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This year for Halloween, I am a zombie. A sleep-deprived, stressed out, bagel-eating zombie. Scary. |
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| Wednesday October 31 2007 |
****Halloween Cheer
This year for Halloween, I am a zombie. A sleep-deprived, stressed out, bagel-eating zombie. Scary.
Mr. Pinault, on the other hand, is an award-winning 'sexy' cheerleader. After I convinced him that cross-dressing is an acceptable Halloween tradition, he stunned his office by wearing my old cheerleading costume to a party, and proceeded to take Second Place for Best Costume.
Which is funny, because he doesn't even have pom-poms. But Mr. Pinault does has great legs...
| Tuesday October 30 2007 |
****Hair Apparent
Today I met a certain co-worker in person for the first time. We had talked over the phone roughly a dozen times, so we were openly curious to meet each other.
"Funny, I pictured you as a brunette," she said over lunch, smiling at my tight blond bun. Generally speaking, I'm buttoned-up, and will only laugh politely or with good reason. I strive to maintain a professional air.
"That's really funny, because I pictured you as a blond," I replied, motioning to her neat brown bob. Generally speaking, she's assertively friendly, always with something to say, with a quick and easy laugh.
It wasn't until after lunch that the exchange struck me as not so innocent. Did my assumption imply that I thought her dumb? Did her assumption imply that she thought me mousy?
After more analysis, I decided what she meant to say was "Funny, I pictured you ugly," and what I meant to say was "Funny, I pictured you fat." (Now that's a very blond thing to say.)
| Monday October 29 2007 |
****I'm Number 1!
My morning routine when I get to work is always the same: Check email, check bank account balance, check web site statistics. All three are generally stable and ho-hum. Even my web site statistics have remained same-old-same-old for a long time, with no spikes caused by a virulent trend of search engine traffic.
Until today. This morning there was a huge uptick in traffic from Yahoo. In fact, at 8am, there were 1000s of hits since midnight last night. Huh. That's weird. What happened last night? Did my ode to beet greens strike a chord among night-owl health fanatics? Have my reviews of perfume samples finally won me fame in China? Did one of my cute kitty photos make Reddit?
Nope, turns out my newfound popularity was coming from... the Red Sox's World Series victory. Kind of funny, since the only reason I'm celebrating the Red Sox today is because they put a swift end to the foot-dragging baseball season in a city far, far away. Go Sox! Go away!
A page of my pictures from the 2004 World Series Rolling Rally (here) is the top-ranked page in Yahoo for search queries of "red sox parade" in lower-case letters. It's beating out freaking boston.com in the results ranking (see screenshot below).
As of 4pm Monday, the 2004 Rolling Rally page on my web site received over 4300 hits, because not only is it Yahoo's number one choice for "red sox parade," but it's also pretty high ranked for "red sox peraide," "red soz parade," "red sox prade," and "blow up doll."
| Sunday October 28 2007 |
**** Movie Review: The Darjeeling Limited 
out of 
I swear, I'm the only college-educated liberal of my generation who doesn't "get" the films of Wes Anderson: Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic, and now The Darjeeling Limited. They are all cute collections of likable vignettes featuring oddball characters and poignant slow-motion sequences set to catchy music. The trailers are always so enticing (here for The Darjeeling Limited trailer). The tragic elements are always outweighed by some light and satisfying resolution, and I leave the theatre smiling at the world...
But so what? It's the cultural equivalent of ice cream. Pleasing, indulgent, and rich. It's yummy and you'll love it, but you'll forget about it pretty quickly. The plot is secondary to the visual baubles like Indian cough syrup, poisonous snakes, designer luggage, and peacock feathers. Wes Anderson is a unique director, but he will not stand the test of time.
Then again, what do I know? Martin Scorsese, the Zeus of cinema, is full of praise for Anderson's "very special kind of talent" for conveying "the simple joys and interactions between people so well and with such richness" (here). I concur with Scorsese - what choice do I have? But damned if I can remember any of these simple transcendent details a week later.
| Saturday October 27 2007 |
**** City of Thinly-Veiled Disgust
Travel and Leisure magazine surveyed 60,000 travelers about the charms of 25 American cities and released their "America's Favorite Cities" results (here).
Although cities are rated on a variety of criteria like friendliness, intelligence, and fun, the category that is grabbing headlines around the world is, inevitably... "Philadelphia is home to the least attractive people in the United States" (here).
