Back to Home

****When Green is Gross

Red Line, After Work. I get on at South Station and pull out the WSJ. A plain, short woman with gray hair and a practical haircut sits next to me, holding a wide styrofoam cup with a plastic lid. After laboriously rooting around her WGBH tote, she pulls out a plastic fork and a compact paper napkin, and then peels off the lid of the cup to reveal... steaming mushy over-cooked cafeteria-style green beans. She then commences to eat the green beans as if in an International Federation of Competitive Eating-sanctioned contest. The sound of those pulpous beans being steadily chewed was surprisingly revolting. I go for my iPod, but by the time I've untangled the ear buds, she's already devoured two cups of watery green beans. Give that woman a trophy.

****Reviews of Abandoned Beauty Products Found in The Showers at the Gym

The Body Shop Seaweed Purifying Facial Wash ("with wild harvested Irish seaweed")

Green goo that dissolved into a surprising amount of foam. Nothing too special. If it does contain trace amounts of wild seaweed (as opposed to farmed seaweed, which would probably be of a higher quality anyway), my complexion would be better off if I ingested it.

Neutrogena Clear Pore Cleanser/Mask ("use as a daily cleanser... use as an intensive mask")

As promised, one application wicked away all of the oil. In fact, it voided my entire facial epidermis of moisture. It took three applications of moisturizer to rid my skin of its dry tauntness. And that was just after using it as a daily cleanser. The "intensive mask" treatment sounds tortuous.

Biosilk Silk Therapy Conditioner

I didn't need to wash my hair, but I was so tickled at the sight of expensive conditioner that I couldn't resist. With its creamy pudding consistancy and the scent of a rich girl's tresses, I worked it eagerly into my hair, imagining all of my split ends fusing into silk. After I dried my hair, it did feel softer and skinnier. This could be due to the scientific fact that changing shampoos and conditioners will get rid of build-up. However, it could be magic.

****Book Review: A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks In The Conquered City--A Diary, Anonymous

This recently republished diary (here on Amazon) of a German woman in her early-30s struggling to survive during the fall of Berlin in 1945 is so coolly written and wrought with horrific detail that I almost don't believe it is real. Surely one who is in the throes of such chaos and in constant doubt that her life will ever have a semblance of normalcy is incapable of rendering extensive near-daily journal entries filled with horrific detail, an absurd humor, and dispassionate self-reflection. The book has been called "one of the most important documents to emerge from World War II," but it is also remarkable well-written and quite gripping.

The Woman of Berlin begins her account right before Berlin falls. She is holed up in the basement of an apartment building that she has made her own, quietly recording the behavior and circumstances of the occupants as bombs shake the walls. Everyone is frantic with worry, yet surprisingly complacent. The women joke "Better a Russki on top than a Yank overhead," meaning that being raped by the approaching Russians is preferable to the bombing.

When the Russians, who they call "Ivans," do roll into a submissive Berlin, the rapes begin immediately. About half this book is about rape. The Woman herself is repeatedly raped by various Ivans before she decides to find a protector to keep the others away. The Woman in Berlin is educated and worldly; she can speak Russian, a skill that gives her a unique perspective. She wins over various Ivans with her ability to speak their language, and has many conversations with Russian soldiers. Sometimes she's discussing politics over potted meat, sometimes she's pleading for the lives of her neighbors.

She calls the Russian soldiers "child-like... They are only peasants, after all." She makes fun of their fascination with wrist watches (many wear dozens at once), and notes that they cannot distinguish between an expensive watch and a piece of junk. When the Russians enter the Woman's apartment building and go after the only plump woman, the Woman says, "Primitive people are said to have had particular respect for women who are fat, as symbols of abundance and fertility. Well, these days, they'd have a hard time finding such symbols here."

Food is a main preoccupation; the Woman writes "hunger is gnawing away at me like a savage beast. Eating just made me hungrier than ever. I'm sure there's some scientific explanation. Something about food stimulating the digestive juices and making them crave more." This is typical of her voice in the book, always pausing to look at her situation with an objective eye. Right before the Russians arrive, the Woman joins a crowd in the grip of "plunder fever" at a local police station, which has rooms filled with alcohol and food. She is resourceful but is still near-starvation by the time her diary ends.

You can guess that Hitler wasn't too popular in Berlin at this moment in time. In fact, a common rallying phrase used during Hitler's heyday ("For this we thank Hitler") is used repeatedly by Berliners upon hearing something horrific, like a young girl committing suicide or being raped to death ("For this we thank Hitler.") To keep warm, the Woman burns "all sorts of Nazi literature. Assuming everyone is doing the same thing - and they are- Mein Kampf will go back to being a rare book, a collector's item."

