second americano

Blogging

2010-05-19T09:17:00.001-04:00

Lots of explanations for the near-death state of the blog.

Here is one: The Contemporary Condition.

Somebody is Really Missing the Point (maybe it's me)

2010-01-07T11:58:00.004-05:00

OK, so Letterman said this:

And then HRC (and others as well), said this:

You may not be aware that the punch line in your skit has been used as a defense in nearly every hate crime perpetrated against transgender people that has come to trial. For example, the "trans panic" defense was infamously used by Allen Ray Andrade, who was convicted in 2009 of beating 19-year-old Angie Zapata to death with a fire extinguisher after learning of her gender history. According to media reports, it has also been the main defense employed by Juan A. Martinez for the killing of Jorge Steven López Mercado, 19, in Puerto Rico last November.

Your skit affirmed and encouraged a prejudice against transgender Americans that keeps many from finding jobs, housing, and enjoying freedoms you and your writers take for granted every day. We ask that you apologize publicly

Just to remove all traces of doubt: the so-called "gay panic" defense is wrong, loathsome, and vile in all respects, and I've published stuff on it in these terms (thought not put quite so starkly) in the past. But the thing one has to understand about the defense is that it depends quite heavily on heteronormativity. Whereas, it seems to me that this joke, if it is to be funny, is making fun of heteronormativity. Let me say that again, in different terms:

The panic defense only works as a defense if the audience (the jury) finds it logically compelling that a person would respond to any deviation from heteronormativity by assaulting or murdering the individual who so deviates.
The joke only works as a joke if the audience (Dave's viewers) rejects the idea that deviation from heteronormativity is obviously revolting.

Aren't the viewers supposed to be laughing AT the announcer who runs from the room, and not at Amanda Simpson? And if so, why the immediate rush to condemn the joke by HRC, GLAAD, and others?

So, who is missing the point, me or them?

What I want for my Birthday

2010-01-06T09:24:00.002-05:00

The rumors have now multiplied to the point that they no longer seem like rumors, and it thus seems highly likely that at the end of the month Apple will announce some sort of Tablet-like computing device. Right now the rumors have reached rough consensus that the date for that announcement will be my birthday!

Over a month ago, before there were any dates being tossed out or even any surety at all about an announcement, I made my first move toward the new paradigm: I swapped out my notebook for a desktop, going without a portable for the first time in 10 years. I did so for a number of reasons.

because I have found over the years, having tried it a number of times, that I can't really be productive in a two CPU paradigm. I need all my data on my computer and I need it on one computer.
because life with the iPhone has shown me that 98% of the time, I don't really need a notebook computer.
because today's new huge screens are glorious, and I'd like to be looking at the 16x9 1080p 22" LED display on the iMac (on which I'm typing this) than the 13" or 15" screen on a notebook.

Thus, my hope was that Apple would release a tablet, and that it would have the right specs so that my new paradigm can be iMac + iSlate (or whatever). And so now that we know IT, that is, something, is coming, here's what I'd like to hear Steve tell me I'll be getting for my birthday:

Screen Size: doesn't matter all that much to me, but 10-11" sounds about right.

Memory: probably 16GB as a minimum.

Connectivity: I'm sure it will have wifi and cellular connections, but I would like the cellular to be optional (don't force me to pay for unlimited cellular data). I also need it to have a display port so I can hook it up to a big external monitor and so I can use it in class for presentations.

Keyboard: here is my one real MUST HAVE. It must be able to pair with a bluetooth keyboard. Sometimes I have to be able to write a 1000 words quickly, and I can't do that on a virtual keyboard, period.

Software: I would really really love it if it could run (versions of) iWork. This would mean I could deliver Keynote presentations and work on Pages documents (I've been writing in Pages for about 4 years now).

If it has the capacity to use an external keyboard, I'll buy it. If it has iWork capabilities, I'll be thrilled about doing so. If it doesn't have the keyboard, I'll stick with the iPhone until I know more.

Songs of the 00s, just my list

2009-12-17T16:54:00.005-05:00

I'm simply too far behind on the music of the decade to say anything even approaching intelligent about it. First, I don't listen to nearly enough music any more: 7 years ago we stopped commuting and the car had always been my primary listening space; and for the past 6 years we've been in attached or multi-unit housing (if you can't listen to it loud, I sometimes tend not to listen at all). Second, I don't really have much of a clue as to where and how to find good music, and especially good new music. I don't listen to the radio; there are no record stores; I don't really trust the iTunes hot lists. My sources are therefore: the gadfly, Tmcd, my dad, Ryan, and a certain employee of the president's who shall remain nameless. Were it not for those folks, I'd be completely out of luck.

But none of that is to say that I spent the decade in silence. I did listen to music, and some great music indeed. Since Tmcd already has the best albums list running, I'm just going to give a list of the most played and most loved songs, by me, this decade.

So let me be clear with that bolding from the previous sentence: I make no claims to overall greatness. This is really more personal archeology than critical review. My process simply involved digging through my iTunes library and picking out standout songs; my only rule was that I could not pick more than one song from one band (without that rule it might have all been Patty Griffin). You'll also note there are a few pop hits off of albums that probably wouldn't make any list I might draw up, but the one place I still listen to music is on the rower, so a good pop song has a serious advantage for me. Here, in no order whatsoever, is what it looks like (you'll probably have to click the image to bring up a large enough image to read):

Morality and PR

2009-12-04T18:58:00.003-05:00

Here's my one thought on the Tiger car-wreck/philandering story: perhaps the press might consider making a distinction between the morality of a person's actions or choices, the evaluation of their overall character, on the one hand, and the way their team handles public relations, on the other. In this media frenzy, as in many others, this difference seems to be completely elided. The "story" therefore is whether or not Tiger has made a statement, whether he is "controlling" the story that the press is itself telling, whether the press will continue to speculate, and so forth. But what this means is that we come to judge the character of our sports heroes and other celebrities in terms of PR management. Tiger's "image," all would admit, has been carefully constructed, manipulated, and managed, and the "story" is about how this even will harm that image; thus, it's a question of moves in the game of Public Relations.

But I could care less about how Tiger "manages" his image. I care about the athlete for only two reasons: a) his athletic prowess, for the fact that something like arete only appears in athletes in today's culture, and b) secondarily, and related to (a) because I therefore identify with this figure and want to feel that I know and admire him. Here, obviously, is where all the role model, "look up to" stuff comes in. But my point is that (a) has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with what Tiger does off the golf course, and that (b) shouldn't have very much at all to do with Tiger's PR team. He cheated on his wife. He probably did so multiple times. He cheated on his wife of only 5 years (who just happens to be a super-model) and he has two small children. If we are going to discuss this under (b) then it seems like an open and shut case, and I have no problem morally condemning Tiger for utterly despicable choices and acts. But let's stop pretending that Tiger Woods is somehow a better or worse person because of what he says on his website, or how he directs his manager to deal with the press. He's obviously a great golfer, quite possibly the best to ever play the game. He is also one of the best athletes in the world today. And, it now seems clear, he's a pretty weak man.

Aproaching 2 Months with No Posts

2009-11-18T16:42:00.004-05:00

I could list excuses for pages and pages. Indeed, if I just posted a new excuse every day, I could keep the blog updated for a month.

Instead, I'll just say that it is not wise to try to buy a house in the middle of a rather intense academic semester (particularly one that has the added background pressure of a tenure decision).

We spent 8 months on this search because, how shall I put it, the last real estate transaction did not go very well. After looking at at least 50 places, someone finally took an offer that I thought was reasonable (and let's just say that most sellers found what I thought to be reasonable to be offensive in extremis).

We are now the owners of real estate for the fourth time, and owners of a condo for the first time. Just hours after closing we began the first home improvement project, installing new hardwood floors in the master bedroom. Here's photographic proof:

Grammar Police

2009-09-26T09:38:00.003-04:00

I like to think that I am very good at ignoring the myriad ways in which the English language is abused in the many things I read these days. But there are still lines, and sometimes they are crossed.

Some of you may know that Google, Apple, And AT&T are all sending letters back and forth to the FCC to comply with the FCC's investigation of Apple's decision to reject the Google Voice app for the iPhone. AT&T sent their response yesterday, and basically they blamed it all on Google. This was mostly dumb, but I'm not interested in the arguments, just the language used.

Please let me emphasize: this was a formal letter of response to the Federal Communications Commission concerning an on-going FCC investigation. It has footnotes. At the same time, it's only 4 pages long, and it was months in the making. So it seems fair of me to expect it to be edited and proofread and perhaps even, I'll not say well-written, but at least grammatically sound.

Here's the line:

By openly flaunting the call blocking prohibition that applies to its competitors, Google is acting in a manner inconsistent with the spirit, if not the letter, of the FCC's fourth principle contained in its Internet Policy Statement.

I'm guessing that with my learned audience of 5 readers it's not even necessary to say that the word flout (not flaunt) means to disregard openly a rule or law or authority. The word flaunt means to display something ostentatiously, to show off one's excess wealth or pretty jewelry. One simply cannot flaunt a prohibition, and just because words sort of sound alike doesn't mean they are substitutable.

Obviously I won't even mention the fact that in all the many places where this line is being quoted on websites, no one is including the needed sic.

Customers Who Bought this book....

2009-08-15T11:10:00.003-04:00

Hmmm...I wonder what the connection is between queer theory/television studies and 20th century visual culture in India???

Click the image for a bigger version:

The Open Source Textbook

2009-08-09T16:23:00.002-04:00

Reading this morning in the on-line NYT:

“Kids are wired differently these days,” said Sheryl R. Abshire, chief technology officer for the Calcasieu Parish school system in Lake Charles, La. “They’re digitally nimble. They multitask, transpose and extrapolate. And they think of knowledge as infinite.

“They don’t engage with textbooks that are finite, linear and rote,” Dr. Abshire continued. “Teachers need digital resources to find those documents, those blogs, those wikis that get them beyond the plain vanilla curriculum in the textbooks.”

Let's unpack this. Because my stodgy, textbook-based education enables me to do so:

multitask: do many things at once. unable to concentrate on one thing at a time.
transpose: mix things up, confuse one thing for another
extrapolate: make things up. unable to understand the difference between productive synthesis and fiction
knowledge as infinite: too much information. therefore, I don't need to know any of it at all. also: I can make it up because it's infinite and therefore also undefined/undefinable, limitlessly expandable.

I actually think that wiki-style knowledge production is fascinating and potentially productive. I'm in favor of using wikis in the classroom to help students build their knowledge and understand how synthesis (not transposition or extrapolation) works. But anyone who has done a google for a subject slightly outside of the mainstream will find multiple sources cut-and-pasted from the same place (with no record of which source the initial text comes from). This repetition also takes place in textbooks, to be sure. But the responsibility of the authors who write the textbooks, the peer reviewers who approve them, and the publishers that oversee these processes means that experts contribute, whether directly as authors or editors, or through reference to their latest research. Textbooks are a limited number of steps away from the archaeologist at a new dig in central America or the physicist working at the new supercollider. In the face of infinite knowledge production (read: making crap up as much as you want because you read it online somewhere), I worry that education will go the way of journalism: a bunch of folks, repeating the same memes in blogs and calling it knowledge.

Textbooks are boring to read--I get that. And they're expensive. But shouldn't we try instead to provide incentives for experts in their fields to work in schools as teachers? For those same folks to develop new materials to teach with? Shouldn't part of schooling be to learn how to think differently than one "wants to" or is comfortable with? Breaking old patterns--patterns encouraged by quick cut, advertising-driven media--and developing skills that might enable, say, reading a book (and not just Harry Potter) from beginning to end? Maybe a book that at first you don't immediately "get"? That doesn't immediately "hook" you with snappy dialogue written for a movie? (It could be a short book! Or a play!)

And finally (for the rant is now getting out of control): textbooks are a site of great political strife and contestation. This is important, because knowledge is never neutral. But we do, like journalists of yore, need to struggle to maintain our integrity as knowledge-producers, even in the face of economic and political pressure to do otherwise. Once we move this to an "open" platform, how do we understand, say, the problematic, religified terrain of geologic time? Or the history of Christianity itself? Or pick any war history, any history of partitioning of peoples, any colonial past. Will we be subject to the mob's decision on these things?

Am I misunderestimating the power of the collective wiki??

Shop Movies

2009-08-05T16:51:00.002-04:00

Our current home, in the workshop of F's uncle, has a number of advantages. Big-screen TV is not one of them, and yet we are watching films, in the spirit of mtg and tg, on our laptop, seated at the only table in the place. This is largely due to the lovely public library in town--they have a good, surprisingly wide ranging and eclectic contemporary film collection on DVD (including a whole batch of Brazilian indie films I haven't even brought up with F as a possibility, but there you are). We have watched several films, and if you know us, you know that we are trepidatious about watching film because we tend to, well, dislike in the extreme and/or have such scathing critical analyses afterwards that in fact we reduce said film into a puddle of ooze, and said discussion is summarized to others with a grunt and a "meh". So, herewith the 5p film reviews of the works we've seen thus far:

W: OMG boring. maybe this film was made for the generation after us that didn't live through this? was it supposed to be funny? why did I find myself offended at the thin/stupid/silent portrayal of Condi Rice? Yikes.

I've Loved you So Long: see it. amazingly well-acted, written, directed, and not as French as you worry it will be. we found the ending to be a cop-out, but hey, we are constitutionally unable to like any film wholeheartedly. Kristin Scott Thomas is amazing; Elsa Zylberstein is utterly transcendent.

Capote: F didn't like Capote himself--that is, he thought Capote was a bit of a twat. which he was, so the movie did a good job there. the film fell short of offering up an arc of: wow this guy is conceited---look how he has a crisis---look how he's fallen... because frankly, you don't really like him anyway, and he's never not conceited. the acting was good, but in a "I'm supposed to think this acting is good" sort of a way. I wanted it to be about Harper Lee instead, but whatever.

King Corn: very well put together, small documentary about corn. See it if you've driven through Iowa (or similar) and wondered who eats all that corn, anyway, in order to discover the horror that is our food system from a slightly different perspective. props for not going all Michael Moore on us.

photography books

2009-08-03T10:10:00.003-04:00

I finished Richard Powers' Three Farmers on the Way to a Dance, based on an August Sander photograph from just before WWI (see Getty collection). It goes without saying really, that it is a wonderful book--in part he does what I do for a living (close readings of photographs/images etc.) but since he's a novelist he gets to spin out the stories he sees in the work. What's wonderful about the book is that he gets photography: photographs are stories, are histories, are moments that spin out both backwards and forwards in time, producing an eerie simultaneity.

I thought, therefore: wouldn't it be fabulous to teach a course on photography through novels? Three Farmers, of course, and then also Rushdie's Ground Beneath Her Feet, which despite being about music was also, at base, about a photograph, its photographer, and immortality. Other suggestions?

Discussion in examination room 1: further thoughts on MJ

2009-07-30T17:41:00.003-04:00

Q:
Discuss the claim that in order to appreciate the 'Jackson phenomenon' it is necessary to conceptualize his oeuvre 'post-colonially', attending to the multiple routes of transmission, flow and contraflow, followed by his work as it traversed and transversed the charged circuits of globalizing capital commodities paradoxically enabling acts of post-hegemonic resistant-recuperation in the form of hybridizing reappropriation. In your answer make specific reference to examples such as this:

http://blogfiles.wfmu.org/LG/Wing_-_Beat_It.mp3

A:
Despite the widespread adoption of Michael Jackson (MJ) by formerly colonized peoples as a deified avatar of a pan-racial, brown-man-makes-good figure, his oeuvre defies the label 'post-colonial' and, I argue, embodies instead a shift in the locus of economic-political globalizing power from the center to the ostensible periphery, in which said periphery is simultaneously the media capital of Los Angeles, its racialized underbelly, and the (literally) self-effacing sculptural form represented globally by plastic surgery performance art (eg. Orlan), and particularly by the frisson effected by MJ's near-lifelike mask. This essay (in order to fulfill requirements of the hegemonic academic establishment) will address these issues in three parts.

