collect moments one by one

beautiful story

2009-12-20T09:09:00.001+03:00

I know everyone is all wrapped up in the snow and the holiday spirit, and I'm supposed to be on a plane in nine hours, but just read this:

"A few weeks ago, Glen was in Chicago for the tour. As he came down the elevator in the morning, an older woman, perhaps 70, in a bright blue coat joined him. He described her face thusly: "You know how you have the face you were born with until you're 25, then from 25 to 40 you have the face that earn, and from 40 to death you have the face you deserve? Well, this woman was beautiful at 70, just one of the most beautiful faces, she definitely had one of those faces you earn." And as he looked over at her, he felt the need to compliment her coat, and so he did. And she got so excited and touched, responding, "Thank you for noticing my coat. This coat means so much to me, thank you for noticing. I bought this coat when I decided to live again. I loved the color and wanted to live. I didn't leave my apartment for two years, and when I did, when I decided to live, I bought this blue coat." Glen was a little surprised and a little touched, and he helped her with her bag to the taxi. As they got to the taxi, she started to tear up and the words started rushing out like when you've had a moment of kindness that unlocks all the emotions that have been sitting around for ages. And she said, "My son died in that tower. He quit on September 10 and went back the next day to pick up some last things. I meant to call him and tell him not to bother going back, but I slept late. And then I didn't leave my apartment for two years. And then I finally decided to buy this coat and live, and you noticed it."

Isn't that lovely? via A Los Angeles Love.

Blue Virginia?

2008-11-01T18:30:00.002+03:00

A piece by Dahlia Lithwick in Slate expects perhaps so. WOOHOO!!! Go Virginia. The town of my birth is named in the article, which caught my attention.

And I particularly liked this passage,

A visit to the Obama campaign headquarters in Charlottesville (there is another office at the University of Virginia) yields more proof that this battle for the soul of Virginia isn't a North/South thing. Sarah El Amin is the campaign's regional field director, and she says the Obama campaign doesn't believe that winning the election requires "pumping out the vote in Northern Virginia" and ignoring the rest of the state. The campaign has put field offices in the most rural places in northwestern Virginia precisely because the campaign was unwilling to accept all the old assumptions. "The clichés about military or Christian or rural communities fail to affect our perception of whether he can win there."

I have never accepted the south as monochromatically red. The large majority of my Tennessee high school friends, for instance, have never voted for a Republican. And many if not most of those campaigned for Al Gore, experiencing, by the way, their very first opportunity to vote as heartbreak, but picking up and moving on two years later anyway. I suppose I still feel the loss.

My own grandmother was born a Democrat, and although that distinction may not have meant the same thing in the early twentieth century, she has updated her beliefs with the times. And she steadfastly maintains that the cornerstone of liberalism has always been openheartedness and affirmation of the equal rights of every person to choose her own destiny. Maybe Southern Democrats can stop feeling so outnumbered as to be insignificant and start showing themselves.

in memoriam

2008-10-21T03:48:00.002+03:00

via cute overload

Kodachrome

2008-06-18T00:34:00.005+03:00

Give us those nice, bright colors,

Give us the greens of summer

Makes me think all the world's

A sunny day -- oh-woh, yeah!

Warm weather recipe

2008-05-16T05:31:00.003+03:00

Strawberry - Basil - Balsamic Vinegar Sorbet

2/3 c. water
2/3 c. sugar
1/3 c. basil leaves
juice of half a lemon
balsamic vinegar*
1 lb. frozen strawberries, thawed

Mix the water and sugar in a saucepan on low for 3-5 minutes to make a simple syrup.
Pulse the basil leaves in food processor a few times, then add all remaining ingredients and simple syrup. Puree.

I froze mine using our ice cream maker, but I think you could just wrap up the puree and put it in the freezer. There won't be a texture difference from not having been churned since there is no cream in the recipe. Et voila! C. says it's his new favorite.

*I'm really not sure how much balsamic vinegar because I only added a couple of tablespoons at first, but it wasn't enough flavor. Then I doused it pretty well. Definitely less than half a cup, but probably more than a quarter.

Spring!

2008-04-23T04:53:00.002+03:00

Beer reviews

2008-03-07T02:08:00.003+03:00

We recently received some sample beers from a family friend, things he tried and wanted to pass on. Here are our reviews, for the reading and future sampling enjoyment of you connoisseurs.

Great Lakes Christmas Ale
Reddish in color, light in body, spicy in flavor. I guess it was Christmasy?

Backwoods Bastard
Beautiful amber color. Tasted of vanilla and bourbon and other wonderful things. Pretty sweet and malty. I think this was the one aged in the oak barrels previously used to distill bourbon, but don’t hold me to that. One of our favorite beers is Innis & Gunn, definitely uses the bourbon barrels, and it’s awesome.

Skull Splitter
Very smoky. That was the first word out of our mouths. Also a little bit of dried fruit in the undetones, but really overpoweringly smelled of wood burning. Not my kind of beer, really.

Also, ahahahahahahaha.

Independence Day 2.

2007-07-03T13:10:00.000+03:00

Antananarivo, 6.30.07

Independence Day 1.

2007-07-03T12:58:00.000+03:00

Antananarivo, 7.2.07.

Madagascar's Independence Day is the 26th of June.

Gems.

2007-07-01T23:08:00.000+03:00

The gaze.

2007-06-21T20:11:00.001+03:00

Antananarivo, 4.15.2007

Glow.

2007-06-21T20:03:00.000+03:00

Horns.

2007-06-20T22:24:00.000+03:00

Antananarivo, 6.16.2007.

Moo.

2007-06-20T19:56:00.001+03:00

Antsirabe, 3.14.2007.

Album.

2007-06-20T19:47:00.002+03:00

For the sake of convenience (mine and yours): a set of photos.

Fruit.

2007-05-10T03:29:00.000+03:00

Smile.

2007-05-10T03:27:00.000+03:00

Cooperative.

2007-05-10T03:25:00.000+03:00

Betafo.

2007-05-10T03:23:00.000+03:00

Hiding.

2007-04-29T20:13:00.000+03:00

Feon'ny ala.

2007-04-29T20:10:00.000+03:00

Night hike.

2007-04-29T06:34:00.000+03:00

Lemur!

2007-04-09T00:20:00.000+03:00

Pirogues.

2007-04-08T03:28:00.000+03:00

Tidal pool moonscape.

2007-04-08T03:26:00.000+03:00

Lavanono.

2007-04-08T03:24:00.000+03:00

Fort Dauphin

2007-04-08T03:22:00.000+03:00

It's hard out there for an expat.

2007-03-28T04:10:00.000+03:00

Hotel des Thermes, formerly the residence of King Mohammed V of Morocco, taking refuge in Antsirabe.

Antsirabe, dusk.

2007-03-28T04:05:00.000+03:00

Yellow.

2007-03-27T02:17:00.000+03:00

Restaurant.

2007-03-27T02:15:00.000+03:00

Pousse-pousses.

2007-03-27T02:13:00.000+03:00

Ambositra.

2007-03-27T02:11:00.000+03:00

Mahajanga, sunset.

2007-03-22T04:35:00.000+03:00

Flooded paddy, Marovoay, late afternoon

2007-03-21T04:31:00.000+03:00

Shy.

2007-03-19T03:44:00.000+03:00

Concrete.

2007-03-19T03:42:00.000+03:00

Most of the structures at Ambohimanga are made of concrete produced by mixing sand with the whites of 16 million eggs. Imagine all the chickens that were required. To gorgeous effect, however.

Loyalty.

2007-03-19T03:40:00.000+03:00

Whenever a red zebu (kin to cow) was born, it was brought to Ambohimanga to be sacrificed as a sign of loyalty to the king. And quite creepily the horns were nailed to this tree.

Ambohimanga.

2007-03-19T03:38:00.000+03:00

Ambohimanga means "blue hill," where blue signifies something of beauty or importance. This place was the home of Andrianampoinimerina, the king who unified all of Madagascar under one rule.

La Tour du Palais du Premier Ministre.

2007-03-17T21:17:00.000+03:00

*My friend and I were shown the interior of this palace, currently under construction, by a very kind but slightly skittish staff member. He cautioned us many times that our photographs were for documents personnels. I reissue the same warning.

Marche Artisanale 67.

2007-01-26T02:35:00.000+03:00

Parc Isoraka.

2007-01-22T20:30:00.000+03:00

Antananarivo.

2007-01-22T04:35:00.000+03:00

Question.

2007-01-07T19:22:00.000+03:00

The reason I was in the parking lot pictured in the last post is that the fan on my personal laptop seized, causing it to power off every five minutes. Now that won't do. It had to be sent out for service to be returned to me in four weeks, at which time I will be across an ocean and a continent. So -- new computer!!!

My question, like the last post, is quite serious. My music library for a software program I won't name because I don't want Google dumping people off here, but you know the one I'm talking about, it starts with an 'i' and is not a Magnetic Fields album. Anyhow. All of my music files are saved on an external hard drive. But the .itl and .xml files for the library are obviously still on the laptop drive in danger of melting down. I could proceed one of two ways:

1. Install the program, set music library as the external hard drive folder, add folder. This way is quick and painless (indeed I have already done it, so desperate am I to kill the quiet in my room), but it does not preserve play lists, play counts, or ratings.

2. Uninstall and reinstall the program, use a shareware program to grab my music from my portable music player, delete external hard drive folder, replace with newly uploaded folder. Less quick and less painless, and if I recall correctly from having done this once before, the folder and file names are not very pretty. But it does preserve play lists, play counts, and ratings.

My question boils down to: just how important are those three things?

From the parking lot

2007-01-07T19:15:00.000+03:00

For serious.

Weaving my interweb

2006-10-17T05:08:00.000+03:00

So I live a hyperlinked life. I'm on half a dozen social networking websites. I can't say that any of them have seriously enhanced my real-world social life. On the other hand, why not, really? It gives me a warm fuzzy when someone asks to be my friend, whether it's a long lost or a newly made friend. I can't help it, I feel a little pathetic when I find someone else and have to initiate the friend request. So I rarely do.

Friendster was first. The summer after I graduated I heard one of the Friendster founders on an interview on CNN saying she had 58,000 friends. I was terrified. But my three best friends from college got on and encouraged me to, also, so one slow day the next March I drew up a profile. The "degrees of separation" function is wildly surprising sometimes, and the "who's viewed your profile" function is a pretty amazing game for voyeurs to play. It's even prompted my lovelies in DC to coin a new phrase, "friendster stalking." It's at least as innocent as googling, so take that how you will. There's nothing that makes Friendster stand out, sometimes it's slow to load, but for all its shortcomings, I am still partial to it. It has all the people I love!

