Major Generalist

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum vs. Hearst Castle

2011-05-31T22:16:00.014-04:00

I had the pleasure of visiting the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston this past weekend. As I walked around and mulled over this massive art, sculpture, book and ephemera collection, I couldn't help but compare it to the Hearst Castle, which is by all means more grand in scale (although Isabella's museum is nothing to sneeze at), but somehow lacks the heart.

Isabella clearly purchased these items to bring the arts to the United States, but she didn't do them under the guise of bald acquisition, as Hearst seemed to have done. She had the genuine intent of showing the works publicly so that they could be shared with everyone. She was also close friends with John Singer Sargent and Henry James, living amongst her artistic friends and displaying their work in her home. Hearst also hung out with and had affairs with celebrities, but I never had the sense that Hearst was as deeply involved in the life of his contemporaries as was Gardner.

Hearst's and Stewart Gardner's tastes definitely overlapped (consider the medieval tapestries) and both liked to design rooms in period styles. But there's something about the extreme opulence and dare I say stylistic vulgarity about Hearst's Castle that suggests that this was a man throwing money around, pillaging various antiquities so that they could be displayed in a home that would make him appear that much more powerful. The relationship among the display of the antiquities themselves was secondary.

Isabella, on the other hand, was just as much an acquirer, but she was far more of a curator, and her artistic eye and design sense is completely evident in the placement and relationship of all objects and rooms. It's likely it is no accident that the marble throne in the garden where she preferred to sit is flanked to the right by a Roman child's sarcophagus, perhaps a reminder of her only son who died at less than two years of age. Her huge collection of Madonna and child iconography suggests a very personal impetus for some of her choices.

The care with which she constructed her faux-Venitian palace is evident in ever corner. For example, a large swatch of her favorite dress hangs below Titian's Europa, suggesting a link between herself and the passion depicted in the work. It's clearly impossible to have known her, but as my mother pointed out, just going through the museum and noting the beautiful and personal arrangement of objects is enough to suggest that to know her through her curating is to love her. How could a person not be charmed by her bottles of sand she personally collected from the Sahara?

Isabella Stewart Gardner's museum is the primary labor of her lifetime, which begs for me the question: what makes a life? One could ask the same about Hearst, and although reading about him is fascinating, it doesn't personally inspire me in any particular way.

Recently I've begun to struggle with culture--a malaise has set in for me despite the fact that one of my most central lifelong interests has been cultural criticism. I link it to my advancing age as I trudge toward midlife and invariably ask, is this all there is? Is another minute of TV really worth it when we have so little time? Is my life just draining away as I participate in culture passively? How many damn Picasso paintings can I look at and still give a crap?

It has been a while since I've seen anything that moved me or was inspirational. (There may be irony there--can only a person who has had the luxury and fortune of seeing so many things become bored in this fashion?) Thankfully, Isabella Stewart Gardner's passion woke something back up in me--something that everyone can also intuit on display in this museum.

Our love can and does live beyond us. Our life's work does amount to something. It may not wind up in a museum of our own making, but we're here and what we do matters. I read an op ed piece in the NY Times today by David Brooks ("It's Not About You") that suggests that life isn't about finding ourselves and going out and doing something. It's about recognizing problems that need to be solved, and in dedicating oneself to such problems, one finds out who they are.

No doubt Hearst has left a legacy, but I'm less inspired by any problems he may have faced and solved. Isabella Gardner Stewart had the problem of loss (the death of her son caused her to nearly die of a broken heart--she started art collecting to assist in recovering from the tragedy), and she also saw a need for the evangelization of the arts in US culture (which lagged behind that in Europe). Her personal tragedy was most likely not fully mitigated, but she found a way back to passion and was fortunate enough to have the means to create an opulent world full of friendship and art. Her curatorial skills made her an artist in her own right. And what is art if not a means to inspire something else in others? Living life can be art in and of itself.

Score
Hearst: 0, Stewart Gardner: 1

Working in the Post-Loyalty Era Chock Full of Layoffs and Job Loss

2010-04-26T15:10:00.007-04:00

At-will employment is the only game in town—your employer has the right to lay you off or fire you at any time regardless of whether you work full time or freelance (unless you have a contract that states otherwise). The only upside is that you have the same right and can quit without cause.

It feels empowering to leave a company when it’s on your own terms. But, the knife cuts both ways. Given the state of our economy, it’s likely that at some point in your career, you’re going to get the axe.

Where did the loyalty go? It’s gone because work is about monetary profits, at every level, and not about the human connections we foster while working. This is genuinely distressing and tragic. Here’s the thing:

You have to try to get over it.

There are things you can do to feel better as you come to terms with job loss. Recognize that getting over it takes time, and a person needs to make space to feel the grief and the loss. Talk to family and friends and allow them to offer you emotional support and kindness.

Also consider the following:

Expect that no job will last forever, or maybe even a year
Dramatically alter your point of view of what it means to have a full-time job. The odds of you being at the same workplace in five years are tiny. Expect that you’re going to have to keep finding new work. As a freelancer, I live in this cycle, but more acutely. Businesses hire me for an estimated period of time which often turns out to be dramatically shorter than expected if clients put projects on hold or abandon projects altogether. I often find myself looking for new work every few months rather than every few years. This is simply a microcosm of the larger economic trend of frequent job change.

You are not your job
We all have facets of our personalities that are much broader than what gets expressed through a job. Further, I find that I’m different on every job, as job requirements and variable group dynamics bring out various aspects of my personality and skills. So, working in different environments challenges me to explore different aspects of myself and reminds me that I’m much more than the skill set I’ve been hired for. You will not be the same person you were on your next job.

Don’t be too picky
There is no such thing as a dream job. Or rather, you might find yourself in a dream job, but there will always be aspects of it that are not so dreamy. You should still try to find what you want in life, and continue to work towards that. But in the meantime, isn’t it nice to have some income so that you’re not totally freaking out about your bank account? You may not love an interim job, but maybe there are things you can learn from it, like new skills. Plus, you never know who you might meet, which leads me to my next point.

Network your ass off
Every job you have is a chance to broaden your network to help you find future work. Growing your network is a huge benefit of changing jobs. Ultimately, it’s other people who will help you find new work. There is irony in the fact that the human connection is precisely what businesses de-prioritize in the face of profits, but other people are who will save you.

Don’t underestimate the power of your personality
It’s extremely important to learn to get along well with other people. You need to be good at your job, but you equally must try to play well with others. People like being around people who are friendly and smile and encourage others. Camaraderie counts. Even if you get laid off, your network will remember that you’re likeable and fun to be around. If you are up for a position against someone who has the same or even better skills, you have a VERY good chance of getting the job simply because your reputation will precede you.

Expect no consideration
With a layoff, don’t expect kindness or conciliation from your employer. You’ll be lucky if you get severance. And they will probably make you sign something that says you won’t sue them. Even if your boss is/was your friend, they’re probably not going to be very friendly on the day you’re left go. Expect to be escorted out immediately. This feels terrible, but it’s good if you can at least be mentally prepared and accept that this might happen to you at some point in your life.

You can be expendable and good at what you do
If at all possible, don’t take a layoff personally. Here’s the thing: we’re all ultimately replaceable. On a metaphysical level, that’s not true, but on a business level, it’s completely true. Companies only care about profits at the end of the day, so none of us is safe. However, take heart: because it’s often about money, it’s not actually about YOU.

Chances are you DO have skills that are transferrable to other jobs that can be useful. Keep focused on what you are capable of and don’t internalize the belief that a layoff or even being fired means that you weren’t good at your job. We all have room for improvement, but surely there is something you know you can do well.

The world hasn’t changed, you changed
Personal responsibilities like having a mortgage or a family can make job loss or changing jobs seem more daunting, but that’s an illusion. Sure, you may have more responsibilities, but you still have the exact same chances and opportunities that someone with fewer responsibilities has. Don’t let fear close you off from taking risks that can bring you better work.

Save up for rainy days
If at all possible, have a 6 month emergency stash of cash that will cover all your living expenses in the event of a layoff. A cash cushion is ultimately what makes a layoff the most bearable.

It gets easier
I’ve been laid off twice from full time jobs, and a few times from freelance jobs that ended prematurely. It always hurts, but I’ve found that the more I’ve been laid off, the more easily I’m able to handle the situation, and I know from previous experience that if I persevere, I’m likely to find work again.

The Upside
Job loss or frequent job change (if you’re a freelancer) can help you adopt a more realistic perspective about how the capitalist world works. It sucks that the business world isn’t more humane, but the truth is that it is not, so we have to give ourselves the tools we need to protect ourselves as much as we can.

Job loss can help us come to a greater understanding that nothing in life is permanent, which creates a stronger tolerance for change. This is a perspective that we can bring to every aspect of our lives. The challenge is to live in the moment and not prematurely judge what happens to us as “bad.” It’s possible that getting away from a particular job could be a blessing in disguise.

There is actually something exciting about being left go—it means that your destiny is back in your hands to a large degree, and now is the time for you to put yourself back out there and see what the rest of the world has in store for you.

Name this dead icon

2009-06-26T12:24:00.004-04:00

My friend John H. enumerated something I was thinking last night. See if you can figure out who he's referring to.

Name this person:
- Child star
- Early fame makes their life very difficult
- Stars in movie version of the Oz story
- Becomes a cult figure
- Cannot seem to get out from under the yoke of crass promoters
- Suffers from two decades of bad publicity
- Dies abruptly around the age of 50 under suspicious, drug-related circumstances
... while preparing for a series of comeback concerts in London
- Leaves behind three children
- Death causes outpouring of public grief.

You were thinking Judy Garland, right?

Or how about Michael Jackson?

One and the same? HMM!

If a Digital Tree Falls, Would We Hear It?

2009-06-24T14:00:00.013-04:00

According to an Arts Beat blog post by Roberta Smith at the New York Times, gallery exhibition cards are going extinct.

"Of all the things going the way of the Internet these days, one is the gallery exhibition announcement card. For decades this useful bit of art-world indicator has been an indispensable constant creatively deployed by artists, avidly cherished by the ephemera-obsessed and devotedly archived by museums. But lately the death knell has been sounding, each a linguistic (and attitudinal) variation on the same theme."

Trees will be saved, perhaps, but the visceral response to feeling thick paper stock in the hand and seeing a visual design that is just as easy to look at as it is to stick on the refrigerator is on its way out. This comes as no surprise, but there is some sadness in it.

On my way to the Museum of Modern Art two weeks ago, we passed by Radio City Music Hall. For the first time, I noticed that there were no posters on display--instead, promo "posters" were displayed on LCD TVs strategically integrated into the former housing for posters. This isn't it, but here's an example from Japan:

Posters are gone, never to return!

I thought of my childhood self who used to see so many posters and wished to acquire the ones for shows or movies I loved so I could hang them on my walls. Kids won't be doing much of that anymore. (Either that, or suddenly all children will have multiple LCD TVs in their bedrooms where they can change imagery at will.)

From a business perspective, I can see how it's much more cost-effective to make .jpgs, so it's no surprise we're going down this road. In terms of expediency and cost, it makes a lot of sense to go paperless.

That said, I totally feel and relate to that loss of tangible paper items. I'm hardly the first to say this, but I believe that the 20th Century will be the last great period where we will have collectible items and ephemera. Where we are now, in time, is that transitional moment--we're living on the tail end of the 20th century that still spills a bit into the 21st. We should all probably go crazy buying up more collectibles, posters and whatnot because they'll only go up in value. There aren't going to be as many items to replace them since this stuff is disappearing into a digital haze.

For those, like me, who love certain manifestations of paper, it would be easy to see the Internet as the destroyer of something much-loved. But the Internet is a kind of as an entity of its own--neither good nor bad, simply a tool we can use for good or ill purposes.

Historically, newer technology is always eclipsing the old. The written word replaced oral tradition, the printing press eliminated illuminated manuscripts, radio succumbed to TV, and so on. There's always a loss with a resulting gain that seems to tend toward an even greater ability to disseminate information to a greater number of people. That part has great potential, and is making things like the murder of Neda Agha-Soltan available for everyone to see globally-horrible footage, but publicizing a great tragedy that otherwise could have been hidden from global view by the Iranian government. Great crimes can be exposed in ways never before possible, as well as positive messages. And of course some would argue that there's also a bunch of porn and other things that are not so good.

In an objective sense, it's nearly impossible to know how to judge what is good and what is bad in terms of changing technology (and let's not forget that paper is a technology)--what seems negative to us may very well be considered normal, OK, or even good to those in another age, demographic, location, or time period. It is only those of us who are intimately familiar with posters and cards that may feel the loss. After all, who can feel the loss of something they've never experienced?

As for me, I'm a child of the 20th Century, so paper media and tangibility is meaningful and beautiful, and there is an unquestionable loss. Zeroes and ones offer nothing to connect to in a physical way. Seeing something only with our eyes on a display doesn't create the same depth of emotion as holding something in your hands, looking and feeling.

Perhaps an upside to the ephemerality of digital media is that art will become more valued--if there is less pop cultural detritus to litter our homes, maybe we'll be more willing to shell out money for one-of-a-kind works of art to beautify our existence.

But, I also know that there is still beauty to be had in other forms, some of which haven't been invented yet. And so I'll look to the past to remember what was meaningful on a personal level, and look to the future with some excitement about what technology comes next, hopeful that the benefits will outweigh the harm.

John Lennon: The NYC Years

2009-06-24T11:25:00.004-04:00

I went with M to John Lennon: The NYC Years exhibit at the Rock N’Roll Hall of Fame Annex. Yoko Ono curated the show, which includes the photographs she took of John’s bloody glasses and his personal effects after his murder.

I did a bit of web research because I was looking for a particular quote from the show, and discovered that Yoko has been much criticized for including those items in the exhibition. I believe that those people who see exhibitionism and exploitation in such a display are running away from the truth of what happened—that murder was committed, and the loss is just as palpable now as it was 29 years ago.

This is another indication of how much of our culture seeks to avoid and dismiss great personal tragedy and violence. Looking at these artifacts brings home the personal nature of what happened to John, making him not just an icon, but a human being who was gunned down.

There is blank white canvas hanging next to these artifacts that asks people to sign their names. The canvas will be sent to President Obama along with an entreaty for stricter gun laws.

I applaud Yoko for having the courage to face all of the ugliness of John’s death and show it to other people. My takeaway was that this is a woman of great bravery.

She says:

"John, who was the king of the world and had everything any man could ever want, came back to me in a brown paper bag in the end. I want to show how many people have gone through similar tragedies."

Powerful words showing that we leave this world as we come into it and that, indeed, through that experience, we are all one.

Making Web Sites

2009-06-10T19:07:00.000-04:00

Here today
Gone the next
Into this world and then back out
The complexity of this world
The tangibility of this world
Being born
Coming into this life
Only to leave
Grandpa fought in the great war
That was his time
Twisted arm afflicted
His death from disease
Years later
He saw radio
He saw tv
The internet a mystery
We sit in a meeting today
Ad agency life
Working on a project
Could be the future
Could be the past
But only we can be here because we are now
Special
Or only special because we exist
But who is tomorrow
What is tomorrow
When we are no more?
Can’t be lonely in the present because everyone is here
Working
Walking
Talking
Until an exit we can’t predict
Death is any time between now and a life span
See you again
In an office chair
In a café
In a cave

Viability of Acidophilus and Probiotics

2008-12-14T10:50:00.020-05:00

Like many of you, I lay awake at night wondering if my probiotic supplements are effectively populating my intestines with viable strains of good bacteria.

I read an article online a few years ago that said an easy way to test viability is to open an acidophilus capsule and mix it in 8 oz. of milk and let it sit out on your counter overnight. If the milk is curdled in the morning, the strain is viable and you know you have an effective product.

I did this test in 2004 with Metagenics Ultra Flora Plus Dairy Free capsules , and the milk was indeed a bit chunky and curdled the next day. It was viable!

I was getting my monthly supply of Metagenics Ultra Flora Plus at Invite Health. Suddenly, Metagenics has decided to no longer sell its product through retail outlets, which means you can only get them if you see one of their "authorized" doctors. This is bullshit. Probiotics are not controlled substances. I shouldn't have to spend money to go to a doctor just so I can buy this brand even if they are considered the "best" in probiotics (few brands offer 15 billion live organisms in one tiny capsule--most other brands are perhaps 1 million per capsule).

Now that my probiotic supply had been cut off, I needed other options.

So, I have started the expensive undertaking of testing various brands you might find at a place like Whole Foods to see if any of them are good.

The big problem with probiotics is that they can be viable at the time of manufacture, but many of them require refrigeration, and if they don't stay refrigerated while in transit to the retail outlet, most of the probiotics will die, even if they are refrigerated once they get to their destination. This means that you're paying $30/bottle for nothing.

There are some brands that claim to be shelf-stable and don't need refrigeration, but I've always been a bit skeptical of that. I included those in my little sample as well.

Here are my results:

Metagenics Ultra Flora Plus DF Capsules
I re-tested my last bottle of my brand of choice and surprise, surprise! This time around, the milk was NOT CURDLED AT ALL! Nothing! There was no change in smell, color or texture. I had a bum batch! This made me wonder how many times I've taken this product over the past four years and it was having no effect. On the upside, it made me feel more open to trying other brands.

