Lost in Texas

Last minute gift ideas: Books

2011-12-18T16:07:00.002-05:00

Note: if I am somehow expected to provide you with a gift this holiday season, you may not want to proceed any further. If you are expected to provide me with a gift this holiday season, you should not use this except as a black list. We may now get back to the irregularly scheduled blog post.

The two weekends before Christmas have always been my prime holiday shopping time. A big cup of coffee, some buttery pastries, and I'm set to face the horrors of suburban shopping malls and chain stores filled with frantic materialists piling on crippling levels of credit card debt. And buy some super thoughtful gifts for people that I love.

Of course, that was all ruined by my wife's decision to have her appendix turn gangrenous and spend a week in the hospital. (Thanks honey!) The fall back plan has been to sift through my year of reading to come up with gift ideas for all types of readers, which I thought that I might share with you. Because you might have reached the bottom of the barrel on good gift ideas. And Amazon can get all of these to the people that you love (or feel obligated to shower with gifts) if you order in the next 3 days.

For the person in your life who thinks of themselves as well-read, but doesn't actually read that much: Memoirs. Now America has fallen in love with the memoir, but I usually avoid them like the plague. Fluffy, self-centered, and most often poorly ghost-written, memoirs are often a way for people who are vaguely famous to make money to feed their various addictions, but this year I found myself digging into a number of varied and very entertaining memoirs. The best of the bunch by far was Roger Ebert's Life Itself. There is almost no one who won't enjoy this book. An entertaining second place (for a much lighter read) is Tina Fey's Bossypants.

For the awkward teenager: Did she like the Hunger Games? America Pacifica. Do they like English boarding schools (Skippy Dies) or painful American hallways (Will Grayson, Will Grayson)? I actually really recommend Will Grayson, Will Grayson for all sensitive people up to the age of about 32. A slightly more mature teen reader, or your mother's book club, might really enjoy Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus, a literary romantic adventure with a minor thread of magic.

Have an adult that likes a darker turn in their reading? Room tells the story of a 7 year old that has never left the room she and her mother are imprisoned in. Bad Marie is a babysitter gone horribly awry. Swamplandia is an odd story about the end of a clan of bayou alligator wrestlers. An older parent with a reflective streak might take a lot out of the Man-Booker award winning The Sense of an Ending or The Astral.

A foodie should love the odes to the kitchen Blood, Bones, and Butter by chef Gabrielle Hamilton or Life on the Line by chef Grant Achatz. A music lover has to read both Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad (novel) and Patti Smith's Just Kids (memoir). I would also recommend Neil Strauss' book of music interviews Everyone Loves You When You're Dead for music lovers of all stripes.

Finally, for the zombie lovers in your life, Colson Whitehead's Zone One is all you'll need.

I think this should be able to get you through your holiday shopping needs, but feel free to ask for any specific needs you might have. And add your own suggestions for awesome, easily purchasable gifts because I have some money that needs to be spent on others in the next week.

Blogging about not blogging

2011-11-11T21:21:00.002-05:00

Arlene recently wrote about why she hasn't been blogging as much recently:

I suspect my lack of blogging over the past couple of years is attributed to the crippling self-doubt I suffer as I get older and older. Unlike other people who grow comfortable with wisdom gained by time, I find that growing older has only shown me how little I know about anything. There is so much left to learn, why bother saying anything as definitively as posting it on your personal weblog?

I hear what she's saying, but I suspect that the slow demise of this here blog has less to do with self-doubt than it does with other, more appropriate options for my commentary. Short, pithy snark? Twitter. Sharing a link with some relevant and deeply insightful commentary? R.I.P. Google Reader, but perhaps Google+ will mature into something functional.

Or perhaps the death of Google Reader will push people back into posting on their own blogs and sites since everyone is going to be forced to click through 5 times on + anyways.

The future of scandals

2011-06-30T21:20:00.002-04:00

The 21st century has seen political scandals of a 20th century nature, harassing interns and cheating on spouses, but we've also seen technology make its impact felt Craigslist, Twitter, sexting...People are finding new and exciting ways to get caught with their pants down. And now with more public!

But I don't wonder about when politicians cross the more questionable ethical and moral boundaries trying to take advantage of their positions of power and their interns, when are we going to see out first scandal where private information of a more mundane type leaks out and spikes a politician's chances on the campaign trail? Say an "awkward" purchase at Overstock.com? Or an Amazon search term that wasn't cleared from the cache? How do we react when it is legal commerce that is too "adult" in nature for some immature mores?

Crowd-sourcing doesn't always help.

2011-06-15T19:55:00.001-04:00

I'd never looked at it quite that way before

2011-06-12T21:48:00.002-04:00

Cruise Control

2011-05-19T23:17:00.003-04:00

Sometimes when life just goes on you don't really think that anything is important enough to write about. This is still true, but you will suffer through:

2. My dining habits. This French lentil and golden beet salad is a wonderful meal or side dish on these rainy spring days. We had people over for the Kentucky Derby. It is no Preakness Stakes, but it works for those people who love hats. To entertain the masses, I baked an always delicious rhubarb crisp. It was good. Lauren didn't like the nuts in the crumble, but there is always next time. The real winner were the derby bars: shortbread, batter, nuts, and lots of chocolate. Frankly they were a little to sweet even for me, but that just makes them all the more American.

3. My reading habits. I'm not going to shy away from saying that I've been doing really well on my reading kick this spring. Lots of delays on the MTA means quality book time. 4 and a half months into this year and I just finished book number 47. Granted, I also just started the 800 page Game of Thrones today, but I am hoping not to slow down. Random thoughts are good. I, Claudius was very good. In it you can find all the roots of HBO's Rome and Gladiator. Sex, incest, murder, and intrigue. Appointment in Samara by John O'Hara is like The Great Gatsby for small town America. Of course, the title also gives away a little too much. Our Band Could Be Your Life is just great. As long as you have an abiding love/interest in the seminal bands in indie rock. Otherwise the stories breakdown into kids who did crazy things while on drugs and kids who did crazy things while abstaining from drugs. Neil Strauss' Everyone Loves You When You're Dead is probably a much better book about rock and culture. You should read that instead, even though it is Our Band...'s 10th anniversary. Blood, Bones, and Butter is a really well written and interesting memoir from someone who is making some of the best food in America. I was really surprised at how quickly she was able to paint herself as a petty and ultimately selfish person in the final 50 pages of the book.

What about you?

Hide yo daughters, hide yo sons, hide yo dawgs.

2011-04-27T20:48:00.002-04:00

Since yesterday was apparently the first day of spring in New York, we took off for a little pre-dinner ambulation in Prospect Park. To stimulate the appetite and what not. It was lovely, and then we saw a giant raccoon digging through the muck around the dog pond. In broad daylight. Five feet away from an old guy taking a picture of it with his iPhone.

Can you say rabies three times fast? All Lauren could say was "It's so big!" but she says that a lot if you know what I'm saying.

After Lauren was done yelping and hopping around on her feet, we decided to be responsible and look into reporting this unusual sighting to someone who might care. I don't think that the city pays for park rangers anymore. So just watch out for wild beasts that might be carrying a deadly disease through our borough's greatest park.

Just wait for this release to drop in 20110000000

2011-04-24T14:16:00.004-04:00

As much as I've been a lover of music for most of my life, it hasn't always loved me back. And by that, I mean that, my parents bought me a flute when I was in 6th grade and there were no "once, when I was in band camp..." moments. I was just bad. And I didn't have the discipline to practice, so I couldn't even fake it when recital time rolled around.

I think that my parents were just mad that I'd wasted their money buying a flute. They made me jion the school choir in retribution. I was the only boy out of the 25 members. Did you know that I was also a Boy Scout? Middle school was rough.

At any rate, like all teenage boys and grown-ass men, I vaguely dreamed that one day I would pick up a guitar, strum a few chords and reveal my musical genius through an album of awesome cover songs. This is that album:

Knowledge - Operation Ivy

Debaser - Pixies

Holland, 1945 - Neutral Milk Hotel

Black Steel - Tricky

Which Side Are You On - Pete Seeger

There is Power in a Union - Billy Bragg

You Ain't Going Nowhere - Bob Dylan

Me and my uncle - Grateful Dead

Spanish Bombs - The Clash

Communist Love Song Soltero

Ask - The Smiths

The River - Bruce Springsteen

Jolene - Dolly Parton

Fuck And Run - Liz Phair

No Children - The Mountain Goats

Drivin' On 9 - The Breeders

Angel From Montgomery - John Prine

Love Is Going to Let Me Down - Toots and the Maytals

Paradise - John Prine

My So-Called Thirtysomething Life

2011-04-19T21:28:00.003-04:00

Perhaps the witty thing to say is that as a newly minted 30-year old, the whole experience would likely have been more traumatic had I not been 29 just the day before. Or perhaps I would be more freaked out if (wait for the humble-brag) I hadn't been able to check off the job, career, and wife boxes. The stereotypical societal expectations might bring some people down, but not me! Who cares.

