
Yesterday there were people on the streets with banners calling for the freedom of Lino Oviedo, a former head of the military jailed after returning from exile after his alleged participation in the murder of the vice president and the failed coup of 2000.
The view from the second floor of one of the museums looks down on slums then high grass leading to the sparkling river (finally some sun today after high 40´s and low fifties mostly). One small boat was going out (with contraband?) and three were coming in (with contraband?)
In Museo Bellas Artes there was marijuana waft and average works from transplanted Italians and Germans (all-stars in unjaded inter. s. america?).
Paraguayans are quiet and easily the nicest people we´ve met so far.

Trinidad & Tobago

2006-04-19T07:58:00.000-07:00

I'm told by a new friend that there was a coup attempt in her native Trinidad not too, too long ago and that there is periodic unrest and the threat of violence there. Looking at a map I never realized how close to Venezuela Trinidad is. Could Trinidad be the first domino in the socialist domino rally terminating in bulwark Cuba? Maybe the Caribbean is about to be revealed as more than just beach, baseball, and class discrepancy.

Pomona's Progress

2006-04-18T10:02:00.000-07:00

WRKL, the one radio station local to Rockland County, NY, its signal beamed from the tower overlooking the once Grand Union now Super Stop and Shop (with a "Health Foods" section) has changed formats. It used to be a hodge-podge of community news and discussion and various musical formats. Now it is Polskie Radio. All Polish language radio. An hour of Polish hip-hop was awesome. (The last 20 minutes of the hour was improvised, in-studio a-cappela lyricizing.) The 3o minute information session on the possible new immigration laws and the spectre of mass deportations that was read in english then translated into Polish was useful and interesting.

In Pomona gossip, the word is that some famous rapper (my source is working on acquiring the name) is moving into the huge house on top of the hill.

How I Wear My Hat

2006-03-02T08:59:00.000-08:00

like this guy
go get it this year, Cammy.

The Waterfront

2006-03-01T05:22:00.000-08:00

In Portland, Oregon there is a waterfront commercial area about 100 yards long along the river. No one goes in the stores. Seasonal employees and off-season owners lean against the storefront, talk to other employees, read at the counter.
Upriver, there is one long dock ending in a restaurant and a mini-marina next to it. High above it and further upriver 200 yards or so is a highway bridge about 200 feet in the air like a great car gutter.
Downriver about 100 yards is another bridge relatively low to the water and nearly downhill from the commercial area. (3 more bridges are in view a half mile downriver)
If you go here during the day, even during the in-season summer months, it is like entering a friend of a friend's very large living room where few guests have arrived and not many more will.

Emo

2006-02-28T06:17:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure what this means. Tell me. The 5-10 times I have seen a band/performer described this way it makes me think the writer is a jerk. Are they saying that the band really lets it all hang out emotions-wise? What sort of performance constitutes "emotional?" Would Johnny Cash not be considered emo because he doesnt go into histrionics, growls, or yelps? Or is it supposed to mean the performer is approximating emotions? Is it the words of the songs themselves? Who the hell is the writer to say what equals emotional? Is it an ironic term meant to distance the writer from the content of the songs and elect the writer arbiter of legitimate and meaningful emotion? Is the term supposed to tug the performer into the realm of where the writer/reader can understand it? (read: limit it?)
I've only seen this term like a half a dozen times and might be totally misunderstanding. I just get the feeling it is this really reductive term in a whole new worse way than say "r & b" or "pop."
(Though "Urban" takes the prize for dangerous music descriptives)

Pink Baseball Hats

2006-02-27T07:27:00.000-08:00

There are stakes to wearing things like a hat or t-shirt with lettering on them. By letting the possible meanings / interpretations of a word/symbol see the light of day on your head or chest you become an advocate for word/symbol. (Unless if it is an irony t-shirt.) You wear a baseball hat with your team's logo on it. Good.
Now, people SHOULD not be judged on their aesthetics. I do it a lot and am not proud of it. Still, the fact remains: I think pink baseball hats or really anything PINK LOOKS BAD. Many others clearly feel otherwise and act upon their aesthetic preference. That could be the end of the story but I don't think it is.
To begin with; I am not in favor of school uniforms but also am not violently against them. I like the levelling of everyone wearing the same thing and do not think it a major blow to kids' individuation. The (more than ever?) crush/crutch of consumables->symbols will continue to provide choices->elections for kids. One less expression is not onerous and might even encourage the idea of CONTENT OVER FORM.
That said, the choice to wear a pink Red Sox hat is an aesthetic choice first and a symbolic choice second. The classic red stitching on blue field is what the players wear. The players are not the most MEANINGFUL units of team affiliation (Honest to god, I think one fan is as meaningful as Manny Ramirez) but they are the active EMBASSADORS for the team (Note: Is it because I'm a Yankee fan that the term "Red Sox Nation" sounds like something meant to ENCLOSE and not INCLUDE). The long-standing, chosen symbol of the red B on the field of blue is the UNIFYING symbol of affiliation. You may be the most passionate/hardcore sox fan going and wear a green sox hat. Good. Content is what matters. Just understand that you are passing up the opportunity to do something unifying (wearing of the traditional hat) in favor of expressing yourself. Isn't there enough of that already?

Par Example

2006-02-17T11:50:00.000-08:00

Saturday

Things I Liked

2006-02-09T06:39:00.000-08:00

"The Unforgiven" (John Huston) Wide open ranch country with adorable Audrey Hepburn as an Indian (yes, bizarre) and Burt Lancaster her parental-acting step brother who is in love with her. I don' t think I want to associate with someone who finds fault with Audrey Hepburn.

"About Looking" (John Berger) This Learned Brit helps me understand and feel enthusiastic about studying paintings and is very political / class conscious in his interpretations.

Carlito Inside and Outside the Ring. What move will Carlito unveil next? And will he have his revenge on Shaq?

"Low Life" (Luc Sante) Includes an awesome geographical history of Manhattan.

Walking into in middle of free movie in the National Gallery, whispering in friend's ear, walking out.

Watching Insane Klaus Kinski Proclaim himself a superior Jesus with King at Brattle. Almonds and Sweet Potato for snacking.

Audubon's Originals at National Gallery

Four Friends

2006-02-08T18:29:00.000-08:00

On Comm. Ave walking home from Whole Foods there were 2 women and 2 men all clasping one another's arms' and laughing, free and easy, comfortable and careless.