Nutrition Now PB 8
This is a "shelf stable" brand that does not need refrigerations and claims to have 14 billion bacteria per a 2 capsule serving. If there was anything active in this puppy, it sure wasn't barking. The milk was as normal as always. I don't think I'll bother with this brand again.

Sedona Labs iFLora Multi-Probiotic Formula
Another shelf-stable option. Finally, a little action! Even though the milk didn't look terribly curdled, it had a distinctly different smell--much more like buttermilk, which suggested to me that something was going on. I wasn't overly impressed, but at least it wasn't a total bust.

Renew Life Ultimate Flora Critical Care 50 Billion
Ding! Ding! Ding! WE HAVE A WINNER!
See that picture at the top of this post? THAT is Ultimate Flora Critical Care in action--it caused a thick, disgusting, almost colloidal suspension of gelatinous goo and it smelled like curdled milk. This shit works! And I can also attest that it's doing something because my stomach has been feeling mildly rumbly after taking it, which means that something good is going on. Those kinds of symptoms will stop in a few days as a person's body acclimates to the new flora.

NOTE: This brand requires refrigeration. I bought it from Whole Foods in Columbus Circle--clearly, they're transporting their refrigerated goods properly.

All of this cost me a mere $120 to test. UGH. But, I'd rather know that what I'm taking is going to work, and I hope this can help other people, too.

Your intestines are the first line of defense of your immune support. Take care of them. Here's to a happy intestinal life. Sweet dreams!

A fish out of water

2008-10-27T21:03:00.009-04:00

As I buried my fish, I was struck by a thought: the only instance in which we were in the same physical space together, in the open air, was upon his death.

We were both born in water, but it's not where people are meant to reside. The water barrier cannot be crossed both ways. Jake's glistening little body had to be lifeless against the earth because the earth can never be his home. It somehow made me think of inter-dimensionality, and the modes in which we exist--the places we directly experience and those we cannot because of our limited physical capabilities.

A bowl on my end table, a fish never leaving water, never moving beyond the confines of the glass. There is sadness in that recognition of separation.

We are all separate from each other, just as our bodies exist to uniquely contain each one of us apart from all others. And yet, we still strive, we still find ways to overcome our difference and connect, with or without words. Across the divide. In some ways, we are one.

As for me and my fish, there were messages sent and received despite the barriers of bowl and water. We "played" chase as I would drag my finger around the outside of the glass; he would move near me as I sat to watch TV; he turned to face me as he was dying, gasping for air while perched upon his tiny plastic plant.

We can connect with or without words, with and without our bodies. It makes me wonder about what else exists--what are those places of which we may have no awareness, other dimensions, perhaps, and do we touch, do we overlap, in those dimensions?

As for separation and death, perhaps death is what frees us from the physical constraints of our perceptions. Perhaps only in death can we transcend cause-and-effect time and reach a place where we are both separate and one, in time and outside of it. After all, time is merely one dimension. We are current prisoners of our linear perception, but that is not all there is.

We fear death. Culturally, we think of it as something to be hated, to be overcome. No one wants to die. But death will always be a reality, and as such, there must be something positive about it. Maybe the gift of death is to embody the paradox. To be apart from, yet to be with all.

Maybe in death we have a moment to see ourselves as we truly are, both our good and our bad, concurrently. Perhaps our life is simply practice for this ultimate state of contradiction that spans across borders we currently cannot see. Perhaps death simultaneously holds us in all that we are, all our love and hate, all of us that lives in the past and the future.

I've recently been listening to some music I haven't heard in years. I was struck by "Hyperdrive" from the 1974 album Dragonfly by Jefferson Starship, which is about the present, past and the future and the paradox of existence in time:

And you will. Because you're already here.

Jake the Betta Fish, RIP

2008-10-18T18:55:00.005-04:00

Jake the Betta fish died today, presumably around 3 pm at the age of 2 years and 9 months (at least, the time I knew him). Betta fish only live about 2 years, so his age was remarkable--he lived nearly a third longer than expected. He was consistently energetic throughout his life, which differed somewhat from Telly, my other fish who passed away at under two years.

Even though some would say he was just a fish, we had a kind of communion. He would swim near me while I watched TV, and chase my finger along the side of the bowl. He fell ill the past few weeks, and as his life slowed down, he still managed to move himself near me when I was sitting near his bowl and look directly at me.

He was buried at 6:45 p.m. in the garden of my new building. A piece of brick marks the spot. I'm sorry he died in a strange new place he wasn't used to, but I am glad to have had him in my life, something alive to come home to and to take care of.

This photo ended up being unintentionally appropriate. "Memorial" is framed above him.

RIP, Jake. You were a good fish.

From Kings to Queens

2008-10-10T00:31:00.004-04:00

County, that is.

Before everything is unpacked and the rooms decorated, waking up somewhere new feels like living in a hotel that inexplicably contains all of one's belongings. Nothing feels quite like home yet, and after spending 5.5 years in one apartment, it's utterly jarring to find oneself in another part of the city with all routines disrupted.

Even though I live by myself and am quite used to it, moving dredges up a sense of aloneness--a person has to do everything by herself, from attending the closing to booking movers to waiting for the cable guy in an empty apartment. There is no one to help out, or to share the experience with. It's easy to focus on what seems to be lacking. The upshot is that a person can prove to themselves what they are capable of, and be proud to be able to accomplish everything on their own. The mortgage approval process these days is a bit crazy, and applying for a co-op is worse than filling out college applications.

New beginnings aren't really endings--they're continuations of where we have already been. This phase began on the day of the autumnal equinox. Things have been reset, but it's not the same as showing up in a town five and a half years ago, knowing no one with nowhere specific to be, looking for work and a room of one's own.

The location has changed, but already, there are new possibilities with old friends. Just in the past five days, I've run into four different friends either in the neighborhood or on the train. I may be displaced, but the city still has a place for me.

We are the kings and queens of our castles. And finally, my castle is my own. Queens take Kings in chess. I'm feeling certain this move is a winner.

A quote worth reading

2008-10-02T23:31:00.007-04:00

I consider being out of the closet a moral issue, and it's refreshing to see it framed similarly by someone else.

I just ran across this quote by Rachel Maddow, who now has her own show on MSNBC.

She says:

"I think that there is a moral imperative to be out, and I think that if you’re not out, you have to come to an ethical understanding with yourself why you are not. And it shouldn’t be something that is excused lightly. I don’t think that people should be forced out of the closet, but I think that every gay person, sort of, ought to push themselves in that regard. Because it’s not just you. It’s for the community and it’s for the country."

Amen!

This is from the After Ellen article, "Rachel Maddow, Anchor Woman."

Thanks, Rachel, for being of like mind.

The Sarah Palin Abstinence Pledge

2008-09-06T23:08:00.003-04:00

I'm still on hiatus, but in light of the nomination of the new Republican VP, Sarah Palin, I wanted to find a way to merge my point of view with hers when it comes to sex education.

As a result, I have formulated a special lesbian oath. Feel free to repeat after me:

"In an effort to support abstinence-only, I hereby pledge to abstain from heterosexual sex."

Thank you, Sarah, for finally giving me the courage and a voice to express my desires in such a way that allows me to uphold my own value system while also honoring your point of view.

We both win!

Take the pledge. Join me now. Preferably in my bed.

On hiatus

2008-08-27T23:09:00.003-04:00

In case it isn't blindingly obvious by my lack of posts, I'm officially going on hiatus. Preparing for my upcoming move is taking up most of my time, so I need to focus on that. I'm hoping to be back to posting by October. Unless something insane happens, in which case I will post. But until then, thanks for stopping by and I promise to be back once the literal and metaphoric dust has settled.

The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire

2008-08-15T21:06:00.009-04:00

As I walked out of my apartment this morning to head for work, I saw an Access van across the street. A little flash caught my eye, and lo and behold! Tiny flames were licking up the windshield.

I gave myself another second to make sure my brain wasn't deceiving me, and I confirmed, to myself, that the VAN WAS ON FIRE! I looked around to see if anyone was in or near the van, and it seemed abandoned. People were passing by on the street, looking at the fire as it began to build, and walked on by, either to the subway or down the street as the hood burst into flame. I couldn't believe it.

NO ONE WAS PAYING ANY MIND!

I whipped out my phone and dialed 9-1-1. I was petrified that the thing was going to blow up, and as the conflagration grew, the windows popped and shattered. Then the horn went off--the death cries of an immolating vehicle.

I ran back inside. I was asking myself whether it was smarter to be inside or outside, but I decided I'd rather be indoors if the thing blew up, presumably allowing my building to take the major blow. I didn't want to leave until I was sure the fire department arrived. From the photos I took, a friend later pointed out it looked a lot like Grand Theft Auto.

They came in about 2 minutes, but the fire continued to blaze--it was so hot I could feel the heat through my living room window. Once the fireman hosed it down, I went back outside to tell them thank you. They asked me if I knew where the driver was. I didn't, but the guy next to me said he saw the driver cross the street. Good lord.

Just another day in Brooklyn. And unfortunately, the third major conflagration I've witnessed in the past 5 years on this corner. Shudder.

Working out at home

2008-08-10T13:01:00.007-04:00

I've been going to a Pilates mat class one night a week and spending the rest of my time exercising at home. Mat classes are usually around $17/ea., at least in New York, so that's $68/mo., which is nearly the cost of a gym membership. To save money, I've purchased several DVDs to help guide my workouts at home once I've learned the basics in class. I've found two that are outstanding.

If you're looking for weight training, I've been really pleased with Kathy Smith's Lift Weights to Lose Weight 2. (I haven't tried volume 1 yet.)

Vol. 2 features two 20-minute workouts for the upper and lower body. I've enjoyed doing one 20-min workout each morning before work. It's just enough time to see a difference in your body, but not so much time that you can't fit it in before you head out the door.

If you'd like a 45 minute Pilates routine for home, I can't say enough about Karen Voight's "Pilates Core Power: Abdominals & Back." She does some slight variations from traditional pilates moves, but everything is well-paced, and she makes sure to counter-balance all exercises with their opposites so all muscle groups are attended to.

I've done this workout at least 20 times by now, and Karen Voight never gets on my nerves, unlike Kathy Smith, who is occasionally grating with comments like, "Sue back there is looking at the camera. She's trying to steal my thunder."

I didn't know that Karen offered this DVD in combination with another, so you might want to check out Total Body Pilates instead. It features the same routine, plus an additional 45-min lower body routine. However, that routine requires that you have a magic circle.

I would stay far, far away from Jennifer Kries' Pilates Method: Perfect Mix. This video is far from perfect--the production values are dismal, and it's more like aerobics than pilates. Also, she provides no instruction whatsoever--you pop in the DVD, and off they go, hitting the mats like crazy people with no narration or instruction so you have no idea what's going on on how to keep up. Yuck.

I am looking into purchasing other Kathy Smith and Karen Voight DVDs and will post reviews. I've grown to love working out at home, and it's definitely worth the savings.

The end of the story

2008-08-03T20:34:00.003-04:00

You may recall the Open Container Violation I was party to.

This week, two of us in our group got this letter in our mail from the NYC Criminal Court:

As of the above referenced date, the NYPD has failed to file a legally acceptable accusatory instrument with this court. There is no need for you to return to court on the summons number referenced above.

Our $25 checks to pay the fine were never cashed. I believe we are off the hook! No petty offenses on our records after all. Here's to the cumbersome red tape of bureaucracy ensuring our victory. We are exonerated!

And, if anyone out there is still trying to read this blog, I've just been too busy and not terribly inspired to write. It will pick back up again soon, I hope. Altho, my presumed impending move may keep me away from the keyboard. I'll keep you posted....

Co-op board application

2008-07-21T22:18:00.008-04:00

In case anyone is wondering what eight copies of a co-op board application looks like, here it is.

Contents:

Application forms (which include the SELLER'S social security number. Why would I have this?)
Contract of sale
Mortgage agreement
Three statements from every financial account a person has
Last three pay stubs
Last two years tax returns
Six letters of recommendation
Various signed agreements (house rules, window guards, etc.)
Checks for move-in fees and credit report: $750

Cost: $75.00 for the copies, $50.00 to ship it.

It's worse than a college application.

WHY, OH WHY, HER???

2008-07-20T20:54:00.004-04:00

Of all of the amazing and gorgeous and talented entertainers out there that I've had crushes on for years, why does Lindsay Lohan turn out to be the one who goes gay? I, for one, don't want this vacuous train wreck playing for my team, for a short while or forever.

That said, there's a great article on Lindsay's outing in the LA Times: "Lindsay Lohan & Samantha Ronson: Read all about it." There has traditionally been a reluctance to out people in the media, but it seems those days are over. Life & Style magazine has plastered Lindsay all over their cover. I saw her today staring at me at from the counter at Rite Aid.

I personally think this might be a step in the right direction. I'm not generally in favor of outing people even though I think it's absurd, cowardly and downright wrong to be closeted, but celebrities already live a public life. And Lindsay has been hanging out in public with her girlfriend, Samantha Ronson.

I can't say I'm sad or sorry to see more queer visibility without the permission of the lesbian in question. And despite that I'd rather it wasn't Lindsay, there's something great about the tabloid magazine coverage of lesbian relationships. If celebrities are "Just Like Us," then gay relationships are just as normal in Los Angeles as they in Kansas. Who says social change can't be spurred by rag mags?

I, too, bite and chew my shoes apart on the subway. Or not.

2008-07-19T16:25:00.005-04:00

Seconds before, I was just thinking about how it has been a while since I've seen anything really weird on the subway. And lo! A vision appeared before me: a man began to slowly and meticulously bite, chew and rip a brand new pair of sneakers apart, right in front of me. He made a lanyard out of the laces so he could put his wallet around his neck. He ripped the tongue from the shoes. He tore them apart with his bare hands. His bag was labeled "K Mart."

I assume he understood why he was doing what he was doing.

I made eye contact with the woman across from me and we had to look away to avoid cracking up. This was much more entertaining than the unopened can of Brisk lemonade that was rolling around the floor on my subway ride into the city earlier in the day.

Clothes on sale online but not in the store? Ask for the discount!

2008-07-19T12:13:00.011-04:00

Guess what!? I discovered that Bloomingdale's WILL honor their online sale prices if you find the same merchandise in the store at full price. All you need is proof from the web site (make those printouts!) and your receipt.

I bought this James Perse Short Sleeve Henly Polo last week at full price ($85). I liked the shirt, but it didn't seem worth $85, so I was considering returning it. I decided to poke around online to see if I could find it elsewhere cheaper, and found it on Bloomingdale's site itself, marked down 20% to $63.75. That sounded much more reasonable to me. I grabbed my receipt and hit the store, where it was NOT on sale.

The first saleswoman I spoke to had to call the manager to ask whether they would honor the sale price. Then, she insisted that I needed to have the shirt with me to get the markdown. That made no sense to me since all of the information should be in the database upon lookup from the barcode on the receipt. Thankfully, another saleswoman confirmed that I was correct, and the receipt was all I needed. No need to schlepp around merchandise. I was credited back $21.25.

While I was there, I saw that the Diane von Furstenberg shirt I also bought last week is now 40% off (although not listed online). I'm about to head back to the store now to reclaim $75. Absolutely worth the hour it will take me to run the errand. And in total, I will have saved $100 just by doing a little research and legwork.

This economy sucks. There are markdowns and sales everywhere. Keep an eye out online and in the stores. Save big!

Sign of the times

2008-07-19T01:31:00.005-04:00

Even good girls get it sometimes

2008-07-06T19:45:00.010-04:00

Six good girls and two good boys, that is. What did we get? Tickets with court summons for having an "open container" (read: one bottle of wine) at a birthday party/picnic in Prospect Park last Sunday.

But that's not really the most interesting part of the story. What is amazing is how two message board posts about our incident managed to make it all the way to Gothamist. It was an amazing illustration in how the blogosphere works.

One of the members of our party wrote an in-depth summary of the occurrence and posted on The Brooklynian.com. It's such a popular post that it has had over 3,144 views, and 70 responses, now one week later.

A friend of mine posted to the Park Slope Parents message board about the same issue, asking on our behalf if this has been occurring more frequently in the park, and whether it's worth going to fight the ticket.

Park Slope Parents is a members-only message board with 5000+ readers. One of the members took my friend's post and posted it to other blogs, without seeking permission, so it wound up on Gowanus Lounge.

And then turned up on Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn. (You'll have to scroll down to the post "Group Summoned for Open Bottle of Wine in Prospect Park" to find it.)

Who knows which one came first? (Altho it appears that SmartMom on "Only the Blog..." was the first to leak the story from PSP.)

AND THEN Gowanus Lounge found the post on Brooklynian.com and pieced two-and-two together.

Finally, our story wound up on the Angry New Yorker.

Apparently, all four outlets of information are sufficiently read by enough of the blogging New York cognescenti that we made it to the Holy Grail of local blogs: Gothamist, with their article: "Should Public Drinking be Allowed?" (Altho, had we scored in Gawker as well, it would have been even more triumphant, but alas, no one gets it all).