Since my life as a young adult ended, Lauren decided to revisit her childhood: she's started watching My So-Called Life (on Netflix streaming now!). My dirty little secret is that I've never seen this seminal TV show of my youth. Did I have something better to watch at 8PM on Thursday night for the 19 weeks that the show managed to run? Have you heard of Due South? Gotta love those Mounties.

I've been trying to organize my thoughts on a show that deeply impacted my peers, but also introduced us to such great acting talent as Claire Danes and Jared Leto. At least I now know why Jared Leto is a cultural phenomena. Thanks ABC. I'm sure that many pints of ink have been spilled about varying details of the show: the clothes, the after-school special themed shows that passed for cutting-edge cultural commentary, representations of the American teen experience of the 1990s, so I'll just cut and paste the genius that is the Wikipedia entry on "Themes":

My So-Called Life dealt with important social issues of the mid-nineties, including child abuse, homophobia, teenage alcoholism, homelessness, adultery, school violence, censorship, and drug use. Many shows at the time used these themes as a one-time issue (a "very special episode") that would be introduced as a problem at the beginning of an episode and resolved at the end, but on My So-Called Life these issues were part of the continuing storyline. The title of the show alludes to the perception of meaninglessness that many teenagers experience and encapsulates the main theme of the series. The show depicts teenage years as difficult and confusing as opposed to a light, fun-filled time of pranks and jokes.

But let me not leave without at least expressing a few of my own, self-aware thoughts. 1. Never again would a major network show aimed at a teen demographic contain such a generically homely cast. 2. Lauren was surprised to see so many plotlines revolving around the parents. 2a. How quickly she forgets how the OC spent many long minutes focusing on Kitty and Sandy. 2b. Back in the 4 channel pre-cable days (OMFG), everything in primetime had to appeal to as broad an audience as possible, which is why 99% of shows were terrible, like Mad About You. 3. Jordan Catalano was not illiterate. If he were illiterate, he wouldn't be able to write all of his songs for his band. Duh balls. Some kids just don't like to read. Like Kemba Walker. 4. For all the attention paid to the parents and the teenaged characters, poor little sister Danielle just gets brutally ignored in the world's worst 19 episode portrayal of parenting. 5. We do ultimately discover being the smart but awkward teen is better than being the cool kid in high school. See the past 16 years of Claire Danes' career vs/ Jared Leto's. I kid. The only winners in My So-Called Life are our memories.

Food interlude

2011-03-29T20:07:00.002-04:00

A co-worker made Martha Stewart's Salted Toffee-Chocolate Squares. They were delicious in a way that makes me happy. You should find some time to bake them and make some friends happy too.

SXSW Days One and Two

2011-03-18T12:10:00.002-04:00

Normally, I would look to fill the spot with all of my insightful NCAA commentary, but I barely know what's happening after day 1 (but I'm still in 2nd place in the Haus' pool!).

SXSW has been about par for the course. Wednesday was more crowded than in my memory, but we still managed to catch most of our first choices: Tennis, Surfer Blood, and the Smith Westerns. In brief, Tennis was great, but they seem to have found a sound that they can do and I wouldn't expect much more out of them. Surfer Blood sounded just like their album. In a good way, but not mind blowing. The Smith Westerns were good, but I don't think that you act like that much of a rock star as an 18 year old.

Michael Cera is now in a band. Did you know that? I didn't until I saw him back stage a couple of times and texted Jake. The band is called Mister Heavenly. I suspect that they are making lots of money at all ages shows, but they are decidedly uninspired. Even their dueling guitars to close out the set just looked like people going through the motions.

Thursday was a much improved day. We were a little looser having crossed out some names from the band bingo that is SXSW, and so we just went with the flow. tUnEyArDs at the NPR showcase was eye-opening. Great sound and great beats to dance to. Even at 1 PM.

Next up was Rural Alberta Advantage. I'll have to go back and re-listen to the album, but I liked what I heard as well-executed indie rock. Then came Joy Formidable, who rocked their little hearts out. The lead singer was is a staring contest with the ENTIRE AUDIENCE. And I don't think that she lost. As a society, are we really okay with producing this many rock stars?

Next up was Ted Leo, solo. Always hit the sweet spots. Then the Strokes. Judgment free but we were beyond the fences in the grass, so no complaints.

This is ending abruptly and without and great stories (Torn down fences! Being the entourage of a drag queen!) but those will come in due time.

Memory Hole

2011-03-15T15:42:00.001-04:00

Memories are funny things, no?

Returning to Austin for the first time since finishing graduate school, the campus seems unchanged. Sure, there are a few new buildings and the ROTC has replaced the iSchool in the School of Education building, but the tower is still there, the drag is filled with the same sandwich joints and head shops, and the gingerbread pancakes at Kirby Lane are as delicious as ever.

We were here for two busy, hectic, relaxing, and enjoyable years. We explored town and immersed ourselves in new lives, if only for a short time. It’s funny to realize that I’ve now been gone for Austin for almost twice as long as I resided here. Our favorite bars and restaurants are firmly implanted in my brain, but the secondary places where we would meet friends or dine at once or twice? Their names are hazy and are getting easily mixed up. Was Maudies on South Lamar or South 2nd? Was Rudy’s the BBQ joint or the gross all you can eat buffet chain? How the fuck do I get to Salt Lick from MoPAC?

A friend asked if we would consider returning (if a certain someone could get a good job in town, hint hint), and we enthusiastically said yes. But at the same time, it’s very clear that Austin isn’t home anymore and the lack of mental attachment to the places I am visiting is playing tricks on my mind to make me wonder if it ever was.

Web 2.0 and the globalization of disaster

2011-03-12T09:22:00.005-05:00

Waaaaay back in the dark ages of Web 1.0 when I was in college, the buzzword for many of my classes was "Globalization." It was a boogie man that haunted everything and was the cause of great distress. Did globalization bring social benefits to the far corners of the planet and lift isolated tribes out of starvation and poverty or was it a homogenizing force of cultural imperialism? Either way, it was clear that the driving force of globalization was economics. Everyone participated in commerce, and so it was through the tentacles of trade that for better or worse change was made.

That was 10 years ago, and the influence of global economics is stronger than ever. Globalization is still here and still happening, but, at least in my liberal effete social circles, we don't talk about it. Perhaps we turned our concerns inward or perhaps we saw that local cultures evolving and branching into even greater individuation rather than disappearing before the (un-)monolithic West.

The world is becoming more interconnected, but in the place of economics, we are seeing the social and emotional impacts of improved communications networks. Who really remembers the cyclone that struck Bangladesh in 1991, killing 138,000 people? Or the Venezuelan mudslides that killed 15,000 people in 1999? Or the 1985 volcanic eruption in Colombia that killed 25,000 people known as the Armero Tragedy? Perhaps it is just the passage of time that has dampened my memories of these events, but I don't think so: they just never registered in my life. Going further back in time, half a million people died in the Bhola cyclone in 1970 and 2-3 million people died in the Yellow River floods in China in 1931. But few people know about these tragedies, and even fewer care. And frankly, why should they?

Unless you had family or commercial in these places, events on the other side of the world had no impact on your life beyond a small blurb in the morning paper. Events on the other side of the world looked the same whether it was 1899 or 1999, globalization be damned. But starting with the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia, something funny happened: we started caring. The suffering of poor people on the other side of the world stopped being a series of Suzanne Somers commercials and started being real.

I for one will never forget when I started seeing videos like these showing up on the youtube and TV news.
And the power of video in the hands of everyman brought with it an emotional impact that previous globalization theorists likely never imagined. Global economics brought cell phones to the third-world and global communication networks brought the video into our homes, allowing people to emotionally connect to the events taking place in locations never visited.

Today, Web 2.0 brings every disaster to an emotional climax. Social networks spread constant reminders of the suffering through shared links, but they also spread hope and relief. My parents were in New Zealand when the Christchurch earthquake struck, and I learned of their safety through our family friend's 19 year old daughter's Facebook update. We have friends in Japan today who tweeted their 10-mile journey home after the earthquake shut down the Tokyo transportation infrastructure. Web 1.0 brought news instantly to our desktops, but no relief from our worrying. Web 2.0 brings both news and the answers to our questions.

Moving to Purity

2011-03-09T22:11:00.002-05:00

In the far reaches of man's history as hunter and gatherers, man would set up camp and scrounge for whatever meager foods they could find. And then they would, quite literally, shit where they ate. For pre-historic man, moving was a way to stay one step ahead of the diseases and parasites that festered in their waste.