(Welcome Back) Memo to Doc Rivers

2006-02-07T06:45:00.000-08:00

I am not classy enough to not point out that Marcus Banks is playing awesome in Minnesota with the 20+ mins of playing time that you saw fit to give half of to O Green (who i like but is far inferior to Marcus in EVERY aspect of the game except size and is not ready to be a good player yet).
Brian Scalabrine may be a SMART defender but he is not a GOOD defender. He is too slow on rotates and switches. His footwork is almost as bad as my 'dancing.'
You can't seem to make your mind up about whether you want to win or REALLY give the young guys a chance.

The Guitar

2006-02-07T05:58:00.000-08:00

Carrying around a guitar in a case lead to these 2 incidents yesterday.

1) Washington D.C. construction worker asks me what's in the case, etc. We talk a little about music and it turns out that he has given Grace Slick one of his custom-made silver-dollar size pins, failed to patent the pin design, and is good-naturedly bitter about it. Drank whiskey with John Lee Hooker who he kept calling "Hook" and saying to Hook "Hook, Im hooked, Im hooked (on your music)." He said JLH liked all the jokes about hookers he made, too.
When I mentioned liking some of the really psychadaelic Jefferson Airplane stuff his eyes LIT up at the word "psychadaelic" and he started looking around in a way that said "ok, let's get out of here and find us some" before he mastered himself and said "gotta go to Work. Hook would say "Go to work, boy.""

2) Walking to the busstop down in Marine Industrial Park a very expensive car pulls over to me and the window goes down. A well-dressed man talks out his window to me: "I saw you walking by and I said to myself "I can't let a fellow musician walk. Where are you going?" I say South Station, thank you for the kind gesture, but im almost to the bus stop and enjoying the walk. Good-naturedly he rejects this as politenss and starts clearing stuff off the backseat for the guitar case "Cmon, just put your guitar back here and climb in." I reiterate above, thanking him profusely for the offer. Towards the end of the reiteration there is A Turn in him, his face that says "I was just doing something nice and had a good feeling about it and you refuse to acknowlede this." He was hurt. He cuts me off in apology and says "I just thought I would offer." He turns to the road and I start apologizing more and he just drives off, tight-jawed.

Holy Dangerous

2006-01-27T06:55:00.000-08:00

Dangerous Dan Ainge made a good trade!

btw: the trade for Antoine last year was NOT a good trade.
as Antoine Walker, folks, is absolutely not a winner.

I'll miss you Ricky "Reformation" Davis.

Things I Liked

2006-01-24T14:07:00.000-08:00

My memory stinks.
From time to time I'll list so I can remember:

Walking in the Snow with friend to Breakfast
Cooking Absurd Amount of Fusion Cuisine for Friends & Brother
Welcoming Brother Back from a Trip to New Orleans

2046 (Sequal to In the Mood for Love) [Repetitive, full of beautiful, well-dressed people]
Wild Blue Yonder (Werner Herzog) [Peaceful Space and Sea footage made into alien documentary narrated by Brad "Hairpull" Douriff]
Faces (John Cassavetes) [Appropriate Subtitle: Beware the Jokester]
A Woman Under the Influence (John Cassavetes) [Gena Rowlands is imbalanced but Peter Falk is the culprit. Rowlands is Towering Again.]
The Confessions of St. Augustine [Go back to this again and again for the honesty, clarity, and rigor of thought about day-to-day living with yourself. Ongoing word to the King for long ago gift of this and other indispensibles]
William Vollman Reader [Vollman variously goes to Afghanistan, Iraq, Arctic, Salton Sea to talk to people and learn. Hints of his undertaking to understand Violence.]

Possibly Qualifiable as an Act of Imperialism

2006-01-18T09:10:00.000-08:00

When someone says "I agree" in conversation.

When someone is so anxious to say their opinion they stop listening.

When someone consciously demonstrates half-hearted interest in what the person they are talking to is saying until it is their turn to talk.

When someone interrupts another person.

Lying.

The Irony Wars

2006-01-18T07:35:00.000-08:00

Nice work from the person who wrote this:

"Irony is the postmodern form of conspicuous self-consciousness and suits our era’s puerility – its fey aestheticism and political cynicism — to a tee. It is complacency’s rationalization, disengagement’s excuse, the alienated spectator’s self-justification. The ironic bystander (the phrase is redundant) is the citizen’s jeering nemesis and the poet’s wily shadow trying to make sure that truth and beauty and goodness, those stalwarts of the world before it was disenchanted, do not re-infect the post-modern’s cool voice with hot earnestness. Or make us think too hard or feel too keenly. While intellectuals work – Stanley Fish making irony respectable, Richard Rorty wrapping it in the cloak of privatization to minimize its political impact, Jedediah Purdy laboring more recently to expose its costs to community – artists play, assuring that irony endures and spreads in sanitized screen violence (Kill Bill or Sin City), television news wryness (The Daily Show), knowing Broadway shows (The Pillowman) and teen consumer advertising (the beer commercials, for starters). For irony allows us to armor our self-consciousness, and make our moral puzzlement and anxiety seem almost virtuous – though we can only utter the v word ironically."

One Boss's Idea of "Have a Good Weekend"

2006-01-13T08:47:00.000-08:00

"Rest up this weekend, ladies. Next week is going to be crazy."
odious.

Romanticizing the Exotic: Colonization?

2006-01-12T14:12:00.000-08:00

Finding Latitia Sadier (Native of France and singer for Stereolab) 's pronunciation of 'malevolent' as moe - lay - vo - lent pretty darn cute.
complication: yeah, she's pretty, too.

Memo to Doc Rivers

2006-01-11T10:37:00.000-08:00

Please realize Tony Allen needs to be getting 28+ mpg if he is physically capable and thereafter
Please realize you need to be going small more
Brian Scalabrine was ONLY a fair shooter when he had Jason Kidd setting him up for 3 second looks at wide open jumpers. Never play this guy again! Much less 24 minutes.
Please be dumb enough to persuade Dangerous Danny Ainge to obtain old friend Zach Randolph from the Blazers for O Green and D Gomes so that I can welcome Pone to the rare team he is a perfect for.

Criticism

2006-01-10T05:59:00.000-08:00

This just in from a friend to this blog:
"Your blog makes you sound like a jackass, and your friends like a bunch of drooling nerds."
Boy. And a friend told me that. Good for him. Nice and blunt. It spurred some healthy self-criticism on my part.