What I find most noteworthy is that our story is truly not all that engaging. A group of us unwittingly broke the rules (no excuse, I know!), were approached by four cops, one of whom was mildly confrontational, and left us disappointed that we were singled out when clearly there were others around us more flagrantly flouting the law. It sucked, but it is what it is. It was shocking to find that SO MANY people seemed to have commentary on this topic, and that it shot to the top of the charts (if you will).

It proved a few things: that many people can be quite mean and presumptuous under the guise of anonymous blog posts; conversely, many people can be quite humane and came to our defense. But more than anything, it proved that so many bloggers really don't have much to say and, in fact, have so little to say that they simply rip off content from local message boards rather than contributing new thoughts or ideas or original topics of discussion into general circulation. We need more blogs with original content! Ideas matter!

All that said, it has been quite fun to watch the wave unexpectedly rise and catch so many people in the current. It was definitely worth the 25 bucks and the now permanent "petty offense" on my record to see how news travels through the community, and just how it makes its way to the top of the heap.

S&P 500 not a great place for short-term investments

2008-06-22T13:24:00.007-04:00

And by short term investments, I mean 10 years or less.

Take it from me: I've learned a lesson the hard way. I've been investing monthly in the Vanguard S&P 500 Index fund (VFINX) for nine years, as a means to save up for a down payment on a home.

And now that the time has arrived for me to withdraw my funds, the market is in a horrible state. The S&P blew through the key support point of 1350 and finished out the week at 1317. It's dropping like a stone. Thankfully, I withdrew my funds on Tuesday before it fell below 1350, but I'm very disappointed that my assiduous saving hasn't had much payoff. (A good tip: apparently, you should never sell stocks on a Monday since statistics show that's the worst day of the week to sell).

As it turns out, VFINX has only managed a meager 3.5% return for the past 10 years. I suppose I should be grateful that it didn't have a negative return, but talk about a lousy place to stash cash for a major purchase. I could have done as well with a savings account at Emigrant Direct (which is a really good idea, btw, and they tend to have some of the highest rates going. Also check out ING).

I remember meeting with a financial planner in 1999, and he asked me to think about my long-term life goals. My most immediate goal, for the next 10 years, was to own a home. He suggested, since I was a new investor, that I go with regular monthly contributions to an index fund, such as the S&P 500. And so I did, now much to my disappointment. Of course, any savings at all is better than none, but there have to be better ways to weather the horrible economy that we've had for the past 10 years. Sadly, I don't know of anything that's much of a safe or reliable bet other than Treasury Bills and Internet savings accounts.

I'm still clinging to the belief that index funds are a good way to go over the long term, so if you have an S&P fund in your 401k portfolio, I'd say leave it there and ride out this economic downturn (which from what I'm reading and from a symposium I went to, will most likely be a U-shaped recovery that will take at least two more years).

In the meantime, what can you do? I highly recommend the simple exercise of thinking about your future and planning for possible expenses now. Do you want to own a home? Get married? Have a large wedding? Elope? Have children? Adopt children? Remain childless? Travel? What does your retirement life look like to you? Will you own a home in Florida? Will you rent? What is your life going to look like when you're 65? 70? 80+?

Even if you're single, you can still imagine the expenses attached to the life you want to lead, and start to save accordingly. We can't predict how our lives will turn out, but no matter what happens, wouldn't it be nice to have a little stash of cash saved up for that moment when we get to wherever it is we're going?

But for the short term, stay away from the S&P.

Sex sounds

2008-06-21T09:40:00.011-04:00

Last night I overheard the copious moaning of my downstairs neighbor having sex. It's an amusing part of apartment living--the squeaking bed frame and the real (or faked) orgasms (who can tell?).

I'm by no means dissing sex sounds--they can certainly be hot, particularly when it's you yourself getting it on. But it strikes me as curious that given the many times over the years I've overheard straight couples having sex, it's almost always the woman who is the one gasping out, "oh, oh, oh god, oh, oh, oh, OH, OH, OH!!!" I can only think of one time when I've overheard a heard a guy loudly call out, grunt, and moan as he climaxed.

And that strikes me as odd.

Could it be that women are culturally programmed to behave a certain way sexually, and that both they and their partners have an expectation that the ladies will give a vocal performance as a part of sex? Why aren't men also expected to vocalize their pleasure? Is this part and parcel of the objectification of women in our culture, that women themselves actively embrace? (Taking on the role of being "seen" as opposed to expecting a certain performance from a man?)

Is this how we've all learned to behave via porn?

Is this a sign that the sex act may not be as genuine as what the person might actually be feeling?

Are these women just acting?

I want to believe that there are a lot of people out there having great sex, but considering that what I've overheard over many years almost always sounds exactly the same, I'd have to say that the vast majority of sex I've been exposed to through my walls sounds very, very vanilla.

And who in their heart of hearts is really just vanilla? My wish is that these couples will have the trust and courage to expose their emotional vulnerabilities to each other along with their kinks and connect in a very real way that will result in messy, complicated, loving, animalistic sex that breaks the boilerplate and boils.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they're all really happy and are having the best sex ever. But somehow I doubt it. It takes a lot of courage to be yourself, especially when you're naked in front of someone else. Still, I'd love to hear something more creatively unfettered, and less scripted, or at least a screamed out, "Fuck me HARDER!"

Come on, people!

Human kindness

2008-06-20T16:22:00.004-04:00

I'm going to break my general rule about talking too specifically about myself, but I had a traumatic event this week that I wanted to share.

On Wednesday, I had lunch from Whole Foods hot bar--salmon, spinach and rice with vegetables (this was the Whole Foods at 2nd Ave). I was fine until about 3 p.m. when I mentioned to a coworker that I wasn't feeling too spectacular. By 4 p.m., I felt a lot worse and told my boss I was feeling very sick. She suggested I get a cab and go home, but I didn't feel like I was going to be able to leave because I knew I was about to become really ill. Shortly thereafter, I found myself vomiting in the bathroom.

I started sweating profusely alternating with chills, and I was dearly wishing someone would have been around. I got scared because I was suddenly in so much pain. I knew I had to get myself out of there and get help. I started seeing stars and was about to faint. I managed to get out the bathroom door and the six feet across the hall to the nearest coworker. I shouted out, "Jim! Help me!" And then I collapsed.

Two guys grabbed me and put me in a chair, but I couldn't sit due to the abdominal pain, so one of them picked me up and carried me in his arms to the the couch in the front room of the office. A bunch of coworkers gathered around to talk to me and see how I was, and someone called 911. Four people sat and talked to me, and one stroked my hair and put a cold compress on my neck. Another coworker gathered up my things and my jacket and brought them to me.

The pain came in waves where I could barely speak during the peak pain, but then it would remit, and I was able to regain my sense of humor and chat. The paramedics arrived and strapped me into a chair with wheels and took me down to the ambulance. My boss was kind enough to come along for the ride. It was my first time in an ambulance, and I can't say it was all that exciting. They basically strap you onto the gurney. They handed me a barf bucket, and I was proud to not hurl despite the exceedingly bumpy ride.

I was given two bags of IV fluids, which helped enormously. My sister arrived, so my boss was free to go, but before leaving, she bought me a wide assortment of the best trash magazines to read as I recovered.

The next day, my coworkers sent me flowers.

I'm still sick and at home recovering, two days later. This is by far the worst food poisoning I've ever had. But, I just wanted to say how grateful I am to those who came to my aid during a terrible moment of illness, and how touched I am by the kindness and compassion exhibited by my coworkers in a time of personal crisis. Thank you all. I'll never forget it.

Cell phones pop popcorn and fry our brains

2008-06-08T22:01:00.003-04:00

GOOD LORD! Just think of what cell phones are doing to fry our brains.

And, this week the debate over cell phone use and brain tumors has made a resurgence. From the New York Times article, "Experts Revive Debate Over Cell Phones and Cancer":

Last week, three prominent neurosurgeons told the CNN interviewer Larry King that they did not hold cellphones next to their ears. “I think the safe practice,” said Dr. Keith Black, a surgeon at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, “is to use an earpiece so you keep the microwave antenna away from your brain.”

Get out your earphones! DO NOT use your cellphone smashed up against your head. I'm also suspect of bluetooth headsets--they have to have a power source to link to the phone wirelessly, and that power source is sitting on your ear next to your brain.

I'm no expert, but I suggest using a corded headset ONLY when talking on your phone. Stay safe, people!

PS-Some people think this vid is a scam (See Snopes: An egg (or popcorn) can be cooked by placing it between two activated cell phones). I dunno. This is one I'm willing to stay open to. The vid doesn't look fake to me.

Gotham Girls Roller Derby

2008-06-08T21:59:00.002-04:00

The Bronx Gridlock crushed the Brooklyn Bombshells last night with a sore of 120 something to 45 something. I can't remember exactly. But roller derby is damn good!

If you're local, check out the Gotham Girls Roller Derby. Next match is June 28 Brooklyn versus Queens.

Of course, my favorite part are the names. Beatrix Slaughter wins my vote, but I also give props to Auntie Christ, Luna Impact, SheRAW, Raggedy Animal and Beyonslay.

Anyone still bothering to read this?

2008-06-07T10:09:00.005-04:00

Damn, I wish that was my kitchen.

Sorry for my absence. If you're someone who's actually still making an attempt to read my blog, thank you. I've been grossly distracted by the hunt for real estate. I have the feeling it might be nearly as all-engrossing as preparing for the arrival of a baby. It has turned Major Generalist into Johnny One Note. I make my friends and family endure blow-by-blow descriptions of what I'm seeing. I wake up in the middle of the night thinking about apartments. Floorplans dance in my head. Suddenly, my brain feels a lot smaller, and I don't care for it, despite my understanding that I need to soldier on in my search. I'm going to make an attempt to broaden my perspectives again and keep writing while I'm out in the world putting most of my efforts towards house-hunting. (Current count: 8 apartments viewed, none acceptable)

In today's New York Times, there's an article called Start in Neutral about renovating your home in basic colors (white! white! white!) if you have any thoughts of future resale value. Yes! Please take this to heart. I'm fascinated by the "personal touches" I'm seeing in the places I'm looking at. Nothing seems sadder than walking into a fabulous apartment that has been carefully renovated only to open the bathroom door and see brand-new baby blue and purple tiling with an abstract butterfly motif. Visions of me on the weekends with a hammer and chisel in hand to remove the monstrosity override my interest in the place. It's one thing to buy a pre-war apartment for its charm and update its flagging fixtures, but another thing entirely to wholesale destroy newly done work because it's aesthetically unacceptable. I could never live with pastel butterflies in my bathroom, so it would have to go, but it seems a grave shame to have to undo what some aesthetically-challenged owner hath wrought.

And may I complain about bathtubs with sliding doors? Who chooses these things? They're impossible to clean and I whack my head off them all the time as I'm stepping out. (I've had one now for five years, and it's one of my least favorite things on Earth.) I'm seeing so many places with this kind of updated "bath." Are these inexpensive to install or something? And if you rip them out, you have to replace the tub and some of the tiling because it's drilled into the walls and affixed to the tub. I would think that nothing is cheaper than a spring-loaded shower curtain rod. What's the appeal of a shower with doors? Please explain!

OK, I have to get out of here and go look at more places. I'll try to have other things to share very soon. Thank you for reading.

Clay Aiken Impregnates Woman

2008-05-29T15:10:00.003-04:00

Clay Aiken impregnation.

She's 50. They're friends. It may be artificial.

No further comments.

Wait, I do have a further comment. I realized who the mom is: Jaymes Foster-Levy. She was a judge on one of the early reality shows on the WB called Popstars, which gave birth to the wildly popular girl band, Eden's Crush. Remember them? Yeah, I didn't think so.

Drowned Barbies at Prince & Crosby in Soho, NY

2008-05-28T22:29:00.004-04:00

Your guess is as good as mine.

A bra for global warming

2008-05-23T16:10:00.003-04:00

Do your breasts get cold? Do you wish there was a way to recharge your cell phone as you walk about town, semi-topless?

Gizmodo tells all: "The Triumph Bra is Hot Stuff Indeed." They note that, "The bra-padding gel-packs can be heated in the microwave and will keep those puppies cosy, regardless of the climate."

Looking for metaphors

2008-05-15T18:08:00.017-04:00

One of the mysteries of being alive is the search for meaning. We have only to look around us to find metaphors everywhere, waiting to reveal messages to us about life. Of course, these messages come from inside us. They are our responses to what we see, and hence are subjective, but that’s beautiful in its own way—we can become our own teachers if we look closely enough at the world around us.

While in Galveston, TX, I was walking down a pier and began to photograph a number of seagulls flocking overhead. I didn’t see the actual moment of capture, but a fisherman cast his line and accidentally snagged a hook through a seagull’s wing. Both the bird and the fisherman quickly realized something was very wrong, and the bird was unable to maintain its flight. The gull began to dive and sputter. The fisherman reeled in the bird as it thrashed violently and became more entangled.

I wondered why the fisherman didn’t immediately cut the line, but then I realized that if he did so, the seagull would still have the hook embedded in its wing. Entangled in a large amount of line, it would probably perish later as a consequence. He had to bring the bird closer to free it.

The gull violently resisted being pulled in, first onto nearby rocks, and then at the feet of the fisherman. The gull screamed out, and tried to bite the man as he touched the bird. The bird continued to fight for an escape. I was conflicted as to whether I should watch this play out, but I wanted to see what would happen next. I was imagining the physical pain and fear the bird must be experiencing.

Then something strange happened: the bird stopped moving. It was almost as though it realized that there was no escape, and nothing that could be done, or perhaps knew it was being helped. It stopped struggling. I wondered if it was able to sense the man’s good intentions, or if it simply gave up. I have no idea. I want to believe it was the former.

The fisherman removed the hook from the wing and untangled the line from the feathers. Immediately, the bird leapt from his feet and into the air, rejoining the flock above.

I read this moment as a strong metaphor, a living representation of how life is a difficult fight, tinged by violence and struggle. But I also saw a means for finding our way out of our maze of anxiety.

The more we resist our negative feelings of grief, anger and fear, and the more we rely upon self-judgment and condemnation, the more entangled we become in our own drama. If we surrender to the things in life that are most difficult, if we allow ourselves to feel the feelings that we most want to run away from, if we acknowledge the truth of our situations and accept our life as it as, and accept and love who we are, we can find peace within the din and a moment of rest amidst the calamity.

Prison ceases to be a prison when we stop trying to escape. At that moment when we accept whatever it is that we are fighting against, when we finally surrender, only then is the door most likely to open and we can regain our freedom.

Philip Johnson's Chapel of St. Basil

2008-05-11T20:49:00.019-04:00

I was visiting my friend J for his graduation from Rice University with a Master of Architecture degree. It was only fitting that we toured around Houston looking at the more notable buildings. We stopped by Philip Johnson's Chapel of St. Basil at the University of St. Thomas. We only had a few minutes until his family arrived in town. We resolved to return later that night, which we did.

In the evening, the chapel is lit by three major floodlights, and much to our joy, we discovered we could create two-story high shadow puppetry with an impressive umbra and penumbra. It started out with walking like an Egyptian and acting like a zombie, arms outstretched in front of the lights. But then I decided to turn it up a notch:

I had J take photos both with my actual self in the image for scale, and just the shadow itself:

Within moments, two security guards in a golf cart came hurtling towards us. J and I exchanged a glance. Clearly, the party was about to be over and we were going to be escorted from the campus.

They pulled up next to us and stopped. One of the men said, "Wow. I've been here for years, and that's the first time I've ever seen that pose." So J said, "People never do this?" And the guard said, "Not like that!" They laughed approvingly and sped off.

I sexualized myself on the side of a church and got instantaneous results. I think there's a lesson in there somewhere.

What direction are we going, Jet Blue?

2008-05-11T20:42:00.007-04:00

As I was flying down to Houston this weekend, I was happy to be traveling with Jet Blue. TV really does make the flights go faster.

And I like to watch the altimeter on the descent. You can see from the image that the dots originate in New York and move towards Houston. For most of the flight, the plane pointed in the correct direction, but then at the last moment, it flipped around backwards, aiming towards the the red dots from which it came. An amusing user interface error or were we spinning out of control, at least virtually?

Snopes, Twitter, Poke!

2008-05-05T15:14:00.004-04:00

Life on the Internet brings us closer together because it’s so easy to reach out to people with quick communication.

But so many of the ways we communicate online have limited intrinsic value. It seems to me that Baby Boomers send around forwarded emails that largely contain false content like new ways for carjackers to get you (thank you, Snopes.com, for helping to clarify) and Gen X and Gen Y like to Twitter and Poke.

But this is a substitute for conversation. Sure, it’s nice to know you’re being thought of, but given the lack of personal meaning inherent in the message, these are nearly valueless and sometimes annoying taps on the virtual shoulder that cause you to turn around and face…nothing.

Isle of Lesbos sues lesbians

2008-05-04T22:08:00.005-04:00

What would Sappho say?