As a Philadelphia native, I really can't do anything but agree. I mean, why do you think I left? Even the Philadelphians who are attractive have this spurious quality in their comeliness, like it's a temporary condition that will diminish with each subsequent cheesesteak. It's like the glare of New Jersey is reflected in the oily, pockmarked sheen of their skin.
But then again, it's sort of unfair to point at Philadelphia and snort Ugly. I don't see any cities in Ohio on the list... or Baltimore.
Boston comes off as a total prick of a city, rating high as "intelligent" and "worldly" but low as "fun" and "friendly." We score high in culture and low in weather and barbecue (here). Attractiveness, we're a solid 16... behind Nashville? Oh, that's defamation.
| Friday October 26 2007 |
**** Can't Beat Beet Greens
What can be better than beet greens? Of course, it can only be free beet greens!
Yesterday, a kindly vendor at the Boston Public Market handed me a bag full of beet greens after I inquired about the per-pound price of what I thought was swiss chard. "Beet greens? Is it like swiss chard?" I asked. "Yeah, but I think swiss chard is more tender," he answered. Swiss chard is more tender? Beet greens must be, like, the Mike Tyson of leafy greens.
I tried to pay the vendor, but he waved away my money and told me (with a wink) to come back next week and tell him how I liked them. Wait, are you trying to win my affections by plying me with free beet greens? Do I look that healthy to you?
I know a secret: Any leafy green can be transformed into delicious by being sauteed in olive oil, garlic, onions, cider vinegar and a splash of maple syrup. An accompanying glass of wine is, of course, mandatory.
Mr. Pinault was simply thrilled by the appearance of "tougher than chard" beet greens on the dinner table, although he was suspicious about what I said or did to get them gratis. "Come on, I'd never flirt for beet greens. Tomatoes, berries, and maybe a melon, but not beet greens."
| Thursday October 25 2007 |
**** Aye, Matey, 'ere's me tenure?
On Boston.com's Health section, a picture showed an elderly man with an eye patch, and the teaser said Paul Sally is the 74-year-old "Professor Pirate." Woah. That's prime Human Interest content, and I'm human, so of course I clicked on the link to read the article (here).
The article is a bizarre but moving portrait that mashes the professional accomplishments of a University of Chicago math professor with his tragic physical deformities resulting from diabetes complications, including the loss of his left eye 25 years ago. One day he's ignoring doctors advice to lower the height of his two prosthetic legs from the unwieldy stature of 6 foot 3 inches...the next day he's lecturing at MIT about supercuspidal representations of p-adic groups.
Disappointingly, past the teaser, nowhere is the moniker "Professor Pirate" used, although the line "a laugh large enough to make his eye patch dance" more than made up for this omission.
**** Rockies Rocked
Should the anchors on Boston's local news shows be so giddy about the Red Sox trouncing the Rockies in Game 1 of the World Series (here)? Those big boozy grins embossed by bone-white teeth and wild eyes seem a tad impartial.
| Wednesday October 24 2007 |
**** The American Idea
This month, The Atlantic Monthly celebrates a century and a half of noble existence with their 150th anniversary issue (here). 150 years! Yes, this is a magazine so old that, in its infancy, it published an article called "Ought Women to Learn the Alphabet?" Ha ha ha. It's hard to be outraged by such quaint grammar.
The issue features dozens of essays from celebrity contributors about "The Future of the American Idea" (here). The essays range from John Updike's foreboding literary parallelism ("The American idea, promulgated in a land of plenty, must prepare to sustain itself in a world of scarcity") to Nancy Pelosi's political ass-honking ("Young people are engaged in their own dialogue - talking about their hopes for a brighter future and for peace and prosperity") to Eric Schlosser's cynical liberalism ("The America I love bears little relation to the freak show now peddled by Hollywood and the cable-news networks") to Frank Gehry's cry for attention ("I wonder why great architecture isn't considered an important shaper of the American Idea.")
But I agree with regular Atlantic correspondent PJ O'Rourke, who, in the midst of a four-paged crazed riff on a 5,289-paged book of historical US statistics (here) utters a simple truth: "America has a lot of things." Yes! Yes! The future of the American Idea, like the past of the American Idea, and the present for that matter... involves a lot of things. One Idea, but billions upon billions of things.
| Tuesday October 23 2007 |
**** Chuckles over Knuckles
I discovered that saying the word "knuckleball" (as in, "The Red Sox knuckleball pitcher isn't playing in the World Series," here) has an interesting effect on Mr. Pinault, who gives a delighted chuckle not unlike the Pillsbury Doughboy when he receives a poke in the stomach.