The ending, which I can't even begin to go into, is what made me that this could be partly fiction; it ends like a novel might, so beautifully perfect, tragic and optimistic all at once. This is one of those books I'll reread at least twice so that it can be fully appreciated.

****The Gold Digger

One genre of fluff news that never fails to rivet me is the Gold Digger saga: A woman of questionable origins and character marries an old millionaire who may or may not already be diagnosed with a fatal medical condition, leading to the inevitable fight for his estate with the outraged family. It's a calamitous culmination of humanity's two oldest and perhaps most fundamental social constructs: Marriage and money. Add in the American legal profession, and you've got one hell of a circus.

Anna Nicole Smith, the most notorious Gold Digger of our time, is back in the news: Her decades-old court case against her late husband's family, in which she seeks $474 million of unwilled money that she claims he promised her, is to be argued in front of the Supreme Court (here). "At issue for the court is a relatively mundane technical issue: when may federal courts hear claims that are also involved state probate proceedings." It's amazing the tricks lawyers can do for a few more billable hours.

Cape Cod is currently riveted by a Gold Digger court case in which former prostitute/madam Anne Flaherty is fighting to keep several millions of her not-quite-dead husband's estate; the family claims that Anne Flaherty was plotting to kill her husband (here). That's really the Gold Digger's dilemma: Am I patient enough to stay married to this old man for a few more years, or should I just have him offed? Given her demeanor in the courthouse ("'I kill people with kindness,'' she sneered to a reporter as she entered the court room), her sincerity may evoke suspicions, but the family is just as eager to do anything for money that they didn't earn any more than Flaherty did.

Society in general loves to loath the Gold Digger; she's one of those hyper-estrogen villains, like the Ball-busting Intellectual, the Crazy Cat Woman, the Penis Removing Wife, and Courtney Love. But most women are latent gold diggers. In every culture, the norm is for the woman to "marry up." This makes sense from an evolutionary perspective (I must put myself and my offspring in a better position to survive, thinks the woman/ She's rich, but incredibly short and pale, undesirable to copulate with, and won't produce strapping sons, thinks the man) and from a practical perspective (women of sufficient means are less inclined to marry, thus their male counterparts must look down on the social-economic ladder for a bride). Not many women fall in love with economic losers, unless the women are bigger loser. When you're supporting 2 kids on a Wal-Mart salary, any man capable of earning a paycheck and giving you some of it (or promising to) looks pretty good.

The thing that bothers people about the more flamboyant Gold Diggers, besides the fact that they digging for serious gold, is brazen lack of traditional marital love. But I'm sure Anna Nicole loved her husband when he lavished money and gifts on her in exchange for companionship and whatever sexual acts he was capable of performing. And I'm sure he loved her for letting him live out his life with a former Playboy Playmate. Love is so subjective, anyway.

****On Top of Mount Garfield

****Falling

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower. ~Albert Camus

I'm off to New Hampshire until the middle of next week to celebrate the first weekend of autumn. Too early for real foliage, but not for that comforting mountain chill. Another sticky, disgusting Boston summer, kaput.

**** Insidious Beer Industry Marketing Ploys

Watching football last Sunday, I saw a public service announcement from the NFL's ubiquitous sponsor, Anheuser-Busch. It urged parents to talk "openly" to their kids about underaged drinking. Amid all the poignant imagery of parents communicating with their offspring, a URL was thrown out: www.familytalkonline.com.

Sneaky, sneaky beer companies. They know that any teenager with needling, anti-drinking parents will be swilling Budweiser the next chance they get. To enter the website, you need to attest that you are 21 years old because our alcohol awareness efforts are designed for adults. Hmmm... while that seems illogical, it still verifies my theory that "Family Talk Online" is nothing more than a commercial to sell more shitty beer.

****A Horse is a Horse, a Course, or an Appetizer

Yesterday, the Senate passed a bill that cuts funding for horse slaughterhouse inspections, which effectively shuts down the export of horse meat to otherwise-civilized countries like Japan, France, Belgium, Italy, and Germany (here). These days, anti-free market legislation is a rarity; a deep national affection for horses prevailed over international trade and American jobs. Or maybe the Horse Slaughterhouse Lobby should have plied the Senate with cash instead of equine sausage.

In the print edition of today's Wall Street Journal, a Belgian butcher is quoted as saying "I love America. The horse meat in the US is the best in the world." Diplomacy through horse meat. Because there's really nothing else lovable about us.

****Legally Blind in Boston

Today at work, my contact lens began scratching the dickens out of my right cornea every time I blinked or shifted my eye. Thinking a piece of grit from my windy lunchtime walk was lodged in it, I tried to tease it out by blinking and shifting my eye rapidly. Within minutes, tears pour down my face and my nose runs. I knew the integrity of this lens had been breached.

