for the kibbitz

The art of clogging a toilet

2010-06-24T08:44:00.001-05:00

As the past and current champion, I'm proud to announce that I successfully clogged a "super-flush" toilet at work this morning.

early diss

2010-02-25T10:10:00.002-05:00

The U.S.A. did not even exist yet when its founders began dissing Russia:

It is a maxim with some great military judges, that with sensible officers soldiers can hardly be too stupid; and on this principle it is thought that the Russians would make the best troops in the world, if they were under officers other than their own.

letter from Alexander Hamilton to John Jay, March 14, 1779

there is no safety in this life

2009-12-17T19:42:00.000-05:00

Today I cut myself while eating a carrot.

birthday regrets

2009-10-29T04:00:00.005-05:00

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

2009-09-29T06:56:00.002-05:00

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

from "Down at the Cross"

2009-09-19T14:13:00.001-05:00

"[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

2009-09-15T19:51:00.003-05:00

"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

2009-08-30T06:03:00.002-05:00

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

2009-08-24T20:17:00.002-05:00

" '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

2009-08-02T14:53:00.003-05:00

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

priorities

2009-07-12T13:30:00.003-05:00

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

Approximate word count of the article on Megatron: 9500.

I resent

2009-07-05T12:42:00.002-05:00

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

2009-07-05T12:37:00.000-05:00

five

What I'm doing

2009-05-05T17:38:00.001-05:00

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

2009-04-27T16:05:00.002-05:00

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

2009-04-04T09:05:00.004-05:00

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."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

2009-03-24T17:32:00.002-05:00

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

2009-03-24T17:29:00.002-05:00

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

2009-03-24T17:28:00.003-05:00

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

2009-02-22T10:58:00.003-05:00

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

2009-01-29T21:35:00.002-05:00

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!

overheard at a holiday party

2008-12-25T08:13:00.002-05:00

"Not to be crass, but if someone's got to fuck my daughter, it might as well be this guy."

in memory of Mr. Handsome

2008-12-11T07:43:00.005-05:00

He was not a well-behaved dog.

He ate all he could, as well as many things he couldn't.

He was flatulent.

And like a certain ex-girlfriend, who shall here remain nameless, he required a lot of pills -- demanded not just "high maintenance," but constant vigilance.

And yet Korby was an important member of my family, a witness to and participant in almost every major event in my brother's life. My brother's happy engagement and even happier marriage -- his move from the "starter" house to the "settled" house -- the birth of my nephew -- our family's still-unfinished grieving after the death of my father -- "What about the dog," Korby's grandfather used to sing: "What about the dog, he saw it all!"

I take some comfort in the knowledge that Korby was a very lucky dog. It isn't just that he died from what he lived for -- overeating. It's that my brother and my sister-in-law rescued him from a shelter, from where few older dogs are ever adopted -- rescued him and then wrapped him in love for the rest of his life.

Though it is unlikely that my nephew will remember his first canine brother, he will grow up in the happy home that Korby helped to create. For that, Mr. Handsome, I thank you.

pizza to pizza

2008-11-10T07:39:00.002-05:00

Yesterday some friends and I ate at the most famous pizza place in Manhattan. Then we ran to the most famous pizza place in Brooklyn, and we ate more pizza there. We're calling it Pizza to Pizza, and we hope you'll join us next time.

These days America needs hard facts, so take note:

Total running time: 17 minutes
Number of runners: four
Group consumption: one small pizza with anchovies, one large pizza with anchovies, one large calzone with mushrooms, six beers, one hot tea

America also needs hard questions, so:

Is Pizza to Pizza the only run of world-historical importance which can actually cause you to gain weight?

Singles

2008-11-09T08:47:00.002-05:00

I don't know if everyone is this way, but I always get a kick out of recognizing an an actor who has a real career now playing a bit part in an older movie. I watched a few minutes of Singles (1992) this morning and the guy who plays Mr. Pryzbylewski in The Wire (Jim True-Frost) has a forgettable but not tiny role, and Victor Garber, who was the Titanic's architect who went down with the ship in Titanic and was Jennifer Garner's father in Alias (why do I know that?), had a non speaking momentary role - with a mustache.

A few thoughts

2008-10-30T19:59:00.003-05:00

Looking back, it's comforting to see how successful Hulk Hogan was even though he was seriously balding from the beginning.
There are a lot of ways people can screw you over. For example, the guy who replaced my watch battery could have put in a dud so I'd have to go back in 6 months. On the other hand, people frequently turn out to be upstanding and then some. I think the guy probably gave me a good battery.
As for shmooze or menucha, I think it was more like the shvitz.

Schmooze or menucha?

2008-10-01T11:07:00.002-05:00

Was Howl's wedding more like schmooze or menucha? I am still having trouble separating these two central analytic categories in my mind. If it was menucha, then how come we didn't write any letters or take naps? If it was schmooze, then how come we weren't allowed to head down to the waterfront? It is all so confusing

Did you know?

2008-10-01T07:26:00.002-05:00

I sat in the front row at Shaarey Zedek yestarday to celebrate the first day of Rosh Hashanah. Here are a few tidbits you may not know:

1. The conservative Jewish movement is dying. Conservative Judaism will probably not exist in 20 years.
2. D. Wagner no longer wears a hat
3. The cantor's daughter does not like it when her dad grabs her butt on the bimmah
4. D. Wallace is the President of the Synagogue
5. S.P. received an aleyah and read the torah yestarday
6. They brought the bimmah down to be at the same elevation level as the congregation

Hello? Earth to Kibbitzers???

2008-09-29T11:30:00.002-05:00

I agreed to change my blogging name to generate goodwill with a certain kibbitzer and to encourage more kibbitzing activity. I have been unsuccessful. I will soon resort to posting NC-17 material.

time don't mean that much to me

2008-09-12T06:49:00.007-05:00

Did Sam Cooke, along with Ray Charles, really "invent" soul music? Maybe.

Did he write and perform two amazing songs that before last week I had never heard, or had sometime heard and unforgivably forgotten? Yes he did.

"That's Where It's At" and "Good Times," both of which Colin Meloy performs on his rare but worthwhile EP of Sam Cooke songs, are wonderful examples of Sam's ability to compose songs conveying mixed feelings, feelings we hardly have words for--a quality which, I like to say, marks all great art.

Listen and tell me what you think!

A blast from the past...

2008-09-08T11:38:00.002-05:00

Famous Friends

2008-09-02T11:21:00.003-05:00

My labor day was pleasantly capped off when I saw a close childhood friend interviewed on MSNBC. He was at the New Orleans airport waiting to catch a flight to Detroit.

The reporter was asking him a question about Gustav and what it was like to live in New Orleans with all the hurricane activity. His answer was something like this...

"Everytime there is a hurricane, you ask yourself...is it worth it to live in this city... (New Orleans)"

With his wife and recent newborn in the background, it was a real tear jerker.

When I spoke with him on the phone later that night, he said he was feeding them total bullshit.

withdraw with honor; connections

2008-09-01T18:21:00.004-05:00

Some kibbitzers and readers have complained about The Brothers Karamazov, have admitted to feelings of boredom and frustration.

Hear ye, hear ye: Unless you are a student and need a good grade on your Karamazov midterm, unless you are a lover trying to woo a professor of Russian Literature, there is no good reason to slog through this novel.

When you reach the end of Book Three/Part I (pg 160), pause for a moment and reflect. You've given the Brothers a fair shot and have read a representative sample; the sophistry will rarely get cleverer than "Disputation" (1.3.7); the soap opera will never be cattier than "The Two Together" (1.3.10); the psychology will never penetrate deeper than Dmitri's "Confessions" (1.3.3-5); and you've seen your share of violence (1.3.9), and taken your share of spiritual punishment (too many passages to cite).

If you've reached this point and are not engaged, close the book and never open it again--no one will fault you for it. The Brothers Karamazov is not for everyone; the wonder is that anyone could find it appealing.

And yet I do find it appealing, despite all I wrote in my last post, which you must have guessed was largely a posture, which was, in fact, a weak attempt at a pastiche. For me one of the book's strengths lies here, in Dostoevsky's habit of championing arguments he does not believe, and giving them to his favorite characters; and of perverting ideas he does believe in, and giving them to his villains.

Balaam's Ass just gave us two wonderful examples of this: first, Papa Karamazov's delirious rant on the hooks and iron and forges of hell; and second, Smerdykov's absurd syllogism on the power of faith. In both cases, Dostoevsky raises legitimate questions about the tension between religious belief and modern logic, questions central both to his thinking in general and to this novel in particular; but in both cases, he raises them through fools and deviants--the characters you would least expect to voice them.

What is the purpose of this technique; or, perhaps safer to ask, what is the effect?

In part it is what separates The Brothers Karamazov from a philosophical treatise, what makes it a novel--albeit an unusual one, albeit one nearly unique in the canon: the technique humanizes the philosophy, it connects the aspirations of the intellect and the soul, with the dirt and the stink of this wretched earth. And such connections are what this book aims to demonstrate and even, in its own small way, helps to create: they are the links between 1879 and 2008--between czarist Russia and the democratic United States, between dead Dostoevsky and the living reader; and they are the links between you and me, and perhaps also between the two of us and Something Great and Beyond.

