wax on, wax off

What, so it's been a month. whatever. June involved writing a lot in not-blog land, teaching a summer class that involved un-bee-lee-va-ble trips to museums where I got to see some really amazing stuff shown to me and my class by the top experts in the field, and well, not blogging.

I waxed off. waned, if you will. but now I have a killer karate upper arm block, so it was totally worth it.

I also just finished the Atrocity Exhibition, a book that is an avowed favorite of some of my dearest friends who are now confirmed as deeply disturbed and also completely awesome. I quite liked it, really. I read the annotated edition, which included Ballard's mid-1990s reflections on some of the sections of each chapter. It is about (if I can use that phrase) the fundamental intersection of violence, death, and pornography and how it is ultimately being distanced from us through media and other mechanisms largely beyond our control. The spatial mapping of highway overpasses-as-woman's body, the angles of an apartment room depicting the destruction of a car crash. the pseudo-science, pseudo-knowledge of the survey format that interrogates stay-at-home moms, the people who witnessed the Kennedy assassination in the plaza itself, and mentally ill children only to draw conclusions about the best therapy for the last group. It is, as you can see, a laugh riot (really, quite funny, esp. with Ballard's later reflections on it).

The book is simultaneously very much about the 1960s while also eerily speaking to us about the world we live in now. Its understanding of celebrity makes me wonder what Ballard would have said about the synchronic deaths of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. Or the televised, reality-show death of Jade Goody. Actually, we don't have to wonder. it's already in Atrocity Exhibition. Recommended.

Red Sox Fans > Yankees Fans Or, Things I Learned at the Game Last Night

1. The Orioles starting pitching, after Uehara, really is awful.
2. Camden Yards is gorgeous and perfect for baseball, but we really could use some cool evening breezes - 82 degrees and humid at 9:30 at night is slightly too much for me.
3. Despite the (i.e. yet another) loss, the game was probably worth it just to watch Alex Jones steal one from well over the center field all. There's a decent photo here, but I have to ask how it is that the Baltimore Sun has no photo of this amazing catch.
4. Finally, I learned that Red Sox fans come out in droves and fill up Camden Yards, just like Yankees fans. I learned that on "Prime Game" nights you will not only pay more for an extra ticket, but you will have to endure opposing team's fans being much louder than Orioles fans. However, and most importantly, I learned that the Red Sox fans are MUCH more pleasant to deal with. They were much less arrogant and obnoxious than the Yankees fans, seeming to be there for the game rather than to "be seen" rooting for their team and proving to everyone that their team existed on a different plane than baseball - which appeared to me to be the Yankee's fans m.o. The guys next to us last night stood with all the Orioles fans to applaud Jones's incredible catch.

And another multiple choice question

Is Clarence Thomas...

A. Insane

B. An Idiot

I've actually read his dissent in Safford v. Redding and found it truly shocking – well beyond the expectations I would already have for Thomas. School officials strip-searched a 13 year-old girl, including making her pull back the elastic on her bra and underwear, all in a failed attempt to locate the suspected Ibuprofen – yes, that's right, the contraband they were explicitly looking for was Ibuprofen – that they could not find in her backpack or clothing. The Court in its 8-1 decision found this a violation of the girl's 4th amendment rights. But not Thomas. His logic goes like this:

The reasonable suspicion that Redding possessed the pills for distribution purposes did not dissipate simply because the search of her backpack turned up nothing. It was eminently reasonable to conclude that the backpack was empty because Redding was secreting the pills in a place she thought no one would look (emphasis added).

That is some powerful logic. Well, it's powerful at least if you are using a logic textbook written by Orwell or Kafka. It's conspiracy theory and Bush-like authority theory elevated to the level of Supreme Court decision.

This is worrying

The fact that of the entire population of the US House of Representatives, I find myself agreeing only with one, and his name is Ron Paul – coupled with the fact that I find the reasons he gives for his vote not just persuasive but downright eloquent....all this, is worrying.

Follow-Ups

1. The sports lived up to my hype:

• a flawless final round 65 gives Tiger another victory
• Federer becomes 'the greatest player ever'
• Pens and Wings head on to Game 7

2. It's got to get worse for the housing market:

• Median Price AND sales both well down in May
• Mortgage rates up means demand for mortgages is way down

Sports Update

It's a good time for sport, and it's about to get better:

French Open
With Nadal's first ever loss at Roland Garros, Federer has the chance to final win this title and thereby achieve the "Career Grand Slam." This extra excitment at the French will only add to the anticipation of Wimbledon. If you didn't see last year's final between Nadal and Federer, and you are a fan of sports, then I'm very sorry for you.

