La Conquête du Monde

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

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

associations

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

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

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.

Fired up...

I had a job interview across the country in March. The interviewers offered to reimburse me for my transportation and lodging (as is the norm in my line of work). They didn't offer me the job, and I still have not been reimbursed. And when I talked to the person responsible today, I realized that I am not capable of speaking to her with the angry tone of voice that she deserves. But I did make myself not say "thank you" at the end of the conversation. Take that!

conversations overheard on my block

A shirtless smoking man, hairy and muscled, talking to his dog: "Brother! Upstairs! Now! Lay down, or I will LAY you down!"

A large woman to her small baby: "Why you crying? I just changed your ass. You clean."