That's how we discovered that Mr. Pinault didn't know what "knuckles" are. It's an increasingly rare event that he'll come across an English word that he does not understand, so when it happens, I must exploit:
"Want a knuckle sandwich?" I asked, to which he gamely agreed. Pow. "Wanna play Bloody Knuckles?" I asked, to which he demurred.
It turns out that there is no commonly-used French equivalent of the word knuckle. Like, they'll say craquer mes doigts (cracking my fingers) or craquer mes jointures (cracking my joints), but don't use a specific term for the joints of the fingers.
Knuckle is a German-origin word that can also be used as a verb to mean applying oneself industriously to a task. Interestingly, this is another concept for which the French lack a word.
**** Goodbye to the Normals
I resist posting links to things that are more clever than myself, but I adore this very short movie created for a Robbie Williams song, "Goodbye to the Normals" (here on YouTube).
| Monday October 22 2007 |
**** "Put on your red socks, darling, and let's go dancing!"
It was a helluva Monday morning. The weather forecast said 80 degrees, so I threw on my summertime office attire: a pair of cropped cotton gray pants, a slinky light-weight flowered blouse, and my German-engineered sandals. At 7:30am, I walk to the train station in the brisk morning chill, shivering like a wet mule under the weight of my laptop, my French books, my lunch, and all of the personal accoutrements that I will need until I return home at 8:30pm.
On the train, I stand by the doors with my bags ratcheted between my legs, struggling to physically handle the New York Times while intellectually overcoming the distraction of the spanish-speaking woman talking on her cell phone in a barrage of rapid-fire retorts. The train is running at reduced-speed through maintenance zones, and we arrive at South Station 50 minutes later.
I walk to my office, a billion 'to do' bullet points unorderly floating in my brain. Phone calls to make. Emails to write. Decisions. Decisions. Must buy stamps. Must buy new train pass. Must send birthday card. What's for dinner tonight? What did I need to buy at CVS? Jesus Christ, did I do my French homework? And oh yeah... my job. Tee-hee.
I rush through a crosswalk just as the Don't Walk sign stops its warning flashes, and come face-to-face with an elderly street person who is shaking a small Dunkin Donuts cup to rattle the coins within. He looks at me and grins. He doesn't have any teeth. "Put on your red socks, darling, and let's go dancing!" he booms, bobbing slightly in place.
I continue to walk. I make it about a block before I turn around, battling the stream of oncoming commuters that I am now walking against. I approach the panhandler from behind and drop a dollar in his cup. I sneak away. He is homeless, toothless, and carrying a cup of coins. He is the happiest-looking person I've seen all morning.
| Sunday October 21 2007 |
**** Sun, Sand, Surf, and Foliage
When the fall foliage is peaking, the automatic urge is to head to the forests, probably because, well, there's a lot of trees in the forest. Look at that explosion of red! That outburst of orange! That flare of yellow! And how they all blend together to form a patchwork of color!
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| Saturday October 20 2007 |
**** The Political Leanings of Drunks
I had an hour to kill in Boston's Back Bay/Fenway neighborhood, so I headed to the original Bukowski's Tavern, the only nearby bar where aging hipster bartenders sling beers brewed by Trappist monks to people who weren't in the area shopping at Copley Place or Newbury Street.
I sat at the bar and ordered some kind of Weizen. I pulled out an Atlantic Monthly magazine. I hated to be that person sitting in Bukowski's and reading at the bar, so I tried to look nonchalant and unabsorbed. Occasionally, I would look up and smile at nothing, or stare meaningful at my beer.
Before I left, I went to the restroom. Someone had meticulously penned on the wall in black marker "i wanted to overthrow the government but all i brought down was somebody's wife" and attributed it to Bukowski. It made me giggle.
Today I sought the source of the Bukowski restroom quote, imagining it to come from a story but it's actually the title of poem (here). The poem touches on politics ("We plotted to overthrow a tottering dynasty"), but overall it's a fine example of Bukowski's iconic uninhibited maleness ("[I was] always drunk as possible, well-read, starving, depressed, but actually / a good young piece of ass would have solved all my rancor.")