The Art of the Train Wreck Metaphor

2008-08-25T08:07:00.005-05:00

[Spoiler Alert: This post covers Book Three and the Sept 8 post will cover Book Four. So "compulsively readable" is this novel (Donald Fanger), that we can't help but overrun our deadlines! -- Howl]

"It is hard enough to keep your billion character-oviches separate in our minds. How dare you, Mr. Dostoevsky, ramble for pages," wrote my colleague, Howl. But what Howl doesn't understand is that Mister Dostoevsky's greatest achievement was realizing that losing control was actually a pretty effective Literary Device. "What? What!" you may say, "Stop rambling, chum!" But follow me.

On page: 24, Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov mutters my favorite lines from The Brothers Karamazov Thus Far screaming at his son the monk: "I think, that the devils will forget to drag me down to their place with their hooks when I die. And then I think: hooks? Where do they get them? What are they made of? Iron? Where do they forge them? Have they got some kind of factory down there?"

I could go on, quoting his gorgeous, rambling speech about the length and the depths of Hell, figuring out the theological problems of the Drunken Atheist. But instead of trying to figure out the traditional Sunday-School cutesy theological problem: "How many angels can fit on the head of pin?" No, good old Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov, this mixed-up father figure who fathered so many mixed-up sons, he doesn't screw around with sappy metaphorical problems, he's trying to figure out a whole different kind of metaphysical riddle: How many demons it will take to peel off my skin in Hell?

That's my favorite part about The Brothers Karamazov Thus Far—that we have characters so blasphemous, on the one hand, and so poetic, on the other hand, that even the Damned Father Figure is wrestling with religious conundrums so thick that there is no Literary Device to describe what the Author has achieved. So I am inventing a Literary Device to describe it. When the crazy Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov rambles poetically about the ceilings and the hooks of Hell, Mister Fydor Dostoevsky is utilizing the Literary Device: The Train Wreck Metaphor.

Ah yes, The Train Wreck Metaphor. It's as if traditional religious and philosophical and literary rhetoric had a drunken orgy with surrealism; it's a metaphor that jumps the tracks and goes flying through the air spitting steam and gears, spiraling out of the writer's control; it's a mad mad metaphor and there's nothing you can do about it. If I take any lesson away from The Brothers Karamazov Thus Far, it is that Dostoevsky loved Train Wreck Metaphors, when the sentence careened off into some new place. If you pay attention to these strange passages, it seems as if Dostoevsky had fathered an Illegitimate Book within this Classic Novel, a book that he wouldn't even acknowledge, just like the birth of Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov's possibly illegitimate son in the garden on page 99—nobody knew how the boy's mother ended up in Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov's garden, but there she was, giving birth to a son who will later challenge everything the father took for granted about his bourgeoisie lifestyle.

And so then, that particular Train Wreck Metaphor grows up and becomes Pavel Fyodorovich Smerdyakov, the servant in his drunken father's house who ends up delivering some of the most devastating atheist theology of The Whole Book Thus far, this line, this out of control Train Wreck Metaphor that literally makes his father proud on page 130: "in the Scriptures it is said that if you have faith even as little as the smallest seed and then say unto this mountain that it should go down into the sea, it would go, without the slightest delay, at your first order....if I'm an unbeliever, and you are such a believer that you're even constantly scolding me, then you, sir, try telling this mountain to go down, not into the sea (because it's far from here to the sea, sir) but even just into our stinking stream, the one beyond our garden, and you'll see for yourself right then that nothing will go down, sir"

The kid talks just like his alleged father. So much so, that Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov calls him "Balaam's ass." Balaam's Ass—the faithful donkey that tried to warn the misguided prophet Balaam about the giant angel blocking the road. Balaam couldn't see the angel that was about to kill him, but Balaam's Ass could—what a fabulous Train Wreck Metaphor for a hateful man to call his possible son. Let us jumble our metaphors henceforth, following the terrible example of a wicked father. Henceforth, celebrate the Train Wreck Metaphor. Write, write, write like you are knocking down a mountain or being speared by devils in Hell; write as if there is an angel in the road, prepared to smote you, an angel that nobody else can see except for you.

Henceforth, for all these aforementioned reasons, call me Balaam's Ass. Utilizing the authority of my new office, I recommend the next poster posts something before September 8...

Why Is Such a Book Printed!

2008-08-16T06:37:00.006-05:00

The story starts strong. The introduction is perfectly crazy, and then the opening chapters have everything you could want in a novel: drunkenness, orgies, a suicide attempt, family warfare, hints of murder, a cast of misfits ... By the end of the third chapter, I lost count of the deaths.

Then comes "Elders." The narrator states, "I ought to say a few words [...] about what, generally, the elders in our monasteries are"; and my response is, you ought not to have wasted our time.

This chapter, Mr. Dostoevsky, is almost inexcusable. It is hard enough to read a 130-year-old novel, let alone an 800-page 130-year-old novel, let alone a Russian 800-page 130-year-old novel ... It is hard enough to keep your billion character-oviches separate in our minds.

How dare you, Mr. Dostoevsky, ramble for pages about Mount Athos and the Ecumenical Patriarch? How dare you tell us about Paissy Velichkovsky and his disciples, and your favorite "most aged monks," one of them "famous for his great silence and remarkable fasting"? Your charade, Mr. Dostoevsky, depends on this assumption: "I am a canonized novelist, so you must worship everything I write, you must convince yourself that my whims and my editors' neglect are not whims and neglect, but proofs of my genius"; why not drop the charade, Mr. Dostoevsky, and just waterboard us?

For this is obviously what you want: for the reader to suffer, for us maybe to become -- I don't know -- closer to God by suffering. Well thank you, Mr. Dostoevsky, thank you for bringing me to the "true kingdom of Christ. " But I'd thank you still more if you left literature to your friend Count Tolstoy, and spared us the "Ultramontanism" puns. (Could anything be less funny?)

Questions for the readers:
1) How often do Alyosha and the elder make love? ("Alyosha lived in the cell of the elder, who loved him and allowed him to stay by him [...] of course he also liked it.")
2) What the hell is a hieromonk?
3) Do people really read this book for pleasure, or is it only read for reputation--or by assignment?

book club -- first reading

2008-08-03T07:16:00.011-05:00

Much as TV series and seasons often start and end with double episodes, The Brothers Karamazov began when its first and second books were published together in the January 1879 issue of The Russian Herald.

Imagine yourself there: a St. Petersburg winter, a nation without elections or free speech or good dentistry, a bottle of vodka on your table and a Georgian prostitute in your filthy bed. Then the mail arrives, and with it your favorite "thick journal," the Herald. You light your third cigar of the morning and pour yourself a fourth vodka. You are fifteen years old.

Turning the pages, you see a piece about the Tsarina, and how lovely she looks in ermine. Then there's another piece, something on France and its political failings -- you skim it, knowing you'll need a bon mot on the topic for Anna Scherer's soiree tonight. Next you see a full-page advertisement from a company that leases charwomen: "Does your divan smell like Dianka? Try our women, who always use soap ... " You turn more pages, passing over an article about the new Mussorgsky opera -- who cares, you hate Mussorgsky, you met him at a restaurant and he stank like a goat -- still more pages turn, and then ... Double Dostoevsky! What a treat.

Members of the book club are now invited to read "From the Author" and Books One and Two ("A Nice Little Family" and "An Inappropriate Gathering"), which together in the Pevear-Volokhonsky translation constitute the book's first 91 pages. (We can skip Pevear's introduction for now.) I'll post something around August 16.

t-shirt of the month

2008-08-02T09:55:00.001-05:00

Again the winner this month was clear and early:

GOT JUNK
IN YOUR
TRUNK?

I'M YOUR MAN

Out with the old

2008-08-02T09:06:00.002-05:00

I keep things. In the last year I've worn about 5% of the clothes I own. I keep bubble wrap, uniquely shaped envelopes, styrofoam blocks from packaging, the weird wine bottle holder (best guess) that the previous owner left in my condo, and boxes. Lots of boxes.
I kept all my moving boxes from last year, as well as most of the original boxes of things I've bought (shoes, cuisinart, rice cooker...). My reasoning is either that if I ever move it would be easiest to repackage these things in their original boxes, or that I'll have another use for this diversely sized collection of boxes. Yet in the 16 months since I've moved in, I have to say I can't remember ever needing any of these boxes. So this morning I cleaned my storage space of most of these boxes. The big boxes I did keep - I just couldn't help myself - but I at least broke them down (even though by slicing through the tape it meant I would have to waste yet more tape next time around). My storage unit now looks nearly empty.
My storage unit also has spiders. I'm sure they're harmless, but I have an aversion to spiders. I'm open-minded, but I don't think I could ever be friends with a spider. So as part of my cleaning I did have to squash a few spiders. But I left some others unharmed, because they weren't in my way, I didn't feel like getting into more spider muck, and I knew they'd probably just come back. Well, the dead ones probably wouldn't come back, but others like them would. I need some spider traps.

The Wall-Eye

2008-07-31T07:56:00.004-05:00

Everyone on this blog is familiar with the "shark" technique. Some of us have mastered it.

Now that we are more mature in age, I'd like to introduce you all to a more advanced technique: The Wall-eye.

Imagine a nude woman in a closet. Sneak up behind her and follow these directions:

1. Stick your left index finger in her mouth

2. Stick your right index finger in her "hole"

3. Lift and pose for the picture

Napkins

2008-07-27T11:41:00.003-05:00

Napkins are good for liquids, pastes, and smooth spreads. A bit of water on your chin? Some mayo on your cheek? How about some tuna juice on your fingers? A napkin will take care of all that. It'll absorb and hang onto these unwanted leftovers until you dispose or wash that napkin later. A napkin will even do a decent job on that nitty gritty powder leftover from scarfing doritos or cheetos. But what about bread crumbs on your hand after palming a roll? What about salt on your fingers after eating some mixed fancy nuts? What about morsels of KFC extra crispiness stuck to your lip? A napkin's only accomplishment when applied to these tasks is to brush the crumbs from your fingers so they fall to the ground, your lap, or whatever is below your hands at the time. Clean hands, maybe, but not for nothing.
Napkins, it's time to step up your game.