Being unprepared for a contact lens crisis, I seize my Manager before he heads into a meeting. I am a mess. My eyes and nose gush liquid, and I nearly writhe from the searing pain. I explain the situation while on the verge of having a fit. He tells me to leave, adding that I should remove the offending lens as soon as possible. "One-eyed commutes can work!" he says encouragingly as I sprint into the bathroom with re-wetting drops. He's always so supportive.

I rip the contact from my red, wet eye and inspect it with my "good" eye. It has a small tear right in the middle of the lens. So I throw it away and stand there, one-eyed. I hate wearing just one contact. Someone told me that it makes you cross-eyed. Disturbing. Better, I thought as I plucked out the contact in my left eye, to be no-eyed.

Immediately, I regret my decision to throw away the other contact. See, there are people who "need glasses" and people who need glasses. I have 20/200 vision in both eyes, making me legally blind. All I see are vague shapes of color. I can't see, much less read, the letters on most signs, faces are mere blotches, and the glare from artificial lights will preclude me from seeing anything within a twenty foot radius of the light. Without vision correction, I'm defenseless.

The commute was scary, like being in a live-action Piet Mondrian painting. With nil peripheral vision, I bumped into at least six people, including one small lady that I almost knocked to the ground as I boarded the train. I muttered my apologies in her blank face. Was she fuming, smiling, preparing to spit on me? When I got off the T, I struggled to the street. Stairs became a challenge, as I couldn't see the ledges, and Central Square was just a blur of fast-moving objects.

A human shape approached me: "Excuse me, do you have a minute to care about the environment?" What are I supposed to say to that? "No, I don't have a single minute to care about the environment?" But I shake my head stupidly and inch down the sidewalk. Another human form near a bus stop asks me for the time. I squint at my watch for a full 20 seconds, like a moron, and then make up a time: "3:15, probably."

I then realize it is 3:15 (probably) and I'm not in work. Look at that smiling blind woman, tripping over a curb.

****Close Encounters

The streets, stores, and subways of Cambridge have swelled with students, causing three close encounters in one day.

Close Encounter of the Herd Kind

I'm jogging at a pretty good clip along the Charles River. My energy surprises me, given it's 6:30am and I consumed half a bottle of wine not ten hours ago. Rage Against the Machine shuffles onto my iPod, and my legs automatically start pumping a little harder; to me, Rage is the ultimate running music. I turn up the music and cruise.

As I pound down the nearly-empty path, something is suddenly amiss; I feel vibrations of sound, a slight wind, the instinct that I am being rapidly approached from behind. Just as I was about to peer over my shoulder, I am engulfed in a crowd of tall, skinny men in red and white uniforms. They surround me.

I am a part of the thirty-strong herd for maybe ten seconds, and then I am left in its dust. A straggler brushes past me as I wobble in the path to regain my form. In my ears: Just victims of the in-house drive-by / They say jump, you say how high. I continue jogging, pondering the herd.

Close Encounters of the Nerd Kind

Red Line, 4:45pm. I'm seated on a packed train, finally digging into the day's Wall Street Journal. There is a nerd seated to my right who is blatantly reading an editorial about the housing bubble over my shoulder. I can tell he's a nerd, not only from his frail body, pale skin, and "I never finished puberty" facial features, but from the distinct nerd pheromones that he's emitting.

(I am highly receptive to nerd pheromones. I've always favored nerds. Intelligence is sexy, and genius even more so. We owe our civilization and indeed the superior human brain to the nerd. The nerd evolved by having to prove his usefulness in the cave. Knowing he could never take down an animal or compete with the brawnier males, the nerd developed a brain to concoct elaborate ruses to procreate with females. Gradually the nerd's brain got bigger than his physically-blessed brethren, and females came to the nerd willingly after observing his mental prowess in action: That male may be able to club more animals, but that male invented arithmetic. Yow!)

I give the nerd a look to let him know that I don't tolerate over-the-shoulder newspaper reading. He grins wildly at me and says "Are you in business?"
Not knowing exactly what he meant but suspecting he was taking a cue from the WSJ, I say "No. Well, I work at a business. I write software manuals."
He's nodding and I don't think he heard a word I just said. He has a wild look in his eye, like She's talking! To me! "I go to MIT. I study chemistry. Where do you go to school?"
"I don't. I... write software manuals."
"Do you live here?" he says.
At that point I really wanted the conversation to stop, but I couldn't bring myself to be callous to the nerd. Flirting, however, is out of the question. "Yes."
"Do you, uh, like it?"
"I love Cambridge," I say simply. "Where are you from?"
"I'm from Ohio," he says. "Near Cleveland. Well, an hour from Cleveland, but Cleveland is the closest big city."
"Great." My eyes began wondering back to the WSJ the minute I heard Ohio. Yawn.
"I'm on the fencing team," he says.
"Great."
"Yeah. So, I'm sorry, where do you go to school?"
Nerd pheromones be damned. I wanted to grab his floppy ears and scream in his face: I write software manuals, you effing nerd!