The part of the poem that I get stuck on, though, is this: "I guess she felt as I: that the weakness was not Government / but Man, one at a time, that men were never as strong as / their ideas / and that ideas were governments turned into men." Hmm. Okay, I think he's saying that governments are good ideas that are poorly executed by men. I must have read it about fifty times and I still can't fully wrap my brain around it.
But, why the heck am I trying to decipher Bukowski's freaking political philosophy? If the title of the poem didn't clue me in, certainly the last line should: "I would have to get / very drunk again."
| Friday October 19 2007 |
**** 10 Grains of Rice
Play the vocabulary game at Free Rice, and for each correct answer, they'll denote 10 grains of rice to aid agencies for hungry people.
"Please play as long as you like" the game says, as the bowl steadily fills with rice gleaned from my vernacular prowess. Finally, a means by which my overdeveloped lexicon can alleviate world hunger! The internet is so awesome!
Mr. Pinault's eyes got very wide as he watched me play the Free Rice game. Indeed, I was on a streak, playing to 660 grains of rice, with the vocab level hovering around 42. It was mostly educated guesses, but still very savant.
| Thursday October 18 2007 |
**** Dying Wishes
The British charity Age Concern conducted a survey of 100,000 elderly people about their preferred funeral rites (here). The results suggest that being buried alive is a preoccupation, with many people asking to be certified dead, have a mirror held up to their face, or be buried with a cell phone.
Being buried alive is a primordial human fear, as it removes the quick or unconscious elements of natural death and forces a prolonged, solitary, premature head-on confrontation with mortality.
But rest assured, and in peace: These days, getting prematurely buried in a coffin is impossible. Even if you do fool the coroner, it's impossible to cheat embalming.
| Wednesday October 17 2007 |
**** The Red Sux
I have not been a devoted baseball fan since the 1993 Philadelphia Phillies, who improbably battled all the way to the World Series (and lost to Toronto). This mulleted and paunchy bunch won my heart with the sheer unlikeliness of their superior athleticism, epitomized by first baseman John Kruk, who was once parodied dead-on by Chris Farley (here) and is now a ESPN "analyst" who says insane things like "I'd rather have my leg cut off than hit against a knuckleballer" (here).
In fact, living in Red Sox Nation for the past 12 years, I've grown quite anti-baseball. I've never witnessed any phenomenon like the Red Sox, which induces grown adults to block out everything in order to focus on a boring, drawn-out, repetitive sport, and stake all their happiness and self-worth on the outcome.
After last night's Red Sox loss to Cleveland, which puts Boston in a 3-1 series deficit (here), the mood is perceptibly grave... it's life or death. "They've been in tough spots before," one man pontificates in the sandwich line at Viga. His voice raises, and people rip their hungry eyes from the foccaccia-stuffed comestibles to stare. "They can come from behind and win a playoff series. They did it to the Yankees. They can do it to Cleveland. This is a team that's all about comebacks. This is a team you never stop believing in!"
Many people applaud this crazy man. I'm sure the fact that he looks like a CEO and he's with a woman who looks like a young Candice Bergen helps his cause. But for me, it just pours a bit more salt on the plot of soil called "baseball" that lays fallow in my brain.
| Tuesday October 16 2007 |
**** Tales from the Rails
I pause ever-so-briefly while climbing the steps to board this morning's Boston-bound express train. From within the double-decker car, a distinct buzz emanates: Scores of unrestrained vocal cords, vibrating disharmoniously in affected, outraged nonchalance. Dear lord. Teenagers.
Upon stepping into the car, I am welcomed by a cluster of shiny-haired, jean-clad high school girls (sophomores, I'd bet), one of whom looks directly at me while half-screaming "Doesn't anyone get off this train?"
I push my way through the crowd of 12 or so girls, who buzz about how their male counterparts have migrated to other cars in order to find seats, and how they want seats, and how they don't want to stand for the 35 minute ride into Boston. Welcome to the real world, ladies, where none of those dozing old fat dorks in suits are even considering chivalrously ceding their comfort for yours.
They do not think to sit on the stairs that they're flanking, so I sit on a newspaper on the top stair. I can block them out of my vision with a New York Times, but I am two feet away from the epicenter of the conversation, which borders on mind-numbing tedium until it turns to the Natick Collection and Chanel purses.
"Nobody at Framingham High has a Chanel purse," one girl is saying. "I mean, that's, like, what? A couple thousand dollars? I mean, that's ridiculous."