Another Garment Goodbye

2008-07-27T10:39:00.005-05:00

In my haste to depart the plane on the first leg of my recent trip, with plugged ears and in a sudafed stupor (let's pretend), I forgot on the plane my blue long sleeved Duofold synthetic shirt that has been my go-to travel garment for years. During the plane ride I remember thinking I should put it in my bag rather than drape it over the arm rest, but as is my custom in these situations, I told myself that there was no need for such precaution since of course I would remember something so simple, especially in this case when they remind you to check for personal belongings before getting off. But as is unfortunately becoming my custom, I did not remember. I have a feeling the shirt was a found item rather than something actually purchased, but I don't actually remember how or when it came into my life. Some would say it's for the best, that one should buy new clothes more than once every ten years. Well, that's a matter of opinion. But the undisputed fact is that shirt was perfect and there will not be another like it.

In memorial, two pictures: the last picture taken of me and my shirt together, late July, 2008; and the oldest photo of us that I could find among the photos I have with me in DC, probably 2001 (I had to scan it in since I didn't have a digital camera then).

Namibia and back

2008-07-26T18:47:00.002-05:00

My six day trip to Namibia - three days travel, three days there - leaves me with a pile of bitching about travel logistics. But this is the kibbitz, not the bitch, so I'm pre-editing myself and offering only the following highlights:
Delayed flight
Lost bag
Ears clogged like a mofo
No personal TV screens
Hours swallowing and force-yawning to pop ears due to intense paranoia about ear drums exploding.

With that out of the way, one more story: our office has some cars and drivers, and one of the drivers in one of the cars drove me to the airport on Friday. Halfway there he told me he forgot to get the money to pay for the car fee at the airport. We didn't turn around. I figured the fee couldn't be more than a dollar or two so we'd surely be able to cover it. But when we got to the airport, he turned into a blocked lane and told the attendant that I was a diplomat being dropped off. The attendant asked no further questions and let us through. Further on in that lane there was another gate, but another attendant simply lifted the gate for us without question, such was his faith in his colleague's screening process. Ethical or unethical? And should I in the future make more of an effort to dress less diplomatically?

invitation to a book club

2008-07-25T06:03:00.004-05:00

In the tradition of this blog's phenomenally successful series on Harry Potter, next month we will launch a discussion of another genre-busting line of books, (albeit a line now almost always read as one continuous and enormous volume), the bloody and soulful Brothers Karamazov.

We invite all kibbitzers and readers to join us as we read and comment on Dostoevsky's "longest, richest, and most capacious book" (The Washington Post Book World). We'll even have a guest kibbitzer, and we hope you'll join the fun.

We will be reading it slowly, and we will be reading it (at least in part) as a mystery/crime novel: How does heavy D. measure up to Agatha Christie or Sir Arthur Doyle or Dennis Lehane or Raymond Chandler? Does the story still fascinate, or is it all just philosophical blah blah blah?

Expect our first posts in early August. In the meantime, pick up a copy of the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation.

mystery cynic

2008-07-25T05:57:00.003-05:00

Who is the mystery cynic who wrote the following:

"Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised, or a little mistaken[.]"

Guess before you cheat with Google. Or click on "comments" for the answer.

"Censored"

2008-07-16T11:57:00.002-05:00

I'd like to raise a formal K'etsh about the censorship policy. When referring to other people in posts, I think the kibbitzing blogger has the responsibility to provide enough clues for fellow kibbitzers to know whom they are referring to. Example: Mr. O. I can't think of anyone whose last name starts with an "O". I need a little k'nitch to help me out.

I would also like to note two other recent life changing occurances:

1. I shaved my head
2. I RSVP'd to a foiler's wedding

Shtupping

2008-07-14T11:44:00.003-05:00

An orthadox couple gets married. The wedding ends and it is time to legitimize the wedding in the bedroom. Since the woman has all the experience in the relationship, the gentleman asks her what he is supposed to do.

She says, "First, take off your tsi tsit".

So, the gentleman takes them off and asks, "What next?"

She responds, "Take off the rest of your clothes and stick it in."

So he does all this and then asks, "What now?"

She answers, "Now it's time to daven"

Coke bottles and love stories

2008-07-13T06:39:00.014-05:00

in memory of Patty, 1994-2008

In 1994 I went shopping with my friend A. and his father Mr. O. at an expensive camping store. A. and Mr. O. helped me find a Patagonia pullover sweater. "It's recycled material," Mr. O. said: "it's made of old Coke bottles." I was in love.

The sweater was, in fact, a near replica of A.'s own Patagonia. This was to be my year of copycat purchases: at the Army & Navy surplus store I bought the Whale's burgundy wool sweater, and at a tattoo and leather shop I bought my friend J.'s bumper sticker, SAVE THE PLANET - KILL YOURSELF. The sticker was on my car for exactly one day: my friends saw it and called me a follower, and that night I scrapped it off. The burgundy sweater lasted about a year and then got lost somewhere in Kentucky.

A.'s old Patagonia was brown and had a neck zipper; my new one was green and had snaps. The feel was the same, however, and it was the feel that sold the sweater. It was fuzzy and squishy and thick and light. It was warm but cold, I'd been promised: light enough for spring, heavy enough for winter. It was even supposed to keep you alive when icy wet.

For the next 14 years Patty was my close and constant friend. It would be tempting to say that everyone who's ever met me has seen me in my Patty; it is more accurate, but barely so, to presume that my few readers know the exact sweater I am writing about, without my having to post a picture of it.

Patty was with me on my first big road trip out west, and in it I hiked and rafted and canoed and kayaked. It came with me to Israel, where I lost what little God I had left in me, and then to my childhood summer camp, when I returned to it as a counselor; I was wearing Patty on the night when, for the first time in my life, I went stargazing with a girl at her invitation; I was still wearing it when she said she was disappointed in me.

Patty was with me as I fell in and out of love with a hundred wrong girls, and it was with me when I finally found the right one. It went with me to my first and second colleges, and on more hikes, and on more international travels. I'm wearing Patty in the last photograph taken of me together with my Zadie. And I brought it on almost every trip I made to Michigan throughout my father's dying, and I was still wearing it last month when with my mother and I picked out his gravestone.

Patty was practical and Patty was reliable. The second-to-top button broke, the fabric stretched out and flattened somewhat, but otherwise it held itself together. Light enough for spring, heavy enough for winter. In it I had gotten icy wet, but with it I stayed alive.

There comes a time in every decent man's life when he must surrender his will to his wife's. Some men do this knowingly, but most believe that they never gave in: they claim sovereignty to the end, even as their coffin is sealed and encased and lowered and buried over.

Whichever scenario will play out for me, I don't care much about what I'm wearing, so long as it's comfortable, but my wife-to-be does, and Patty did not suit her tastes; and I know, for all my fetishes and anthropomorphisms, that the few memories I have which haven't been reduced to husks and stock stories and punchlines--the real history resides in me, not in recycled Coke bottles.

And so this week I left Patty at Good Will. The sweater meant something to me, but the wife means more.

t-shirt of the month

2008-07-07T06:45:00.002-05:00

It is only July 7, but the t-shirt of the month has already been awarded:

LOVIN COUGARS
IS NOT A CRIME

South Africa

2008-06-30T21:57:00.004-05:00

I'm afraid it would reflect poorly on me if after spending two weeks in South Africa the only thing I blogged about were stupid American cashiers. So let me tell you some essential information about South Africa.
Instead of saying You're Welcome they say Pleasure. I assume the "my" is implied, or else perhaps it is simply a command.
They eat a lot of meat there. A typical menu will simply have a meat section where you can order the type of cut and the sauce. You can have sirloin, filet, rump, etc. And they often have multiple sizes. You can have the 200 gram rump or the 400 gram rump.
They have Appletizer. It is carbonated apple juice, and it is wonderful. It is hard to say it without laughing. There is also Grapetizer, but it is not quite as good.
Coloured is still used there to describe people who are born from one white parent and one black parent.

Cashier Improvement Zone

2008-06-30T21:34:00.003-05:00

I may have to start a new blog called Idiot Cashiers and How They Tick Me Off. Here's the background. There is a window in my shower. It is no secret. And until recently it was not a big deal, because nobody really had an angle to see in, the window would only allow an outsider a waist up view, and I have a big enough ego that anyone spying on me could only be viewed as flattery. But there is yet another new building going up in our backyard (was supposed to be condos, but now may be rentals), giving the constructions workers, and soon the residents, a quite proper view into my shower. So the time has come to somehow obstruct the view, and I went to Urban Outfitters in search of a hip solution.
Now for the idiot cashier of the day. Normally I use my credit card for everything to avoid accumulating change (which accumulates on its own, like dust), but my purchase was 3.17 and it just seemed in appropriate to not use cash. I gave the cashier a 10 dollar bill and a quarter, which most sane and reasonable people in the universe will recognize as a change saving measure. The cashier gave me back 6 bucks and a load of change. I thought she had forgotten about the quarter, so I reminded her "I gave you a quarter." She said "No, you gave me a nickel." Well, that sent me through the roof. I briefly considered whether there was any chance in hell that I had a nickel in my pocket, and the answer was a resounding not in a million fucking years. But I was stuck. I asked her why in the hell I would have given her a nickel. She said she didn't know. Of course she doesn't. You'd think as a cashier she would first of all recognize what kind of currency she is given, and second, that when someone gives her some change that doesn't make a bit of sense, she should say something. Well, she said she'd have to get the manager to open the drawer back up. And despite what you may think after reading this entire post about the most trivial thing in the world, I have graduated from the time in my life when I would have pushed that issue. The new me knows that these daily stresses are best abandoned and forgotten as quickly as possible, so I just glared at her and walked away, and when the greeter wished me a pleasant day I glared at him, too. Then I wrote it all up right here so I would never forget that Urban Outfitters employs a bunch of dweebs.

