Rock musicians are supposed to be nuts

If you've not yet heard the new Amy Winehouse/Mark Ronson single Valerie, you should click on that link and dig it. It is a cover of the Zuton's version from 2006, but who says cover versions are inherently inferior? Certainly not me. These two have created an infectious pop beat that is hard to resist. I consider it a duty of mine to bring some good music out there to the people, and while Winehouse and Ronson are by no means recluses, this song could easily escape the ears of the non-discerning statesider. This is not to fault her at all, but Winehouse is primarily covered here as a boozy wastrel, which is a damn shame because she is an incredible vocalist who should not be reduced to such easy caricatures. So what if she does too many drugs and drinks too much? That is what rock musicians are supposed to do. Give me that junkie with pipes over the pious and crashingly bland Hillary Duff any day.

My computer is giving me a hard time right now, but I could not live with myself if I did not try to get that song out to the world. And yes, for the purposes of that example, the world is defined as those who read my blog. All 11 of you.

In Manhattan did Tad O'Shea, A stately citrus squeeze decree

At the risk of sounding like a Seinfeld stand-up routine, when did eating establishments start taking your name when you order something? I can't imagine this is any more efficient than just doing what they've always done at New York cafes/delis: yell out the items you've ordered with a vaguely menacing look on their face that suggests any further delays in your retrieval of the order will entitle you to a side order of warm spit with your meal.

This new name game is particularly annoying for people like me, who have names that approximately 0% of New Yorkers can spell on the first try. When I go to Jamba Juice, I don't want to give the clerk a lesson on South East Indian phonetics, and how the letter "t" before a vowel is pronounced with a "th" sound, whereas a final "t" is more of a hard stop. Again, I have to ask if this is any real improvement in service time, which is all customers at these establishments care about. If this was some lame marketing guy's idea of building "brand loyalty" or something, it would only confirm everything I think about people who work in marketing, which is that they view the populace as a bunch of lurching, mindless clumps who will patronize a restaurant because the staff calls them by name. You know what I do when someone gives me a coffee that I've ordered and then addresses me by name? I give them the obligatory thanks and a half-smile: the kind where my lips form a grin but my eyes remain steely and dead. I sure as hell don't think Trent and I are going to be friends, and if you do, you're probably the kind of person who chats with every cashier you interact with and then friends them on Facebook with some lame comment like, "Hey Jill, those khakis really worked out great. Thanks a bundle! ;)" I hate those people.

What happens whenever I go to a name-check establishment is that I have to give a fake, monosyllabic name that cannot be messed up by anyone with two functioning brain lobes. Recent favorites include: Chad, Brad, Tad, and Dad. The last one was pretty funny, if only to hear the guy who made my Berry Blast at Jamba ask for it to be picked up--Dad? Berry Blast for Dad?

Do away with giving out your name at these places, and failing that, give out names of television characters or historical figures. I'm looking forward to trying out Indiana Jones and Kublai Khan.

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Contango and backwardation

It's been just shy of 7 weeks since I've posted on this blog, and my only excuse is to say that I've been working so much that during the week I don't know where I am most of the time and certainly can't be bothered to put together full sentences, and during the weekend am in a state of relaxation so profound it can easily be mistaken for catatonia. But let's not dwell on that.

Summer for most people is a time to relax, sleep late and just generally loaf about with a sort of blissful frivolity that underscores the absolute open-endedness of it all. Not for me however. I am up and heading for the office at about 6:55, and am clacking away at the keyboard at 7:25. I step off the desk to end the day at 8:00, and in between I work very hard and learn some cool stuff. Look up the terms that comprise the title of this post and you'll see what I mean. I think finance is a cool place to be, and definitely being around a place where alternative investments get so much play means you can easily learn a lot if you are willing to read a little bit and not be afraid to ask stupid questions. This demanding work leaves little time for my friends, but I do what I can when I can. I am getting an idea of what my life will look like in about a year when I work full time--living for the weekend. But if you get to work around some cool people for those 12-13 hours you are in the office, it can be pretty great. My point is, don't pity the banker for all the work he does and how exhausted he is at the end of the day, because odds are that deep down he really likes it.

