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****Au Revoir 2005

This is my last post of 2005. I'm off to the French Alps on Saturday until New Years. I am excited, even though I cannot ski, speak the language, or eat fondue with poise. Luckily, I can rely on my nationality of the acknowledged 'greatest country EVER' to win acceptance and admiration from the French people.

I felt like tying a bow on 2005 by compiling a bulleted list of my Top Ten Greatest Moments, but ranking the events of my year seemed really pathetic and requiring too much self-reflection. Yet I like the highly-specialized year-end Top Ten lists that proliferate the media. So here are the Top 20 'Top 10' lists of 2005, in no particular order.

1. Top Ten Overlooked Movies of the Year (here). Overlooked? Or just so good that nobody cared?
2. Top Ten Chinese Young People of 2005 (here). Topping the list was the World and Olympic Table Tennis player. Ping pong, people. And we feel threatened by the Chinese because...?
3. Top Ten Canadian Insurance Frauds in 2005 (here). Number one is a guy "who specialized in staging accidents in parking lots. He pretended to be struck by a car, usually selecting one driven by an elderly person, or a woman. He made 10 successful personal injury claims." Apparently, defrauding Canadians is like shooting ducks in a barrel.
4. Top Ten NASCAR Stories that Didn't Really Happen (here). Having nary a clue about NASCAR culture, reading this list reminded me of this joke: Jean-Paul Sartre is in a cafe. He says to the waitress, "I'd like a cup of coffee, please, with no cream." The waitress replies, "I'm sorry, but we're out of cream. How about with no milk?"
5. Top Ten Baby Names List for 2005 (here). Emma for girls... and Aidan for boys. It's not a baby, it's a moneyed British aristocrat.
6. Top Ten Virus Attacks of 2005 (here). All Windows-based worms!
7. Top 10 Most Eulogized Persons Online (here). What, no Hunter S. Thompson? He's the only person I came close to eulogizing online. Beat out by Johnnie Cochran?
8. Top Ten Most Significant Events in 2005 for the Global Outsourcing Marketplace (here). How'd they narrow it down to just ten?
9. Top 10 List of 2005 Celebrity Cruisers (here). What's a 'celebrity cruiser', you wonder? Why, it's a famous person who whores themselves to a cruise line because there's not too much steam left in their career. Mary Tyler Moore I can understand, but Isabella Rossellini, have you no pride?
10. Top 10 Workplace Events in 2005 (here). My own personal version of this list would have been completely different. Number 7, for instance, would not be massive pharmaceutical-industry job cuts because the lack of a "new blockbuster prescription drug." It was that company lunch with the knock-out salads and lasagna.
11. Top Ten Most Popular Over-the-Counter Medications in 2005 (here): Did you know you can get chocolate mint, banana or butterscotch Maalox? No wonder it's so popular!
12. Top Ten Google News Searches (here). Janet Jackson beat out Hurricane Katrina? Considering the wardrobe malfunction was in 2004 and she's done absolutely nothing notable in the past year except allegedly having a secret baby 18 years ago, I'm a little confused and frankly scared.
13. Top Ten Most Fascinating Celebrity Couple Break-ups (here). Number One is Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston. Oh, that split sure had me riveted. I couldn't sleep for days.
14. The Top 10 TV shows of 2005 (here). I've never seen one episode of any of the Ten shows listed. I once tried to watch the pilot episode of HBO's Rome on demand, but the never-ending intro blunted my motivation.
15. Top Ten Bushisms of 2005: (here). The dumbest thing our President said: "You work three jobs? … Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that." --to a divorced mother of three, Omaha, Nebraska, Feb. 4, 2005.
16. Top 10 Quirky Honeymoon Travel Gifts for 2005 (here). Compiled from real "honeymoon registries," a concept I have never heard of, perhaps the most romantic is number 6: "Crazy Monkey Canopy Ride in Costa Rica."
17. America's Top Ten Pest Control Problems in 2005 (here). Number one is bedbugs... number ten is bears.
18. Top Ten Web Design Mistakes of 2005 (here). I flagrantly violate them all, especially Number 4: "Writing for the Web means making content short, scannable, and to the point." Not only am I not "to the point," I often lack a point.
19. NYTimes Top Ten Books of 2005 (here). I always score my reading habits against the NYTimes lists. This year I've attained a personal best of having read two of them completely (Kafka on the Shore and Prep) and checked one out from the library with full intentions of reading it (the De Kooning biography.)
20. 2005 Top 10 List of Strangest and Funniest Data Disasters (here). Number 8: "A husband deleted all of his child's baby pictures when he accidentally hit the wrong button on his computer. His wife hinted at divorce if he did not get the pictures back." It's so strange... because it's so funny.

