there is no safety in this life

Today I cut myself while eating a carrot.

birthday regrets

In November of 1995, the famous Dorati recording of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Festival Overture was re-released.

Somehow my father and I, while driving separately, though neither of us listened much to the classical station, both caught it on the radio at the same time, and both had to pull over to the side of the road so that the blasting cannons didn't cause us to crash.

I have a hard time making friends, and my father had a hard time making friends, and I think that we could have been good friends to each other; and now that I'm old enough to understand this, it's too late - he's been gone almost two years now.

Happy birthday, Dad.

from The Tempest

...Hell is empty
And all the devils are here.

from "Down at the Cross"

"[I]n our time, as in every time, the impossible is the least that one can demand--and one is, after all, emboldened by the spectacle of human history in general, and American Negro history in particular, for it testifies to nothing less than the perpetual achievement of the impossible."

from Edwin Drood

"And be a friend to me, please; for I don't understand myself: and I want a friend who can understand me, very much indeed."

more comparative literature

From Twilight of the Idols:

Whoever must do secretly, with long suspense, caution, and cunning, what he can do best and would like most to do, becomes anemic[.]

From "A Dream Deferred":

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?

from Twilight of the Idols

" 'What is the task of all higher education?' To turn men into machines. 'What are the means?' Man must learn to be bored. 'How is that accomplished?' By means of the concept of duty. [...] 'Who is the perfect man?' The civil servant."

A version of this idea in song is available here.

overheard on the street

50-something man, indignant, to 40-something woman, sympathetic: "I won't tolerate that kind of behavior in front of the dogs."

priorities

Approximate word count of main Wikipedia article on Beethoven: 8500.

Approximate word count of the article on Megatron: 9500.

I resent

I resent that my mangoes have stickers.

I resent the pits and skins.

I resent that I am out of mangoes.

I resent having to share mangoes at my office, even though I am almost never the one who brings them in.

I resent that last week some mango got on both sleeves of my new white shirt.

I resent that after I eat a mango, I usually have to floss.

I resent that my wife prefers Mexican mangoes to Haitian mangoes. I resent that I share her preference.

I resent that I am blogging about mangoes, and not eating one.

number of electronic appliances I have that grind or blend

five

What I'm doing

I rode my bike home from work in the rain, which wasn't bad except for the rain. Then I ate about 20 servings of doritos. Now I'm watching W. and trying to remember what life was like before we were in a constant state of war.

If you don't know me by now: Shopping

Over the last many months I slowly concluded that I needed some new clothes.  One of my work shirts has a hole in the elbow, a pair of blue pants is looking pretty threadbare, some brown pants have fallen victim to my uncontainable waist.  And I need some non-tennis casual shoes - the utterance of such an impractical idea must surely be a sign of my fashion maturity. 

So I went to the mall, with a focus on Macy's and side visit possibilities to Banana Republic and J Crew. A DSW show store was also in the area. On my list: brown and blue pants for work, and a pair of shoes.  After checking out Macy's for a baseline, then the other stores to see if they had anything of better value (negative), and then returning to Macy's to settle on some final items (I couldn't), I wandered into the GAP, where I bought a pair of grey pants and a pair of jeans.  Having failed on the pants, I thought the shoes would be a gimme at DSW, but I came away empty handed. 

So I went in looking for brown and blue pants and shoes, and after 3 hours shopping I still need all three.  

the American president, the French rat

From Truman:

The "lesson" of Truman's life, said Senator Adlai E. Stevenson III of Illinois, was a lesson about ourselves: "an object lesson in the vitality of popular government; an example of the ability of this society to yield up, from the most unremarkable origins, the most remarkable men."

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From Ratatouille:

EGO: In the past I have made no secret of my disdain for Chef Gusteau's famous motto: "Anyone Can Cook". But I realize only now do I truly understand what he meant. Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere.

Socks

On the little sporting goods store around the corner I saw a sign advertising "Diabetic socks." 

At first I thought they might be low-sugar socks, but then I looked it up, and apparently diabetics sometimes need special socks that help blood flow and foot sores and things. See how quickly something very funny can become sort of boring and weird? 

Soap

Maybe some of my doctorly friends and readers can help me with this. What is the point of non-antibacterial soap?  The way I see it, the bacteria are those big bad germs, and protecting ourselves against that is the reason we wash our hands. If we are not antibacterializing, are we just going for clean-looking hands?  Or are there non-bacterial things we also want to get off our hands?  Grease, dirt?  But if they don't have bacteria, do we care? 

Someone let me in on the secret.

Brief Sensuality

Brief sensuality is apparently what got Oceans 13 a PG-13 rating.  I'm about to watch now to see if I can spot this fleeting sensual moment. Who can imagine what it will be? I wonder what rating prolonged sensuality would incur? 

Overheard in central park last week

6:30 am.... It is 15°F when the man who beat L. Zimm's marathon time decided to go for a run in central park. He passes two elderly gentleman and overhears the following:

In a thick NY accent, the mench says to his fellow gentleman, "I woke up at 5:30, fucked her twice and went back to sleep."

the Browns deserve our gratitude

Bessie Smith sings about Hannah Brown's reefer and gang of gin, Sam Cooke sings of Julie and Jeremiah Brown's incestuous kissing, and Jim Croce sings of Leroy Brown's gamblin', cheatin', fightin', and murder.

Thank you, Brown family, for your sacrifices at the altar of popular music!