Myspace technically came next. I wanted to hear an mp3 available nowhere but the band's myspace page. I can't even remember what band. I had no picture and no friends (other than Tom) for more than a year. Then one person I actually know found me, and it's kinda gone up from there. Personally I think the site is clunky, clunky, clunky. Why can't they take you straight to the page you were heading for when they prompt you for a log in? Why can't they up their memory size for photos? But clearly there's some functionality that really makes sense, like mp3-hosting and the commenting function. Still, I don't tend this one, much to the chagrin of my friends with the pimped-out pages. Honestly I don't want to give the sketchy northern breed of redneck any more reason to send me freaky messages.

Facebook (must be in-network to view, or else befriend me). Oh Facebook. I resisted, I really did. Call it a generational difference. But if it was lame to be on one, it must be triply lame to be on three, right? Then my younger sister went and put the pictures from our cousin's wedding solely on her Facebook profile, so I had to join to see them. And the layout is so clean! The structure so closely reflects real-life socializing! with your ability to build high school network, then college network, then first job out of school, then grad school. So addictive with its updatable status and wall-to-wall messaging. Have to admit its beauty. News feed sux. Fin.

Niche sites
Last.fm I just love. Nothing makes a music geek jizz sooner than all her stats charted right there, immediately. You can see the making of the summer mix in the most frequently listened tracks. Oops. Next time I'll disable scrobbling. Neighbors, recommendations, radio, info, it's fantastic! If someone knows how to send my iPod tracks every time I connect that'd be cool. I have 1 friend. Hi, Will.

LibraryThing is supposed to catalogue the books you actually own. I used it to start cataloguing books I had read, whether or not I owned them, and haven't gone back to fix it. But really, I don't see any reason to discriminate against poor graduate students with disproportionate numbers of boring textbooks in their stashes and beloved stories returned to the school library or friends' shelves. A work in progress.

Flickr I do a lot more browsing than posting in Flickr.

YouTube where I registered for work, believe it or not. Don't befriend me. Seriously. I'm never going to post a video of my own and I don't see the point.

Linkity link link link. Delectable.

Up-Up-Down

2006-09-16T21:34:00.000+03:00

I'm in DT.UT (that's downtown-uptown), and I was super-psyched when they switched from John Mayer to Radiohead...except it was a reggae cover...of the entire album The Bends. What's the point? Just play the Radiohead Y'know?

Summer mix expanded, pt. 1

2006-09-02T20:12:00.000+03:00

My nose prickles with the edge of fall’s coolness in the breeze. Maybe that’s why I need to revisit this season’s mix before the official unofficial end of summer. As I mentioned in the comments to the entry for spring, if you’d like a copy, just e-mail me your address.

Ron Sexsmith and Don Kerr, “Lemonade Stand” (from Destination Unknown)
A good symbol marking the beginning of summer. Weather warm enough to make you want refreshment, days long enough to allow the activity, schedules conducive to reversing age-typical roles: kids as businesspeople, adults as consumers. And then in the music, the loping drum beat is relaxed enough, Ron Sexsmith’s voice just un-pretty enough for it to be believable.

The Thrills, “Deckchairs And Cigarettes” (from So Much for the City)
Speaking of loping, this song practically sits down on your porch and cracks open a beer by itself. It’s so simple, it almost begs me to bust out my limited skills in music theory. Actually includes a track of waves crashing and gulls calling.

Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band, “Tropical Hot Dog Night” (from Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller))
Caribbean percussion, some horns, a scrap-y voice, references to striped light and young girls feeding monsters. A must-listen.

Billie Holiday, Sunbonnet Blue (And A Little Straw Hat), (from The Quintessential Bille, vol. 1)
I have a soft spot for Billie doing something other than typical Billie, which generally means from early on in her career. This track has some seriously cute, girl-looking-over-her-shoulder, shyly-solicitous-boy moments.

The Elected, “Would You Come With Me” (from Sun, Sun, Sun)
The Elected are the side project of the male half of Rilo Kiley. Innocent but not precious, retro-sounding lead croons and back-up oohs, drums restricted to a downbeat snare tap, the down-up bass providing rhythm of equal prominence. Maybe to someone else this songs has escapist road trip themes, but to me, each of the many times I listened to it this summer just brought up visions of friends not here.

Fountains of Wayne, “Radiation Vibe” (from their self-titled album)
Many genres could probably lay claim, including bossa nova (see below), but I identify power pop with warm weather fun. Not lacking in substance, Fountains of Wayne are nonetheless pretty much all about the hook. It’s just that thing they do.

Loudon Wainwright III, “The Swimming Song” (from Attempted Mustache)
Perhaps eclipsed in the modern (indie)-consciousness by his son, Rufus, Loudon Wainwright III is just a hoot. “But once when you weren’t looking I did a cannonball?” C’mon, laugh.

Band of Horses, “I Go to the Barn Because I Like the” (from Everything All the Time)
With a couple of dreamily nostalgic tracks on this mix, although not “A Summer Wasting,” this one probably wins for pensiveness. In the double-layered vocal, one voice is whispering in your ear, one crying into the back of the church. Or the barn. The close voice holds sway when guitar is the only accompaniment, then fades back as the drums and extra guitar come in.

Fruit Bats, “Lives Of Crime” (from Spelled in Bones)
I listened to Spelled in Bones so many times last summer, it’s difficult for me to hear this song with fresh ears. Highlights: Spanish-style guitar trills (i.e. eighth-notes of seconds and thirds), a bass like footfalls on a morning jog (just before the bridge), handclaps!

Caetano Veloso & Gilberto Gil, “Cinema novo” (from Tropicalia 2)
Gentle above all else, this song offers simply beautiful summer soothing.

The Beach Boys, “Cool Cool Water” (from the unreleased SMiLE)
Drip-drop go the piano’s plunks. Purr go the super-square barbershop-style (with girls, so maybe it’s a salon) vocals.

Dinosaur Jr. at Toad's Place

2006-08-31T09:27:00.000+03:00

Man, do I love a good rock show. I will be the first to admit I do not go for all the post-rock, hard-core, slashing, screaming, constant feeback whatever. I think it's very easy to do badly. But I also think Dinosaur Jr. are brilliant. Whereas I might walk in to another show and have my teeth set on edge, making me all jittery on the surface, Dino get a place below my sternum vibrating and it's this unbelievable all-consuming understanding. Also, and this is important, they wrote songs. With harmonies, structure, layering, and melodies, even. Sometimes you have to work to hear them, but I like that, too! It's like a secret, my own little treasure hunt. Hunt for the hook. Ha.

Anyway, about the show. The band had all of their guitars ripped off just hours before it started. I heard some dude behind me speculating on the subject, and Lou Barlow confirmed it before they even started playing. It looked like his bass in the encore had a price tag on it, so I'm guessing they borrowed some from a local shop. The first couple of songs felt like they were just phoning it in, but then I think they warmed up to us.

The warming came through in their commitment to the sound, but there was no marked difference in demeanor, at least not in J's. As probably every audience member in the history of Dinosaur Jr. shows would tell you, J Mascis sure can play him some guitar. But without any kind of anguished shredder face or flailing gesticulation. In fact, now that his long locks have gone silver and his jowls slightly droopy, similarities are somewhere between Gandalf, basset hound, and weeping willow. Does anyone else think his nasal sounds a bit like Jay Farrar's? You were gonna say Neil Young. Their songs sound like Crazy Horse-era Young, by way of the Stooges. But his voice has something just a little bit (more) country about it. Regardless, I think it's the right counterpart to their stuff.

I don't know how to wrap this up, but I need to get some sleep because my boss gets back tomorrow (today). I guess, for my less musically inclined friends, go look up Dinosaur Jr. in your normal music resources and find out how genre-defining they were, how personal tension got between them and the music, and then how the wonderful compassion and mellowing of age have brought them back together. Then go see them on their now year-and-a-half long reunion tour. You won't regret it.

Good luck, Rookie.

2006-08-30T06:14:00.000+03:00

Ohmygod, you can click-and-play Apple IIe games here.

Dig Dug
Oregon Trail
Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? - so great.

(must use IE to load, via metafilter)

Slow on the fast

2006-08-30T00:48:00.000+03:00

I had almost forgotten that Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation was made into a film directed by Richard Linklater. Debuted May 19 of this year at the Cannes Film Festival (where it had its own blog), now scheduled for release in theaters November 17.

More fun facts to come from the first-ever food issue of the Nation.

Taking a cue

2006-08-28T05:37:00.000+03:00

My freshman writing seminar was named, with a nod toward the post-modern tradition, "Writing/s about Music." This course still stands out as one of my favorite academic experiences for many reasons. The one relevant to this post is that it made me aware of just how frequently music is used to move us. One of our assignments was to record every instance of music (defined as sound arranged with conscious intent to avoid including car horns and bird chirps) we heard for a 24-hour period and also to respond to it. Try it sometime. Eye-, I mean, ear-opening. Har har.

The professor specialized in film music, so the interplay between visual and aural cues received careful emphasis. The most straightforward cognitive science explanation of how music works with movies points to three aspects, 1) music reinforces, or adds a layer of, meaning, 2) music enhances memory, 3) music aids suspension of disbelief. Now, those are a blog post (or a dissertation) of their own. For our purposes, consider only that perception of visual images is changed when they are accompanied by music. This possibility fascinates me. I would say I am hyper-aware of music in film, often wishing I could talk to my teacher as I'm walking out of the theater, while also wanting to bring awareness to everyone else in my world. Two movies recently have motivated me to finally write about it:

Little Miss Sunshine

If you haven't yet heard about this movie, I don't know what rock you've been living under, but crawl out! The sun's shining! And there is much laughter to be had, so much it might kick you off your plush seat, or is that just me. Where I felt completely disconnected from Napoleon, I empathized with all six members of this ragtag family, who in the end seemed to my sister and me far less dysfunctional than they'd lead us to believe.

Enough about the movie, now the music: scored by this great little band, Devotchka. I had never realized how similar Ennio Morricone's music was to gypsy music until I heard Devotchka. They make sad music, and not just a chin flopped in your hand sigh, but epically sad, like everyone you care about will be tortured for generations but you must go on. And that's what's really great: it doesn't wallow. There's all this life-affirming energy in the bouncy plucking beneath the wail. I'm mostly writing about the album How it Ends, because that's what I have, but the soundtrack has the added bonus of Sufjan singing a couple of the songs, still written by Devotchka.

Scoop

Yesyes, the new Woody Allen movie, in which Woody Allen plays, but mercifully not as the romantic lead. I laughed. Sometimes the plot has the feeling of a tossed-off, this'll give us the tension, or resolution, or situation, that I'm looking for, but the thing is, he's right: it does give him the (fill in the blank). Hugh Jackman and Scarlett Johansson are mostly left alone to be charmingly dapper British gentleman and refreshingly down-to-earth plucky American college girl, respectively.