Moral Relativism Makes Good Television

As I try to soak up every drop of my last week before work, I find myself slowly dipping my toe into financial interests, almost to gradually reintroduce structure into my days. I start my internship in Private Banking in one week, and since Sunday have thrown myself fully into the DVD collection of a show from the mid 1990s called Profit.

I have no doubt that the deeply disturbing and villainous nature of the show's main character (even within the framework of his job in a conglomerate/acquisitions firm) is the reason it lasted only 4 episodes. He is an inveterate corporate climber, and the textbook definition of a bone chilling sociopath. The show is an incredibly well crafted piece of drama--the two hour pilot alone qualifies as a fantastic film--and was clearly ahead of its time, as today characters like Tony Soprano are accepted into our living rooms. But while The Sopranos is about moral ambiguity, Profit is resolutely amoral. Jim Profit, played magnificently by Adrian Pasdar, is a fascinating character precisely because he is blithely unconcerned with societal conceptions of morals in his pursuit of the position as President of Acquisitions. He freely uses extortion, bribery, psychological torture, and even murder to accomplish his goals, and the questions "Is this right or wrong?" are ignored. Profit doesn't consider or care about how others are harmed by his actions--it's simply not part of his calculus in decisions. There is something incredibly terrifying and Ayn Rand-ian about that. Profit's exterior--well mannered and groomed, Harvard and Wharton educated, seemingly sympathetic and compassionate--is equally menacing, precisely because it is an artifice. He has no actual personality, so he can exploit the full range of human emotion if the situation calls for it and it furthers his end game. If it suits him and his goals to be funny and charming, than he can be. But if he believes that he is better served by planting incriminating evidence and securing a life sentence for an innocent man, than so be it. I am amazed that a show with such a fundamentally scary character ever made it to air, but I'm very glad it did, as it provided me with some amusement and deep ruminations about morality over the past couple days.

Catch Profit on DVD if you can, although it will probably shake you up too much to sleep for a couple of days.

The Return of the King

Been a bit too long, but I had my 21st birthday and final exams to deal with, so sod it.

I'm done with another semester of college, and in the past 24 hours, I've watched three episodes of News Radio, two of The Thick of It, the last episode of Entourage, and one episode of The Larry Sanders Show. I've also started reading The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright. This always happens when I come home--I consume a crazy amount of media. Probably because in that two to three week period before I start working for the summer, I get bored being home and by myself. At school, I can usually talk to one of my roommates or meet a friend for coffee(I also drink more coffee when I'm here). I don't mind it too much, as I've always been someone who is reading three books simultaneously and watching a tv show while I do it.

I also read more news online when I'm at home. So far today, I've read/browsed The New York Times, The New Republic, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, and The National Review. I am always a little bit surprised when I find myself reading The National Review, because every once in a while I think it's a good magazine, but most of the time I think it is hysterical. I imagine that is a fun place to observe as a fly on the wall, because the clash of one's world view with reality is a staggeringly sad thing to witness.

Not my best, but I'm getting back into the swing of it.

Is that dude Indian?

There is some weird and profoundly unfunny show that I am sampling on ABC right now called "Notes from the Underbelly." I have no real defense for watching it for these past 10 minutes. I do find it interesting that there is one character who is Indian. There are no Indian characters that I know of in prime time comedy or dramas, and this is from a guy who watches a lot of television. I was sort of proud of this--Indians are a small part of America's population but seeing as most television shows take place in New York and California, where millions of Indians live, it is a bit weird. I mean, with the numbers of doctors and lawyers on TV, can I get a representative sample? Anyway, on this awful show "Notes from the Underbelly" one of the characters is Indian, but they named him Eric. What the hell is that about? You couldn't give him an Indian name? It's as if television producers don't think people can handle or understand Indian people unless they are called Eric or Chad?

Next Indian on prime time should be named Vijay. Or Sandeep. Make it real.