Modern man moves for their own reasons, but in our most recent move, we purified as much as we could from our closets, dressers, and deep storage. Of course, purity wasn't so much of a driving force as monetary savings, but now that we're settling in to our new apartment with a breath of fresh life.

Like all moves, this one had its many moments of suffering. The most inner of suffering may have come on moving day as I watched our two movers of historically oppressed ethnicities hauling our 29 boxes of books up to our new fourth floor walk-up. #whitewhine?

More American than apple pie: Oreo-stuffed chocolate chip cookies

2011-02-21T21:57:00.003-05:00

Don't lie to me, I know that you all read the internet like fiends. It's okay, so do we. That's why we love you. However, you might have seen a whole bunch of posts raving about nothing other than Oreo-stuffed chocolate chip cookies.

Yeah. Team America.

In the incestuous world of cooking blogs, the link love all leads back to Picky-Palate. Of course, I don't know who's picky palate you are trying to trick by shoving an Oreo into another cookie, but someone out there has to hate Oreos in a bad way. Maybe vegans? A little internet sleuthing turns up this post from October 2010. On a vegan food blog no less! So plaudits all around Vegan Rocker Girl.

Of course, we had to try these. Stuffing one food inside of another has a long history in this country.

Even in the making of cookies. Lauren called it "research into the American lifestyle," but we all know that she just wants us to fit into whichever corner of the American heartland we eventually land in. It was easy enough to purchase one bag of Newman's Own fauxreos and whip up a batch of dry batter (to better retain its shape during baking). 12 minutes later we had little pillows from heaven.

I had one fresh from the oven. Amazing. Served at a dinner party with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, it would blow your guests away. Or cookies and cream! I had a second on Sunday morning for brunch before hitting up the paint store, the Loews, and then 4 hard hours of cleaning our new apartment. Lauren was famished and exhausted, but I was still running on all cylinders. I then went to the bar and shared these bounties with some friends. It would not be a stretch to say that their minds were blown. As were their bellies, as they had to leave half-eaten morsels on the bar. A great location that served to strike up three different conversations with other (all female) bar patrons who clearly thought that they had found a new way to capture the hearts of their men. I even gave one of them away to a woman who was asking more questions than a cub reporter looking for breaking news. She ate half of it before heading off to dinner. I told her to throw it away, but she tucked it inside a napkin. BECAUSE THEY ARE THAT GOOD.

Now, I have seven of these monstrosities left, so for the love of god and my waistline, someone come take them away from me.

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

2011-02-15T22:31:00.003-05:00

We've already covered the fact that I have the limited literary exposure of a well-read prep-schooler, so perhaps I simply cannot appreciate the transformative impact of Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse. Today, authors have few limits on the subjects that they discuss or the inner monologues that they explore, and perhaps this was an early work to break that ground, but it doesn't make it a great book. The themes are simplistic and unengaging.

Consider this an open thread for someone to convince me of the greatness (MLA's #15) of this novel.

*** Fine, but there are better reads.

Enter the Void was not pornography. Probably

2011-02-14T21:41:00.004-05:00

What with all the books that I've been talking about, I wouldn't want anyone to think that we were all high brow cultural consumers. Oooooooh no. The 96 books that I read last year was duly overshadowed by the 125 DVDs that Netflix was kind enough to send to us. I would count up the streaming movies that we watched, but let's just say that it is fewer than the DVDs watched, but significantly more than zero. What can I say, we don't have cable.

Sometimes, the queue can be a bit of a mystery. Take last night for instance, we could have watched the Grammys and whored ourselves out to the Justin Biebers and Lady Gagas of the world. Instead, I wrenched control of the remote controls from my workaholic wife and popped in Gaspar Noe's Enter the Void. I can't say that I knew anything about the movie or what pushed me to put it on our queue and move it ahead of 223 other possibly decent films. I don't even know where I first heard about it, but let me provide you with the helpful blurb from the DVD sleeve:

When Oscar (Nathaniel Brown), a foreign drug dealer living in Tokyo with his stripper sister, Linda (Paz de la Huerta), is fatally shot in a police raid, his spirit leaves his body in a hallucinatory odyssey that merges his past, present and future into a chaotic whole. This riveting third film from provocative French auteur Gaspar Noe screened in competition at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. Cyril Roy co-stars.

In some confusion of foreign film making, the director decided to place the full credits at the start of the movie. Perhaps that is because Noe wasn't sure that most of his viewers would be survive the seizures brought about by the thumping techno and flashing lights that he used to call attention to the good people that created this beast of a movie. Did I mention that the running time came in at 161 minutes. For those of you whom math is not a strong suit, that translates to 2 hours and 41 minutes. Keep this fact in mind.

Now, turn off your lights, turn your computer's volume up max, and pop this video up to full screen. These are the opening credits:
How far through did you make it? That's what I thought.

As for the rest of the movie? Well, I think that I would call it Lovely Bones meets Requiem for a Dream meets Showgirls. That covers most of the bases in what is a really long, bad trip. The trip being bad, not necessarily the move, necessarily.

About 90 minutes into the movie, as Lauren started to get uncomfortable, she asked if I thought that there was more screen time with or without ta-tas? You see such things as exposed breasts and foreign films make Lauren squirm because when her mother sat her down at age 10 for the birds and the bees it, quote, "wasn't very effective." I'm pretty sure that this explains a lot of things, but we're not here for a therapy session. By the time Lauren had packed up her laptop and moved away from the couch (minute 120 perhaps), I was pretty convinced that at the very least, there were more mammary glands on the cellulose than lines of dialogue. I don't even think that it is close. There is a lot of sex in the movie. And not like when Jake and Anne have their fun in "Love and Other Drugs," no. Noe really lets the camera linger in odd angles for extended coverage of dry-run baby-making.

Um, SPOILER ALERT. But really, nothing I say can truly spoil the experience of this movie.

And then we got to see an abortion. Again, we're not talking multi-camera cuts to get the sense of emotional turmoil surrounding an abortion, I'm saying you're sitting in the room watching an abortion. We had a healthy debate about the size of the removed fetus, but time and metaphors have only loose ties to reality in this epic, so let's call it dramatic license.

Oh yeah, and then we see some penis. Don't worry, it's not an angle that you would recognize as such. Because we are now sitting in a vagina watching the penis come at us like whack-a-mole and we're the mole. From this point, you probably know what comes next since we all saw "Miracle of Life" in high school. Or Look Who's Talking:
Having just finished Tino Balio's excellent examination "The Foreign Film Renaissance on American Screens, 1946-1973" I am reminded that American's in my parent's generation flocked to foreign films because they could address and show all of the sex that American morals and production codes prohibited. It was a great time to be in America. Then Hollywood changed the rules to start making their own sexy films, and all of the independent arthouse theaters switched almost overnight to grindhouse porn purveyors.

As Lauren said after the conclusion of the film, "Paz de la Huerta was in that? She's in Boardwalk Empire."

As Wikipedia so adroitly conveys:

Oscar hovers high above Tokyo and enters an airplane, where he sees his mother who breast-feeds a baby to whom she whispers Oscar's name. The view then drops to Linda and Alex who take a taxi to a Tokyo love hotel and have sex. Oscar moves between hotel rooms and observes several other couples also having sex in various positions. Each couple emanates a pulsating electric-like glow from their genitals. Oscar enters Alex' head and experiences having sex with his own sister. He then travels inside Linda's vagina to witness Alex' thrusting, then observes his ejaculation and follows the semen into the fertilisation of his sister's ovum.

The final scene is shot from the perspective of a baby being born to Oscar's mother. According to Gaspar Noé, it is left to the viewer to decide if this is a flashback to Oscar's birth, either genuinely or as a false memory, or if his life starts over again, trapping him in an infinite loop for all eternity.

To conclude: What is pornography? What is good? What is art? I can't claim to know. If you have some thoughts on these subjects, I would love to hear them. As for Enter the Void, I suggest something very heavy and medicinal and solitude (to avoid the awkwardness of having to discuss the movie after or see the shame in another's eyes).

"Under the Volcano" by Malcolm Lowry

2011-02-13T21:14:00.002-05:00

Two books it not enough to call it a trend, but love triangles seem to be a thing that the MLA is into. At least platonically.

Unlike most stories about foreigners and foreign-ness, Under the Volcano is not about the otherness of a foreign place (Mexico) so much as it is about the confusion and desires brought on by alcoholism. The hiding, the lying, the confusion, the need, all swirling around a failed marriage and the hopes of a new life. And the odd politics of the 1930s.