Der oylam is a goylem

2008-06-26T09:35:00.004-05:00

What is wrong with you Tamaveters; using other people's names on this blog! This is not a drunk-tank! Behave accordingly.

On a different note, I refuse to RSVP to the wedding of the 1994 Shaarey Zedek Kiddish Cup Champion until you Alter boks start blogging. I feel like I'm looking for the afikomen all by myself. What's up with that? Maybe we should invite Mazarin and Z to join in the fun.

censorship

2008-06-24T06:49:00.003-05:00

Vigilant re-readers of this blog may notice that we've modified some old posts and begun to censor ourselves. No one regrets this more than I.

Thousands of years ago, I was the editor of and sole contributor to a youth group newsletter. My articles centered on the sale and consumption of crack, and on the deviant sexual behaviors of our group members and advisors. One day I wrote a particularly hard-hitting article about a gunshot fetus. It probably deserved a Pulitzer, but my group's president was not ready for the truth--did not believe his constituents were entitled to it--was afraid of what real reportage would do to his reputation and career. He censored me, then, and our friendship never recovered.

We kibbitzers believe that our readers deserve the truth. Please trust that all censorship is done in the interest of maintaining our and our friends' privacy: it is not done from cowardice. Oh, no! Like W.E.B. Du Bois, we kibbitzers cry truths at an ugly and uncomprehending world; and we will call no one "friend" who will not stand and cry with us.

All modified posts include the label "censored."

Gift Ideas for Howl's Wedding

2008-06-20T07:22:00.004-05:00

1. a tub of KY Jelly
2. a kiddish cup inscribed with "Baruch"
3. Risk, the board game
4. a tub of chrain
5. a haman purim costume (w/ a grager)
6. A sedur
7. A recording of Yatzi singing the amidah
8. A lock of D. A.'s hair
9. A picture of Matitiyahu
10. A statue of B. D.

Compassionate Slaughter

2008-06-12T11:27:00.003-05:00

I recently finished Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food, which I liked as much as Omnivore's Dilemma. Not surprising since they're almost the same book. For those wanting to find good local food from farms, he made a footnote about eatwild.com so I checked it out. I'd like to test the idea that food from animals raised properly taste better, and would love to buy half a cow from one of these places and have a barbecue.
But as much as I like the site and admire the farmers, I can't help but laugh at one particular blurb from Old Pine Farm in Michigan:
"We support the Humane Farming Association and are very compassionate about our animals, and particularly their slaughter."
Later today I'm going to compassionately kick the shit out of the guy stealing my mail.

Chabad House of Ann Arbor

2008-06-12T10:05:00.005-05:00

I did not know that the Chabad house of Ann Arbor has a community mikvah and that is available for use by the Jewish community. The mikwah employs a filtering pool heating system and is the only such facility between Detroit and Chicago. A nominal donation is asked of occasional users. The women of Mikvah Israel act as shomerot (assistants) for those women desiring to use the mikvah. I am curious if shomerot are available for men who desire to use the mikvah. I wonder if an extra "nominal donation" is suggested if you were to request assistance from a shomerot. Have any of you ever visited a mikvah?

L. Z.

2008-06-02T09:45:00.007-05:00

I am a man truely humbled. At 60 years old, L. Z. beat me in the Dexter - Ann Arbor half marathon yestarday by 21 minutes. He finished 7th in his age group out of 48 participants. What a guy! I still think I could beat J. Z.

Mathematics Education

2008-06-01T14:43:00.002-05:00

(Overheard on the bus)

Woman: When is the next World Cup?

Man: 2010.

W: How often do World Cups occur?

M: Every 4 years.

W: When was the last one?

M: I have no idea.

founding nerds

2008-05-30T07:03:00.003-05:00

If you're a nerd, these two questions make for a wonderful game: it is both an exercise in self-discovery, and a conversation starter at your next American Revolution-themed kegger.

Questions
1) Which founding father do you like best?
2) Which founding father do you most resemble? (Dig deep, here.)

My Answers
1) For a while I liked Hamilton best, partly because I wanted to be just like my friend J., a lifelong Hamilton fanatic; partly because Hamilton was the only founding father I knew anything about (I loved Chernow's biography); but mostly because Hamilton has much to recommend him: born from bastardy and in penury, he was self-made, an abolitionist, and a war hero; he established the treasury and, through his vision and policies, put the U.S. on the path to stable prosperity; he cowrote the Federalist Papers and ghosted most of Washington's farewell address; he was brilliant and crazy and hardworking and self-destructive, all qualities that still endear him to me.

And yet now that I'm reading Founding Brothers, my allegiance is crossing over. There is, I believe, something to be said for Last Acts. Benjamin Franklin's was to lend his brains, energy, prestige, and eloquence to a futile but well-meaning attack on slavery. Hamilton's last public act, meanwhile, was to die in an idiotic duel. Whereas Franklin through action atoned (or strove to atone) for being a one-time slave owner, Hamilton--again through action--put his ego before his family and his nation. Hamilton may have been dashing, but in his 50s, 60s, and 70s he did nothing for the U.S.--in those decades he was dead.

2) I am most like Washington, because my comportment is majestic and I look good on a horse. After Washington, though, and I am probably most like the gloomy, vain, whiny, irritable, paranoid, and self-pitying Adams. In fact his description of himself as "obnoxious and disliked" is one I'd gladly apply to myself, if only--{sigh}--someone was around to listen to it.

Answers for the Other Kibbitzers
I won't speculate as to how the other kibbitzers would answer the first question, but I'll peg each of them to a father and let them squirm under their new labels:

Goat is energetic and impetuous: he is our Hamilton
The Whale is our purist, our idealist: he can only be Jefferson
Sweatshirt is as accomplished as he is self-effacing, as talented as he is modest: he mends bridges and must be our Madison.

Who is nerd enough to argue with me?

My father-in-law.....

2008-05-19T11:35:00.007-05:00

My wife and I were joking how we could write a book about Michelle's dad and his weird tendencies. Here are a few (no exaggerations!)

I have highlighted some of his best moments:

He wore a Detroit Lions leather hat to church
He planted fake flowers from his daughter's wedding in the backyard
He applied duct tape to fix holes on the screen door
He parks his car on the lawn to kill it so that he won't have to mow it
His lawn exceeds his knees
He has newspapers on his porch that are more than 3 months old
He stabled cardboard boxes over the windows in the living room to enhance television viewing
He cooked hot dogs in the fireplace when the power went out
He bought a fake fireplace and set it inside the real fireplace
He velcrod the remote control for the television set to the table
His floors are so dirty that there are bugs in the dog's food dish
He has weeks old pizza crusts under the seat cushions

Maybe someone else can make a list for, "You know you are a sheggetz when..."

Overheard at Church on Sunday

2008-05-12T14:41:00.003-05:00

During SILENT prayer time:

The gentleman behind me screamed, "Lord, I try to love them...but I hate them!"

Why is this night different from all other nights?

2008-05-09T07:28:00.003-05:00

Because this year, my mom mistakenly thought the gefilte fish were the matzah balls. This was the first Passover that I was able to enjoy Gefilte soup. Not bad. I should the lulov and ate the shank bone afterwards.

A massaging chair

2008-05-06T22:25:00.002-05:00

Massaging to the tune of the German Ghengis Kahn song.

An observation

2008-05-02T16:56:00.001-05:00

I frequently go to a particular Korean restaurant. The other day, I went with my friend, who is Korean. My friend ordered my usual for me, in Korean (and he ordered it in a way such that it was unclear whether it was for me or him). It was SUBSTANTIALLY spicier.

So, there you go.

That's Entertainment

2008-04-22T22:13:00.001-05:00

Human Tetris. Why is Japanese TV so much better than ours, even when I don't understand Japanese? Or maybe it's because I don't understand Japanese?

Overheard at the seder

2008-04-21T22:00:00.000-05:00

"He wasn't a chochem."

Earth Day Eve

2008-04-21T18:54:00.001-05:00

Earth day is tomorrow. Did you know? Michael Pollan wrote an op-ed called Why Bother? on the subject. It shows, first of all, why I’m writing here and he’s writing books, and it also explores a tough question. It’s hard to see how anything I do is going to have an effect on the world, so where do I get the motivation to do it? In my case, I don’t. The gap between what I profess to care about and what I do about it, or what Pollan, quoting someone else, I think, calls the difference between what we think and what we do, is enormous.
I drive my car more than I need to, I buy conventional lightbulbs and use plastic bags when it’s convenient, I don’t spend the extra cash on organic food – the list of what I don’t do is endless. But the article makes several arguments why we as individuals should still do things we believe in even if there’s no evidence, not even real hope, even, that it will make a difference. Partly so we feel good about ourselves, and even more to be a model for others. None of this is news, and none of it has worked for me so far.Thinking about this today I was reminded of something one of my fellow authors here participated in back in his church days. A small group of individuals who got together to hold each other accountable. Not unlike AA meetings, I guess. Supportive peers help. So why not get a little environment group? If I were in a small group of six or eight people who met every week or two to discuss what we’d each done in our fight to conserve the environment, where we failed, how we’d move forward, I might feel more accountable. I’d know someone was paying attention, and I’d feel a part of something.