****You Can't Have One

****Cookie Customs

Christmas is all about customs. This weekend, I revisited a tradition of my youth by attending a Christmas party thrown annually by a family who went to my childhood church. I hadn't gone to one of these parties in perhaps 14 years, but it was exactly how I remember: Non-stop caroling, a potluck buffet of festive finger food, popcorn stringing, and cookie decorating.

The hostess evidently recalled my fervent fondness for cookie art and gingerbread architecture, because she immediately lead me over to the cookie decorating table and ordered me to sit down at the empty chair. "We have a contest, and the best cookies win prizes! So put your name on your plate when you're finished!" she ordered, slapping a tube of icing in my hand.

****Wrapping Up

I'm off to Pennsylvania this weekend for Christmas with my family, as I will be spending Christmas proper jet-lagged in a French Alpine chalet. I wrapped all my Christmas presents last night, a perhaps brash act since I am flying. Hopefully the gifts will be unwrapped by their intended recipients and not Logan Airport security personnel.

My gift-wrapping skills are notoriously poor. In this past, I've gone the gift bag route, but this season I decided to be a traditionalist. Wrapped presents are always more exciting. I started off fastidiously strategizing each crease, fold, and lick of Scotch tape. Then I got impatient and reverted back to my innate slipshod ways by covering the object in paper and taping down anything that sticks up. Then I crammed everything into a suitcase so they'll look all battered and cheap anyway. Next year, gift bags.

Before I go, I have a few things to declare.

• This week MA governor Mitt Romney declared he won't seek re-election so that he may campaign to be the next Republican president (here). The local newsfolk agitated about how Mitt hasn't done shit for the Commonwealth, spending more time in key electoral vote states giving speeches about conservative values. But we knew this when we elected him, didn't we? And honestly, though I disagree with everything that's come out of Mitt's pretty mouth, at least this good Mormon boy is not as personally offensive as many Republicans. I like his corporate asshole style, personally.
• The American Nurses Association is raising awareness about the sexual harassment of female nurses by male patients (here). Says one nurse, "I usually chalk it up to they don't feel good, a lot of them are confused... I never really thought of it as sexual harassment." That's because it isn't. Sexual harassment used to imply an unfair balance of power being wielded to force submission. Now it means any sexual advance that is unwanted. I'm not sure what to think about this. Nurses are professionals and they deserve to be treated as such by those in their care, but men are men. Put them in a clinical setting where their masculinity feels vulnerable, and they'll act like animals.
• Fascist cops in upstate New York stormed a homeowner's lawn with shovels in order to destroy a gigantic "snow penis" built by a 19-year old woman (here for picture of snow penis; here for story), who intends to rebuild. I have nothing to say about this, I just thought it was funny. Perhaps the reaction would not have been so severe in England, where major supermarket chain Asda intends to sell " Durex-made purple and silver Play Wand and Little Gem vibrators" in the family-planning aisles of 300 stores (here). Again, no comment.
• And finally, indulge me this: By some miracle, if the driver of the sedan who was leaning on his or her horn for ten minutes outside my apartment at 5:55am is reading this... this is a neighborhood. The buildings surrounding you at a high-density are residences, where people live. Dammit, I sleep in on Fridays. Do you assume our dwellings are sound-proof, or do just not care if all these sleeping people hear the repetitive, prolonged blaring of your horn except the person you were evidently trying to rouse? And was I just imagining it... were you really honking "Jingle Bells?"

****Quote of the Day

"If you have time, make a list of potential problems we haven't anticipated. That would be helpful."

Yeah. It would be helpful. I'll just sit down and prophesy of all the shit that we can't foresee. Then I'll divine other calamities: The explosion of the housing bubble. When the next earthquake will hit San Francisco. The next major terrorist attack. Doomsday.