"Certain ladies" are being taken to court by three islanders from Lesbos, Greece, with the request that "lesbian" not be included in a gay rights orgaganization's name, and by extension, no longer be used to designate romantic relationships between women:

One of the plaintiffs said Wednesday that the name of the association, Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece, "insults the identity" of the people of Lesbos, who are also known as Lesbians.

"My sister can't say she is a Lesbian," said Dimitris Lambrou. "Our geographical designation has been usurped by certain ladies who have no connection whatsoever with Lesbos," he said.

Lesbians around the world have agreed to stop using the term so that Mr. Lambrou's sister can take her rightful place as a true Lesbian. The word is expected to be eradicated by 2015.

R2-D2 DVD Projector

2008-05-02T16:13:00.005-04:00

It's the end of the world. Anyone who buys this needs to spend more time focusing on getting a girlfriend instead:

R2-D2 DVD Projector

The best part is the guy laying on a couch, excitedly playing video games projected onto the ceiling. He's supine for all the wrong reasons. The only way to make this more realistic would be if he were forty.

How to Survive a Riot

2008-05-01T10:49:00.002-04:00

Stumbled across this at first hilarious and then sobering how-to guide: How to: Survive a Riot

Let's hope we never need this information, but let's keep in mind:

If you fall down, pull yourself up into a ball. Protect your face and ears and internal organs. In this position you are a smaller object that can be avoided. You will receive less damage if you are stepped on. If others trip on you they will help create a larger "pile" that rioters will avoid.

and

Try to avoid looking conspicuously wealthy, as you are likely to draw the unwanted attention of opportunistic thieves.

Now you know!

Baby Love

2008-04-28T22:08:00.012-04:00

Last week a friend sent me one of the most interesting articles on parenting, relationships and child-rearing I've ever read. The article, Baby Love: My Infant Son Became the Other Man, by Christen Clifford is shocking in its honesty about how a parent can love their child more than their spouse, and appears to be honest in its discussion of the change that a baby brings to a person's life. The even more eyebrow-raising section explores a topic I've wondered about: is there a sexual relationship (at least implied and possibly felt) between a parent and their children?

Our bodies have erogenous zones. We're equipped to experience only so many sensations as a human being, so it stands to reason that a mother might feel some sexual arousal while breastfeeding her baby. That apparently prompts Christen to attempt to masturbate while feeding her son, and I'll...um...let you read that section of the article for yourself. Regarding sexuality and babies, Christen says:

Sometimes I'm afraid I go too far. I linger a little too long when I look at his little dimpled ass. I enjoy it too much when I put lotion on after his bath. I know everybody loves a naked baby; I know children are inherently sexual; I know it's normal to be turned on by your infant. One fatherhood book has a sidebar that tells new dads not to get freaked out if they get a hard-on. But this is tricky territory. Is it wrong to encourage him to touch himself? Is it okay to think of my baby when I masturbate? Is that just a manifestation of his all-consumingness?

Wow. My only other cultural frame of reference for a parent and their sexual connection to their child is Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs hectoring the mother of the girl trapped by the serial killer when he says something about how she must have been turned on as she breast fed her daughter as a baby.

Clearly, this is not a topic of general discussion, and sadly, my only other exposure to this topic is from a fictional cannibal. A parent's sexual expression towards a child seems to be a shadier aspect of what it means to be human, and one I have not seen addressed in a major publication before. As with any shameful sexual secret, it makes sense to me to bring this into the light of day so that discomfort can be diffused and abuse can (dear god, I hope!) be avoided. (It also makes me wonder whether heterosexual mothers favor their sons and hetero dads prefer their daughters, and on and on. Hm.)

I'm focusing on the most tawdry aspect of this article, but there is so much else to read both on the page and between the lines. Her discussion of how she feels about her body after giving childbirth is something that I believe every woman who desires to be a mother, or who is a mother, should read. There should be more social preparation for and discussion around what happens to our bodies once a woman gives birth. I believe this would make the changes much easier to deal with. It has to be astonishingly hard to have one's genitalia ruptured and most likely torn, and to struggle to come to terms with accepting all of the less-than-positive changes to one's body after birth.

We aren't alone in this world, and people like Christen Clifford are being open about the most difficult aspects of becoming a parent, and I believe she should be commended even if some of her actions are questionable at best (specifically masturbation, which she at least realizes is deeply problematic). This kind of article is getting to the core of what it means to be human, and we are lucky to live in a day and age when we can participate in this kind of social dialogue. It can only make us feel better about who we are as people, and as a result, presumably become better parents.

ADDENDUM: Christen Clifford's experiences are now on stage with BabyLove the Play running April 27-June 8, 2008 with Mommy Matinees: Wednesdays at 1pm/ Sundays at 3pm. Call Telecharge: 212.239.6200

Overheard: On Tattoos

2008-04-27T20:13:00.007-04:00

I wanted to post this quote earlier, but I misplaced the note I had written myself, and just found it.

When:
April 22, 2008

Where:
On the F Train at Rockefeller Center

Who:
A blonde caucasian woman about 20 years old.

What:
"People who don't have tats don't understand. Whenever you get tatted up, you live it in that moment...you live it forever."

Celebrity hype, er...height

2008-04-27T01:55:00.006-04:00

I stumbled across a list of tall actresses. Some are quite surprising. Tilda Swinton is 5'11"!!! I never would have guessed.

I started wondering about height as I watched Battlestar Galactica this evening and noticed that Tricia Helfer (Number Six) towers over James Callis as Dr. Gaius Baltar. She's 5'10".

Circumcision. I think not.

2008-04-23T17:53:00.004-04:00

I was talking to a guy and a gal yesterday and the topic of circumcision came up. After doing some research and seeing video footage of babies in hospitals tied to boards with Velcro straps and watching them go into shock after being circumcised, I am not in favor of the procedure.

My compatriots argued that babies don’t remember being circumcised, so it doesn’t matter. This troubled me as a reason to go ahead with it. I believe that the pain is still a part of a baby's experience and remains with them forever, as a part of them, even if now subconscious. I came up with an analogy this morning—what if I drugged someone, and altered their body, either by giving them a tattoo or maybe removing a finger or raping them, and then woke them up again once they've healed. They wouldn't remember it, but would it still matter? I believe it would be hard to argue that it doesn't matter. I'm disturbed that we treat our babies' bodies as something we can modify only because we have the power to do so, not because of their consent. (Thanks, Mom, for letting me decide when I could get my ears pierced.)

I'm not likely to change someone's mind if they've been too strongly enculturated to accept circumcision without question, but I'd ask that everyone do research and actually take a peek at what happens during circumcision before agreeing to it from an emotional response of fear that one's child will be made fun of in the locker room.

Lacing your shoes

2008-04-18T23:41:00.009-04:00

I bought a new pair of silver Kenneth Cole Full Moon sneakers today.

When I got them home, I noticed that each shoe was laced differently. I'm no expert at lacing shoes, but I figured someone online had to be, so I did a quick search and found Ian's Shoelace Site with 34 different ways to lace shoes.

I noticed something astounding that I wouldn't have recognized without Ian's site...one of my shoes was laced in the "Shoe Shop Lacing style" that is, "commonly used by shoe shop assistants because it's so fast to lace new shoes, this method is another "lazy" variation of traditional Straight Lacing."

It wasn't a good lace job! It was a LAZY lace job! Ack! I wonder how many pairs of shoes I've had where I never bothered to fix this now obvious problem.

A whole new world of minutiae has been opened to me. I will be able to look at people's laces and KNOW the style in which it is laced! WOW!

This left me the task of choosing a lace style for my silver shoes. I didn't want something too complex since I'm new at this business, but I wanted something stylish. Because this is my year for learning science, and because it looked good, I settled on Double Helix Lacing. I also liked the double helix style because, "there is less friction between the laces and the edges of the shoe flaps, plus negligible contact between overlapping laces, reducing friction even further." Style with function. Perfect. (I made a mistake on one shoe, but liked it, so I kept it. My lacing is slightly different than directed.)

I can't wait to attack my other shoes and give them a lacing makeover!

The Phantom is Christine's Baby-Daddy?

2008-04-16T10:55:00.004-04:00

Oh my! Since I'm on a musicals kick, I thought I'd dive into All That Chat. I found out more about the rumored follow-up to Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera.

http://www.talkinbroadway.com/allthatchat/d.php?id=1555824

Oh dear, oh dear. I just threw up and I'm shivering in a corner over here.

ADDENDUM:
It just gets weirder! Andrew Lloyd Webber apparently has a very sagacious cat--it deleted ALW's entire score, presumably in hopes of saving his owner from extreme embarrassment.

Why Andrew is in need of a copycat

Our long development cycle

2008-04-14T17:21:00.004-04:00

My good friend, Mr. E. Victim, sent me this email:

"I was just pondering as I fell asleep the other night: why do we have such a long developmental phase as a species (20 years – an eternity compared to animals!)? Then I stumbled across this article, which suggests we need the time to develop a brain that cannot be larger when born for a species that walks on their two hind legs."

Check out The Benefits of a Long Childhood:
“A big and complex brain takes a lot of time to develop, and in humans much of that development must occur after birth, because bipedalism limits birth-canal width, which has in turn constrained the head size of newborns.”

Cry-Baby on Broadway

2008-04-12T16:55:00.005-04:00

I'm feeling very uninspired to write something about this musical, but I'll eke out a few words in hopes of deterring others from seeing the Broadway adaptation of John Waters' Cry-Baby. The good: the dancing. The bad: everything else.

That's not entirely fair. The music was catchy enough, particularly at the Polio fair in the beginning, but none of it stayed in my head after the show. The set design with the skewed perspective was clever. But something overall didn't hang together in this story of a rock-and-roll boy from the wrong side of the tracks who tries to woo an uptight school-girl who's ready to let her hair down.

However, I did like the tuxedo-striped men's jeans. Those were cool. But that didn't stop my mind from drifting in and out. Funny how our brains leap directly to sex when bored for two hours and trapped in a seat with precious little leg room. (To my credit, I also contemplated other shows I've seen in comparison, and decided that I *must* see Patti LuPone in Gypsy to make up for this experience. My theatre-going companions agreed and we now have Gypsy tix for May 30. Hooray!)

All of the artistic choices were disjointed. There's a hackneyed rule of the theatre that says if there's a gun on stage, it must be fired. Props are meant to be used. However, there were costumes and props that didn't add much to the show. Sure, someone dressed as a box of Lucky Strike cigarettes and someone else as an apple pie represent "Americana," but having them dance around in the background was pointless.

Late in the show, the dancing apple pie with legs pulls out a champagne bottle like a gun and aims it at the Little Richard-esque character, and he says, "This is strange." My thoughts exactly! I like a good non-sequitur as much as the next girl, but this was one too many in show already muddled in direction. And there were precious few references to the Elvis movies this show is supposed to spoof. The first act is not terribly solid, and Cry-Baby unravels in the second. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. Instead, spend that amount on powerhouse Patti and have yourself a theatrical experience of a lifetime.

Sexism and Hillary Clinton

2008-04-11T16:57:00.002-04:00

This video is well worth eight minutes of your time. See for yourself how sexism has played out against Hillary in the media.

Bored? Take this survey

2008-04-09T17:14:00.007-04:00

Someone I know is doing online research for her Master's thesis regarding boredom and how you cope with it. Take the survey!

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=pKluqQTVCdfoRube5Fctbg_3d_3d

Nicole LePera
The New School for Social Research
Department. of Psychology
65 Fifth Ave.
New York, NY 10003
Phone: 215-901-2184
Email: Lepen950@newschool.edu

Relatives

2008-04-09T11:40:00.002-04:00

Someone I was talking to yesterday was discussing family in general and how stressful relatives can be. It reminded me of a quote from The Importance of Being Earnest. As always, Oscar Wilde bears repeating:

"Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven’t got the remotest knowledge of how to live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die."

More Oscar Wilde Quotes

A Eulogy for a Professor: Richard C. Tobias

2008-04-05T13:18:00.013-04:00

A couple of years ago, I fell out of touch with a professor of English Literature I had as an undergraduate, Richard C. Tobias. I've been reticent to look him up because I feared for the worst, and I'm angry at myself for exhibiting such cowardice. But I think about him frequently, so I finally did some google searching, only to discover that he passed away on September 12, 2006 at the age of 81. This comes a year-and-a-half too late, but I wanted to honor him with a few words.

My first interaction with Tobias (or "Tob" as he liked to be called) was over the phone in 1993, while I croaked away at him with laryngitis trying to ask him questions about our upcoming semester abroad in London, for which he was teaching "Shakespeare and His Plays." The only thing I seem to remember was that after he heard my voice he kept saying, "Poor baby."

The semester in London was one of the most important times in my life and for the first time, I was able to connect with a larger sense of humanity due to the age of what I was seeing all around me. As I was embracing our great chain of being in the abstract, I suspect that this time was critical for Tobias as well, but for much more difficult and personal reasons: shortly before our trip, his wife Barbara passed away from a brain aneurysm. I remember him telling us the story of how he was holding her on the couch. She had a headache, got up to get an aspirin, and never returned.

At the time, due to my lack of life experience, I was not able to strongly empathize with the grief he must have endured (much to my shame), but I admire that he kept moving forward with his life and held on to London and teaching and found a connection to his love and his past at every turn, pointing out flowers that Barbara knew and liked. He loved his family very much and was quite proud of them. I remember him discussing one of his daughter's weddings. He said of his daughter and her husband, "He didn't choose her. She didn't choose him. They chose each other." That always stayed with me as an ideal of an egalitarian romance.

I also can't help but remember him on a tour bus ride through the Cotswolds jumping up down, pointing and shouting, "Gypsy camp! Gypsy camp!" as we passed by a series of tents. That always makes me smile.

He was a tall and slim man who often wore a Captain's hat. He wasn't ostentatious, but I remember the fancy sequined vest he bought himself in London, as well as the convertible Saab he bought with his inheritance from his aunt.

Of course I took more classes with him once we returned. Every time he'd see me around campus, he'd nearly sing, "There she is...Miss America!" I never understood why, although I suppose I did sort of exude a kind of squeaky-clean Americanism. I also suspect it was because he liked tall women.

In his Modernist Poetry class, I was mistaken for his mistress. I arrived late the first day, and the only seat left open was one directly next to him (he liked to arrange his class in a circle). People tended to select the same seats every week, thus I found myself next to him most every class. Whenever we'd read something by Pound or Eliot that referenced something in London, he would excitedly grab my arm or my hand and say, "Remember when WE SAW THAT!?!" This went on for weeks, and I was eventually confronted by two other students who point-blank asked me if I was having an affair with him. I wasn't. He was just a truly enthusiastic and high-energy person.

I was the leader of a particular student group in the English department as well as the acting president of another group for whom Tob was the faculty advisor, so we collaborated closely. When my parents came to an honors ceremony, Tobias said of me, "Your daughter is like a brick...filling in where needed." I'd never before or since been compared to a brick, and it became something of a joke within my family.

Once, we invited him over to our home for dinner. My mother served him a meal of stuffed pork chops and mashed potatoes. He gave it the highest compliment: "It tastes like Ohio [his home state]." (This always stuck with me, but really hit home when I recently watched Ratatouille and saw that the antagonist was won over with cuisine from his working-class youth. My mother was savvy enough to suspect her food would have that effect.)

As for my academic work, he helped me craft some of my "objective" reporting habits acquired from a brief stint in journalism school into a style that better fit literary criticism.

We hand-wrote our essays on our London trip, and he responded with type-written notes, all of which I've kept. And, I'll always keep a copy of his letter of recommendation for me for graduate school, which was full of wonderful things, although no one really wants to see their love of musicals emphasized or the words, "Andrew Lloyd Webber" in such a document.

He was partly an absent-minded professor, partly an on-campus political activist, and overall a kind and caring man. With his diverse interests, Dr. Richard Tobias was most certainly a Major Generalist. I can see, especially now, how much he influenced me in that regard. Much love to you, Tob. I'm so glad I knew you.

-Karen Kranack

UPDATE! 5/1/2011
The English Department at Pitt has further eulogized Professor Tobias. Be sure to read more:

Dean of the Universe
The English Department Remembers Richard Tobias
and
Our Mutual Friend by Jeff Aziz

On vacation

2008-03-30T06:41:00.004-04:00

Vacation is...that time to go away for a while. I'll be gone for a week. Future posts may include an assessment of the thematic content of Michel Gondry's music videos, and an essay on cultural monogamy (which isn't going to be about sex, at least not directly). Talk at you later!

I heart musicals everywhere!

2008-03-27T23:42:00.005-04:00

Especially when they occur in a public place. GShap brought Food Court Musical to my attention:

(The spilled condiment reference called to mind the line, "I got the mustard out" from Buffy: The Musical).

I was aware of Improv Everywhere's No Pants 2k6 public performance (which they reprised for No Pants 2k8), but hadn't see their not-so-impromptu musical, which was rehearsed the night before. The mall and Hot Dog on a Stick were also in on it.

Leatherheads

2008-03-26T00:04:00.015-04:00

And now for my latest obsession. Every morning for the past two weeks, I've passed by this poster in the subway. I quickly snapped this photo lest I be caught in the embarrassment of the act.