From the Kitchen

2006-01-09T10:49:00.000-08:00

Chop up: 2 New Potatos
an apple (Granny Smith worked)
1/2 a spanish onion
fry it in canola oil.
Season with ginger. Delicious.
(Suggested additions to above?)

also a Monday shoutout to Lord Sweet Potato
signed, The Scrounger

tmrw: The Almond Butter.....Smoothie?!

from The Boston Herald

2006-01-09T07:44:00.000-08:00

"About an hour after the shootings an officer walked an elderly woman, who used a cane, out of the building. Johnson said the woman witnessed the murders, but did not speak English and could not immediately tell police what happened. He said the woman lived in the apartment with her Haitian family, but it was unclear if she was related to any of the victims."

uh, why do we need to know their ethnicity? context for not speaking English? uh. no.
nice pernicious reporting folks.

Your Lingua Franca is a Disease

2006-01-09T07:25:00.000-08:00

"But boy, she'll've sure said something pithy, pop-culture-ish, and uncategorical."
(I'll be quoting myself a lot this year.)

I've Decided that I Agree with You

2006-01-09T06:56:00.000-08:00

There've been some murmurs from you (yes, you)
that you don't get enough 'me' here.
Being a public servant and giving of 'myself' are not mutually exclusive.
In fact there is a heck of a lot of overlap.
Consider yourself...Warned

Solidarity

2006-01-04T12:34:00.000-08:00

is when my Au Bon Pain friend Naima charges me the far cheaper refill price on coffee for my first coffee of the day (even when what is obviously her supervisor is working the register next to her) and I throw a fat, jangly tip in the tip cup.

Also in the Holiday Spirit

2005-12-22T10:41:00.000-08:00

"Let he who is without sin kiss my ass." - Sinbad (American Comic)

A Present for My Mom

2005-12-22T10:05:00.000-08:00

I would like to announce that I have now worn a suit to work TWICE this week.

I would also like to confess that while the Vicious Slam over Invisible Foe into the wall-trashcan in today's 5th Overtime of the now 19 year long game of Bathroom Paper Towel Basketball resulted in said trashcan becoming detached from the wall and clanging onto the floor I did leave a note on said trashcan saying "Oops."

Performance

2005-12-20T08:00:00.000-08:00

Untangling the motives, smoke-screens, self-interests, and connotations of a Performance Review where your boss over-zealously mentions then discusses her boyfriend and informs you of not being eligible for a raise for another 14 months is nearly impossible.

Be on the Lookout

2005-12-20T07:11:00.000-08:00

There are a lot of them about and not just on the D Line and the C Line sub Coolidge Corner. They are on all of the lines. Downtown. Newton. Malden. Hell, there might even be some in Roxbury, Stow, Jamaica Plain, Winchester. I knew a lot of them in Portland, Oregon. Their guises are more subtle in Boston. Watch out. They think they run the place.

On the other hand

2005-12-19T12:46:00.000-08:00

I can be very naive.

Some J Conrad for Yous

2005-12-16T09:32:00.000-08:00

"There is no strong sentiment without some terror, as there is no real religion without a touch of fetishism." from Victory, 1915

347 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

2005-12-15T05:52:00.000-08:00

Not light yet and Hundreds of Crows up in the dead trees wake you up with squawking. They quiet down and then one of them starts up, then a few, then most of them. Quiet, Repeat.
Small voice from radio giving the temperature on other side of the window.
That extra stillness you see outside when you know it is cold. Particularly from the warm view inside.
My mother often calls crows 'grackles.' Is this a southern variation on 'crow' or a different bird, ma? Is a magpie a blackbird?
(from the Documentary on) Townes Van Zandt said "I just wanna write a song with birds in it. Nothing but birds. Hundreds of birds. Birds and birds and birds."
A wide, tall ship is in repair dock across the street here in Marine Industrial. About a dozen men are bundled, hammering, welding, and adjusting at different heights, blowing steam breath.

The Hole in my Thumb

2005-12-14T08:02:00.000-08:00

The good thing about my hands getting really dry is that when they reach a certain point this 1/8 inch gash/hole opens up in top pad of my right thumb. Same location and size every time. I like this because it shows consistency. An old reliable of threshold/result. The Opening Point of My Thumb. The body saying hello.

I am Outstanding

2005-12-13T07:55:00.000-08:00

The thing of it is, is that I have really outstanding taste. Don't get me wrong. I don't mean unique, elevated, or different taste in a world of valid tastes. I mean I have really outstanding taste and if you have the time you should really look into what I like. You might hate my tastes, you might be lukewarm. Just know that they are outstanding. If you look hard enough you might see that. I am trying to be of service, not tooting my own horn. If you want to be holed up with your own tastes, that's your choice and I don't condemn you at all. Chances are you think your tastes are outstanding as well. I could be wrong about your tastes and would like to be proven wrong. I may not find your tastes outstanding but might come to appreciate why you think they are outstanding. So, above all, we should all be open-minded while being confident of having outstanding tastes. If you choose not to cultivate your tastes (desire/needs beings subsets of) then, in my opinion, you're wasting your time here.
The same follows, mostly, for how I/You live my/your life. Really, I'm a pretty outstanding person. Not 'special' or 'unique,' just outstanding. While I do prescribe to the notion of relative human smallness and manyness, I do NOT prescribe to the 'insignificant' take on placement of yourself in history/time. That, by and large, is usually a form of a big fat cop-out.

The Man in Black

2005-12-12T10:48:00.000-08:00

waiting for the C to Cleveland Circle wore well shined black shoes. Black slacks with some wear on them but ironed and creased. Long-sleeve black flannel button-up under a black ski jacket. Black beret. Black cane. Straight black hair. Black moustache that looked like it had been darkened with black shoe polish. His skin was very white. Perfect shave at 445pm. His eyes were very thin and he inclined his head in a way to suggest that was how he could see best. He had one hand behind his back at a right angle and bent parallel to the ground. The sort of stance a general from old foreign armies might be depicted sporting while examining his troops. The train comes and unloads. He slowly moves via cane close to the steps of the car and is intersected by 4 people who go right up to get seats. The man in black stops in his tracks and his facial expression does not change but he inclines his head in the direction of where the intersectors may be and does something with his face that is a combination of smiling and silent spitting. His smile gets bigger as he goes up each step. On board no one offers him a seat (He is obviously close to blind) until finally a woman easily in her seventies offers her seat and The Man in Black, holding onto one of the overhead bars, gestures with his cane for her to sit down by raising and lowering it. The woman sits and The Man in Black rides standing to Washington Square where he gets off.