****Ban it!

If the American economy is a modified stock car made by Chevy (assembled in Mexico), hurling down a NASCAR speedway with reckless abandon, then advertisers are the combustible fuel that sustains its breakneck speeds and dissipates noxious contaminants into the arena of life. They screw with our minds, and our compliance only spurs them on.

My disgruntled seventh grade English teacher Mr. Frangiose once commented that advertisers for deodorant earned a much higher salary than teachers. "Our priorities are in our armpits, not our brains." (My parents told me he collected Bentleys and Rolls Royces, so I don't know why he was complaining.) Well, deodorant advertisers deserve fat paychecks. They're doing a damn fine job shaming us into protecting our underarms from those offensive tell-tale signs of our biological humanness.

And they recognize the importance of brand loyalty. Get them while they're young and neurotic about their newfound body odor. Ban deodorant waged a particularly effective campaign by sponsoring a contest in which young women ages 12-21 vied to create ads that would sell Ban Deodorant to other teenagers. Called the Ban It! contest (here: "What would you ban?"), it's a bid to get consumers more proactive in the advertising experience (here). This type of marketing is nothing new. 1950s housewives would spend their days entering contests by stating in 50 words or less why they loved Mr. Clean. To build brand loyalty, advertisers want to "get consumers actively involved in the marketing conversation" (here).

Ban deodorant wants to talk tête-à-tête, and they're not afraid to get controversial by tapping into the catchy hatreds of teenaged girls, who want to ban uniformity, the lack of music education, and (heh) bad advertising. How this contest buys deodorant loyalty, I'll never understand. One swipe of Lady Mitchum would turn traitors out of the lot of them.

****Beverage Review: Polar Pomegranate Seltzer

What an exciting new beverage this is! In theory! As an enthusiast of clear, calorie-less carbonated water, I welcomed the chance to try a new varietal, and especially one as "cutting edge" as pomegranate (here for product announcement from Polar.) Ever since upscale eateries began sprinkling those juicy red seeds on whitefish and POM Wonderful became the trendy elixir for those with means to pay $5 for 16 ounces of juice, the pomegranate has supplanted the plumcot as the fruit of the opulent.

As electrifying as the idea is, in practice, it's mighty tricky to capture the mellifluous flavor of the pomegranate in clear, calorie-less carbonated water. The hints of fruit flavoring that I could discern amid Polar's patented fine bubbles could have been any sweet berry: Raspberry, strawberry, blackberry. My burps tasted like an apple/citrus blend.

The first time I ever tasted a pomegranate was in college over a winter break, while visiting a friend whose father was Iranian. Its sweet tang and unusual packaging knocked me over. I had previous knowledge of the pomegranate from the Greek myth that explains why we must endure six months of bitter cold each year: One month for every pomegranate seed the original milk-box missing child Persephone consumed in the underworld when kidnapped by Hades.

It never occurred to me that the pomegranate was still cultivated. I had assumed that since it didn't exist in the bland American palate that it went extinct, or that tasty modern fruit had rendered it inedible. So I welcomed the appearance of pomegranates in the supermarkets. It was a once-a-season fall treat. I can't say the world needs pomegranate-flavored seltzer, with its ambiguous fruit taste, but I guess it's not hurting anything.

****Chocolate Cracker

Walking to the T this morning, I see a familiar straight-haired woman with glasses walking her chocolate Labrador past a row of wrist-width trees, each encased in slabs of concrete and blocks of dirty snow. The dog relishes in the smells of one tree, and the girl gently yanks the leash as I approach.

"Come on, Cracker," she says in a cutesy voice. "Let's go, Cracker, I'm cold." She lets me pass on the sidewalk, giving me a slight smile which I return while subduing the hilarity licking my throat.

Cracker? Cracker?!? Perhaps a good New England girl is ignorant of its pejorative etymology, and has no idea that her dog's name is a synonym for Redneck or Hillbilly.

I admit, upon first hearing it, Cracker has the makings of a cute name for a pet. But not for a chocolate Lab. I picture Cracker as an ill-socialized American pit bull terrier with wide nostrils, sloping furrowed brow, and drool-covered slack jaw. I guess that shows how I am prone to stereotyping. A cracker can come in all shapes, sizes and breeds.

****Movie Review: Shopgirl

In Shopgirl, Claire Danes lives out two of my secret fantasies: To work at the Saks Fifth Avenue glove counter, and to be a young woman in a sex-based relationship with Steve Martin. Some girls really do have all of the luck.