Now, let me take a little detour into how the ballet world works. This'll all tie together in a second, promise. The big ballets are recreated over and over again, not just on the grand stages of the world's capitals, but in the studios of the small towns. Strict teachers rap the centuries-old combinations into thirteen-year-old heads, then on breaks they all watch videos of Dame Margot Fonteyn, Sylvie Guillaume, pick your hero. One of the variations taught from the repertoire is called simply "Little Swans," from possibly the most performed ballet of all time, Swan Lake. Hands held with overlapping arms, the four dancers make absolutely synchronized movements, from one foot to the other, across the floor on bent legs, then straight. It's a very difficult set of steps but is always given to young dancers and taught to everyone as both rite of passage and test.

The opening credits of Scoop roll with the "Little Swans" music. To an outside observer, it might sound kind of Nancy Drew detective story, but to a former dancer, that music plunges you back into the wide open space and your adolescent body, trying not to grip too hard on your partner, not to trip, not to bob your head, but yes to glide, yes to keep going. Amazing. Later in the movie when it recurs, possibly to bring back the memory of the first scenes, it really just dredges up smells of satin and hairspray. In fact, Allen ends up using several selections from the Swan Lake suite, a big corps de ballet number, part of the swan queen's big show, the white swan's solo (the harp piece), and the finale, I think. As if that weren't enough, the musical director tops it off with the toy soldier/rat fight scene from the Nutcracker, the awful ballet Americans insist on revisiting every year. I struggled not to lose my focus on what was happening on screen.

What's your favorite film score? Or story of hearing a song out-of-context that just transported you back somewhere?

the YouTube edition

2006-08-25T19:19:00.000+03:00

So I don't know if it's because I've had to watch politically relevant clips lately, my personal computer is so much better at handling streaming than my computer at my former job, or the phenomenon as a whole is taking off, but I am no longer afraid of YouTube. Couldn't tell you whether or why I ever was. My friend Lamar does this for a living, at least in the summer. Anyhow, three that I wanted to point you to below.

Anti-Suicide Bombing PSA

This announcement could be as much directed toward Americans who believe terrorism is always in line with Islam's teachings as Muslims who hold that belief. (via this column, on which Lamar is the awesome intern, thx Chris for the translation)

Claymation for "She Sends Kisses" by the Wrens

On its own, the song is so poignant, with its open minor intervals in the synth reaching up, the anthemic chorus arching over, and the faraway back-up vocal almost rubbed out by distortion. And then this sweet, fragile visual representation...it almost breaks your heart. For anyone who's ever tried to manage long distance, gone back and forth on what to do, grown up. Highly recommended. (via wrens' blog)

Samuel L. Jackson on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart

"Did you have any idea what you were about to unleash on the American public?

p.s. I've been collecting these for a little while, so if you've already seen one, you are so hip. Mea culpa for attempting to be your friend.

p.p.s. Don't watch lonelygirl15, I'm not even going to link to her. It's worse than a fake, it's a hackneyed story vying for MTV airing with overly self-conscious writing and piss-poor acting. Gohepcat, despite his excellent taste in concert art, seems to be in on it.

p.p.p.s. Do watch "Where the Hell is Matt?" He's been linked to so many times I can't even offer proper acknowledgement.

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

2006-08-24T04:08:00.000+03:00

New England is not without its charms in the summertime. For instance, already one can sit on the porch without being bothered by bugs or sweat. Fewer thunderstorms threaten outdoor activities. The sky gains its vivid autumnal blue, sheds its heat haze, much earlier.

I do still miss many of the South's summer pleasures, chief among them the peaches. I'm not too sure about heaven, but I am certain of that first bite into a just-picked peach, the perfect consistency, the perfect sweetness, with just a little juice dripping over the fuzz. I have tried to find them here. In the grocery store, they are hard as little rocks, and then they over-ripen in a day, to a mealy, bitter-sour-barely-sweet thing that disintegrates before it's really on your teeth. I hear they do grow them nearby. So I went to the farmer's market, but the pickings were slim. I'm going to try again this weekend, since I haven't been around for many weekends since early July. But look, in the South they put them in bushels on the side of the road. They're pushed on you by well-meaning church ladies, parents of your dance pupils, relatives. The abundance is almost hard to avoid.

But I'm here. Not there. So if all else fails, I'm going to demand the birthday girl take me here, because the description in this NYT article almost has me convinced they could run a real race with Georgia there.

Do I dare?

Summer.

2006-08-12T02:38:00.000+03:00

Wet hair on a bare back. Shaved ice, sugar water, and coconut scent. The charred skin of a squash flaking onto the everyday plates from the ‘70s. Cicadas whirring. Knees shiny with sun glimmer. Left side of the face puckered, eye squinched, cheek in a grimace, and right hand cocked above the brow. A circle skirt, a hem you hardly feel, a floral ruffle. Poplin, eyelet, linen. Open windows. Ceiling fans. Falling down in a field. Firmness of a heart-shaped berry giving way, seeds between teeth, just a little tart, just a little grassy. Furry skin, juice dripping off flesh still clinging to the pit.

Laughter cascading off a porch. Bare feet under the swing. Grey gorgeous dusks when the light seems reluctant to leave. Dark silver water peeling away from the bow like mercury, smooth plunk of an oar the only thing disturbing the stillness. Warm rain, generous thunder. Glass pitcher on the rail, tea bag strings tied to the handle. Reclining. Leaning into your back foot, whizzing across the lake, popping your knees, hips steady, spray on calf. A towel warm on the chaise lounge. Boom boxes and speed boats. The crack of wood resonating deep in rubber-coated cork center. One lone drip of sweat on a freckled nose. Big dark plastic glasses, headscarves, hands up, top down. A smile you just can’t wipe off the face all the way down in the pit of your stomach.

1. Ron Sexsmith and Don Kerr, Lemonade Stand
2. The Thrills, Deckchairs And Cigarettes
3. Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band, Tropical Hot Dog Night
4. Billie Holiday, Sunbonnet Blue (And A Little Straw Hat)
5. The Elected, Would You Come With Me
6. Fountains of Wayne, Radiation Vibe
7. Loudon Wainwright III, The Swimming Song
8. Band of Horses, I Go to the Barn Because I Like the
9. Fruit Bats, Lives Of Crime
10. Caetano Veloso & Gilberto Gil, Cinema novo
11. The Beach Boys, Cool Cool Water
12. The Flaming Lips, It's Summertime
13. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Details Of The War
14. Love, Orange skies mono
15. The National, All the wine
16. Modest Mouse, Float On
17. M. Ward, Here Comes The Sun Again
18. Bruce Springsteen, The River
19. Jane's Addiction, Classic Girl
20. Big Star, Hung Up with Summer
21. King Sunny Ade, Sunny Ti De (complete 5 song medley)
22. Jens Lekman, A Sweet Summer's Night On Hammer Hill

Sometimes

2006-06-21T09:45:00.000+03:00

Sometimes your heart lifts even as your head is telling you how stupid and cliched and ohmygod all that social baggage and co-optings of the gooey love beads so full of meanings they're now devoid of them, but you just can't help it. The marketers are tapping in to something real.

This evening on the walk from my house to my boss' I saw a rainbow. A real, live, because it was sprinkling but the sun was out on a pleasant spring evening, rainbow. It had been a long time, so long I'd forgotten how pretty and subtle they are. I couldn't take my eyes off of it. Even the boss' kids at 7, 6, and 3 weren't as impressed as I was.

Then we watched this really cool PBS Frontline documentary called the Persuaders about how marketers get inside your soul. And, beyond marketers, political consultants, which is what I'm masquerading as these days. The documentary painted us as even worse, but mostly talked about the conservative dude who ran the Contract with America campaign and conjured up the phrase "death tax."

So here's how I sleep at night. If up to now political manipulation has been just that - deception and confusion and noise - then there needs to be someone who finds the right words but gets at the truth. And if advertising wants to convince you their product can find you community, identity, spiritual enlightenment, but political issues, organizations, and involvement are our community, identity, and spirit, then I think we can take advantage of psycho devices to explain politics as it really is and as it should matter to everyone.

That sounds alright. As right as rain. Now I can sleep.

You were right.

2006-06-18T02:32:00.000+03:00

If you're assembling a June salad of farmer's market greens, sweet flavorful strawberries, roquefort, and walnuts, and you're wondering whether you should actually dirty another dish to whip up some balsamic vinaigrette, or if you could get away with using that bottled olive oil and (cider) vinegar you bought at the store, make the vinaigrette. It's worth it.

Happy Bloomsday

2006-06-17T04:55:00.000+03:00

Stephen has also attempted to impede the publication of dozens of scholarly works on James Joyce. He rejects nearly every request to quote from unpublished letters. Last year, he told a prominent Joyce scholar that he was no longer granting permissions to quote from any of Joyce’s writings. (The scholar, fearing retribution, declined to be named in this article.) Stephen’s primary motive has been to put a halt to work that, in his view, either violates his family’s privacy or exceeds the bounds of reputable scholarship. The two-decade-long effort has also been an exercise in power—an attempt to establish his own centrality in regard to anything involving his grandfather. If you want to write about James Joyce and plan to quote more than a few short passages, you need Stephen’s consent. He has said, “We have proven that we are willing to take any necessary action to back and enforce what we legitimately believe in.” Or, as he put it to me during two phone calls that he recently made to me from La Flotte, “What other literary estate stands up the way I do? It’s a whole way of looking at things and looking at life.”

James Joyce's grandson makes difficult any scholarship on the subject of his grandfather's writing. Seems a pretty petty and far too angry way to live one's life.

New poet laureate

2006-06-14T06:32:00.000+03:00

I never know exactly what one is to think of these distinctions. Does it mean that this poet is the best? Representative of American poetry, somehow? What is American? What is poetry? (which brings me back to a half-written entry about Morrison and Beloved that maybe I'll get around to completing, but probably not.)

Anyhow. Guess where this dude was born. Despite that coincidence, this poem is not about me. I'm embarrassed to mention it, but I'm preempting the slim possibility that you, gentle reader, find it and stick it in the comments with a lewd joke.

I do like these words:

I see no reason to spend your life writing poems unless your goal is to write great poems. An ambitious project—but sensible, I think.

[...]

But I just called high ambition sensible. If our goal in life is to remain content, no ambition is sensible. ... If our goal is to write poetry, the only way we are likely to be any good is to try to be as great as the best

[...]