Art Is Not A Camel: The Perils of Creation By Committee

I've posted before about my man-love for Aaron Sorkin, the author of some of the best film and television work in the past 15 years. I was recently at a party talking about his recent show, Studio 60, when a fellow student seemed surprised that I liked the show. "It gets such bad ratings." I simply shot back "That just means a lot of people don't watch it, not that it isn't good." It seems so simple, but people forget it--television ratings and box office receipts are poor prisms by which to judge the quality of film and television art. I've never understood this metric, and Sorkin seems to agree. In an interview he gave to Charlie Rose in 2003, after quitting his show "The West Wing", he noted that the ratings of shows and box office figures of movies are regularly printed in the arts sections of newspapers. This is a oddity, because the ratings of a show are not really the purview of the arts section, which should be telling readers what the show is about and offering a commentary on the writing, direction, and story. The ratings, while supremely important to the multi-billion dollar companies that air the shows, are of no logical consequence to viewers. In fact, Sorkin asks if it is even more insidious that than--mentioning the ratings is in fact a corrosive factor. The implication of praising a show for having high ratings is that a program should be watched because other people watch it, and that you should avoid programs that nobody else is tuning in to see. This acts a powerful and dangerous self-fulfilling prophesy, as positive press coverage for a ratings success fosters more of it, and lambasting a show for its low ratings is the rough equivalent of beheading a prisoner already on his knees. I understand that there is fun to be had in a show being part of a larger public consciousness, but as a journalistic practice for newspapers it encourages a bizarre herd-mentality. The quality of a show, its story telling and acting, are not diminished by low ratings. And even more frightening, an obsessive tracking of it in the press discourages the networks who pay to produce these shows from creating bold and original programming. They instead spiral into efforts to endlessly replicate previous hit shows, in so doing homogenizing all television, and greatness rarely springs from monotony.

Today, I saw the movie "The TV Set", a savage and wicked satire of network television by Jake Kasdan, one of the writers of NBC's critically acclaimed but criminally unpopular "Freaks and Geeks." I think everyone who watches, and often laments, American television should see this film if only to see how the ceaseless quest for ratings leads to a paralyzing fear of interesting and thoughtful art. Sigourney Weaver plays the ass-kicking network president who says things "Originality scares me, you don't want to be too original" and "We've done the research, and suicide is depressing to, like, 82% of everybody." Her mindset is sadly typical in the landscape of television. The film is also brilliant in its depiction of how good drama or comedy has its edges blunted and its wit dulled by a series of small compromises instead of tectonic shifts--all in an effort make the final product a little more palatable to the under-35 demo, a little more appealing to suburban women in Missouri. If you make enough changes to please enough people, the resulting watered down soup pleases nobody--the ultimate moral of this film. David Duchovny plays the writer of a pilot being produced--a black comedy about the return of the prodigal son to his hometown after his brother's suicide. A desire to finally see his show made coupled with financial pressures lead Duchovny to acquiesce to his project's death by a thousand cuts. The final product is a barely recognizable whithered husk of its former self. This movie should be seen by as many people as possible as a look at how bad television is extracted from good television, and as an inspiration against the forces of compromise, mediocrity, and resignation. It is a good movie, regardless of its box office numbers.

(I suggest you watch the Sorkin interview on google video, you can find it by searching "aaron sorkin charlie rose" and click the link for Sorkin and Anthony Zuiker)