A solid read. Recommended. ****

Mapping Life

2011-02-13T16:29:00.006-05:00

Perhaps as a result of my years as a Boy Scout (they can't take that Eagle Scout away from me!) or long summer car trips up and down I-95 with triptych maps from AAA, I have a deep-seated love of maps. As an adolescent, in place of posters of sports heroes and rock gods, my walls were filled with topo maps tracing backpacking treks through the Philmont ranch and New Hampshire's Presidential Range. Still tucked away in a closet in my parents' house is a shoebox filled with the complete set of USGS Quadrangle maps for Yosemite National Park, covered with ballpoint lines scribbled notes, and the grimy fingerprints of unwashed hikers.

My bedroom has long since been converted to a guest room themed after my mother's south Florida childhood, but my newer home retains traces of my connections to geography in a letterpress map of Brooklyn and a chart of European language families. Beyond the visual, Lauren and I have a travel journal of our 2005 roadtrip complete with daily play lists and menus (mmmm...canned chili...). In 2004, I printed an accordion book of my trip to France using maps and transfer images.

All this is to say that I understand how a sense of place in both geography and time can be closely intertwined with one's sense of self. You know who you are by where you've been. When I talk about the peaks outside of Taos, I am also talking about a very different me than when I discuss the dining options of South Brooklyn. But also the same me.

Mytravelmaps hack on designswarm connected with my need to map and be mapped. Google maps provides us with the tools to map our experiences and create physical artifacts that give a sense of permanence to our fleeting and faulty memories. What's a better place to store our past, the cloud or the bookshelf?

It's a trick question: the cloud isn't a place.

But the cloud does give us the power easily organize and track our journeys. Foursquare works as a fun "game" using the power of GPS in my everyday life, but think of how much easier it would be to use a Foursquare-esque program to track your journeys: instant map placement, restaurant names and info, photo uploads, and atext box for journal entries all in one convenient app on our smartphone. Available worldwide 24 hours a day, no more digging out your journal from the bottom of a rucksack or writing with a flashlight in your mouth as 10 other hostelers toss and turn on bunk beds around you. Of course, the ease of sharing bar suggestions with friends might ruin the serendipity of mis-remembering restaurant names ("Did I really eat at the golden carbuncle?") or locations ("Its the third left off of the circle and then stop when you see the shoe-shine boys. I swear that its the greatest lengua in all of Bolivia."), but network difficulties will be certain to add a sense of adventure. And you really want to be sure to avoid "the bedbug hotel" even if it means fewer stories for the grand-children. Good-bye Lonely Planet, and hello Jake and John Barcelona 2009, with added notes from Tim ca. 2004.
Of course, to make this Web 2.0 venture profitable, we'd have to add on a production staff to layout and sell the hard-copies, but with the Kindle and what not there have got to be tons of out of work publishers, right?

Fuck Yeah Books: 2010

2011-02-12T22:18:00.000-05:00

It's February. It's winter. And Arlene just started making lists. I can do that too.

2010 was a year of a lot of reading for me. My commute got significantly longer in March, and I used it to get through a lot of pages. 96 books. Not quite 100 which would be a nice round number to get through, but I'm happy with it. Even more surprising, none of which I purchased (although some of them are from Lauren's research pile). Thank your local library for being there and go check out a book. Every circulation counts.

Now, I ran out of steam doing little write-ups and putting in Amazon links, but if there are 4 or 5 stars, you should read it. If there are 3 stars, it is worth your while if the subject interests you. The rest of them...why waste your time. There are plenty of good books out there.

1. American Gods by Neil Gaiman ****
A modern classic of American sci-fi where the gods of old battle for the attention of mad against the rising forces of technology. And this was before the internet really took over our lives.

2. Jeff in Venice, Death in Varinasi by Geoff Dyer ***
Two enjoyable tales of an aging art historian as he reflects on his life and career.

3. Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City by Greg Grandin ***
A popular non-fiction look at the ill-considered Ford rubber colony deep in the jungles of the Amazon.

4. The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession by Allison Hoover Bartlett ***
A California con-man and his illicit love of books.

5. The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem ****
A great semi-autobiographical novel about growing up in Brooklyn in the 1970s. A lot of local color and story-telling with two boys finding a magical ring that grants them super-powers.

6. How I Became a Famous Novelist by Steve Hely ****
A satirical look at the twisted motivations of a young novelist.

7. The City & The City by Chine Mieville ***
A murder mystery set in place where two cities are physically overlaid atop one another.

8. The Late Age of Print: Everyday Book Culture from Consumerism to Control by Ted Striphas ***
An accessible academic look at the changing economics and stories behind 21st century book production.

9. Striving for the "Whole Duty of Man:: James Legge and the Scottish Protestant Encounter with China: Assessing Confluences in Scottish Nonconformism by Lauren Pfister ***

10. Translating Chinese Classics in a Colonial Context: James Legge and His Two Versions of the Zhongyong by Hui Wang **

11. Japanese Bookbinding: Instructions From A Master Craftsman by Kojiro Ikegami ****
The best English language text on Japanese bookbinding.

12. The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes ***
The allure of science for cultural figures in 19th c. Britain.

13. The Holocaust and the Book: Destruction and Preservation by Jonathan Rose ***

14. Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornsby ***

15. The Cheese Chronicles: A Journey Through the Making and Selling of Cheese in America, From Field to Farm to Table by Liz Thorpe ***
Almost everything you need to know about the current state of cheese in America.

16. The Creative Destruction of Manhattan, 1900-1940 by Max Page ***
Urban development in NYC before the rise of urban planning.

17. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murikami ****
The best book about the joys of running that I have ever read. Makes me want to go out and run a marathon. Almost.

18. Zeitoun by Dave Eggars ****
A powerful a moving non-fiction account of the natural and human disaster that was Hurricane Katrina.

19. The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett ***
A humourous look at what might happen if the Queen of England escaped her bubble and found the will to read.

20. An Ice-Cream War by William Boyd ***
A novel set in the unusual world of East Africa during World War I.

21. Piracy by Adrian Johns ***
A history of intellectual piracy and copyright.

22. In Search of Another Country: Mississippi and the Conservative Counterrevolution by Joseph Crespino ***

23. Oracle Night by Paul Auster ***

24. The Economics of Art and Culture by James Heilbroun**

25. The Conservation of Antiquities and Works of Art: Treatment, Repair, and Restoration by H. J. Plenderleith ***
One of the classics texts in the field of art conservation. It has not aged particularly well in the technical details, but remains solidly founded in the ethics of the field.

26. Do Museums Still Need Objects? by Steven Conn ***

27. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith *
This book was surprisingly bad. Its as if they took a bad book and actively strove to make it even worse.

28. Tokyo Year Zero by David Peace ***
A murder mystery amongst the wreckage of post-World War II Japan.

29. Let the Great World Spin by Coum McCann ****
A beautifully written collection of stories that come together in the haunting heat of a New York summer. One of the best works of fiction that I read last year.

30. This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All by Marilynn Johnson ***
Even as she tells us that she is moving beyond stereotypes of librarians, Ms. Johnson paints a picture of modern librarians filled with shallow stereotypes. But if it makes the public more interested in libraries...

31. Save the Deli: In Search of Perfect Pastrami, Crusty Rye, and the Heart of Jewish Delicatessen by David Sax ****
A delectable tour of America's great delis.

32. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel ***
A sprawling historic epic that ends with a whimper rather than a bang.

33. The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee by Sarah Silverman ****
She knows how to push my humor buttons and boundaries.

34. Scrapbooks: An American History by Jessica Helfand ***

35. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro ***
Almost certainly better than the movie (which I haven't seen yet).

36. Beneath the Waves: The Life and Navy of Capt. Edward L. Beach, Jr. by Edward Finch ***

37. The Ask by Sam Lipsyte ***

38. God Save the Fan: How Preening Sportscasters, Soulless Leagues, and Athletes Who Speak in the Third Person Have Taken the Fun Out of Sports by Will Leitch ****

39. The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis ****
The best/most accessible accounting of the economic collapse.

40. All the Sad Young Literary Men by Keith Gessen **
This one was so memorable that I checked it out of the library twice.

41. True Grit by Charles Portis ***
Better than the movie.

42. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larssen **
It was a fine beach read, but I don't know who would want to read two more of these things. Except for Americans with no imagination.

43. Freedom Is Not Enough: The Moynihan Report and America's Struggle over Black Family Life--from LBJ to Obama by James T. Patterson ***

44. Sprawl: A Compact History by Robert Breuggman **

45. Rampant by Diana Peterfreund **

46. Imperial Bedrooms by Bret Easton Ellis ***
An reunion of the Less Than Zero crowd, 30 years on. Just as empty of morals and full of questions.