Here's to Stephen Merritt/Magnetic Fields

2005-12-09T06:30:00.000-08:00

for singing some of the most sentimental, romantic, un self-aggrandizing lyrics you'll ever hear on 69 Love Songs.
a nice antidote to these times of too frequent reflexive-irony, archness-purely-for-effect, anger-in-place-of-facing-emotions/shit, and dismissiveness towards anything threatening towards erected images and edifices of self-importance.
(note to Horace Winkle: but honest to god i think people are by and large awesome)
favorite lines (this morning) :
"i'll take that kiss now"
"no one will ever love you for your honesty"
"if you dont cry, then you just dont feel it deep enough"

Overheard

2005-12-08T06:21:00.000-08:00

"(one of those) solid little financial firms"

" only the price-dependent transactions"

(perfectly nice conversation about shopping between 2 significant others (hereafter: siggos) over-eagerly, in a way that made it clear that she had been anxious to get it over with, segued from via -)> "oh by the way I thought that (thing unpleasant to siggo that is supposed to be passable/tolerable due to conversation momentum, general good feelings of perfectly nice conversation, and blitheness of segue delivery)"

"there's a good chance that he might be gay (giggles between friends) or, you know, married."

"i really had a good time last night. thank you. it meant a lot to me."

A Love Supreme - McCoy Tyner

2005-12-08T05:56:00.000-08:00

Here is to McCoy Tyner's inquisitive, egging-on, percussive, gossipy, laughing, sly-and-secretive, unravelled yarn-then-reravelled-then-tossed-up-in-the-air-and-caught-then-thrown-all-over-the-ground-so-the-cat-can-play-with-it, easiness-around-strangers, stubborn, fallen angel piano playing on A Love Supreme.

Thought on the Commute In

2005-12-07T13:27:00.000-08:00

"Offer your fucking seat up, Miss Priss."
"If you give me the elbow on the page turn one more time you're gonna get the atomic elbow, douchebag."
"What the hell are you looking at?"
"No riot gear. Damn."
"At least the coffee gives me something to do."
"Great, all the good looking people are getting off."

And now for the commute out.

Boston - Winter

2005-12-05T16:09:00.000-08:00

This city looks most comfortable with a coat of snow. Your eyes are drawn to the covering or how things are covered (especially: narrow streets, the few dramatic wide, graded roads like Commonwealth or Beacon framed by the skeleton trees and straw grass, or anything made of brick) not so much the stores, autos, machines, store signs, and the bulk of downtown buildings that have always felt a little incongruous to me --> The 'modern' feels more unlikely, bizarre here in this old N. American city. Seeing the insides of structures (and steamed up cars) with the snow weighing things like it has all the bldgs that have ever been here and wondering if there is a fire going inside -> feeling the nice sag backwards.

Memo to Doc Rivers - Chicago

2005-12-02T13:03:00.000-08:00

you match up very well against this team. Paul Pierce 25+ shots or Raef 15+. (i'll say it until it happens.) ricky 44 minutes.
Kenderick + Blount at the same time. chicago is a smallish team. make them pay.

Memo to me about Memos to Doc Rivers

2005-12-02T09:00:00.000-08:00

this is not a very talented team
minus tony allen and marcus banks they lack athleticism
significant minutes for mssrs Perkins and Greene will come with it's defensive downside
despite my pleas for more playing time, al jefferson is nowhere nearly good as i think and could be a candidate in 2 years for the "Zach Randolph One-Dimensional, Liability in Most Areas Award"

Cambridge St - Brighton

2005-12-02T08:51:00.000-08:00

Walking towards Brighton Center I saw a turkey running towards me on the sidewalk. He was looking for an opening in the fence that surrounds the one-story high, jutty rock-hill there (closed off probably because it is dangerous -> an example of going to far for safety -> it's a beautiful rock surrounded by trees.) I think it was a turkey at least. He wanted to get back into the safety of his nice fenced in rock-house. (Or maybe the city knows it is a habitat for turkeys? Doubtful.) I had no idea whether turkeys flew or not. The way he was running around and looking for an opening made it seem like he couldnt because it was not much of a fly over the fence. On the other hand maybe they arent strong flyers and who knows how rational he or any of us are when they are under severe stress. A few pedestrians smiled and we joked about thanksgiving and that was very nice. Bringing strangers together. Then the turkey jumped, flapped like mad and made it onto a ledge and jogged away in a hurry.

addendum: Walking Cambridge St again saw that the rock is only fenced in the front.

Reputations

2005-12-01T10:23:00.000-08:00

I could only say no to you for so long Whole Foods Blueberry Waffle 6-Pack for $1.99.
Then you look at the ingredients and you see they aint that bad for you at all really. Not even if you put more than a drizzle of honey on them. And hell, even a cupla butter pats.
Note: above could also be applicable to Jessica Simpson if you choose

Memo to Doc Rivers - Sixers

2005-11-30T14:42:00.000-08:00

have you considered going zone? the sixers have 1 good shooter and he needs screens and 10 minutes to queue up his shot
Maurice Cheeks (god love ya, mo) is in love with trying to exploit percieved match-up advantages. Get wise: just play your best players A LOT -> 44+ for Paul and Ricky -> neither they nor their teammates will mind
we are reaching the point where it is utterly absurd that you are playing dickau 20+ minutes. would you just let orien green play. and give Paul some point-forward minutes.
and again: you have to get Raef more shots, dammit.

EO Wilson meet Wanda Tienken

2005-11-30T14:31:00.000-08:00

Naturalist Powerhouse and all-around nice-seeming guy who has written some incredibly entertaining science books, EO Wilson, gave a nice talk about Darwin last night at Harvard. More interestingly, he is 75 and grew up in Birmingham, Alabama and my mom is 74 and grew up in Tuscaloosa, Alabama (about 45 minutes South). Both attended the University of Alabama and I would like to think crossed paths. My Mom is a member of the Humane Society. Wilson is the father of socio-biology. Both are friendly and inquisitive. It is likely that they were at some of the same socials, parties, speak-easies, or even on a booze-run over county lines.
And the big ups to Fred Tienken raking and walking his way past 79 today. Fred Tienken is an engineer. I suspect he and EO Wilson would agree about Intelligent Design.