I can't stop staring at it. It fills my mind. I think about it constantly. Anyone else notice that these men are about as intimidating as The Little Rascals?

But back to the poster itself. This poster is my only exposure to this film. From this picture alone, I can't seem to get over this rampant display of flaccid masculinity. What's with George Clooney's fake black eye? Isn't he getting a little old for this juvenalia? How is Jim from The Office anything other than a jokester? Why am I not shocked that there's a token black man and a token fat man? What kind of a title is "Leatherheads" anyway? (I get that this is about the early years of football where men did, in fact, wear leather helmets, but that title is just Neanderthal. And these helmets make them look like they have cute floppy dog ears.) These men are tough lite.

Such a poster begs the question: does dirt maketh a man? Does sports maketh a man? I suppose the other end of the spectrum is Rambo, which is a steroid-sized caricature that also fails to do masculinity justice in its own way. Maybe what's intriguing to me is the ambiguity implied by this image. Are we supposed to find these men frightening or lame?

I find no definative indicators of how this image is to be read, or rather, my sense of what's "masculine" and what's puerile cancel each other out leaving a black hole. So, I can only bring to bear my outside understanding of these actors along with my preconceptions about gender. Since I can't figure out what we're meant to take away from this picture, I suppose it's quite a successful ad--it's definitely lodged in my not-so-leather head.

iFoam vs. iPhone

2008-03-25T22:32:00.007-04:00

It's a rare user interface that becomes so culturally recognizable that it gets parodied. Check out this birthday card I saw at Bed, Bath and Beyond that imagines an alternate use for the iPhone:

The interior:

Note: photos of iFoam taken with iPhone.

The Eyes Have It

2008-03-22T15:01:00.005-04:00

Allergies, that is. This is my worst time of year, and my eyeballs are red, sore and ready to fall out of my head. Does anyone out there have any recommendations for treating springtime eye allergies? It's almost too much to bear.

I stopped wearing contact lenses ages ago due to eye allergies, but I'd love to get back into them again. (I refuse to have lasik surgery, so that's not an option.) Anyone have any experience with severe eye allergies and contact lens wearing? What brand/type of contacts do you wear? Would you recommend them?

Please help!

Euthanasia as a right

2008-03-20T18:16:00.010-04:00

This week, there have been several articles about a French woman, Chantal Sebire, who legally sought assisted suicide due to severe pain and trauma caused by inoperative and incurable cancerous tumors in her face. She was denied by the French courts. Two days after the ruling, she has died.

The first time I saw her picture--a close-up--I was horrified by my own revulsion. But more than just that, I was intensely moved and felt the deepest compassion for her pain and agony, not only from her physical pain that was all too apparent from the distortion of her bulging eyes, but from the alienation she must feel from others. Chantal herself said that children fled from her in horror. She was tired of the pain, both physical and mental. She should have legally been given the honor of being allowed to live, and die, as she chose.

Euthanasia should be made legal. We put our pets to sleep when we recognize their quality of life has irretrievably declined. Everyone, if sound in mind, deserves the right to die with dignity if they so choose.

How can anyone argue that it is immoral to seek a dignified death when we live in a country that thinks nothing of killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis in a fabricated war fought in the name of democracy and non-existent weapons of mass destruction? How is it that capital punishment continues to be executed? The hypocrisy runs far deeper than Eliot Spitzer's forays into prostitution.

And we're kidding ourselves if we think that a subtle form of euthanasia doesn't already exist in this country. Doctors intentionally place terminally ill patients on increasingly higher doses of morphine and other painkillers to speed their death along as an act of mercy. This was done for my grandfather who passed away from a disfiguring and grotesquely painful bone cancer in his arm. Of course, he should have had a say in that matter, but I'm here to tell you that this goes on in hospitals all across the country, every day, and no one says a word. Let's take what is hidden and make it legal.

It is my body. It is my choice. And when the time comes, it should be your choice, too.

Gluten-free Omega Smart Nutrition Bar

2008-03-19T23:08:00.007-04:00

Found a new product about a month ago at the Good Life Market in Pittsburgh (which, incidentally, has the best selection of gluten-free foods in one store that I've ever seen). Anyway, it's a gluten-free nutrition bar by Omega Smart that is also vegan.

Most of the flavors contain soy or nuts, which I avoid, so I was only able to try the Banana Chocolate Chip bar and the Pomegranate Strawberry Colada. I don't plan on eating the Banana Chocolate Chip bar again (I'd give it a 4 or 5 on a flavor scale of 1 to 10), but I quite like the Pomegranate bar, and I just bought 12 of them to tide me over before my Pilates classes.

The combination of the agave nectar (to keep your glycemic index low) and the Omega-3 fatty acids from the flax seeds make this an impressive nutritional choice. I bought them from AD American Diabetes, whose prices are good. They arrived in a couple of days, and I'm very satisfied. Try them out.

The VIP Club New York

2008-03-18T20:30:00.009-04:00

Um...I was just watching the Sci Fi Channel (I wish I could say I was watching Battlestar Gallactica, but it was actually something terrifically lame about hauntings in New Orleans--I blame it on the fact that I was starving, scarfing down my dinner and too lazy to change the channel). Anyway, this commercial just ran for the VIP Club:

I *knew* there had to be someone else out there who posted this online because it's just so...well, see for yourself.

Update: 3/19/08 Dammit! They took it down. Grr. So much for this post. It was basically "Crazy Eddie" meets a strip club. A sad and sorry scene no matter how you Popeil it.

Worry-Free Dinners for the Allergically-Inclined

2008-03-15T14:59:00.005-04:00

Guess what? If you have beaucoup food allergies and intolerances (nuts, gluten, milk, soy, you name it), AND you live in New York City, there is now a new diner's club especially for you: Worry-Free Dinners™. The group was founded by Allergic Girl, who has a phenomenal blog on eating allergy-free around New York.

Their description:
"Worry-Free Dinners™ is a membership group for anyone who has manageable food allergies and/or food intolerances and would like to explore restaurants, chefs and foodservice organizations that will offer an exclusive allergy-friendly meal."

I just joined, and I can't wait! How nice will it be to go to a restaurant and not have to scour the menu and plead with the waitstaff for substitutions? So exciting! Check it out!

The streets of New York

2008-03-12T22:08:00.008-04:00

Ever wonder what's underneath the street? Railroad ties, apparently. Planks! At least at the intersection of Broadway and Lafayette. Shocking! You an even see some bark:

Who knew this is what we're walking on top of everyday? I can't stop staring as I walk over it.

Ugly Betty and The Other Boleyn Girl

2008-03-08T10:55:00.017-05:00

Anyone else notice that Natalie Portman's Other Boleyn Girl happens to be wearing Ugly Betty's necklace?

I did some poking around on the web, and it turns out you can buy this Tudor-style jewelry. It's a replica of the one the real Anne Boleyn wore:

Nothing says "recession" like a Betty/Boleyn necklace. No matter what the time period, you, too, can wear something that is fucking hideous!

Homophobia at School

2008-03-06T20:59:00.010-05:00

Last week, a 14 year-old-boy, Larry King, of Oxnard, CA, was shot in the head and killed by a fellow classmate because he was gay and often expressed himself in unconventionally gendered ways, wearing makeup, jewelry, and high-heeled boots.

Sadly, there are those who would probably say that Larry was asking for it by "flaunting" his sexuality, but to those people, I would say: what is it about gender expression and same-sex attraction that is so threatening? And must some people in this country continue to die for it?

Ellen DeGeneres commented on her show:

Her message is powerful, yet I have a few nits for Ellen. The first is that I realize she wants to style herself as an entertainer, but the personal IS political, and her statement IS political. To pretend that it's not is aggravating and untrue. There's no reason why she should have to disclaim an occasional political statement considering that she's probably the most famous out lesbian in the United States, and that being gay in America unfortunately comes with massive baggage (and not the kind by Louis Vuitton).

Secondly, neither Obama nor Clinton support same-sex marriage (although they do support civil unions), and they have prevaricated on whether homosexuality should be considered immoral. So, we're still second-class citizens in their eyes--separate is not equal. I have serious doubts that our vote will change that any time soon. I hope to be proved wrong.

All that said, THANK YOU, Ellen for making such an important point: it's OK to be gay and that hate crimes must end.

Remember Larry.

Homophobia at Work

2008-03-04T20:57:00.018-05:00

Last week at work I was a witness to an example of how homophobia is often boiling under the surface, even in settings where sexuality has no real place (thus proving that sexuality is a component of any human gathering). In this case, the incident occurred in a meeting room with ten people.

The scenario:
One man, let's call him Rick, was trying to get his laptop connected to a faulty projector. In order to get it to work, he had to push on the cable, but couldn't do so while also operating a mouse.

The second man, alias Bob, decided to lend a hand and hold the cable so Rick could do his presentation. This was a considerate and helpful gesture. However, this meant that Bob's hand was positioned in very close proximity to Rick's hand on his mouse. Instead of simply holding the cable silently and letting Rick proceed, Bob felt the need to make a proclamation, lest anyone think he was holding Rick's hand.

The pronouncement:
"I'm not gay."

The result:
Mild laughter, twittering.

Bob is not a malicious person at heart, and on the surface, this is not the worst bit of gay bashing one could encounter. However, the implication of saying "I'm not gay" with no provocation is that there is something HORRIBLE about even being considered gay. In fact, it's so horrible and embarrassing to be gay that he needed to immediately tell the world he was straight, even in a moment when NO ONE else in the room was likely to be even thinking about his sexual orientation.

This just shows how insidious homophobia is, and how it's a social infection that people resort to so reflexively that it takes enormous effort to even become aware of. These attitudes are adopted early in life and emerge again and again, unless awareness is achieved.

The bottom line:
Words matter. Who's to say who in the room was gay? And how would it have made him feel? And even if no one in the room was gay, it still reaffirms the received notion that homosexuality is to be shunned at all costs--a message that gets repeated in the schoolyard and in boardrooms.

As a lesbian, I was offended by the devaluation of being gay. (Although this kind of homophobia manifests differently for gay men and lesbians--the typical unwanted straight male response to lesbianism is generally leering interest.) I understand that gay male homophobia is more apparent and even dangerous, and I believe it's sometimes harder to be a gay male in our culture than a lesbian. (I'll leave the topic of lesbian invisibility for another post.)

A gay male friend of mine who has been out of the closet for a good 20 years recently told me that he doesn't find any real benefit to being out in the workplace anymore, and has chosen to largely re-closet himself professionally. This broke my heart. It's 2008. Why are gay people still the last socially acceptable group to openly ostracize?

Homophobia is real. Please don't pass it on.

Opt Out

2008-02-18T21:22:00.004-05:00

I'm going to collect and publish sites that aggregate user data, and let you know how to get yourself removed (or at least blocked) from their database.

Do a search on yourself and see if you come up on these aggregating sites:

Rap Leaf
http://www.rapleaf.com/
To opt out of Rap Leaf, go to:
http://www.rapleaf.com/opt_out

Peek You
http://www.peekyou.com
If you want yourself removed, you have to send an email with the Peekyou URL in which you appear to bob@peekyou.com

Zabasearch
http://www.zabasearch.com/
http://www.zabasearch.com/block_records/
Zabasearch kills me. You actually have to MAIL THEM A PRINTOUT of a web page with your search results. And if you want it expedited, it costs $20!! Shame on you, Zaba Search! Collect data and make people pay extra to have it removed immediately. That's disgusting.

Spend Your Sunday in the Park with George

2008-02-15T23:55:00.006-05:00

"Oh, that's supposed to be the painting." -- Comment made by the theater-goer to my right who didn't realize until the beginning of the second act that the show is about Georges Seurat's "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte."

Make it a priority to get tickets to one of the most innovative productions in years: Sunday In the Park with George at Studio 54. I don't want to give too much away, particularly about the staging. In short, the show covers the following themes:

What do we do with romantic relationships where at least one person cannot emotionally connect?
Is art (or our fixations) worth more than love?
What is our life's legacy? Art? Children?
What does it mean to lose our parents?
How can we let go of the ideas that constrain us?
How can we live our lives inspired by the possibilities of a blank canvas?
Oh, and parasols

Sondheim's music, the staging, animations and projections are beautiful and a puzzle. How did they do what they did? Sunday in the Park sincerely combines its craft to make us feel the joy of creation and a reverence for our place, our moment in time.

I think I'm finally old enough to have seen this show.

Facebook: You Can Never Leave

2008-02-11T14:09:00.001-05:00

Appropos of my privacy post, the New York Times just published this article: "How Sticky Is Membership on Facebook? Just Try Breaking Free."

You are now a member for life, whether you like it or not. The article states:

Some users have discovered that it is nearly impossible to remove themselves entirely from Facebook, setting off a fresh round of concern over the popular social network’s use of personal data.

While the Web site offers users the option to deactivate their accounts, Facebook servers keep copies of the information in those accounts indefinitely. Indeed, many users who have contacted Facebook to request that their accounts be deleted have not succeeded in erasing their records from the network.

Welcome to the Web, where everyone knows your name, forever.

Facebook, YOU SUCK!

On a related note, I did some searching around on the web last night and found my birthdate within seconds. I can't wait to have my identity stolen. Awesome!

auf Wiedersehen, Privacy

2008-02-03T18:03:00.001-05:00

The world seems to be getting smaller. Boundaries are eroded both online and in real life. Should babies and children be allowed in bars? Should you stay "friends" with your ex on Facebook? What's public? What's private? As we barrel towards baring all, is anyone giving any thought to what the consequences of our naked lives on display might have in various aspects of our life?

The past never goes away online. People you haven't seen in years can now easily find you thanks to social networking. Sometimes this is a joy. Other times, you might be "friended" by someone you were hoping to never see again, yet you feel politically obligated to keep up the connection. Or what happens if you make a friend, but then have a falling out? Then what?

How can we forget and move on from the past if the past is constantly smacking us in the face? Human memory was built to fade as a defense mechanism--letting go requires forgetting so that you can be open to what's happening in the moment. If the past can always be rejoined with the present, does that enrich our lives or take away from the patina of nostalgia? And does looking backwards come with the opportunity cost of missing what's up ahead?

This is a silly example, but I remember how happy I was about seven years ago when I went to this Sidetrack in Chicago and they played a music video that wasn't aired in the U.S. that was something I'd always wanted to see. I'm loathe to admit what it was, but for the sake being authentic, I'll tell you: Sarah Brightman's "How Can Heaven Love Me." (Appropriately enough, it's about surveillance, propaganda and a loss of civil rights.) As of about a year ago, you can now find it on YouTube. And that has detracted from my joy. That which can be recalled so easily is no longer all that special.

This blog is accessible by anyone looking at my online profile, which means that anyone I've ever known, from high school to my boss, can read it if they find me and if they care to. Will that change their opinion of me? With each post, I ask myself how much am I willing to reveal, and does that revelation bolster the topic at hand? If not, I demur. But, it's tough to say whether I'm writing something today that I might regret later. I fully expect that to happen. And unfortunately there's no real way to erase what I'm publishing right now thanks to the Wayback Machine.

This degradation and dismissal of boundaries is happening in real life as well. Gawker posted a story on Union Bar, which announced a ban on strollers. After immediate and vociferous outcry from neighborhood parents, the ban on strollers was lifted. (Note that the ban was not on children, but obviously since most tots are carted around in strollers, they're implicated by association.) This raises a cultural question: what are babies doing in bars? Should adults and children be together, in all contexts?

Does there need to be a space for *everyone* in *every* establishment? What does that then mean for community? What then defines community? Should there be places, online and off, where we can wear a particular mask or allow a particular persona to emerge? If all the world's a stage, can we play five different characters at once, in a single venue, with equal emphasis on each? And if everyone is playing multiple characters at once, how do we relate to each other? Is our face constantly changing?

Ideally, we might be seen multi-dimensionally as the fullest manifestation of ourselves, but is all of us at any given moment all that relevant in all contexts? Can I swill a beer and shout, "Fuck the Communists!" in a bar teeming with children? (Ok, so that shouting scenario isn't likely for me, but you get my point.) Sometimes some things just aren't appropriate in certain contexts, and maybe we need to respect that. Of course, this line is fuzzy and what's appropriate is open to interpretation, and ambiguity is never easy.

Boundaries can be good to have, particularly when social structures impose a level of politics that must be navigated. Will I respect my boss if I discover, thanks to his online profile, that he is a Furry and likes to be spanked? Will we reach the point where a person will proudly display their collection of butt plugs on their desk at work? Should a person have to hide their vibrators when they have company? (My answers to these questions are maybe, let's pray for no and yes, respectively.)

Politeness and manners may very well be going out the window in this world where we demand that our needs be met, whatever those may be. A kind of selfishness is driving the desire to be seen as we want to be seen in whatever context we choose. If I'm a mother or father with a large stroller, I might assume I have the right to take it anywhere. If I'm a blog writer, I might assume I should tell the world each and every time I get laid. Is instant gratification diluting our substance at the same time it's possibly infringing on someone else's rights?

Even if we don't encounter push-back from others whose rights we may be impinging upon, a problem arises when we're being "viewed" in a context in which we suddenly desire privacy. What if I were to publish medical information about myself on this blog, but then an insurance company found it and used my posts as a reason to deny me insurance coverage? Suddenly, I'd be screaming bloody murder over my "privacy" rights. So, where do we draw the line?