Shopgirl was cute. It's the kind of character-driven love story that pecks your check reassuringly the whole way through that everything will turn out as it should. I hesitate to call it a love story, because it is primarily about loneliness and relationships forged simply to alleviate it. It's sort of depressing, and what little humor there is, is subtle.

And Steve Martin is least funny person in this movie. His character was all wrong for him: A pathetic, humorless shell of a man without a single redeeming quality. In short, he's a jerk, and not the funny ethnically-confused kind.

****Tyranny on the Treadmill

I'm running. I'm not running to boost my cardiovascular fitness or so that my butt retains a youthful perk. No, the stakes are dire. The systematic oppression of the hoi polloi by those that conspire to profit from eternalizing a bland consumerist existence has reached a decisive apex. If the Man isn't stopped now, civilization will be damned to labor under the diabolical whims of a dozen or so mea-conglomerates.

It's all up to me to me. So you see why I'm running. Rage Against the Machine is screaming in my ear buds: "Yeah, we gotta take the power back/ Come on, come on!/ We gotta take the power back!" The treadmill is at 7.1, with a 1.5 incline, and it just passed the 40 minute mark. My breathing calm and stride robust. I'm fully confident that this bionic vigor will be sustained for 60 minutes in order to foil the Man's nefarious plan.

Suddenly the treadmill decelerates to a decisive halt, taking my legs with it. The digital display informs me that my workout is over. On my left, a nondescript pudgy guy in baggy gym clothes leans on the rail of his treadmill, staring up at the TV screen. In order to anchor himself, his hand had come to rest on my treadmill's emergency stop button.

"Excuse me," I say, hesitantly tapping the sweat-soaked shoulder of his T-shirt. "You just stopped my treadmill."

He pulls his eyes away from highlights of yesterday's Giants/Eagles game, looks at me, looks at the emergency stop button I'm pointing at, looks at me again. "Oh. Sorry," he says, grabbing his towel and Vitamin Water and walking away.

I stare at my interrupted workout's final time: 41 minutes and 32 seconds. Logically, I could run another 18 minutes and 28 seconds to get the full hour, but my ambition is killed by no prospect of seeing the magical "60" to affirm my stature as a true gym rat. Rage Against the Machine ends and an instrumental from the Royal Tenenanbaums soundtrack comes on. I am suddenly fatigued, and hop off my treadmill to cool down on a stationary bike. This time, the Man has won, by proxy of a clammy sports-loving buffoon.

****Incense, Gold, and Myrrh: Check

I started my Christmas shopping in earnest last Wednesday, and I am now finished (except for a present for the French woman whom I never met and whose name I have never correctly pronounced. They're always a bitch to shop for.) Since I am prone to bashing rampant consumerism as a means of fulfillment, I am ashamed to admit that I hunker down and subject myself to the frenzied crowds and galling music ("You're listening to Merry Mixmas, Christmas Classics Remixed!") in a bid to convert my love's worth into dollars. I had less of a problem writing last week about how I occasionally wear a padded bra.

But who lets their discomfort with capitalism get in the way of spreading Christmas joy? I cherish the looks of bafflement and forced enthusiasm my family's face when they open their presents. Tidings of comfort, joy, and "I thought these socks would make your life better."

Last Wednesday, both Macys and Filenes were having a One Day Sale!, so after work I headed to Downtown Crossing to take advantage of the light crowds and plunderable goods. Progress was made and opaque gift ideas made clear. Then, on Thursday, I find out both stores are having another One Day Sale! What luck that these sales happen to occur on the very days I decide to devote to shopping. So much over-priced crap magically discounted to downright outrageous prices! Department stores only continue to exist by exploiting shopper psychology: I wouldn't have paid $89 for this perfectly normal scarf, but $55 is a real bargain.

I usually give a lot of people candles, the safety present. I am a poor Christmas shopper because it's hard to empathize with the shopping ambitions of others. No one on my Christmas list wants that high-cut Buffalo jean jacket with the green sequins, but for some reason, I can't stop looking at it. Next thing I know, my winter coat is off and I'm preening in front of a mirror, turning to and fro to appreciate how the jean jacket compliments the pronounced curve of my lower back.