True ambition in a poet seeks fame in the old sense, to make words that live forever. If even to entertain such ambition reveals monstrous egotism, let me argue that the common alternative is petty egotism that spends itself in small competitiveness, that measures its success by quantity of publication, by blurbs on jackets, by small achievement: to be the best poet in the workshop, to be published by Knopf, to win the Pulitzer or the Nobel. . . . The grander goal is to be as good as Dante.

I often wonder how it is that we all get so sidetracked from our seventeen-year-old visions and think it's in our interest. Dammit, no! Want to be the best. It's the only thing worth trying to be.

Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name.

2006-05-19T06:38:00.000+03:00

Although I've been attending talks and lunches since I arrived, today was my first economics department event involving mingling. It was a barbeque on a lovely, lovely day. I split a ginormous burger with a woman I'd seen in most of the seminars. (Can you tell I'm thinking about going vegan? I knew this guy once who claimed he was a freegan. He ate no animal flesh or dairy products unless someone else had paid for it.) Anyhow, the woman who ate the other half of the dead cow. She seemed welcoming and not at all disturbed by having no idea what she'd be starting writing over the summer. Met an even friendlier woman from the South who promised to go hiking this summer and watch basketball this winter with me. Met guys, also, although those conversations seemed less grounded somehow. All of the first and second year students were giddy with relief at finishing their oral examinations. I felt very far removed from that intensity of pressure and then release. My coworker said it made her nervous. Should it make me nervous? I don't know. I feel like that's the kind of thing that's best dealt with as it arises. Stressing three years in advance seems oh-so-counterproductive.

Now I have this link here at the bottom of the page I obviously meant to do something with and I don't quite know what.

How to Do Social Network Analysis

Pick any person in my academic (and possibly personal) life and they can probably tell you something about it. Boss relies on social networks as part of financial services. Friend does computational methods of social networks and whose most recent post conveniently is about networks. Other friend (update your blog already!) will someday do network analysis. Probably three of the people I met today rely on some aspect of social networks. Ohoh, I think it was related to this article about tagging, but that's a much longer post.

I'm in Pittsburgh until Sunday with unpredictable internet access and also lots of partying. Graduation! Belated Mother's Day! More birthday! So 'til later.

Evening Walk

2006-05-18T05:57:00.000+03:00

You give the appearance of listening
To my thoughts, O trees,
Bent over the road I am walking
On a late summer evening.
When every one of you is a steep staircase
The night is slowly descending.

The high leaves like my mother's lips
Forever trembling, unable to decide,
For there's a bit of wind,
And it's like hearing voices,
Or a mouth full of muffled laughter,
A huge dark mouth we can all fit in
Suddenly covered by a hand.

Everything quiet. Light
Of some other evening strolling ahead,
Long-ago evening of silk dresses,
Bare feet, hair unpinned and falling.
Happy heart, what heavy steps you take
As you follow after them in the shadows.

The sky at the road's end cloudless and blue.
The night birds like children
Who won't come to dinner.
Lost children in the darkening woods.

Charles Simic

found in The Voice at 3:00 A.M., from D.

Thank you.

2006-05-17T06:56:00.000+03:00

Even far away from almost everyone you know, even slightly frazzled over ten requests coming at you from half a dozen directions, even if the April showers lasted into May...and then turned into a deluge -- you can still have a truly great day. I don't think I possibly could have smiled any more smiles. I love you all.

Spring.

2006-05-12T06:55:00.000+03:00

There were peonies on sale at the market last Thursday. Five stems for $10. I adore this flower with its lovely but subtle scent. Soft beyond softness, like moths' wings, as if they would disintegrate when you touched them, but they do not. A slice shy of a solid sphere that is anything but solid. Get your fingers in the petals, find how much space is there, more than between your fingers in your hair, more than cotton candy, it's almost all air. It's the paradox of the thing that gets me. Nothing at all about it makes it more special than other flowers, but it remains my favorite.

I have never bought any peonies. Aside from the bush in my childhood friend's backyard, only my eyes have consumed them in farmers' markets and flower shops. They have to support their demanding maintenance with but a month of blossom production and so are far outside my normal budget for bouquets, not that it's ever preplanned. Having pined for a vase full of peonies for so long, I wonder whether they might be worth even more than ten dollars to me now.

1. Belle & Sebastian, Mayfly
2. the Association, Along Comes Mary
3. Architecture in Helsinki, Spring 2008
4. Red House Painters, I Feel the Rain Fall
5. Rogue Wave, Falcon Settles Me
6. John Coltrane, After the Rain
7. R.E.M., Sitting Still
8. Nada Surf, Happy Kid
9. John Vanderslice, Wild Strawberries
10. Joanna Newsom, Peach, Plum, Pear
11. Jethro Tull, Songs from the Wood
12. Jeff Buckley (James Alan Shelton), Lilac Wine
13. the Arrogants, Butterflies
14. Eric's Trip, May 11
15. Animal Collective, Grass
16. Air, Cherry Blossom Girl
17. Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Beast for Thee
18. My Morning Jacket, Just One Thing
19. Ryan Adams & the Cardinals, Cherry Lane
20. Bill Evans Trio, Spring is Here
21. Iron & Wine, Promising Light
22. Jolie Holland, Springtime Can Kill You

Hi.

2006-05-11T06:57:00.000+03:00

I've committed the cardinal sin of back-blogging. I started this notepad file of stuff in my wireless-less weekend and posted it all at once, just now, under the dates each was actually written. Please forgive me.

Home was loving and comfortable and warm and green, wedding was pleasant, couple was happy. It was held on the estate where my government teacher grew up, with the parties in the barn. Bluegrass band and barbecue. Ton. O'. Fun. Awkward moments:

My mother's cousin knew some lawyer dude who is moving to DC, just after I've gone, and she was all, shucks, we both missed out on a great opportunity. She gave me his vitals, and I can only assume she gave him mine. In fact, she did mention, when she told him not to call the number they'd already given him, "That girl is really cuuute, smart as a whip, I'm sure she'd love to show you around the city." Pause. "But you know, I think she might actually be a liberal."

Options: A) Lie. Nono, I've come back to the other side, ready to "subject myself to the man's authority," a la the sermon.
B) Agree, yesyes, I am an urban-dwelling, baby-killing, pagan, pseudointellectual snob. And that makes your hot establishment lawyer not interested? Perfect. I'll just go back to burning in hell.
C) Evade. I get along with all types of people.

I'm not really the outsider, but sometimes they cast me that way. Which is maybe why my aunt, mother of the groom, the one freaking out over music selection, kept seating me next to the bride's brother, getting his Ph.D in clarinet performance in the far far north. We dark horse middle children who flee the rolling hills must be made for each other. Unless we, you know, swing the other way.

On second thought, a conversation with a friend made me think perhaps I should be glad they're picking the inappropriate ones if there's going to be the slightly embarrassing elbowing, how'd-it-go later.

Secretaries aren’t just racy in the movie

2006-05-10T06:45:00.000+03:00

Yesterday my coworker was working from home, boss out of town, so I ended up eating in the conference area with the receptionists. Well-maintained women with smooth bobs, country club tans, and tasteful wedding rings who knit back before it was hip to be square. Conversation shifted from how much kids divulge of their relationships to the Kentucky Derby and then to what happens to a horse after the race. -Why, he gets put out to stud, of course. –Did you know they don’t get to do it naturally? -How does it work, then? -Just as it would for a human. –Well, how do you get the, you know, the stuff?

Horse porn, people. These sweet-looking ladies were laughing riotously over their imagined horse porn at the lunch table. I got a good second chuckle from my out-of-body experience looking down at the situation. Here’s the punchline:

-I don’t mean to embarrass anyone by saying this, but you know, they’re big. That part of the anatomy is big.
-Well, there is that saying.

Indeed there is.

Tea in the Arctic

2006-05-09T06:48:00.000+03:00

The permafrost in the office where I work has me going out in search of a warm mug every couple of hours. That combined with stress and a relative lack of sleep had me drinking too much coffee daily. I was jittery in the afternoon, restless at night, and a zombie in the morning. So I cut it out. Now it’s tea, preferably caffeine free or low caffeine, on rare occasions a lemon-scented black I like or black chai. Bags, not lattes. Here are my favorites so far:

Yogi Tea’s Vanilla Hazelnut – gorgeous, delicious, snuggle-up flavor. You’ll never want to leave. The packaging sends mixed messages with a story from an Alpine cottage alternating with healthy living pointers from South Asian gurus, but it doesn’t really matter. Serve as suggested with milk and honey. Yum.

Harney & Sons Vanilla Grapefruit White Tea – One of two rival independent coffee shops sells this tea by the cup, but not in bulk, so I thought at first they made it themselves (they do roast their own coffee) and it just wasn’t available through any other way. Then I noticed the guy taking the bag out of the normal paper packaging, so I asked to see it. Lo and behold, a commercial brand, findable on the internet even. I used to think white teas were for wusses who couldn’t take green tea flavor, but they’re just different. Delicate, nuanced, and this one is simply lovely.

I guess I like vanilla in my tea. Back in my old haunt, I was partial to the vanilla orchid black whose sales benefitted a local food bank.

More observations about my house

2006-05-05T13:42:00.000+03:00

A hand-crank pencil sharpener is bolted to the window frame on the second landing of the back stairs.

I noticed that some parts of the window make views fuzzier than others. The window panes are made of blown glass! An old-school house for sure. But not an old schoolhouse, despite the writing implement accessories.

The view out of the kitchen window is entirely of leaves, out of the living room is of rooftops. Probably that lends to the tree house feeling up here.

Showering at 10 on a Sunday morning will allow you to hear the choir next door. Surreal, to be naked and simultaneously serenaded by hymns.

That the exterior of the house is beige still surprises me sometimes.

So that's what a pop snob looks like.

2006-05-04T04:56:00.001+03:00

First off, I haven't ever really kept track, but I'm pretty sure six is the maximum number of comments any single post has received. So if commenting is the goal, apparently I should just be asking to fill in the large gaps in my musical knowledge.

Stephin Merritt thinks that "Zipadeedoodah" is the best tune in Song of the South, which is just a set of Uncle Remus stories made into a feature-length Disney film. Moreover, Outkast is "innocuous party music for suburban teenagers." Not a single black artist made it onto his Playlist for the New York Times, only eleven in this best-of-the-century list for Time Out, and he can't even get through the first few seconds of a Cee-lo song. (all via Sasha Frere-Jones.)

I guess it shouldn't really be any surprise. Merritt has always made me nostalgic for my Busby-Berkeley-loving, completely campy, but also somehow completely tasteful dance teacher of my youth. Once we stood next to each other in the wings, waiting for my entrance for a meditation accompanied by Palestrina hymn, watching another troupe in the throes of urban funk. He said, "it's too bad your stage identity is so shaped by mine, that you are forever consigned to middle-aged white manhood." My away-from-home father didn't do booty, he did ballet, and you just accepted that. The only bass that appears in Merritt's songs is his voice. So if you've got a problem, go listen to some baile funk, drop to the flo', have sweaty, raucous, get-thrown-around sex, and when you're ready for a perfectly structured pop creation with effortless verbal facility that's only slightly stuffy, come on back to the Magnetic Fields.