First marker: 76 (solid first)

Second marker:
I concur with this grading. I particularly appreciate the way in which the candidate proposes to, as it were, 'get under the skin' of Jackson-ism, playing on the themes of the 'underbelly' and plastic surgery. Indeed, could we not say (should we? must we?) that in fact Jackson as performance artist renders his fleshly self a synecdoche for the late-modern-post-hyper-capitalist urban city; for Los Angeles itself? Adopting his own 'angelic' personae he remoulds and remakes the boundaries/borders of his city-self radically unsettling our dominant conceptions of the imperviousness of the border and exposing an unsettling porosity - even, daresay, a fungibility - inherent within the very instantating act of 'bordering' or 'emborderment'. Jackson's body thus emblematises and literalises sub-urban white flight, its own suburbs becoming whitened and lightened through the organised and commodified violence of the 'surgical' upon a body that then subjects itself to a kind of gang warfare, battles raging over the provenance and ownership of the territory as well as over the right to supply it with narcotics. Is this not the ultimate meaning of all Jacksonist phenomena and phenomenalising and summed up in that plaintive and quintessentially Jacksonist wail;

What about the crying man
(What about us)
What about Abraham
(What was us)
What about death again
(ooo, ooo)
Do we give a damn

I feel however that the essay was marred by a lack of consideration of the moonwalk.

Response:
Moonwalk: is this not just another moment of frisson, undermining physical and modernist norms (gravity, progress) in line with the larger remaking of the body/city/universe described above? Or, if you prefer (and I'm not sure I do), a kind of historical contextualism in which MJ relaunches the joy/imperialism of the 1969 moon landing in the conquering from below (literally, in terms of his feet) of the anti-progress, anti-modernist, decidedly enchanted moonwalk?

[hat-tip to Questioner, Candidate, First and Second Marker, whose names have been changed to protect, well, everyone. and no-one.]

The Weather Forecast

2009-07-28T11:23:00.002-04:00

Here's what the forecast says for Thursday of this week:

Baltimore, MD, low temperature: 74 degrees F

La Veta, CO, high temperature: 68 degrees F

And this, by way of an (admittedly weak) explanation of why I haven't been blogging...

dwt: driving while texting/talking

2009-07-21T17:48:00.004-04:00

NYT piece today on the 2003 suppression of governmental research that shows the dangers of talking on a cell phone while driving, whether with or without one's hands: your ability to drive is approximately equal to someone with a .08 blood alcohol level.

In other words, hang up and drive.

In driving across the country (MD to CO, so not quite all of the country), instead of playing the "spot the drunk" game, as we used to when commuting or driving after 5 pm anywhere, we began playing the "talking or texting" game when approaching a vehicle swerving from one side of the lane to another, slowing to 10 mph below the speed limit only to subsequently speed up to 20 mph above (once call is over), or otherwise exhibit behavior formerly associated with drunkenness.

Extra points if you are not only endangering yourself but also other people in your car!
Super-bonus points if you are also carrying children, who, because of childseat safety laws will probably survive the wreck that you will perish in because you had to chit chat to pass the time on the freeway!

I have had a very strict rule from early on in the "car phone" era: no driving and cell phone at the same time. corollary: if I discover I am talking to someone who is driving, I tell them to call me back when they're stationary, and I hang up.

I know. Your life is really jam-packed, and you need that time to finish some business/call your mother/make dentist appointments etc. Hang up anyway. You are driving a machine that kills people. Have some respect for that, and for your own life.

more mountain musings

2009-07-16T15:37:00.002-04:00

We brought with us the latest New York Review of Books, to which we subscribed upon return to the US, giving into its inexpensive yearly cost and its gift of well-written text discussing other well-written texts that I will probably never read. As a bonus, they advertised my new book on the back cover a few issues ago, which was exciting.

In this issue, Michael Chabon writes a great piece on adventure stories of childhood, the spaces of "wild" suburban Maryland where he grew up, and the loss of such wilderness for his own children--as well as what that might mean in terms of the next generation's ability to engage in imaginative, adult-free play. His argument (crudely) is that the maps you find in the front of adventure novels and stories aren't there to allow you to escape to another world--they are there to remind you of that world you created when you were a kid in the strip of land behind your house, or asphalt behind the local corner store, or patch of green somewhere nearby. My sisters and I built a fort at the edge of the national forest near our family's Breckenridge CO summer getaway spot--it was up an abandoned logging road and involved dead, decaying trees draped over one another to form a square, building-like shape from which we could see little but other trees. But we could play various games involving territorial possession (ah, childhood imperialism), throwing objects on one another's heads, and generally reenacting the violence and competition international relations realists now make their careers in analyzing. We were out of shouting range of our parents for sure, and surrounded by potentially dangerous falling trees, abandoned logs, bugs, biting animals likely carrying dread diseases, dirt, twisted ankle up to broken neck scenarios, amoeba infested streams--the whole bit. It was paradise.

Chabon's point (or one of them) is that we as humans need this space of the non-adult in order to develop an imagination, in order to see ourselves as actors in a larger drama, to enable our next steps into growing up, to posit the truth that adults don't have all the answers and can't save you from yourself nearly as much as they would like to.

I pondered after reading his piece that this loss was evident, but that contemporary children might have other ways of flexing the imagination: video games take you to alternate universes, for example, where you play with your friends, fight for territory, take on alternate identities. The difference is this (at least in my mind): teleology. In the fort-based games we played up in Breckenridge, there was no end, really. No goal. You played game X that you made up until your sister decided she'd had enough of your crappy game and she created her own fort from which a new game emerged. Or she decided to scale Mt. Grabadora (my father's moniker for the hill behind the condo) instead.

While I remember working very hard on fortifications, making little spaces for various activities in the fort, stockpiling potential weapons, seeking out sources of water, and the like (can you see why architectural history appealed to me?) the goal was to build, to play, not to get to the next level or save the princess or finish the game. I suppose that's partly true of some video/on-line games as well, but I see in my college-aged students a remarkable inability to think outside of the teleological box, perhaps spurred by the fact that this kind of open play was not emphasized in their childhood, but instead games of a closed nature: let's do X until Y occurs in a safe, adult-controlled space, so that you don't scrape a knee/break your neck.

My students, for example, rarely understand that research isn't about finding an answer that's out there, but is a creative process of making an answer out of available information, often to the extent of changing the question entirely to make an answer or two possible. It's not a treasure hunt in which a magic Google deity has placed the answers in the webiverse. It's a wooden, bug-infested fort made of abandoned logs that your sister is gradually poaching to make a new, better fort the next clearing over. And the question is not: how can I stop her, but perhaps might be: how can I change the parameters of the game such that no new fort will allow her to prevail? The answer is not out there waiting. It's in you, and it may or may not emerge depending on how creative and imaginative you are. That, I think, is one of the major losses of our safety-obsession.

missive from the mountain

2009-07-15T11:47:00.002-04:00

I'm gazing out at the 13-er that sits outside the shop window, pondering the arbitrariness of the 14-er mystique. I have a desire to climb the 13-er, because it is not the 14-er. Because I'd like to go where fewer people have gone. Because I'd like to contest the -est part of the 14-er mindset.

Transient Gadfly has been musing on similar questions regarding the superlative, and in that case how cream might rise to the top in a vat of pasteurized milk in which the cream is in fact largely vegetable oil puffed up by the capitalist milk establishment to appear as cream, while the real cream is ignored on the shelf by self-described health-conscious, low-fat worshipers.

I heart butter.

If we all keep churning in a milieu of mediocrity, as evidenced by my hour-long stint watching CNN's Situation Room yesterday while rowing at the local gym, and if the cream is not cream but hailed as cream by the milk-lowfat lobby and advertised in hip commercials touting "I can't believe it's not" in-between the repeated, mediocre questions of the Sotomayor hearing, then perhaps we need to change the way we identify, mark, and package the superlative. (Or perhaps it should not be packaged.)

We need to find the fabulous in the 13er, enjoy the butter inadvertently churned in my mixer as I overshot whipping the cream, acknowledge the genius in a book with a print-run of 400, and know that good music and great music alike spread the love in the world. All you need is to produce that one shiver of goosebumps, that one moment of yum, that feeling of a thing well done. Call that success, and people will begin to identify the real cream rising, they'll drink it in their coffee every morning, and be happier, healthier folk. Redefine the -est.

wax on, wax off

2009-07-02T11:08:00.002-04:00

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

2009-06-30T08:44:00.004-04:00

The Orioles starting pitching, after Uehara, really is awful.
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.
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.
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

2009-06-26T09:49:00.003-04:00

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

2009-06-19T16:00:00.002-04:00

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

2009-06-10T15:08:00.004-04:00

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

2009-06-05T10:59:00.002-04:00

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

2009-06-04T14:28:00.002-04:00

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

2009-06-02T07:03:00.003-04:00

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

2009-05-24T09:13:00.002-04:00

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

2009-05-23T17:18:00.002-04:00

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

2009-05-05T11:35:00.002-04:00

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

2009-04-22T15:06:00.005-04:00

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

2009-04-14T11:41:00.002-04:00

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

2009-03-23T20:11:00.002-04:00

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

Unoriginal observation of the week

2009-03-14T14:22:00.002-04:00

My latest cultural thesis....

The Killers: Duran Duran for the 00s?

I'm told this is the most unoriginal observation I've made in a long while. Probably true. But OMG is their Hot Fuss not completely Simon LeBon meets post-millennial cynicism? Plus, awesome workout album. How 80s is that?

The Depression must have been depressing

2009-03-05T13:53:00.003-05:00

because this isn't as bad as the depression and yet it totally sucks. Okay, so obviously they don't call it a depression for nothing, but it struck me this morning that the low-level stress of worrying about retirement funds, college funds, getting, having and keeping a job, the non-possibility of ever having that "vacation" you've been thinking about forever and never quite did, the expense of travel, lack of Christmas (which will, I'm sure Bill O'Reilly will agree, in fact usher in a whole new wave of actual religious celebration on the holiday....or not), the not going out to restaurants, the not buying new shoes but mending them instead, my pondering of learning how to sew because I don't want to shell out the money to hire someone to reline my wool coat....and so on in non-parallel fashion (apologies). all of these low-level, constant stresses mean that the world isn't all that fun right now. Thus my conclusion: The Depression must have been really depressing.

It makes me wonder when politicians begin thoughts with: Even if you haven't been directly affected by the economic downturn, you probably know someone who has...

What makes me stop for a moment is this: Of course we've all been affected. Of course we all know someone who has, probably really directly. Who are these people who don't? The answer, I fear, is the group of people who lead this country. Why do politicians still shape their rhetoric to account for the approximately .2 people who have not been effected? Perhaps they are trying to allow for the fact that our dog, Luke, does not truly feel the current economic downturn in any real way. They are trying to be inclusive of puppy-kind and their ilk within their economic policies. Or not. It indicates that there's still a desire to cling to a space outside of the downturn. Kind of like clinging to a "pre-9/11" mentality back in the day.

So a final thought: if the depression is depressing, is the recession recessing? And if so, to what age/time are we recessing? Or are we simply in a downturn, and so turning down (as in a hotel turndown service?) Thoughts?

It's March

2009-03-03T10:03:00.003-05:00

It was 13 degrees this morning, and despite #3's (probably proper) complaints about raised expectations, there is plenty of snow and ice on the ground here.

So much for spring.

But March means the end of RPM 2009. And I want my fix of Calculus Affair. Where is the new EP/LP??? Call it what you will, I need it now. I'm not saying this is the most anticipated album to come out today, because I hear there's some group of Irish lads who have also put something out today, but it's WAY up there.

Thus, and again, I ask, where's my Calculus Affair?

EDIT: for that other group, check out Letterman, where they are playing all this week. They played Breathe last night. If you haven't bought the album, this performance will give you a lot better sense of the album than the single does.

Slumdog update

2009-02-25T16:25:00.002-05:00

Jai ho indeed. Well done Danny Boyle and collaborators for the Slumdog win. I am still skeptical. I did run across a great piece that delves into urban history/planning and the protests over the title of the film in India--most coverage of these protests focuses on the "dog" bit, but the authors of this piece focus on the "slum" bit: calling Dharavi a slum (or the biggest slum in Asia) takes away from the incredible accomplishment it is.... they write:

you won’t be chased by beggars or see hopeless people loitering — Dharavi is probably the most active and lively part of an incredibly industrious city. People have learned to respond in creative ways to the indifference of the state — including having set up a highly functional recycling industry that serves the whole city. Link.

The authors both work with PUKAR, a Mumbai-based scholarly and public policy organization that hosts seminars, talks, films, and funds research into the new urban challenges facing megalopolises like Mumbai.

After one listen

2009-02-22T20:48:00.003-05:00

No Line on the Horizon, the complete album, is now streaming on u2.com. Rolling Stone gave it 5 stars. Neil McCormick at the Observer liked it a lot. And the guy at the Irish Times says it makes up for their 'lost decade' and is clearly the album they should have made after Achtung Baby!

Any u2 fans knows you absolutely cannot judge a u2 album after one listen. A commenter on the Rolling Stone site said it best:

I remember the first time I listened to Achtung Baby, I thought and said out loud: "What the f--- is this?!!?"

Achtung is one of the greatest albums ever created.

So, this is not a review in any way, shape, or form (stay tuned for that).

But I can say this:

it's more of an album than anything since Achtung
they take more chances here than they have since PoP
GOYB makes a LOT more sense in the context of the album (like the Fly)
there's a lot of War in this album
I have high expectations; that is, I already have a feeling that's it's not only in the top 3 u2 album category, but that it might even have a shot at competing in that league [I liked the last 2 albums - hell, I loved Pop - but I haven't said something like this about those albums]

Finally....the cover

2009-02-20T18:26:00.006-05:00

After all those hours looking through images, and all that discussion here (that is, here, here, and here), the cover ended up as a creation of the designer and should appear something like what you see below. Despite the fact that, in the end, I/we didn't really get to pick the cover, I wanted to offer one last round of thanks to everyone who helped in the process...

In the howling wind comes a stinging rain

2009-02-12T19:09:00.002-05:00

So the fly has been hard at work, blogging up a storm (at least by the standards around here) of late. It seems TOaO is now a site for song-analysis, and as you can see by the comments sections, I'm an avid reader.

But today my thoughts turn from song analysis to album analysis, or better, sequence analysis. This was spurred by Amazon's u2 sale today!!! Since I already own every song, I picked up my 4th copy of The Joshua Tree (that's not a typo: my original + tekne's original + the version from the complete u2 + today = 4). I imagine I've heard this album at least 1000 times, and I've heard many of the songs on it live more than a dozen times. So what struck me when I listened to it today, twice? It's this:

A large portion of u2's success, of u2's mythic status, of who and what they are as a band is owed to the sequence of the first 4 songs on this album. For those for whom this isn't written into their brains, that's 1) Streets, 2) Still Haven't Found, 3) With or Without You, and 4) Bullet the Blue Sky. All were huge hits. With or Without You might have been a bigger single at the time, but Streets and Bullet are played at EVERY u2 concert - something that can be said for very few of their songs, with only Pride going back farther. But the 'thing' about these 4 songs isn't about the individual songs; only the last is one of my favorites. And it's not clear that today songs like these would even be hits. Streets and Still Haven't Found just aren't those sort of catchy, poppy, rockin' songs that usual make hits.

But there is just something about the way they go together, about the way they create a space that is the American desert, set a mood, establish a sound. Bono has commented that later albums (like ATYCLB) had a lot of great songs, but had the wrong playing order, or for some reason just didn't come together as an album. The Joshua Tree definitely comes together as an album.

Even more interesting, to me at least, is the fact that these 4 songs really don't sound all that much like most of the 100s of songs that u2 has recorded. Indeed, now that they have 12 studio albums, it becomes even clearer that their biggest album is in many ways the one that's most distinct - more ballads, more anthems, less rock, more weirdness that's not easy to categorize (e.g. Zooropa has weirdness, but it's synthetic weirdness, whereas Joshua Tree has hippy moments on it).

Perhaps the fly can tell us, in future writings, about how to make an album. How to fit songs together. And how to come up with an opening sequence of 4 songs that make it possible to play an album 1000 times without the slightest hint of getting sick of it.

Why isn't that guy on TV campaigning?

2009-02-10T09:24:00.002-05:00

I found President Obama's press conference last night to be quite a revelation. At the beginning, there was something about it that just felt odd to me, and about half way in I realized what it was: he wasn't acting out the character of the would-be president, he wasn't deflecting every answer the way a candidate would (and the way he often did as a candidate). In short, he wasn't campaigning for the next election, he was just describing the actions he was taking and that he thought were necesary - one might even say leading.

It hit me that I've never really experienced this phenomenon. At least since Reagan, the US president has played the role of president, even when in office. Even the 'policy-wonk' Clinton did this, and surely W. did it in a way we've never seen before.

I'm not saying that I love the current stimulus bill, or that I'm a huge fan of the politics of the last few weeks, Obama's politics included. (Although, on this front, I'm teaching the Federalist today and I was struck by Kesler's introduction in which he points out that the opponents of the Constitution thought it was tyrannical [as we know] but that the 'friends' also worried the thing would be a total failure [as we don't often emphasize]). But whatever happens, it's a source of some comfort and some pride to think that Obama might be making some decisions and taking some actions not as a 'democratic strategy' or as tactics for midterm elections, or for 2012 (or whatever). But rather, he might actually – at least some of the time – be moving down a path that he thinks is genuinely in the public weal.