There are possible benefits to this erosion of boundaries. We can be more open and free with our emotions. We might feel less stifled. We have fewer "rules" to follow so we can more easily do whatever we feel like doing. Yet, might the alternative of boundaries, propriety and a little secrecy be a superior thing?

I'm no advocate for secrecy when it stems from shame. If you're a married closeted man and you're paying for sex with men all the while raising your 2.2 children with your lovely wife, your "secret" deserves to be exposed. I'd say to such a person, "Get a grip, get some courage and stop your cowardly destruction of other people's lives." But the more routine things in life aren't pitched with such melodrama. Sometimes the little things can be all the more delicious because you're not trumpeting them to the world at large.

As our society becomes increasinly more relevatory, at least we still have our innermost thoughts. Sometimes being able to secretly smile to yourself knowing something you'll never tell is one of the best parts of being alive.

We are stardust, we are carbon

2008-01-21T23:24:00.000-05:00

I've been contemplating tolerance of different perspectives lately. I've had several conversations that addressed the lack of ideological diversity in most of the people we consider our closest friends. Like attracts like, and we seem to cluster that way, akin to the gravitational pull that holds together solar systems. We live in galaxies of little mirrors that reflect ourselves back to us. For example, few to none of my friends are Republicans or Creationists, and I wonder if it's a mistake to not cultivate those of different viewpoints, although I often feel the need to suppress aspects of myself as a means of keeping the peace when faced with interactions with people who are so very different. We tend to stick to our own kind, and rage against those who are not in the same mental space.

I feel the best when I am working from my heart-center, the part of me that feels most innate. However, if morality is part of our biology but is shaped by culture (see Stephen Pinker's article The Moral Instinct), what feels best to me might still be "wrong" in the largest sense. It's like Christian Fundamentalists--they believe they are acting from the "right" place. I stand diametrically opposed to them, but that feels "right" from my perspective. So, who is truly "right?" And how am I to deal with my rancor for those who, from my perspective, want to deny acceptance of who I am, or hold opinions that I deem irrational?

Captain Rational had a good bit to say on the topic:
"As for your quandary as to who is truly right, its not for us as individuals to decide. Over time this question will answer itself and until then any answer is simply an opinion. The most important thing is that you act accordance with your heart-center. Being true to yourself is the most efficient growth path. If you are always following or reacting to someone else's path, you will never be truly self-determined. As a result, your growth would always contingent on that of another. It's ok to listen to other people but ultimately you have to decide what is right for you. The fact that others do not agree with you is not a bad thing, it is simply a part of the interaction of ideas that, if done correctly, will eventually answer the question of who is truly right."

If that is true, and it does seem to me to be true, there is no sense swimming against a tide, expressing anger or resentment towards those who think differently. It's a waste of energy and time. I pursued this line of thought further with someone else who shared this analogy in the human body:

All of our cells came from a single cell, which divided into many different types of cells (white blood, neurons, platelets, etc.). These are like all of our points of view. Some of us are neurons and some of us are liver cells and neither of those things are the same any longer. But, because they share the same point of origin, and because together they comprise the entire human body (the system we exist in), they all belong and *must* exist for the survival of the organism as a whole. So, differing perspectives are not just to be tolerated, but are necessary to the functioning of our social machine.

This is the perspective that places things into context, and diffuses my irritation and frustration. This sense of all things being one is something that is both the stuff of religion and science. In Princeton over the weekend, I saw a memorial to the class of 1969 that quoted the lyrics to Joni Mitchell's song "Woodstock":

We are stardust
Billion year old carbon
We are golden
Caught in the devils bargain
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden
To some semblance of a garden.

We are litterally made from the same atoms that comprise all material in the universe, and that material came from the stars. It seems that the 60s generation was on to something in their philosophy of free love and tolerance, but they lost it somewhere along the way, perhaps in the consumerist void that shifted our focus from our heart-center to our wallet-center. (I would also imagine that frequent drug use primarily served to cloud the mind and cause inertia.)

The question, for me, is how to consciously operate from one's heart-center at all times, even in the face of ideological opposition. How do we get back to that semblance of a garden? We must keep the conversation open. Staying whole may very well cause discomfort in others. It can inadvertently instigate altercations, violence and even death (which are certainly outcomes not to be wished for). But it also may serve to change minds or foster bonds or bring us back together. We must be who we are because anything else is not carbon, but a carbon copy of someone else's expression of themselves, which itself may very well be a copy. To quote Captain Rational yet again, "We owe it to the world to make people with "stupid" ideas feel at least a bit uncomfortable or they will never question those beliefs."

Odds 'n ends

2008-01-13T21:49:00.000-05:00

It's about time I get myself back to writing. The Xmas break threw me off my game. I don't have a specific topic at the moment, but here are a few things on my mind of late:

Politics
I realized that following all this political stuff is kind of a head-case exercise. It's all about untestable hypotheses. One of the predictions I read: if Bloomberg decides to run as Independent in February, it will split the vote between him and Hillary and McCain will win the presidency. It's all wheel spinning until the election results are in. It sort of reminds me of my mental state when I get too intellectual and disconnect from my feelings. It's as though the culture is doing that at large with no way to ground itself. I'm coming to view it as an unhealthy cultural sickness. All of this time spent on conjecture is time all of us could be doing other, more relevant things with our life. But, what else do we really have to do with our collective time, and how else can we construct a national dialog that anyone can participate in? I guess it fills a gap in between moments when we're shopping.

Television
The L Word is a freakshow horror. It makes Cashmere Mafia look like Shakespeare. Ilene Chaiken should be ashamed of herself. She couldn't write her way out of a paper bag. I think so poorly of this show that I'm not even going to construct an argument as to why it's such an embarrassing piece of drivel. Watch it for yourself to see how trashy, lame, and boring it is. It was never particularly good, but it has gone from bad to worse. There's no "so bad it's good" factor at work. It just blows chunks. Plots and characters are constructed in a way that is illogical, choppy, and inconsistent. If this represents the most talented of the Hollywood lesbian writers, no wonder we're stuck in a cultural ghetto. And with this shit as what we have to offer to the larger world, clearly we deserve to be right where we are.

Exercise
Pilates is a joy. So much better than yoga. What was I thinking? I was spending time on yoga when it turns out I didn't have to be stuck in downward dog. Instead I can be strengthening my muscles and having a good time, too. More exercise with less pretense. Hooray!

New Years Evolution

2007-12-29T16:56:00.000-05:00

For the past five years, I've started writing out recaps for the previous year on January 1st. I find it a great way to review my life, see how I've grown, and to help me loosely map out my upcoming goals. (I seem to have "take Pilates" as a goal every year, but I somehow keep managing to fail at that one. Urgh. Maybe 2008 will be my year.)

Sometimes I'll even create a tag line that thematically describes the events. For example, my recap for 2002 was best summed up as, "Revisit the past/Envision the future" because it was largely about self-acceptance, reaching out to those I'd lost touch with, focusing on inner-peace, and then spiraling into the unknown with job loss and a very tumultuous romantic relationship. Thematizing one's life doesn't always work, but it's kind of a fun way to think about a year holistically.

I begin by chronologically writing out all of the major events/feelings/happenings that I can think of in bullet-point form. I don't spend an insane amount of time trying to come up with every little thing. Simply brainstorming the most immediate things that come to mind and then placing them in chronological order seems to give a clear picture of the most impactful moments of the year.

I then write out two lists--one for the people who have been of primary importance in my life this year, and a list of the more peripheral yet still important people in my life during this time. It may seem strange to attempt to categorize friendships, but this allows me to see how people move in and out of my life, and who remains most constant.

I also make a list of the trips I've taken, and the dates (at least the months in which they took place).

Future goals for the new year follow. I don't make this list overly-rigorous as I don't believe in New Year's resolutions, or that you have to follow through with everything (see Pilates). It's more about things I want to keep on my radar so I can glance back at the list throughout the upcoming months and remind myself of things I'd like to accomplish, aspire to or think about. These might be financial goals, things to do with improving my health and well-being, education, politics, trips to take or things to do for fun.

Recently, I've taken to adding a short list of things I'm most grateful for, and occasionally, I include a snippet or two of things I've learned. For example, in 2006, I came to the realization that it's rather fruitless to try to guess other people's motivations. Reasons are irrelevant, and trying to ascertain reasons for others' behavior is unprovable and somewhat hubristic. It's better to simply deal with the facts of a situation and make decisions based on what appears in front of you, and not worry so much about what other people are thinking or why they do what they do.

I won't be posting my list of 2007 life events. That's one for my journal and not for online. But, I highly encourage everyone to do this exercise to see what you come up with. Starting a new year by bringing greater consciousness to one's life is comforting and sets the stage for greater awareness and an openness for new things to come.

The Dinner Party

2007-12-28T19:47:00.000-05:00

No, I'm not talking about Judy Chicago. As I was drifting off to sleep the other night while home for the holidays, it occurred to me that I've never actually compiled a list of the famous, living or dead, I'd like to have over for dinner. So, without further ado, here is the start of mine, in no particular order:

John Waters--I'm not even the biggest fan of his films, but he's hysterical and makes some good art to boot.

Grace Slick--She's sarcastic, bombastic and honest. She's always given good interviews, and I've always had a soft spot for her drug-addled lyrics ("You are your own best toy to play with/remote controlled hands/made for each other/made in Japan"). A representative Grace quote, "The wiser you get on the inside, the uglier you get on the outside. The world's great gurus have beautiful things to say but they generally look like shit."

Jennifer Tilly--If you can get past her voice, she's extremely intelligent for someone from Hollywood (I realize that's a back-handed compliment), hilarious, quirky and apparently talented at poker. She's definitely not the girl next door. As she says, "I think it's kind of harder for me to play the kind of normal girl that you would meet at the supermarket squeezing the Wonderbread." Plus, she spoke one of my favorite movie lines, "I'm not apologizing for what I did. I'm apologizing for what I didn't do." (I can hear Gonzo throwing up down there on Carroll St.)

Gore Vidal--Who doesn't love a man who says things like, "Andy Warhol is the only genius I've ever known with an I.Q. of 60." More Vidal quotes.

Carl Sagan--Quite literally the straight man of our party, Carl would have a pretty big burden to shoulder with all these wiseacres surrounding him. But, he's used to billions and billions, so a party of fewer than ten should be no problem.

Hmm. I think I like provocateurs.

I find this exercise very difficult. It's hard to think of celebrities I'd actually want to dine with. I expect to keep adding more.

Who's on your list?

Lube study seeks participants

2007-12-20T14:18:00.000-05:00

At the risk of my blog becoming less general and more about sex and sexuality these days (ah, what the heck!), I've just found out about this study that could be worth participating in:

To Whom It May Concern,

Our research team at Indiana University is recruiting adult women (18 and older) to participate in what is, to our knowledge, the first ever systematic study of lubricant use among women.

Many women use lubricants during sexual activity alone or with a partner and for many different reasons including to make sex more comfortable, to reduce pain, to reduce the risk of tearing during sex, to feel more pleasure, because they are curious, or because their partner wants to use a lubricant. Other women have never used a lubricant during sexual activity that occurs alone or with a partner.

The study that we are recruiting for, the Women's Sexual Health Study, takes place entirely online. Women who participate in the study will receive three bottles of water-based lubricant or silicone-based lubricant and will be asked to use it during sexual activity that occurs alone or with a partner, and to respond to online questionnaires about their experiences.

Women who would like to read additional information about the study and decide whether they would like to participate can go to this web site: www.womenshealth.iu.edu

If you have additional questions about the study, please send an email to cshp@indiana.edu or call 812.855.0364.

Kind regards,

Debby Herbenick, PhD
Associate Director, Center for Sexual Health Promotion
School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation
Indiana University
Bloomington, IN 47405

Dry brushing detox

2007-12-16T19:01:00.000-05:00

Get cold hands and feet often? I sure do. I also have a lot of back/leg pain from sitting too much at my day job. I started looking around for something that might help my circulation and discovered dry brushing. I've been doing it daily for two months now, and I believe I've noticed a difference. But let's back up:

What is dry brushing?
Dry brushing is the act of using an exfoliating brush over most of your skin. Dry brushing has apparently been done for a bazillion years by Russians, Turks and Scandinavians as a means to cleanse the skin and release bodily wastes.

Why do it?
It's supposed to help with a wide variety of issues, from improved circulation to getting rid of cellulite and varicose veins, both of which most of us have or get with age. It obviously also removes dead skin, so do it while standing in the shower before you rinse off.

I'm pretty sure I'm noticing a decline in cellulite over the past two months. Will be interesting to keep an eye on it. My hands and feet are without a doubt less cold than they used to be, and I'm finding that my back/leg pain is lessened. I'm also being treated via acupuncture for my back/legs, but I'm seeing faster results since I've combined that with dry brushing.

The other reason why I'm giving it a shot is because I have a tendency towards fibrocystic breasts, and I'm hoping that by stimulating my lymph glands, I might help lessen the development of cysts if I'm assisting in getting fluids circulating around my body. I thought to do this after reading several articles that claim that wearing a bra can significantly contribute to fibrocystic breasts because the elastic of the bra traps lymphatic fluid. Kind of makes some sense to me, and maybe brushing will help.

Read more about the Dry Brushing Technique.

How do you do it?
This is the protocol I'm using: start on the bottoms of your feet and brush six times towards your heart. Then move up your calves, six times all around, then your thighs, up your butt, back, arms and breasts. Be careful with delicate areas, such as the insides of your thighs. Personally, I'm actually finding the arches of my feet to be super-delicate, and I've cut them up with the brush, so I'm learning to adjust the pressure.

The trick is that you always, ALWAYS brush towards your heart so that wastes from your lymph nodes can be carried via your blood up towards your heart and then out of your body, and there will be less pressure on your veins.

You can buy a dry brush at Whole Foods for about $9. Sure, it's another thing to add to your daily routine, but it seems to be beneficial. I recommend giving it a try.

Straight ladies of the world, give up your girlfriends

2007-12-15T02:22:00.000-05:00

A cadre of my lesbian friends have requested that I write this post on their behalf:

Dear straight ladies of the world,

Please, PLEASE stop using the word "girlfriend" to describe your platonic, friendship-only relationships with other women.

We understand that straight people don't generally think about us. It's human nature to ignore people's issues that have no direct effect on our lives. But your continued use of the word "girlfriend" makes queer women invisible. And it really sucks.

You get to have your boyfriends. Why not let us have our girlfriends? We can't get married (except in Massachusetts), so we're stuck with lame and ambiguous descriptors for the women we love like "girlfriend" and "partner." It's tough enough as it is to get recognition for the relationships that we have when there is no overt cultural support. And when the general lexicon gives us easily misconstrued words to describe ourselves, it's an uphill climb to get noticed. You may not realize how easy you have it--as soon as you say, "boyfriend" everyone knows you're talking about the guy you sleep with.

When we are out with our partners and introduce them as our "girlfriend," it often takes several introductions for people to get it through their heads that we're talking about romance, not about our buddy.

Is it so hard to imagine that we might be a couple? We're tired of people assuming that we're genetically related sisters when, for example, one of us is clearly of Indian descent and the other is Italian. Why is being a couple the very last thing so many people think of? How many times do we have to go to our doctors, take our partner with us, and have to explain, over and over again, that this person is not just with us, but "with" us?

So, what can you, the straight lady, do? Since many names are gender-specific, why not just say, "I was out with my friend Sarah this weekend...blah, blah, blah" instead of, "I was out with my girlfriend." Or just say you were out with a friend or friends. Why qualify it at all? Get creative.

But do your queer sisters a favor and give us a chance to take hold of a word whose meaning, for us, is far more specific and truly needed.

Sincerely,

The Lesbians of New York

Special

2007-12-11T17:16:00.000-05:00

I had another “Only in New York” experience on the outskirts of Soho on Macdougal. This was my first time getting a document notarized. (I clearly haven’t lived.) The place is called, “Something Special,” and boy is it ever. From the hand-written cardboard sign in the window that says, “Notary Public,” to the somewhat dingy curtains, it’s completely unclear as to what lays inside.

Once I wrenched open the door, I found myself facing the proprietor and his wife, who sit amidst a ramshackle space papered with celebrity autographs (Sarah Jessica Parker, most conspicuously) and discombobulated mailboxes for rent. I find it hard to believe that celebrities frequent this joint, but I suppose even they have their notarization needs. I waited for the owner to finish up a conversation before he nodded in my direction. He instructed me to place my paperwork on a specific square cutout on the counter. I put the letter down and backed away from it slowly.

He asked for ID to check against my signature, which I provided. I’m always afraid of comments on my driver’s license. In actuality, I don’t get comments so much as a chuckle here and there. I look very different now than I did nearly 5 years ago when I had the photo taken—my hair was dyed black and cut far too short because I had just moved to New York and had no idea when I’d find a stylist, so I erred on extra short to buy me time. A dyke look if there ever was one. I eyed him as he perused my picture. He looked up at me. We both had the slightest twist of a grin, but he said nothing. He took out his embossing tool, stamped and signed.

