Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Let It Be
I was watching Boston Legal, one of my favorite dramas because I don't have to watch it all the time like LOST or 24. Flexibility can be liberating that way. I also tend to like anything James Spader does. He has an posh elegance and a roguish manner that I find to be quite winning, especially as his character is an utterly amoral bastard with the requisite heart of gold. Also, I love how William Shatner has completely embraced the fact that he was once a laughing stock, thereby making himself cool and self-effacing. David E. Kelley is much better as a surrealist and a comic writer in my opinion anyway, and if you don't believe me watch Robert Downey Jr. on Ally McBeal--amazing. Anyway, on tonight's (rerun) Tom Selleck played the ex-husband of Candice Bergen (who is a lot better looking than her age would indicate, as would the fact that she dated Kissinger). Now, you and I both know that Tom Selleck is known for being Magnum P.I. and having a mustache, and to be fair those two things are pretty much tied together. Well, in this episode his mustache looked immaculate as always, but he had grown in a goatee that looked about half as old as the mustache, which gave it an oddly asymmetrical quality that I found unnerving. My only conclusion is that someone told Selleck to grow the goatee, but this bothered me--Tom Selleck's mustache is iconic. He's worn it proudly for decades . In spite of it falling from fashion favour, he's stuck by it because he's not one of these "shave and run" Hollywood types. He's earned that mustache. So lay off, mustache-anistas. Selleck knows what he's doing. Let's have some faith in him.
Thursday, May 25, 2006
An Inconvenient, but altogether needed, Truth
I wasn't allowed to vote in the 2000 election, but if I could I might have voted for George Bush. This may shock people who know me, as they probably wouldn't call me a conservative, but at the time I didn't really like Al Gore. He struck me in much the same way he struck everyone else--dry, a bit wooden, unable to effectively communicate his role in the preceding 8 years of prosperity and good will. But another reason might be that he didn't fully stress an issue he had dedicated so much of his life as a public servant to: the environment. Since leaving office 8 years ago, Gore has relaunched himself as the crusader for the planet he had been before with his film on the dangers of global warming entitled 'An Inconvenient Truth.' I've done a little reading into it, and my eyes popped.
Diseases like malaria spreading to new areas, an increase in the intensity and frequency of hurricanes, melting of ice caps that could flood coastal areas, droughts, fires, hundreds of thousands of deaths. If Al Gore had related this to people when he was running for President he could have scared people shitless as to what will happen if we don't do something. I'm not a very liberal person, or rather I've met a lot of people in college who are self-proclaimed liberals and they annoy me, but this seems like an issue that should be central to Presidential campaigns. I also don't agree with people who say that the environment is a radical left-wing, hippy tree-hugger issue. It's about life and death. The environment is tied to energy policy, which is tied to national security policy, defense policy, economic policy, trade policy. It's also the starkest and most scary 30 second commercial you can make:
Your children are going to die in an enormous fire, or be drowned in a flood, or be killed by a bizarre disease because the other guy doesn't want to stop global warming. He doesn't even think it's real. But your kid dying--that's real.
I just made that up right now. It would sink a candidate who is still debating if global warming even exists. I like that Al Gore is a ballsy guy, but it pains me that on the campaign he never came across as anything other than supremely scripted and terrified that people would paint him with the "slick, equivocating, philanderer" brush that had been used to tar Clinton. Not having to run for anything tends to help with honesty and objectivity. Knowing all that I know now about Al Gore and George Bush, I would have voted for Gore. That being said, I hope he doesn't run, because he is doing a lot of good being unburdened with an election. He can educate more people and raise the level of debate if he is a fire-breathing outsider. Can he sometimes be a bit over the top? Sure, but I'd prefer he continue to throw haymakers than dampen it so much that he's a wet noodle.
Please, Al: don't run for President. Just do what you do now, make me think.