Sometimes, it's not even a shot away

This morning, I finished watching a movie I started about 3 months ago, Layer Cake, starring a pre-bond Daniel Craig. I can say it was one of the best gangster movies I've seen in a long time. London crime films are very satisfying, and psychologically gratifying to me, because London never strikes me as a crime city. Living there for a semester, I tended to view everything through rose colored glasses. I was besotted with everything I saw, and it probably didn't hurt that I am naturally drawn to the posh, elegant areas of the city and didn't hang out at The Blind Beggar or other underworld establishments. I lived between Hyde Park and Regents Park for god's sake. However, there has always been a thriving gangster culture in London, and you would be mistaken to believe that British gangsters are like an episode of Mr. Bean Goes to the Mafia. They are hard-bitten and control illicit industries with iron fists, even if they are sheathed in velvet. Never is this more clear than in Layer Cake, which has been praised for its realistic portrayal of drug dealing specifically and of crime syndicates in London generally. It is an very complex and engaging film that is only marred, albeit slightly, by the wholly needless presence of Sienna Miller. Miller plays a floozy of indeterminate purpose who catches the eye of Craig's unnamed character. Her appearances on screen serve chiefly to allow the film's producers to provide a paper thin pretext to have Craig expose his pectorals to the audience, and in so doing mesmerize every women (and most men) in an 8 mile radius. Even heterosexual men like myself cannot deny his magnetism that draws both on physical other-worldliness and the raw confidence he portrays--GQ does pieces on "man crushes" because of men like Daniel Craig. To describe the film's plot would risk giving something away, because it twists like an Italian Formula 1 course, but you should see it (but not with your girlfriend if you want to stay together).

This evening, I also watched the highlights of my other new favorite gangster film, The Departed. I've already written about this movie back in October, when I saw it, but I was reminded today how much Martin Scorsese loves the song "Gimme Shelter" by the Rolling Stones. It features in Goodfellas, Casino, and at least twice in The Departed. The reason I noticed it especially here was because it is also featured in one of Miller and Craig's more amorous moments in Layer Cake. Something about this song attracts gangster filmmakers, good movies, or it is just a fortuitous confluence of events for fans of the song like me. I'm not going to look too deeply into it, because if you learn nothing from Layer Cake and The Departed, now this--If you go looking for trouble, you're sure as hell going to find it.

El Mundo Nuevo

Next week, I will be taking a vacation with my roommates to La Republica Dominicana for a seven day, six night tour of mayhem and debauchery. I never liked when travel advertisements do that thing where they compartmentalize the trip--it seems weird to me. But the real point is that I will be sitting in warm climates, relaxing with my friends, and exploring a native culture.

If I were not confident that my readers already knew that I am an enormous nerd, I would feel self-conscious about revealing my excitement at visiting one of the places that Christopher Columbus established as a settlement. As a corollary, I think if you are not enthused at that idea, you have either no appreciation for history or you're comatose. Either way, you would not make a good travel companion. I happen to think Columbus was a megalomaniac and his actions contributed to the deaths of thousands of indigenous people, but he is indisputably significant, and his voyages are worth knowing about, and the notion that I will be standing on land that was "The New World" makes me want to give someone a blanket of small pox. I'm kidding, I don't even think they make those anymore. After that we'll be luxuriating in a resort and enjoying all the trappings of wealthy foreigners. I'll be doing my best to pump money into the island at an alarming rate, as I'm fairly confident that the spending shock that will ensue upon our arrival will push so much money into the economy that we'll cause huge inflationary pressure that could ultimately destabilize the regime. That's how hard I'll be throwing down.

After we leave, you might want to look into the Dominican Republic--we'll make it cheap for you.

Best Artist To Use The Word Colostomy In Her Lyrics

Lily Allen is one of the latest iterations of Myspace popstars, but unlike artists like Cassie, Allen is pretty good. I know hipsters that read this will castigate me for coming so late to the party, but I would defend myself by saying that I've actually been listening to Lily Allen since the summer of 2006. When I was in London last spring, I heard rumblings of her, and because she's certainly not shy of making her views on other artists known the press likes to comment on her to see what scathing remarks she'll make about Kylie, Bob Geldoff, or cocaine. I really like how incredibly off-the-cuff she is, and I especially like that she doesn't change her behavior after getting into "trouble" for it. (I put trouble in quotes because being rebuked by catty journalists is a badge of honor for artists). If you read her interviews or watch her on telly, you'll realize that she's a brassy chick--I dig it. If I had any quibble with her it would be that she acts like chav when she's really from a rich family and went to Bedales. No shame in being rich, Lily--especially if you keep singing amazing parodies (that even work as stand alone songs) like Window Shopper. I've listened to this song about 47 times today, and I love it more each time, especially because the song it parodies is an absolutely awful Fifty Cent tune.



Lily Allen, I hope you forgive me for lending you my support, as it will make you seem a lot less cool and indie.