Can't cover 'em all

2006-05-02T18:33:00.000+03:00

My mom just sent me an e-mail asking for help: my cousin and aunt need a list of particular artists they want the DJ to play for the tropically-themed, reggae-soundtracked rehearsal dinner this Friday night. Now, reggae is probably the only genre, aside from acid jazz and maybe trance electronica, that I very rarely listen to. But my aunt is freaking out, I can be the calmly helpful voice, and I also get to weigh in on music! When would I pass up that opportunity?

So far, the list culled from AMG and tofuhut looks something like this. I want to make sure these artists are not too obscure and are also good. And I'm asking for additional suggestions, where you know them.

Matisyahu
Bob Marley
Yellowman
Burning Spear
Black Uhuru
Buju Banton
Jimmy Cliff
Gregory Isaacs
UB40
Hugh Mundell
Junior Reid

Ok? Thanks, guys.

More on May

2006-05-02T16:15:00.000+03:00

I meant to say yesterday, before I got sidetracked into a humanist critique of economists' narrowsightedness, that even though it was May 1, I still got the Poem-A-Day poets.org started in April for National Poetry Month. (Go check it out and read yesterday's.) Though I didn't fall in love with all of them, I thought it was a useful exercise to spend some amount of time every day reading a poem. I can say that some days it was difficult. But if not before, I took a moment or two to flip to the flagged message right at my bedtime.

Can I hope they will continue sending the poems past April?

May Day

2006-05-02T03:48:00.000+03:00

Every May 1st in elementary school we took the walk around the Maypole, actually quite unceremoniously, as we were on average 8 years old, nonetheless weaving the pastel streamers into their trellis pattern. I don't think anyone ever stopped to explain exact, or even possible, origins of the day. Communist or pagan - neither resonated very well with grade school gym teachers.

And here we are today, bearing witness to honest-to-God protests by migrant workers. There was a show of support even in this little New England town, several thousand people, said a professor who saw it, on the village green. I don't know how that compares to the presence both in support and protest of the Chinese president's visit. I should have raised the question when the economists sat around in an Asian fusion restaurant discussing why the Asians weren't boycotting. These men who were so fired up over relative price differentials in Copenhagen had little to say about what makes an ethnicity assimilable and what does not. A wife rolled her eyes and said, "Oh, dinner with economists." Of course they think the workers should stay. Free movement for factors of production. But they haven't the foggiest idea how they could be made more welcome.

The projects

2006-04-25T06:38:00.000+03:00

Everything we do is a randomized trial. That is to say, we identify some effect we want to test then create a natural experiment where half the subjects are randomly assigned to receive treatment and half serve as a control. This design eliminates the selection and nonresponse bias I spent basically the last three years of my life dealing with. Poof! Gone.

Some areas we're testing in:

-local newspapers' bias's influence on national political races
-various framings of the intelligent design/strict evolution debate
-media and perceptions of Americans abroad - in tea houses in North Africa!
-best methods of nonprofit fundraising.

This was going to be really long, but it's late and I'm gonna run before work at 8 tomorrow. Maybe if there's begging for it.

The meeting

2006-04-24T06:43:00.000+03:00

On Sunday at 3pm, I abandoned my parents in the middle of furniture maneuverings and went to my new office building. It's made of uneven reddish stone in a pseudo Medieval revival, with crenelles topping the tower and facade, tall, narrow windows with crossed iron bars and a big gate of the same before the heavy wooden door. Or at least what I thought was the door. A couple of phone calls got me to the sleek, modern addition (where the office actually was) that managed to maintain the squared off look of its predecesor.

The other research assistant was wearing a strapless black dress made of eyelet, my boss an old t-shirt and loose plaid shorts of cotton. He joked that my peer was dressed down compared to the usual attire, since Monday was evening gown only. We spent five minutes with him tracking down and e-mailing the new employee forms that had taken two days, plus some advance work, at my last job. Eventually the co-author showed up with mussed hair and a lumberjack flannel shirt. The two bosses together got super excited over the fact of an interest being shared between both research assistants that could then be exploited in a new project. We spent three and a half hours covering all the projects I'd be on in a very disorganized fashion. Boss kept saying, "we need to give her a better big picture," and then kept devolving into details of a story already familiar to the others in the room.

The only indication it was Easter was that the coffee shop they normally frequent was closed, and we had to go to Bruegger's.

The place

2006-04-22T15:25:00.000+03:00

I live in a two bedroom flat on the third floor of a cute little house. The neighborhood surrounding is all turrets and delicate trim, double-decker porches and gingerbread. As you enter my place, you ascend hardwood stairs between walls covered in yellow satin fleur-de-lys wallpaper. Seriously, it's cloth.

Unlock the door, then there's another three-quarters of a flight, which opens immediately into the common area. Just one big room, probably 15'x22', with part of the 22 serving as a walkway into the kitchen, also large. The third floor is the top, and there is no attic, so my room is in the side gable, my roommate's is in the front. There is no range hood above the stove because the walls slope in too much. It's really pretty darling, feels something like a rec room or a tree house. Nice woodworking detail around each door and window - oh and the windows open with an old-school sash! Amazing.

The arrival

2006-04-21T19:39:00.000+03:00

We pulled up to my place at 9:45pm. Feeling greasy from hauling and driving, I pulled on the pants on the top of the stack, which were black, but had to accept my fate of wearing running shoes. Together? Ugh. Then they dragged me to a swanky martini lounge and Asian fusion restaurant near the quad. All the servers were in head-to-toe black. The hostess station was like a podium in the entryway. Two glass-enclosed foyers flanked it, with seemingly identical bar stools, well-turned spheres of wood, and besuited men. They checked their watches so frequently that at first I thought they were waiting on dates, but I think I figured out they were bouncers of some sort. They had gado gado! I hadn't had it since Amsterdam. Food was pretty good. Way too expensive. And slow. I got annoyed with my parents commenting on every woman who went into the washroom. Did they do this when I was little? If so, why do I not feel inclined to it?

Unloaded the boxes in front of the mattress and box springs. Checked out the closets (full). Set up the bed. Made the bed. Toasted with champagne whose cost probably equals a week of my current salary. Slept.

The drive

2006-04-20T05:12:00.000+03:00

I decided I'm never going to want to write the mammoth "this is my new life and how I got here" post that no one will ever want to read, either, so we'll break it up into vignettes, whatcha say. If you're reading this one, I probably sent you the link in lieu of a full response to an e-mail you wrote me. Don't be offended. The best part of my new life is that it demands efficiency.

The first thing I remember is seeing the reflection of my dad leaning forward, gripping the U-Haul steering wheel with hands close together, in the sideview mirror over the laminated map of DC I was examining. We needed gas for the U-Haul. We didn't need the fifteen minute detour we took. While pumping, they sent me next door to the Caribbean/Greek (???) place for food. The guy behind the counter made conversation about Tennessee, Connecticut, soul food, and 80s ballads. As we finally readied to pull away, Mom kicked me out of her passenger seat to direct the backing up. So I rode two-thirds of the way in the U-Haul, without the security of my magazines or CDs. Scary thought, but I felt like I was coming back to the closeness my father and I had before I hit thirteen. We talked bikes, new places, post-undergrad academia, Mom's stress level, and classical music. Then we listened to the radio.

I remember looking up to see a billboard for "Princeton BMW" and thinking, that's a place I've never seen before. Or the Newark airport from the outside. There's a really beautiful bridge around there, too.

Maybe I just dreamed this is New England

2006-04-19T16:56:00.000+03:00

Planned Parenthood has an office at the corner of my street and a main drag on the way to campus. This morning a portly senior citizen was standing at the foot of their driveway wearing one of those over the head placards. Just after I'd passed he called out, "You who contribute to the deaths of these babies will be held accountable by God. THOU. SHALT. NOT. KILL." A guy wearing an Auburn sweatshirt (that's in Alabama, folks) walking the opposite direction looked at him skeptically. Blue state, shmoo state.

My move as a series of lists

2006-04-19T06:08:00.000+03:00

Things my parents didn't really need to see, but did anyway, as they packed:
-the empty carton of a box of condoms I had discretely emptied into a first aid kit
-the red satin-covered copy of the Kama Sutra I received as a gag gift in December
-a list of words for certain anatomical parts, in my handwriting as I have no printer, prepared at the request of a friend

Things I probably could have left in my old home:
-the eight foot long sofa that didn't fit up the stairs at the new place
-the two-shelf, two-drawer desk organizer I never use
-my address book from elementary school
-The Devil Wears Prada, an audiobook I bought in desperation at a Wal-Mart somewhere in the cultural vacuum of southwest Virginia after forgetting my road trip CD wallet and realizing there are no public radio stations for hours

Things I have recovered over the course of the move, in descending order of the amount of time for which they were misplaced:
-brown stone pendant on leather strap that I absolutely adore -- gift from Mom/Santa
-Mitch Hedburg, Mitch All Together
-the book that I was reading -- not that I have time to finish it now or anything

People to whom I offer worlds of gratitude:
You know who you are. I'm not calling you out. But thanks. And I love you!

Improvisational forms

2006-04-10T21:11:00.000+03:00

Not only is April National Poetry Month, but it is also Jazz Appreciation Month. The internal website at my office informs me that a third awareness-raising designation of April is as Financial Literacy Month. The only common factor I can think of among all three is some perceived opacity and difficulty in education.

Jazz and poetry seem to have a more natural affinity, however. Here is an excerpt from an interview with poet Robert Pinksy in American Poet:

It's fun to accompany somebody on a discovery of how you can play in relation to a certain set of chord changes in a certain tempo. It's a pleasure to accompany Hart Crane and Emily Dickinson, as they show what you can do with a fixed line and an emotion and a set of things to say, as the emotion and the line and the rhythm and the syntax push against one another, dance together, dance apart, come into conflict, argue about it, make peace, explode, do all the different things that those stylistic elements can do. And I think that it expresses a kind of awakeness and a kind of pleasure, regardless if the material of the poem is dark, that calls up, if everything's working right, an answering awakeness on the part of the reader.

I also like the thoughts he relays earlier in the interview about how both jazz and poetry rely on quotation.

April is National Poetry Month

2006-04-08T21:17:00.000+03:00

A Quiet Poem

When music is far enough away
the eyelid does not often move

and objects are still as lavender
without breath or distant rejoinder.