I would also note that Nadal may be the most genuine individual we find who is also a sports megastar. Everyone could learn from his press releases. Here's how he announced that he won't be able to defend his title at Queen's, due to an injury:

To play in London has always been special for me, to play at the Queen's Club is an honor and the fans in the UK are among the best I have ever seen, always supporting me since the first time I played there. I have been having some problems in the past months with my knees and [need to] get ready for the grass to play at Wimbledon. I hope I can be ready to compete by then. I am really sorry and I hope that the people at the tournament will still want me to come next year.

Stanley Cup Finals
It's pretty simple: if you can't enjoy this year's Cup Finals, then you have no business ever trying to become a hockey fan. It's the best hockey I have seen since I watched the Oilers win a few cups in the 80s.

Golf
This week's Memorial Tournament (Jack's tournament), is a serious tune-up for the US Open. This year the US Open returns to Bethpage Black, making this the first time in history that the US Open has been played back to back on public courses. Bethpage will have 3 par 5's over 500 yards and is likely to increase its almost mythic status as one of the hardest golf courses in the world. Tiger seems to be headed in the right direction, and everyone hopes that Amy Mickelson's treatment for breast cancer is progressing such that Phil can be there to give Tiger a good run.

Multiple Choice

A. The housing market is near bottom now, with some great deals on certain properties. With the $8K housing bribe, historically low interest rates, and deals to be had, now is THE time to buy - especially if you can get a property at 35% to 45% off peak prices.

B. The housing tumble has barely started. Foreclosures in May will be at an all time high (fact), the Alt-A crisis is as big as the sub-prime crisis, and we now have a looming 'prime crisis' when people with good credit and some assets lose their job or walk away from their mortgage because they are under water. With interests rates sure to rise significantly over the next few years and the effects of the recession yet to really hit the housing market (the housing collapse CAUSED the recession, but there will be a feedback loop), prices have much further to go. With a very FLAT bottom still a couple of years away, you would be INSANE to buy right now.

Please give precise and convincing evidence for your answer. And do it quickly, because we're having an awful time trying to figure out if we should put in an offer...

A small slice of my very peculiar utopia

As the post below revealed starkly, and as many out there already knew, I play golf. It's important to note the construction of that declaration. First, despite the somewhat odd contribution from a commenter (on the previous post) unknown to me, I'm not making any claims about whether golf is a sport - an inane debate that I refuse to engage in. Next, golf is not a verb. One does not 'go golfing'. I don't care that people say that, they are just as wrong as if they said they were going 'tennising'. One plays golf, or plays a round of golf. In Britain, one can even 'have a game' of golf or ask 'how was your game?' but that construction walks a fine line that few Americans can pull off.

Now, when I say 'I play golf' I mean something much different than when a lot of Americans, today, say it. For me it is not a past-time, but a passion. I want to play golf not to enjoy the outdoors (though that is a nice side-benefit), nor to drink beer, nor to smoke cigars, nor to ride around in a ridiculous golf cart. I play golf in order to get better at playing golf. It is a terribly difficult and endlessly frustrating game; it is unconquerable, unmasterable, and tests any individual's limits of patience. And it's a very different (and mostly better) game when there is some real pressure involved - when each shot matters. This is why tournament golf is actually a totally different game, and why most people who say they play golf are talking about something different.

Given my line of work and given my friends, I know almost no one who plays golf. One reader of this blog is an exception, and perhaps the only one I can think of. So in addition to all the other things I'm whinging about above, there's the issue of always having to join up with strangers when I play.

That's all context...on to the story

Yesterday it was about 72 degrees here with bright blue skies and almost no humidity. And I got a text inviting me to join a foursome that included:
1) a veteran competetive amateur in the area who has won a number of local and regional tournaments.
2) another local who has qualified for the mid-amateur twice and won his local club championship by 23 strokes (!)
3) a senior on a top NCAA golf team who qualified for the US amateur last year.

It was a dream round. After 8 holes our foursome had 8 birdies. They partnered me, the relative hack, with #3 (no, not that #3) and together we shot about 66 better ball. He was 3 under after 6 and finished around 70. I held my own with a 74. Our oppenents were both around that number as well. In addition, they gave me strokes, and were not happy about it as the round went on. So I netted a few dollars in the end...But it wasn't about the money and it was only about the match to the extent that twice on the back 9 I had to make difficult par putts when my partner had bogied, and it's hard to describe what it's like when you feel all that pressure and then execute properly.

To paraphrase Bob Johnson, it was a great day for golf.