I heroically subdued the urge to buy the jacket and the 100s of other objects that it never occured to me I needed. I did my best to focus on the recipients these tokens of my affection. And this year, only two people get candles.

****RocknArt!

The void of live music that stifled my sense of cultural well-roundedness was filled last Thursday when I saw Tarantula A.D. (here) at TT the Bears Place. They made a sound argument for the cello's place in the standard line-up of every band. Ladies, you think guys with guitars are hot? You should see them sweating over a cello. Good shows always leave me anxious to see more good shows. This Wednesday Dec 14 at 8:30pm, the Middle East Upstairs is hosting the RocknArt show, featuring 4 bands, 2 DJs, and the works of 7 local artists. Finally, something meaningful to do while waiting for bands to neurotically arrange and sound-check their equipment. Headlining is Nylon 66 (here), the only band ever to perform a song partially inspired by the bedeviling drunken dancing of moil.

****Thunder Blizzard!

Yesterday a drive-by Nor'easter hit Boston with heavy snow, high winds, and a fair amount of thunder and lightening. Apparently, the blizzard-like conditions surprised many people, and plow crews weren't mobilized, schools didn't close, and thousands of people couldn't drive 55 mph on highways (here).

This morning I walked the slop-filled path along the Charles River, enjoying the warm sunshine and the axiomatic calm after the storm.

****Overheard on the T

"So we won't be able to see Grandpa Jack this Christmas" a proper Boston mommy told her young son, seated beside her on a crowded Red Line train.

"Because he's sick?"

"Yes, he's very sick."

"With AIDS?"

A gale of laughter escaped from the grave, painted face of the mommy. She quickly and completely composed herself. "No, not AIDS. Where did you get that idea? AIDS?!? Sweet Lord, no. Grandpa has brain cancer."

****My Chest is Padded to the Moon

You've seen me enough over the years to know what they should look like: Round mounds of coy flesh, barely denting a profile into the front of my garments. The bantam bosom of a runner.

And I can tell by how you smirk at me that your ability to abstractly judge dimension has suddenly kicked in: Compare the meager breasts under summer's light blouse with the formidable teats under winter's wool sweater. Somehow, the proportions have been amplified.

I know you consider your pragmatic, utilitarian lifestyle to be superior to my obvious vanity. You enjoy scorning feminine proclivities to which I am partial. I know this because you comment: "Those look fun to walk in!" "Someone smells... expensive." "And is your new hair worth the trip to the hairdresser?"

Fraud has been committed so that I look attractive in a thick sweater. I dare you. I dare you to say it. Hell, I can't believe you thought it. But say it. It will you feel better, for a second.

****25 Billion Styrofoam Cups a Year, Plus One

"Each year American throw away 25,000,000,000 Styrofoam cups. Even 500 years from now, the foam coffee cup you used this morning will be sitting in a landfill." -EPA (here)

Today I discovered an innovative new way in which Earth can be more rapidly degraded in the pursuit of enjoying coffee drinks wherever and whenever. On Summer Street, I saw a woman with a clear-plastic Dunkin Donuts iced coffee drink, but because it's 25 degrees ("feels like 6") … who wants to handle a cold drink?

So, the clear plastic cup was placed inside a large styrofoam cup to protect her leather gloved fingers from contacting the icy refreshment during the probable two minutes it takes her to get from the Dunkin Donuts to her office. Ingenious!

****Music Review: That Unhinged Subway Musician who Plays the Recorder

I haven't gone out to see live music in almost a month. I blame: Starting times that conspire against the presence of diligent working stiffs, my aversion to consume alcohol in order to endure a stage show that may or may not be boring and semi-competent, and how, when watching fresh-faced college kids perform their hearts out, I can't help but imagine them in ten years as broken corporate flunkies, still hanging onto their past rock and roll glories as proof that the Man doesn't really own their soul, he's just leasing it until a nest egg is amassed that allows them to return to their true life's passion of music... but then marriage happens, kids follow, and ambition fades into realization that life is over.

Luckily, the streets and subways of Boston and Cambridge provide many random encounters with live music. Myself, I don't enjoy a musician until I've seen them a few times to get a sense of their repertoire, of what they're all about. I particularly dig a killer blues guitarist at Park Street station, and a classical flutist at Harvard Square station. There's also the near-constant oud player in Harvard Square who sounds, at least, exotic.