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

At the Co-op after work, I put my bread and assortment of dried fruits on the checkout conveyor belt and wait patiently as the cashier rings up a woman who is buying one of every type of produce. A very tall white man with thick dreadlocks throws his tuscan pane, tofu salad, and a container of the fancy olives behind my food. He is singing a verse repeatedly, something like "Here She Comes, Her Eyes Are Magic." He stops singing and looks at me. "I like your silver," he says, referring to my necklace.

"Oh, thank you. I don't think it's silver though," I admitted.
"You tease," he said. He was wearing very black, large sunglasses, but I could see a youthful face behind that and his red beard. "Actually it's probably good that it's not silver."
"Really?"
"Yeah, silver's got strange properties. Like, it attracts mercury." He says this kind of vaguely, like he's not sure about this, like it's something some hippie chick told him in bed while he was sucking her nipples.
"Oh. Well, I think my necklace is titanium."
"Yeah, silver's definitely not good."
Obviously he does not notice my silver earrings, but I just smile and nod.
He starts inspecting my groceries. "I haven't had dried apricots in years," he remarked. "The last time, I remember this, it was the mother of my friend, she used to leave out all these healthy snacks, but we were young so we always hit the pizza and the Doritos and all that crap, but one time, I was totally fiending for the dried apricots. I ate, like, a hundred of them."

Woah. On that note, I am officially ending this conversation by pretending to search for my wallet.

****SUV City

It's SUV city, where traffic laws are suggestions, there's a gas station every mile, and you can take as many parking spaces as you need! Click here and watch the movie...

****Day Trip

Sometimes it's good to see Boston from a distance...

View from Buck Hill at the Blue Hills Reservation
Photograph by l'homme français

****Book Review: Whores - An Oral Biography of Perry Farrell and Jane's Addiction by Brendan Mullen

Everyone listened to Jane's Addiction when I was a teenager: Punk kids, heavy metal kids, hippie kids... boys and girls... any given conglomerate of suburban freaks in a car could put on Jane's Addiction and all be happy. They were the soundtrack of many memorable moments too formative to talk about.

I have since realized that love for Jane's Addiction is not universal, and most people only know maybe two songs ("Been Caught Stealing" and "Jane Says.") Which seems incredible to me, because I've always thought of them as my generation's Rolling Stones: Fueled insane energy and a bunch of drugs, they put out perhaps the only innovative rock music in an era riddled with hair bands and teenyboppers. Unfortunately, they broke up before solidifying their legacy.

I checked Whores out of the public library (living in Cambridge does have benefits). The entire book is excerpts from interviews with the band and others involved with their formation and existence: family members, girlfriends, other musicians, and hangers-on. It's entertaining, like reading a transcript for Behind the Music without any disapproving narratives about the rampant sex and crack. Plus, I learned some stuff I've always been curious about.

There was a Jane. She was a housemate of Perry Farrell's who got kicked out of the house because of her recreational heroin use. Jane graduated from Smith College and had a "real" job, and was not just some junky prostitute. Says the real Jane: They all came into my bedroom and they were like "We have a great name for our new band!" I was like, "Uh, that's not so good."

There also was a Xiola Blue. She was a much-younger beautiful rich girl from Malibu who went to art school in New York. Along with Perry Farrell's long-time girlfriend Casey Niccoli, she inspired the song "Three Days." (Said PF: To love two women at the same time is a pretty amazing moment in any personal history.) Not long after, Xiola overdosed on heroin and died at age 19. The controversial cover of Ritual de lo Habitual featuring a sculpture of three naked people in bed "really made [Xiola's] mother angry."

Guitarist Dave Navarro's mother was murdered by an abusive boyfriend when he was 15, which directly lead to his drug problems and ultimately his rock-and-roll lifestyle, culminating in a $700 a day habit by the time the band broke up. Reportedly they were all on drugs, except for drummer Stephen Perkins, who was the "blue sky" of the band, and the only non-addict.

Those are the major revelations, but it's the little details that makes the book fun. Bassist Eric Avery is rightly credited with Jane's unique sound, and cites Joy Division bassist Peter Hook as his greatest influence. I also liked this memory of Red Hot Chili Pepper John Frusiante: Perry once offered to do a debate with Henry Rollins. He said "Hey Henry, how about we do a debate on television where I'm pro-drugs and you're anti-drug?" And Henry freaked out. He's like: "I'll kill you! If we did that I would murder you!" Or when Casey Niccoli accepted the MTV Music Award for Best Alternative Video and was too wasted to be coherent...she was going on and on about what a genius Perry was... then Dave grabbed her and was trying to stick his tongue down her throat. I remember watching that and thinking how cool they were. Now, not so cool, only tragically hip.