Après moi, le déluge.

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Apathy meets Shamelessness

I saw an advertisement for the movie School for Scoundrels that had the tagline "Bad Santa meets Napoleon Dynamite." This seems like the absolute laziest way to market a film--to pick two movies that the film's lead actors starred in and describe their new movie as a hybrid of the previous two. It really bothered me that some marketing or studio exec flipped that off in 15 seconds and then went to Balthazar for an expensed account lunch.



Although it would be a pretty sweet gig if I could get it.

But Not Tired of Irony.

Mitt Romney declares his candidacy for President in Michigan, proclaiming "We are weary of the bickering and bombast, we’re fatigued by the posturing and self-promotion." This is a well-intentioned and widely held belief, but it is somewhat undercut by the image of Romney bemoaning self-promotion while standing over a plaque emblazoned with MittRomney.com

You couldn't make it funnier if you workshopped it for a month.

The Calming Effects of Dyer

A little rule, a little sway,
A sunbeam in a winter's day,
Is all the proud and mighty have
Between the cradle and the grave.

That is from John Dyer's poem Grongar Hill. I think it is a beautiful quote that more people should view their lives through. It sounds fatalistic to some, but I rather like the idea that little of what I do matters in the grand scheme of time and the universe. In a thousand years from now, if I am not remembered or venerated, I would not be bothered. I am content to carve out meaning for my life in the small sphere where it exists, and do not require some larger understanding of what it all means and why we're all here. I don't know precisely why I was thinking of all this, but it struck me today as I studied for an exam.

I remember watching an interview with biologist and anti-theist Richard Dawkins, and he was asked by an Irish Catholic audience member if (loosely paraphrased) 'there is no God and no meaning or purpose to the universe, isn't that horribly depressing?' Dawkins countered that if there is no design or purpose to our existence on this planet, it is in fact liberating, because now we can all create our own purpose--pursue our own plans or goals and dreams, and not have to work towards some determined endgame. It is this interview that I probably had in mind when I came across Dyer's quote again today, because it says that being rich and powerful is transient. I regard ephemeral wealth and power as a pursuit unworthy of serious effort once the wealth surpasses the scope of modest comforts like comfortable chairs and nice shoes.

I look forward to deciding on my purpose and attacking it with gusto, but now I am going to sleep. For all I know, my purpose may be to sleep and browse the Internet to absorb random and spurious trivia. I hope it is that, because I'm quite good at that as we speak.

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Trader Joe for America 2008

There is currently only one Trader Joe's grocer in Manhattan, and it happens to be close enough to me that I can visit it almost anytime that I want. Up until a year ago, Whole Foods dominated this neighborhood's demand for food and pretension, but Trader Joe's has them beaten by a country mile. Customers are spilling out of this store at all hours of the day and night, so much so that when I tried to get the inside dope and asked a cashier when the best time to do my shopping would be, he shot me a look that suggested that he thought he was dealing with a newbie--an arriviste. I said, "You know, when is prime time, so I can avoid it?" He simply said, "It's prime time from open to close, baby." Normally I don't like being called baby by guys named Fabrice who I've just met, but here it felt appropriate.



Fabrice was right though. I've switched it up in every permutation I can imagine, and I can almost never outsmart the beast. TJ's is packed to the gills constantly, but they've manged to stay one step ahead of this curve. If you get on the express line, which I always do because shopping for more than 12 items at a time is a bit much to carry, you can shop from the line. Basically, you call out items you'd like (Tangerine juice, goat cheese, flaxseed oil) and a peon brings it to you. It keeps the store from being congested, and the lines move remarkably fast. The store has something like 20 registers, and they turn these cats out like nobody's business. Actually, to be more accurate it is Joe's business. The line can snake to the doors, and you won't be there more than 15-20 minutes. This post is not a rant or anything, it is more of a valentine to the logisitical genius that is Trader Joe's.



Congratulations on the Manhattan store's stunning profitability. Lord know's you've earned it Joe/Jacques/Giotto.