Diseases like malaria spreading to new areas, an increase in the intensity and frequency of hurricanes, melting of ice caps that could flood coastal areas, droughts, fires, hundreds of thousands of deaths. If Al Gore had related this to people when he was running for President he could have scared people shitless as to what will happen if we don't do something. I'm not a very liberal person, or rather I've met a lot of people in college who are self-proclaimed liberals and they annoy me, but this seems like an issue that should be central to Presidential campaigns. I also don't agree with people who say that the environment is a radical left-wing, hippy tree-hugger issue. It's about life and death. The environment is tied to energy policy, which is tied to national security policy, defense policy, economic policy, trade policy. It's also the starkest and most scary 30 second commercial you can make:
Your children are going to die in an enormous fire, or be drowned in a flood, or be killed by a bizarre disease because the other guy doesn't want to stop global warming. He doesn't even think it's real. But your kid dying--that's real.
I just made that up right now. It would sink a candidate who is still debating if global warming even exists. I like that Al Gore is a ballsy guy, but it pains me that on the campaign he never came across as anything other than supremely scripted and terrified that people would paint him with the "slick, equivocating, philanderer" brush that had been used to tar Clinton. Not having to run for anything tends to help with honesty and objectivity. Knowing all that I know now about Al Gore and George Bush, I would have voted for Gore. That being said, I hope he doesn't run, because he is doing a lot of good being unburdened with an election. He can educate more people and raise the level of debate if he is a fire-breathing outsider. Can he sometimes be a bit over the top? Sure, but I'd prefer he continue to throw haymakers than dampen it so much that he's a wet noodle.
Please, Al: don't run for President. Just do what you do now, make me think.
LOST but not found
Since I started watching it on DVD in January, LOST has become my favorite TV show, supplanting 24 as my example of how better entertainment is coming out of TV than movies. Today was the season 2 finale, and this show is slowly replacing breathing and eating as the most important functions in my life. Watching LOST is soon to be an autonomic function of my mind as I try to unravel LOST's mind-bending quality by combing websites created by the show's producers meant to give hints, reading forums created by fans, and esposuing my cockamamie theories to anyone who will listen. If you aren't watching this show, you should be, but know that it will take over your mind like a virus.
I...can't...stop
I...can't...stop
Monday, May 22, 2006
Long Live the King
Since returning to my house here in the States after 4 months away, I feel like the King returned to his kingdom after exile. The past three days, I have stalked this house with a strong sense of my territory under foot, and it feels great.
In a way, coming back to my house is something of a microcosm of coming to America. The student flat I spent the past four months in was small. I had a tiny bedroom that I shared with Bryce, small bathroom, and even though I had a sizable kitchen and a decent living room, it had a cramped feel. It had plus points--a lot of light and a cool location--but after living in a large penthouse last semester it was a bit of a shock. I got used to it though, and through my travels in Europe I became acclimated to smaller rooms, minor inconveniences like sporadic hot water, and having only five television channels. I adjusted to having hard water, not having a dryer, and slow to non-existent internet connection. I dealt with it because I was living in a city I loved, having the time of my life, and there was a pub approximately 6 feet from my door, and another on the corner. Now, my house and America at large display that shocking abundance that visitors always remark on. My room here feels comparable in size to my entire flat. I have a fridge full of food. Instead of a 13" tv with five channels, I have a 65" tv with 700 channels. I can kind of understand how Europeans feel when Americans complain about inconveniences in Europe--our entire perspective can be a bit out of whack. I am starting to wonder if America's love for all that is enormous isn't a bit toxic, and if I'm not a bit tainted by it. It is the land of plenty for sure, and while I enjoy it, there was something oddly satisfying about that spartan lifestyle I left across the pond. It wasn't an ashram, but it was less that I was used to, and the minor asceticism of it appealed to me. When so much is available, do we lose those small pleasures--a pint and some good banter in a pub? Maybe I ought to scale back the luxury a bit, or at very least stop making this sound like a narrative from Sex and the City.
This is my 100th blog post--and the bizarre rantings continue unabated.
Watching: Entourage on HBO on Demand--can't get enough of it.
