walking cliche

The Flattening?

2005-04-21T11:58:00.000-04:00

Man, I remember that some classes in college assigned Friedman's The Lexus and the Olive Tree. In college, and a supposedly good one. Have you ever read anything by Friedman? He makes my head hurt like I just downed a half-gallon of ice cream. He's almost worse than Brooks. I think his heart might be in the right place, but I can never understand what he's trying to say.

When I said he was almost worse than Brooks, I was exaggerating. Nobody comes close to Brooks. Come to think of it, none of the Times columnists are any good. They write the same damned thing in the same damned style every single day. Actually, the entire Times sucks.

So anyways, here's a good takedown of Friedman.

I take the bus...

2005-04-11T15:14:00.000-04:00

A fairly disastrous morning. Since I woke up early and wasn't in any particular rush, I decided to wait for the M22 bus next to my apartment. I knew that this would take me to the NR at City Hall, but I wasn't exactly sure what it would do after that. The sign said that the bus went to St. James Place, and my feeble little mind made the following calculation:

"Hey, St. James is the same as 8th St., and I work on 9th St. I can just walk from wherever it drops me off."

Problem is, St. James Place isn't the same as 8th St. That's St. Mark's Place. Why do there have to be so many goddamned saints, anyways? St. James happens to be wwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy the hell over on the east side right below the Manhattan Bridge in an area I hear the kids are calling DUMBO. When I realized that I was nowhere near my office, I decided to stay on the bus and see where it would take me. I ended up cutting my losses at Madison St. and Grand, which is east of the LES. So I walked west to the LES and cut up through Chinatown, walking down some streets that I would never normally have the chance to see.

By the time I got to Prince and Broadway, it was getting kind of late. I've already seen quite enough of the stretch of Broadway between Prince and 8th, so I decided to jump on the R train and take it up one stop. BUT MY FUCKING METROCARD WAS MISSING. I don't know if I got pickpocketed by a guy who only wanted Metrocards but no credit cards or if I left the card on the bus or dropped it somewhere. The card was nowhere to be found, though. So I had to spend $76 on a new card, the pain of which was somewhat abated by the fact that I probably only had at most two weeks left on the lost/stolen card.

Then, when I got to the office, I tried to confirm that I would be paid for the last month of work. It turns out that my paychecks are still screwed up. I think that I've finally settled it, but I have no idea when I'll be getting a new (desperately needed) cash infusion.

To add a touch more darkness, we lost at football yesterday. Lost. We had so much more talent than the other team, but fell victim to some bad game management skills and the vagaries of Lady Luck. I felt like the Soviet hockey team in Lake Placid in 1980.

Bright spots:

1) I got a new dresser, which I carried home on the subway and into which all my clothes fit.

2) I spent barely any money on food and drink this weekend. But then again, I didn't have very much fun.

I hear there's rumors on the, uh, internets...

2005-04-08T17:15:00.000-04:00

I hear there's rumors on the, uh, internets.

Gates?

2005-04-08T14:50:00.000-04:00

Ate at Azafran last night. I was not aware of its existence, despite it being two blocks from my apartment. It was pretty tasty, especially the shrimp with dates. I also have a wall. And I bought a poster to hang on it. Look at the poster. Look at it.

I spent most of my day at work yesterday organizing my Yahoo and Hotmail accounts, deleting some flotsam, a bit of jetsam, and around four hundred emails promising to increase the size of my penis.

Waiting for the downtown W train at Canal St., which admittedly is a pretty confusing clash of lines, six separate people asked me for directions. One of these lost souls was a particularly attractive nun with a heavy unidentifiable accent (!). Talk about a set-up for a porno. I was going to say something about being sorry about the Pope, (did you hear the Pope died?!) but I figured it would be inappropriate. I guess I look like I know where I'm going, which is pretty ironic considering that I spend probably an hour a day trying to recover from getting hopelessly lost.