But on a purely cerebral level, no one can compete with the crazy subway musician who plays the recorder. The first time I saw him about four years ago, I was taken aback. Most people are. Here's a gaunt, older black man, dressed shabbily, blowing into a plastic recorder, swaying and bobbing his head almost drunkenly. His playing style is agitated, filled with squeaks, honks, and jarring articulation. His songs ramble without discernable melodies or patterns. Occasionally he'll engage in a self-contained "call and response," and pause his piping to shout a stanza of words in native but incomprehensible English. You'd think he was a homeless guy who found a plastic recorder and wandered into a T station, except his subway musician permit lays by his feet.

"O my God! That guy is, like, trying to play a recorder!" a college girl once screamed to her friends, and they all pointed and heaved laughter. I couldn't hate their insensitivity, because that was my first reaction, albeit "on the inside."

The recorder has a long, rich history, but today is chiefly used to introduce instrumental music to young children. It's a cheap, primitive instrument that can be readily played by anyone, except the kids with unfortunate craniofacial deformities and the hyperactive boy whose brain is telling him to blow hard and repeatedly until the music teacher takes it away. After several years of learning musical fundamentals on the recorder, most of us choose fun instruments that make pretty sounds. But a few diehards vow to master the humble recorder. Witness the American Recorder Society, an organization of devoted merry pipers (here).

After seeing this subway musician over the years, I suspect that he is on a whole other level, musically. I'm not saying he's a recorder virtuosi who specializes in neo-baroque fingering or anything like that, but his style is actually quite advanced. His frequent use of over blowing produces strange harmonics. His staccato notes, although dissonant, have amazing range. His breath control causes pronounced tremolos and vibrato. He has mastered his phraseology, and it is totally original and confoundingly irritating. Gotta give him some respect, too. People stare openly at him, willing him to stop. "I'll shove that thing up your ass, you crazy eff!" a man once shouted, and the piper yelled back in his incomprehensive English, no doubt asserting his right to rock.

I saw him the other day at the Central Square station after a lengthy absence. I tried like hell to groove on his music, to no avail, but still appreciated his strange mastery. And at least he'll never sell-out and get all commercial, or turn into a corporate flunky who forsakes his art in pursuit of a shallow existence. This guy is hard-core recorder.

****Movie Review: Sarah Silverman - Jesus is Magic

It may seem incredible that I'd venture back into a cinema just a day after spending ten hours straight at the Brattle. Right now, I don't care if the Brattle raises enough money to continue existing... I don't ever want to go back. The Twin Peaks binge exhausted all facets of my soul, and my companion only cajoled me through promises of coffee and Raisinets. More idle intake of overpriced sugar and caffeine? Yeah, sure, just as long as I can leave after 90 minutes.

I saw a preview for comedian Sarah Silverman's skit and stand-up style film Jesus is Magic when I saw The Constant Gardner. Two women who reeked of intellectual primness were in front of me, visibly bristling at the I love you more than bears love honey/I love you more than Jews love money song and the So I was licking jelly off of my boyfriend's penis, and I'm thinking 'God, I am so turning into my mother' joke. After the preview, the whole theatre was silent and uncomfortable. One woman whispered to the other "I think not," and the other nodded dismissively. (They loved The Constant Gardner, by the way.)

I, on the other hand, was pumped. Sarah Silverman is one of the best young comedians around, and I find her hilarious more than half the time. She's like a cross between Parker Posey and Chris Rock. Her comedy, to use her own words, turns "AIDS into lemonades." To Silverman, taboos exist, and the best thing to do is to make light of them. Put a positive spin on bad things in this crazy 9/11 world, she says, suggesting a new ad campaign: American Airlines: First Through the Towers.

More than half of the movie is Silverman's stand-up act. Her gimmick is to be offensive to every American ethnic and social group while expressing misfired shame. "A Mexican woman came up to me after a show and said 'I don't smell,' and then I felt really bad... because I had to explain to her that you can't smell yourself." Her delivery is perfectly cadenced, with hand and facial gestures that sometimes make the joke. "I was raped by a doctor, which is bittersweet for a Jewish girl," she says, her eyes twitching with faux sincerity. "Calling midgets 'little people' is the only time the politically correct term is more offensive," she says, and then proceeds to hysterically gush baby talk "Who's the little person? Who's the little person?"