A list of bad ideas

Having gone so long without blogging, I feel like I've lost the "right" to blog, as in "who does he think he is?" But I'm going to give it a shot anyway. Here's a list of items recently generated in my head that I will describe under the broad category of "bad ideas."

1. 3 year college degrees
I won't make the liberal arts speech, because it would go on too long. I will say this: proponents point to the British 3 year system, but they only mention Oxford and Cambridge, as if having Northeastern Baluga Regional College cut a year off their degree will make them like Oxbridge. Ask most folks who teach in the UK system broadly and they'll tell you that 3 years is too few and that a BA in the UK is a bit thin.

2. Golf Carts
In Wales I got to play golf at a club where there were no "buggies." I knew it would be hard to return to golf cart land (aka America) but I didn't realize how much worse it has gotten. Folks have NO IDEA how to play golf in a cart: they insist on driving directly to each ball, and no one ever gets out of the cart. It slows the game down terribly.

3. Watching your HD flat panel without feeding it an HD source
I would add to #3's account: it's not just the HDMI cable you need. You also need to be watching an HD channel; regular DVD's and all non-HD channels will look slightly to quite a bit worse on an HD panel than they do on an SD or ED panel.
Also, to #3: dude, don't you know that you are always supposed to call me when you are setting up a new a/v or home network system. I thought you knew the rule! :)

4. Option ARMs and Alt-A loans
We've been looking at houses for a while now. It's hard not to when the Obama administration has offered us such a juicy $8K bribe to buy a house in 2009. And it's true that there's a seasonal uptick in some markets, that the declines are slowing in some places, and that for cheaper properties, they are close the bottom in places like CA and AZ. But we aren't to the bottom yet. DC prices dropped by 8% last month alone. And anything except the cheapest houses have a long way to fall. Most importantly, we have not yet seen the worst of the foreclosure "crisis" and it's the flooding of the market with foreclosed properties that forces the real price correction. If you can buy now at rental prices, then it might be worth it if you also get the bribe, but the bottom in prices won't come before late 2010 at the earliest. So buyers now need to be prepared to stay in their house for at least 8 years, because it's likely that 4 or 5 years from now their house will be worth about what they paid for it, but probably slightly less.

5. Smoking Cigars while playing golf
I'm not commenting on the health considerations, except to say I'm not personally all that worried about secondhand smoke effects from the cigars. I do think it's a terrible, terrible idea for many reasons. But my main question is, why? What makes you think you need to smoke a cigar while you are playing golf. Is it a masculinity issue? You feel like more of a man? Because you should realize that you are playing golf, riding around in a golf cart, and wearing a sweater vest. Is it a class thing? You feel like you are elite? Because you should realize that you are on a public golf course, with your belly sticking out, and you don't even know the rules or etiquette of the game.

get your kumbay-ya-yas out

Moving from the UK culture of dripping cynicism with a hint of self-loathing to the seemingly too-earnest, naievete of some elements of US culture sometimes hits you metaphorically over the head. Baseball, for instance. We got partial season tickets to the Orioles' games, and have been to several so far. They involve watching the game, yelling, eating fried food and drinking beer--the universal components of sport, no matter where you are. But they also involve:

(1) a group-sing during 7th inning stretch (also at national anthem but that feels like a duty, not a group sing)

(2) gleeful and intensive following of silly virtual shell-game in which (I am not kidding for those of you unfamiliar with the insanity of MD's obsession/self-identification with sea creatures) three animated crabs are sprinkled with Old Bay seasoning (MD's state spice and the sponsor for this particular interlude), they turn red, and after one secrets away a pearl (note: do not comment on the inconsistency for fear of being knocked on head with neighbor's fried food and/or beer. also, it could be a baseball. It's tough to tell.). The entire crowd then watches in focused attentiveness as the crabs move around, flip over, get chased away by some sort of bird, and then reconfigure themselves, pause, and reveal which crab has the pearl. excited, energetic, loud cheers emanate from the entire crowd--often louder than any at any other moment in the game--to exclaim how they indeed have successfully followed the pearl (I get it every time! The middle one! I picked the middle one!).

As a recently decamped near-British person, I can say that this is all a bit too, er, unselfconscious. Where's the cynic noting the crab-pearl inconsistency? Where's the commentary on corporate sponsorship of silly interludes while the TV audience is also watching the shilling of same corporate product? Where's the Freudian commentary on the abjected nature of the pearl, consumed, hidden, constantly watched by obsessed viewers, only to be revealed to the evident satisfaction of all? What about the historic connections to the sideshow and carnival, in which we are the rubes, rapt in attention to see if we can beat the shell game? What about the scathing commentary about the attention span of the masses and wouldn't it be nice if they'd pay as much attention to a novel or a newspaper or an opera?