47. Seven Days in the Art World by Sarah Thornton ***

48. The Forever War by Joe Haldeman ****
A sci-fi classic dealing with love, war, and the time-space continuum.

49. This Gaming Life: Travels in Three Cities by Jim Rossignol ***

50. No Reservations: Around the World on an Empty Stomach by Anthony Bourdain ***
An engaging tramp around the stomachs of the world. And the bathrooms. And bars.

51. Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower ***

52. Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall ****
The world's greatest runners and the world's greatest race in a moving story of a tribe living outside of Mexican society.

53. Ringworld by Larry Niven ***

54. The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period by William St. Clair ***

55. Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things by Randy O. Frost ***
A surprisingly sweet and discomfiting look at compulsive hoarders.

56. Priceless: How I Went Undercover to Rescue the World's Stolen Treasures by Robert K. Wittmann ***
A great story held back by the limits of an FBI special agent's writing ability.

57. Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War by Karl Marlantes ***
This book received lots of press and praise, but it seems to be a pretty standard Vietnam genre piece.

58. Empires and Barbarians by Peter Heather ****
A long history shedding much light on the "Dark Ages" between the fall of the Roman Empire and the rise of Charlesmagnes.

59. Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer by Novella Carpenter ****
Bees, chickens, and pigs: not much is more awesome than a well written story of some hardcore urban farming.

60. The Good Soldiers by David Finkel *****
The best book I read this year. An intense read of a year with the Army in Iraq.

61. How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization by Franklin Foer ****

62. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell ****

63. City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles, New Edition by Mike Davis ****

64. Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel ***

65. Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shytengart ***
Over-rated. Over-reviewed.

66. On the Natural History of Destruction by W.G. Sebald ***

67. The Great Society Subway: A History of the Washington Metro by Zachary Schrag ****

68. Private Lives of Trees by Alejandro Zambra ****

69. Dream City: Race, Power, and the Decline of Washington, D.C. by Harry Jaffe **

70. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins ***
I said it before and I'll say it again, this is fine YA fiction, but it is completely derivitive and predictable. In this case "The Lottery" meets "Enders Game" meets "Lord of the Flies" (or maybe "The Most Dangerous Game"). Unless I turn into a 12 year old girl, it is unlikely that I will read the rest of this trilogy.

71. The Future Once Happened Here: New York, D.C., L.A., and the Fate of America's Big Cities by Fred Siegal *

72. The Gun by C. J. Chivers ****
A sprawling history of the most popular gun in the world, the AK-47.

73. The Last of the Black Emperors : The Hollow Comeback of Marion Barry in a New Age of Black Leaders by Jonetta Rose Barras **

74. Green Restorations by Aaron Lubeck ***

75. The Book in the Renaissance by Andrew Pettegree ****

76. Berlin at War by Roger Moorhouse ****

77. The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi ****
A near-future post-apocalyptic world of famine and genetic engineering comes alive.

78. Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms,and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories by Simon Winchester ***

79. Ascendant by Diana Peterfreund **
What can I say, I wanted to give the unicorns a second chance.

80. Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food by Paul Greenberg ****

81. The Kindness of Strangers by Don George **

82. Washington's U Street by Blair Ruble ***

83. Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory by Peter Hessler ****
A really engaging look at life in contemporary China.

84. BodyWorld by Dash Shaw ***

85. Beauty and the Book: Fine Editions and Cultural Distinction in America by Megan Benton ***

86. Remainder by Tom McCarthy ***

87. X'ed Out by Charles Burns ***

88. Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green ****
A really engaging teen novel. John Hughes for the reading set.

89. How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu ***

90. The Infinities by John Banville ***

91. Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art by Laney Salisbury ****

92. The Anxiety of Obsolescence: The American Novel in the Age of Television by Kathleen Fitzpatrick ***

93. The Thieves of Manhattan by Adam Langer ****

94. C by Tom McCarthy ***

95. Foreign Bodies by Cynthia Orzick ****

96. Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks ***

Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence

2011-02-09T22:18:00.003-05:00

Now, I'm not and have never been a literature major so the impact and importance of Sons and Lovers (1913) on the Western literary tradition is something that I may not grasp. It is a decent enough story about a working class family, and one son in particular who struggles to understand love as he vacillates between two women and his strongly attached mother. Its beautifully written and flows along quite well, but the characters are too two dimensional for the Freudian influences that drive motivations.

*** A fine novel, but not one that I would tell you to go out and read.

More Books

2011-02-02T22:29:00.003-05:00

We just covered that I'm a reader, right? I'm not proud enough to think that there aren't better, faster, more readers out there, but I keep it real, literature-ly. So when I saw this little post on the Book Bench, I got a little pissy:

The Book Bench couldn’t help but wonder: exactly why is Edward Champion doing this? One reason he gives is that no one has ever written about reading the M.L.A. list before. And so he is going to write a thousand words on each book as he reads it. Edward, we will be there reading your blog and cheering you along the entire way. But there’s a deeper why here. Champion compares the literary challenge to a triathlon, and so it is. It requires a serious commitment to reshaping one’s life around a single activity, and while that activity does indeed bring pleasure, it is also bound to bring a lot of pain (hence the designation “challenge”). Many runners of marathons say that the reason they do marathons is that without the goal of the race, they simply wouldn’t be motivated to run at all; is it the same with the literary challenge? Surely not. Surely anyone who even contemplates doing a literary challenge is already a healthy reader. And after all much of the point of the marathon or triathlon is the rush of the spectators—running 26.2 miles in secret is an entirely different experience—and reading is a solitary activity.

Oh, no one has ever written about reading the MLA list? Maybe you should correct that to read "No one has ever written well about reading the MLA list"? That's what I thought.

I'm now somewhere in the mid-30s as far as the MLA 100 goes. Maybe I will try to knock some of those off. Anyone have any suggestions?

I know this makes for two realllllllly long list posts in a row, but...titles that I've read are in bold:
100. Booth Tarkington, The Magnificent Ambersons
99. J.P. Donleavy, The Ginger Man
98. James M. Cain, The Postman Always Rings Twice
97. Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky
96. William Styron, Sophie’s Choice
95. Iris Murdoch, Under the Net
94. Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea
93. John Fowles, The Magus
92. William Kennedy, Ironweed
91. Erskine Caldwell, Tobacco Road
90. Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children
89. Henry Green, Loving
88. Jack London, The Call of the Wild
87. Arnold Bennett, The Old Wives’ Tale
86. E.L. Doctorow, Ragtime
85. Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim
84. Elizabeth Bowen, The Death of the Heart
83. V.S. Naipaul, A Bend in the River
82. Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose
81. Saul Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March
80. Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited
79. E.M. Forster, A Room with a View
78. Rudyard Kipling, Kim
77. James Joyce, Finnegans Wake
76. Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
75. Evelyn Waugh, Scoop
74. Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
73. Nathaniel West, The Day of the Locust
72. V.S. Naipaul, A House for Mr. Biswas
71. Richard Hughes, A High Wind in Jamaica
70. Lawrence Durrell, The Alexandra Quartet (Four books: Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea)
69. Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth
68. Sinclair Lewis, Main Street
67. Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
66. W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage
65. Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange
64. J.D. Salinger, A Catcher in the Rye
63. John Cheever, The Wapshot Chronicle
62. James Jones, From Here to Eternity
61. Wilia Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop
60. Walker Percy, The Moviegoer
59. Max Beerbohm, Zulieka Dobson
58. Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence
57. Ford Maddox Ford, Parade’s End (Four books: Some Do Not…, No More Parades, A Man Could Stand Up…, and Last Post)
56. Dashiell Hammett, The Maltese Falcon
55. Jack Kerouac, On the Road
54. William Faulkner, Light in August
53. Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire
52. Phillip Roth, Portnoy’s Complaint
51. Norman Mailer, The Naked and the Dead
50. Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer
49. D.H. Lawrence, Women in Love
48. D.H. Lawrence, The Rainbow
47. Joseph Conrad, Nostromo
46. Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent
45. Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
44. Aldous Huxley, Point Counter Point
43. Anthony Powell, A Dance to the Music of Time (12 novels: A Question of Upbringing., A Buyer’s Market, The Acceptance World, At Lady Molly’s, Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant, The Kindly Ones, The Valley of Bones, The Soldier’s Art, The Military Philosophers, Books Do Furnish a Room, Temporary Kings, and Hearing Secret Harmonies)
42. James Dickey, Deliverance
41. William Golding, Lord of the Flies
40. Graham Greene, The Heart of the Matter
39. James Baldwin, Go Tell It On the Mountain
38. E.M. Forster, Howards End
37. Thornton Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey
36. Robert Penn Warren, All the King’s Men
35. William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying
34. Evelyn Waugh, A Handful of Dust
33. Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie
32. Henry James, The Golden Bowl
31. George Orwell, Animal Farm
30. Ford Maddox Ford, The Good Soldier
29. James T. Farrell, Studs Lonigan (Three books: Young Lonigan, The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan, and Judgment Day)
28. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender is the Night
27. Henry James, The Ambassadors
26. Henry James, The Wings of the Dove
25. E.M. Forster, A Passage to India
24. Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio
23. John Dos Passos, USA Trilogy (Three books: The 42nd Parallel, 1919, and The Big Money)
22. John O’Hara, Appointment in Samarra
21. Saul Bellow, Henderson the Rain King
20. Richard Wright, Native Son
19. Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
18. Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five
17. Carson McCullers, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
16. Theodore Dreiser, An American Tragedy
15. Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse
14. Robert Graves, I, Claudius
13. George Orwell, 1984
12. Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh
11. Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano
10. John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
9. D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers
8. Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon
7. Joseph Heller, Catch-22
6. William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury
5. Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
4. Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
3. James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
2. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
1. James Joyce, Ulysses

Wintertime is food time.