****School Bus Drivers: Anti-Terrorist Operatives

All ye who fear terror, rest easy. School bus drivers are being mobilized into an "anti-terror matrix" under the $19.3 million federal School Bus Watch program, which trains school bus drivers to "radio suspicious activity to dispatchers, who would call a hotline in Virginia" (here for story in Boston Herald; here for press release from the Highway Watch program).

Do we really want school bus drivers looking for terrorists? Shouldn't they be keep their eyes on the road instead looking for all of the terrorists who hang out on residential streets and school zones? From what I can painfully recollect about riding the school bus, they should protect the nerds and future brains of this country from having their self-esteem permanently damaged by the cool "terrorists" in the back. How about an anti-bully matrix?

****Vonnegut's Still Writing, Sort Of

Vonnegut has a new book out, A Man without a Country (here for article, here on Amazon). It's a book of "integrated... overtly political" essays in which the 82-year old sage laments about the state of world and discusses literature. Though Vonnegut has always been a notable pessimist, the article notes that he has gotten more so. Says Vonnegut, "Life is too hard and it's getting harder. It hurts too much, and almost everybody fails."

****Still Here, In a Earthly Sense

I've been spending a lot of time in a basement reception room at the glam Boston Park Plaza Hotel with assorted co-workers and state government employees. It is a good time. I'm not expected to contribute to the moderated discussions, only observe quietly and absorb, and partake in the never-ending stream of meals and snacks that magically appear on the buffet every hour and a half.

The biscotti is to die for, but the coffee may or may not contain turpentine. Since I couldn't possibly eat biscotti without coffee, this leaves me in a quandary. I raise the dry biscotti to my lips, and hesitate. I raise the coffee cup to my lips, and recoil. Repeat.

Thankfully, I'm not expected to make small-talk with the current and prospective clients. In fact, the Sales and Marketing force has outdone themselves making sure that no one engages in anything other than carefully-scripted sales pitches disguised as small talk. Which I am grateful for, because I turn into a notorious spazz during business-related small talk. I'm so scared of saying something dumb or offensive that I often end up repeating whatever the other person just said with a slight variation:

Client: This is the first time I've been to Boston.
Me: Oh, it's your first trip to Boston?
Client: (Pause) Yes.
Me: Oh. Are enjoying the city?
Client:Well, I just got here three hours ago.
Me: Oh. You flew in this morning?
Client: (Pause) Yes.

Sensing the conversation is languishing, I'll then attempt to spice it up, usually by saying the first inappropriate thing that springs into my head:

Me: People usually get a bad impression of Boston the first time they come here.
Client: Really? Why's that?

Dammit. Why did I just say that? It was more a general observation of hearing visitors talk about what a rotten time they've had in Boston. I had no anecdotes, no hard evidence, absolutely nothing more to say about the matter.

Me: Well... the weather is usually bad. Either freezing cold or hot and muggy. And it rains a lot. And. it's a hard city to find your way around. And it's expensive, and kind of dirty and crowded. There are a lot of homeless people on the streets, asking for money. People are kind of rude here, too.
Client: Huh. Sounds like Boston isn't a good city to visit.

Omigod. I just rolled effectively rolled out the welcome mat and then defecated upon it like a bitter, surly local. I smiled brightly and started babbling about how it was a great city, quite charming with a lot of history and good restaurants... but I was saved by a VIP co-worker, who swooped in like an owl catching a mouse and carrying it off into the sky. Relieved, I turned back to my uneaten biscotti and untouched coffee.

****Tale from the T

Picture the ultimate stuffed shirt corporate flunky, resplendent in his Brooks Brothers attire and meticulously groomed, sitting on the Red Line on his way to work on a beautiful Tuesday morning. He's got the Wall Street Journal on his lap and a tasteful black leather briefcase squeezed between his carefully-folded legs. He looks awake and alert, ready to tackle whatever his Blackberry tells him to. Indeed, he represents the best of Corporate America: A synapse in its commerce-wired brain, the pulse of its greedy little heart, the tentacles of its global reach.