Sadly, this is what I think, but I think what I’ll do may be far different.

overheard in the park

2008-04-20T16:14:00.002-05:00

A man on a bicycle, whose arms, hands, chest, and life were all apparently intact: "So every other day, I'm getting crucified."

Oh the mundanity!

2008-04-18T21:23:00.002-05:00

Approximately 4-7 days a week I find what I believe are called “circulars” in my mailbox. It is a whopping newspapery packet full of coupons and sales announcements that drop all over the place like postcards in magazines, and I never bother to even look at it before discarding. But in the name of journalism and freedom, and because I have nothing else to do since I already watched my Netflix today (Deliverance – a movie perhaps better left unwatched), I am going to provide running commentary as I leaf through my Washington Post Shopping Guide.
The cover is a furniture ad for the “#1 livingroom value in America!” And if the $299 sofabed wasn’t enough to prove it, there is a picture of a half-smiling, half-attractive woman in the corner, which is either supposed to be a half-satisfied typical customer, or perhaps the kind of woman I can attract if I have a 6 piece living room package.
Inside the front cover the Washington Post is offering me the Sunday paper for 49 cents. I’ve ignored the zillion solicitation letters they’ve sent me, but sneaking it into the circular may just win me over. They’d like to believe that. News is for people who don’t have tremendous blogging responsibilities.
Ooh – my first glossy circular. From Shoppers, which by the looks of it is a grocery land of limitless savings. Yet even though they’ve put 10 Kraft Mac n Cheese’s on sale for $6, which is about as good as it gets in these times of economic hardship, I don’t even know where a Shoppers is.
Verizon is offering cheap wireless. Big whoop.
Safeway must also be suffering from the economic downturn, because its colored newspaper circular is Sunny Delight to Shoppers’ Fresh Squeezed gloss. Is it the Hormel Natural Choice Lunchmeat (2 for $7) or the Lawry’s Marinade (2 for $5) that gets people running to Safeway?
Next up is Giant, which is nearly identical to Safeway, and whose “fine foods for Passover” section includes Fresh Soup Mix, a Tranquil Bouquet of flowers, and California carrots. This circular needs a Jewish editor.
Don’t worry, it’s almost over.
Rite Aid has gone glossy on us, and has Free and Hot Buys! printed prominently in several places, and there’s a huge BOGO on nutritional supplements. Damned if lipo-flavonoid wouldn’t hit the spot right now.
Last up is a Manny & Olga’s Pizza page with coupons, which I guess I’ll stack up with the rest of the menu’s I get in the mail (including a Manny & Olga’s menu) and then never use. Nah. Why bother.
I can't wait to see what else I get in the mail.

So much chrain!?

2008-04-17T22:13:00.001-05:00

From the afikomen to the zuzim -- I eagerly anticipate my trip to my ancestral homeland for pesach.

Whale Wisdom

2008-03-31T20:52:00.002-05:00

The proper size to cut your food into, as well as the proper amount of food to put on your spoon/fork, is the largest amount of food that will fit into your mouth while allowing you to swallow without gagging.

If you have a choice between larger portions or lower price, you're in the wrong restaurant.

Customer Service

2008-03-26T09:06:00.002-05:00

Wow. Can you hear the hurrahs bubbling up from all sides, people overcome with the joy brought by 5% off ther monthly bill. For average people like me, 5% is only about 85 cents, but for the big players on the 8 at a time plan, that could be $2.40. Imagine what we'll all do with that money. Who needs economic stimulus packages when you have Netflix to shell out these windfalls.

Netflatixtics

2008-03-24T20:42:00.004-05:00

2008 to date: 49 discs = 16/month
2007: 142 discs = 12/month
2006: 144 discs = 12/month
Totals: 335 discs/27 months = 12.4/month = $1.50/DVD

Notes: Count is for individual DVDs. Activity conducted under a 3 at a time plan. Does not include Watch Now movies.

Analysis: Good consistency. Far cheaper than Blockbuster, with comparable selection. Cheaper and better selection than local Lamont Video. More expensive but with far superior selection than RedBox.

Conclusions: I'm a sick fuck.

the Harvard joke

2008-03-23T08:20:00.002-05:00

Over the course of my life I have told exactly two kinds of jokes:

Jokes that shame me years after the telling
Jokes I have, thank God, managed to forget

Of the first kind, one has haunted me all week. It was maybe five years ago. I was for some reason at a sushi restaurant with three Harvard graduates: two were unemployed and hungover, and the third was a pornographer who was just beginning to get drunk. The conversation turned to an acquaintance of theirs, who apparently had some kind of a father complex.

"Like Mozart," I said.

"Yes," said the pornographer. "Exactly."

PSA - 9 Volt Batteries, Take 1

2008-03-17T20:10:00.005-05:00

A gentleman just shy of thirty is sleeping in his bed, all is dark, all is quiet, the clock ticks from 2:34 to 2:35. Then a beep. And a pause. And another short shrill beep. The man stirs and starts and sits up. BEEP. Close up on the smoke detector and a blinking red light. It's low on batteries. The man gets out of bed and rummages through his drawers and closets, tossing AA batteries and BEEP even AAA batteries all over the place, and finally breaking down in the corner of the closet BEEP. Voice over begins: Nothing short of a nuclear bomb will stop that beeping. Nothing, that is, except a replacement 9 volt battery. And since no goddam thing except a smoke detector uses a 9 volt battery, you're not likely to have one around. So take care to get a spare 9 volt battery, because smoke detectors only run out of batteries in the middle of the night, and they don't take American Express.

He Fell Out with the Wife (an incident)

2008-03-14T18:46:00.007-05:00

Story by A.P. Chekhov
Translation by Howl

“Damn you! I come home from work hungry, like a dog, but God knows what I’m being fed here! And you can’t criticize! You criticize, and now there’s howling, tears! Better to be thrice anathematized, than the thing you married!”
Having said this, the husband clanged his spoon against the plate, leapt up, and in a frenzy slammed the door. The wife began to sob, pressed a napkin to her face, and also went out. The dinner was over.
The husband went to his study, lay on the couch, and buried his face in a pillow.
—The devil compelled you to marry, he thought. Here is the good “family” life! I just got married, and already I want to shoot myself!
In a quarter hour, light footsteps were heard on the other side of the door.
—Yes, all is in order … She insulted me, she hurt me, but now she’s walking near the door, she wants to make up … Like hell! I’ll hang myself before I make up with her!
The door opened with a small creak and did not shut. Someone entered and with quiet, shy steps approached the couch.
—Okay, beg my forgiveness, implore me, weep, you’ll get nothing! Frozen hell! You won’t get another word from me, even if you die … I am sleeping here and I don’t feel like talking!
The husband buried his head more deeply into his pillow and softly snored. But men are weak things, just like women. They are easily wilted and withered.
Feeling a warm body against his back, the husband stubbornly withdrew to the far edge of the couch and pulled in his leg.
—Yes … Now here we cry, snuggle, grovel … Soon we will begin with kisses on the shoulder, we’ll drop to our knees. I can’t take this pussyfooting! … Nevertheless … it will be necessary to forgive her. For her, in her condition, it’s unhealthy to be upset. I will torture her a moment longer, then I’ll punish and forgive …
Over his ear, a deep sigh softly passed. After it, another, a third … The husband felt the touch of a little hand on his shoulder.
—Well, God bless her! I’ll forgive her for the last time. She’s had plenty of torment, the poor thing! Especially because it’s all my fault! From nonsense I made such a fuss …
“Well, that’s enough, my morsel!”
The husband stretched out his arm and embraced a warm body.
“Blech!!”
Beside him lay his big dog Dianka.

Wine Tasting Parties are Overrated

2008-03-10T15:23:00.002-05:00

I went to a wine tasting party this Saturday night with Michelle. There were 2 rules:

1. Bring 2 bottles of wine per couple and a hunk of cheese
2. Bring your receipts

The hosts of the party divulged that the receipts would be used that night to play a game. The game entailed tasting each bottle of wine and then guessing which one was the most expensive.

At the end I picked a $2.99 bottle while Michelle picked a $3.99 bottle. The most expensive bottle was $59.99. All the more reason to drink cheap booze. It's all the same.

Q: What kind of chazer?

2008-03-08T11:03:00.001-05:00

A: Any old chazer.

stormy Oliver

2008-03-04T07:22:00.002-05:00

Here's another song comparison:

1) 1928's "West End Blues," written by King Oliver, here in its most famous Armstrong recording; after the fanfare, listen to the first half of the principal phrase.
2) 1933's "Stormy Weather," music by Harold Arlen, here sung by Ethel Waters; listen to the "Don't know why..."

Only half related, but look at Fats Waller's facial expressions here.