2011-01-25T21:41:00.002-05:00

We don't take fancy-pants shots of food porn in our house. We don't even bother to take pictures of our meals. We just cook and eat. And then scratch. I can say we because Lauren has mastered one meal: the chick-pea-spinach-tomato-sauce-"Indian"-food stew. She made it tonight. So plaudits are well deserved. But no photos to make this post attractive or interesting. Instead, let me tell you that a wintry week is a great time to make some delicious and easy butternut squash and apple soup. Since my rice-cooker conked a couple of weeks ago, I've been forced (at gunpoint!) to enjoy egg sandwiches and donuts with my morning coffee. For shame! So on Sunday, I whipped up a batch of these homemade granola bars. Yup, they're delicious. And good for me!

Man cannot live on simple grains and veggies alone. These spicy molasses cookies will keep you smiling until the spring thaw!

6 months of married

2011-01-24T11:28:00.002-05:00

and I usually remember to wear my wedding ring. Anyway, how could you not love someone who looks at you like this?

Iterative Cycling

2011-01-23T12:18:00.003-05:00

When I woke up this morning, my mind was stuck on the question of how many tweets would need to be posted before a significant portion of new tweets were in fact organically generated re-tweets of unaffiliated content. (My memory of combinatorics is a little fuzzy, but the answer for when all new tweets are in fact re-tweets is probably something like 26^140. Although 26 isn't the right number since there are a greater variety of other symbols and numbers that can be entered, so based on the number of symbols readily available on my dumb phone, lets call it 66^140. Not too shabby.)

But much like Jeopardy and IBM's Watson computer, we must realize that content and communications is more than just combinations of symbols.

Communication connects us to meanings that symbols alone cannot represent fully. When I first started blogging, I was almost more interested in seeing the network of readership and the searches that brought people to the site than in the actual content that I was producing. Its actually true in life which is why I am so bad at taking photos: I would rather be in the moment of the experience than step outside of it and capture it for later revisiting. And so entries to this site wax and wane with my own involvement. More often than not, the more engaged I am outside of the blog, the more engaged I am in it.

With the growing multitude of digital communication pathways, commentators are claiming the death of the blog. Facebook has hijacked all of the daily minutiae that is free from critical thought. Twitter offers up a forum of distilled thought where we don't have to worry about background depth or footnotes. Google Reader is a curated community where links and digital oddities can be shared and discussed without fear of exposure to digital stalkers. All that is left to blogs is critical long-form pieces. Too long for twitter. Too boring for the high school acquaintances on Facespace. Not connected enough to a singe RSS share for Reader. Magazine pieces. Quality writing.

I wonder if blogs have run a full lifecycle and returned to their infancy. Much of the chaff has moved on to easier content hosts and blogs return to the space where writers can freelance and experiment with meaningful content, unhindered by the need to drive readership and pageviews. Certainly, when I look over the blogs that I read they fall into five distinct categories: friends, curated link aggregators, specialty niche content, professionalized news analysis, and random long-form writing. The first four help me to function in society and work, the fifth makes me wonder.

Sometimes I pause and think about what the blog would look like if I started it now. Frankly, I think that I would try to convince all of my friends, internet and otherwise, who already have blogs with irregular posting schedules or have let their blogs slowly vanish into the ether of the networks and have a single place for all of our disjointed conversations to create new webs of meanings for visitors. And get more readers for my own content. I think that I would name this mythical site fuckyeahgroupblog.com.

When they know where you live

2011-01-10T21:27:00.003-05:00

Love it or leave it, the Park Slope Food Coop is an institution in the People's Republic of Brooklyn. I love it, but sometimes...I worry.

Being the red-blooded American that I am, I had to miss my last mandatory work-shift. You know, the one scheduled for New Year's Eve. At any rate, I went last week a chastised member to do my make-up shift. It was fine, it was good. The people were nice and the spices were practically bagging themselves. I kid, but what do you expect a societal elite to say about brainless manual labor?

At one point we got to talking about how in the good old days, the night shifts used to enjoy some beers while they cut cheese and bagged chocolate covered raisins. And then the squad leader said that they had just stopped a year or two previously. When he received a call at work. His real work. During the work week. A call from the Coop telling him that if they drank anymore on their shift they would be expelled from the Coop.

And then they put in a security camera downstairs because hippies don't believe in the goodness of mankind.

Resolution!

2011-01-06T16:06:00.004-05:00

2010 was pretty perfect. Thanks to everyone who helped make it that way! Fletcher and I were thinking about the highlights of our year. Certainly the wedding was number one, followed by actually being married, otherwise known as THE END OF WEDDING PLANNING!!! It was also the year of the marathon (3 of them), with a year end total of roughly 2,0000 miles run. Finally, it was the year of the dissertation. Wow, talk about hard work. Resolutions to come, but for now, I'll bask in the glow of the sparklers.

A Year in Reading: Holiday Gift Preview

2010-11-28T21:09:00.001-05:00

Normally, I would wait until January to do a full re-cap of 2010's deep (and shallow) reads, and I still will. However, Catherine was making noises about holiday gift suggestions, I figured why not run through the highlights so far so that you can pick up something that will bring a smile and not just a mediocre thank you note.

Be forewarned, if I am responsible for buying you a present to celebrate the birth of the Baby Jesus, you might want to stop reading now because there is a good chance that you will receive one of these titles, so maybe stop and save the surprise?

Thus far, I've plowed through about 85 books, not all of which are recent releases, but we're not judging the books based on their publication date.

Non-Fiction:
For the hipster who cares: Zeitoun by Dave Eggers

For the current affairs buff: The Good Soldiers by David Finkel

For the foreign policy maven: Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory by Peter Hessler

For the runner: What I Talk about When I Talk about Running by Haruki Murakami and
Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall

For the Foodie: The Cheese Chronicles: A Journey Through the Making and Selling of Cheese in America, From Field to Farm to Table by Liz Thorpe or Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer by Novella Carpenter.

For the historian: Empires and Barbarians: the fall of Rome and the birth of Europe by Peter Heather

Fiction:
For the historical fiction reader: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell

For the literary Lothario: Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann

For the sci-fi fanboy: The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

For the foreign literature fan: Private Lives of Trees by Alejandro Zambra

There will soon be tons of other lists out to help guide you to the year's best books, but for an early start on what the readers on your list might like, I think you can't lose with anything up above.

Looking for the 5th Loko.

2010-11-28T20:25:00.002-05:00

Has it really been a week since I got to indulge in our Four Lokovore experiment? Time flies when your mind is fried by banned beverages!

Now, my night wasn't really fourlokostories.com worthy:

Alexander: Four Lokos made me shit my pants, cheat on my wife, and buy 2k worth of potato chips online.

JR5: Did a four loko power hour which amounted to about 3 in 50 mins went out to the back porch of my fraternity to smoke some hookah, the next thing I remember is waking up in my 9:30 am class with one shoe taking rather illegible notes. I hadn't been to this class in over 2 weeks my blackout self apparently is an academic.

Quatro Crazy: So one night I went on a booze cruise around lower Manhattan with some friends. It was an open bar so we were all completely hammered. On the way back to my town we decided to get some 4lokos and go out to a bar for a few more drinks. I remember starting my second 4loko and then I woke up to a beeping noise. I opened my eyes and saw myself hooked up to all these heart monitors with two IV’s in my arms. I immediately freaked out and tore everything off of me. The nurses came running in screaming so I screamed back at them demanding to know what had happened. They said I had already told them when I was brought in on a stretcher: They told me, that what I told them had happened was I got drunk, lost my friends, and phone died. I left the bar, walked to my car, and decided I was too drunk to drive home so decided to lay down on the ground beside my car and take a nap to sleep it off. Apparently a cop making the rounds came over and woke me up. He asked if I was ok and I replied yes, just too drunk to drive so I rather sleep. He asked me if I needed to go to the hospital. I asked him if they have water at the hospital. After he assured me there was water at the hospital, I demanded that I needed to be taken to the hospital so he called me an ambulance. Upon leaving the hospital I heard a familiar voice freaking out just as I had earlier. I peaked in the room and saw that it was my friend asking what the heck happened to him. The nurse asked if we knew each other, we said yes. She put her hand over her head and said: same story, except this guy wanted to know if hospitals had beds.