He also has an iPod pumping Technotronic's 1990 hit "Pump up the Jam" at an extremely high volume into his ears. It is loud enough that I can discern every syllable uttered by Ya Kid K: "Yo! Pump up the jam pump it up pump it up Yo! Pump it! pump up the jam pump it up pump it up..." It is loud enough that every person who boards the train looks around for the boom box that is blaring this beyond-annoying-at-7:30am tune. It is loud enough that the women next to him, who is also reading the WSJ and who also has a briefcase clamped 'tween her legs, looks up from her paper every ten seconds to glare at him with a hatred usually reserved for dog-kickers, public vomiters, and double-parking yuppies.

The stuffed shirt, probably no stranger to hostile women wearing Ann Taylor, ignores her, or is just oblivious, lost in the groove: "Yo! Pump up the jam pump it up pump it up Yo! Pump it! pump up the jam pump it up pump it up..."

****Love Your Body Day

It sounds like a marketing ploy of soap companies, or fodder for jokes about masturbation, but "Love Your Body Day" is the work of the National Organization for Women Foundation, an affiliation of NOW, which is an organization that I donate money to in order to build lobbying muscle for so-called "women's issues," including but not limited to abortion rights and real welfare reform.

Call me callous, but oh god, shut-up. "Hollywood and the fashion, cosmetics and diet industries work hard to make each of us believe that our bodies are unacceptable and need constant improvement" (here). No, women work hard at believing this, and they know they are being conned into shelling out cash by having their insecurities preyed upon, and they don't care. Whether it's buying a new lipstick, having excess facial fat extracted through precise incisions on the temples, or ordering a "Dieter's Delight" deli sandwich after having seen the new Kate Beckinsale Diet Coke commercial the night before... they don't care. Media is just telling them something that they've been evolutionary programmed to already secretly suspect.

While I agree that it's disgusting that little girls are dieting and women are surgically stuffing sacs of silicone into their chests, I cannot help but to resent the "touchy-feely" message that this day seeks to spread. Hey NOW, there are little girls being forced into prostitution all over the world. Women are being stoned to death because they were raped. Women are having their genitals mutilated. Let the poor, rich American women deal with their neuroses; don't spend resources assuring them that it's okay to eat that pint of Haagen-daaz.

And NOW's derision of "offensive" advertisements (here) is equally offensive in its juvenile snideness. "Dior proudly uses the themes of addiction and death to sell lipstick, under the impession [SIC] that the tactic is edgy and original. Not." This peppy and highly arguable analysis will help us love our bodies? Do we really need the NOW Foundation to master the obvious? This reminded me of my Women's Studies 101 discussion group, where we'd sit around and bitch about how that model is impossibly thin and that model is in her underwear for seemingly no reason. Hardly is this "furthering women's rights through education and litigation." Women have the right to buy lipstick and have fat siphoned from their thighs. On "Love Your Body Day," I'm buying new mascara.

****Another Meaningless Survey of an Oblivious American Populace

A recent poll found that 49% of Americans were "undecided" about Supreme Court nominee John Roberts (here). "Undecided"... or "Can't Seem to Give a Shit"?

The article theorizes that "many Americans are waiting for the [confirmation] hearings to help them make up their minds about Roberts." Yeah. Because America always listens first, and judges second.

Maybe more people would have an opinion if we weren't disenfranchised from the selection process of arguably the most powerful branch of the US government. The Supreme Court aren't elected, don't have term limits, and operate under mysterious shroud of untouchability. As the Washington Post says, "The court is in desperate need of reform; it has become increasingly isolated, imperious and opaque" (here).

However, since the Justices are not subjected to public elections, they give our political system an air of dignity and legitimacy. I've always thought of them as sort of a cloistered tribunal, debating cases in Shakespearean English around a big marble table lit with candelabras and surrounded by bookcases of thick legal lexicons bound in leather and inked with cruor.

****Rodentia

In its dying breathes, Summer summoned some sumptuous weekend weather in New England. Combine brilliant sunshine with an autumn chill in the air, and I go gaga. I want to do nothing but walk in the woods and trip over rocks while looking for chipmunks to coo over.

My companion called chipmunks "rats that can stand" and I denied that they were rats, but he was right: Like the squirrel, chipmunks are the order Rodentia, or rodent (here). I still refute that pigeons are rats with wings.

****quintessential morning

I've made a vow not to talk about Katrina on my website anymore, because I'm sick of reading about it in other blogs. So no more Katrina. Instead, the mundane details of my life:

Busy morning on Columbia Street in Cambridge. In addition to Saturday morning trash and recycling collection (due to Monday's holiday), half of the street is blocked off for a small festival parade, plus there is a HUGE Black funeral at the Methodist church across the street. The church is allowed to use the corporate parking lot that is outside of my window, and I could smell cologne and perfume from my bed.