The cloud is then so subtly dragged
away by the silver flying machine

that the thought of it alone echoes
unbelievably; the sound of the motor falls

like a coin toward the ocean's floor
and the eye does not flicker

as it does when in the loud sun a coin
rises and nicks the near air. Now,

slowly, the heart breathes to music
while the coins lie in wet yellow sand.

Frank O'Hara

Pigeonholing

2006-04-07T22:11:00.000+03:00

So I was in the world music section of the CDs at Borders looking for this, which is good! Finnish fiddling.

But world music is not well organized. It goes Celtic, French, Gypsy, Spain/Portugal, Eastern Europe, Middle East, Indian Subcontinent, Far East, Various Artists, Reggae. So it took me a long time to find the two Scandinavian discs wedged in at the front. And I had to flip through lots of other ones first, giving me plenty of time to notice the horrific self-labeling like, Klezmer Juice, Belly Dance Zone, and Celtic Mystery vol. 2. But the best title that I ran across by far was Lullabies from the Axis of Evil.

Irony, fearlessness, and cred

2006-04-04T21:33:00.000+03:00

Saturday afternoon I stood on the sidewalk, perusing the dollar books outside the secondhand store with my sweetest friend, waiting for two others to return from their errand to fetch running shoes. Rested, calm, breezy, brilliant. My post-yoga peace had extended into diner brunch, intimate conversations and reading in the coffeeshop, and then this - my favorite thing to do - browsing through books I've never read.

This bookstore is right next to the self-proclaimed biker bar of the neighborhood. A neighborhood, mind you, so past gentrification I doubt there's an honest-to-God, raised-by-rednecks motorcycle owner in a fifteen block radius. Vespas and city bikes are the natural two-wheeled vehicles of the habitat. Like many other bars in my city, this one clamors for a niche by way of gimmick. It's as though people are afraid to have a neutral space because they think their own identities can't fill it, so they take somebody else's but mock it, mock themselves absorbing it.

I digress. There were, in fact, two dudes about to mount motorcycles parked in front of the bar, and they were wearing black jeans, steel-toed boots, leather vests and garishly decorated t-shirts. Maybe I'm not a good judge of authenticity, but it seemed a bit much to me. One was concentrating on his bike (where by concentrating I mean revving the engine), and the other came over to help, but first he turned on the radio of his. "Hells Bells" came on at a raging volume. I raised my eyebrows and looked up again. My friend was looking at me but the bikers weren't, so I started headbanging and dancing. And then they noticed. Both had broad smiles on their faces as one made a shrugging gesture that was half "c'mon" and half "why not?" Maybe they thought I liked the good-girl-with-a-bad-guy role.

-------------------------------------------

Sunday afternoon, when I felt I'd been circling my room for hours, I took a break to read in the park down the road. A girl, maybe eight years old, was riding her bicycle around the loop made by the sidewalk. She wore a spring green long-sleeved tee and had metallic purple streamers on her handlebars. I smiled at the image. I'd seen her pass by a couple of times when she was slowed by a group of large men walking four abreast. Slowed, but not deterred. She called, "Excuse me," in a child's voice that was nonetheless loud and unwavering enough to part the sea of bodies for her. I was so proud of her. I wondered at what point after my arrival in the city I stopped engaging with similar groups. Individually, if someone speaks to me politely, I still respond, but I would never have excused myself and hoped to get by that crowd without harassment. But she's just being who she is, and expecting them to make way for her, a little girl on a bike.

No more than five minutes later, I heard a yelp smaller than the previous call, and saw the streamers among limbs splayed on the concrete. Fearless enough to take a tumble. Her mother walked the bike, and her father carried her, past me. The last thing I heard her say was, "I promise to be more careful next time."

Roots

2006-04-02T23:19:00.000+03:00

Yesterday afternoon I was walking through the cutest, neatest, most expensive rows of townhouses in the district. There was an older gentleman kneeling in his rectangle of dirt, clippings already in the tree boxes below, sprinkler and temporarily potted plants at the ready. I felt a little tug just below my breastbone. I should be doing the same thing.

My instinct is to pick things of permanence, things you wouldn't want to sell on craigslist. A comfortable sofa purchased new, a charcoal grill, piles and piles of books I love, heavy duty pots. Everyone from old friends to now-ex-boyfriends and party transients commented on it. "Hey, aren't you just here for a two year gig?"

The space I live in reflects and influences my mental state. I don't like being required to ignore my surroundings. By the time I moved to my current residence, I was sick of dorms, sick of never scrubbing down the stove someone else would be using in a month, sick of pretending that crate could pass for a china cabinet. I wanted to feel at home, so I made a place where I could. By getting comfortable, I permitted myself to content others, too. I planted flowers and herbs in my pots, made dinner often, had a stock of wine at the ready.

Now I need to relocate for a new job. It will be intellectually challenging, spiritually rewarding work at a far less cushy establishment. And a year from now, it will take me halfway 'round the world. Since everything I own but a suitcase will go into storage, it doesn't make sense for there to be very much. The large sofa seems a luxury now, but it's coming. Bed, too. Mom's taking back the antiques she invested in, though, and the grill will be sold to a friend with a patio just made for barbeques. The last two bottles of wine will be opened at the bon voyage blowout.

Today I filled a garbage bag and two-stack laundry basket of clothes I won't be wearing, then another bag of papeterie clutter that found its way into my nest. This is how I say goodbye to places. I resubmerge in the context, flick through my mental files by looking at paper ones. Gone is the stub from the first show I saw with a now dear friend, case studies for the grant application I withdrew, my finisher's certificate from the marathon, receipts from my favorite hangouts, notes with ingredients, driving directions, and SAS code, gallery pamphlets, boarding passes.

What I really hate to throw away is personal correspondence. Those are their words, their fingers put pen to paper that made its way to me. The first couple of times I moved in college I tried to filter out the most essential letters to save. That led me to read all of them when hours are too rare, and correspondence still falls in the same category as the rest. All I really care about are the people whose presence lingers, and these shreds of paper are barely serviceable reminders. It's all in my memory. And if it doesn't stay, maybe that's for the best. We all have to downsize, tune up, defrag every now and then.

So my friend on the far west end of P Street can set out his perennials. Me, I pulled up the weeds and turned the soil.

The Debt Collector

2006-03-16T17:52:00.000+03:00

Did you know that individuals can make contributions to pay down the national debt? Totally true. I heard about it in this story on NPR. And then verified it at the site for the agency they mention, Bureau of the Public Debt.

The reporter brings this to our attention as an alternate solution when one congressman says the only way out is to raise the debt limit. I can think of many: not buy another F-17 we don't need? Not cut taxes when we don't have the money? But this site is a way of personally raising your own taxes and ensuring it goes to paying down the debt. I approve.

Friday random ten

2006-03-11T01:25:00.000+03:00

The following are the first ten tracks to come up when I set my iPod to shuffle.

The New Pornographers, "To Wild Homes"
Wake up! Chika-boom strum rhythms, good breaks. Neko and Dan - you're what I was missing from the show.

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, "Fault Line"
There's something really captivating about the eery, half Neil Young, half Noel Gallagher vocals. And I love harmonica.

Elvis Costello & the Brodsky Quartet, "Who Do You Think You Are?"
One reason I should shuffle more is I would never listen to the classical Elvis Costello stuff I have in its entirety. I don't think this song is even the best on The Juliet Letters, but it's ok. And kind of impressive that it even ever got released, as defiant of genre as it is.

Charlie Parker, "Chi-Chi" (alternate take 2)
Ah, bird. Knee dancing in the bus seat.

The Beatles, "Sun King"
Reminds me of sitting around in the off-campus default headquarters for the alternative literary magazine, when moments unfolded like yarn off a skein.

Jeff Buckley, "Opened Once"
Virtuosity, slowly. Listening inevitably brings on shaking of heads for hope lost.

Rogue Wave, "Kicking the Heart Out"
Most of the rest of this song's album (Out of the Shadow) is airy yet contented, a beach run in April, a canoe ride at dusk. This one, though, with its minor key and diminished top notes, spacey moog organ, and darkly descending bassline takes you to the melancholy side. And then it settles you back into those charming handclaps and modulates to a major key in an ending that should precede the calm of "Postage Stamp World." But not on shuffle!
[Aside: until this listening, I totally thought the repeated word of the chorus was "sex" not "sense." In defense of the normally non-guttered status of my mind, he sets it up with "If music is my lover/then you are just a tease."]

Ben Lee, "Career Choice"
Cheesy, true. Gotta love his willingness to admit to it, "getting all the chords right, all the words wrong." I skipped out halfway through.

Louis Armstrong, "When it's Sleepy Time Down South"
Head-on-someone-else's-shoulder: on the porch swing, in a foxtrot, on overlapping pillows.

Led Zeppelin, "The Rain Song"
A good ending song. Made me reluctant to go into the Fed, though.

No such thing as a free...paper?

2005-11-04T20:11:00.000+03:00

So when you pay thirty-five cents to get a newspaper out of a box, what is keeping you from takin all the papers sitting there? More importantly, what do newspaper publishers count on preventing you from stealing their revenue-makers? Does a newspaper have such a steeply diminishing marginal utility that two are just not worth it? Is the cost of carrying around so much paper not worth it? (but there's arbitrage, you could resell). Or are they banking on the goodness of the hearts of the upper-middle class professionals who mostly buy papers? Hmm.

Girl, you bad, and that's good.

2005-11-02T22:49:00.000+03:00

Or, A few notes about bikes.

- Never buy a bike off of craigslist from a hipster who endorses fixed-gears because he won't care when your derailleur breaks every other day or be sympathetic to the fact that you live at the top of a gigantic hill.

- Note to pedestrians: you are predictable when you walk in a straight line at a steady pace. I can deal with predictability. What I can't deal with:

If you jaywalk at a break in cars without checking for bikes and then screech to a deer-in-the-headlights halt, you make it more difficult for me to figure out whether to swerve ahead or behind you.
If I get on the sidewalk to avoid potholes and come up behind you walking obliviously with your headset, I'm not wagering on you weaving to and fro. The brakes on the hipster's bike are not so good, so in all likelihood I'll swerve in this case, also, and if I happen to catch my rear wheel on the Jersey barrier causing me to tumble over the top of my handlebars, crushing my own dear iPod, I will mourn it for three months.

- Recent (nonrandomly sampled entirely anecodotal) evidence suggests bikers are more social than either car drivers or pedestrians. If true, we can attribute this phenomenon to the lack of a physical barrier between two bikers and the avoidance of urban filtering devices like mp3 player or phone while riding. I definitely see more of my pedestrian friends from my bike than see me, approx. a half dozen in the past week.