The girls fall silent until someone says "Well, maybe people have Chanel purses, but they're not taking them to school."
"Yeah, you're right," the first girl says. "I mean, I would never bring my Chanel purse to Framingham High. It would be gone in two minutes."
Everyone rushes to agree that they would never bring their Chanel purses to school.
| Monday October 15 2007 |
**** Particularly Lessing's Cats
Back in my college years, I handed my best friend Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook, which appealed to our conflicted academic Riot Grrrl sensibilities. Last week's announcement that Lessing was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature made me want to call her so we could mutually gush and express dorky joy over Lessing's historic recognition.
Although my BF went on to develop a strong liking for Lessing's work, unfortunately for me, I followed The Golden Notebook with Lessing's debut novel The Grass is Singing, which struck me as overwrought and simplistic. I then picked up The Fifth Child. Such a cool idea for a book (a family's middle-class happiness is destroyed by their disturbing fifth child named Ben), but unsatisfying and poorly executed.
Then, some years later while browsing a used book store, I found a Lessing book called Particularly Cats (here). This thin autobiographical tome features Lessing's meditations on cats she has lived with, and centers around Grey Cat and Black Cat, whose actions and temperaments she describes with the obvious admiration of a cat lover. The book instantly appealed to me, the subject matter was well-suited for Lessing's prim and detached writing style.
Particularly Cats never appears on the lists of Lessing's selected works that float around since she won the Nobel (here), because the Nobel Prize is not awarded based on anecdotes about domestic cats. One analysis of her Nobel commendation prizes Lessing's writing for grappling with the question "in an age that values the individual, how is the individual supposed to stem the tide of what appear to be the increasingly catastrophic forces that threaten our world?" (here). Whatever. I like her stories about kitty-cats.
| Sunday October 14 2007 |
**** The Berkshires
In the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts, a raw wind bears a touch of Canada, blowing the green out of the leaves, quickening our walk, kindling our appetites, and chilling even staunch New England souls like myself who regard Old Man Winter as a minor deity.
I want to plunge my hands into the guts of pumpkin. I want to take a hayride, to bounce against the soft warmth of hay as the tractor pulls our wagon through mazes of 10-foot corn. I want to bite into an apple and taste the crisp sweetness of autumn's bounty. I want to snuggle under a blanket and listen to the wind as it quiets the bugs, the birds, and all else that crouches mute under the waning moon.
| Friday October 12 2007 |
**** Googles
For about 80% of the search engine phrases that bring people to this web site, I instantly recall the post of origin. Such is the steely grip that my own writing has on me.
For example, the search phrase had a poppy seed muffin yesterday taking a drug test today is the result of a post when I was in a similar predicament this past summer. brussels sprouts bitter and buggy comes from last year's post about cooking yummy, bug-free brussels sprouts. running elvis pictures is the result of one such indelible photo from when I ran the Broad Street Run more than 5 years ago. And, incredibly, I still get about 100 hits a week about that idiot Fabian Basabe from a series of derisive posts in January 2004.
However, I profess complete ignorance regarding lumberjack baby by jackal. And I really don't recall writing anything about soothing,red,itchy,dog butt. And funeral home scandal necrophilia... I'm clueless, really, but not too surprised.