The rest of the movie, a mix of skits and choreographed songs, didn't appeal to me. One particular skit in which she threw a backstage hissy fit over the wrong brand of bottled water was particularly uncreative. The purposed kistch in her songs got old. Silverman's a great stand-up act, but this shouldn't have been a movie. Sometimes a cute girl who says funny, naughty things is just a cute girl who says funny, naughty things.

****Corporations Threatened By Well-Spent Tax Dollars: So What?

Philadelphia, of all places, aims to become the largest wireless city ever by giving 1.5 million residents over 135 square miles wi-fi access for a small base fee of $20 or less (here).

The project, still in its pilot stage, has panicked the telecommunications bigwigs, who did the only thing they could do: Take Philly to court (here). Says a Verizon representative, "There is a question here about whether the competition is fair when the government has advantages ... If you are in a position where you can regulate and tax your competitor, it certainly gives you an advantage. That is a whole fairness question that I think ought to be worked through and thought about." Verizon losts its fight in Philly, but a new state-wide law make it "almost impossible for any other community to set up its own wi-fi system."

Of course the government has advantages. It has the advantage of being able to take money directly out of our paychecks and spend it on whatever they want. Most of the time, it disappears down a rabbit hole of bureaucracy and oversight, or is spent on services aimed at the very poor, but here's a project that will benefit the entire city for decades to come. The government is of the people, by the people, for the people. Will any government spending that enables social services to rival that of a private corporation be considered "competition?"

If the people want cheap internet access to shrink the digital divide, that is the people's right. If the people want to take innovative steps to cure their city's ills, that is the people's right. I look forward to seeing people of all classes assert their rights by refusing to pay $50 a month to Verizon and instead using the internet that they paid for with their taxes. Should the government be stopped from providing equal services at cheaper cost than a private company, then there is no hope for this country.

****The Brattle's Twin Peaks Marathon

The Brattle Theatre in Harvard Square, in the midst of a financial crisis (here), is fundraising through quirky once in a lifetime film events. Last night was the Twin Peaks Marathon. I rejoiced when I heard they'd show the pilot episode, the prequel feature film Fire Walk with Me, and the first seven episodes of my favorite TV series ever... and serve free pie and coffee!

I didn't internally acknowledge that the marathon involved staying up from 10pm to 8am, disturbing my scant but solid nighttime sleep patterns. Traditionally the term "marathon" refers to the act of aerobically locomoting so that only one foot touches the ground at a time for 26.2 miles. It is now popularly used to describe an event that involves doing anything for an abnormally long amount of time. It implies a bit of pain.

The packed theater thinned out at midnight, maybe due to the Brattle's two very unpopular decisions about the course of the marathon:

1. The story would be screened in chronologically order instead of the order that it was made, meaning Fire Walk with Me would be shown first. This announcement literally enraged many people who pointed out that Laura Palmer's killer would be revealed in the movie (obviously, they knew anyway). Most people wanted to watch a TV show, not a 2 hour movie that doesn't make sense without understanding the White Lodge, a dimension where midgets dance and a killer's pain and sorrow is extracted and turned into creamed corn. The Brattle's creative director justified that the actual plot is secondary to getting there. Plus, Fire Walk with Me required the skills of a film projectionist who didn't want to hang around until 8 in the morning. (The rest of the series was shown on DVD. This killed the sound quality. The music had a twang quality,and Kyle MacLachlan's voice sounded 4 octaves higher than normal.)
2. No free pie and coffee until after Fire Walk with Me and the pilot episode. It was probably a smart move, as nothing revives the soul at 2:30am like sugar and caffiene, but to withhold the touted treats did not sit well with the casual movie goer.

The marathon started off well. I paced myself. All my years of practice paid off. The more confounding elements of the story didn't tax my brain. I understand what's going on, who everyone is, and why that lady carries a log. My endurance flagged in the middle of the pilot episode, but the pie, donuts, and coffee sustained me until after the fifth episode. Was in 4 or 5 in the morning? About 20% of the participants remained. More than a few were sleeping. When I ducked to the restrooms, I saw a guy who dozed off with a half-eating donut raised to his mouth. The series was enjoyable as always. I hadn't seen it in a couple years, so it was like revisiting old friends. Officer Andy, you old knucklehead! Mrs. Palmer, still have the thing with hysterical screaming fits. James Hurley, could you be any more emotive? Audrey Horne, you little sexpot, you're as capativating as ever. I noticed new things, the most entertaining being Dr. Jacoby's tie in the pilot episode. It has a hula girl printed on it, with real fringe as her skirt, and when he talks about Laura Palmer, he casually reached up and strokes his tie... under the fringe. Can you believe that was on ABC in the 1980s?