Position opening: Patron to pay the extortionists

2009-02-02T15:32:00.002-05:00

Job title: Patron

Responsibilities: To underwrite the costs, both in terms of up-front expenses as well as in terms of post-publication lawsuits, related to the publication of scholarly material. For example, one article published in 2006 with 13 images cost $450 out of pocket for the author (no royalties/earnings result from any publications). Book, with 19 images, cost $1200, including one image that cost £250 just for the permissions. These costs may or may not include the cost of producing the actual reproduction, and they will not include the cost to the press of producing the images in the publication itself (that is a separate cost, and blessedly the responsibility of the press). You as patron, on behalf of scholar, are only responsible for acquiring the reproductions and the permissions to publish.*

Skills required: Have a great deal of extra cash lying around. Desire to participate in supporting freedom of thought, as the high cost of reproductions impacts directly the type of research project undertaken by those participating in the study of visual culture. Be a lawyer or able to hire a lawyer, as the likelihood of lawsuits due to the fuzziness of the rules surrounding fair use, copyright, and global and electronic publication rights are such that a 3rd c. BCE sculpture, well out of copyright, may in fact be "owned" by an individual, corporation, or state government, and certainly the photograph itself may also be "owned" by someone who may wish to "sue" your "ass" at some point down the line for, well, doing your job and being a scholar. Thus, the patron's job is to protect said scholar from these types of threats so that scholar can do his/her job.

Additional qualifications: Ability to do major provenance-based research projects through legal documents that you probably don't have access to, or the ability to hire someone at great expense to do same. Or, willingness to spend over half of your research/writing time on researching reproduction permissions.

Note: this job is dependent on the continuation of the extortionist economy requiring massive fees for the non-profit, educational, scholarly uses of images (usually largely available to the public anyway). By the way, the use of these images in said scholarly publications often *increases* their value, thus accruing more benefit to the copyright holders. For which the scholar must pay a hefty fee.

*Unless, as is more and more the case, presses are in fact unable to publish more than a small number of images (say 10 in a book, in black and white) and you require a higher number to make your argument (which in fact is dependent on images). This will require you to ask for money, on the order of £1500 at a minimum, in order to publish the book with the required number of images. This is in addition to the reproduction fees and rights, of course.

[Article coming out soon, for which I'm currently working on permissions--current tally: $540. There are 5 images in the article. Three of the objects were produced in the 1830s. Two are photographs from the 1940s, available by googling. I may, in future, simply direct folks to Google Image Search.]

Name, worship

2009-01-28T18:40:00.003-05:00

Returning from India, the brain is a bit befuddled, a bit of soul-lag, a bit of weirdness: the cab I caught this morning driven by a Sikh man and yet it was a yellow cab, not an Ambassador car, with a working meter. Weird. So there are some adjustments going on. I am, however, also beginning the teaching semester, half-a-brain down and half-a-soul still in transit across the ocean. I'm telling you, we need to go back to ships. Jet travel is great but it messes with the balance of the universe too much.

In this half-baked light, I note simply that in one class I have a student named Aarthi and in the other a student named Pooja. Both names describe different forms of worship. This strikes me as balanced, from the doubled vowels to the visions of lamps and ghee and offerings along the Ganges each evokes. Not the people necessarily, but their listing on my course roster. Worship itself moving among us, elbowing Old Testament figures and Korean emperors for space on my class lists. Maybe I've been reading too much magical realism lately, but it makes me happy to witness this conjunction.

Welcome to the new semester.

Water, or lack thereof

2009-01-21T22:05:00.002-05:00

News stories in Delhi tell of well-off neighborhoods purchasing water from private companies in order to have any on hand at all; the guest house where I'm staying has at least 6 huge storage units for water (two below in the rear, two in the central basement area, and two on the roof). Water is a huge problem in Delhi and in the world more generally; we just take it for granted in the US.

Obviously you don't drink the water that comes from the tap in India--this is the one way I've gotten sick thus far (knock on wood). But you also are advised to be careful with the water you use for washing, both in terms of ingesting it accidentally and in terms of simply using too much.

So how little water can you use for bathing? This is sort of a challenge--I've managed to get clean with about 2 gallons of warm water, and then brushed my teeth with about a half a cup of bottled water. Bathrooms in India include a bucket and a small plastic pitcher so that you can bathe fairly easily and thoroughly in this manner.

I completely understand the luxury of the long hot shower and I certainly get the luxury of the hot tub or bath--but are we headed for a time when everyone will have to assess their impact on the planet through water consumption? Maybe this would be a good thing.

The other thing that strikes me as odd is the way in which we become socialized/disciplined into particular bathing rituals at an early age, and then these develop and continue over time. But I do get a sense that we all have a "proper" way of bathing and to do something different, even in the privacy of your own bathtub, is odd and radical and weird. No one's looking, right? Why not bathe in 2 gallons with a bucket? What's stopping you? (Aside from needing to get a bucket into the bathroom, which I admit is a small hurdle.) It strikes me as remarkable that we (I?) remain societally and behaviorally disciplined even in this arena.

Obama: Good peoples

2009-01-20T22:56:00.002-05:00

My rickshaw-wallah made the above statement yesterday morning once he discovered (where from, ma'am?) I was from the US. "Big changes" "Good for India" These things are part of the discourse on the streets of Delhi, with every passing mention to South Asia in the confirmation hearings reported with headline-level coverage. We'll see if it's good for India or not. I'm not entirely sure. With the Taliban shutting down schools in Pakistan's Swat district, disallowing girls from returning to the classroom after the winter break, I hope the Obama folks in charge of the Afghanistan-Pakistan-India region have a plan of some kind. Because Pakistan seems to be getting worse...Let's hope that Good People can get something good done.

I Tried

2009-01-18T22:22:00.003-05:00

I know, as an American, I'm supposed to be a football fan. And you see, I was a huge football fan 20+ years. But since the age of Tivo, it's become increasingly difficult for me to watch the game. Three years of following International Rugby has only compounded my distaste. So aside from the Super Bowl, I've only watched about 5 games over the past 5 years. But it's Championship Sunday and my 'hometown' team is playing. So today I tried to watch football.

It didn't work.

I get the cultural phenomenon that is American Football - lots of people, lots of bad snacks, lots of time together, etc. But the game itself? It's horrendous! And I think it's only got worse over the past 10 years. The game takes forever (4 hours!?) and yet nothing ever really happens. There is no flow, no rhythm to the game, and every single play has to be replayed a minimum of 3 times. You get a couple of replays for a 2 yard run up the middle; if somebody actually scores a touchdown - that's worth 12 different looks from every angle imaginable. But I think the thing that really gets me is that football in 2009 - perhaps unlike Football in 1995, the last time I paid close attention - is all about the DEFENSE. And Sports where defense is primary just aren't as enjoyable to watch (see NBA, Detroit Pistons, circa 1989; cf. NHL, New Jersey Devils, circa 2000).

To my eyes, football is mostly a chaotic mess - the defense tends to blitz somewhere between 2 and 788 players. The offense tries desperately and frantically to avoid those blitzers. The vast majority of plays do NOT go well for the offense, and then occasionally they get lucky and hit for a big play. If you are watching Baltimore play Pittsburgh, don't count on seeing many scoring plays. And overall the game is all about physical strength: e.g. quarterbacks aren't tall and lean any longer, because the key requirement for a quarterback is that he survive the season. The game has no grace to it, no beauty. Maybe it's always been this why, and it is I who have changed. But I'm afraid I'll have to stick with hockey, and re-double my efforts to find a way to watch the Six Nations this year.

a taste for proxy penury

2009-01-14T10:06:00.005-05:00

I was bothered yesterday by the fact that Slumdog Millionare (Slumdog Crorepati!) has taken over the news here because of the Golden Globe wins (first Indian to win a GG, for the score of the film). I couldn't quite pinpoint it. Something about the fact that the film has yet to be released in India (it comes out on the 23rd of January) and yet the press is falling all over itself in praise for the film. It will be interesting to see reactions of those who go and see it finally, after all the hype here.

What bothered me wasn't quite that, though--it was more than just the unjustness of India's massive movie-going public being last on the list of those who get to see the film. The film about India. The film that many are marvelling at--how real it is, how it gets into the depth of the slums, etc. Critics in India's media are talking about how it took a foreign director to film in the real slums--the assumed corellary that an Indian director would put together a film set in some backlot in the Bollywood film cities.

But this wasn't what was bothering me. Then I read this somewhat tongue-in-cheek piece in the opinion section of the paper this morning (the TOI, Times of India): Slumdog Solution. It doesn't hit my discomfort quite on the head, but it gets close: isn't this just the west fawning over a depiction of the non that it really really really needs right now: hey look, they're poorer than us. Like really a lot poorer. Wow could it be worse. But hey, they have hope, so we should have hope, no? Out of the muck, beauty rises.

And yes, like the lotus, so the characters in Slumdog. The idea of slum tourism that the article raises at the end (Beggar & Breakfast) echoes existing forms of terror tourism in places like Israel (okay maybe not this month, but...) and Ireland. Books like Shantaram also provide some voyeuristic insight into slum life, although that book is closer to a memoir and doesn't sugar coat much (vide the scenes in the prison). Fiction like Mistry's A Fine Balance does a better job of revealing the horrors of mafia-controlled begging rings and the resultant loss of human potential. And by "better" I mean no, it doesn't get better. Not after 300 pages, not after 500. It only gets worse.

I suppose that while I enjoyed the film, and thought the first 2/3rds to be beautifully filmed, well directed, wonderfully acted, and yes, very "real" if that can be ascribed to a film, I had trouble with the salvation bit at the end, and with the fact that the torture in police custody bit was filmically placed at the beginning but temporally co-existed with the moment of highest hope. Tension and contradiction, to be sure. But how much of this is, as the TOI asks, poverty pornography? How are we culpable for this? What are the ethics of the celebration of Slumdog in a moment of downward economic spiral in which those already at the bottom will in all likelihood only get crushed more?

secret coffee recipes stolen from the Cuban Armed Forces

2009-01-13T08:48:00.002-05:00

I am writing this in a Barista coffee shop, one of a chain that serves all your Starbucks favorites and gets its coffee from Lavazza, of Italian espresso fame. They also have smoothies, granitas, and gelato, along with a rather American assortment of muffins, scones and cakes. Their livery is a soothing orange and brown, but not in a halloween type way. Their suggestion/complaint cards include the above phrase. Priceless. I come here often, for coffee is important no matter where you are. And it's warm, a huge benefit in comparison to my guest house.

I'm in Connaught circus, which is really a horrible place to be--crowded, dirty, with too many tourists. But I did get my shoes shined in front of United Coffee House by two lovely men who not only shined my shoes but identified that my heels were coming up out of them (They are Danskos. This is normal.) and thus they did not fit me properly. I thought they were going to replace my insoles (which, to be fair, have multiple holes in them and should by all rights be replaced. The shoes are at least 6 years old, possibly 8 years, and my only pair of black "dress/professional" shoes for many of those years.) and I was a bit alarmed since despite the holes they are thick, good, arch-supporting insoles. Instead they simply wanted to add a layer of insole such that my foot fit better in my shoe. Very kind of them. It makes sense that they would be feet experts, given their line of work. All told I paid at least twice, possibly three-times Indian price (this is also normal)--about three US$, or Rs150. (Last time I was in India I paid Rs20 for just the shoeshine in Jaipur, while I was with the Indian guide and he was breathing down the shoe shiner's neck.) I have never gotten a shoeshine in the US. How much do they run these days? The bonus this time was that I got to practice a bit of Hindi (Purana joota hai--ji ha, abhi naya joota hai, na? Ha ji. Bahut dhanyavad.) and sit unaccosted by vendors in Connaught (since one vendor already had me in their proverbial capitalist claws). So all is well with the world. And my shoes have never looked newer. Huzzah.

Written on REST TIME

2009-01-12T08:10:00.002-05:00

REST TIMING for Microfilm/Microfiche Readers are given below:
SECOND SHIFT
2:45-3 pm
3:45-4 pm
4:45-5 pm
5:45-6 pm

It is unclear from the instructions at the Nehru Library whether the rest time is for scholars or for the microfilm. I imagine the latter, but it is refreshing to be forced to take a break, one 15 minute period out of each hour. And so here I sit not resting but instead writing a blog entry. My US/UK-paced life coming through in the face of India time. I can, however, hear the woman behind me typing away just as I am, so that makes me feel a bit better about not truly resting.

I'm intrigued as a simultaneous participant and observer in the relation between culture shock and its rearrangement of the body, timing of daily cycles, and the shaping of one's daily rituals, from brushing teeth to resting for 15 minutes out of each hour. Despite the fact that I tend to take a zen-style, go-with-the-flow approach to India (for anything else is madness), the body still resists moving into new patterns, breaking old ones, groping futilely to anticipate the next challenge to the old order. How will disciplinary power emerge today, I ask myself each morning. In hourly breaks from the microform. Unanticipated, clearly.

And from the research bin today: Nehru wrote in his prison diary that he missed the sound of dogs barking at night, his sign of ultimate isolation. I can hear them just fine each night, all night. No worries.

Lost in Translation

2009-01-10T09:28:00.003-05:00

As I sat in an autorickshaw in traffic today, first on the Mathura road and then later trying to get across town for some food, I had a moment of Bill Murray-ness, swept along in the slow-moving tide of cars and rickshaws, between canyons of packed buses (run on Clean Natural Gas (CNG)! Green Delhi, Clean Delhi) and massive cargo lorries. What a completely bizarre place we live in, this world of ours. How do people live here? Ah modern alienation. The ennui of hazy distanciation from the real, unbroken even when the real reaches into the rickshaw with a stack of Booker Prize winning paperbacks and says: madam? madam? book? Aravind Adiga's White Tiger? madam?

Library smells

2009-01-09T10:10:00.002-05:00

I spent the day at Teen Murti Bhavan, Jawaharlal Nehru's former residence--technically next door in the new modern library building. I discovered over the holidays that a fragrance manufacturer has synthesized "In the Library" which I pondered purchasing for my mother (a librarian) but then decided that that is exactly what she needs: to smell like her workplace. So I didn't do that. I will say, however, and I am going out on a limb because I have not, in fact, smelled the above scent, that the perfumier had never been in the Nehru Library, for he would have had to add 'eau de mothball' and waft a bit of DDT-level bug spray into the mix. Smelling (and seeing) these things at Nehru's library was disturbing (and headache inducing) but then you think: wow. what would this place be like without them? Gross.

Sanjay Gupta, or: Obama in India

2009-01-08T08:59:00.002-05:00

Obama appeared twice in my day today, as I wandered around the capital city in a bit of a post-flight, post-Britain haze, not at all lightened by the actual haze in Delhi's air, something one does not think about for too long when one is here.

First, below the fold in the front page of the Times of India: "Obama wants Indian doc as surgeon-general." with a little pic of Gupta and a list of all of the PIOs in Obama's transition team (persons of Indian origin--keep up people!). The article claims this post has had "Indian" written all over it--a statement that I think only could be made without retribution in an Indian paper on Indian soil, given the stereotype of diaspora-Indian-on-path-to-med-school it raises. But there you are. He also features on p. 17 of the first section, under the title: "Sanjay Gupta was on sexiest men of 2003 list," showing that the Times has its priorities straight. There it reads a bit like a matrimonial, listing his degrees and achievements, before mentioning he's now married.

Second, while at the Gandhi Museum this morning, a lovely man was trying to talk to me with my broken Hindi and his broken English, and asked where I was from (always the first question) and then mentioned Obama's name. Except he said Osama. Sigh.

It's Muharram julu (processions) and majlis (gathering/sermons) tonight and so I am staying in, despite some small bit of desire to go and see it. But the 98% of the brain that is, well, aware of the goings on in Gaza and the recent bombings in Mumbai and the fact that Pakistan is getting the blame here is, well, staying away from crowds of (however peaceful) Muslims mourning the martyrdom of the Prophet's gransons, Hasan and Hussain. Next time. Muharram Mubarak.

the meaning of community

2008-12-23T16:28:00.002-05:00

So I'm sick. And I had my yearly "girl parts" appointment today, the first doctor's visit since being back in the US. So it was automatically traumatic, even if it went perfectly. Ha. Couldn't find the office buried in the middle of the hospital complex. 15 minutes late. No idea what the prescription said. Everything actually went very smoothly. I was in head cold fog, but managed to smile and nod and do the right things at the right times, as you do.