In a way, coming back to my house is something of a microcosm of coming to America. The student flat I spent the past four months in was small. I had a tiny bedroom that I shared with Bryce, small bathroom, and even though I had a sizable kitchen and a decent living room, it had a cramped feel. It had plus points--a lot of light and a cool location--but after living in a large penthouse last semester it was a bit of a shock. I got used to it though, and through my travels in Europe I became acclimated to smaller rooms, minor inconveniences like sporadic hot water, and having only five television channels. I adjusted to having hard water, not having a dryer, and slow to non-existent internet connection. I dealt with it because I was living in a city I loved, having the time of my life, and there was a pub approximately 6 feet from my door, and another on the corner. Now, my house and America at large display that shocking abundance that visitors always remark on. My room here feels comparable in size to my entire flat. I have a fridge full of food. Instead of a 13" tv with five channels, I have a 65" tv with 700 channels. I can kind of understand how Europeans feel when Americans complain about inconveniences in Europe--our entire perspective can be a bit out of whack. I am starting to wonder if America's love for all that is enormous isn't a bit toxic, and if I'm not a bit tainted by it. It is the land of plenty for sure, and while I enjoy it, there was something oddly satisfying about that spartan lifestyle I left across the pond. It wasn't an ashram, but it was less that I was used to, and the minor asceticism of it appealed to me. When so much is available, do we lose those small pleasures--a pint and some good banter in a pub? Maybe I ought to scale back the luxury a bit, or at very least stop making this sound like a narrative from Sex and the City.
This is my 100th blog post--and the bizarre rantings continue unabated.
Watching: Entourage on HBO on Demand--can't get enough of it.
Friday, May 19, 2006
Fin
Today is my last day in London. As I've mentioned in previous entries, it is a bittersweet moment. I have loved my semester here. London is the only city other than New York that I can imagine myself ever living in. Maybe in dire straits San Francisco. Anyway, I am a bit sad to go, but I am also ready to go. At the start of the program here, I was a bit wary and it took me a week or so to really jump in with both feet. I was either homesick or had a viral infection, but I had a knot in my stomach for the first 5 days. I had to shake out of it and really enjoy London, and once I did I fell in love. I've already chronicled all the things I like about London, so I'll spare you that. Suffice it to say that if you do want to visit London, don't fall into the trap of having to see only the major tourist spots like Tower Bridge and Buckingham Palace. Do the slightly out of the way things--pick a neighborhood and walk through it. Without question, the most rewarding parts of my trip have been when I grabbed my camera and devoured a neighborhood: Mayfair, St. John's Wood, Kensington, Primrose Hill, Soho, Islington, Brixton. I could go on, but there is no better way to get to know a city. London, I'll miss you. If New York is my wife, then you are surely my mistress, and even though you're elegant and intoxicating, I love my wife too much to leave her.
New York: I'm coming home.
New York: I'm coming home.
Sunday, May 07, 2006
A Long Kiss Goodnight
It has been too long for me to justify my reasons for not writing a blog, so I won't bother. Last month I was on holiday to Belgium, Denmark, and the Netherlands and had an incredible time in all those places. I highly suggest you visit Copenhagen, a thoroughly charming and beautiful city that once was the seat of power in all of Scandinavia. I like the quiet and unassuming nature of the city. It has an enormous palace, but overall it is quite understated. Plus, it has a mermaid.
Belgium is a smaller and less hyperactive version of Paris, with its pretty streets and curiously rude waiters. When it comes to Belgian chocolate, believe the hype. It is not to be missed, but I don't think you should go unless you plan to eat your weight in chocolate and drink your volume in beer. When vacationing in Europe, excess is the name of the game, and one should embrace the joie de vivre of it all.