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The Unasked Questions

This blog post is to remind those who have stumbled upon this page that I'm still here. College classes are doing their level best to bury me, but I'm quite indomitable. Or indefatigable. I'm not really sure what either of those words mean, but they have a certain strong quality about them, so I'm just going to let it hang out there, and hope you've skipped this part of the post.



This new program for Mozilla called 'Performancing' is quite nice. It lets me blog from any page--no need to log in to Blogger. It also contains some nice features which I'll have to explore more fully in the future.



Rich and I spent a good amount of time tonight watching "To Catch A Predator" on NBC. It is a show that certainly stirs debate. Obviously, men who prey on children need prison or psychiatric help, and there is untold good to be had by removing them from our streets. On the other hand, when watching the show you notice that the men are always charged with attempting a lewd act with a minor. Is there no stronger charge that can be leveled against them? If so, why isn't it being used? And if not, does that mean that what these men are doing doesn't provide enough evidence to warrant more serious penalties? How many of these men are convicted of the charges they're arrested on? I'd like more data on the results of this show.



What is beyond dispute is the abject absurdity that is the program's host, Chris Hansen. The man looks like the captain of the lacrosse team who is pretending to be a journalist. He is far to coiffed and tanned to be a journalist, as it suggests he spends the preponderance of his time doing pilates rather than chasing down leads, burning up the phone lines, writing blistering copy, and other newsroom movie cliches. I would be rather surprised to find the man speaking without a script. His chief qualification for being a television personality is an undying and ceaseless quest to tell you [the predator and the viewer at home] that he is Chris Hansen, from Dateline NBC. Even when the man in the sting has confessed that he recognizes our host, and even correctly identifies the program, Blonde-bot 4000 looks dazed and bleats out "I'm Chris Hansen, from Dateline NBC." Only then does the look of smugness and assurance wash back to his face, knowing that he didn't go off-book for too long and that he's back in his comfort zone.



The show, while controversial in many ways, is worth watching if only to see if Hansen short circuits at the prospect of not audibly identfying himself to a camera. Make some popcorn and check it out.

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The Real Politik World

This is the best NY Times article I've read in a long time, as it reinforces something I've long hoped for, which is that politicians are more like regular people then we might have guessed. The very notion of 2 US Senators, powerful ones at that, and two Representatives living in one house during the work week is inherently hilarious. Throw in the fact that they fight about cereal and making the bed, and you've got the Odd Couple, if Felix and Oscar weren't a photographer and sports writer but instead voted on federal appropriations bills. I was also heartened with the evidence that these guys can be funny, and are certainly funnier than I imagined senators and congressmen were. Read it, you'll like it. Or not, what do I care?

The title might be a bit obvious, but sometimes we sacrifice creativity for the easy reference. We can't be brilliant all the time. (Note: In the previous sentence, the author employed the royal 'we.')

Never Mind The Why and Wherefore

I've been back at school for a few days now, and already my professors have this absurd notion that they can assign me reading to do. I had no idea they held such authority. I am researching the recourse I have to flatly refuse to do such work, but my guess would be that none exists.

After a streak of incredible, logic defying luck similar to that which explains the success of Sarah Jessica Parker, winter has arrived in Manhattan. We had it so good for so long, that when it made its presence felt on Tuesday, it was very much like getting smacked in the face by the icy hand of reality. To be fair, we were living in a fantasy world where a New York January involved 67 degree weather, ice cream vendors and flip flops. It was like living in Los Angeles; not something that anyone should find out they've done overnight. In a way, it is nice to see cold weather heralding the change of the seasons as it confirms that all is right with the world. But in another much larger and more real way it is not nice at all because we had very pleasant weather and now I'm living in frozen hellscape where my eyebrows freeze and are in danger of being broken off. It hardly seems fair.

And if that weren't enough, my kitchen cupboards are entirely bereft of tea. I've had to content myself with drinking water before writing this. That's no good for anyone. I'm a huge ponce, and I need tea before I sleep otherwise I feel like a poor person. Hoping against hope that I remember to pick some up tomorrow.

If you've defied my orders to watch the videos for Brothers in Arms, you've no excuse. The links are in the previous post. Watch them both, as they contextualize each other. Or some other word that makes sense in that sentence.