On the way home, I stop at local pharmacy (rather than evil CVS) to minimize the trauma and maximize the potential that I might, indeed, fill that prescription. I miscalculated. It's the 23rd, and yet school is still in session? There are about 20 private schools right next to the little shopping strip with the pharmacy, and so parking/driving was a bit, well, let's say third world. I pulled well past the school mess and managed to find a space--for those of you who know us, this is problematic as we love our cars and in fact don't go out unless we know there's a place to park--end space, protected on six sides from door dings/bumper rash/tree and bird droppings. So I found a space. I parked carefully. A passer-by came up--nice woman in her 30s--and waved my door open. I opened it, sniffled, squinted, said: yes? And she informed me that in fact, had I parked a few feet back, someone could park in front of me. And had I parked a few feet forward, someone could park behind me. And I should think about the community when I park, think about others.

I was non-plussed. She wasn't angry or agitated, just a bit preachy, which is fair enough I suppose. I said: yes, I know I parked this way. It's so that no one will hit my car when they park. She said: well, that's less important than caring about the community by parking so others can park. Now, having learned from Northern Exposure that sometimes the best cure for a conversation you don't understand is to stay silent and look slightly confused, I tried this. It worked. She walked away saying Merry Christmas; I said: okay, thanks! Merry Chrismtas! got out of my car and ran into the pharmacy.

It was weird.

And it got me thinking about community. She didn't want to commune with me in any way. No name, no introduction, no--hey, do you live around here too? You new to town? No interest in connecting with me as a human being. So it can't be about that, surely. What if I'd asked her if she'd like to join me for coffee at the nearby Starbucks to discuss said community? I don't know. That would have been communing. We could have discussed parking issues, perhaps gotten at what was wrong with her day. What kind of family she had visiting. What kind of car she drives.

I'm not a very community person, to be sure, what with the whole misanthrope thing. But perhaps community is also about accepting the eccentricities of those in your community who are a little (or a lot) different than you. She clearly has issues with not having enough parking around her house/business/life. I get that. I get the tire-slashing rage at lack of parking. Empathize. Been there. And she can have that issue. I have an issue with people damaging my property for no reason, causing me endless days of hassle, real money with insurance agents/plans, lack of transportation, and all over the holiday season when these things would really really be a pain. I know I'm weird. Other people don't have the car thing. But I do. So perhaps community is about recognizing that hey--that crazy lady with the new silver Mini just parked like an ass. She must love that car. Ah well. I guess if she drove an SUV instead of the shortest car in America (Smart car aside) she'd be taking up about the same amount of room, right?

And if we were all automatons parking properly, then frankly I wouldn't have this parking issue. But we're not. And that's what's interesting about community. It's about differences. People coming together despite and because of them. So thank you, fellow community member on the side of the road, scolding me despite the season. Go forth and do what makes you happy. I'll continue to park obnoxiously when I have to drive, 'cause I'm a bit weird. Coffee's on me next time we meet.

Can someone explain California constitutional law to me?

2008-12-20T09:00:00.004-05:00

There's something I don't understand. I keep running across references to court challenges to prop 8 that would overturn it because a constitutional convention should have been required to pass the amendment. A CNN article today describes this as follows:

Opponents are also seeking to have the amendment nullified, arguing that it alters the state's constitution -- meaning the state Supreme Court's May ruling -- and therefore, according to state law, is a revision that requires a constitutional convention.

Um, they argue that the amendment 'alters the constitution'. That's not an argument, that's the definition of an amendment.

The CA SC ruling is an interpretation of the CA constitution, saying that the constitution requires equal protection for the rights of individuals to marry, regardless of their sex. It overturned the referendum (why do they call these things 'ballot initiatives' these days; that's just confusing) DOMA law that passed in CA in 2004. SO....

It's obvious that the entire reason for being of prop 8 is to change the meaning of the constitution so that it WILL allow for discrimination in access to marriage based on sex.

Now it seems to be the case that somewhere in the CA constitution - I should go read it, but none of the articles that talk about this stuff give any cites or links, so I'm being stubborn - it distinguishes between amendments that require a convention and those that don't. At the moment, that sounds like a STUPID distinction. If you are altering the meaning of the highest law of the (state) land, then you are altering its meaning. I don't see how you can choose between minor alterations and radical ones. And who would decide, anyway, since we are already dealing with the most radical and fundamental political act there is - changing the constitution.

Why Blogs are the Future

2008-12-18T13:26:00.002-05:00

Whenever the future of the newspaper and publishing industry is discussed, someone is bound to make the claim that we can't let blogs take over, because we need the 'quality' of professional journalists and writers.

First, I think the loss of investigative journalism would be a tragedy; I hope there is some way it can be maintained (I have no idea how). But the claims about 'professional' 'writers' is just rubbish. I'd much rather read the postings of any four members from Ffb then to deal with something like this: exhibit A.

I don't expect anyone out there to read the whole article, but please read the first two paragraphs. And then, if you haven't already abandoned this post, come back here for my brief rant.

1. The quotation from the second paragraph repeats the lead from the first paragraph, almost verbatim - 'hard to call...an old team'.

2. There are two quotes in the second paragraph and literally no words from the writer other than identifying the source. But the second quote repeats the first quote: 'it's an experienced group'.

3. Most of the article is just like this: big blocks of cut and pasted quotations, with the occasional connector words.

4. Later on in the article, the author says that 'To upgrade their championship quotient, Johannson tabbed three members of the 2008 Memorial Cup [team]'. What the hell does tabbed mean here?

Sure, nhl.com is not the NYT or the TLS. But I'm sure the budget for the NHL website is not tiny, and if they are putting out unedited schlock like this, then I'll keep reading blogs.

Chris in the morning

2008-12-13T11:49:00.002-05:00

As an early Christmas present to ourselves we purchased the entirety of Northern Exposure, and we have been watching it over the past few weeks. The inevitable Cicely-Wasilla comparisons sprang to mind, of course (they have a mayoral election even), and it confirmed our impression that indeed television was better "back then." This is a family drama in which the family comprises the residents of a small town, brought into relief by the arrival of Joel, the New York doctor. It feels not at all strange that there are no children on the show, until you realize that there are no children on the show. It makes me miss the mountains and snow and glad that I don't eat out of a can or from a TV dinner, although it does fully legitimize those practices, something contemporary TV has forgotten about.

I find myself yearning for a voice over the radio like Chris, the trailer-living, long-haired, ex-felon from West Virginia who selects the music and muses on-air on various topics, reading aloud from his favorite books, and offering quotes from worthy tomes. It occurred to me that he was the first blogger--writing each day off the cuff, sharing moods, thoughts, reflections, protests, dreams--but I think that might sell him short. Cheapen the Chris in the morning experience somehow by associating it with YouTube craziness and diaristic ramblings. Because he didn't film the flinging of the piano in season 3. He just did it. And it was, indeed, about the flinging.

you had me at hello

2008-12-11T21:07:00.002-05:00

we must be getting old. because we find ourselves remarking about how the gaping hole of talent evident in contemporary popular culture--in particular in television dramas, films, and the like--is much much worse than when we were, er, young.

take romantic comedies, if you will. last week we went out and saw Four Christmases, ostensibly a funny, cute rom-com that was okay. funny, but (without putting out too big of a spoiler for anyone conscious in the first 15 minutes) while offering at first a glimpse, just a glimpse, of possible slightly non-traditional relationship between a man and a woman (how non-trad can you get with this, but still--there was potential), the film ends up protesting too much. the answer is indeed marriage, marriage, oh, and babies. And while funny along the way, I find a lot of movies these days moving in that direction--a simple retelling of the love--obstacle--marriage--babies narrative that either does not at all challenge the norm (oo! she is going the surrogate route! no, in fact she gets pregnant the traditional way in the end. ahh. oo! she might not want children and marriage! no, in fact she totally wants these things and has therefore been fooling herself her entire life. ahh.) Somehow only secondary or tertiary characters can be queer: Samantha in the Sex and the City movie, for example.

So it isn't surprising when we re-watch a film from the not-so-distant past and enjoy greatly the fact that while it has all of the elements of the rom-com, it is, well backwards: kid--marriage--love, and therefore actually gets things sort of right. That's right. Jerry-f'in-Mcguire. Cameron Crowe gets it. He gets love, he gets kids, he gets relationships, he gets friendships. He gets disapproving sisters, even. And he gets that the wedding or the pregnancy (contra Notting Hill) does not, in fact, always signal happiness, or the blissful end, or even, frankly, romance. The rom in rom-com involves getting the love. And while Four Christmases got us a bit of that--it's clear that the two main characters click and the chemistry is great--it fails to offer anything but the tired old answer: family and kids are why we are here. And if you're not in that box, you're not here.

I'm not asking for much--heavy duty art films would give me that, but they wouldn't be showing me something that others in the popular culture universe would be seeing. I'm just asking for a bit of critical edge. A bit of thinking outside the man+woman=marriage=inevitability box. And hey--how about a movie NOT about marriage or a wedding!! How about one without marriage or a wedding in it at all!

What am I thinking. not since T2. You had me at the pull-ups.

History Repeating

2008-12-02T11:56:00.002-05:00

Some big discoveries out there in the MSM today. First up, a real doozy: it turns out that this economic downturn exposes a powerful paradox. You see, journalists have recently discovered a nasty feedback loop. It goes like this:

The recession and financial crisis leads people in the lower economic strata to cross the line of poverty and into really desperate need; it can also lead people in the middle economic strata - those who lose their jobs - to go straight from the comfortable category to the 'in need' category. And thus, the recession means a much greater need for charity.
However, the stock market crash and the economic downturn mean that people in the upper econcomic strata don't have as much to give. And the bleak forecast makes them less willing to give to charity.

Therefore, just when charity is needed, the resources for it have dried up. What an awful situation!

But wait, isn't this precisely the story of the Great Depression. Isn't this exactly the narrative that I taught to my American Politics students every single semester? Isn't this why we created the welfare state in the first place? And yet, this LA Times story is written as if in complete ignorance of such history. And it fails to even mention the possibility that private charity is not the solution to public welfare. Adding insult to injury, it keeps referring to the fraying 'safety net', given the problems charities are facing. But the 'safety net' is a metaphor Reagan coined to describe public welfare. We created a public safety net exactly because we realized that private charity was not the answer.

Next, it turns out that home prices DO GO DOWN. And that when they do, it's not a temporary blip before going up again. In fact, it turns out that there's a feedback loop here, because declining prices - and especially foreclosed homes back on the market at half their previous price - lead to a 'race for the bottom'. If you need to sell your house, and A) there's a foreclosure down the street + B) you know the value of your house will be less next month than it is this month, then the answer is to drop the price A LOT.

Hmmm...someone should come up with a name for this cyclical nature of capitalism. I don't know, maybe we could call it 'The Business Cycle'. I have to give 19th century capitalists their due: at least they realized such a thing exists. We are now almost one year into the worst recession in, at the very least, a quarter of a century. We are now a ways into one of the worst housing collapses in history. We could have prepared for these things just a bit, cushioned the blow just a tad, but instead everyone was denying reality up until just a few months ago...Lots of people saw this coming, but they were laughed at. Literally. This video is a bit long, but I think it's worth it for the way the talking heads utterly dismiss Schiff, especially the Fox News people who laugh in his face:

fun book meme! yay!

2008-11-26T18:50:00.002-05:00

Rules:
* Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
* Turn to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post that sentence along with these instructions in a note to your blog. (Or post a comment here)
* Don't dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

Mine:
It is also easy to see why only persons of means could patronize a temple involving sixty-four or more divinities.

Indeed. from Desire and Devotion: Art from India, Nepal, and Tibet, the catalog for the Walters Art Museum South Asia collection. There's a pretty picture of a goddess on p. 57. I get to look at pretty pictures for a living. hee hee

aur aap?
amdana ti?
und Sie?

surviving the recession I: vegetarianism

2008-11-25T09:16:00.003-05:00

meat is lovely. it's easy to cook (flame!), provides tons of calories and protein, and tastes yummy. And yet it is also expensive. Like insane-o expensive. because cheap meat tastes terrible. so either you fork out the cash or you go veg.

one aspect of our reentry culture shock has been the difficulty with internalizing food prices. ya leave a country for three years, the world goes into a recession, and whammo, suddenly milk and eggs are out of budget range and meat is an unaffordable luxury.

In other words: we were paying a lot for food in the UK. Because it was the UK. we are, shockingly, paying much the same for food here. so it's back to basics: root vegetables and dried legumes. in honor of the coming food-fest of Turkeyday, I offer my pretty root veggie dish:

slice into 1/4-inch rounds:

three beets
four parsnips
two medium sweet potatoes
(note: I scrub and leave the skins on. this saves time and retains nutrients. also, buy a decent knife. life is too short for crappy knives. and you just need one good one.)

Layer in a casserole dish, alternating (pretty colors!) layers for each veg.
in between each layer drizzle some peanut oil (cheaper and takes heat better than olive) and grind some pepper.
after three layers, put some home-grown rosemary. Or similarly earthy/piney seasoning of your choice.

cover with tin foil and roast in oven at 375ish for an hour-ish, depending on how deep you've layered.

Yummy with yogurt, sour cream, or as is. goes well with dal--another cheapie for another day. we can eat meat again after the recession. mm. bacon.

indictment of the MSM, from 1927

2008-11-22T17:32:00.002-05:00

It is remarkable, all that men can swallow. For a good ten minutes I read a newspaper. I allowed the spirit of an irresponsible man who chews and munches another's words in his mouth, and gives them out again undigested, to enter into me through my eyes. I absorbed a whole column of it. And then I devoured a large piece cut from the liver of a slaughtered calf. Odd indeed!

(Hesse, Steppenwolf, p. 39)

exactly. precisely. this must be why I've been craving organ meat. ah the slaughtered calf. we are all anemic.

snowy thursday

2008-11-21T16:20:00.002-05:00

actually, it's friday. But the first day of real snow will always and forever be snowy thursday, in honor of the main day of snow we had in Swansea our first year there. the snow today didn't stick, but it floated in the air like fluff, resembling nothing so much as movie snow. ah, when reality matches representation.

I finished Tom Robbins' Jitterbug Perfume yesterday, a party gift from my sister's wedding earlier this month. the happy couple put books from their own collection about on the tables and guests, as a result, enjoyed fighting over and claiming various texts as the evening wore on. because readers know readers, and this means that your wedding guests know books. and so. the choices spoke volumes about the choosers. we scored three books: Robbins, Hesse's Steppenwolf, and a book about latitude. or longitude.

Robbins' book is about perfume, immortality, and beets. after a traumatic tooth-breakage in my childhood after which the dentist told me I could not eat anything that stained (blueberries, cherries, beets) I failed to explore the glory of this particular root until a trip to Australia when I was 18, when I ordered a ham sandwich "with salad." the last bit translates from Australian to American as: "with cold beet slice." This is not a good introduction to beets. While in Swansea we were reintroduced to beets through two avenues: Paris and the organic veg delivery. The latter involved a huge paper sack of various veggies, most of the time (for we were in Britain) various unidentifiable root vegetables. when beets came in the bag, they usually were accompanied by their greens--beautiful dark green leaves with blood red veins that stained everything in sight when cooked. And the beets were fabulous. Nothing tops roasted beets, parsnips and leeks. Nothing. Okay, maybe like two things top it. okay three. Paris because we discovered already cooked, prepared whole beets at the markets there. chop, add pepper, and eat with plain yogurt. could not be more fabulous.

turns out my tooth has not been overly stained, and my happiness has improved with the beets. I therefore recommend both Robbins' book and beets. good luck, and wear an apron.

down the squirrel path

2008-11-20T14:28:00.002-05:00

The upside of living in a wealthy community planned in the first decades of the 20th century is the attention to space--public space integrated with private. Throughout our neighborhood, we have pathways that run between houses, marked sometimes with discreet signs, but othertimes just turning off from the sidewalk and going seemingly nowhere. Exploring them is an exercise in trust, as is all exploring--trust that they will lead you somewhere, trust that you'll be able to find your way back, trust that you aren't inadvertently trespassing and, if you are, that the person whose land you have "violated" fails to own a gun. Little things.

Luke and I discovered the Squirrel Path a few weeks after arriving--it leads off from the end of a cul-de-sac through hedges down to a choice of steps wending their way down the hill. There are indeed squirrels, and leaves, and views of the sunset at the right time of day. And very few people tend to use these paths, at least not when Luke and I explore them. Perhaps no time for exploration. Perhaps these are known territories for many long-time residents. Perhaps steps are too 20th century for folks.