I also set up a fantasy baseball team on Yahoo. I've never played fantasy baseball before, don't know enough about baseball to be good at it, and don't have the attention span or dedication to actually put any effort into it. Anyways, my team's name is Green Line to Kenmore, and this is the roster: Varitek, Bagwell, Vidro, Uribe, Lugo, Beltran, Sheffield, JD Drew, Liebertal, Milton Bradley, Jacques Jones, and Grissom. In the pen we have: Hudson, Mulder, Gagne, Mesa, Aquino, Otsuka, Wells, Contreras, and Hampton. I haven't exactly figured out how the scoring works yet, but I'm currently in 9th place (out of 12).

I won 2nd place and $150 in my NCAA tourney pool despite an almost complete lack of knowledge of college basketball.

I played basketball yesterday. I was surprised at how well I can still play, considering that I haven't shot a ball in three years and am completely out of shape. I've noticed that I can still throw a baseball, hit a tennis ball, juggle a soccer ball, and catch a football pretty well, too. I guess it's just thanks to spending pretty much my entire childhood playing sports and having the right motions somewhere deep in my unconscious.

Speaking of football, last Saturday was a mess. It was pouring rain, and Nick and I decided to volunteer to ref the game before ours at 138th and Riverside. I only wore a t-shirt, thinking that it was football and that I'd tough it out. Bad idea. Once you get soaked through, you apparently get much, much colder. The temperature dropped to the low 40's and I was DYING. I couldn't even watch the game. I think I may have blacked out for a couple of minutes. I did recover enough to make a couple of catches in our game, though. We dominated, 33-0, to go 2-0 in our division. Nick won't be there this Sunday, and I'm curious to see how the team will deal with his absence.

I still need to return Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, which I've watched five times in the past five days. And from which lines must be quoted presently:

"What kind of name is that anyhow? Kumar. What is that, five o's or two u's?"
"Actually, it's one u"
"Yeah, bullshit."

"You the king of the forest?? Fucking treehugger. IS THIS YOUR SPECIAL BUSH????"

"Wasn't there a cheetah? What happened to the cheetah?"

"Hey, NPH wouldn't do that."

"Daddy is not coming on anything."

"Ssssssssssexy. Soft, chocolate lips."

And that will end the H&KGTWC quotes.

"I'm on Fire" is the best Springsteen song.

And you can learn how to dance the Madison from "Band of Outsiders".

And I may go to this tomorrow. After P.S. 1.

Shopping

2005-04-05T12:13:00.000-04:00

I just had an interesting experience. I ran into the Gap to get a pair of jeans, and as I was taking them off the shelf a nice young man asked me if I needed any help. I indicated that I wished to try the jeans on, and he led me to a dressing room. He said he really liked my bag and asked me where I got it. I told him that I couldn't remember. He introduced himself as Blaine or Jimmy or Sally or Ted. He noticed that I had selected the easy fit jeans, which are apparently SO not in this season (spring/summer 2005). He suggested that I also try on the boot cut jeans, which were what he happened to be wearing that day. He also volunteered to bring me any different washes or sizes that I might need. The easy fit jeans were nice, fit really well (easily), and I would have liked to have bought them. Blaine also liked them, but wanted to see how the boot cut pair fit. Apparently the leg on the easy fit was a little too straight and boxy for his tastes. When he saw me in the boot cuts, he came.

"Oh my God, THOSE ARE THE JEANS! Do you absolutely love them?!"
"Yeah, man. They're OK. I've never really had jeans this tight before."
"They stretch out some, but your butt looks fantastic in them!"
"Ummmmmmm... yeah."
"I'm wearing the same jeans, but they look so much better on you!"
"OK, I guess I'll take them."
"Can I bring you anything else?"
"No thanks, just the jeans are fine."
"Great, my name's Freddy or Kevin or Joey or Tim! If you need ANYTHING else, please just ask me!"

Time to reestablish my manhood:

"Actually, you know that company Seven? Do they make men's jeans?"
"Yeah."
"Because my GIRLfriend (nonexistent) bought me a pair and I couldn't imagine a man fitting into them."
"Oh."
"Yeah, those things were tight."
"Well, I actually own a pair of Sevens. But if you have a girlfriend, you probably don't want them. She was probably just trying to make you look sexy."
"These ones fit really well, though. So thanks."