It Ain't Keats, But It Hits As Hard

I usually hate it when people post song lyrics in their e-mail or instant messages. Especially because most people pick terrible songs, like Dave Matthews or Spice Girls. However, I will break this normally firm rule in favor of the song "Brothers in Arms" by Dire Straits. Indeed, in this case I have done more than post lyrics, I've put up a link to the video, because I am a hypocrite and this song is one of the few that can make me emotional in any sense. I am ordinarily a robot about these kinds of things, but when I hear those last words, it chokes me up. If you really want to see craftsmanship at its finest, Aaron Sorkin used it in the season two finale of The West Wing, where the President has to admit that he covered up his MS and announce his intentions to seek a second term. It's quite a stirring scene, one of the best written by a man who has written so many great scenes. Watching the President's senior advisers walk through the West Wing of the White House together, marching beside a man who has given them so much, whom they view as a father, it recalls one of Sorkin's central themes in his work: the office as a family. These men and women are less coworkers are really are brothers in arms. This is that rarest of songs that can pull a sad string in me. If you watch that West Wing scene or hear this song, and upon reaching those last lines you don't feel that sense of melancholy or regret over the tragic inevitability of things like war or those who sacrifice so much for so few, then you're a cynic and you've lost that empathy that makes living wonderful. I've long since abandoned the point of being over the top, and I know it isn't cool to be so moved by a Dire Straits song, but I am. Sue me.

Now the sun's gone to hell
And the moon's riding high
Let me bid you farewell
Every man has to die
But it's written in the starlight
And every line on your palm
We're fools to make war
On our brothers in arms

Urbane Ill Manners

As regular, medium, or grande readers of my blog may know, I spend a good amount of time developing ways to confuse or frustrate people I encounter in new social situations. I've previously described my penchant for inventing new words and using them in conversations. That works pretty well a lot of the time, but I find it can be too simple. I have been trying out an updated, and probably a bit meaner, version of this which I call "Name Drop"


Don't be fooled by the title, it has nothing to do with mentioning famous people I know, mostly because I don't know many famous people. Name Dropping here refers to repeatedly forgetting someone's name after recently being introduced to them, or in a more advanced form consistently replacing it with some (potentially absurd) substitute. This tends to provoke more of a reaction from women than it does from men, for reasons I couldn't prove but might be able to guess. Not very long ago I met a guy named Julius (unlikely, but it's true) and over the course of that evening I called him 'Barry', 'David' and 'Lars', and each time he would correct me by simply pointing at his chest and saying "Julius", which made me wonder if only his torso were named Julius and the rest of him was actually called "Lars". On the same night, I was introduced to a woman named Sandy. Now, I say woman, but she was probably about 19, and therefore on that cusp of questionable nomenclature. I'll use the term woman for no reason other than executive decision. Sandy is not a name I encounter often, but this only made the game more fun. In her case, I went as exotic as I could with the names. I pulled out a 'Greta', a risky move because Sandy was Asian and might realize that the fact I picked something so patently Swedish means I was playing some game. Fortunately, that didn't occur to her as she merely said in a very earnest way, "No, I'm Sandy. We met half an hour ago." I apologized profusely and moved away, pretending I saw someone I recognized. Later in the night, I came up to Sandy and said, "Hey Diane, we're about to leave if you want to come with us." As soon as the words escaped my lips, I wondered if this game might genuinely hurt her feelings. I doubted it, because my name has been mangled like it went through a combine harvester so many times in my life that I don't take it seriously, and I honestly don't believe someone being bad with names is some sort of character flaw, although I hear people confess it to me as though it were a meth addiction. But Sandy was not even mad, more confused, bemused, amused, but not used. She asked me, "Why do you keep messing up my name? It's Sandy." I was slightly shocked. Nobody ever has questioned me on this before, probably they just assume that I'm bad with names. But I've also built safeguards against through some basic strategic guidelines. It's a crucial element of the game to apologize sincerely after every "strike" to make sure there are no hard feelings. If you sense they're a bit miffed, you have to fly back to base camp before you decide to engage another target. Sandy gave me no impression that she found my antics anything but a minor annoyance, but now she asked me a question without anger, but genuine curiousity. Is it possible that I made her feel bad by implying that she wasn't important enough to remmeber? I couldn't just go on like this, treating people I've just met as playthings and making them doubt their worth as a human. I realized that it was probably best to be honest with her and tell her the truth, a rare moment of honesty and a chance for personal growth.