A word of thanks to those elite planners, putting together this suburb, who felt that pathways to nowhere were important. That climbing up and down stairs on foot might take precedent over climbing into the SUV (they also didn't allow garages when the community was built--there were shared stables which could accommodate your fancy horseless carriage if you had one). Here's to walking, to watching the leaves change, to the surprise of the first snow in the air.

I call this philosophy not the Middle Way, but the Squirrel Path.

Barack Obama is NOT today's most articulate African American Politician

2008-11-12T23:12:00.003-05:00

Has everyone else out there noticed Cory Booker showing up all over the place? I think I saw him first on election night coverage and I thought he was great, but then he was on Rachel Maddow's show and he was just unbelievably impressive. So I had already become a fan when I caught the Bill Maher from last week and he exceeded my already high expectations. Don't get me wrong, the guy has no shot at national office, and I'll tell you why: 1) he refers to Pericles and 2) he uses Latin.

Check it out:

I Voted!

2008-11-04T11:29:00.002-05:00

Last time, in central PA, we waited 2 hours in a retirement home to vote, in a precinct that overcame its previous record for numbers of voters at about 10 am.

This time, in Baltimore, we waited for 5 minutes in the basement of a church (address number? 4700. Love it). I had three books in my backpack just in case. So much for optimism. While waiting in the short line, a woman left the polling area with tears in her eyes. "Big election" she explained.

Yep. Didn't know what she meant really until I was tapping the touchscreen to vote for Obama/Biden. Something about the ritual of it. Millions of people doing this same thing, today, all over the country. The buzz of excitement in the room. The nervous energy. The historic stuff about voting for a black man, too. Almost two years of watching the campaign, debating, cheering him on, and it's not really real until just then. Brings a tear to the eye.

And now the wait begins.

The S-word

2008-10-23T14:48:00.004-04:00

We have been watching Rachel Maddow and Jon Stewart, and somewhat frantically/fanatically reading blogs, news sites, and viewing YouTube vids to keep up with the election stuff, but also to follow in an anthropological sort of way how the discourse is turning. To see if you can see the contours of it, even this close, even without historical perspective to speak of. Well, one should have perspective of history (eg er, not inadvertently calling for a new McCarthyesque study of members of congress and their Anti Americanness.)

So in light of this, and in light of the "S" word being thrown around (Salsa dancing?) and in light of the "positive" McCain ad last week that still managed to zing a couple of negative bits at the Dems (Taxes are patriotic)--I found the following advert in the Economic and Political Weekly, an Indian publication that is quite good--sort of a slightly more scholarly Economist for South Asia and surrounding regions, with many top scholars publishing intellectually engaged, well-researched pieces on history, culture, economics, and politics. I recommend checking it out--the latest issue is usually free. Link.

As part of a piece I'm writing on architecture, modernity, and how architecture responds to/traces out the contours of the "New India" I was doing a little EPW reading, you know, from January 1980 (as you do). One of the pages of the article had this lovely advert on it:

Lil bit Socialist, no? Well, yes. India continued on a relatively socialist vein until about 1980, when liberalization started, and then in 1991 the government took an about-face on four decades of 5-year plans and started to embrace globalization. Ambassador cars to Honda SUVs. Thumbs up cola to Seven Up. Bisleri bottled water to Dasani. Sigh. I'm all about the responsibility to pay taxes. And part of me kind of wishes that the US was a wee bit socialist. We need some good slogans these days--drill baby drill doesn't cut it.

Pay Taxes Right
Build Nation's Might

Nailed it!

If anything, this advert, a reminder of a time just before India started to liberalize, not at all at the height of its socialism, and certainly not parallel in intensity to sloganeering in either China or the USSR, shows us how completely un-socialist the US is. How, aside from discussions of nationalizing the banks etc. blah blah, we have no frame for cultural socialism, for putting the nation/community/state up a notch on the priority list from "must by Cheetos for game tonight."

And paying your taxes early does allow you to avoid tension and anxiety (how nice of them to think of me!) and I am a good citizen! And I want to mobilze nation building! Huzzah!

Truth Force, Obama, and keeping it cool

2008-10-16T07:47:00.002-04:00

In the immediate aftermath of the debate last night one media read on Obama's performance was how he kept cool, how he was "sticking with what had worked" and not getting angry. Some have rightly read this as an excellent move throughout the campaign as one wrong move in the angry direction and suddenly the "angry black man" stereotype can raise its ugly head, destroying any chances of Obama success.

I think, though, that there's an additional positive dimension to these moves. It's not just to avoid "angry black man" and it's not just because this has "worked in the past." Watching the debate last night made me realize why the British were driven half crazy by Gandhi, the "half-naked fakir" who fought for self-rule by practicing self-rule (rule over the self): self-control such that his calmness was his strength, and he didn't just follow the truth but practiced and lived it.

Now, Obama's no Gandhi. And while some may suggest that indeed we need to throw off the yoke of years of mis-rule, that's not the same really as fighting against a colonial government. But I think it's valid to push what we're seeing with Obama's approach in the debates and in the wider campaign beyond cool, calm, collected, and beyond a defensive maneuver against the possibility of racist stereotyping. His ability to answer questions, even those posed in heated tones and with aggressive anger and frustration, even those that repeat falsehoods that have been debunked for weeks, and to do so in a calm, collected manner--that is the truth force Gandhi and his followers employed on a much larger scale to help convince the British to leave, and then subsequently to help convince Indians to stop killing one another during Partition. One could argue that it this political approach that has in part incited the frustration and anger. Perhaps there's some greek rhetorical mode that fits Obama's approach as well. But for me, satyagraha fits: we are seeing an active political campaign that, while occasionally dipping into the muck, at least in its leader finds a space where calm is not weakness, and where cool isn't about him reminding us of Cary Grant. It is a little piece of satyagraha we are looking at, I think. That's what's winning the election for Obama.

A Difficult Read That's Worth It

2008-10-11T18:53:00.003-04:00

I always promise my students that I will never assign them difficult readings that don't 'pay off'. That is, if the writing seems 'hard' then that's because the thought is itself complex, or otherwise attempting to reveal something about the world that's not just obvious. (Side note: because of my fidelity to this law, I have never assigned Sedgwick.)

So here's a piece I recommend everyone read, but first let me tell you what the payoff is:

1. Restores some faith in the news media – there still is rigorous investigative journalism alive in this country (you just have to go to local City Papers to find it).

2. Helps explain the Real Estate bubble, and shows why its bursting is still going to be really messy.

3. Demonstrates in powerful terms that bailing out bad mortgages does NOT necessarily mean helping out 'average Americans'. And shows that the housing crisis has not emerged simply because of predatory lenders (and surely not because of lending to poor people!)

Here you go

Facebook status update

2008-10-11T10:20:00.003-04:00

It's all I can do to update my facebook profile these days. The weight of the horror watching the people at rallies shouting terrorist and Muslim (as if the latter was an insult, which it really shouldn't be, right? Right? RIGHT??). Very very scary. The founding fathers were right to be a wee bit suspicious of them there masses.

Please can we elect a leader who is intelligent? Please?

under the table and dreaming

2008-10-07T11:21:00.002-04:00

Ah blogging. Not so much the last few weeks. Been investigating the possibilities of hiding under the bed for the forseeable future should the Republicans win the White House. Wondering if we should get our money out of the banks and put it in a shoe box underneath same bed. Pondering investing in a bed that has more room underneath it for the two of us, the dog, and the cash. On top of all of this, the season of Burn Notice has ended and thus I am lost without the comforting voiceovers of the main character, instructing me the best way to shake a tail, the best way to fake C4 using flour paste, and other equally helpful things that make me feel safer and happier knowing that such certainty exists in the world.

blogging has been difficult because there is too much to say. I am pondering blog-koans.

Example:

Do her glasses lack rims to reassure us of transparency? Or to convince us of a lack of substance?

Ideologies 101

2008-09-26T18:06:00.002-04:00

Most readers of this blog (any good writer should know his audience and this is much easier with an audience in the single digits) would probably already agree with the following thought experiment. If we all took or taught an introductory survey of political ideologies, and in it we went through the fundamental tenets of conservatism, and then we compared the policy positions, legislation passed, party platform, and even the rhetoric of the American Republican party, we would find very, very little in the way of connections between that party and that ideology. Indeed, Bill Clinton is probably the most 'conservative' in terms of political ideology of any US president in the last few decades.

Some might wish to argue that this is because today's Republicans are 'neo-conservatives'. Fair enough, but this doesn't really help their case. Generalizing broadly, the neo-con ideology = crazy Wolfowitz foreign policy + neo-liberal domestic policy. In other words:

there's nothing inherently conservative about Bush foreign policy and that wasn't even the policy of the Republicans during Clinton's presidency
on economic issues neo-conservativism simply IS neo-liberalism, and therefore it's not very conservative

I bring all this up as I think it's related to a couple of political moments from this week. First up is something that Andrew Sullivan said on last week's Real Time. (Talk about a guy that will make your head spin when it comes to the label 'conservative'; Sullivan is a gay, moralizing, libertarian who hates Bush.) In the process of blaming the current economic crisis on stupid people who took out stupid mortgages, thereby perverting the triumphant march of pure capitalism, Sullivan went off on a side-tirade against US tax law for its distortion of economic interests – skewing them toward buying homes rather than renting (the libertarian individual in a capitalist system, says Sullivan, should be completely free to buy her shelter in any form she wishes). But here's the thing: within a genuinely conservative worldview, it makes perfect sense to encourage home ownership. Home owners protect and preserve their property. There's less crime in places where people own their homes. Home ownership encourages individual saving through home equity; it's an act of indvidual responsibility. And one could even go on to argue that home-owners make better parents (though I wouldn't go there myself). Indeed, overall, I like the tax code the way it is, for precisely some of these very much conservative reasons – and this despite the fact that I'm not receiving the benefit of the tax break at the moment.

But the problem isn't with the general preference for home ownership, and this current crisis has nothing to do with that. Conservatism isn't to blame; neo-liberalism is. It was the effort to turn the bursting tech bubble into a newly-emerging housing bubble through deregulation, fancy new investment techniques and schemes, etc. etc., that led to the housing bubble. It has nothing to do with home ownership per se; it has to do with buying 4 homes in 5 years, and all the while remortgaging like mad (the housing bloggers consistently refer to this as treating the house as an ATM). Here I refer to individual behavior, but it's painfully obvious to most people (Sullivan exempted) that the real thieves in this process were the folks generating huge profits on each and every transaction. And let's be honest: there was some serious manipulation and deception going on in the mortgage industry. One potential reader of this blog may recall a 2 hour phone call in which I called on all my powers of persuasion to talk her OUT of that interest-only ARM that she did not in any way need or want, but which the broker swore to her was her best choice.

Something similar can be said (this was the second example) about the 'who to blame' game vis-a-vis the crisis. There are some great videos and blog posts on these here interwebs trying to lay it all at Carter and Clinton's feet. That's largely rubbish, but there's a shred of truth in it. While the Bush administration surely went way too far, and surely did so more explicitly for corporate profit, the whole thing is the continuation and maximization of neo-liberal logic. Defend Clinton all you wish; he was a much better neo-liberal than Bush, but he was still a neo-liberal. And it's not clear that we wouldn't have ended up here anyway. After all, the UK is very close to the same precipice, and they were led there by just one political party.

Capitalism

2008-09-24T12:15:00.003-04:00

Thanks to Frances for this very informative post on the perilous situation Congress now faces. I could have used it last night when I was trying to explain to my father what a bind Congress is now in over the bailout legislation.

He, quite reasonably, wants to be able to say, buck fush, don't give the corporations billions of taxpayers dollars, but instead let them all lose as much money as is humanly conceivable. It's an appealing sentiment, but, alas, capitalism doesn't work that way, because it's not an "opt-in" system. Very very few of us can find a way to get outside of it, and thus when the corporations lose most of what they have, a lot of people making very little money could lose everything (house, job, retirement - in economic terms, that's pretty much everything).

In other words, we DO have a "trickle down" economic system. This is a lesson I learned at a very early age from my father's wisdom. It's the two rules of plumbing: 1) payday is on Friday, 2) shit runs downhill.

I grow increasingly convinced that today capitalism simply IS a pyramid scheme, but with one crucial twist. In a standard pyramid scheme, the creators of the scheme convince a lot of people to start signing up to it. The creators get rich, the very early adapters may make money, and the late entrants all get screwed. But in today's cowboy capitalism, you are either rigging the game or your are conscripted into it. There's really no way to stand outside of it and laugh at the idiots who thought this sort of thing could go on forever. Because knowing it will collapse isn't really very funny. When it collapses for them, it takes those laughing down as well. Worse still, the rich will lose millions in the collapse, but they will still have a few million left. Those who didn't start with millions could be in big trouble.

Hmm...almost makes you wonder if there's not another option to rigged corporate capitalism. ...Oh, sorry, I forgot, 1989 proved beyond all doubt that there are NO OTHER options. Too bad about that.

Big City Service Review: Peapods

2008-09-06T14:28:00.002-04:00

You know you live in a city when....

the local grocer carries more than one type of olive oil. Or carries olive oil at all. Or, let's face it (and sadly), you have a local grocer instead of a super WalMart.

One of the big things I was dreading upon moving back to the US was the lack of delivery for groceries. Going to multiple stores for the food that we eat was one of the things I did not miss at all, nor did I miss driving an hour (F'Burg to Richmond) to buy an organic vegetable, when we lived in the mid-Atlantic last time. Moving to the UK and discovering grocery delivery rocked. It meant not driving at all, ever. It meant spending 10-15 minutes on-line putting stuff in the cart instead of an hour in the store squinting at labels and inspecting veggies. It meant no distractions, no parking, no struggle to remember what we had last time that was good, fewer choices. We like fewer choices. I blogged about this before.

When we moved to Baltimore I did not assume that the same service would be available. Folks in Seattle and SF and NYC might get delivery, but they are the privileged few, and this would not occur second-tier big cities. I am so so happy to be wrong. We had our first batch of Peapod-delivered Giant groceries this past Wednesday. Stoked!

Ease of on-line GUI: 3.5 out of 5. I will update this rating upon our second delivery, when the interface will have a history of what I've ordered before. Navigation through the virtual shelves was good. Searching was occasionally problematic, returning a shelf rather than an object, trying to guess the brand I want when I'm not interested in brands, I'm interested in the food type and whether it can be had in an organic variety. So the lean towards the brands was a bit, er, American for my taste. But you can select "natural and organic" on the top level, which then means all of your subsequent navigations hit the org stuff first. Not sure what "natural" means, but...

You can pick your delivery slot after shopping, which isn't the case for some of the UK versions. This I like. And the page doesn't reload when you add to your cart, which is good--you don't have to wait, just click and then scroll on down. Also nice: all objects from a shelf/search are displayed in one page, so no clicking through to multiple pages. Anyone buying groceries on-line will most likely have a better-than-dialup connection and thus long lists of items works just fine. Good information about the products as well.

Delivery options and cost: full disclosure here--my threshold for cost of grocery delivery is quite high. Peapod reduces your cost the more you buy. Over $100 it's $6.95 plus a fuel surcharge of $1 and change. (What is it with US nickel and diming? Just charge $8 already. Anyway...). This is comparable to the UK delivery charge (£2.50-£6). You can book a 2-hour window, which isn't as good as Sainsbury's (1 hour) but equals Tesco. Or if you know you're home all morning or all afternoon, you can select that option (7:30-1) and save $2. All of this is well within my threshold. How much would you pay someone to go to the store for you, select the food you want, pay for the gas, save you the hassle of unloading the cart, bagging, loading the stuff in your cart then into your car, then carrying it into your house? That's worth a lot more than $8. They'd have to charge me $15 before I'd start hesitating. And I'd still pay it. Oh, and I ordered Tuesday evening around 4 pm for a delivery slot of Wednesday morning. Had my groceries by 11:30.

Delivery itself: The driver had my number and so could call for directions/instructions. He was very courteous and helpful. the food came in heavy-duty cardboard boxes which we will give them back next time. I tipped him--one doesn't do this in the UK, so I was a bit concerned it was the wrong thing to do, but then I realized I was in the US, and thus...The only option not available (yet?) with Peapod is one involving less plastic. Tesco offers a 'green' option in which they show up with plastic bins with your groceries loose--they wait as you unload it, so it takes a bit longer. Peapod could do this easily with their nice boxes--I'd even pay a deposit for the boxes if necessary to reduce the packaging.