INTERROGATIVE
is gum allowed while taking the gre
are feces of green color fine for those who eat a lot of vegetables
can you take unopened bottle of water on plane
what movie does the line "you shut your mouth when you're talking to me" come from
how does the average man lose his unhealthy midsection
how many bananas are eaten at the oscars
how to cook brussel sprouts trendy
QUOTATIONS
teacher "saying the word retarded"
guiltiness turkey "social work"
humor spoof "my precious" pants off fat actor
"everyone has had more sex than me" subtitle
cambridge "central square" clipboard dreadlock
husband "hedonistic behavior"
public footpath "leeds castle"
nyc escort "stevie"
MISSPELLED
tallest mountain peeks and rage
pi-wee german's bike
cole miner 6 men trapped in sand
orgy dating dairy blog
CELEBRITY
bill gates spanked as a child
marilyn manson cursing and mocking jesus christ
joan crawford stag movie
video of meredith vieira lap dance
haruki murakami lederhosen swiftly
topher grace and his lexus suv
ashton kutcher spanked child
is fabian basabe really rich
hate fabian basabe. i want to beat the living crap out of him
is billie joe mentally retarded
is paul banks of interpol married
jenna bush crotch
EVERYTHING ELSE
mens cologne and the bottle is shaped like a man's torso
seasonal mood disoder in women associated with husbands going hunting
natural way to get adult urine smell out of clothes
snopes: red bell peppers have more vitamin c than oranges
moms who train there daughters to be lesbians
fung wah tee shirts
urban language how's the chub
television commercial analysis oreo pizza
french men haircut phrases
necklace red sox players
retard jargon
methacton evil hill
methacton hs repeating a grade
hollywood tuna stewardess
sexual organs of the girl
mountain dew's ode to the classic comic strip spy vs. spy
pictures of lime green pimps
multitudinous great crowd and jehovah witness
typical inseam measurement for men 6 feet tall
sending sperm via usps letter
pinnacle of cuteness
| Thursday October 11 2007 |
**** Geek Philanthropy
Microsoft co-founder and multi-billionaire Paul Allen comes off like some sort of playboy jock, what with his ownership of the Seattle Seahawks and Portland Trailblazers as well as 3 monster yachts that are often mistaken for cruise ships (here). But with his funding of a pioneering telescope array designed to search for extraterrestrial intelligence, obviously he's a truly a geek at heart.
The Allen Telescope Array was unveiled today, with 42 of the planned 350 radio dishes already collecting data from the nether regions of the universe. The 20-foot diameter pivotable antennas will scope out astononomical objects and phenomona such as supernovas, black holes, and little green men (here).
Anyone who commits their life to finding aliens is naturally optimistic about the existence of ETs. A SETI astronomer involved in the project predicts "I think we will find (signals from intelligent civilizations) by 2025." Says a professor of astronomy "I expect the telescope to be fully online when we find that first Earth-like planet around a Sun-like star, so we can point the ATA at it and listen."
This $50 million project hinges on several gigantic assumptions, one being: that this Earth-like planet around a Sun-like star is either directly aiming a beacon at us, or outputing radio signals as haphazardly as Earth's traditional television broadcasts that allowed aliens to watch "I Love Lucy." (Our modern methods such as cable television and direct-broadcast satellites emit few signals into space, which is a relief to humans cringing with embarrassment over the last decade of TV programming).
Still, at the very least, the ATA will stock the public's interest in and their listless imagination in regards to astronomy, so the endeavor is not a complete waste of Paul Allen's money... not like the Portland Trailblazers or something...
| Wednesday October 10 2007 |
**** Twitch of Fate
In the sky, it's gray and foggy. But here on the streets of downtown Boston, the air is dry and crisp, and it's a good morning to be a pedestrian, strolling to the office along clogged urban arteries of vehicular metal, rubber, and smog.
I like walking among the corporate conquerors in their suits and shiny shoes. I match their clipped strides and aloof gazes. They are trim and spritely, ready to hunker down in their luxury office suites, battle in board rooms, wage war for market share, combat for capital, and clash for cash.
On High Street, I pass Sebastians, a hoity chain of corporate dining establishments in Boston that offers a diversified range of sandwiches, soup, salad, and hot entrees for discerning patrons who prefer paying $8 for a tiny portion instead of $5 for a sizable portion.
Sebastians is spacious and softly illuminated with contemporary lighting fixtures. There are stainless steel baker's racks of gourmet foodstuffs for light office refreshments and clandestine cubicle snacking. Though it is 8:30am, about a dozen workers with tan-colored skin bustle behind the counters, wearing white caps and aprons, preparing trays of food to be delivered to nearby offices.
I slow my pace outside of Sebastian's storefront. I am a believer that human life is ruled by twitches of fate, and I belive that it is by twitch of fate that my worth is measured output of words, and not output of sandwiches.
| Tuesday October 9 2007 |
**** You're Not From Around Here, Are You?
"This is the 6:05 Worcester Express," the conductor announced this evening as the train jerked out of South Station.
The woman seated next to me bucked in alarm. "I thought this was the 'War-chester' train," she yelped, moving as if to disembark the moving train like some sort of action hero instead of a tiny, clean woman in her sixties with a hulking floral-patterned suitcase.
A nearby man called "Yeah, this is the 'Woos-ter' train."
This did little to alleviate her restless concern, and in fact charged the situation with chaotic Abbott and Costello confusion. "This is the right train," I assured her. "It's not pronounced 'War-chester.' It's 'Woos-ter.'"