The reality of Four Loko seems to be that it is tons of sugar, followed with a cup of coffee. Oh, and then there is some alcohol in there, but the downers are overwhelmed by all of the uppers.

Sorry world, but Four Loko isn't truly to blame for all of the kids drinking too much and doing stupid things. That's just your children not being very smart.

I can however, thank the banning of Four Loko for one brilliant idea. The clear lesson to take away from the Four Loko fiasco is that Americans love to mix their addictive drugs. Taking away caffeine from alcohol takes the best combo off the table, but I have a business proposition for you: who wants to invest in creating an ultra sweet alcoholic nicotine beverages? How can we lose?

Happy Thanksgiving Bisshes!

2010-11-25T14:07:00.004-05:00

Its Turkey Day in America! So congratulations on being descendants of crazy conservative religious folks who came to this country and survived on the goodwill of the indigenous peoples that had recently been decimated by the arrival of small pox and other horrendous diseases!

In my personal opinion, President Obama should not have pardoned the turkeys this year just to show America what a real man he is. In fact, he should have gone to the pardoning ceremony, named the turkeys Boner and Mick, and just snapped their necks. And then been all "What you want party of rich people? Its a recession and these birds can feed some people instead of extending unemployment benefits."

So yeah, I'm stoked to begin the eating binge that lasts until I start feeling guilty in 2011.

To kick it all off, we're supplying these amazing sweet potatoes, two classic pecan pies, and a variety of Made in America beverages.

Best wishes to you and yours. Lets eat.

I'll keep this shorter than the race.

2010-11-21T20:52:00.002-05:00

I ran the Philadelphia Marathon this weekend, my revenge race you could say, as I was trying to correct some mistakes I made at Hartford six weeks ago. Anyway, it was great! I ran 3 hours 39 mins with pretty even splits and a steady(ish) pace. Good fueling and hydration and equipment and ta-da, I qualified for the Boston Marathon.* Anyway, it's a great race that really shows off the city well. Plus Green Man ran the race, too. Oh also, I didn't hit the wall, so that was awesome. I worried about it the entire time, even at mile 25, but smart racing won the day. And that concludes the year of 3 marathons. I'm entering semi-retirement until some nagging pains heal. And also so I can stay up late on the weekends again. Once again, a special shout out to Fletcher, who cut short his 4 Loko weekend binge to get up early and cheer me on. Even if I didn't see him, and wondered if he was lying face down in a ditch somewhere in West Philadelphia, he was there at miles 1, 5, 13, and 26. I'd post pictures, but my mom was in charge of the camera, so there's only one of me, and it's after the race.

Oh, I was going to post my playlist for your entertainment, but dude, I ran a lot today, so give me an f-ing break. Just to give you an idea, Don't Stop Believing carried me through miles 7 through 11 (yeah, that's right, one song, 5 miles). But wait, it gets worse: I listened to a combination of Justin Bieber and D4L (?? My little sister had put it on my getting ready wedding mix, which I transferred over to my running mix just last night) from mile 21-26. Though despite the dozen times it came on, I only now learned that he says "call me a Jolly Rancher cause I stay so hard" Also, this unofficial video is mad weird.

*I bought someone's bib, so technically I didn't qualify for Boston.

Four Lokovore

2010-11-17T22:27:00.005-05:00

At this point, I don't really have much to say about the newest wave that swept the country, but the world is atwitter about Four Loko. Did caffeinated alcoholic beverages hospitalize students on various campuses? Or was it collegiate binge drinkin' that did them in? America may never know now that Four Loko is going caffeine-free in the hopes of staving off FDA regulation/banning.

Here in New York, the legislature gave its good citizens until Dec. 10th 2010 to purchase out the standing inventories from the shelves. In good Brooklyn fashion, I wanted to support my local businesses and so Lauren and I went on a hunt this evening. A Four Loko hunt. Pure local.

You might be surprised to learn that the hopping hot-spot of Park Slope with its plethora of stay-at-home fathers looks to be a barren field when it comes to the local harvesting of guarana and taurine infused adult beverages. We walked the entire length of 7th Ave from Flatbush to 12th street, stopping at every deli, bodega, and grocery along the way. We had one sighting of a watermelon Loko in a bodega at 7th st and 7th Ave., but I wouldn't suggest that you go there since I brought it home with me. A couple of other bodegas on the south side of 9th St. carried Tilt and Joose (two other fine caffeinated malt beverages), but were plum out of the good stuff. On the walk back up 5th Ave. we had no more luck until we got to the good folks at the 5th Ave Market (5th and Berkley), where we promptly bought them out of their remaining 3 cans of Loko (Grape, Orange, and Lemonade for those following along at home). We were about to turn home, when I spotted one more bodega on the far corner. Right next to the Arecibo car company. You know that those guys like to party.

Jackpot at the Degraw Deli! All the Loko you can handle! In all the flavors! Including Cranberry-Lemonade! This is going to be an awesome weekend.

Update: Upon sleeping on this post, I feel that it doesn't really do justice to the intensive search for the elusive Loko. When I first asked the question "Where can I buy Four Loko in Park Slope?" I was sure that it would be as simple as stepping into the local bodega, dropping some cash on the counter, and instant Loko. We ended up walking 3 miles, and ducking into at least 15 different stores before finding a shop with a supply that could outlast our harvesting. Clearly Four Loko is not as dangerously prevalent as some legislators would have us believe. I mean, if the good kids of Park Slope can't get crunk in their own 'hood?

For the record, there were significantly more sightings of Tilt and even a pair of Sparks recorded during the trip.

No Lokos were harmed in the filming of this event. Yet.

When good shows go...less good.

2010-11-13T22:13:00.003-05:00

As much as I like to say that I don't watch TV, I do. I mean television is as American as apple pie. Maybe more so, since they started growing all of our apples in New Zealand and Chile. Of course, like the cheapo elites that we are, we do all of our watching through Netflix and Hulu. The upside is commercial free and on our schedule. The downside is...well...right now I could use less heroin with my Breaking Bad.

Recently, I've had a run of shows that are good, but sometimes hit a patch where frankly I don't want to spend my time watching them. But I do.

Battlestar Galactica.
Big Love.
Deadwood.
Breaking Bad.

This be Armistice Day

2010-11-11T21:43:00.000-05:00

On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, peace reigned on the Western Front. If you don't know what I am talking about, then perhaps you should have gone to school today rather than slave away at work because you have a job that hates America. I for one enjoyed the sunshine and my couch as only a government employee can.

Today is a day when we thank all of our veterans in Afghanistan and Iraq and from the honorable wars like Korea, World War II, and Vietnam. For all of those students who took the day off from their failing public schools and played Call of Duty or Battlefield, I too have a dream for future fun.

To this end, and to honor all those Americans that have sacrificed their virtual lives for their country, I would like to present a list of wars that I would like to see represented in the next generation of games:
The First Barbary War, 1801-1805.
The Indonesian National Revolution, 1945-1950.
South African Border War, 1966-1989.
Crimean War, 1853-1856.
The Falklands War, 1982.
Second Italo-Abyssinian War, 1935-1936.
The Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939.
The Balkan Conflict, 1991-1995.
Boer War, 1898-1902.
The Philippine-American War, 1899-1902.

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.

2010-11-10T18:56:00.000-05:00

Nothing. Because I don't talk about running. Because there are as few topics in the world that are as boring as running.

Many people run. I run. Many people run further than I, and like anything that people think is important or that people spend lots of time doing they think about it a lot. And like most things that people think is important, they like to talk about it and share their experiences. Lauren and I debate this topic frequently, but people that talk about running are wrong. In ye olden days, we might have referred to them as bores, but these are simpler times and these people are simply boring.

But don't let a person who talks about running here you say this! No, no! When they go on long runs, their bodies “experience” “things”. When I sit on the couch for hours on end, I too “experience” “things”. Like pure relaxation and inner peace. They see “things” on their runs that blow their minds when their minds are in their zen-like state. These things do not translate to actual interesting thoughts in the real-world. They translate to “I saw the light change” or “someone had a funny gait”, which are conversation starters well-below “I had to watch Divorce Court today during my lunch break” or “You will not believe what I saw on Family Feud today.” Let's just look to the amazing happenings on Wheel of Fortune recently to realize that low-brow tv far exceeds running in terms of conversational engagement.