Manhood reestablished. If only female salespeople could be as friendly.

UPDATE: I just realized that this post may have come off as homophobic. Let me note that I am not in the least bit homophobic and have many gay friends. This event was worth noting beacuse of the aggression of the salesperson. It would have been just as strange if it was a woman.

- Grammatici certant, et adhuc sub iudice lis est -

2005-03-15T10:56:00.000-05:00

Slavoj Zizek writes an interesting piece in the LRB. I find this topic to be fascinating and -- like most fascinating topics -- entirely irresolvable. I have read some of Nolte's work, including his exchange of letters with Francois Furet that was published in book form. The oversimplified picture I've always had in my mind is one of the political spectrum curling back in on itself: once you go far enough to the left or right, you meet in some kind of space of infinite extremism where what are supposed to be polar opposites begin to ressemble each other. Nolte's theses never struck me as an apology for Nazism, although I realize that this is a particularly sensitive issue in Europe.

After a basic rehashing of the debate -- but Nazism was a reaction to Bolshevism, and Hitler learned everything he knew from Lenin, anyways! but Nazism was a unique catastrophe that can only be explained as a singular event in history! but aren't they kind of two sides of the same coin?! but at least the Bolsheviks were working towards universal emancipation, even though Stalinism was the only possible result of the October Revolution! ad infinitum -- Zizek concludes that the ony reason that European conservatives want to ban communist symbols is to "change the terms of a postwar European identity hitherto based on anti-Fascist unity."

Talk about paranoia. There are still active parties in Europe that claim Leninism and (a bit more indirectly) Stalinism as part of their intellectual heritage. I'm fully aware of Berlusconi's unsavory alliance with the Alleanza Nazionale and the history of the Partido Popular in Spain, not to mention the growing power of the Front National, UKIP, and the Vlaams Belang. Let's try to remember that the former Prime Minister of France and the current Foreign Minister of Germany have more or less avowed Trotskyist pasts, though.

Maybe it's a sign of something rotting at the core of the European democratic system, but we shouldn't have to worry about a full frontal assault on the anti-fascist tradition. Isn't it possible that a full accounting of the horrors of the past is just that, with no ulterior motives? Either way, when the left fears the right instead of seeing it as an opposing force in the political debate -- and vice versa -- we're heading down the wrong path. What needs to be realized is that both Nazism and Stalinism were extreme perversions of the two dominant strains of political thought, conservatism and progressivism. If we see extremism, absolutism and ideological dogmatism in all their forms as the real threats to society, then we identified our most important enemies.

And that fulfills my quota for dorky posts for the week.

- Odi profanum vulgus et arceo -

2005-03-14T11:04:00.000-05:00

Weekend:

Tango was pretty bitchin. It inspired me to listen to some Gotan Project at work today. I am unfortunately very awkward, self-conscious and completely lacking any sense of rhythm. I'll bet the guy with the long hair owning the dance floor doesn't know which country Enver Hoxha dictated from 1944 to 1985, though. Bitch.

Hiro was cool. A gigantic swank club in the Meatpacking District with no cover and a relaxed dress code playing good music? What are the chances of that? I never understood the big fuss over New Order's "Blue Monday" -- I always liked "Bizarre Love Triangle" better -- but after hearing it blasted on a really expensive sound system, I think I know why it's so popular. It's funny to see fifteen guys (and a couple of go-go dancers) waiting in line in the bathroom when all three urinals are open. I doubt they all had to poop. I wonder what other reason they had to use the stalls?

The Armory Show was the winner for best decision of the weekend. My personal highlights included:

-- Peter Zimmerman's epoxy/resin on canvas.

-- Gorgeous white backlit photographs of mostly empty space with a portrait of a man whose nationality could not be identified on the edge of the frame. I forget the artist's name and couldn't google it down.

-- An enormous photograph of Oslo and the glowing Norwegian sky at night by Thomas Struth.