I told him and his wife that the paperwork was for my stolen credit card, which had over $3000 in charges. He said he notarized about three of these forms a week. That’s a lot of fraud! He eyed me and said, “Are you really sure it wasn’t an ex boyfriend…(pause)…or an ex girlfriend?” I was totally pleased that he failed to presume. Perhaps it was my driver’s photo that gave him pause. But pause he did, and I liked that a lot. Kind of reminds me of the time this guy on the subway came up to me and said, “I really like your ring. Is it an engagement ring? Who’s the lucky man or lady?” It’s great to know that there are people out there who don’t always take the status quo for granted—who admit it’s sometimes (and often) difficult to tell what’s going on with someone else, and that you can’t really assume anyone’s preference. Sometimes it takes a notary to get noticed.

Someplace special, indeed. This is one of the great reasons to live in New York.

I rather hope I have to get something notarized again soon.

Score for Madison Avenue

2007-12-06T15:25:00.002-05:00

<-- Subway passengers with their ams in straphanger position

The subway has been a good bit more packed this week (perhaps due to the holidays?), which is always compounded by train problems. Yesterday, one of the doors on the F train failed to close, so they took the car out of service. As we were stalled, waiting for them to come to a decision, I found myself increasingly pressed up against other people as new people entered the train. (fools!) Then, when they finally decided that the door was definitively broken, they had us cross the platform to board the A train, where it was twice as crowded.

Only one thought kept me sane: Thank GOD almost everyone on the train was clean. I looked around me and noticed that most of us on the train had the same level of cleanliness, which is kind of shocking. We didn’t collectively smell that bad, even when making full-body contact. Why? It has to be Madison Avenue advertising. One thing our culture does very well is teach us to be clean. Heck if we’re creating super-germs due to our cleanliness. Not having to smell horrific B.O. is worth every cost.

Cross-dress for success

2007-12-02T22:44:00.000-05:00

I finished Norah Vincent's Self-Made Man this past week, and I was impressed by her audacity. Despite being a somewhat butch lesbian, spending 18 months disguised as a man ended up inducing a level of cognitive dissonance that caused her to have an emotional breakdown, seemingly speaking to the innate and fixed properties of our individual sense of our own gender.

I was most fascinated by other people's assumptions about her gender and how female masculinity was perceived as effeminacy once ensconced in a "male" persona. I was further intrigued by her comments that once she established herself as a man amongst the men she socialized with, she later removed her glasses and stopped applying her fake stubble, and yet still no one guessed that she was a woman. This proves that people don't so much see what is in front of them, but rather only the rough outlines of gender. Once our brains create a categorization, we cease to question and move on to the next level of human interaction. And when we come across someone of indeterminate gender, it's a puzzle and stops us in our tracks.

I've never dressed in drag, although I find the idea somewhat titillating. However, I don't think I'd make a terribly convincing man. The only thing I have going for me is my height and that my hands are kind of square. That said, I have been addressed as "sir" about 5 or 6 times in my adult life, perhaps most embarrassingly by a proctologist who was looking down at his notes as I walked into his office. I suspect that my height, my short hair at the time and my black leather jacket may have contributed to his reading of "male" out of the corner of his eye. (And I suppose I should be thankful that I wasn't pants down, prone on the table when he made this error.) Still, I doubt most women would be mistaken for a "sir," so there must be something about me that reads as unfeminine when viewed in a certain context. I'm guessing it's my comportment.

Since I was a teenager, I've had an acute sense that my posture and the way that I walk isn't typical of most women, but I didn't recognize it as "gay" until after coming out and spending more time with other lesbians, where I saw aspects of my physical self in them. There is such a thing as lesbian body language, and it reads as more "masculine," but not all lesbians have it, so it can't be conclusively stated that lesbian = more mannish in mannerisms. This tells me that gender correlates to sexuality in some fashion, but the exact nature of the relationship still seems to elusive. I suppose that's the beauty of the complexity of human beings.

I strongly feel aspects of masculinity and femininity within myself, almost equally, which translates, to me, into a kind of androgyny inside myself. When I was a kid, I wore my dad's ties, baseball caps and refused to put ribbons in my hair much to the consternation of my 2nd grade teacher, Mrs. Cohen. As a teen, I was super-femme with long curly hair, skirts, and a lot of makeup. For a large portion of my adult life, I had extremely short hair and nondescript fashion. That changed once I came out and decided to remake myself physically. I dyed my hair electric blue and black and created rules for my wardrobe (solids, stripes and argyle = OK, patterns = absolutely not). I became more aware of how my appearance reflected my inner life, and now, I consciously choose certain outfits to reflect aspects of my gender.

I enjoy the interplay of masculine and feminine as I allow it to manifest on my outward body. I feel most whole when I appropriate masculine symbols of power into my dress (like my stylized sheriff's badge belt buckle, or my military jacked by Laundry). The twist is that I never wear a literal translation of male symbols--my belt buckle is not an actual sheriff's badge. And, I wear these items at the same time I emphasize my femininity via tight denim that shows off my female ass and hips. Along with my sheriff belt buckle, I wear a cowboy shirt cut for women that happens to have line drawings of cowgirls with lassos. It's a costume, and I see it as such, but at the same time, it represents a deep part of my psyche. I can feel my masculinity and femininity at the same time, and it lends me confidence. It is sexually charged, at least for me, which is how I know there is a connection between sexuality and gender.

Which leads me to explore the notion of cross-dressing, spectatorship and empowerment. I haven't been to a drag king show in quite some time, although I've seen about four performances in my life thus far. As a spectator, it's not something that I ever really understood. There's nothing particularly sexy to me about watching women dress up as strange male archetypes such as a trucker-hatted guy wearing a Led Zeppelin t-shirt swilling beer while lip-synching to some Hootie and the Blowfish song.

I'm sure this may be a turn-on for some onlookers, but I'm guessing it's the minority. It's like a gay man in drag among the Chelsea boys. He has a place there, but it seems unlikely that he, as a woman, is an object of desire for most of those men.

As I think more about my own style as well as drag, it's becoming clearer to me that cross-dressing is more about harnessing the personal power inherent in gender than it is about transforming oneself into an object of desire (although paradoxically, invoking that power may make us more attractive to those who appreciate the confidence it creates). A man in drag invokes the sexuality and sensuality of female power over masculine energy. And a woman expressing herself through aspects of masculinity is doing much the same, in reverse. Masculinity can't exist without its opposite, and vice-versa. Dressing in drag is a touchstone to our innermost expressions of ourselves.

Markers of gender have definitive meanings and power in our culture, and as Norah Vincent has proven, clothes do indeed make the (wo)man.

Jeans whore, connoisseur

2007-11-27T22:11:00.000-05:00

I was once a jeans whore, a connoisseur.

Last night, my favorite pair of jeans EVER, the Rock and Republic "Scorpion," bit the dust. I found a huge hole in the crotch when I plucked them from the wash. My grief was boundless. Shite. I needed another pair of medium-to-dark distressed jeans, and quickly. Shopping was in order.

As I gathered 20 pairs of jeans in my arms this evening at Bloomingdale's, I thought back to that fateful day some seven years ago in Nordstrom on the Magnificent Mile when I realized that my jeans were absolutely massive--I was wearing one or two sizes too large. It took me until I was 27 to figure that out. Such a shame that my best years of a youthful ass were behind me. But, better late than never, one supposes.

I had thought I was improving by moving up from Levi's to Lucky, but then I saw and felt the curve-hugging rightness of premium denim, and suddenly, I was more than willing to fork out $150 for an item that used to cost me $45. In any case, I resolved to find the perfect pair of jeans. But, I was alone. How would I ever know what fit? I whipped around the store, trying on every brand and purchased 12 pairs of jeans in total.

I took them to my sister's place on Belmont and started modeling. With her approval, I settled upon my first pair of an impending obsession. They were black, low rise and bootcut, made by 7 for All Mankind. They were a triumph of perfectly emphasized ass. (And I do thank the Lord that I have an ass to fill such denim. I would be inconsolable otherwise.)

From that day forward, I was consumed with the notion that I could find the perfect fit that obliterated camel toe and mitigated my hips. There was always that pesky butt-crack problem when bending over or sitting, but what a small price to pay for priceless curves.

I used to go shopping for jeans so frequently, even just for fun without purchasing, that I could tell you the cut and fit of each major brand, and I often took my friends shopping, analyzing their bodies and fitting them with the perfect pair of jeans.

Lost in the reverie of those glory days as I sauntered through Bloomingdale's, I plucked denim off the racks, seeing brands I no longer recognized, and something shocking happened. Something that I've been burying deep in my soul for probably the past year or so, ready to erupt: I just didn't care anymore. Sure, I want my ass to look great. Sure, I want my jeans to fit well. But, the obsession has died. More than anything, I just wanted a pair that made me happy and got a thumbs-up from me in the butt department.

I tried on pair after pair. Too big in the waistband! (And what is WITH the jeans right now--20% of the jeans i tried on were like that.) Too tight in the legs! Too stretchy! And then: my holy grail. The brand I haven't worn for several years now, yet the brand from which I started: a bootcut low rise pair made by 7 for All Mankind. They were the second to last ones I tried on, and they were by far the best fit. I took them to the counter and made my purchase.

My days of denim highs are over. I was pleased to find serviceable jeans, but not ecstatic. These were not as stylish as my Scorpions, but they were the right color and would fill the gap until I stumbled upon another superior pair. I am not sure when I'll find them, but unlike before, I'm in no hurry to rush out to look. They'll come to me when they come, and until then, these Sevens will get me through my daily commute.

Witness

2007-11-26T20:11:00.000-05:00

Observer. Spectator. Cheerleader.

What does it mean to be a witness?

The holiday season is the time to spend with family, and seeing my parents made me think about witnessing--witnessing life. Parents are first-hand witnesses to their children. They were there at the beginning--they held us, and nursed us and literally and figuratively carried us until we could walk on our own two feet. Parents are the most open to entertaining the minutia of our lives. Who else might care that your childhood action figure's head accidentally popped off but your mother?

As our awareness develops and our focus moves from self-centeredness to empathy, we find that we observe our parents just as much as they observe us. We are more historically entwined with our parents than with any other relationship in our lives, and as much as they might drive us crazy or amuse us, we are indelibly linked to them, and their pain and their joy is ours.

As we grow older, our lives are less immediately connected, and perhaps if geography stands in the way, we cease to intimately know each other as we are now, instead relying upon memories and prior experience as our markers for understanding one another. But the bond is still there, and it's fraught with fear and tension and most of all, love, in whatever form each of us knows how to give.

And as our parents age while we're still in our relative youth, we begin to witness certain apects of their decline. In my case, I have a chronically ill parent and I can see how my mother struggles to adapt to her changing life, and it breaks my heart. I want so much to be this fountain of compassion, and yet I find myself hard pressed to keep my heart open and express tenderness because I am afraid of the tidal wave of pain that I know is under the surface of all of our hearts. I find myself sometimes becoming most emotionally detached at those moments when I should be most present. It's hard to love. Love is a kind of loss that can turn prickly and hard. But, it is also healing. Thankfully, I can admit to any faults and ask for forgiveness, and best of all, I know my parents will grant it.

As a witness, we are paradoxically

a part of

apart from

We are a part of our parents, yet apart from them at the same time. We also occupy space in other people's lives that is tangential and paradoxically central. There is a fine line between being a witness and becoming an interloper (and sometimes we do both), but for the most part, as adults, we are witnesses to our friends' experiences. We watch from a short distance as our friend, in only three months time, applies for and gets into a world-class grad school for her MBA. We see a lesbian couple wed using honored traditions from their respective religions. We see babies being born and share in the agony of an illness and their (mercifully) brief stay in the hospital. We see yet another reach out across the years to get back in touch with her estranged father. These are momentous events, yet also just life.

We are witnesses to ourselves. We can see our own growth and change if we choose to. We can think about it, but if we record it in journals, or write about it, we can make our own personal witnessing something that someone else can witness too. (And let us hope what we share is not shared entirely out of narcissism--I only mention this because it seems like such a danger that culturally everyone wants to be famous these days.)

Taking on the role of witness is an outward view that exposes us to potential hurt and the chafing of our hearts, but also opens a door to the joy and triumphs of the experiences of those around us. We live vicariously through each other all the time, and we can strive to be beacons of encouragement and hope for those we love.

What does it meant to be a witness? It means opening our hearts. It means being involved.

Being a witness means you're not alone even as you stand on the sidelines.

You are not alone.

Not my terminal

2007-11-17T10:00:00.000-05:00

I spent a half-hour blogging from my iPhone and the post never made it online, but the photo did. I added some other pictures. This is the rewrite:

The weekend of the 17th, I took a trip to DC flying out of LaGuardia. When I got to the Delta terminal, I was informed that because I was booked on a Delta *Shuttle*, I was in the entirely wrong place. Of course, nowhere on my ticket or in any of my pre-boarding materials did it mention that I was on a shuttle or that I had to go to some other terminal entirely. Thanks for the heads-up, Delta! The guy at the ticket counter informed me that I had to go downstairs, outside, and take Bus A to the Shuttles. Uh, OK. Thankfully the airport wasn’t too congested and I had arrived with 60 minutes to spare. I made my way downstairs (again, thanks for the lack of signage!), found where I needed to be, and waited for Bus A.

Once I got on Bus A, I wondered where the heck we were going. We passed every other airline terminal I could think of…American, United, US Airways…and then drove through green pastures. Perhaps they were taking us out to the fields to kill us?

Just as I was going from annoyed to supremely annoyed, they dropped us off in front of this small art deco terminal with a frieze of flying fish. My dismay turned to joy: an unexpected architectural gem! And it was in seriously good shape! And it was OPEN! I went inside and glimpsed a small rotunda with murals and nice art deco doors with steelwork reminiscent of airplane wings. A sign for "restaurant" was off to the left and a sign for "gates" was directly ahead. Beautiful!

But, it was pretty much deserted. Clearly, this wasn't it. Dammit! (After doing some web searching, I discovered that this is the Marine Air Terminal, the last remaining active airport terminal from the days of the "flying boat" in the 1930s and 40s.)

I went back outside and saw a slapdash, makeshift short white box of a temporary pile of terminal poo. Great, that was my craptacular destination. I went inside, did the security bit and sat in this minimalist-due-to-cheapness drab interior. Barf:

And please explain those bizarre magazine racks of free reading materials. It's like someone deliberately set out to make as sterile an environment they could muster, but figured if they could toss in some free toilet reading, all would be forgiven.

I'm grateful that I glimpsed the Marine Terminal and found something I want to research further. However, I'm sad that most travel nowadays is full of armed soldiers and nondescript architecture that provides no aesthetic pleasure. Airports and train stations are portals to our destinations, but why has culture devolved to the point that we can't make these temporary spaces as much a part of a positive experience as where we hope to arrive? I'm sure the sheer volume of people traveling now versus in 1930 is the issue, as well as economics. But still--there has to be a better compromise.

If I were applying to architecture school, this is exactly what I would write about in my application essay. Since I have no intention of going back to school, I simply sat in the nearly windowless space, nostalgic for a time I wasn't a part of and yet also grateful that I caught that tiny glimpse into the past.

It's Organic

2007-11-08T18:23:00.001-05:00

Ummm...who couldn't use Batter Blaster? Make pancakes in minutes...because God knows it takes 5 minutes to combine flour, eggs and milk or a milk substitute. Does it come in a gluten-free variety?

Stop your cravings

2007-11-01T18:04:00.000-04:00

The past few months my sugar addiction has returned due to me stuffing my face with organic cookies and gluten-free tasty treats. Why, oh why, are there so many new gluten-free products of late??? All day today I've been thinking about going home and eating chocolate. Or gluten-free licorice (which, by the way, Candy Tree makes amazing GF licorice. WOW! A pack of 12 is only $27!!). Even though I've been having allergy-induced headaches from corn syrup, I still want it. I find myself justifying reasons for stopping by the store to pick some up tonight, like the fact that if I take that route home, I'll have to walk an extra 15-20 minutes, and that's good for me even if the licorice is not.

In any case, some new research blogged about on Cognitive Daily shows that looking at something distracting while you're having cravings may stop the desire for that food. The image above, when animated, is an example of something distracting. The next time you want pizza, or soda or pie--take a look at the animated faux-crossword puzzle and stop your bad self before you're sobbing about those extra zits at the same time you're clutching your leftover bag of Halloween candy corn.

Consider this

2007-11-01T17:58:00.000-04:00

150 people around the world die annually from falling coconuts. Keep that in mind on this, the Day of the Dead. See other statistics on causes of death.

Monorail cat

2007-10-13T17:13:00.001-04:00

Ok, I'm sure the majority of the planet has already seen this, but I've finally gotten wind of icanhascheezburger.com and LOLcats. I'm not normally predisposed to this sort of thing, but this is a winner:

Chain of succession

2007-10-13T12:09:00.000-04:00

I'm sure there are plenty of evolutionary theorists out there who have already beaten this subject to death. What I'm about to write is hardly anything new. But for someone like me, an armchair theorist who has been out of college life for over ten years since grad school, my pursuit of knowledge is nowhere near as concentrated as it was years ago. I fit in my "intellectual" time when I can, which nowadays is mostly either on the toilet or on the train. In any case, on those days on the subway when I don't have the New Yorker or a Savage Love podcast, my thoughs wander and I find myself in contemplation.