Memo to Dan Dickau

2005-11-30T12:21:00.000-08:00

If you worked on your ballhandling over the summer maybe you would not be so afraid of protecting the ball that in order to run a play you have to circle around your defender, or at best, turn a shoulder to him so that you are facing the stands and not seeing half the court when you are playmaking.
When Marcus Banks returns you are going to be humiliated in practice every day
When Marcus Banks returns and you see the light of day a Memo will be sent to Doc Rivers

To Have and Have Not

2005-11-29T08:06:00.000-08:00

Courtesy a Faulkner Screenplay we have WWII Nazis with a stranglehold on Martinique, Bogey in jeans and showing facility at boatmanship, Lauren Bacall being unbeatably seductive, Walter Brennan playing a loveable rummy, and the 3 plus Hoagy Carmichael crooning, tinkling, and abetting in the (incidental/plot-vehicle) smuggling out of some sexy Anti-Vichy's.
Bacall/Bogey really liked each other in real life and in this movie. That beautiful thing where 2 people do not need to say too much to each other, even when they have first met. A few key phrases and styles and you know you are in. All that is left is to see where your wills lead you. Motives laid bare. The singing honesty. (with Hoagy accompanying & Brennan receiving beers)

Memo to Doc Rivers

2005-11-28T10:23:00.000-08:00

You aren't coaching to win. You are coaching to be the winning coach.
Play Al Jefferson 20+ minutes tonight. Get Raef 15+ shots. Otherwise: enjoy an evening of Dwight Howard dominance

Memo to Doc Rivers - Cleveland

2005-11-22T15:56:00.000-08:00

Here's what you gotta do tonight, Doc:

Raef needs 15+ shots (the Ilgauskus slowness)
Justin Reed needs 14+ minutes (work Lebron over)
Paul Pierce should take 30+ shots, hell the more the better and once he starts getting doubled on help see step 1 and 4
Delonte 38 minutes, Orien 10 minutes, Ricky spotted at the point. (Id like to see a plus/minus of Dickau on the court against the snow/hughes/Lebron backcourt)
try using kendrick and big al tonight. brooze this soft-ass team

Boylston T Station

2005-11-21T15:18:00.000-08:00

is very, very dark all of the time, with only an ooze of the most lurid orange light you will ever see. (Uncoincidentally, there is where you will see people sleeping on benches most often T-wise.) I explained this to a friend who was visiting as a sort of homage to bygone days of early Underground Train Service when, you know, it was dark as hell and maybe lit the by the same sort of Oil Lamps they use on Little House. Because back there, on one of the unused tracks behind the tall (very scalable) iron fence is an orange olden times train that is shaped a lot like NYCTransit Buses circa Jackie Gleason Times. Only you can hardly see it so what is the point of it being on display. So I conclude that this is a Museum T Stop.
Every weekday morning we pull in and i am reminded of what I picture the alleys Jack-the-Ripper used were like. (Boston Underground Train Service Beginning roughly 20 years prior to JTR's day) A little urban planning/mechanics dysfunction or risk even (your gambling getting out of bed, baby) in the name of public art/museumship is typically something I would endorse. But this stop is plain dangerous. Someone with a knife could easily be lurking behind one of those pillars while you wait for a train any time after 10pm.
Bring Light to the Boylston T Stop.

Memo to Doc Rivers

2005-11-18T13:46:00.000-08:00

If you get fancy with your roster against the softest team in the league tonight you could lose a high-scoring game when you should just be shoving Al Jefferson and Paul Pierce down this thin and soft team's throat.

She

2005-11-18T06:06:00.000-08:00

those shoes are a joke
she turned orange from insta-tan
her boobs are fake
she smokes too much
she's a pig
she takes bad care of herself
when boys are in the room she is a different person
oh yeah, i guess she's nice
she's stupid
she's nuts
she's always on her cell
i bet she's a bitch
i dunno i guess she's ok
she's totally immature
her boyfriend is a jerk
she doesn't know up from down
she's as easy as they come
look at all that make-up
she went to some private school
her blog sucks
i dunno she's friends with that girl jennifer
she's ugly
she sucks
she totally sucks
oh, i don't like her

Memo to Doc Rivers

2005-11-17T05:30:00.000-08:00

Delonte is head and shoulders your best point guard (you are currently playing 4 points)
Dickau is not now nor will he ever be a useful NBA player
Keeping players fresh should not be an organizing principle

Taxachusetts

2005-11-16T13:19:00.000-08:00

seemed to allow for the construction of this approximately 20 yard long, elevated, fire-engine red, one-body narrow, not wheelchair friendly, railinged walkway for viewing of the ships in the massive ship repair dock here in BMIP. Same walkway dissects a nice plot of very green grass that once must have afforded the very same view of the ship repair dock. One of the many awkward attempts at turning this area into a "multi-use industrial park."

Poison

2005-11-14T13:17:00.000-08:00

Walking the docks on Lunch and made it over to the Quality Control Plant of Legal Seafoods. It's right on the water with a view of North End and East Boston. Good place to throw rocks, but too high from the water to skip them. The back of the building was not fenced off and skirted the nicest place to get some view. Every 10 yards or so lying on the gravel were these black plastic boxes about the size of a car battery that said "Dont Touch - Poison." They had holes in their sides and looked maybe like some sort of trap. For dock rats? This was a pretty impenetrable, modern facility (in contrast to most of the old, tall, winded store-houses/silos). They would be giving rats a lot of credit. Though maybe rats would attack people who take walks or smoke breaks?
Id like to see a good infestation along the lines that these guys laid on the Beaverton Transit Center in Beaverton, Or

Rent Control

2005-11-11T06:40:00.000-08:00

OVERHEARD
"I mean, it aint like the roaches and mice are paying rent! Eradicate those suckers."
SAW LAST NIGHT
Moolah Cat desperately clawing at heat-pipe opening in floor (presumed entrance/exit for some of the mice she has caught)
CAPYBARA occur in the wild in Louisiana

Attention/Laziness

2005-11-09T13:05:00.000-08:00

Overheard: "Im on point when i get out of bed in the morning. Then i do some smoke and im even more on point the rest of the day."

Spoken Hellos to a Coworker: 5 Hellos of Any Kind Back: 0.
Odious Explanation of My Own and Ranking up there on the Lazy Chart: "maybe it's cultural."
Further Study: There is a small smile there that could be coworker's version of "hello."

