Uniqueness Regained

In a very strange way, I'm glad Corzine didn't get reelected in New Jersey. Not that I like Chris Christie--I don't. I don't like anyone who's first and last name have the same root: Mike Michaels, Dave Davis, and even a guy names Jones van Jones.

No, my reason for not wanting Corzine to win was a result of the fact that by nature of being tall, a member of the Marine Corps, a former U.S. Senator, New Jersey Governor and multi-billionaire, he was basically my exact double. We have identical biographies and we were constantly getting confused at Sun Valley and Trilateral Commission meetings.

At last, that unpleasantness is over.

Noel Gallagher for Poet Laureate

There are many things that I'd like to know / There are many places that I wish to go / But everything's dependent on the way the wind may blow

I have no idea what that means, but I know that I like the sentiment. It's basically how I feel about Maya Angelou's work, but this has better guitar riffs.

A message worth remembering, but perhaps too often forgotten

St. Paul's first Epistle to the Corinthians: "St. Paul tells us from one spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jew or Gentile, bond or free, and have all been made to drink into one spirit. For the body is not one member but many. He tells us: 'The eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee; nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of thee.' Nay, much more those members of the body which seem to be more feeble . . . and those members of the body which we think of as less honorable—all are necessary. He says that there should be no schism in the body but that the members should have the same care one to another. And whether one member suffer all the members suffer with it."

If I can hand it in tomorrow it'll be all right

An excerpt from a highly entertaining, and penetratingly insightful, e-mail exchange with a friend about the factual discrepancies put forth by that imprimatur of all things teen-aged and 1992, Saved by the Bell.

Me: Zack's willingness to throw away Yale for the purpose of attending Cal U would only make sense in the context of a scholarship, but his Dad's ferrari and his status as an early adopter of the mobile phone obviates that option. Side QQ: If Saved by the Bell were set today, would Zack have an iPhone or Blackberry? I say Blackberry bc he'd probably be texting multiple girls at a time, and that's easier via Blackberry.
Zack's attendance at Cal U is completely unbelievable, as is the idea that Slater and Screech would go to the same college. Either Screech is willing to toss aside a successful career and all those years of studying (at severe risk to his social life) to go to college with his buddies, or Slater was a lot smarter than we thought.

But given his latently chauvinistic tendencies I doubt he was terribly bright. Not to mention unresolved Oedipal issues, given that we never saw his Mom and know he had a contentious relationship with his Dad over not wanting to join the Army, calling his girlfriend Momma starts making more sense.

Lillian:You're right that Zack was definitely wealthy enough to attend Yale, so the Cal U scenario doesn't really wash. I think Zack would have been a Blackberry man as well, it's a bit more "little black book" than the iPhone. By the way, "Little Black Book," with Brittany Murphy and Ron Livingston? Worst movie ever made. (Ed. note--Lillian is completely right. That movie is awful.) Slater attended Cal U on a wrestling scholarship, only to find out upon arrival that he was a very small fish in a very big wrestling pond, and needed to step up his game if he wanted to stay. He got a 1050 on his SATs, so he was obviously not the brightest crayon in the box, and, as you said, clearly had mommy issues. Screech's attendance was less easily explained, as he was the valedictorian

of Bayside High, but perhaps his decision was financially based. We never really knew much about his family life, did we? If we hadn't witnessed his whole junior and high school experience, I would have pegged him as a typical homeschooled kid.

Après moi, l'Excel!

I'm at a banking conference in Midtown today, and within 15 minutes see a woman using her Hermès scarf as a sling for a sprained arm. I also heard her suggest to a caterer that we all eat cake.

The lede for an article that is guaranteed to make me roll my eyes and not read it

Rik Hertzberg, who is a very well-respected columnist, has a blog posting on The New Yorker's website that I laughed at. I don't know quite why this was deemed relevant for social or political analysis.

Everybody has been saying that Obama is like Spock. What struck me more forcefully, though, was how much this movie's James T. Kirk resembles John S. McCain

Maybe this is just me, but I have very little tolerance for diving incredibly deep into pop culture arcana and trying to draw out complex, and too often ludicrously tenuous, links to "real world" events and people. The Wire is meant to be dissected and the allegories are intentional. But drawing links between Senator McCain and James Kirk and the current political landscape? Spare me.

You gotta keep the Devil way down in the hole

This phenomenal infographic shows what local law enforcement officials deemed the greatest threat to their respective communities. I think this is fascinating. Methamphetamines and cocaine look to be so overwhelmingly destructive, especially out West and in Florida (cocaine in Florida? Color me surprised). I'm equally fascinated at how in New Jersey and New York, heroin is judged to be less a concern than marijuana, but in New England everyone is shooting up like Miles Davis. Check this thing out, and the re-watch "The Wire" to be depressed about the state of the drug wars in this country.

I opposed the renovation work in Washington Square Park about 4 years ago, thinking that change here was a code word for soulless sanitization of an essential bohemian spirit. That spirit was part of what attracted me to NYU in the first place, and I was reluctant to see it altered. Over the years as renovation expanded, I realized that the disruptions were minimal and the park was still largely usable. I felt the wind slowly come out of my righteous sails.

Now, in May 2009 as I sit in the park, I feel chastened. The park is cleaner, more open, and still a place where people are lounging about with no discernible aim. It has managed to look, and certainly smell, vastly better while keeping what I always loved about it. To wit, a man stands just 20 paces from me with a comically large beard reciting passages from The New York Post, calling the former Vice President some horrible expletives.

Same as it ever was.