This week, as I passed by from Brooklyn to NYC overlooking the Gowanus canal (which apparently has gonorrhea), I started to think about waterways and how things came to be this massive city, and how it took millions of years for us to be where we are right now, smack in the middle of advanced civilization. I started to wonder what the first man and woman were like, and whether they had any idea that this was what we would become. I really tried to feel those millions of years, and of course my little brain couldn't wrap its head around that much time (and if my brain is inside my head, then that phrase can't be logical, but I digress...).

I found myself awash in visions of Adam and Eve, cavorting in the jungle. Then it hit me: there never really was a first. Not explicitly, and not in a way that those "first" would ever have realized, nor would be possible to pinpoint. Humans didn't just spring fully-formed from the head of Zeus, er, God. No! As with all other living things, we are an accretion of those very first cells that came together somewhere in the water and eventually merged and divided until increasingly more complex forms of life were created. There never was a "First Man" or "First Woman." It was all a chain of succession where beings came to be, somehow reproduced, and continued to "refine" themselves genetically over millions of years.

If one could actually pinpoint the first "man," it's possible that he actually mated with a slightly genetically inferior version of a female (meaning that Adam and Eve were not genetic "equals"), which then maybe produced the first genetically superior female, or vice versa. And so on. There is no such thing as a first. Ever. We just came to be. But not out of nowhere. And the truth of our origins is a slippery, but not impossible mess when we realize that our human need to categorize, label and contain is both our weakness and our strength. There are times when we have to let go of our cultural fantasies that try to explain to us the unknowable. There is no Adam and Eve. But, we did come from an unplottable somewhere (from where we currently stand in time) and that is what we have to take on faith.

Apple apprehension

2007-10-04T12:56:00.000-04:00

My iPhone touch screen broke. Half of it just stopped working--the bottom two inches no longer responded to touch. Which, in effect, turned it into the brick that so many others have experienced due to downloading unauthorized software (for the record, I think it's total crap that Apple is trying to prevent people from putting non-Apple software on their phones). In any case, between the horrible price-drop that screwed me, the Apple software fascism and my now-useless iPhone, I was really, really annoyed and concerned about my iPhone breaking. I assumed I'd wait in line for hours and from what I've read online, I'd have no phone for 3+ days while it was sent out for repair. V suggested I book an appointment at the GBar (I refuse to use their stupid name). I arrived 5 minutes early, waited about 5 minutes, was seen on time. The Apple employee was super-courteous, pleasant and replaced my iPhone immediately. I walked out very happy. Now I just have to go home and re-sync it to get my contacts back. Fantastico!

Burberry and Me

2007-10-01T17:00:00.001-04:00

This Saturday, I was extremely tempted to buy a Burberry jacket for $400. The fit was far superior to anything else I've tried on. The only drawback was that it was a slightly lighter weight than I wanted. Still, the fit was so good that I was nearly ready to plunk down the money on the spot even though the price was greater than I wanted to spend. It hugged my shape in the right spots, and clearly could be dressed up or down, and wouldn’t go out of style any time soon. I’d consider it a legitimate clothing “investment” piece that would last for years. (And “years” it could give me--when I went up one size from the XS to the S, I suddenly was swimming in it and looked like a 50 yr. old well-to-do housewife.)

I held off, kept looking around, and picked up a nice but clearly inferior and more casual Kenneth Cole Reaction jacket, which I was able to get for $100 on sale on the assumption that I would just return it if I got the Burberry. I tried on the Burberry again for about another 30 minutes. In the end, I decided to pass for the moment because it was an item I could pick up in the city (we were in a large suburban mall) and there was no need for an immediate purchase. V, on the other hand, found something a lot more unique—a Mackage trench coat. Mackage makes the hottest jackets around. V bought herself the “Lujane" in black and it's incredible--looks like she should be pulling major weaponry out from under the jacket and spinning in slow-motion a la The Matrix. It's better a) in person and b) in black

But back to Burberry. On Sunday morning, I opened the New York Times and saw an ad for some new development on the Upper East Side depicting a doorman holding the door for a woman with a stroller and two children wearing the very same Burberry jacket. I nearly tossed my cookies. Not because of the children. Because of the particular class and type of woman that was represented. Is this the Burberry-wearing self-image that I want to show the world? I have no doubt I can rock the Burberry. I have a Burberry bikini that I wear with irony because it's so not who I really am, yet it’s cute at the same time. I am naked with the bikini, my barest self--and yet I somehow feel I can “win” and be more than just $140 worth of skimpy tartan spandex.

But there's nothing ironic about the jacket. Per that advertisement, that kind of jacket says, "I have money. I am socially conservative and tasteful. I have a wealthy husband. I'm popping out the requisite 2.2 children so as to genetically replace ourselves in fulfillment of our reproductive duty. And I am flaunting it all in my Burberry way." Egads! This is so not the style in which I choose to live my life. That kind of grossly conspicuous consumption is sort of sickening to my ingrained Western sense of individuality, but clearly that’s just my own internal set point. Is my wearing the Burberry jacket a subversion or a sign of complicity that I long for a social status that is the envy of the majority of the population? I’m drawn to it, so in some way I must want what it represents. I do like representations of power through wealth. But at the same time, I’m frightened of being overshadowed by that very brand. This brand is iconic. I’m not sure I can subvert the implications of that jacket merely by my very existence. Do we control brands or do they control us? Is our individuality eroded? And to what degree? It’s never erased in the spiritual sense that what we are inside is indelible, but people make assumptions about us based on our style every day.

Style is important—what we wear can make a world of difference in our self-esteem. However, we risk being trampled by the meanings associated with brands. Take a brand like Mackage—it’s a luxury brand. No denying that. But, it’s also not a household name, and the designs are very, very stylized, which means it’s not something that will be worn by very many people simply because few can carry it off (and for the record, that trench coat looks a LOT better on V than me—it doesn’t fit my body). However, that trench coat can make a person feel powerful, but seemingly in a way that I personally find less threatening to my sense of self, or rather, sells me a version of a person that I want to be that is very different from Burberry. The trench coat gives the person a fantasy of looking like a kind of comic book hero—a high fashion maverick, full of autonomy and agency, imbued with super powers to save the world. Maybe that fantasy appeals to me more than the fantasy of an Upper East Side socialite, and my own personal illusion of control over a brand to augment or diminish my personality is really the arbiter of my taste and the appeal. After all, brands are castles in the sky, or co-ops on Central Park West or the Bat Cave. And through our brands, we show people where we emotionally live.

Coda:

So, where did I decide to live? I couldn’t find an exact match online, but this will give you the idea.

Restaurant Review: Ghenet (in Soho, NYC)

2007-09-19T23:03:00.000-04:00

Ghenet
284 Mulberry Street
New York, NY 10012
(212) 343-1888

Ghenet caters to the gluten-free if you call up the day before and ask them to make you Teff-only Injira bread. However, ONLY DO THIS IF YOU ARE GOING TO SHOW UP FOR CERTAIN. I actually had to beg over the phone the last time I called because so many gluten-free jerks have called up and then never arrived at dinner, causing them to have to throw out their uneaten bread. Teff is really expensive--a small bag of Teff flour costs $4.50+ at your local health food store. So, respect the restaurant and follow through. I really like eating here, and I don't want to have to stop. Enough ranting.

I've eaten here several times. The first time, I had the Dori Wett because I honestly didn't know better, and I wasn't so happy with my selection--1 tiny chicken leg and a whole hard-boiled egg were not what I was expecting. So, my experience wasn't the greatest.

My date always gets the vegetarian combination platter, and it's definitely the one to beat. Don't bother with the other items on the menu--this is the one. You can choose a great selection from the back of the menu. You'll be filled up and you'll have leftovers to take home. Enjoy!

This is a test

2007-09-19T10:13:00.000-04:00

I found this little widget and am testing it out. The lyrics to this song are actually quite nice, altho the widget is pretty damn cheesy.

Rihanna - Umbrella lyrics

What were you--born yesterday????

2007-09-18T22:44:00.000-04:00

Yes! Litte Aaron was born yesterday. Congratulations to the proud parents! I'd post a pic, but we'll let them have their alone time with their new little one. Much love! XO!

Winning through non-competition

2007-09-18T22:23:00.000-04:00

I just caught wind of a brilliant new game that relies on total non-competition to win. It's Brainball! The players' brainwaves control a ball on a table. The one who is able to relax more pushes the ball further and "beats" the opponent. Sheer genius! How soon can I try one of these?

Don't forget to get the Mindball Multiplayer accessory so three people can play....

I read about Brainball in Wired's article, "The Future of 3-D Printing, Pilot Communication and Weather Reporting." Speaking of which, who doesn't need a 3-D desktop prototyping machine? Now you can make the cardboard replica of a Shermann tank that you've always dreamed of...for only $4999!

I heart New York

2007-09-14T09:09:00.000-04:00

Seen on the corner of Broadway/Houston yesterday...head on a firebox.
Of course it was gone by noon.

Totemic Animal with Jelly Roll

2007-09-11T17:50:00.001-04:00

Some have said my totemic animal is the chipmunk due to its high energy and chatty nature. I also have a pretty intense sweet tooth. This is perhaps the ultimate expression of my
inner animal self. (The pic was found randomly on some user's profile on a social networking site.)

Divine

2007-09-08T16:28:00.000-04:00

On Thursday, I went to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine to see the Keith Haring triptych. It is his last major work before his death in 1990 and depicts the life of Christ. The center panel evokes both His birth and His crucifixion. It's silver, although appeared gold in the light, and is very beautiful.

The cathedral is apparently the largest Gothic cathedral in the world. I was glad I got to see it, and I was saddened to see the damage by the massive fire in 2000 that ravaged half of it (and is now under reconstruction). However, it is clear that America's propensity for "larger" doesn't equal better. Once you've seen Notre Dame, it's hard to be impressed by American rip-offs. American cathedrals are a pastiche homage to their European counterparts.

Speaking of cathedrals, my favorite is a comparatively smaller cathedral, St. Albans in England. Obviously, cathedrals take hundreds of years to build, and times change. As a consequence, St. Albans has a nave that is partly Romanesque (with rounded arches) as well as Gothic pointed arches. It took so long to build that they switched styles to keep up with fashion. I couldn't find a great photo of it online, but I did find this old postcard where you can see the difference.

A sucker born every minute

2007-09-08T14:57:00.000-04:00

My two previous posts have gotten me thinking: Does the general public know a good thing when it sees it? Harry Potter. The iPhone. Both are lauded by the public, which begs the question: do the masses actually have taste?

In my opinion, the Potter books are average in terms of literary merit. The only way they've revolutionized the publishing industry is by sheer volume of sales, which is nothing to sneeze at, but the books themselves have not intrinsically changed the literary world (although some would argue they've encouraged kids to read, which I suppose is true, although I would counter-argue with the question: isn't it the parents responsibility to inculcate a love of reading from a very early age? I'm betting most of those parents out there haven't been reading to their kids since birth...). In any case, the act of publishing books has not changed because of Harry.

Conversely, the iPhone is extraordinary in terms of user interface design. It's a total paradigm shift in how a person can physically interact with a device. Suddenly, all other cell phones seem like dinosaurs, and I have no doubt that the cell phone with a push-button keypad is on its way out over the next 5 -10 years. (Obviously, comparing Harry and an iPhone is a bit unfair: Harry is content--words on the page, but the iPhone is content and functionality).

A barrier to entry of the iPhone is obviously cost. Mac products are always expensive and require disposable income. But, the plummeting price means that they'll be in even more people's hands sooner than ever.

Still, $600 (now $400) is an exorbitant and ridiculous price to pay for a device. A Harry Potter obsession would cost the reader approximately $116 if they purchased the entire hardcover boxed set on Amazon. If one had to choose their popular poison, it would be to one's economic advantage to adhere to Harry and shun the iPhone. But what about those of us who shelled out for both?

This brings us back to public opinion: Harry and the iPhone are both a success. One is largely mediocre when taken as a whole, the other is impressive despite its flaws (I really could strangle the phone for not syncing properly to iPhoto, and yet still I love it). Some people buy the books, some the phone, some both. This may suggest that it's not so much that the public is savvy or truly understands how to judge an item's merits, but that the general public likes to engage in public discourse around shared interests. Also, when critical mass is achieved, there is a sense of unity, i.e., I feel less alone in the world when I see someone reading Harry on the subway. Also, we like shiny, new things, we're easily distracted, and we are willing to spend, spend, spend to get that feeling of being a part of something larger than ourselves.

Even if the iPhone is a life-changing device, aren't we still suckers for shelling out half a grand that could be going into our retirement accounts? I can delve into snobbery and suggest that Harry stinks and the iPhone rulez, but aren't I the butt of an economic joke regardless of the intrinsic merit of the books or the phone?

There really is a sucker born every minute. To quote from Barnum the musical, "...the biggest one, excluding none, is me."

Thank God it's a tax write-off

2007-09-05T22:30:00.000-04:00

Mr. Jobs has dropped the price of the iPhone by $200.

TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS CHEAPER!

We iPhone owners paid the price to be early adopters.

Maybe we really are just fools after all.

But then I hold it in my hands and I'm charmed. Ach, I'm a sucker!

The Problem with Harry

2007-09-05T12:56:00.001-04:00

I've been having an email conversation with two friends, K in Chicago and Weeza in London regarding Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the 7th and final installment in the that series you may have heard about. Our emails aren't so much debate as confirmation of how much we agree that DH is as mediocre as shopping at The Gap or eating Domino’s Pizza.

K summed it up best:
"The Harry Potter series was like rooting for a particular runner in the Olympic marathon. Books 1-6 were like my runner getting stronger through the race and surging into the lead as they enter the stadium. Book 7 was my runner tripping over her shoelaces, falling and crawling over the finish line to get the bronze. The epilogue was her copiously shitting her pants at the medal presentation."

So well said. Oh, and ugh--that epilogue--by far the most painful part of the book. A reviewer by the name of The Meteorologist “Don’t call me Weatherman” on Amazon commented:
“...The epilogue was forced and cliché. I really wonder if the publisher asked Rowling to do this because it is so unlike her. I remember reading an interview about her writing this last section in her hotel room while she cried and drank. No wonder why she cried and drank, this epilogue was terrible, I would cry too.”

How Harry Should Have Ended ***Possible spoilers below***

The three of us contemplated possible alternative endings. K in Chicago states:

“I was personally hoping that Harry would die in an act of transcendent self-sacrifice that left behind an artifact to protect the world from the inevitable emergence of the next major Dark Magician. Being a series with a lot child readers meant we were safe from the prospect of him knocking up Ginny with another Chosen One. I was thinking more along the lines of his death being the critical ingredient in a spell that combined the Deathly Hallows into powerful talisman (of course hidden at Hogwarts) that would seek out the most worthy wielder when the need arose.”

Alas, that would have accorded the book actual literary status, which just wouldn't do for the Scholastic stockholders. Perhaps the whole Potter phenomenon bespeaks the problem of success--Rowling could have wiped her ass with each page and published it to massive sales. Is it too much pressure that creates the crap that emerged, or is it resting on one's laurels--a cloud of success that obscured her vision from creating something truly remarkable?

Weeza from London responded:
“There's something preachy and condescending about DH, in the way it hammers home weird little lessons in morality while completely overlooking other (major) points. There was an article in one of the London papers not long ago (wish I could remember which) about how JK Rowling herself has changed since she began writing the series. Then, she was a nobody with little money and a kid, writing a story she loved and believed in. Now, she has Charles and Camilla round to dinner, and turns up at events in glittering gowns. She's come a long way, from working class to borderline aristocracy. Perhaps that's showing through in the book? There's always something superficial about the Nouveau Riche. Perhaps this is the literary manifestation?”

I think Weeza is right. And, I don't think I could come up with a better ending than K conjured. My ending would at least have one character turn gay, Hermione decide she's better off finding another man entirely, neither of the Weasly twins dying, and at least a frikking graduation! I would have kept the setting at Hogwarts, worked in one last quidditch match that is perhaps interrupted by Voldemort, and cut out the Deathly Hallows entirely. Finding the Horcruxes was plenty of plot action.

I’m glad I went back to the series after a 5 year hiatus and finished it off, if only so I could try to understand such a public success. I’m sorry to conclude that only something this mediocre and derivative is probably capable of achieving such public acclaim. (As for derivative, don’t even get me started on Rowling’s ham-fisted barely metaphorical use of World War II references of England versus Germany. Does “Nurmengard” sound like Nuremberg to anyone else?? Sheesh. Some creativity, PLEASE! And let’s not even get into the blatant concept thievery from Lord of the Rings.) I’ll be even more glad to get back to re-reading something much better, like Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass.

My blog has begun

2007-09-03T14:44:00.000-04:00

Many thanks to my sister for helping me get my blog up and running TODAY instead of continually putting it off. Expect major generality.