-- Paul Chan, around whom there is a lot of "buzz" right now, according to a friend of a friend who works for one of the galleries representing him. He does these absolutely insane animated cartoons of deeply symbolic hermaphroditic orgies that look something like a cross between a Bosch and one of those safety cards on airplanes demonstrating how to go down the big inflated slide, but a lot lusher. Also, he invented a code based on the writings of nineteenth-century French utopian socialist Charles Fourier, which he uses to translate bizarre words and phrases in black ink on white parchment that turns out to be very beautiful.

-- A piece called "Nuclear Football" which is composed of behind-the-scenes video clips of ceremonial military parades, various world leaders (including our favoritest president ever) shaking hands and descending from planes, and Secret Service agents going about their jobs. The soundtrack for this is track 1/1 from Brian Eno's "Ambient 1: Music for Airports." On top of all this, someone is rapping in a very quiet whisper random facts about the figures -- luminaries such as Joschka Fischer and Colin Powell -- on the screen. I don't know who the artist was, but I wanted to buy a copy of the DVD. Maybe I'll check this thing out sometime, even though it might be too pretentious even for me.

-- The fact that Will Ferrell was standing behind us in the taxi line when we were leaving. I only glanced up at him, fearing that an extended gawk would have caused me to either freeze or melt. WILL FERRELL!!! Mugatu, Ron Burgundy, the best damned George W. Bush ever, Buddy, Frank Ricard. Words cannot describe the depths of the man's genius, so I shall henceforth remain silent on the subject.

Wong Kar Wai's Chungking Express, which was fantastic. Very Godardian, impressionistic and boring at points. Asian cinema now is definitely where French cinema was in the sixties: the most interesting and beautiful films today mostly come from Asia. The actors are just unbelievably charismatic and charming, Tony Leung and Fei Wong being two perfect examples. There's not much of a plot, but some of the images that are still stuck in my mind include:

-- Every frame with Fei Wong in it, especially when she's writhing around (platonically) on Tony Leung's bed and when he surprises her at the door. Wow. Also, Jeunet had to have been inspired by this movie for the whole apartment invasion subplot in Amelie, right?

-- Tony Leung landing the model airplane on the small of his girlfriend's back.

-- The shirt blowing in the wind as the plane flies over it.

We lost at football, but we have plenty of excuses. It was only a scrimmage, and several of our key players were either injured or M.I.A.

Flor's Kitchen and drunken pool/Trivial Pursuit at Blue & Gold. On our way out, a gigantic gigantic man came charging down East 7th St. jumping up and down and taking a particular interest in the parked cars. When he got close to us, he asked one of our party "Was it you?" Not being sure exactly what the gentleman was referring to, we all just smiled politely. We noticed that he was carrying shards of a broken icicle in one hand and a fully intact icicle in the other. This man was an enormous bundle of energy, thanks no doubt to crack cocaine and several other illegal substances. After thirtyish tense seconds, the man bounded off down the street, stopped, took a running start towards the south side of the street, and jumped face first into the door of a residential building. He shook it off like a real champ and made his way down 7th St., ringing every buzzer he could and pounding on every door. The last we saw him, he had managed to slip into a building on 7th between 1st and 2nd. I didn't have the chance to check the news this morning, but I hope the East Village stayed homicide-free.

Then, on our way back downtown, we pulled up next to a beat up old car that would have been a perfect candidate for Pimp My Ride. My friend yelled out the window that she liked the car, to which the driver responded, "Thanks, it's a lease!" General hilarity ensued, in which the cab driver gladly took part. In a generic cabbie accent, he started to cackle and cuss something awful. "Fucking cocksucking piece of shit. Cocksucker. Piece-of-shit-eating fucking cocksucker. This fucking guy. Cocksucker," et cetera. This lasted for a good five minutes. I can only dream about being able to swear like that in any language other than English. I tipped the guy extra for being such a showman.

Man, that's a jam-packed weekend.

- Qui scribit bis legit -

2005-03-11T16:08:00.000-05:00

I thought tango was a running joke, but I guess it's not. I am without a date and still a bit hungover. I also dropped a girl while dancing last night -- note to self: do not try to dip a girl who is three inches taller than you when you've had eight or nine drinks.

In other news, Devanagari script is really pretty.

And this is how I spend my time at work.