A case of the reallys

2008-02-27T15:53:00.003-05:00

In a NYT article today regarding Condoleeza Rice's damage control of an alleged raping of a Japanese girl by a US Marine, she is quoted as saying, "Our concern right now is to see that justice is done, to get to the bottom of it, and our concern is for the girl and her family. We really, really deeply regret it.”
The newsworthy point from the NYT perspective is the rape accusation, and I think rape is among the most heinous crimes and should carry the harshest penalties. But what is newsworthy to me about this news item is the reallys. You know where I'm going, but let's play it in slow motion.
Regret. Sincere regret is a nice sentiment to express and clearly indicates the speaker's feelings.
Deep regret. Deep is a meaningful modifier, indicating more than just your everyday regret. What happened must have been pretty awful.
Really deep regret. Well, shit, this regret is more serious than we thought. More than just deep? This person's regret must be interfering with daily life.
Really really deep regret. Goddam. This person can probably barely walk for all the regret they're feeling. I'm starting to feel bad for them!
Condie stopped at 2 reallys, which is a tremendous display of moderation. One more really and we might have had to forgive her for doing that bullshit she's regretting in the first place.

La Bamba, Amen

2008-02-26T16:32:00.004-05:00

Last Saturday night I went to a synagogue out in Bethesda and paid $10 at the door for the privilege of buying a $4 glass of wine and watching other people (not a lot) dance to what I can only assume is the latest and greatest of Israeli music. Aside from learning that there is a genre of Israeli music called mizrachi (which someone told me is Arab), the redeeming value of this event was the presence of Bamba peanut snacks. When someone mentioned this to me the name rung many pleasant bells in my head associated with my highschool trip to Israel, but I couldn't remember what the hell it was. Then I tore into a pack, and while I still didn't really remember the taste from way back when, the taste is good. Peanut butter, and very delicate. Including the bag I had that night and the bag I took for the road that I ate today, and generously valuing the night of music and dancing at $2, that means I got my Bamba for $4 a pop. It's lovely running into old friends. I would next like to reconnect with Men's Pocky.

Whack it creatively!

2008-02-22T13:22:00.003-05:00

Who couldn't benefit right now from a good whack? Let's take a minute to refamiliarize ourselves with a bright mind who has played a pivotal role in some of our pasts, and who is sure to show up in many of our futures. Let me know if you want to go in on a Creative Whack Pack.

Making fun of people

2008-02-22T12:46:00.002-05:00

In a group email today the writer of the email mentioned that he needed to "get the download" on such and such a situation. Cracked me up. It reminded me of a site I found a while back with all the mistakes people make. For a long time I said "for all intensive purposes" instead of "intents and purposes," and I also had to make an effort to take up "just as soon" rather than "just assume." I wonder how many phrases I still have wrong. Funny.

Entertainment News

2008-02-20T18:06:00.003-05:00

I've been watching The Wire on Netflix. I'm not a cops n robbers kind of guy, but this is more than just a mystery solved every episode. Shows the human side of the criminals, shows the good guys fucking up every now and then, and of course it has a good bit of swearing and a nice sex scene every few episodes. My main complaint is the damn theme song (see the most recent season 5 version here, though I'm only up to season 3). It's a full minute and a fucking half. 90 seconds is too long for a theme song. Even the most engaging theme songs are only half that time, and the Wire's theme is far from engaging. But for clever mofos like myself, I just flip on the 8x fast forward button and we're through that shit in no time.

My other news is a little catch I made going about my daily business of rotting my brain through televisory stimulation. I watched We are Marshall (2006) (again on Netflix) a few weeks ago, about the regrouping of the Marshall football team after nearly the whole squad dies in a plane crash. One of the nice specialty touches was one of the football players is having a bit of trouble, and a teammate advises him to watch his opponents knuckles when in the three point stance on the line. If the knuckles are white, he says, you know the opponent is leaning forward and ready to pounce on you. Nice. Then a few days ago I happen to catch the middle portion of Any Given Sunday (1999) (on TBS or TNT or some shit), and they use the exact same bit about watching the knuckles. Well I might have to rerate We are Marshall for stealing that shit. Finally my excessive TV watching pays off, and these assholes get outed on this highly read blog.

Links passing for blogging

2008-02-11T19:23:00.000-05:00

I don't mind. It's funny when you go here.

in bed with Howl

2008-02-07T08:28:00.000-05:00

Today I am once again ill. Here is what's in or near my sickbed:

Kleenex
Tea
P.G. Wodehouse novel (doesn't matter which one, they're all the same)
Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.
Ibuprofen, acetaminophen
Self-pity
Thermometer (oral)

Did I do anything wrong? You be the judge

2008-01-23T11:45:00.000-05:00

Usually, people get what they deserve. If you perform a mitzvah, it usually comes back to you in some what, shape, or form. If nothing else, you at least feel good about yourself. On the other hand, if you do something wrong, there is usually a penalty or consequence associated with it. You may lose a friend or you may even go to jail. At the absolute least, you may feel bad about yourself. There are situations when people do something wrong and they don't have to pay the consequences. These are the people I wish to expose and talk about.

Often times I feel that it is my responsibility to make sure people are accountable for their actions. Here are two examples:

1. Last year I was running in a local park. As I was running, I saw two women walking side-by-side toward me. It is proper park etiquette to stay on the right side of the trail to avoid collisions with runners/walkers/bikers coming from the opposite direction. However, these women had no regard for etiquette as they took up the entire trail. As I approached, I knew these women were not going to move over. Instead of inconveniencing my run and getting off the trail to let the women pass, I decided justice needed to be served. As I ran by, I clipped one of the women's shoulders with mine. I don't know if I hurt her....but I can only hope she will think twice the next time she sees someone running in her direction.

2. I was on a flight two weeks ago to Washington DC. I had the window seat. As I was watching people coming through the aisle, I was amazed to see the gorilla of a man that was to be my neighbor. He was so obsenely obese that his ass cheeks did not touch the surface of the seat; they rested on the arm rests. What really upset me was that he asked me to move over he was trying to sit down. I thought to myself, "Where the fuck do you want me to go? Out the window?" As he burrowed in, his arms and flab were coming way over the invisible plane that exists in the center of the arm rest. I made it my mission to make this guy's flight as miserable as possible, hoping next time he either decides to drive or go first class. For the entire flight, I didn't budge. Every part of his body that was in my area, I leaned into. I wouldn't concede my space. Why should I? I paid the same amount of money that he paid. He was trying to steel from me!

Those are just two examples. As I tell these stories to my friends, they see me as the bad guy. However, I'm just doing my job. I'm the champion.

Important Announcement

2008-01-10T19:34:00.000-05:00

"Sweatshirt" sleeps in a full size bed...It is not a queen.

the first door

2007-12-26T08:39:00.000-05:00

This past Saturday in Long Island, two days after a full moon and in honor of the Winter Solstice, my friend M.C.--of partial Native American descent herself--took me to my first sweat lodge. The medicine woman had in an email addressed me as "ancestor," and she had instructed me to bring, along with the memory of my grandfathers and grandmothers, a pair of shorts and tobacco.

The house was a typical suburban two-storey with Christmas lights and wood panelling. Through a swinging gate in the chain-link M.C. and I went straight to the backyard, where our ancestors were already gathering. Among them were Y., a kindly, elfin-looking woman of about forty, wearing a vibrant and multicolored skirt and a heavy coat; a muscular man of about the same age, with red hair shaved like a Marine's; and an assortment of others, mostly middle-aged Caucasians--thinning long hair and pot-bellies on most of the men, cigarettes and knitted hats with the women.

When we arrived the day's first lodge was just ending. This was, in part, a memorial service for a young actress who had died suddenly the week prior, and many in the yard were crying. M.C. said her hellos and introduced me around. Then we went into the house.

Inside it was clean and warm. In the kitchen a pot of medicines was simmering on the stove, and on a nearby table was a plain wooden bowl filled with $20 bills. M.C. and I each put in our money, then walked about the floor while we waited. M.C. explained that the lodge involved four "doors," or stages, each of which was associated with a different season, a different direction, and a different phase of life.

"I'm glad you're here," M.C. said. "If you don't go through it with someone else, it's almost like it never happened. And I think it'll be good for you too. This is all about processing loss and life, and getting in touch with the dead."

M.C. took off her sandals. She stepped onto the woven rug where I was already standing, and I looked down at my muddy sneakers.

A few minutes later we were back outside. Men and women were coming out of the lodge, steam rising from them as though their skin was smoking. The mouth of the lodge was open and the space inside it looked simple: blankets on the floor, a heap of stones in the center, wooden support beams here and there. The outside of the lodge equally unimpressive. The structure was a chest-high dome of perhaps 30-feet diameter. Its outer skin was a black-green tarp that looked like a giant garbage bag. Layered beneath this were more tarps and thin but heavy blankets. The lodge's entrance was a flap that could be pulled up or tied down; behind and supporting the lodge was the same chain-link fence M.C. and I had passed through, connected on three sides to the dome with twine.

Out came the medicine woman. Steaming like the others, maybe 50 years old, she was wearing a patterned red dress and her skin was flushed and thick. Her hair was brown and windswept, and she had the lumbering walk of a boxer. "Welcome, ancestors," she said to the newcomers. She made small talk, swigged from a Poland Spring bottle, asked someone, "Is my son in the house?" Then she went back into the lodge.

"It's time," M.C. said to me, so we took off our winter coats and sweats and hung them on the fence. "Your glasses," she said, so I took those off too.

Just before the lodge was a large firepit. Around it was a ring of stones with an opening that faced the lodge's entrance. M.C., I, and the others got in line before the firepit, then took turns throwing pinches of tobacco onto it from four directions. M.C. had told me to say four prayers with this, which I could make up myself, so I threw the tobacco for my family, for my friends, for strangers, and for the earth.