Someone emailed: 1) "You are close-minded and dont think you are ever wrong" and later apologized via 2)"This is what happens when I open my big fat mouth."

"A good sign of a poorly-coached or undisciplined basketball team is the inability or, worse, unwillingness to diligently explore options in the half-court. delve and tempt with passes. confuse and harry the opponent. dont just chuck the ball around and hope for the best."
-Hubie Brown

Conversations

2005-11-08T06:47:00.000-08:00

-"but i said, but i said if they dont have my hair powder im not going back there."
(consider: Powdered Wigs. Like in George Washington Times)

-"when i put my towel over my door i get afraid someone's gonna take it because it has happened before."
(consider: Endless supply of towels at Good Gyms and Hotels)

-"that's not programmable. that'll NEVER be programmable."
(consider: Pre-Programmable Era)

-"that was NOT an appropriate thing to ask me in email."
(consider: Why are Sexual Harassment Rules so grey?)

-"look, don't act like it's the end of the world."
(consider: recent tv movie "Category 7: The End of the World" blithely, comfortably promo-ed by football announcer who continues into "first and 15 on the falcon 25...")

- "(chime-in on someone making a point) ex-aaaaaaaactly, ex-aaaaaaaaactly (someone else continues to speak and this time is interrupted by-)> ex-AAAAAAAAAAAAACTLY" (the pronunciation prolonged until the other person cant be heard and gives up trying). same person later interrupting again: "good-good-good. fine. go ahead. PROVE me wrong"
(relatives/accomplices: Wheel of Fortune Home-game, Press Secretaries, Wile E. Coyote)

Little House Field Day

2005-09-30T08:05:00.000-07:00

An old lion of a logger (Forrest Tucker) is still strong as an ox but losing his stuff, so he plays cock with Charles when they both take the crosscut saw to the North Woods' Finest Oak to fill an order for Hansen's Mill. Both men taunt the other and decide to settle who the better woodchop is during Founder's Day; A celebration of the town's birth wherein many athletic contests/entertainments occur. The Parents Ingalls are harsh with the littluns about wanting to Win more than just Compete. But Charles and Carolyn are both hungry for victory; Charles in the log split v. Forrest Tucker and Carolyn v. Mrs. Olesen in the Pie-Off. Reverand Alden judges the pies and blue-ribbons some woman in her eighties (me suspects the fix is in though to the credit of the show you dont know if she won on merit or if Alden was grandmothering her in <-or maybe im ageist?). Wife of Forrest Tucker pleads with Charles to throw the axe-off but for the wrong reasons. ie: let him have his moment in the sun, he's old and getting tired, let him have one last celebration of his potence. It should have been dude has given a lot to the community and the win would be a sort of honorary award. Either way Charles is The Biggest Man of Us All by freeing himself of desire. Contrastingly: You are supposed to picture willie and nellie olesen crowing over their blue ribbons and then demanding candy recompense from Queen Capital: Harriet Olesen.
Everyone's a winner except those without virtue.
sidestories: Nels gets emasculated in the tug of war
Olesen children sweep the hoop roll and rope-skip
Carolyn helps Laura and the Ingalls' bring home 1 ribbon in the 3-legged race
Mrs. Olesen is humiliated in same race

Things Ive Learned Home Sick

2005-09-23T09:48:00.000-07:00

1) when talking toast, tahini is not only an adequate substitute for peanut butter, it might be better than peanut butter
2) using both yogurt AND milk in a smoothie isn't like mixing matter with antimatter (this is along the lines of another recently exploded self-made myth-> hot coffee and a sandwich go really well together)
3) women's nipples grow just as exponentially as the rest of their body when they are pregnant
4) moolahcat's whiskers are awesomely gigantic
5) in a bag of chocolate covered pretzels the crumbs are chocolate

Little House: The Olsens in Love and War

2005-09-22T12:58:00.000-07:00

Harriet Olsen lowballs Carolyn Ingalls on egg prices. Nels Olsen intercedes. Eggs wind up on Nels' head. A final straw. Nels moves into the hotel rooms upstairs with his hound-dog. Caroline and Charles Ingalls make inroads and chip away to bring them together. When these long-standing caricatures of nagger and in-effectual naggee look right at each other and tell each other they still love each other, maybe even more than ever, a curtain is lifted on the everyday caricatures of ourselves that we all reflexively, unwittingly fall into the rut of - Cores laid bare. Skip the BS and get down to essentials.

"Barry Lyndon"-Kubrick - Something Against Entertainments

2005-09-21T05:23:00.000-07:00

Class-and-Cash Anxious Irish Lad Adventures, Gambles, and ad-libs around warring europe, finds a rich wife and becomes a miserable human being who loses it all and a limb to boot. Without any discernible ethos save getting stuff and allowing for fortune and fate to present options (Options are as Gold) we are left with a centerless, wayward douchebag cavorting in beautifully shot vistas, smoky galleries, and still museum-piece sitting rooms.
That's the sum of this sprawler.
Do what you can in your time period to get what you can out of it.
Man adjusting to, manipulating, and at the whim of The Fates.
Big deal.
Why bother? Nothing against Entertainments. Well, actually, yeah, Something Against Entertainments. The ones that Advertise Findable Meaning and Usefulness via Meaningful Slownesses and Ponderances (The Kubrick Meditative Slowness - Big Scale Shot and Not Much Occurring). Working to find meaning is good and fine but when it is (maybe? if we give Kubrick credit that maybe he doesnt deserve here) so deeply embedded (or im too dumb to see it) what is the point? I mean bring the abstraction, make me work, that's fine. But if you're in the middle ground work a bit harder to give people a clue. If this was a cautionary tale I'm only cautioned to be nicer to my stepson and maybe have a bit more perspective.
Or maybe this was just an Entertainment with a Sensibility. It's kinda like maybe Kubrick was a greater craftsman than a man of ideas.

Capsule Review: "The Conformist" - Fascism Never Looked So Cool -

2005-09-02T08:15:00.000-07:00

"The Conformist" (Bertolucci): Traumatized by childhood incident man strives to be 'normal' by rising through Fascist (-Italy) ranks, taking a wife who is "good for the bed and kitchen," and pledging to kill off his former-professor, now an anti-fascist in exile in France.