Food quality: excellent. This is the one where friends say: but I want to pick my own eggplant/peaches/lettuce! What if it's rotten? What if it's about to expire? It is in the interest of the store and the delivery service to give you the absolute best, most beautiful, fabulous, without blemish produce you have ever seen. It is also in their interest to provide food that expires at least a few days in the future, but ideally at least a week out. I find food that expires further out than that to be suspect on a number of levels, but that's me (I finally threw out the half and half we bought when we first arrived (August 15) this week, even though it was ostensibly still fine--it's not fine. it's not okay. milk should go bad within a week of opening. moving on.) I am impressed with the quality of the food we got from Peapod/Giant, especially since I wasn't so much trusting Giant on this. But they completely overwhelmed with the freshness of the produce and the beauty of the lettuce. The only problem with ordering produce on line is that sometimes it's not the size you're envisioning (esp. for organic veg which tends to be smaller). This you figure out with time. No surprises with Pea/Giant.

Overall: Great, positive experience. We'll see how it develops as the usage increases. Hopefully it will maintain its high quality and be able to add in some of the small things I'd like--mostly the low-plastic/packaging options.

McCain is not the only who doesn't get it

2008-09-01T09:31:00.003-04:00

I missed all the fun around here and over at Ffb, and I also missed most of the Democratic convention, because I was at a convention of my own - listening to a lot of political scientists talk.

Unsurprisingly, election politics didn't come up very often at panels, but the last paper on one panel I went to was a reading of Obama, particularly through the lens of The Audacity of Hope (be on the lookout to see the written version of this paper appear in Harpers in a few weeks). It did surprise me a bit that after this paper was given the entire discussion focused directly on Obama.

It was mostly critical (but more in the 'we're worried he'll lose' mood than the, 'we don't like him' kind) and it was almost entirely centered on Obama the person, Obama the politician, Obama the democratic nominee.

This discussion was carried out after Obama gave his speech. The speech was on Tivo waiting for me, but I hadn't seen it yet. So I sat in the room listening to everyone talk, repeatedly thinking: 'they really don't get it, do they; it's not about Obama in this way'. It's about (the possibility of) a new political moment. It's about all those new participants in the process. It's about the demos, not Obama.

Last night I watched the speech, and, of course, as you all know, Obama spelled it out by saying, literally, 'it's not about me'. And the scene of almost 80,000 people, some moved to tears and all jubilant and energized to a degree that I have simply never seen in my lifetime - this scene made that point for Obama.

More striking was the post-speech commentary on MSNBC. First Keith Olbermann described the power and historical importance of the speech in a way that only Olbermann can. Then Chris Matthews came on and sounded like he was just a few degrees away from tears. Later, Pat Buchanan had to be cut off becuase he was gushing so much about the speech. Throughout, the commentators kept going to the text and reading quotes and citing things, like they were academics or something. And the entire discourse was about the nation, about political action, about choices and possibilities; almost none of it was about political baseball.

Even if Obama loses, I'll never forget how the power of his words forced even the pundits to think about politics as something more than petty games of power and influence and to recognise a possibility for a democratic movement, for collective action, for what political theorists often like to call 'the political'.

How is it then that the day after this speech was given a bunch of political theorists sat around and talked about 'Obama' as if all that mattered was his political calculations? How is it Pat Buchanan and Chris Mathews cared about the words in the speech and some of the most important thinkers of the political did not?

Palin, children, and the man upstairs

2008-08-31T10:10:00.002-04:00

I was chatting about the recent political events with a lovely member of my family yesterday who largely sits on the other side of the ideological fence and, like me, has lived and worked with Catholics for many many years, so, like me, has a realistic, respectful, and sometimes (politely) sardonic view of various religious backgrounds. We wondered aloud to each other what religion Palin is--which variety of Christian?

We pondered (without doing research), based largely on the children factor. Basically the number of children she has spread out over the number of years, plus her stand on abortion, means Catholicism is in the picture. Except that Catholics tend not to proselytize in this way--they know they are right, so why bother trying to convince others? There's a respect for other beliefs with most Catholics, and the aborted babies are innocents, so they get to heaven (I think limbo has been eliminated recently? different dinner conversation from the other night...) and while they see abortion as wrong/murder, the Catholics tend to take the long-term view that includes the afterlife that, well, they also believe in.

upon reading the post about Down Syndrome over at FFB this morning, I did a quick search on Palin's religion to find that others had also been musing on this. Seems she was baptized Catholic (ding!) and now attends a 'non-denominational Bible church'. Link

All of this is intriguing. But perhaps the most intriguing part of this is the level of religion discourse in both campaigns. Some places claim it's been high, but I didn't sense much at the Dem's convention, and since the blow-ups about the ministers/spiritual advisers to each of the candidates earlier in the campaign, there hasn't been much with the God going on. Or I should say, the candidates seem not to be talking about their faith as they did (were forced to) in earlier campaigns. My British colleague, who was watching the Obama speech live (at 3 am) with me over video iChat (I heart Apple), asked mid-way through: where's the God? Has America changed? Or is it just a moment where that's not what we talk about--politics is okay, religion and money still taboo...thoughts?

The Reality Show

2008-08-30T18:55:00.002-04:00

Is this not completely cool? First we have 10 days of Olympics, covered quite well I thought by NBC. I found their coverage interesting, not too cloying, only very slightly off-topic some of the time, and in general quite good. The diving commentator Cynthia Potter was great--as a teacher, she just nailed it. We learned a lot about diving, a good dive, and how the judges were scoring such that we could spot things we'd never noticed before by the end of the competition. Tim Daggett for gymnastics was not quite as good on the teaching bit as Cynthia--I really wanted him to narrate a bit in the floor, like they do for the ice skating--in this next pass she'll try the triple, but she fell in practice--that sort of thing. He was strident in his assertion about the bias of the judges, which got him some bad bloggy press, but I found his commentary helpful, insightful, and in the end if you're watching US coverage of the olympics, you've signed on for a bit of jingoism my friends. And the beach volleyball was fabulous to watch, particularly the after-match interviews with the Americans May and Walsh--Kerri Walsh is about as type-A as you can get and she just makes you want to get out there and do something great! Great! GREAT!

I also thought the China culture segments were interesting (if at times a wee bit stereotypical--calligraphy, kites, kung fu, and fried scorpion??) but I was happily surprised by the rhetoric of 'we heart China' coming out of the NBC studios and various athletes paying tribute to China's hospitality.

Bottom line: Well done. Fun, watchable reality TV.

Followed by fun watchable reality TV II: the Democrats in Denver!

A caveat here--we are still reentering the US and so the cable news channels are the danger zone. Indeed, news of any kind here, aside from that gleaned from international sources, is a recipe for hyperventilation and hiding under the bed. So the first night we watched CNN's coverage which was farcical to the point of trying to beat the Daily Show at its own game. I suppose that's why the Daily Show is so good. I just don't want to know how close it is to those stations that claim to be delivering 'real' news.

Day two we discovered MSNBC. I heart Rachel Maddow. This was the first time I'd seen her at all--I had to look up her name on-line (they assume we already know everyone? where did the space for labeling the talking heads go?) but I just thought she was on the button in every one of her responses, rarely providing canned soundbite analysis and always showing us a different way to look at what had just happened. We'll see if she can carry her own show, but so far count me impressed. And let me add here: thank your chosen goddess that she doesn't look like the typical newswoman. I know that looks don't tell us what's inside the ol' brain, sure. But coming back to the US it's completely bizarre how many barbie dolls there are delivering 'serious news' with $400/tube lipstick next to aging 'distinguished' men (who, like their cohosts have also had botox, but that's another issue).

Either sex up the men or get some more intelligent women. Go Maddox go!

Up next: fun watchable reality TV III! GOP in MSP--our Return of the Jedi. Hm. who are the ewoks in this scenario?

a little moment of hedge-filled zen

2008-08-21T11:56:00.003-04:00

Not much time to post this last week. we are 'borrowing' wireless from a lovely unknown neighbor who has their network open. bless you bless you dlink person! So a quick post from me, with a picture from the garden at the Olympics in Beijing. Tea + Shrubbery + Fabulous =

How do they get it to steam??

In-transit: Books Read in Limbo

2008-08-15T15:11:00.003-04:00

I'm still working through Moby Dick, about which I can currently say the following:

It turns out that this Melville guy writes extremely well. Fascinating.
Moby Dick is a laugh riot. Seriously. LOL.

More on Ishmael later.

But as I work through the dense and rewarding Moby Dick (I must be weird because I really like the chapters where he narrates encyclopedia entries--oo! Cuvier! Love it!) I am reading other things along the way. Plane flights and the seven-hour-long wait for the movers (no joke) helped in this. (I would be blogging about that but I'm not yet in a place to do so. Grr.)

Submarine by Joe Dunthorne
I would not have found this book were it not for my friendship in Swansea with the author's parents, and I'm glad that they told me about it because it's a wonderful read, tightly written, and perfectly captures what living in Swansea near the Gower feels like. The protagonist is a mid-teen boy who psychoanalyses his parents and is worried they are headed for divorce (he attempts to take action to avert this in his own hilarious and awkward way). Meanwhile his own life is taking new directions, as it does in the mid-teen years. To call it a coming of age novel would be to over-genrefy it (not a word) and therefore to miss the subtlety, cynicism, and wit that Dunthorne puts into the character and his parents. Featuring Rhossili and Llangennith, as well as Walter Road and other locales, so for Swanseaites, or those who for some reason (!) visited Swansea and also read this blog (why would that be?) a good read. [side note: Joe's mother was careful to point out that the novel is not (NOT!) autobiographical.]

A Dog Year by Jon Katz
Our old friends from F'burg, now living in DC (well, MD, but close enough), with whom we would trade dog-sitting duties and walks to the dog park, recommended this one, not because it is high literature but because it fundamentally gets the relationship we have with our dog and they had with theirs (Molly, sadly, passed on to glory two years ago). They also gave it to their vet when she failed in every way to get that relationship as they were making the difficult decision to put Molly down. A great plane read. Takes about an hour, and if you love dogs, this is it. Bonus: may explain a lot about the authors of this blog to those who do not get dog people.

Zodiac by Neal Stephenson
We picked this up on our recent trip to bookstoreville (aka PDX), where the used selection and the manageable store size at the Hawthorne Powells can't really be beat. Stephenson writes well--his Snow Crash rocked. This one is less good, but is interesting on a number of levels. Writing is still tight. The main character is a bit of an ass, but not so much that you hate him, so that works. And it's written in a particular moment in the history of the US environmental movement (mid/late 80s) when ecowarrior didn't mean an SUV-driving mountain-climbing organic-food-buying consumer but meant, well, a warrior who fought for enviro causes (I'm not angry, I'm just sayin'). Post-hippie, but still enough of that to give the book flavor. Set in Boston and featuring evil corporations, debates over whether simply exposing them does any good at all, and a thriller-type storyline that's pretty fun to follow. Bonus: protagonist is a chemist! cool! After you've read it we can discuss the rest of my review--no spoilers...

There may be more but I can't remember them at this stage (not a good sign). Three for now is enough. Back to the high seas and the search for the great white one...

Bi-coastal

2008-08-12T11:40:00.002-04:00

Culture shock comes in various forms and often in successive waves--you think you're good and then you go somewhere and chat with people and you realise: actually, no. this is in fact a completely alien place to me.

We have returned from a week-ish trip to Portland and I can report that Portland is full of Portland people, which makes it a bit odd. What I mean by this is that Portland is one of the strongholds of lefter-than-thou left-leaning lefty folks, which makes me love visiting there on the one hand. Everyone is granola. Everyone rides their bikes everywhere. Of course you compost. Of course you use the fabulous lightrail and transport infrastructure the city has developed. Wrth gwrs. Natürlich. And, of course you support Obama.

We saw NO McCain signs anywhere in Portland or Vancouver WA during our trip. Perhaps it's because this isn't the route his campaign is going, but it was striking. More striking was the canvassing for money we ran into on the street. And this worries me a bit because news outlets are talking about Obama fatigue, which I didn't quite get having spent the primary season in the UK and now being in DC where while Obama is big, there are many Republicans here (weird, no?). It's a bit more balanced inside the beltway (although still out-of-whack in its own way) than the PDX crowd. Having visiting Portland I totally 'get' Obama fatigue.

The DNC folks on the streets of Portland assumed that *of course* you are an Obama supporter, and what's more, of course you've already given to his campaign. I worry that in talking to themselves so much and patting themselves on the back so much the Democrats in coastal cities like Portland will lay back and think they have it won at worst and at best repeat the cultural and political mistake of dismissing everyone in the 'fly-over' 'red' states in the middle, which are neither fly-over (direct coastal flights are expensive and rare these days) nor truly and fully red. Ignoring or dismissing the middle of the country glibly will not win you any friends and will alienate many many people. Like all those folks in the middle.

I find this insulting and arrogant and elitist, exactly the things that lose Dems the elections. I found myself--someone that finds little space for my semi-socialist leanings in the US political spectrum--I found myself sympathising with the Republicans and wishing I could enter into a debate with these folks in which *I took the conservative side*. Because they were so smug and settled.

Final and important note: another disturbing trend among these canvassers is the DNC-v-Obama rhetoric they are employing. The two fund raising entities are separate. Fine. But the DNC is doing itself no favours by whining that Obama's excellent fundraising machine is leaving them in the cold. Especially since the impression at the upper levels is that Obama is working well with the DNC (e.g. he didn't reconstitute the party leadership when he certainly could have). So I found it very problematic that one of the lines of argument the DNC fundraisers were giving us is a clear distanciation between DNC and Obama, something that I don't think serves either very well.

As a worrier, I worry. And visiting Dem-happy PDX only deepened that worry. Reassurances? Anyone?

Anyone Remember the Cardassian Legal System?

2008-08-03T10:55:00.002-04:00

It looks to me like Cardassia was the model here. Thus, to make this work, all that is required is for the Sisko to show up to defend anybody who is innocent.

Urban Not-so-Hipster on cities...

2008-08-01T17:13:00.002-04:00

No. 3 over at FFB points us today to a fascinating article about demographic inversion in US (and to a certain extent global) cities. As a student of the urban in part of my academic life, and a lover of analyses of urban space I recommend reading it--it's very interesting. Some comments to add to those already noted by rhif tri:

Always slightly missing from the discussion about downtown-versus-suburb/exurb/whateverurb is that, er, lots of people live in very small cities, largeish towns, and straight up rural areas. There's a myopia involved in the discussion of where you might want to live in a city, or where people choose to live that assumes to a large extent that we're all talking about the same major cities in the same major Euro-American countries. The article includes Charlotte NC, which is great, but mostly it's about the larger places.

One of the biggest changes for us moving from a series of these smaller towns (Fredericksburg VA, Redlands CA, State College PA, Swansea UK) to the city for the first time since graduate school is transportation. Not the car, mind--you're dependent on that in most cities in the US and our interlude in Swansea was lovely for lack of dependence on a vehicle despite it being a smaller city/bigger town. I'm talking of airports. For all the carbon neutral, rising costs, security line nightmares of today's airline travel, sometimes you still have to do it. And this is the first time since MSP that we've lived within 25 minutes' drive of a major airport.

Fredericksburg: hellish hour and a half drive to DCA on I-95 (about the same by train/metro but then you add in the lead times for getting there based on the infrequent transit schedule), 2-3 hours hard driving to IAD, hour and a half easyish drive to RIC.

Redlands: 45 minutes to ONT, if you timed it right. 2ish hours to LAX.

State College: 15 minutes to SCE! Where you then have the privilege (for crazy amounts of money) of flying a bus-sized propeller plane to IAD's Terminal G (if you've been there you know what I'm talking about) or Cincinnati. Enjoy. 3 hours to BWI, PIT, or PHL.

Swansea: 1+ hours' drive to CWL, near impossible to reach by public transport. 2ish hours to BRS (2.5 by public transport, which involved 2 trains and a bus). 3.5 hours to LHR, 4ish hours by train, or 5 hours by bus. Don't even talk about LGW.

So the quick drive or relatively easy public transport trek to BWI is looking great to us. And when I booked a ticket this week to visit PDX from DCA at the last minute, I was astonished at how little work I had to do. I found the ticket, booked it, then found a place to board Luke, booked that, and looked around. There must be something else I have to do, right? What am I forgetting? Oh yeah--I don't have to research train times to the airport or book tickets to get there or worry about my flight being 2 hours late and nullifying my train tickets--I just get on the metro and head to DCA. Should take about 25 minutes from my front door. Cool. And then on the other end, the family that's meeting us has about a 15-20 minute drive to PDX. And if they had the money to participate in the inversion and live in Portland, we could take public transport to get to them. The livin' really is easy.

Rendition,....not really a review

2008-07-29T13:51:00.003-04:00

We watched Rendition the other night. It was my first HD rental from the iTunes store, and the picture quality was indeed impressive. And Jake Gylenhall is still really hot, even when he's playing a straight guy. That's the extent of my movie review. On to the putative moral message of the movie, concerning torture.