At the end of the day, when all is said and done, I'm not going to lie to you, bod yn onest: it's kind of fun. Sitting in an unselfconscious crowd. Cheering along with them. Watching them watch. Deciding to go along with it. Following the silly pearl inside the silly crab. Finding out that you know what? cynicism? It takes a hell of a lot of energy. And at the end of the day, you're at a ball game. Get on with the big group sing. Get your kumbayayas out. Huzzah for uncalculated glee.

Movie redux

We are caught up on our TV, after a spring of being behind by at least 3-4 episodes on all of our various addictions, to wit:

United States of Tara
Mad Men
Breaking Bad
Dollhouse
House
Burn Notice
Chuck
Ugly Betty
30 Rock
whatever I'm forgetting

We have thus begun renting movies, something that the AppleTV combined with the TiVo Amazon makes incredibly easy. Our feeling about movies is this: they are 2 hour (plus) commitments, they are singular entities, and thus if you dislike them, you've just wasted an evening, you have a bad taste in your mouth, and it's just not a Good Thing. We had a bad run of films 6 months or so ago, and so it seems that we are returning to the film genre with trepidation. We had mixed results.

To wit!

Rachel Getting Married: um, not for us. Perhaps the title would have warned us of this, what with the married bit, and what with our lack of love for the whole wedding process. But it has Rosemary DeWitt! We love her in Madmen and in Tara, right? And there were nominations for acting awards, and people were excited, so maybe it's not that thing. But it pretty much was that thing, in an artsy way: 2 hours of documentary-style filming of a wedding. With only ambient soundtrack, but of course the family is hooked into super-artsy musicy people, so they have a normal soundtrack to their lives of jazz musicians and string quartets anyway, which is utterly realistic. Problems with the film included the neo-liberal oh-so-wealthy yet hippie multiculti how many different musical dance styles can we pack into a wedding thing, the tragic narrative of drug addict/rehab/horrible family truth buried, the I love you I hate you sister/mother/father thing, and the filming that said in all caps: hey, look! here's great acting! here! look! great acting! So, no. Not for us.

Role Models: expectations not so high for this, although reviews were good, so we were up for some light entertainment. It delivers. Well-crafted, a modicum of stupid frat-boy jokes, but not too many, the deadpan Paul Rudd worked well, and the medieval battles were awesome. Typical comedic narrative, but does it well. Not trying too hard.

Zach and Miri Make a Porno: Also good, with Kevin Smith delivering again, better acting (or fewer bad actors) than some of his earlier efforts, and the development of the relationship between Seth Rogan and Elizabeth Banks was well crafted. 10-year high school reunion scene made us feel old. Probably because we are. Sigh. Didn't try to do more than it set out to do, and that was refreshing. Recommended.

State of Play (in the theater): Good remake of the excellent British series (that one starring our fave British actor, John Simm, and the woman with the best scottish accent known to man, Kelly Macdonald, along with Bill Nighy (can't go wrong) so we went in reminding ourselves that it couldn't be as awesome as that). Russell Crowe, Rachel McAdams, Helen Mirren deliver. Why does Crowe have to be fat for the film? I don't understand that, except that perhaps they were going for "typical american" which means obese? Hm. Maybe he's just fat now. Seems odd. Rachel McAdams' eyes are a bit too doe-y, Affleck isn't quite believable as a Gulf War vet-now-representative. And he switches between Massachusetts accent at the beginning and a Pennsylvania and/or flat accent in the remaining 3/4ths of the film. Odd. The real star of the movie, though, are the locations. A love for DC's 1950s-70s architecture (I know, unbelievable, right?) shows through here: gorgeous shots of the Kennedy Center, Watergate Hotel, and then fun shots of hangouts like Ben's Chili Bowl. The movie is about the street-level work reporters do, and the locations underscore that. Well done.

Charlie Wilson's War: Why did this not get more press/acclaim/interest? Wonderful film, very interesting in relation to present day interests in Afghanistan without being heavy-handed about it, Tom Hanks is amazing. Aaron Sorkin screenplay (say no more). Rent it asap if you have not yet seen it. Provides insight into answers about why Washington can screw things up so badly, and also how politics works in general. Also: cool architecture in this one too.

We are back to watching Northern Exposure, catching up mid-4th season where we left off. Burn Notice new season starts early June--how I miss the voiceovers. And Dollhouse: getting very very good.