Deco Styles, Fascist-Cool Architecture (spare, spacious, white, severe), hotties in perfect dresses, sharp-as-hell suits, sweet rides, Gorgeous Rome and Paris, pocketed guns, and train and car rides through scenery. It's an eyeful. Intense in spots. Not real damning or inquisitive about Fascism's allures. More about replacing damage with answers. He could just as well have become a Jehovah's witness.
Quality escapism.

Mortification Twin Bill; "Mother Joan of the Angels" and "Therese"

2005-08-17T09:46:00.000-07:00

Mother Joan of the Angels: Nuns are or are not possessed by Devils. Father Joseph (and other priests) comes to excorcise them and/or get to the bottom of the nuns' moral dissolution. (Spare, Black and White, 1961. )
Therese: telling of the short life of St. Therese who cheerfully works through weakness and tuberculosis in a Carmelite convent. (Shots set up like dutch paintings, 1986)
Both films include self-flagellation as a means of up-ing the suffering-purifying ante to exact results from god -> get rid of devils. get Therese well. But in both cases the flagellations come after failings -> not getting rid of the devils. (cranky nun) being scornful of ultra-loveable Therese. They are beating themselves to be better. (How different is that from working out? Both have noble goals. Both might involve pride.)
Common in both movies is that complaining would be the most irrelevant thing to the nuns. They have fallen in love with god and his world and that is an explicator and comfort. In "Joan" god's love is a treasure lost for wordly delites (or the devil) in "Therese" life is a true love affair. Should our lives be so different? Everybody has beliefs. The nuns and us have desires. Ours are no more complex because theirs are proscribed. Choosing can be a religion. Complaining a blasphemy?

Sea People - 27 Drydock, Boston Marine Industrial Park

2005-08-16T09:14:00.000-07:00

2 guys approached the bus stop from a direction in Marine Industrial Park id never seen anyone come from; the dock area. They asked me some direction questions. Turns out they work on the current huge ship docked here; in for repairs. They had just shipped up from Jacksonville. One of them needed to get to T-Mobile to get his phone fixed. The other was doing most of the talking. He said that they had both been around the world a few times. He said this in a matter-of-fact way. Soon 2 more guys working on the ship came up and they all started talking about how bad their cell-phones had been working and how the signal was so poor out at sea. Then there was talk of going to Faneuil Hall for beers. On the bus to South Station they were whooping and laughing. Much of the Financial District/Courthouse crowd loaded on and gave them a wide berth.
Related Note: I just read in an insurance claim brief how a "70-80 foot wood piling fell on claimant causing multiple injuries."

"Broken Flowers" and "Godzilla: Final Wars" or Don't Count Out Mothra

2005-08-08T08:59:00.000-07:00

"Broken Flowers" --> Pepless and Glum Don Johnston (Bill Murray Checkmark) drives around The County (Rockland) and Westchester (Shelbyville) and environs to old flames' to see who he fathered Mystery Kid with.

"Godzilla: Final Wars" --> Aliens responsible for seeding earth with monsters (not Zilla but his foes) arrive to harvest their human cattle for eating - Human Mutant Posse Fight Aliens and Loose Zilla from South Pole Grave to Take on all sorts of Monsters and Save Civilization.

Half the fun of Jarmusch is checking out the places he wants to put on film - Usually not highly filmed places. No different here (Non-standard-movie-shorthand-version-of-Suburbia) but it was odd to look at since I knew very well a lot of the roads and Parkway/Highway he filmed on. The best Jarmusch Shot comes at the start of the movie during the slow (Jarmusch-Pan) roll from the neighbors' lawn busy with kids, toys, and running over to the pale silence of Juanston's Lawn and home. (There is variability in the suburbs -> Too long 'Suburbs' has been a crass Codeword for conformity and uniformity, like it is implicitly this great neutralizer of the spirit of those dull and stupid enough to live there. There is nice work here to undermine that...I think.]

I couldnt tell if it was shot to a) look dull to highlight the strong characters b)was dull because it was so familiar or C) was unintentionally dull looking.
The fortunate result it that the landscape and houses and roads kinda blend into each other and dont become a Jarmusch Site. They arent being slighted or glamorized. They are just there. Like Murray is much of the time - Only with us laughing at him while his hosts do seemingly odd and funny things -> Laugh affectionately, not ironically. Most of the people we meet are complex and likeable. Remarkable and dull at the same time. Like most human beings.
This movie is more affectionate towards people than any of his others. I really liked the husband of the nervous, former-hippy wife. Liked as in liked him as a person. Are we supposed to laugh AT him? I hope not. I hope we are supposed to feel warm about how genuine and understanding he was. But to laugh at what a 'conventional square of a suburbanite in real estate' he is is to get it wrong. Murray's sitting their nervous and stunned could translate/cue audience to think "wow, this is too much. what a situation. these guys are squares." but that's wrong i hope. It's hard to be sure since Murray is so good at being uncomfortable. It's a fault of the direction that we don't know what Johnston thinks. To say we are supposed to decide OURSELVES would be generous.

It was totally touching that the biker guy in the house off the road (build-your-associations-and-be-wrong formulaica) is angry and HURT that Johnston has upset his wife. But the laughter at the payoff/punch-out gets in the way of this.
Maybe this is a Content Over Form movie? Take away the trappings and assumptions (and Murray mannerisms) and just think about what is said and happens. Like a soap opera?
Unresolved: It's either absurd or awesome or both that we are supposed to believe that Julie Delpy was currently involved with the Ghostly Johnston.
Note: tried forgetting it was Bill Murray while watching. impossible.
Note: take away the soundtrack and the movie'd be dark as hell. AND a better movie.
Note: Laughing aint always listening.
Note: I laughed a lot.

Godzilla. 10 Monsters. Doing Battle. Good affects. Propulsive soundtrack. Most of Alls: Badass Armadillo and The Ineffectual Swamp Monster. Homage to The Micro-Sets of Destructed Cities. Bring King-Size Junior Mints.
Note: Do not ever, ever count out Mothra

The Seat Next to Me

2005-08-08T07:00:00.000-07:00

Reading on the T this morning. nice and focused. Girl sits next to me and is peripherally registered as tall, blondish, and as is often the case, sitting half off the seat so as not to touch the person next to them. She's plunging into her bag to find things, put them away, check things, put them away. Finally, she finds a book and starts reading and in the next 20-25 minutes she runs her hand through her hair or twirls it, scratches, poofs, everything, I would say about 400-450 times. Im not going to look at her because it might make someone who must be pretty self-conscious (? is that the diagnoses?) or real young or nuts or on drugs to be as manic about the hair as that - No good could come of it. Periodically, she looks at me and flat on stares. These are the only sustained moments of her not going to work on the hair.
We both get off at Park St. and I finally look at her and she has the most serene, measured air about her. Maybe she just hadnt had a chance to do her hair that morning.