I submit as further evidence exhibit (or character witness?) A the dude who pulled up next to me at a red light after I had coasted through the previous, asking, "So you decided to stop for this one, huh?" I will add that he was wearing aviators and aggressively all-black Eurotrash business cazh and may have felt emasculated by not risking it himself.
Exhibit B: Guy who politely suggested it's getting too cold to ride, while shivering in shorts and a hoodie, to which I responded I have to ride for another month since I forgot to pick up my metrocheks, but that I do find it somewhat disgusting that car exhaust feels good because it's warm.

- Speaking of too cold, my limited experience holds that a windbreaker and gloves offer reasonable protection. For the lower body, knee-high boots and a knee-length skirt are the best combo. Long skirt obviously won't work. Pants are good for the left leg but have to be rolled up on the right, leaving it bare. Boots provide skin-skimming coverage for those not willing to invest in overengineered yellow leggings.

- It is far easier to bike in heels than it is to walk in heels. I swear. I mean, I only have to push with the ball of my foot, which is not at all affected by what is on the back. I would maybe wish for heels without slick soles so that I could stand up to pedal, but I'm wearing a skirt, so the point is kind of moot. The hammering on my joints and damage to my spine saved are well worth it.

All that being said, it makes me smile when my lady security officer, says, "Ooh, look at you bikin' in heels, you a bad girl." Clarification at my astonished expression, "And that's good."

"What is well known is that I am a rock star..."

2005-11-01T00:25:00.000+03:00

"You are not worthy etc. In fact you are worthy. And so am I. We deserve each other." Pete Townshend has a blog. I don't buy into that whole celebrity taste-making machine as a rule* but I am happy to discover this musician agrees with my love for "anything by Wilco."

As long as we're on rock stars and blogging phenomena I don't get into, I'm gonna go all out with an internet quiz.

You're Lou Reed.
God, you are cool, can I touch you so the magic will rub off?
You are perceptive, witty, and badass. You wear cool shades, even at night, and probably wear black more than most people. You don't give a fuck what other people think, but you are also very sensitive in the way that you pick up on things that others don't. Sometimes you come off as an asshole, but that's what makes you cool. You are a poet, and you embody New York City. You will still be hip when you are old, and artists love you.
Which rad old school 70's glam icon are you? (with pics)
brought to you by Quizilla

That I am Lou Reed pleases me to no end.

*Exceptions to rule: I wear a fragrance developed by Sarah Jessica Parker because I've never smelled anything else so pleasant and I might have to buy Jarvis Cocker's collection of poetry because, well, I'd fuck him. And it's his lyrics that make me want to. Non-ultra non-exception to rule: this parody of indie rock criticism is hi-larious.

Reconstruction is expensive.

2005-10-28T17:27:00.000+03:00

The American Red Cross needs your help. They have had to take out $340 million dollars in loans, the first time the charity has ever gone into debt for disaster relief. [New York Times story here.]

Hmm

2005-10-20T16:52:00.000+03:00

From NPR, Senator Patrick Leahy on completion of the Miers' confirmation hearings:

We do not have an end time and whether we get out at Thanksgiving or not is not my concern; my concern is that it is done right. And if the questions are…answered as incompletely as they have been, then it’s going to be a long hearing indeed.

One might say an analogous statement could be made of Iraq.

Assorted miscellany

2005-10-16T19:55:00.000+03:00

Definition of a bad party: black suits dancing to YMCA.* I passed by a classic case in the form of a charity gala a block down on my street last night. Today on 15th street: an apartment's windows open to the fair weather, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! blaring over the fan. Definition of a great Sunday.

American diplomats still can't speak Arabic. It occurs to me that part of the problem is excellent Arabic speakers are alienated by our administration's aggressive regional policy [I certainly am, not that I'm any great shakes at the language]. It also occurs to me that the Foreign Service Institute, competent as it is, overlooks the power of immersion. They get you to an intermediate level of speaking ability and then send you to post to work it out on your own. Continued training in the destination country: cheap, easy, effective.

Outlets for your underused creativity: New Yorker Cartoon Contest and WaPo's Style Invitational, where I regularly fulfill my need for bad puns.**

*Funny, Connor Deasy just sang, "Guess everyone else went to a better party," into my ear.
**Incidentally, if anyone knows the permalink generator for Post content, I'd be ever so grateful.

Sing all hail, what'll be revealed today...

2005-10-16T08:50:00.000+03:00

Caught the New Pornographers* tonight at the 9:30 club. Fun show. Full disclosure: when I first heard the New Pornographers, I didn't get it. It was wall of sound done the indie rock way, but to me it just sounded like music that turned on and off like a light switch. One dynamic level, a climax lasting for an entire song, it asked too much of me. However, I really like the new album Twin Cinema. I think they're pushing their sugary kitschy pop into more complexity without losing any of the fun. So when my friend Elise said she luuuu-uvs them and wanted to see the show, sounded like a good idea. Especially because Destroyer was opening and also because I have always wanted to know what it feels like to be in a room with Neko Case.

Destroyer was good. Unfortunate that a lot of people had never heard of him, and literate lyrics don't necessarily register when you hear them for the first time out of large speakers in a club. Especially if these people were here for the poppiest of the pop, they weren't expecting to have to think for their enjoyment.

The New P's were pretty awesome. They're exactly the kind of band you should see on a Saturday night when you want to cut loose, toss your hair, and shake your hips. I refuse to understand people who go to jam sessions where they close their eyes and sway. Or stand stock still. This was not that kind of concert. Roommate Ellen and her younger sister were also in attendance. Ellen was disappointed they did not sound different than the record. But...I dunno. I guess I think that the record has enough happy accidents on it that just being able to replicate it is kind of impressive. And if they added a whole bunch of guitar solos or complicated drum beats, would it be as much fun to dance to?

*Dude, what's up with that name? Your mama don't approve of racy nonsense. Funny, it's actually because some televangelist, Jimmy Stewart, doesn't approve of any music whatsoever (not even Christian music). Newman claims "it was just two words I liked the sound of together," and then when he discovered Swaggart had written a book called Music: The New Pornography, thought it was too perfect to pass up.

"We are tired."

2005-10-14T21:36:00.000+03:00

The Spanish coastline is visible on a clear day in northern Morocco; that's how close it is. Even closer are the two enclaves, Ceuta and Melilla, surrounded on three sides by Morocco. Many poor African migrants attempt to reach Europe through these enclaves.

The past two weeks have shown how disastrous consequences for these migrants can be. Fourteen died in a storming of the razor-covered wire fences around Ceuta and Melilla, prompting Spain to try to send them back. However, Spain does not have repatriation agreements with any of the likely countries of origin: Mali, Nigeria, Senegal. They have recently revived a 1992 agreement with Morocco stating migrants can be sent back there even if not originally from there. Perfect example of how absurd the postcolonial context can be: stubborn holdouts on tiny pieces of land become just too tempting for those from very poor countries. Very poor countries, of course, do not have the resources to enforce migration policies or any incentive to stem population flow. Medium-poor country in between the two gets stuck dealing with the problem in an attempt to curry favor with rich bloc.

As it turns out, the medium-poor country does not actually have the resources to deal with the problem, either. Hundreds volunteered to be flown back to Mali and Senegal. Other hundreds were taken via bus convoy in inhumane conditions and then just abandoned in the desert on the Algerian border. After an international outcry, these were added to the repatriation via airplane. One was quoted by the BBC as saying, "We are glad to be going back because we are tired," but went on to say he would try to get to Europe again, compelled to roll his Promethean stone.

Imagine -- you won't be able to, but try -- if you were a farmer in an African village barely able to subsist, whose best choice in life was to "make it to Europe or die trying." And having failed, to be shuffled around, unwanted by any country, not given adequate food, water, medical care. Breaks my heart.

I might lose my feminist cred with this one.

2005-10-12T18:31:00.000+03:00

What's in a (sur)name? To first wavers, there is the burden of millenia of patriarchy. Their symbolic gesture of response was keeping their own. Translation: I am my own woman, marriage is not a transfer of me as a piece of property from my father to you. Later on, feminists took the whole "joined by the bonds of matrimony" literally and hyphenated, thereby afflicting legions of spawn with their unwieldy double names.

Well, Germany is fighting back. That's right, in the name of efficiency and compassion for poor unsuspecting offspring, Germany has made the use of hyphenated names illegal. From the Wall Street Journal,

why no hyphens? Dr. Eichhoff-Cyrus, who hyphenated her own surname after marriage but is not allowed to pass it on to her children, explains that the concern is hyphenation multiplication. If a double-named boy grew up to marry and have children with a double-named woman, those children could have four names, and their children could have eight, and their children could have 16. The bureaucracy shudders.

Wish you could read the whole thing, as it's purty funny. They actually have local registries (Standesamt) that have to approve your child's name. Mostly they check for gender indication. L & B, you'd be ok because you have a gender-specific first name.

I don't know about that part, but I support the antihyphenation clause. The kid used as an example in the article would have been Leonard Matthias Grunkin-Paul. Now that's just cruel. Certainly I am in favor of equality; moreover, naming is a personal matter in which the government really should not have much say. But single-word surnames seem a kind of public good.

So I guess I'm still on the fence as far as feminism's reconciliation with society is concerned. But what about me? What would I do for myself? Funny, the (two, count them, two) women economists in my section were discussing this with me a while back. First one's advice was to take his name if I married before I had published (professionally, in an academic journal), keep my own if I marry after. Simple enough, and I suppose professional recognition is its own kind of self-affirmation. Second's advice is slightly more complex. Those of you who know me know that I go by a dimunitive of my middle name. She said I should take the unabbreviated middle name as my first, maiden name as middle, and husband's name as last, a la HRC, except she's always been called Hillary. Any EconLit search for either maiden or new last name would produce all articles. But hey wait a second, I'm still essentially bowing to patriarchal tradition, and I kinda like the name I go by. I've never known any other, and my identity has been constructed on this name, complicated as it is. Her argument was that the nickname was juvenile, the middle name more professional. I still like it. Hmph. Got out of the conversation by telling her I wasn't even dating anyone. Decision delayed.

Convenience store downstairs now selling candy corn packages

2005-10-12T00:30:00.000+03:00

And you know what that means...it's time to leave costume ideas in the comment section. Points awarded based on creativity, ease of construction, cost consciousness, and mojo factor. Winner receives her choice of a bag of her favorite treat or a mix CD designed by me. I will set up a flickr account and put up a photo of the finished product just for the occasion.

Should I feel ashamed that my anticipation and celebration of holidays is guided by consumer outlets? Now, I will get upset when red and green decorations replace orange and black candy, but Christmas is about family and community and selflessness and all kinds of warm fuzzy feelings, not to mention they totally skip over Thanksgiving, which is my favorite. But Halloween is a day of complete paganism, gimme-gimme-gimme treats or fiction, take your pick.