I awoke and finished reading Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See (here on Amazon). It sounds like a children's book, but it is a novel written from the perspective of an old woman looking back on her life in rural 18th century China. I dug the fascinating details about her societal customs: the foot-binding, marriage traditions, domestic rules, and the secret written phonetic language with which women communicated. The ending carried a heavy moral message about treasuring our family and life-long friends, and I mused about this while I drank coffee and watched the funeral guests parking their cars.

I finally got out of bed and forced myself not to take a jog in the perfect slightly-cool morning sunshine because I jogged after work yesterday and I'm hiking this afternoon. Instead, I went gyming, and made good use of the rowing machine and free weights. Afterwards, stretching on the mats, the Competitive Stretcher to her place next to me. She is exactly what she sounds like: A very flexible young woman who will sit next to me and out-do me on every stretch. It's like in movies when a driver is idling at a stop light, and some hotshot pulls up and revs their engine: Wanna race? I stretch on a daily basis, so I'm pretty limber, but I'm no ballerina, and I can't really care. It's just distracting how she's obviously mimicking me and relishing in her superior muscle elasticity. There is one of her in every yoga class.

After devouring goat milk yogurt and cinnamon-swirl toast, I decided to tackle a perpetual chore on my chore-list: Clean out the closet. I picked an ugly shirt that my roommate gave me because she grew out of it, a sweat-stained t-shirt, and two pairs of black-high heels that deform my feet every time I wear them. Absurdly, I had a hard time letting go of all four of these things.

The funeral let out and organ music filled the air. When I finally turned off the Futureheads, I could also hear singing: Powerful, euphoric hymns that seemed to affirm my life at that instance.

****The Body Bags are Half Full: The Bright Side of Katrina

Yesterday, in an article about a poor, black mother of six who was evacuated from New Orleans and is ecstatic about starting over in Minnesota, the Wall Street Journal hinted at it: Maybe the Hurricane wasn't all evil. Maybe it's a blessing in disguise for the residents of the worst parts of the city who managed to survive, who can now get a fresh start with victim assistance helping them along.

With most of the beloved sections of the French Quarter and the Garden District are intact, maybe it was for the better that the slums of New Orleans are currently submerged under toxic floodwater. It was a good reminder to Americans that not all cities have become gentrified; that poverty and race remain intrinsically linked; that not everyone in this country has a car; and that urban design often conspires to put the lower-class citizen at great environmental risk.

When we "reformed" welfare, people in poverty didn't stop needing it. Maybe it's a good thing that the evacuees have full support of a sympathetic populace, eager to offer jobs and housing. And they can go anywhere in the country to start over. People all over want to help. Massachusetts' feeling were hurt when it offered 2,500 evacuees housing on a Cape Cod Army base, and found that only 200 people actually wanted to come here (here).

A pessimist might say "Okay, the survivors might fair well, but Katrina proved that our whole nation is at risk because our Government's defenses are obviously as weak as a retarded child's." An optimist, especially a paranoid conspiracy theorist, might breathe a sigh of relief and say "Big Brother? Our government is so inept, it can't even arrange for a fleet of buses, in a country filled with buses, to evacuate 20,000 people from the Superdome. There's no way this bloated, inept Government could be diligently enforcing the Patriot Act."

Indeed, a totalitarian regime would have been all over the situation in New Orleans within hours of the levee breach. If they control what their citizens read, worship, and can buy in a store, you better believe they're not going to let hundreds of thousands of them run wild in a flooded streets, stadiums, and hotels for four or five days. Big Brother would not have stood by, wistfully thinking about the missed "Goodbye Summer" bash at the Ranch and how he'd rather be mountain-biking.

[Check out this McSweeney's List: Totalitarian Institutions That Would Have Been More Fitting for George Orwell's 1984, Considering How That Year Turned Out (here).]

Additionally, the WSJ reported this morning that American's consumed 4% less gas last week, proving American can be forced to conserve energy... if their country is hit by a disaster of epic proportions.

So there are things to be optimistic about. Even GWB is finding hope in the future: "The good news is -- and it's hard for some to see it now -- that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch. (Laughter.) (here)

Give that man a mint julep and a piece of peach pie, that's a man with dreams of overcoming this disaster. The Gulf Coast will be fantastic and Trent Lott's porch will rise again.

****Give Us Your Wired, Your Rich, Your Coddled Asses Yearning to Breathe Free...

The college kids returned to Boston and Cambridge in earnest this week. I could whine about the busy sidewalks, the sudden influx of subway etiquette-unsavvy riders, the luxury cars driven by mere children with one hand on the cell phone and the other on the steering wheel who don't bother to signal or look for pedestrians as they fly down the streets at suburban speeds...

But this year, I won't complain. The city comes alive with their youthful vigor, naive enthusiasm, and sexy bodies. They stoke the coffers of the stores, restaurants, theatres and clubs that I love. This city would not be this city without them, it would be Hartford.