The Wire aesthetic

I've been thinking a bit about photography lately, investigating various moments in its history, particularly in the context of India. But in surfing life I often check the In Pictures section of the BBC--or similar sections of any news organization--to see what they've got up, what kinds of images they choose, this sort of thing. So today, I went over to the BBC for the first time in a while and discovered a set of images titled Urban Decay. About Baltimore.

What struck me about the photographs was the aesthetic of the "failed city" to riff on the "failed state" phrase. I teach the picturesque: a valuing of the ruin, of the once great and now fallen, of the vegetation taking over human-constructed monuments, buildings, homes. Usually these images, in the context of India especially, are dotted with small "natives" that add scale and a sense that there are people here, just not anyone that really cares about the city.

I'm not sure this is some sort of failed city picturesque, but it does strike me that images of Baltimore, a city without a really recognizable skyline, without an obvious "landmark" (and don't say: the first Washington Monument, because no one outside of B'more knows about that), that a city without that but with other iconic images from television may remain in this mode of ruined city aesthetics for a while, perhaps forever. Even the photograph of the bannister in Mount Vernon, a downtown neighborhood that's a mix of grit and high-end, even that celebrates the agedness, the moment in the past when curved iron railings decorated the homes of the railway barons and shipping magnates in haute B'more.

It strikes me as similar to that Indian picturesque: the construction of urban decay and its relation to B'more will remain with the city for a long time. As will the reality of urban decay. This kind of picturesque doesn't tell me anything new about poverty, cities, or B'more. It repeats. But if people continue to come to B'more (as they do) looking for "the Wire tour" of the bad neighborhoods, then we continue to reenact an understanding of the city that constitutes it as a place of devastating, immovable poverty. I think that doesn't do justice to Simon's love of the city, and I think that doesn't help cities like B'more figure out ways of becoming un-broken.

SWISH

South Waziristan Institute of Strategic Hermeneutics
has just published its 14th report, in this case advising al-Qaeda of their current situation in a Barack Obama era.

I've been reading these reports on and off for the last few years, and they are both tongue-in-cheek and very very illuminating. I love the format. Provides quick overviews of current events as they impact particular groups, usually al-Qaeda but occasionally other actors...check them out:
Link

landing between blast-offs

The flight attendant on our YVR-ORD leg asked us to prepare for "blast off" which was both funny and a bit disturbing. but he did it in a Canadian accent (simultaneously clipped and rounded, with perfect enunciation) and so it was alright. I find I am able to grade papers on planes and nowhere else. something about the confined tube of the aircraft, the lack of space to move elbows, get up and have some more tea, walk the dog, watch Rachel Maddow on the TiVo, make yogurt, do a bit of rowing--yes. that must be it. Got to see friends and family and friends who are family and family who are friends while in the great northwest, and it is great. Big. Trees, mountains, sky, water. The materiality of the northwest is quite astounding.

Vancouver was both the glass city and the rainy city. did they source all of the glass for the high rises from the same manufacturer? in the same slightly-off shade of blue? Stanley park is as remembered in past visits. I went by my childhood home, if one has a single childhood home, this would be mine I suppose, where we lived from age 1.5 to age 8. The new owners (or one of the intervening occupants) has painted it a garish bright white with sea-blue trim. And I think the porch/steps are new. So it was not as disconcerting as it could have been. I walked to school again. Had trouble believing my mother let me do so at age 5. Oak trees. church where we met for Brownies. playground. newer than the one I remember (which was renewed when I was there and has since been re-renewed in the era of rubber mats everywhere and wood that doesn't splinter. they took out the cool but dangerous zip wire ride, sadly). reminisced about the violence of 2nd grade. much of it perpetrated, in my memory, by me. probably the source for my interest in Gandhi today. hm. I also was fairly arrogant, I recall, about my ability with the group-play dual jump-rope, in which one jumped into the moving ropes....

Cinderella
Dressed in yella
went upstairs to kiss a fella
made a mistake and kissed a snake
how many doctors did it take?
one, two, three....

perhaps it was: how many doctors would it take? that would make sense from a Canadian, clipped, rounded, enunciated perspective.

O Canada. Loonies and Twonies. Canucks. Hockey. totem poles. ferries. zip wire rides. what's not to like?

best coffee in Vancouver Wa: Peets
best coffee in Vancouver BC: Caffe Artigiano
best Chinese: Wong's King, Portland
best pork: Hapa Izakaya, Vancouver BC (mm. pork.)
best grilled cheese dessert: Rain City Grill, Vancouver BC
best chips & salsa on the trip: Provecho in Vancouver BC