Actually, let's be honest, the end of October gives us faux grownups an excuse to slip into the ridiculousness of the themed party where we drink far too much in order to make the most of our sexy ensemble (see fourth criterion above), letting some wicked vampire sink his fangs into our powdered angelic neck. But a party's a party, and I'm never a spoilsport, so I just have to be as clever as possible in compliance. Ok?

Cleverness does not include costumes for iPods. Whaaaa??? Even if I were not already distanced by the shattered state of my own sleek white rectangle, I would find this absurd. I have winced once or twice already for the growing iAccessory niche. But market sins were forgiven by my own acknoweldgement that the iPod phenomenon is mostly about style, and accoutrements along the lines of the iSkin are also just fashion. A costume, however, goes beyond fashion and into pet territory. And my mom is, of course, crazy for buying rhinestone-trimmed, Tiffany-blue collars with a leash to match for her Yorkie. Dig?

[Feeling better, btw. Respite from the rain gave me a chance to run and shake it all off.]

Rain, rain, go away

2005-10-11T16:35:00.000+03:00

I feel as though it's been raining for years, although surely if that were true we would have adapted better by now. When I left DC Saturday morning, the rain came down in thick, unslanting, sheets, requiring me to set my wipers on the fastest speed. As I headed west the drops shrank and then stopped, and the fabric of sky cover thinned, turning from opaque grey wool to cotton batting then into gauze so filmy eventually it tore, revealing bright blue above. Grey settled back in Sunday morning, however, and now that I'm back in my away-from-parents home, the wet seems to have returned, too. Or perhaps it never left.
Mostly it's putting me in a foul mood. None of the wispy warm summer droplets now. It's rain so cold and heavy it pushes you out of the way. Made running last night after I got back undesirable, biking in to work impractical. When I am inactive I get grumpy; if inactivity is not by my choice then I turn into a completely hateful bitch. Outta my way. But no, our servers are down at work so everyone thinks it's social hour and my office is the parlor. Bah.
I turn to a poet beloved in childhood for a funnier take on the crazy-making weather:

Rain

I opened my eyes
And looked up at the rain,
And it dripped in my head
And flowed into my brain,
And all that I hear as I lie in my bed
Is the slishity-slosh of the rain in my head.

I step very softly,
I walk very slow,
I can't do a handstand--
I might overflow,
So pardon the wild crazy thing I just said--
I'm just not the same since there's rain in my head.

Shel Silverstein

A gateway between worlds

2005-10-06T23:47:00.000+03:00

I'm grateful to my roommate Ellen for allowing me to browse through her New Yorker magazines once she has finished with them. This piece in Talk of the Town, Doctor Doorman, actually made me want to read the book, something reviews don't always do. It called into question the doorman's purpose in the grand scheme of things but also identified him as an observer with unparalleled access and a social agent in a unique position.
Why, precisely, do we have doormen anymore? The article offers this observation, "ninety per cent of doormen say that their main job is security, though just about the same percentage say that they have never had any kind of security-threatening incident." The presence of a doorman might deter the crimes which otherwise would have occurred. His existence obviating his necessity, a chicken-and-egg problem I can never quite wrap my head around. Then there is the observable fact that in areas where doormen are most needed (my neighborhood, say), they are used the least. Doormen are attached to swanky apartment buildings in posh neighborhoods whose circumstances simultaneously decrease the possibility of crime and increase the number of people equipped to deal with it. Which suggests that doormen serve some other social purpose, perhaps to enhance the aforementioned reputation of swank.
Doorman are paid an income clearly not equal to that of the building's residents, a socicoeconomic gap which must be smoothed over with civility. The book's author puts it this way, "Doormen and tenant interactions in the lobby, and the distinct ecology of the residential building, are shaped within the narrow shoals of too much closeness in a context of too much distance."
Indeed, aren't doormen intimately familiar with the lives of their charges? I live in a townhouse, but the security officers at the government agency where I work are something akin to doormen, at least sociologically. [Aside: if that's true, are we creating a hierarchy of agencies, parallel to the apartment building pyramid, based on the level of security they require?] My security officers know me. They see me arrive, unkempt or fresh-faced and smiling; leave, all dolled up for a hot date (ha!) or in frisbee rags; go on a run, and know how long I'm gone and whether I come back red-faced. Their cameras show when I eat, the days when I need the afternoon coffee break, and when I am still toiling away. If it's past 10, it draws out the patrolling officer, who grunts into the walkie-talkie, "[MK] in 1254, [MK] in 1254." Is it condescending to engage them in banter? Worse not to?
We have a case of the upstairs/downstairs problem exacerbated because doormen are the people resposible for mediating the problems of the street, to paraphrase our author. Do they ever feel traitors to themselves? On my bike ride last week, I passed by a scene outside of a nice hotel on New Hampshire Avenue. An Ethiopian cabbie was pulling a U-wie while yelling something out of his window to the tuxedoed doorman of the same nationality across the street. The doorman steped in front of the nicely dressed, somewhat harried-looking group of guests and cried, "I love America! I love America! I'm an American, man!" The cabbie threw up his left hand and drove off in disgust.

(You thought I was going to write about Narnia, didn't you).

Women join the rat race, only to find themselves on a hamster wheel

2005-09-26T01:49:00.000+03:00

By now I am sure that many of you have read the article that topped the most emailed list at the New York Times for much of last week. In case you haven't, here's a permalink: Many Women at Elite Colleges Set Career Path to Motherhood

Five days ago, my intent was just to alert you to the article. My immediate response was gratitude for the introduction of this issue to public discourse. I am glad we are no longer constrained by a do-it-all mentality, that women and men are taking work-life balance into consideration. Two follow-up comments:

1) The possibility of men choosing to forego outside-of-home work to raise children needs to be part of this discussion. As mentioned in the article, the likelihood that a woman does not want to pursue a career has (economically rational) consequences for her chances at admission to college, her ability to get hired, and her pay. Differences between the likelihood for women and the likelihood for men to stay at home result in asymmetrical implications. In order to maintain or improve gender balance in the academic and professional settings, men must also change their likelihood to stay at home.
2) I'm all for both/and solutions, so I'll mention an alternative. Part-time work for both parents and better sharing of household duties is another possibility. At present, the flexibility this arrangement requires is not available in most workplaces. This problem has to be addressed on a national level through better family leave policies.

However, now it's been almost a week since the article ran, so discussion has extended beyond (and before) the article's original thesis. Thankfully so, since my heads-up and comments alone are obsolete. David Goldenberg at Gelf Magazine suggests the survey design is flawed. Here are some of the survey questions:

When you have children, do you plan to stay at home with them or do you plan to continue working? Why?

If you plan to continue working, do you plan to work full-time in an office, or full-time from your house, or part-time in an office, or part-time from your house? Why?

If you plan to stay at home with your kids, do you plan to return to work? If so, how old will you wait for your kids to be when you return?

Was your mom a stay-at-home mom? Explain whether she worked, and how much she worked. Were you glad with her choice (to either work or stay-at-home or whatever combination she did)?

At what age do you think you’ll have kids? How many kids do you want?

As Goldenberg points out, these questions assume respondents are straight women who plan to marry and have children. Those assumptions likely alienated the women who did not match the profile, not to mention the women uninterested in a carelessly constructed survey or the women just to busy to respond. All of this nonresponse, if related to survey content, biases results. Also, the longer the question is framed solely as a woman's decision to work full-time/part-time/not at all, the longer we don't realize having a child and subsequently raising it implicates both father and mother.

Question for the day: how do you feel about being a stay-at-home spouse? Are you male or female? Do you envision any alternative arrangement, i.e. working from home, flexible scheduling, part-time work, that would allow you to take part in household duties without completely leaving the workforce?

p.s. For all my francophilia, I hate the word "elite."

Her name means princess, but she prefers Queen

2005-09-13T05:57:00.000+03:00

I remember when my baby sister could not make her face mask whatever mischief she was getting into. Adolescence beat some acting skill into her, so now her gorgeous green eyes can mock you teasingly, her face become a wall of inexpressiveness, her mouth curl in flirtatious contempt even when she's nervous as all get-out. But sometimes, seeing as I'm her sister, I can get her to break into the open-mouther grin from her five-year-old self.

She is multi-talented and handy, and I am always begging for the product of her most recent interest. She aims to please. Last year for Christmas she promised me a poem. Which I still have not received. Nor have I seen evidence of her beginning to knit the shawl she promised two years ago.

Her hair has gone through every shade from strawberry-blonde to (its natural) deepest brown and every length from closely cropped to flowing down her back, and it always looks great, even when the cut and dye job are her own.

No matter your gender, I am quite confident she could kick your ass. She is 5'9", the captain of the women's crew team at her school, and built. You have to respect that. But if you're a girl, you'll still want to be friends. If you're a guy, you'll want more, but she's too good for you.

A staunch defender of women's rights, she sends me pop science articles on a regular basis about the health risks to mother and baby of having a child after age 30. [I'm 24. This has been going on for three years].

She wore a tiara to the party she threw herself this past weekend. People thought it was appropriate, not ironic.

Tonight, on her actual factual 21st birthday, she got tanked at dinner on half a bottle of Chilean champagne she's been saving for a year and a half and is now home doing homework. She's just waiting until I can get up there to show her how it's done, right. Happy birthday, Sarah.

Her hair might be curly, but her head's on straight.

2005-08-28T00:21:00.001+03:00

When she was four years old, my older sister covered herself head to toe in mud, including what had been a brand spankin' new outfit all in white, but left a half-inch perimeter around her hairline and eyes. My mom's weird sixth sense told her Julia would end up completely on the opposite side of the cleanliness spectrum and took a picture to guard against possible denial. The photograph shows her on our sidewalk with bemused grin and grimy fingers still playing with the stickiness of the mud on her left palm.

Freshman year of high school Julia was my ride to school. Every single day I was ready at least five minutes after she wanted to leave. Things got thrown, words got screamed, but she never once left me.

We didn't talk much about boys and things; no one in our family did. But when I had sex for the first time, she was the only person I could think to call.

Once we were going to a holiday party with all her friends in Richmond, and she was wearing a pair of nice black pumps with one of the heels held on with packing tape.

She has a crush on her yoga teacher. I take from the same teacher at a studio here in DC, so she begged me not to tell him that she slept through his class last week.

She says her lifelong problem of not being able to tell right from left has actually helped her mirror her students when she teaches yoga. "If I never knew it was supposed to be my right hand, I can just assign a new name to it for an hour and a half."

She doesn't follow sports, but she made a spreadsheet for her office NCAA tournament pool and won. Happy Birthday, Julia.