On my reading, the movie was making some sort of impassioned moral plea, attempting to motivate its audience to take up a position of opposition to torture, and particularly to the current US administration's tacit (and sometimes more explicit) sanctioning of interrogation techniques that clearly amount to torture and to the practice of extraordinary rendition.

OK, that's a bit on the nose (the movie plot, not my summary of it), but fair enough.

The movie infuriated me, however, because of the lengths it went to to rig the moral game (the game that makes you think torture might be bad). To wit:

The guy being subject to rendition has lived in America for 20+ years, went to NYU, speaks perfect American-accented English, is married to an 8 months pregnant Reese Witherspoon, has the perfect white-person house in the Chicago suburbs, and is just obviously an all-around nice guy.

I see, so I'm supposed to not want the CIA and its foreign intelligence minions to capture him at O'Hare, put a bag over his head, fly him to Africa, strip him naked, lock him up in a dirty hole, waterboard him, beat him, and subject him to electrical shock?

Wow, however will I be moved to feel that way?

Please - if we're going to make a movie that opposes torture on moral grounds, is that really the best we can do?

Torture isn't wrong only when it happens to nice (almost) American guys. It's wrong when it happens to human being (and animals too, but I'll leave that aside), any human beings.

I want to see the movie that seeks to mobilise opposition against torture in which the person being tortured doesn't speak English, doesn't look like an all-American guy, isn't obviously and clearly innocent - and isn't married to an 8 months pregnant Reese Witherspoon.

The implicit message of Rendition seems to be: let's not condone explicit policies of torture, because we might end up torturing this guy - and that would be bad and probably wouldn't catch us any terrorists. But on the unturned obverse side of that coin we still find the notion that it might be OK to torture a really bad guy, if they had some information that we really needed.

Is there anyone still saying 'no!' to this latent message? Am I in a significant minority of Americans now in thinking that torture (which I would define rather broadly) should be rejected, criticised, and eschewed at all turns and at all costs, not because it's not effective (although that's true) and not because we might do it to a good guy (although that's true too), but because it violently and irrevocably undermines the most sacred principles of democracy?

Spending money (and other tales of moving)

2008-07-28T18:17:00.003-04:00

Moving is kind of like Christmas for those who celebrate the holiday. Not in the tree and gifts and Santa kind of way but in the way that it impacts your budget/fiscal planning for the following 2-6 months. Having done this several times in the last few years, and now doing it the second time across the Atlantic, you get used to it. We don't know what our 'normal' monthly budget/outlay will be because that won't really occur until about November, at which point Christmas will kick in, and thus it will be about March April-ish when things should 'normalize'. At which point the likelihood of us moving next summer will be high, for it is summer and based on past history this means we move, so place your bets ladies and gents.

We are now doing the purchases of the ineffables like insurance (car, renters) and the effables like said car, iPhone (obviously), non-i-related phone for me, furniture for F's office (weird) and clothes. For we have no clothes for this weather (hence my rant about pregno-chic earlier). There is another rant about men's shorts that I believe has already been done over at FFB. Future purchases include anything you use on a daily basis that plugs in: espresso maker, iron, blender, food processor, coffee grinder, hair dryer, lamps, TV, subwoofer, other AV type stuff. And there's the endless research on each of these items (have you met us?). And then the services that go with them (sell soul to Comcast? Nooooooooooo!)

We are getting the inevitable breaking in to the capitalist machine that is US living. We will be good cogs soon. I promise.

Things Brits might learn from Americans

2008-07-22T12:16:00.004-04:00

The other side of the coin, based on 10ish days in country, observing the natives.

un: have a happy, positive outlook! Why not? Chin up, head high, hair back, embracing the world! No more hunched shoulders apologizing for existing! No more mumbling! Laugh loudly, don't chuckle! Use exclamation points!

ail: chat more. with people on the street, with waitstaff, with your drycleaner. show your interest in other people by connecting with them verbally. Without introduction.
recent example:
In REI, from behind, while I'm trying to find a non-materno-fashion shirt: "Love your bag" [me: beat, hestitate, was she talking to me? oh. um...] Thanks! [proceed to chitchat about backpacks, single v. double shoulder, aging computer bags, and then get recommendation on fab running socks that I must have. I buy them. Because we talked, obviously.]
Note to British people trying this out: you have to practice the chat. It takes some doing to generate streams of verbal exchanges that are *not* about the weather. I find commerce facilitates such practice and chatter. Americans connect via the shopping. It's all very friendly.

tre: two words: iced tea. I know I know--it's too cold in Britain for this sort of thing. And sure, tea in its Platonic form is obviously hot, preferably black with cream/milk, and served whenever anyone arrives at your house. These things are all true. But there's something about iced tea that we can separate from tea-ness and put in a different category of icy goodness on a hot day. Of course, you'll need to wait until there is a hot day, and also work out how to do ice trays in drawer-based freezers, so there are infrastructure issues. But still. Iced tea. Genius.

Good things British Life Taught Me

2008-07-19T21:23:00.003-04:00

One: Eat more cream and cream-based products. Low fat is blech. And clotted cream, particularly of the Cornish variety (with the yellow crust on top...) is divine. As is double cream. As is single cream. Any of the creamy goodness varieties really. And yogurt is no good unless there's fat in it. This the British know. They may be the fattest country in Europe, but they are thinner than Americans, and frankly it's not the clotted cream that's getting 'em. It's the McDonalds and the chippies.

Dos: Take holidays. Multiple, often, get-away-from-home type holidays. Maybe even dip your toe in someone else's culture. Mind you, not far enough to be more than about a two minute walk from the nearest Irish/English/Welsh/Scottish pub. But this is easily done in most countries around the world. Sure, the Brits go to somewhat horrid resorts in Spain where you don't really leave the British isles. But they go. And in droves. And regularly. They also invented the 'mini-break' in which you go somewhere for four days. Often last-minute. Americans should do more of this.

Due prime: Work less. On purpose. Fewer hours. Maybe even part time. On purpose. It helps to have your healthcare covered. And more than 2 weeks a year off. But let's just settle for this: take weekends off. By this I mean: don't check the email, hang out with the family, go down the pub with the friends, stay up til 2 am talking, go see a local castle (okay, not as easy in the US, but substitute 'castle' with 'large ball of twine' and you're good to go. My point is: work less.

These are some of the things in the mini capsule of Britishness I'm trying to keep as we move across the Atlantic. We'll see how it goes.

Too much too much

2008-07-17T09:24:00.003-04:00

to blog about.

the bullet points that follow do not exist:

arrived US 10 July with dog in tow. note to self: customs office closes at 4:30, and you need to clear your doggie's papers, so if your flight comes in at 2:30 you better hoof it over there. minor sweat broken.

10th July--T-shirt seen in Whole Foods, Logan Circle: America is Scary. agreed.

Noted: shirts available for humans of the female variety in this land emphasise 'pregnant' look. Conclusion: culture values fertility (especially in its 'junior' girls) and can be considered akin to early 15th century Flanders. Van Eyck would be proud.

petrol is very cheap here. and yet petrol stations must still apologize. poor US drivers.

Realization: we are no longer graduate students. this means we must have washer dryer in the apartment. designated, and preferably covered parking. nice hardwood floors. a bathroom that, well, you'd want to use on a daily basis. a kitchen that doesn't make you want to poke your eyes out. small things. little things.

Spotted: best euphamism for carpetbagger. ever.

And, I am a sucker for a good door. This final image also marks our current stress: given that we're not grad students and thus have trouble finding a decent apartment, should we rent or buy?

stuff and things

2008-07-07T11:50:00.002-04:00

Our things have been packed, aside from the books in our offices which, of course, comprise the majority of the *weight* of our shipment, if not the volume. We are told we had the highest density shipment the movers had ever seen when we moved from CA to Wales, and we were told that we literally had a ton of books at one point in the past, which, well, isn't surprising. Have you met us?

Somehow it feels better now that things are in boxes--it's not our house anymore without our stuff and things. And again, why do we need all this stuff? Could we live in a world where you just move and get a furnished place? Would that drive us insane? You could look for apartments based on size and approach to decorating. Or you could do the Japanese pod-vision of the world, in which your entire apartment is the size of a shipping container, and so you simply detach it from the building and ship it to the new place you're living. Or we could just promise to decorate one house per lifetime. and then thereafter switch around with folks. Or we could just have less stuff.

We did ponder selling everything and not shipping anything. But then when you move, what makes the new place home is the old stuff in the new place. And nomads move their whole house, right? Sigh. 6-8 weeks without our stuff (again), which we will now be calling a 'freeing' experience. That's it, exactly.

Taking the Long Way 'Round

2008-07-03T14:22:00.003-04:00

This is my theme song of late, because I listen to it while rowing. Because it's my state of being. Because it's a great song. and so.

Big news: after almost 5 months on the market, the house has sold! Huzzah! And yay for capitalism, in which we lost the equivalent of my entire year's salary! Huzzah again! But hey, it's only money, right? Yes. Yes. Only money. My pretty.

Big news II: we sold the car on ebay! Huzzah! they are coming by with cash in 10 minutes to pick it up. Sad to see April go. But cash money! Huzzah! We are now carless for a couple of weeks, during which time we will rent/borrow/hijack cars (except the last one, not so much with that).

Both things happened today. I am spinning, unsure whether to be stoked or very very afraid.

T-6 days.

Unnesting: the update

2008-06-21T13:23:00.003-04:00

Today we put stuff on ebay. This is something we do every 6 months or so anyway, as we upgrade our ipods/computers/TV/AV systems/phones or generally clear out electronics that will, simply by sitting, become paperweights. But in this case it is part of unnesting, the moving ritual.

I was wondering today what it would be like to live somewhere for more than 5 years. It would be weird. You would get used to the place, pass the boring mark and move into the settled in status, the comfort of the groove, the smoothness of the rut. You'd notice the little new things: oh, that shop closed. oh, they're building a fountain in their garden. oh, that dog must have moved onto a better place. I don't know what this would feel like, really, in your gut. To settle in. To feel like your stuff won't move again, not for awhile. To not weed out the shelves periodically. Would it feel comforting and homey? Or chafing and restricting? Would I start hating the one board that creaks upstairs so much it distracted me? Or would I need to know that it creaks to keep my life within the bounds of normalcy? Is nomadism normal? Or is nesting and settling in? What do those people do? You know, the people who are normal?

So we are selling things on ebay. And choosing what to give away (and whom to give it to). And choosing which clothes we will need for the next 6-10 weeks while our things are in transit (answer: um it's hot in B'more, so as little clothing as possible). And figuring out how to extricate ourselves from one country and reenter the other (getting car insurance without a car? notifying someone about not needing the TV license?)

And we're leaving a bit behind. Not just the house, of course, and not just the hot tub (the hot tub!). But I've decided that we're leaving behind the bird house, the one that my out-laws gave to me for Christmas when we lived in Virginia. Because a bird family moved in. And they might move, or travel for the winter, or have another home somewhere. But then they'll come back, right? And they'll want their copper-roofed house (park adjacent! safe from cats! quiet neighborhood! great schools! organic, free-range worms daily just outside your peephole!). So we're leaving that. And indeed a lot more.

US Open 08

2008-06-19T08:06:00.003-04:00

I don't watch much golf on TV. But I don't miss a major. Since 1986 I've watched probably every major except for 2 or 3; since 1997 I've seen them all. And when I say 'seen them all', I mean full coverage of all four days, and in almost all cases this means watching every shot that Tiger hits for those four days. (Living in the US, this means getting up at 4am to watch The Open Championship; living in the UK, it means staying up until 3am to watch everything except The Open.) So I've seen a lot of major championship golf, the type that is set up to generate 'unbelievable' shots and stories.

I've never seen anything like the 91 holes that Tiger played from Thursday to Monday.

I refuse to participate in the 'is golf a sport' discussion, but Tiger Woods is an athlete. I've known for a while that it was only right and proper for him to be compared not only to Nicklaus, but also to Jordan or Gretzsky. After this weekend, it's hard not to be believe that he's the best there is - at least in my lifetime, at least those that I've had the privilege to watch.

I think this is sometimes difficult for non-golfers to grasp fully, because Tiger is now expected to win. But no other golfer in history has been 'expected to win' in this manner. For the greatest golfers of previous decades, winning a few majors total was an unbelievable feat. After Jack, Nick Faldo was the greatest major winner, with 6. He won more majors in the 1990s then anyone, with a total of 4. In comparison, Tiger has won 3 in the past 10 months.

But the point is that up until Tiger, every golfer, even every great golfer, missed a lot of cuts, missed a lot of pressure putts, and hit a lot of bad shots that led them to come in 6th rather than 1st. They were 'great' because of what they did over a few years, over a career. And though Jack was undoubtedly the very best of his generation, he had a whole host of players that were very close to him in talent, ability, and wins (Palmer, Trevino, Player, Miller, Weiskopf, Watson, and Floyd, just to name a few). But Tiger is so far above everyone else, that even after missing the next 10 months he'll probably still be ranked number 1 in the world. Tiger has an ability to play under pressure that has never been seen before. In the last two days of this US Open, he simply did not miss any shortish pressure putts. Roco Mediate, who played a fabulous championship, probably missed 8 of those putts over the last two days.

And Tiger can hit shots that for every single other golfer on the planet prove to be an absolute impossibility. He did this on Sunday at the 15th hole, hitting a shot that was, literally, unhittable - and part of me expected him to do it.

Oh, and by the way, it turns out he did all this on a torn ACL with two stress fractures in his tibia. I have no more words to describe or account for this.

So I'll just say congratulations to Tiger, on winning his 17th Major. Yes, you'll see everyone else describe this as his 14th. But they are wrong. I once wrote an article about this, but I wasn't successful at getting it published (I probably shouldn't have used the word 'hypostatise' in it so much). If you are curious, you can read a draft of it here.

the Starbucks of Yoga

2008-06-15T12:47:00.002-04:00

A lot of yoga folks look down on Bikram yoga, the 90-minute program of poses done in a very hot, steamy room. It is the same each time and its namesake and founder has some policies that regiment it even further, which can sometimes be frustrating to yoga studios doing his programme. If one is in a city with a wide range of yoga choices, and one lives there full-time, then Bikram may not be the best choice--there are other hot yogas if you like that, and other ways to do yoga that can be more challenging in some ways, and certainly have more variety if you're into that.

But as someone who has never lived in a place with decent yoga within an hour drive, I will attest that Bikram : Yoga as Starbucks : Coffee. It's not, as some people claim, the 'McDonalds of yoga'. That implies that it is bad-for-you, cheap, and unthinking product delivered as conveniently and quickly as possible. It is instead the Starbucks of yoga. Yes, some people only drink frappucinos, but you can also get good, consistent doppio macchiatos and americanos, and when you're in a strange city, it's good to know that you don't need to try every coffee place in town to find a decent bean.

Bikram has been my salvation when travelling, because I know that in an hour and a half I can get a good all-around workout and I know that the likelihood of anything vaguely hippie/Orientalist/new age is fairly low, aside from the 'namaste' at the end of the workout. I know what I'm getting, and I can do this while carrying almost no gear. My most recent experience was at a great studio in Berlin Mitte, but there have been many others. Herewith the map of Bikrams I have known:

View Larger Map

B2, the 2Bs

2008-06-14T12:24:00.003-04:00

So B no. 2 was Bradford, you would think slightly less exotic than Berlin but in fact you'd be wrong. First, it's in northern England and for those of you keeping track, we live in a different country, namely Cymru. Everything is different in Yorkshire except the money and the Starbucks. Second, I stayed in a lovely railway hotel that was reminiscent of many Victorian railway hotels from where I grew up in Colorado, so that was a bit odd. Also odd was the bathtub in the room. and by in the room I mean in the room:

So that was cool. Obviously I had to take a bath.

I was there to visit the collection at the National Media Museum, which was lovely--lovely people, lovely pictures, great facility. In the short two days I was there I decided that I must seek out South Asian food, for Bradford has a proud and competitive group of excellent restaurants along these lines. After extensive research and forgoing the Bollywood-celeb packed Mumtaz (go to the website. it's insane), I went with the family-run Prashad Chaat House to the south of the university campus, past Bombay Stores (biggest retailer of S. Asian clothing/textiles in the UK, which is saying something), the Jami Masjid, the main Halal grocer/butcher in town and after a little while felt entirely at home in the lovely colony of south of Delhi. Except it was Bradford. So there you are.

The food, prepared by the award winning proprietress and chef, was astounding. I had a pea kachori for a starter, which turned out to be glorious pea pasteness with clove overtones shaped into a ball, wrapped in chickpea flour, and fried. Hea-ven. Everything was fabulous, and so my rec for Bradford is definitely this place. I advise walking there to get a sense of the neighbourhood.