Inside the sweat lodge I found a seat against the wall between two men and behind M.C. More and more people came in, and the medicine woman repeatedly asked how many people were still waiting outside. She had evident difficulty arranging us about the lodge and said, "All that marijuana I smoked as a kid--it's coming back to haunt me."

A woman brought in antlers, which were passed to the medicine woman. A man sat down with a drum. One at a time, ten hot stones from the firepit were placed in the lodge's center. In the meantime the medicine woman said, "I want you to close your eyes and create as much space about you as you can."

Hugging my knees to my chest, I pictured a boy hugging his knees to his chest. But he, unlike me, sat alone on a stone column high above a black ocean. The world was empty around him. Then darkness fell, complete and choking--the tenth rock was inside the lodge, and the flap was closed.

The medicine woman spoke in a language I did not know. Then she said, "Welcome, Grandfather. Welcome, Grandmother. This is the first door. This is the darkest day of winter. It is also a beginning. We pass through this together. We thank our ancestors for strength." With this she poured water onto the hot stones. The lodge, already hot, instantly for me became excruciating. My shorts and shirt soaked through. My breaths came in empty. I thought, "It's okay, just breathe in slowly." But then the medicine woman poured more water onto the stones.

She prayed more, perhaps in English, I could hardly make sense of her. She said something about the antlers. Then the man with the drum hit it and began to sing. Others joined in, while I, thinking of my brother, wondered how the song's rhythm would look in musical notation.

The medicine woman poured more water onto the rocks. The heat now broke me, and, with a shame I cannot convey here, I said: "I think I need to leave."

Humiliating silence.

Then M.C. asked the medicine woman, "Did you hear that?"

"He'll stay a couple more minutes," the medicine woman said, and I hated her because I knew I could.

When the first door ended the medicine woman called for someone to open the flap. Several seconds passed, then someone asked, "Do you think they heard you?" But then the flap opened, and in poured sunlight, and out I ran. Into the air. Straight to my glasses. Cooling, drinking water, filling my lungs with oxygen, I stood by the firepit and watched others leave the lodge lingeringly. They stretched and smiled, they were sleepy-eyed and steaming. A few lay on the grass and rolled, while others threw more tobacco onto the firepit. M.C. came to me glowing. She said she was sorry.

"I told you it was hot," she said, "but I didn't tell you how hard it was." She asked how I was, and what had given me trouble. I said the breathing, and she said, "I think it's also that you're going through some gnarly stuff. If you'd just had a baby, you'd get through this no problem." I said my next door wouldn't be today. She said that was okay.

For the next three doors I waited by the fire. Many thoughts and feelings passed through me, among them a memory of another firepit some fifteen years ago. It was night and I was on a mountain. Maybe twelve people were with me, campers and counselors, among them L., the trip's supervisor. "There are four parts to a person's well-being," L. said: "physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual. I want you think about these four parts, and ask yourselves where you are strong and where you are weak." And on that mountain, while I was able to assess with the expected adolescent distortions my physical, intellectual, and emotional parts, I discovered that my spiritual part simply did not exist. Perhaps, I thought both on the mountain and outside the sweat lodge, perhaps I am missing something--a piece of God--a soul, if that is the right word. Was I made without it? Did I lose it along the way? Am I supposed to find it again?

For each of the doors, someone different carried ten new hot stones from the firepit into the lodge. This was an honor, I ascertained, and a challenge. The muscular man I described as a Marine turned out to have a palsied hand. He was clearly embarrassed by how long he was taking, by how the stones shook as he carried them. But from within the lodge came the medicine woman's voice: "Grandfather can wait," she said with a laugh. When the man finished his duty, he returned to the lodge, and the flap was closed behind him.

After the final door everyone left the lodge and made a circle around the firepit. A few people lit cigarettes. A dog named True ran among us. The medicine woman brought out a peace pipe, which she raised high, then turned in several directions, and then prayed over before lighting. She went from person to person with the pipe. We blew smoke over ourselves in four directions. Then she clasped our hands, fingers-up and palm-down, and she said thank you in her language, and then goodbye. On our way to the car M.C. said, "I don't know if you noticed, but she was staring crazy hard at you. She was totally checking out your spirit."

That night I had my first good night's sleep in many weeks. In this morning I thought this:

Perhaps it didn't matter that I hadn't gotten through all four doors on my first try. Perhaps it didn't matter that the sweat lodge had proved yet another Big Moment I had watched rather than experienced, or that my soul was still missing in action. There would be other doors, I supposed, other opportunities for me to dig deep. Until then, Grandfather could wait.

The Classic Whale Channel

2007-12-25T23:55:00.000-05:00

In this episode, it's Christmas day, the fourth day of a four day weekend, and I have to choose and then navigate through an activity for the day. Since I received a $10 gift card to any Regal cinema at my work holiday party, I decide I will see a movie (Juno), something I never do due to the outrageous price and Netflix. To see Juno and use my gift card, I need to skip the closest theatre (not a Regal) and go a bit further, but still within a reasonable distance. When I arrive, I realize that I'm actually going to a matinee, whose cost is $7.50, as opposed to the $10 regular price. My choice is to either use my giftcard and be stuck with $2.50 on the card, or to pay my own way and save the giftcard for the next time I go to a full fare show at the Regal, when I can use my gift all in one shot. This dramatic moment has first time viewers of this channel on the edge of their seats, but those familiar with the show have no doubt guessed correctly that I choose option two, leading to the result of my paying for a movie that I had decided to see mostly because I would not have to pay for it. A classic end to a classic episode.
In the closing credits, viewers find out I liked Juno very much, and Ellen Page even more.

pretender to the coat

2007-12-24T08:07:00.000-05:00

Near Lathrup Village, about a mile from where Sweatshirt and I used to play two-square, there was a small music store called Off the Record, a mom-and-popper that fed and nurtured my early album collection. It was here I bought a used copy of Whipsmart, which I still listen to every couple months; it was here I sold Girls, Girls, Girls, a decision I now regret.

One day I visited this store with my then-friend D., and for around a dollar I bought a used tape, The Grateful Dead's Skull & Roses album. I was maybe 13-years-old, and my expectations were high. The album art, the band's name, the T-shirts I'd seen on certain neighborhood punks--all foretold greatness, all pointed to Marlboros and leather and amphetamines. I was ready for heavy metal: I was looking for an older and scarier Guns n' Roses.

My disappointment, then, was severe and enduring. 15 years later the band still disgusts me, and while a few of my grievances may have some basis in legitimacy, most I suspect probably crystallized in that initial, preposterous letdown.

Since college, however, I've carried this dirty secret: for all my tirades, (and despite the trauma of buying and not liking a one-dollar used tape), I've always enjoyed the song "Ripple." It's smooth and sweet and relaxing: it does for me, I suppose, what American Beauty did for Lindsay Weir in the final episode of Freaks and Geeks.

For years my affair with "Ripple" festered. Questions haunted me, and I wept over them in dark rooms and with strange women: how could the Dead have written this song? How could I like it and still respect myself? Was there something wrong with me--should I pop a peyote button and be done with it? Perhaps "Ripple" reminded me of another song, one with strong positive associations, one I liked for reasons extra-musical? Or perhaps--hope upon spite--"Ripple" was composed by someone else, a man or woman of actual talent, someone such as--I don't know--Andrew Lloyd Weber?

You be the judge. Listen to "Ripple," then to "Any Dream Will Do," written at least two years earlier.

Poor, poor Joseph. First they nicked his coat. Then they took his song.

A hypothetical situation

2007-12-22T12:13:00.000-05:00

Imagine that you start a group blog. Several months in, your friend Smith (or I guess we should call him Smiths, since that is his real name), joins the blog, and writes a funny introductory post.

Now lets imagine that after reading Smiths' post, you check the nickname that he has chosen for himself, and notice that the name he has selected for himself is also the nickname that people have called YOU for the last ten years or so of your life.

WHY, SMITHS, WHY!?!?

Have an idea do an idea

2007-12-21T13:27:00.000-05:00

Today I was twice reminded that some people have ideas and do ideas. There is this guy who has taken his picture every day for years and turned it into an aging movie, and there are these guys featured in the NYT for giving up their high paying jobs to evaluate charities to see which are most effective.
I think it's high time for me to have an idea and do an idea. Something even more ground breaking than trying to maximize how many netflix movies I can watch each month. How do I top that?

Dude, why aren't you drinking?

2007-12-21T12:58:00.000-05:00

One of my regrets is that I didn't do more things to regret in my youth. One thing I didn't do, until a vat of jungle juice raced down my throat at an apartment party full of strangers freshman year of college, is get drunk. The complete cause behind such abstinence will not be known until an ambitious nobel-bound doctoral student of psychology decides to use me as the case-study that will catapult him or her into stardom, but the effects are more easily observed.
While it wasn't until afterwards that the pang of regret set in for not having a few pocketfuls of comical teenage tales involving humiliation, escapades, and rudeness, the suffering I knew even then was the steady stream of predictable peer pressure whose defining catch phrase was, "Dude, why aren't you drinking?" And of course there was no answer. To certain people, certain choices and behaviors simply don't process. I'll never understand why given the choice to smoke cigarettes or not, one would choose to smoke them. And others don't really get why, given the choice, someone would choose not to have a drink when one could be had.
Since the jungle juice turning point, my drinking habits, in the language of online dating multiple choice traits, could be described as "moderate" or "socially." And while less frequently than before, there's no shortage of people who don't consider it a party until there's beer, and who look suspiciously on anyone whose reason for not drinking is anything other than being pregnant.
But all this is just the lead-in. Because, as looking back I wish my behavior never would have prompted one to ask "Dude, why aren't you drinking?", so now the internet peer pressure is causing me to change my behavior so that no one will be tempted to ask me, "Dude, why aren't you blogging?"