"I Confess" -> Hitchcock

2005-08-01T19:54:00.000-07:00

A priest (Montgomery Clift) takes the confession of a sweaty and sympathetic immigrant murderer but cannot divulge such during investigation. Priest nearly goes to gallows for such. The inspector (Karl Malden) has very average evidence against the priest but takes it to trial because a) he has some weak supporting evidence and (much moreso) b) really likes the idea of exploring the (apparently) surprising idea that a priest could have been a murderer.
Karl Malden once again demonstrates how to be sweaty and singularly focused and uninterested in being liked. That sort of slightly maniacal commitment to task that makes you wonder if he is slightly insane or just reflexively hellbent. Like he would stare down his own coffee with suspicion/bemusement.
Montgomery Clift again manages to be tough and effete at the same time.
Anne Baxter is disappointingly dull as a love-swooned defender of her past-love Father Logan (Clift) and wife of convenience to a defacto cuckold of a soldiering husband who nobles it up by supporting Baxter and making sure she eats a full breakfast.
Either Montreal or Quebec City really looms in the b/w, 80 degree-angle-Hitchcock-shots-from-ground-up-(things) to gothic heights of churches and courthouses. and also down old-french looking stone alleys.
Malden's initial investigatory interview of Father Clift pushes film to 2.75 stars out of 5. Comfortably better than Hitchcock averageness. Definitely worth a go.

Old South Church and Bowling Alleys

2005-07-28T11:00:00.000-07:00

Coming out of Boston Public Library, heading towards the Copley T-Stop a sign on a door into Old South Church said "Sancturary is now Open" so i went in. Two chirpy ladies talked about children by the info kiosk. The sanctuary was empty. Nothing but light filling the place up, giving it a recently refurbished feeling. Expected it to look older inside. All the good light through the stained glass landing on the Christ and the Stage made it all look very vivid. But with the quiet it also felt still and old. It reminded me of being the first group to arrive at a bowling alley; where you imagine all the sounds that belong with the place; thunder from the pulpit and the pins. One is low-ceiling-ed and the other high, but both are designed to give attendee a feeling of flying towards NEAR limitlessness. Transcend the spiritual border of earthly feeling or alley length and score heaven or a strike.
In both places you see dust that has probably been there since the place opened.

An Apology to Garlic Powder

2005-07-27T09:03:00.000-07:00

Garlic Powder? Hi.
I would like to apologize for ever underestimating you. You've come through about 40 times in the past 5 months. And no matter how much I abuse and confuse (appropriate applications) you, I can honestly say that I have never OVER-used you. You are forthright and situationally aggressive. There are no half-measures with you. We can all take a lesson from you.

Thank You -> The Clash "Clampdown"

2005-07-27T07:06:00.000-07:00

Coming out of the chorus there is that peel-out, slide down neck of guitar leading into the ever-so slightly delayed vocal entry into the second verse. It sounds like the moment before an important announcement is about to be made. Then stridently:
"You grow up and you calm down
You're working for the clampdown"
Thanks to The Clash.

Under the Influence of Slavoj Zizek

2005-07-26T13:05:00.000-07:00

Kid Polymath tipped me to The Radical. I do not get about half of what he is saying and probably don't totally get the half i think i get. He would like that sort of dialectic because he'd tell me how I have constructed it just to give my life the illusion of graspability and limit. But still, his writing on Iraq and 'Democracy' is awesome.
Here is a scribbled response to something The Radical said that is nicely reflective of my imprecise thinking and the spell of term-love he casts: "But no one knows what INTENT lurks in each unit cell of the loosely but integrally linked affiliates of a POLITICAL ADMINI-STRATION. Can't each eely brain harbor WISHES (the new version of IDEALS) for outcomes? Or does the intellectual numbing/deadening of POLITICAL LOYALTY quash not just dissent and vision, but the ability to be HONEST and, finally, the voicebox? How different is a political administration from AN ANGRY MOB?"
hot to read him now?

Leisure-Saturday-Cleveland Circle-Sutherland Rd

2005-07-23T07:12:00.000-07:00

"Enter into every activity with a maximum of relaxation and, simultaneously, concentration."
-Bill Burroughs
it's in the eight o clock hour. it doesnt matter what part. sutherland is just starting to heat up but the birdsounds make it feel cooler. the splotchy quality of the light through the trees. no one is hurrying but a girl making flip flop sounds with a towel under her arm. pass two puddles of drying puke. empty beers and cases. few cars on sutherland. at cleveland circle get a couple of papers for under the arm, then cross over to the dunkin donuts and get a black iced coffee and a chocolate stick. the T trains are just sitting on the tracks, not loading yet. walk slow down Beacon a bit and lean against a shaded, brick building (just past Mary Anne's - a sk(l)eeze bar) and enjoy the chocolate stick and iced coffee. cross Beacon on way back to Sutherland to put laundry in dryer. no cars even on Beacon. from middle of Beacon take long jump shot with donut bag at garbage can. picking it up a woman in flip flops carrying her laundy bag smiles easy and friendly and says "you're no 'Toine' (antoine walker, boston celtic, similar shot-selection) and i say "oh no?" then blind and behind the back and down without looking back. we both laugh and head towards our respective laundromats.

Beacon and Commonwealth

2005-06-30T15:19:00.000-07:00

Parts of Boston's major roads are wide and tree-lined. It is not too hard to imagine people Promenading with good posture and lifting long dresses to avoid piles of horsecrap.
According to the old reproduced maps in the Boston Public Library Cafe, Commonwealth and Beacon Avenues have been thorough-fares for hundreds of years. That they were once dusty and full of horse-and-carriages makes them feel like Boulevards now.
That just beyond Kenmore Square the buildings along Comm. and Beacon are rarely more than 10 stories high and the avenues are so wide makes it so that there is a ton of light and sky to go along with a lot of people and vehicle; The shape, light, and possibly function of the place have probably not changed a lot in the last few hundred years.
This is not comforting or quaint. It feels off.