Luckily for me, I fought that instinct off and instead created some convoluted and thoroughly unbelievable story about how I can't remember names because as a child I ate too many carrots and they release some protease inhibitor that makes it hard for me to recognize and recall the names of objects or people. I told her that in restaurants this makes it hard for me to ask for simple things like "bread" because I first go through a minute of calling it "chimpanzee" and "tidal estuary". Amazingly, Sandy found this to be plausible enough to convince me that I got away with it. Sucker.



But as I think about it now, I can't really say why I play these games. Mostly, it's because they're fun, but also because I have a strange desire to stir things up and push, in a very small way, the boundries of social behavior. It's probably why I also like "Curb Your Enthusiasm" or Oscar Wilde and other comedies of manners. Manners are weird things, and all social conventions should be prodded and poked from time to time to see if they stand up or collapse like some popsicle stick structure that eight year olds build. I also secretly wonder what I would do if somebody snapped at me or cried because I called her 'Inga' instead of Jennifer. It would be a new and interesting social situation, one that I wouldn't feel that I've been in before. It would probably force me to be quick on my feet and diffuse a tense situation with humor, two things I love to do. I also derive secret but strong thrills from the feeling that I'm getting away with something, and the idea that I can purposely call someone by the wrong name or make up a word like "omnisentatious" and use it excites me in a very odd way. I don't really plan to stop, but I need a new way to amuse myself while playing with strangers. If you have any ideas, let me know. Keep in mind that I live in Manhattan, and as such have an endless supply of anonymous clumps lurching around the streets just waiting for me to vex them. Just throwing it out there.

Heliocentricism Is A Subject Of Debate

It's been a while since I posted, and while there is no good reason for it, you bloody scavengers get all this delicious content for free. In light of this, how about we just appreciate what we have and not emptily pine for the what may be?

New Year, same shit. The celebration of New Year's Eve is an odd construct, but an accepted one. I'm going to digress from my normal curmudgeonly style here, as you probably expected me to say "The celebration of the New Year is completely arbitrary and pointless, and we might as well just assign ourselves a day at random and at the stroke of midnight shove our fingers up our noses." I mean, that's sort of true. The New Year as we see it is not, in any cosmic sense, a new year. It's just a year since the last time we celebrated. Of course, a good party is always something to look forward to, but it's a bit strange to be told "December 31st is designated as a party night. You may all go home, get drunk with your friends, count backwards from 10, shout all at the same time and kiss the person next to you. But dammit, you better be here bright and early on January 2nd." Why couldn't we do that (the gathering and fun bit) whenever we wanted? It's a bizarre sort of externally imposed and rigidly timed joy. At 12:00:01, New Year's Day is just another day. For one second, we are permitted to have fun. I might be the only one, but it strikes me as a tad Orwellian. Maybe if the party lasted a bit longer, I wouldn't mind it so much. And this wasn't as much of a digression as initially advertised, so chew on that.

I also don't like New Year's Resolutions as a premise, as they rely on the supposition that there is something wrong with me and that I need to change. I don't feel that the alternative has been fully interrogated and disproved: that it is I who should remain at stasis and the world should adapt accordingly, a Me-centric universe wherein all other universal entities revolve about me as I clap and affix myself with a knowing grin. It seems a lot more likely than me making even the humblest of alterations to my heretofore demonstrably infallible existence.

If I were to turn the resolution lens at you, the audience, I would resolve for you to listen to me and my multifarious, albeit capricious, recommendations. That starts here, where I proclaim Liverpool band 'The Coral' a group to whom you would be wise to listen. Introduce yourself to the song 'Dreaming of You.' Get on that, would you?