The Jerky Boys

2007-12-20T08:36:00.000-05:00

I've always had an affinity for making prank phone calls. When I was a kid, I can still remember the exact calls I used to make and to whom I was calling. Whether I was calling the "Sexy Sisters" Escorting Service or Dr. Merial Wagner, the jokes never got old. My passion for pranking people has not waned. I've even gotten my wife into the mix.....

Two nights ago I was watching the Ann Arbor Public Access Channel. They pretty much let any old Ghazer do or say whatever they want on that channel. I found this weird dude that hosts a live weekly show about local and world conspiracies. I don't remember the name of the show but the best part was you could call in and talk live on his show about whatever you want. Without any hesitation, I called in immediately and go the guy going. I won't go into the details but when I was finished, I convinced my wife and Ming, an autistic friend of ours, to call in as well. We easily took up 30 minutes of his 45 minute show. I can't wait until next Tuesday to call in again.

parallel irresolutions

2007-12-14T11:30:00.000-05:00

Today though I was too ill to work, I was healthy enough to watch the final episode of Freaks and Geeks. My feelings are now most uncomfortably mixed. Part of me is still exhilarated: I have, after all, been following a great adventure. At the same, though, there is loss: my new character friends are forever gone--I will never hear from them again--I will never know what became of them.

There is almost too much to praise in Freaks and Geeks: the writing is excellent, the acting superb; and to my private satisfaction the show evokes both the same 80s suburban Michigan I grew up in, and the same two cliques I mostly then moved with. (To complete the regression, while writing this post I am wearing sweats and consuming my third successive bowl of Corn Chex.)

Most impressive to me is how well, even how ingeniously, the Lindsay and Sam plotlines intertwine. In some episodes the points of contact are subtle and thematic, in others they're brash and literal; but in each the Weir stories contrast, compliment, or unexpectedly complete one another, and often they manage to do all three at the same time.

The combined effect of these interactions is tremendous. Emotions are blended, resolutions few and pointedly unconvincing; and so the series delves increasingly into the feelings between feelings, which to my mind is a mark of great art.

In the final scenes Lindsay says goodbye to her family and boards a bus. She calls out to her mother, as if she has something important to say, but then manages only another goodbye. Sometime later she sneaks off into a hippie wagon, and so we understand that she's lied to her parents, presumably after having taken their money, and will now follow the Grateful Dead for nine days...Part thrilling escape, part conscious betrayal, Lindsay's decision leaves the viewer at once amused and uncomfortable. The emotions are strong and contradictory here, and while part of me wishes that Freaks and Geeks had a thousand more episodes, I couldn't imagine a more suitable ending.

La Conquête du Monde

2007-11-18T07:30:00.000-05:00

The board game Risk was a big part of my childhood. Among my friends the competition was fierce and personal, and each family's house had its own peculiar code of honor. In mine the rule was that a broken treaty instantly united all players against the violator. I believed, and sometimes still do, that a person reveals his true character by whether he legally or illegally invades Irkutsk.

My friend L., meanwhile, was an incurable backstabber. At his house treaties were not even conveniences, they were jokes. At the beginning of his turn he would enter into complex negotiations, forging confederacies, hammering out short- and long-term ceasefires, even brokering ententes among the other players. Then he would pick up the dice: "I've changed my mind: Siam to Indonesia!" He justly laughed at our surprise. "I do this every time," he'd say. "And you fall for it--every time! And you are--stupid!" Indeed.

One day I finally got good or lucky enough to beat my father. The victory was bittersweet. After the final roll, when the last of his armies was removed from the board, his face showed hurt and confusion that stripped my triumph of all delight. There was, I can see now, an unspeakable indignity in having been eradicated in Madagascar by his own 12-year-old son. The humiliation would prove so lastingly painful that my father never dared face it again: that was our last game of Risk, and from then on he wreaked his vengeance through Trivial Pursuit.

Yesterday I learned that Risk was invented by Albert Lamorisse, the filmmaker who directed The Red Balloon; I had long suspected, but now I present evidence, that French cinema is but a vehicle for world domination.

overheard in my park

2007-10-25T19:06:00.000-05:00

A man to his spaniel: "You've got no privileges, Max."

associations

2007-10-19T04:47:00.000-05:00

In theory all hackneyed expressions are by definition abhorrent. In practice, however, not only do some offend me unequally, but a few I even like. As a proud Freudian I attribute everything to associations; examples and discussion arise from the couch:

"IT IS WHAT IT IS."
My friend L. thinks I hate this because it's senseless, it's three words stretched across five, and it's instantly repetitive--repetitive even if you don't repeat it. This may be true. It is also true that I most strongly associate IT IS WHAT IT IS with my former coworker N., who used the saying as an all-purpose excuse for incompetence. Didn't file a court brief on time? "The material was given to me late--the case was doomed from the start--IT IS WHAT IT IS."

"WHAT CAN YOU DO?"
Although WHAT CAN YOU DO? is more or less interchangeable with IT IS WHAT IT IS, I don't mind it at all. Perhaps this is because it asks a question. Say WHAT CAN YOU DO?, and who knows?--the listener may have your answer. The expression, paradoxically, is both an acknowledgment of defeat and a final attempt at a solution; and doomed resilience has always resonated for me. But more likely my tolerance for WHAT CAN YOU DO? goes back to Seinfeld. Fifteen years ago the Whale and I saw him do stand-up at the Fox Theater in Detroit. One of his jokes went like this: "Every Thanksgiving my family used to get into the same heated fight. Politics, sports, that time Uncle Joey ran over the dog--it all came up. But just when things started to boil over, my grandfather would stand up and put his hands on his stomach. He'd let out this big sigh and say, 'Well? What can you do?' And that effectively ended all argument."

"DO WHAT YOU GOT TO DO."
L. expected me to hate DO WHAT YOU GOT TO DO for the same reasons she hates IT IS WHAT IS. (Senselessness, repetition...) Instead it makes me smile, especially when it's voiced by someone from Brooklyn. I attribute this to how the expression features in the story my friend W. tells about his son's conception: "I remember the exact moment. I was sick as a dog. I had the flu, and I had just finished throwing up. But then my wife called me into the bedroom. She said the basal temp was right, the stars were aligned. I got in there, did what I had to do, and--" (fist pump) "--knocked her up good."

Its all about the Benjamins

2007-10-14T21:04:00.000-05:00

The Whale just informed me that our legions of readers have been waiting with baited breath to find out the fate of my reimbursement check. Well, wait no more. I was reimbursed on Friday, only seven months after my trip. The winner, and still champion!

Speaking of championships, I visited a kaiten zushi (conveyor belt sushi) establishment today. As I was finishing my meal, a group of 15-year-olds dressed in costumes entered the restaurant. One kid, dressed as a panda, indicated to his server that he would be taking the "plate challenge." She read him the rules -- he had 90 minutes, and he had to eat it all, fish and rice, for it to count. As I was leaving, I asked for details. Apparently if you can eat 30 plates in 90 minutes, you get a free tee shirt. And if you become the champion (beat the current record, which stands at 59 plates in 90 minutes), you get one gift certificate per month until you are unseated as champion. I wished the panda luck as we left the restaurant.

musical Janes

2007-10-09T06:31:00.000-05:00

A longstanding fear for me as a wannabe writer, and an occasional distraction to me as a pathologically loyal reader, is the Cast of Recurring Characters. Even the very best imaginations at some point run out of new voices: Macbeth's most famous speech ("Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow...") could very well have been Hamlet's, while Goneril and Lady Macbeth crib each other's lines. Whole books by Faulkner, meanwhile, are virtually interchangeable: they switch backdrop from swamp to village to horse show, but barring this only Toni Morrison could tell them apart.

A couple months ago I reread Pride & Prejudice. I wanted to lose myself in the story, but was unable see past some recurring types in Austen's books: is Jane Bennett both Jane Fairfax (Emma) and Anne Elliott (Persuasion)? Is Mr. Wickham the same as Mr. Crawford (Mansfield Park), and is Mr. Bingley a nicer and richer Mr. Willoughby (Sense & Sensibility)? One could play this game all day, and it's not just characters who, from book to book, shift between central and supporting roles.

Take, for example, the theme of persuasion. It is the title and central subject of Austen's last novel, but in Pride & Prejudice it appears as light material for a brief and teasing repartee: "To yield readily--easily--to persuasion of a friend," (Ms. Bennett tells Mr. Darcy), "is no merit with you." (Emphasis Austen's; the theme also pertains to Darcy's influence on Bingley, but that is not the subject of this post.) This isn't attention-grabbing wankery like the travesty of Romeo & Juliet slipped into A Midsummer Night's Dream, or like the mocked quotation of The Marriage of Figaro near the end of Don Giovanni. It is, however, enough to knock Austen's obsessive readers out of that elusive, delicate moment; the scene falls away the moment we begin to think.

None of this in any way discredits Austen herself, whose genius lies in what she does with her material, rather than in its flash and variety. (She is, and may she forever remain, my favorite English-language novelist.) Such intertextual connections do, however, make me glad to have held back on certain authors. Melville and Grass are the topical examples: I've read exactly one book by each of them and am afraid to read more. Sometimes you want to learn, and sometimes you want to hold onto the magic.