Finally, Amsterdam's canals and street life are incredibly lively, but I am probably the only American, and definitely the only American student, who was put-off by the Red Light District. Open air prostitution is ugly business, literally, and Amsterdam seems to be trapped by its permissive attitude. Nobody wants their city full of British, American and Canadian students smoking pot in the streets (everyone knows it reeks) and generally being disorderly, but Amsterdam has to accept it, as tolerance and a liberal ethos are its cross to bear. Sad, because I could probably do with less of it. It's not as if other world cities provide no avenues for the illicit pursuits, but they have the good sense to hide it away somewhere. Plus, as a long time advocate of liberalizing societies rules on "harmful behaviors" it was a bit saddening to see what a completely open society would look like. Other than that, Amsterdam's monuments and canal tours were quite nice. I saw the world's narrowest house, which was probably about a meter wide. It is the weird shit like that which interests me.
I have less than two weeks in London, and that is a cause of great sadness to me. I really like London, and British people especially. I am thankful that I was able to chat with ordinary Britons, in cafes and pubs and on the bus and while in the queue for anything. I find them witty and kind and always eager to chat. I've long had an imagined love affair with Brits, and it was incredible to have all my greatest hopes realized. London is, sorry to my American friends, a much prettier city than New York, and I often wonder (both silently and aloud) why New York has so few squares/parks, seeing how they beautify an area and lift the spirits. A few Bedford Squares, or even a Soho Square, imported to New York would do a concrete jungle some good by including just a touch more jungle. If I had my way, I could jet between New York and London on a whim and bunk up in some posh Chelsea hotel, but alas it cannot be. I will have to content myself with the thought that in the last thousand years, London has lasted and I hope to see it thrive again in the next thousand. Of course, this is not my final love letter to London, but I guess I am missing it prematurely.
Last week of classes, and if you are an American student who is already done with school know that I am wishing such a symphony of pain for you Puccini himself would be stunned.
Song: Gnarls Barkley "Crazy" Totally huge here in London, and I imagine it is getting some buzz in the states
Belgium is a smaller and less hyperactive version of Paris, with its pretty streets and curiously rude waiters. When it comes to Belgian chocolate, believe the hype. It is not to be missed, but I don't think you should go unless you plan to eat your weight in chocolate and drink your volume in beer. When vacationing in Europe, excess is the name of the game, and one should embrace the joie de vivre of it all.
Finally, Amsterdam's canals and street life are incredibly lively, but I am probably the only American, and definitely the only American student, who was put-off by the Red Light District. Open air prostitution is ugly business, literally, and Amsterdam seems to be trapped by its permissive attitude. Nobody wants their city full of British, American and Canadian students smoking pot in the streets (everyone knows it reeks) and generally being disorderly, but Amsterdam has to accept it, as tolerance and a liberal ethos are its cross to bear. Sad, because I could probably do with less of it. It's not as if other world cities provide no avenues for the illicit pursuits, but they have the good sense to hide it away somewhere. Plus, as a long time advocate of liberalizing societies rules on "harmful behaviors" it was a bit saddening to see what a completely open society would look like. Other than that, Amsterdam's monuments and canal tours were quite nice. I saw the world's narrowest house, which was probably about a meter wide. It is the weird shit like that which interests me.
I have less than two weeks in London, and that is a cause of great sadness to me. I really like London, and British people especially. I am thankful that I was able to chat with ordinary Britons, in cafes and pubs and on the bus and while in the queue for anything. I find them witty and kind and always eager to chat. I've long had an imagined love affair with Brits, and it was incredible to have all my greatest hopes realized. London is, sorry to my American friends, a much prettier city than New York, and I often wonder (both silently and aloud) why New York has so few squares/parks, seeing how they beautify an area and lift the spirits. A few Bedford Squares, or even a Soho Square, imported to New York would do a concrete jungle some good by including just a touch more jungle. If I had my way, I could jet between New York and London on a whim and bunk up in some posh Chelsea hotel, but alas it cannot be. I will have to content myself with the thought that in the last thousand years, London has lasted and I hope to see it thrive again in the next thousand. Of course, this is not my final love letter to London, but I guess I am missing it prematurely.
Last week of classes, and if you are an American student who is already done with school know that I am wishing such a symphony of pain for you Puccini himself would be stunned.
Song: Gnarls Barkley "Crazy" Totally huge here in London, and I imagine it is getting some buzz in the states
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