She looked at me blankly, then relaxed. "Well, I didn't know that," she said. "I've never heard it said like that before." She then proceded to tell me all about how she's going to Grafton to housesit for a nephew with two dogs while he's in California for a month.
"And where are you from?" I asked, pegging her as total southern Midwest.
"Ohio," she said. Ah, I should have known. Sensible-to-the-point-of-stupid Ohio.
| Monday October 8 2007 |
**** Rainmaker
Since Labor Day, we here in New England have enjoyed peerless weather. But as regional water tables dipped into drought territory, the perfect sunny days became a plague. Where was the rain? I felt compelled to end the dry spell with my surefire rainmaking cure: A White Mountains camping trip! |
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| Friday October 5 2007 |
**** Artificial Artificial Intelligence
I checked out MyCyberTwin (here) after talking with a co-worker about the current state of Artificial Intelligence. MyCyberTwin, which is old news (so first quarter 2007) allows users to create a virtual twin that can be their surrogate in online chat. Anyone can create a (free) cyber twin to amuse their friends, but the company's bread-and-butter probably comes from marketing and pornography.
The cyber twin's personality and "intelligence" is based on questions that the real human answered when they created the twin. "They claim that it's artifical intelligence, but it's not, because it's not learning independantly and on-the-fly," my co-worker explained. "It's regurgiating appropriate words based what the creator previously taught it."
Curious, I went MyCyberTwin and had several chats with virtual celebrity twins Paris Hilton and George Bush (though I would have prefered an intellectual like Sartre or Naomi Wolf.) Sadly, Paris impressed me more than George. Neither conversation felt "real" to me and the George twin in particular responded incorrectly to and evaded certain questions (arguably, this is what GWB himself would do).
First up: Paris Hilton (here). Note that "You" is me.
Paris: Hey I'm Paris Hilton and I am hot! Even though I was in jail, I'm still hot!
You: Why did you go to jail?
Paris: I did my time. I got let out early due to good behavior.
You: Good behavior? Didn't you escape or something?
Paris: Life is like totally good isn't it Meredith?
You: You're right. What's your favorite band?
Paris: I love the group Whitestarr. I like music I can dance to
You: I like to dance too
Paris: I am doing the funky chicken right now.
You: LOL
Paris: I love to make people laugh. It's nice you find me amusing.
You: Oh, I do. I loved the Simple Life. You and Nicole were so ridiculous!
Paris: So ... have you tried my perfume range?
You: No. I think your perfume is too floral and immature for my tastes
Paris: Yeah I am. A spoilt brat. LOL. It's great though.
You: No, you're great!
Paris: I like to think so too. Thanks for saying that though Meredith.
Then... George W. Bush (here):
You: So why'd you veto the health insurance for children bill?
George: I've been to war. I've raised twins. If I had a choice, I'd rather go to war.
You: Yeah, right. You joined the Texas National Guard during Viet Nam.
George: Indeed, I understand.
George: Do you think I am doing enough about the environment?
You: No, I think you care about industry more than the environment.
George: The environment? My advisors tell me it isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are
You: Well, I can't argue with that.
George: That sounds like a strong opinion.
George: Do YOU think I should withdraw the US of A from Iraq soon?
You: I don't think that we be there in the first place
George: Why is that, Meredith?
You: Because it's a very expensive war
George: I like the Green Berets and Bambi
You: WTF? Bambi?
George: Are you drink typing?
| Thursday October 4 2007 |
**** Anti-test Protest
Animal rights activists held a demonstration outside my office building this afternoon. About eight protestors, mostly choppy-haired young women, chanted along with an older man on a bullhorn ("Vivisection is a lie... How many more animals have to die?"). They stood by one of the building entrances alongside Atlantic Avenue, a major road that bisects the glitzy Boston Harbor real estate and the Financial District. (Our building security guards looked unusually alive.)
The only other protests I've seen in downtown Boston are blue-collar workers, upset with a conglomerate's anti-Union business practices. So I was startled to see signs with vivid vivisection pictures that protested the notorious animal testing company Huntingdon Life Sciences (here). I'm fairly certain that HLS isn't a tenant in our building, but perhaps they were targeting a customer or business partner. For sure it wasn't my company.