I count mine in intervals of 10,000

When I see cool little videos like this, I can't help but think that the internet is completely worth it.

Now I'm ready to offer full throated support.

Thanks to closed captioning, I now know that Roe v. Wade is about a woman's right to choose. It's not, as I previously thought, about a woman's right to Choo's.

Now I see what all the fuss is about.

Don't Stop Believing is the most downloaded song on iTunes recorded in the 20th century. Killer tune with pseudo-deep lyrics? That's a license to print money.

Portland seems like a lush and lovely paradise. I think I'd like everything about living in Portland except the smug assholes who live there.

Of all the pernicious -isms out there, I think we can agree elitism is the best. That or rectangular prisms.

Reason #4,323 why The Economist is my favorite news publication (Even when nobody is around)

On The Economist's Award winning US Politics blog (The Webby's are meaningless PR stunts, but I happen to agree with this one) Democracy in America, they have a category for political news stories termed "Complete Foolishness."

Wit and style, with a healthy disdain for the process of Politico gushing about how awesome Vanity Fair and Bloomberg parties are in a naked attempt to be invited.  You've got to appreciate that.

New Yorkers are nice to people they'd like to hook up with

Today on the train back to Manhattan, I witnessed a truly heart warming moment. An attractive Latina woman had forgotten her train ticket at the office, and was going to have to pay some $15 to pay for a new one on board. She struggled with her massive pocketbook that contained at least 3 back issues of Vogue to cobble together a few singles before looking up at the ticket collector with pleading eyes.
Miraculously, a young man sitting next to her offered to put her fare on his weekly ticket, saving her the fee. She was understandably effusive in her gratitude, and he tried mightily to wave it off as nothing, that he's always underwriting public transport for hot chicks. It took him a grand 2 minutes to ask for her name and suggested they grab a drink in Manhattan. She declined, but not as graciously as she thanked him a minute ago.

Maybe next time, MTA Cassanova. I'll definitely be rooting for you in your ceaseless quest for women in that train car seat next to the bathroom. I believe in you.

If a snob reads in a forest, will he impress grad students?

Reading The Economist is like hooking up with a supermodel--its no good if nobody sees you.

How old can you be before its absurd that people still call you Junior? Based on these dudes on the subway, looks like 65 is still in play.

Natalie Portman has managed to escape the trap

Jordanna Brewster is yet another tragic example of overeducated attractive 20 actors who seems to have some kind of magnetic pull to the shittiest movies ever made. With an illustrious career spanning from The Fast and The Furious to Fast and Furious, Jordanna Brewster wins the "Biggest Waste of a Yale education" for 2009.

What Makes Me The Exception?

If you actually listen to the lyrics "Hey Ya" is a pretty sad song. I was thinking about this as it popped up on my iPod as I was enjoying the New York sunshine. The freakier part was that I even said to myself, "I'm sure nobody gave a shit about this song's lyrics referring to a failing relationship between two people convincing themselves that they're happy when they know they're not. They probably just wanted to dance."

Smash cut to the next line, Andre 3000 saying that we didn't want to hear him and that we just wanted to dance.

Prophetic words from the Love Below.

They Know Not What They Do

Dogs on the subway should be banned. Especially when they piss on it. The only pissing on the subway should occur by animals who truly can't help themselves. You know, Fordham students.

If this new mobile blogger works, I night be able to succesfully avoid Twitter without appearing like a cranky Luddite.

Is it satire if you admit it?

Because a grew up outside of New York City, I've always had an idealized view of this city and what it means to leave here. Once I started NYU, I had free reign to enact all my deepest New York fantasies. I wandered aimlessly around Greenwich Village, spent many a lost afternoon in Central Park, and have sat with a huge grin affixed to my face for hours sitting in Tompkins Square Park. Now that I have a job, I don't get the time to just amble about New York, especially since I reverse commute out of the city into the suburbs for work and need particular reasons to venture out of my apartment after 8:00 PM. Ironically, I leave my apartment later and come back earlier working in the suburbs than when I've lived and worked in Manhattan. And since I use most of my commuting time to read/listen to podcasts of Fareed Zakaria and other Yale educated guys who say things like:

"Though a few junk bond issuers have tapped the market, part of the demand may have come from funds “gambling for resurrection”, ie, taking a big risk for high yields in a desperate bid to offset losses elsewhere."

I'd say it's a net positive.

The odd thing is that when I picture idealized Manhattan weekends, they almost always involve Midtown East, specifically the area around 57th and 5th. This is a recurring image, and I can't fully explain it. It's existed for a long time, but I have no idea why. There is nothing particularly exciting about this neighborhood. In fact, its exceedingly corporate. As a unrepentant capitalist, you'd think I'd be OK with that, but I am a big fan of compartmentalizing, so when I fantasize about Manhattan I'd prefer it be really bohemian, involving me hanging out in dimly lit TriBeCa hotspots with editorial assistants from Elle and talking about Damon Runyon. But I can't help it--my ideal weekends always flash in my mind with the image of that part of the city that features Henri Bendel and Apple stores. I see other parts too, but this feature is extremely prominent. I wonder what it means.

You've probably guessed, but I never, ever, edit my blog. Everything here is written stream of consciousness style, like James Joyce. In fact, I've not ever gone back and checked for consistency or grammar in any of the 160+ posts I've written on here. This blog is the closest thing that exists to a portal to my mind, and I write in the same style all the time, from e-mails to personal conversations. I wish I had the discipline to update it more frequently, and I'll certainly try. I like writing in here, if for no other reason than it is a record of who I was at the different parts of my life.