Oh, and of course: it's Gujarati. It is a long-standing family maxim that everything good is from Gujarat and everything Gujarati is of course perfect. Prashad Chaat House now takes its place as yet another proof of this universal truth. (not that you need to prove universal truths, but there you are)

Back from the Bs

2008-06-13T11:06:00.006-04:00

Berlin and Bradford that is. Last week Berlin, this week Bradford. Intriguingly different places, I might add.

I had not been to Berlin since July 1988, when I was young and impressionable and the city had a wall. I remember that one side was coloured and the other side was grey. One side was busy and the other side had really really wide streets with no one on them. I remember being astounded by the space of the Pergamon museum and scared when we crossed through Checkpoint Charlie, over the no-man's land and into the grey, commercial-free zone of East Berlin. People even wore grey--in my memory at least. And it was cold and rainy that July. I had packed one sweater. I wear it in every photo from the trip.

All of that has largely changed, as you might imagine. Checkpoint Charlie is a bit disneylandish now, and the strip where the wall was has been filled in with office buildingy things from the mid-90s. (I fear we will look back on mid-90s architecture with the same horror we reserve now for mid-60s architecture. I'm not saying that the latter doesn't have its charms--I secretly and truly love a lot of it (concrete is cool!)--but this 90s stuff is a bit horrifying in its, well, smugness.)

I walked everywhere, ate required sausage, took required pic of Zoo station, did Ku-damm and Mitte, ran around Tiergarten and through Brandenburg gate (not something I could have done 20 years ago, obviously--also the Starbucks right there didn't so much exist in 1988. weird.) And generally had a good time.

Thoughts: there are no cars in Berlin. Well, not where I was staying (in Mitte--center of the city). I'm not saying there are no no cars, but that usually there are bikes. and peds. and trams. and more of same, and then one car. repeat. It means the streets are quiet aside from the odd scooter, and that the cars are restricted to the major arteries. this is genius. whatever factors contribute to this state of affairs--everyone everywhere should copy them. Now. go on...

Other thought: Wales has no capitalism. There's nothing to buy here. Why would you buy things? In berlin there's everything to buy. stuff, and shoes, and clothes, and more stuff, and chocolate, and clothes, and cars, and paper, and whiskey, and absinthe, and art, and stuff. in Wales it's boot sales, grocery/farmer market food, and that's about it. so none of that communist stuff rubbed off on Berlin, but it seems that the sky, sea, food, and air is pretty much enough for those in Wales. cool.

right. why are we leaving again? oh yes. iPhone. obviously.

Meta-Blog

2008-06-04T05:57:00.002-04:00

This blog began both as a form of travelling and as a way to negotiate our own travelling from one continent to another. Once that period of transition seemed to have come to an end, i.e. as we made a home here, I found myself slowing down in the blog department. I felt too out of context to say much about American culture and politics (after all, I now spell travelling with two 'l's). For a while I was able to comment on both British and Welsh culture as an outsider, sending missives back to the homeland. But that phase passed as I felt less like an outsider here, and the 'homeland' felt less like home. Yet (on some other hand) I didn't think I had a readership here that would want to hear my thoughts on the collapse of New Labour, the election of Boris, the role of Plaid Cymru, the promise of Compass, etc. And thus I didn't say a lot.

Now that another transition is about to start, I find myself with even less to say. I don't think I'll have any revelations about America for my American readers. Maybe I should promote the blog and widely circulate the web address to all my friends and colleagues over here - then I could tell them all about the truly insane land called America. No, if they want to know about America they can just turn on their television, open their Macbooks, pick up a newspaper. This is the other thing that's odd about living in the UK: America doesn't go away; it's hardly even distant; it's front and centre. Turn on BBC24 while eating lunch earlier this week and what do you see: breaking headlines, crane collapses in Manhattan. The US primaries have a central story on BBC and Guardian websites every single day. Hell, American culture and politics are what we UK academics write about, and then publish in Australian journals!

I suspect that my US culture shock will bring out something in me to write about. Obama is still inspiring, but I fear that putting that in to words will make it disappear. But if all else fails, I can talk about all the cool new technology I plan to buy in the states: iPhones, Plasmas, and MINIs (oh my). And if I get really desperate I'm going to turn to Philosophy: this Meillassoux guy is either a great sophist, or he's got something serious and radical to say - but I'll need help from TG on that 'transfinite' in order to understand it.

exceptionally seminal

2008-06-03T10:07:00.003-04:00

I'm marking my last essay of the year--in the UK you don't assign anything in the middle of term, and then at the end you get an avalanche of marking. This is fine, as it means I mark nothing during the term (huzzah) in exchange for two weeks of solid marking at the end, which makes you only a wee bit crazy.

So I'm marking this essay, and it calls a certain postcolonial theorist 'exceptionally seminal'. I'm not sure what this really means, or if this is entirely appropriate. For years I've joked about the problem with the term 'seminal' as it is indeed gendered but no one seems to notice, or seemed to notice back when we cared about such things.

In response, I coined the term 'ovulal' and any day now it will enter normal discourse and it will be MY invention. MINE!! An ovulal neologism, no?

So to be exceptionally seminal, now that you know my issues with the term, would be to have what--very high motility in one's seminality? What would it mean to be exceptionally ovulal? A heightened production from the ova? Lots and lots of twins? Very very fertile, in any case. Ah fecundity.

Boot Sale Update!

2008-05-31T12:35:00.003-04:00

Today's update (this is a 'regular feature' of the blog, if by 'regular' we mean 'twice'):

Boot sale trend today? Faux, plastic VHS tape covers that look like leatherbound books! Yes, saw these at about 6 of the vendors today. They are so unbelievably tacky that they can't even qualify as kitch. Really. Not even in your hip loft apartment. Trust me.

I managed to secure a lovely coffee server in my newly-chosen china pattern (it's not just for wedding registries anymore--you too can choose your china pattern after over 15 years with your partner!). It's called Indian tree. It is not at all Indian. This appeals to me. Plus, it's chinoiserie, my favourite word. What could be better?

My current holding in Indian Tree: four plates and the coffee server. Let the games begin!

um, it's almost June

2008-05-28T12:43:00.002-04:00

Right. I am currently wearing wool socks (Christmassy pattern), trousers (and pants, but those are different things over here), long-sleeved shirt, and a heavy wool cardigan (think c. 1978 Patagonia and you've got it).

I'm not a huge fan of the heat, I will say. But this is a wee bit ridiculous, especially in light of last 'summer's' non-appearance. Ah well. They say we are due for 'sunny spells' on Friday. But they always say that about the weather two days ahead. Because they can.

In the meantime, check this awesome blog out, which gets it so right. so so right.

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/

Am I right?

The Awakening and etc.

2008-05-24T03:09:00.002-04:00

I have recently finished listening to the librivox version of Kate Chopin's The Awakening (1899), which was good on a number of levels. I found myself a bit surprised that it hasn't yet been made into a movie (with Cate Blanchett I think as Mrs. Pontellier, even though she's too skinny for the role, and Colin Firth as Robert, obviously).

It strikes me as a needed correction to the so-called 'third wave' feminism running amok out there--the Sex in the City, I don't want it all I just want my shoes kind of feminism. I say so-called because I am offended that other, more interesting directions that feminism has taken have not become canonized in 'wave' form, like the very legitimate critiques embodied in Black feminism, 'Third World' feminism, and queer theory. But I digress. The Awakening:

In some ways pop/third wave feminism recognises what The Awakening shows us: (elite) women's lives are circumscribed by a very limited number of choices, choices that are largely about existing in relation to a man and one's children first, and then only very secondarily something else. The difference: this was much much more true in turn of the century New Orleans elite culture than it is now. And Emma's choices are as follows: society wife, outcast, or death (where 'outcast' and 'death' are basically equivalent).

But what's interesting is the way that the narrative works in The Awakening. Emma doesn't particularly like her children. She's not a 'mother' type. She finds her husband to be kind and generous, but there's not a lot of love there. She has an encounter with a man whom she loves, and who loves her. But what's genius about the book is that she realises in the end that choosing to go off with him would just be another relation of ownership--they would be unable to be in any sort of queer relation and still maintain their family/social ties. And while she can barely imagine what that relationship would look like, he can't imagine it at all.

Her choice at the end isn't about unrequited love, or the loss of Robert (her lover). It's about her awakening to the possibility of living a queer life, and her recognition of its impossibility.

The study guide websites (which I haven't read because I know they would ruin the book for me) seem to label this book as 'proto-feminism'. I find it to be about queerness.

'Emma Pontellier's awakening shows us Sedgwick's closet'. Discuss.

PS: Librivox version is fascinating--each section of about 4 chapters is read by a different woman, many of whom have lovely French or Spanish accents, in contrast to the intervening chapters with the midwestern/upstate New York rounded flatness. Fab.

progress and update

2008-05-22T04:00:00.003-04:00

An update for those to whom we have not talked in forever and apologies and etc. If you know me at all, you know I dislike picking up the phone and thus have difficulty with ye ol' communication. So a bloggy update...

We are moving back to the US! Both sad and happy news, as we love it here in Wales, we have lovely friends, and a lovely house. Plus I am not excited about having to actually go to a grocery store again. (I have my priorities straight here.)
Where? Baltimore, Balmer, Bodymore Murdaland.
Yes, we have watched (since finding out about the possibility of the move) the entirety of The Wire. And we love it. And it makes us like B'more more. We are drinking Jamesons and swearing a lot in preparation.
Yes, we picked the worst time (or at least the worst thus far since the late 1970s) to sell a house. But there you are. And no, we can't rent it.

That's the general update. More specific updates include:

2. we are auctioning our house. Yes, auctioning. Not because we are totally ebay people and must auction everything (although we are), but because the hemorrhaging money shows little sign of stopping and we are moving in July. At which point we will be paying quite a lot of money each month for a space that we no longer live in. And its value will also be going down. Fun! We are this kind of crazy people, and the market, while not DC/Baltimore bad, is bad.

ichi. we will be flying on Virgin with Luke (he will be in the hold but on the same flight). Huzzah for Virgin.

quatorze. uncharacteristically, we are flying to B'more without housing sorted on the other end. It's like grad school, only with more stuff! and a dog! fun! Friends in DC/B'More/greater MD (shout out to the Waldorf crew!) have offered to house us. Hopefully this will only be for a few weeks.

undegpunt. I am unnesting. it's a thing. and I find in the multiple moves of the last few years, it's become a natural ritual. it involves eating down whatever food we have in the cupboards. giving away things to charities. ebaying the higher-priced items. and selling books on-line. perhaps I was a nomad in a previous life. I envision this prior life as depicted in the film Gabbeh. Highly recommended.

ch. perhaps I am a nomad in this life.

zed. we are at stress level Orange regarding house sale, and largely everything else has become secondary. but hopefully this auction thing will work, and we'll be free of the house sometime in August. If it doesn't, look for the large piles of goo on the streets of B'More. That will be us.

Welsh is fun! Ydy!

2008-05-11T12:05:00.003-04:00

Friday I spent the day in a Welsh exam--9:30 to noon written and listening comprehension, followed by a 2:20 20-minute oral exam in which I had to speak for 3 minutes and then answer questions about my monologue, answer some other questions that tested my comprehension/use of passive, conditional, and emphatic constructions, and then answer ten questions with 'yes', in Welsh. The last thing seems silly, right? But they don't really say 'yes' or 'no' directly very much in Welsh. They do the following:

Are you going to the store? I am.
Do you have children? I do.
Will he make breakfast? He will.
Should we build a hot tub? You (pl) should.
Will I be able to help you? You will be able to. (oh yes. that one's fun)

This means there are about 20 million (give or take) ways to say 'yes' and 'no' in Welsh.

Then there's the tricky ones:

It's cold today! It is.
Mae hi'n oer heddiw! Ydy.
You can see that there's not really any 'ydy' looking thing in the sentence. This is what makes Welsh 'fun' by the way. It also means that often conversations go very slowly with folks like myself:
You: It's cold today!
Me: [pause, think, pause, think] er [pause think] Ydy?

Welsh also simplifies your life by using the singular of verbs even when you're talking about multiple things. This means you don't have to really use as many verb forms, which for me is lovely. But one of the fill-in-the-blanks on the written section was:

Were the pictures good?
except in Welsh it's actually: Was the pictures good?
You'd think the answer would be: they was. But no, when you use the pronoun 'they' you must then conjugate the verb properly. So the answer is: they were.

Oedd y lluniau dda?
On.

And on. Or at least I hope it was.

Welsh is fun! Good thing I'm learning this language that will serve me so well when I move to the mid-Atlantic in a few weeks. Sigh.

hello, gorgeous!

2008-05-09T11:58:00.002-04:00

Sorry for the radio silence. Usually this means that we are having various issues regarding life and chaos. For example, just to pick one thing, failing to sell our house. And having to drop the asking price by a 10% or so, to below what we paid for it. Or, to pick another random thing, say, having to coordinate a move across the ocean (again) for stuff, us, and dog. Fun!

So I enjoy the greeting in the top right corner of Virgin Atlantic's site: Hello Gorgeous!

Hello Virgin. I heart you. And yes, I am gorgeous. Doncha know it.

Speaking of Tornadoes

2008-04-18T03:27:00.003-04:00

TMcD blogs about the Nashville Tornado that narrowly missed him 10 years ago. I wasn't in Nashvegas for that event, but I remember TMcD's telling of the tale from back then quite vividly. But reading that post got me thinking about my own Tornado experience, and realising that in these days of the 21st century interwebs, I could probably now look up pictures and read about an event from 20 years ago that was probably formative for me in some way.

I now discover that today the event is called 'The Red River Valley Tornado Outbreak'. It occurred on 10 April 1979 and involved a total of 13 tornadoes. At the time, we lived in in the red river valley, very near to Wichita Falls. The 3 Tornadoes that hit Wichita falls (they came together to form one massive cell and basically marched through town), left 20,000 people homeless, injured 1,700, and killed 45 people. 10 more people were also killed by the Vernon tornado, and 3 in by the Lawton tornado.

Online there is, of course, lots of good information, an amazing map,unbelievable pictures, entire websites devoted to the event, and even a 2005 AP article describing the impact of the inspection of the Wichita Falls ruins on future Tornado safety.

My own memories are obviously filtered through the eyes of a 7 year old. We lived in a farmhouse at the end of a dirt road surrounded by mesquite trees and cows. Nearby was Electra, TX, current population 3,000 and couldn't have been much bigger back then. At that point in my life, then, Wichita Falls was 'the city', the place you went to buy things, the place with lots of traffic and street lights and noise and people. And this event equated in my head to the total destruction of that place. What imprinted itself in my head were NOT the pictures of the Tornadoes themselves, as I had seen lot of dark black funnel clouds in my life - dashing from the house to the cellar was a routine affair at that time. But the pictures of the devastation afterwards, of block after city block of houses simply gone aside from 1 closet or a bathroom - that was something I just couldn't grasp. And more than the pictures, I still remember all the stories that circulated afterwards: the near misses, the missing persons, the coke bottles blown through someone's leg, the 2x4 through someone's arm...

I also remember how badly the event messed up the adults. In small towns near small towns, everybody knows everybody, and therefore everybody had friends or friends of friends who were directly affected by the tornado (loss of home, loss of life, often both). I vividly recall an event some months after the 13 tornado catastrophe: as was usual for the time, my parents were at a huge party at the house of friends who also lived out in the country. A tornado came through, so we all crammed into the cellar, the bathroom, etc., and waited for it to pass. It rattled the windows and passed by without causing damage. Afterwards, there was some new girlfriend of someone at the party who was studying psychology and had learned something (a little knowledge is dangerous) about trauma and children, and therefore she wanted to 'interview me' about my feelings/emotions/thoughts about the event so that she could match up my reactions and her observations with what the textbook said. I remember being very conscious at the time of the fact that it was she who was fucked up and scared to death, and also of the fact that she couldn't see that I was a reflective conscious being in this process - that I could see what she was doing, and was not merely a passive object to be observed. I wasn't mad at her, but it made me worry that this long after the the big tornado the adults still didn't have it together.

British bureaucracy: passive to its core

2008-04-09T05:50:00.002-04:00

'When requesting goods be ordered you should ask that your grant code be charged'.

This sentence represents the entirety of instruction given to me by a lovely woman in the finance department here at my university in the UK. Whom? Whom do I request from? Whom do I ask that? But there is no there there. There is only the bureaucracy. And, as a colonial historian, I can tell you the Brits are the world masters.

When requesting instructions be given, you should specify that your questions be answered.

I heart passive voice.