I mean, we're pretty evil, but we're not, like, vivisection evil.
| Wednesday October 3 2007 |
**** Comment tu t'appelles?
"We can stand here like the French, or we can do something about it." - Marge Simpson
After a year-long hiatus from French language classes, my body of French knowledge deteriorated down to various ways to politely demand cheese and wine. So, this fall I decided to take an intensive, twice-a-week French class for total beginners.
Re-learning basic French does feel futile. But French is not like arithmetic, where the knowledge that 2+2=4 doesn't need to be continuously renewed. This is French, where "Comment tu t'appelles?" could be "Comen to tapple" or "Como tu tappel" or "Come to tapels," depending on how well I'm guessing.
My pronunication is steadily improving, to the point where I can hear how viciously the French language is being murdered by my fellow students, 3 out of 5 of whom are native Spanish speakers. French is a challenge to anyone who speaks Spanish, because many of the articles deceptively look the same. A native Spanish speaker in my class giggles every time he says "elle" in reference to a female, because "el" in Spanish is a man.
Since all the other students are French-speaking novices, I'm totally the smartest person in the class. Plus, all the homework in my workbook is already completed. It's like I flunked a grade in school. I'm cruising.
| Tuesday October 2 2007 |
**** Movie Review: Eastern Promises 
(2 Green Thumbs out of 3)
Once you get past all the rape, throat-slitting, and the Yakov Smirnoff-quality accents, Eastern Promises (here) is undoubtedly the feel-good Russian Mafia movie of the year. I won't spoil the ending, but I left the theatre irradiating sublime optimism, however conflicted.
Oh, I jest. I like David Cronenberg. Despite his preoccupation with horrific violence, I feel safe watching his movies, because he may be graphic, but never gratuitous. Every gush of gore, every discharge of blood, every dismemberment happens for a very good reason.
Eastern Promises is a thoroughly delightful tale about a London midwife (Naomi Watts) who delivers the baby of a drug-addicted 14-year old Russian prostitute who dies in childbirth. In a quest to learn more about the baby's mother, Naomi steals her diary and sets out to have it translated by a kindly Russian grandfather who turns out to be the depraved head of the organized crime family. Along the way, she makes eyes at the irresistable Viggo Mortenson, a driver for the mafia head's berserk son.
Yeah, it sounds unbelievable, and one would imagine the audience in the movie theatre staring incredulously at the screen, but such is David Cronenberg's skill that the story is intelligent, plausible, and efficient. Looking back on it now, it feels like entertaining sophistry.
| Monday October 1 2007 |
**** A Darfur Deferred
On a packed subway platform in Harvard Square, Katie grimaces at her Razr, which is utterly without bars. Then she looks around at the other passengers. One frumpy woman's visible frustration with the train delay stirs reflexive apathy in Katie, even though she herself is 25 minutes late for drinks with Lana and Jacqui on Newbury Street. If anyone should be spazzing over a late train, it's her.
But instead, Katie stoically scans the front page of an abandoned New York Times. A small headline at the bottom catches her eye: "Darfur Rebels Kill 10 in Raid of Peace Force" (here). Darfur! Katie knows all about Darfur, having attended the "Rip the Runway for Darfur" gala in New York last month (sponsored by Level Vodka - here for pictures). Like, she knows it's pronounced "Dur-four," not "Da-fer."
Katie reads the first paragraph: "Hundreds of Darfurian rebels overran an African Union peacekeeping base in the central Darfur region of Sudan in a surprise raid over the weekend, killing at least 10 soldiers, possibly kidnapping dozens more and seizing supplies that included heavy weapons, African Union officials said Sunday."
Kate reads the paragraph again. And then a third time, parsing its meaning within the context of her knowledge about Darfur. She's confused. Wasn't the Sudan government the bad guys? So, shouldn't the rebels be the good guys? But why would the good guys kill the peacekeepers? Then Katie realizes: The peacekeepers are the ones who are supposed to 'save Durfur' from all the rape and genocide, and they're getting killed! If the peacekeepers are killed, then who will 'save darfur'?
Just then the train came, and Katie squeezes on the car, gripped by sadness. She aches to tell the strangers around her, to raise conscience, about the chaos and hopelessness in Darfur. She wants to - omigod, that girl is carrying the latest Jean Paul Gaultier bag that was featured in Vogue! Katie discreetly assesses the purse's buttons, belt and buckle on the woven tartan pattern, and is thrilled to be appalled by its gaudiness. What a colossal waste of $1500. She can't wait to tell Lana and Jacqui.