Venturing into David Lynch's mind for 10 hours can kill one's ability to function in reality, because it makes reality seem so less interesting. When I hobbled out of the theater with the couple dozen people who remained, Harvard Square was blanketed in snow. I walked down Mass Ave paranoid of everyone and everything around me, my mind exhausted and craving empty carbs and caffeine. Oh, look. A Dunkin Donuts. Like I would've fallen asleep at 8am Sunday anyway.

****Spare Change

Before "kindness" became a mandatory personality trait for any man I would date, I dated a lot of jerks. The last jerk was five long years ago. (He could be called many things, but I'll stick with his initials, I.L.). I.L. was not so much of a direct jerk to me, because he considered himself charming, and saw me worthy of this false facade of generosity. "Dinner's on me," he'd say, reaching for the check, "so you can pay next week."

I.L. was unabashed about his greatest pet peeve: Panhandlers. At great length, he complained about the bothersome derelicts who harangued him for money on the street. At first, I would indulge and even agree with his ranting. I didn't like the guilt of refusing a poor person in poverty a pittance of money while I'm hurrying down the sidewalk to blow $60 on tapas and wine and carrying a $200 purse. Did I deserve to be taunted by my good fortune?

But I.L. resented panhandlers with a vehemence that convinced me he was a psychopath. As he spilled pure hate for these wretched meek people, I was reminded of Patrick Bateman, titular lunatic of American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis, who would taunt homeless men with money and lecture them about their lifestyle before brutally killing them. It was a red flag that I.L. was not going to be the father of my kids.

A few particular beggars drove I.L. into a rage. He was convinced a panhandler at the Davis Square T station who plied passersby with well-spoken banter actually had a nice big house to retreat to after a leisurely day of swindling money: "Don't tell me he can't get a real job. People come here from Africa and Mexico and get jobs the next day. He's obviously making a mint." An older, more pitiful man who also worked Davis Square earned nothing but stern warnings from I.L., who demanded he stop asking him for money. The man rudely persisted. "Maybe he doesn't recognize or remember you. Maybe he's... enfeebled," I'd say, hoping to provoke empathy. "I'll say. He's effing pitiful," I.L. said.

Perhaps my former beau was caught in general anti-homeless sentiment. At the turn of the century, numerous cities began banning or requiring permits to panhandle, and there was exploratory talk about similar "solutions" in Boston. Also around this time, reporter John Stackhouse spent a week spare-changing on the streets of Toronto. He claimed to make $200 a day, and further reported that his fellow beggars spent all their money on crack (here). Like the stories of Welfare Queens having babies expressly to rip off taxpayers, this is absurd. Of course a few people will abuse the system; as Enron and other white-collar scandals prove, deviousness knows no class. But a majority of the homeless who spare change spend it on basic necessities. And the rich people are not so generous when there's no ritzy benefit dinner involved.

I.L. was gone by then, but his irrational hatred of panhandlers made a lasting impression. How a person regards poor people is indicative of how a person regards weakness. As Emerson said, "We are rich only through what we give, and poor only through what we refuse." I once reasoned that I can't help all of the homeless, so I shouldn't help any of them. I once worried that I'd only exacerbate their situation by enabling them to buy alcohol or drugs.

Outside of Park Street T Station, a homeless man hawks Spare Change (here), a weekly newsletter about homeless issues that costs $1, netting him .75 cents for every one he sells. He has a magnificent, cheerful voice that booms over and over: "Spare Change newspaper! How are you doing? Can you help the homeless tonight?" For the past 3 years, he has been there every weekday after work that I'm in the area. One day I realized: Shouldn't his dedication be rewarded? So nearly every week I buy a copy of Spare Change. He knows me, and even on days that I don't buy a paper, I can smile at this hard-working American with admiration and acknowledgement of our mutual humanity. And it only costs me a dollar.