And they're amusing as all hell. Yesterday I walked behind two girls carrying Banana Republic bags in Central Square, and overheard this exchange:

Girl #1: What are those people doing?
Girl #2: What people?
Girl #1: That crowd over there, on the sidewalk. Is something, like, happening?
Girl #2: I don't know. I don't think so.
Girl #1: Oh, okay. I thought something was happening.
Girl #2: No, they're just standing there. Who knows.

You know, of course, what these two dimwits were looking at: A bus stop, with about a dozen people calmly and quietly waiting for a bus. Who knew! I bet money these were Boston University gals. All of them are gorgeous, rich, oblivious, and dumber than mud.

****Yeow!!

Attention, all women who find cycling geeks to be incredibly sexy but are turned off by Spandex:

We finally have our Playboy (here for Fixed Gear Enthusiass.)

****Beating the Bush

Michael Moore penned a scathing missive to George Bush (here). Che Moore must've took a break from his "fat farm for the rich" (here for previous post) in order to go on this milkshake-and-twinkie-fueled blame rant. Not bad. He's got some gumption mixed in with the trademark cloying sarcasm.

But does anyone honestly believe the situation in New Orleans would have been improved if George Bush hadn't been on vacation? All he's done since he's got back from the Ranch is give press conferences and participate in photo ops with black victims in which he looks scared someone's gonna steal his watch (here).

****The Least Popular Baby Girl Name For Now On

Isn't it strange how the name "Katrina" will be forever synonymous with death, disease, destruction, and government incompetence? The name itself means pure. I mean, before the hurricane, the name "Katrina" conjured images of a coquettish belle with braided blond hair doing a folk dance or making jam. However, given the levee breaches and the flooding, the Dutch connotations are rather appropriate.

****Kids Today Have It So Good

The FDA has approved ProQuad, Merck's 4-in-1 vaccine against measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox for children under 12 (here). I was totally ignorant that there's been a chickenpox vaccine since 1995.

The Wall Street Journal reported that though ProQuad combines two shots into one, the cost for ProQuad will $114, about $10 higher because of the "value" of a single shot. Drug companies are so ruthless. I think it will be about $10 higher because Merck is paying millions in Vioxx lawsuits.

****Wedding Review: Tim and Danielle

Some weddings are inevitable. Destined. Highly anticipated by everyone who knows the wedded. Enter, the wedding of Tim and Danielle.

****Thought of the Day

There is little need for me to add my voice to the chorus of outraged disbelief that many Americans feel about the Federal Government's handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

But I'm itching to say one thing: Screw Fallujah. Save New Orleans and the Gulf Coast.

If you haven't heard last Thursday's radio interview with Mayor Ray Nagin (here for story, here for transcript and audio), listen to it.

****New Orleans Gone Wild

Walking across the Fort Point channel in the mild morning sun, it suddenly occurred to me: It's September 1st! Somehow my August T pass still worked. Briefly overjoyed, I smiled at everyone I passed, and no one smiled back except an older man in luxury casual, who looked as though he was thinking "Is that a secretary at my office? These young blonds all look alike."

I've been industriously reading many articles about Hurricane Katrina. No detail fails to amaze me. Particularly incredible is the current situation at the Superdome in New Orleans (here). Talk about all the pinnings of a disaster movie: Hey, a Category 4 Hurricane is headed straight for our flood-able city! Let's load them all into the Superdome and hope the roof isn't blown off! Granted, what could they do? One could suggest these people be grateful to be alive rather than complain about the piles of feces on the floor... but the lack of AC, water, and food, plus all of the rape, makes te Superdome sound worse that the typical New Orleans Saints game.

Perhaps now the American people will demand the Bush and Rumsfeld bring our 80,000 National Guard troops home from Iraq (here). There are 21,000 in the Gulf Coast. Not to give any ideas to the legions of militant terrorists who read my website (they find me "vulgarly delightful"), but now is a pretty good time to blow up power plants and subways. Most of the country is being defended by local law enforcement, and they're all taking four-day weekends.

Perhaps Americans, faced with $5 gallons of gas, will adapt more sensible ideas about oil consumption. Ha ha ha, yeah right. I saw a Mississippi man on the news loading his Chevy Tahoe with dozens of containers of gasoline. He was probably thinking, "Thank God I have this hulking SUV so I can horde a lot of gasoline!"

Perhaps we will be forced to acknowledge the commonsense wisdom of the Speaker of the House, Republican Dennis Hastert, who says rebuilding a city that's seven feet under sea level is a plan "to take a second look at" (here).

Or perhaps we should all watch Girls Gone Wild: Mardi Gras (here on Amazon) and shed a tear for that grand old city of vice.