For the betterment of society, these people sometimes congregate in the far forgotten corners of the internet. Think AOL chat-rooms for 40 year old men who like to wear tights. Which if you think about it was pretty much what AOL chat-rooms were like in 1995. And these people ask each other the questions that even they know are too shameful to ask their significant others except in circumstances of maximum intoxication. Like “if I go out and run 26.2 miles, can I say that I ran a marathon?” Let me tell you, this question b.l.e.w.s.h.i.t.u.p. on the runners forum. Even the assholes had assholes as they denounced this fool. “Of course its not a marathon! A marathon is a race! With other people! You just ran 26.2 miles for nothing! I hope you get mugged!” But of course we all know that this is an ontological question. If only one person showed up to run the Boston Marathon, would it still be a marathon? Duh balls all over your face it would be. So clearly, one person running 26.2 miles CAN be a marathon, and you just got a stank jock. I will admit that there are many more iterations of this debate that we could go through before we were all confident that I am correct, but let me cut to the gem of this debate, because, you know, we are currently talking about running, which as I learned in a recent TED talk, is actually more boring than watching paint dry.

All these assholes are trying to make a definitional argument about what a marathon is, but they are forgetting one thing: for all the times that they put on their fey little shorts and chafed their thighs until they bled yellow pus, there is one thing almost none of them did: run an actual Marathon. You see pedantism is not a one sided affair. We can create linguistic tags that have socially agreed upon meanings, aka “names”, but a Marathon involves running the distance between Marathon and Athens. Everyone else just ran 26.2 miles with a bunch of other assholes and then gave themselves cheap plastic medals that will end up in the garbage dump or choke a sea turtle one day soon.

So yeah, I ran a mother-fucking 5-K yesterday.

This American Life.

2010-11-09T19:06:00.002-05:00

Oh hai. We have a blog don't we? Yeah, I guess that we do. And it isn't just about weddings and marathons, is it?

What, you say that you like that and its all that you want out of your life? Well, I am sad for you. Truly I am. The internet is a place for many things, so you can go find it elsewhere. At least until Lauren writes another post. But this post is mine, and I would like to dedicate it to Arlene. Maybe I can get even keep this ball rolling and call it zombie blog month 'cause this shit be back from the dead. Or not. Only America can decide how this story ends.

So yeah, a blog is supposed to be filled with all the awesome thoughts that you can't say in real life AND awesomer descriptions of all the cool stuff that you did that make your readers jealous. Some people even write about things in a way that makes them sound even cooler than they were just because they were in fact so lame that no one else was there and so there is no one to call them on their bullshit. But we won't do that here.

No, the reason that this site has fallen by the wayside is an amazing story unlike any that you've ever heard. You see, since getting married (an event that has been covered in no small detail on this site previously) my life has been exceptionally boring. Like Middle America boring. Like Leave it to Beaver boring. Like the sexual excitement of a porn star boring. Life has become an endless routine of days at satisfying job and nights with the person that I love. Sure, sometimes we go out and paint the town red with friends, but that's just to prepare ourselves for a Sunday filled with bagels and football watching.

Perhaps the proudest moment of the past month was making a spectacular apple-cranberry crisp. The perfect blend of tart and sweet, topped off with vanilla ice cream melting into the crevasses of the crisp. Yeah, I ate an entire 9x12 pan over the course of a week. Why share the good stuff? (Filling taken from this Smitten Kitchen recipe and topping taken from this Simply Recipes post. The apples that I used were Mutsu's, but some people in this country like to call them Crispins because they remember the Day that will forever live in infamy and can't bring themselves to buy Japanese cars.)

Just an FYI here, my bus is currently showing The Alamo, so my blood is boiling against all those that would dare to defend their homelands against the avarice and greed of Anglo-American settlers. Oh man, we're nearing the end here, and those Texans just can't help themselves while they slaughter defenseless Mexicans. Reminds me of why we have a militarized border today: to keep Texas from annexing more land and creating more asshole Texans.

Since I once read a Dooce blog post, I admit to knowing what the internets like, so let me end with this little tale: Ever since getting married, Lauren has started to get all gooey eyed around little children. Some of you might not understand what the big deal is, but let me say this, before we were wed, babies were like the word "moist" to Lauren, good in theory, but deeply unsettling when heard aloud. So to witness this change is like watching the alien burst out of dudes stomach in Alien for the second time: I knew it was coming but never thought that it was going to be this soon.

One year ago this past weekend

2010-10-12T13:11:00.002-04:00

We got engaged! To celebrate the anniversary, we went to the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, where it all went down a year ago. Fletcher led me to the spot where he proposed and I, of course, said where? It was here? Thus ruining the moment.

This blog is only about marathons and weddings

2010-10-12T12:32:00.004-04:00

On Saturday, I ran the Hartford Marathon. Some of you will remember my last marathon effort which was only 5 months ago. In between marathons, I ran a lot. Like 50 miles a week for 15 weeks. This might have been part of my problem, OVERtraining, because in addition to the substantial increase in weekly mileage, I ran 23 miles two weeks before the race, leaving myself with a very short taper. See also tying my shoe too tight and developing awful callouses on my left foot within the first ten miles. Which, of course, I didn't fix until mile 12, because I was afraid to stop. Umm that was dumb but certainly don't the most foolish thing I did during the race. No, that award would go to running the first half of the race with an 8:06 pace. Want to know my pace for the second half? Me either, but you can figure it out if I tell you that I finished in 3:53:57. When I saw the 3:40 pace group pass me, I laughed, because what else can you do in that situation? Maybe I could have ran my goal time if I had paced properly, but I'll never know. What I do know is that holy jesus, never laugh in the face of the marathon, because it will eat you up and spit you out. I was totally humbled when, at about mile 15, I knew I was done. I had nothing left! My legs felt so heavy, and my brain was all "well, Fletcher and your parents are at mile 19, why don't you just leave with them and get some breakfast?" And then I was all brain, shut up! You didn't work this hard for so long just to give up.

And so I hit the wall, and then I punched it really hard, and then I finished! It was the most mentally and physically demanding thing I've ever done (which isn't to say that it was supposed to be like that, but once shit got real, I willed myself to keep pushing on). And you know what? It was kind of awesome to be at the depths of physical and mental despair and then make it my bitch. Yes, I'm sick like that. So is my dad, though, who told me he was a little jealous that I got to experience that. So I was off my PR by 10 mins and missed qualifying for Boston by 13, but I was prouder of this one than the first, because I saw how easy it would have been to quit--I saw how much I just wanted to stop--and I didn't. So, without further ado, a picture recap (very brief because a certain number one fan couldn't bother taking pictures during the brief minutes he saw me during his 5 hour stint as cheer captain) P.S. JK Fletcher, you're the best!!

Interestingly, this is at Mile 19. Why do I look so f-ing happy? Well mostly because at mile 15, where my cheering section last saw me, I was grimly shaking my head, mostly because I knew I was DOOOOMED. And I wanted to signal to them that I was not going to last at this pace. But I realized they would interpret it as me being really angry with myself (not an unreasonable suspicion, but fortunately untrue), so when I saw them again, I was trying to signal that it was totally cool that I might not make it to the finish line. I don't think my strategy worked, but I actually managed to smile for the rest of the race. Well, grimace might be more accurate, but I was really happy just to be there. Also, the expression on that guy's face is how I felt. I saw a lot of that as I finished the race. Also, congrats old man, you probably recovered and then beat me. I saw a lot of that too.

Teh finish: and thank f-ing god. I was really concerned I wouldn't make it. And, actually, my calf started cramping up sporadically for the last several miles, including one last spasm right at the finish line, which made me do a funny hop and then just prey I wouldn't have to walk it in. P.S. pretty, right? Also, apparently Fletcher and my sister (Julia!!!) were standing a nose hair away from me on the sideline, and I totally didn't see them. That's what we call tunnel vision. Or just regular day Lauren.

Woo, thank god, give me my stuff!!!!

Eating some New England goods with my sis who came to watch the race! I wore bright blue to stand out, but it turns out that the most common color shirt women wore? Bright blue.

Anyway, the Hartford Marathon is very well done. Not too large, well-organized, good route, and guess what? Hartford is kind of pretty. Who knew?

So what's next? Well, first I'm working on walking. Then, who knows!

One month of being married.

2010-08-24T15:27:00.002-04:00

Peek-a-boo.

2010-08-24T15:10:00.005-04:00

We did a first look, partly because I had read alls about it on the wedding blogs, but mostly because we decided to take wedding party pictures before the ceremony (which, btw, was an excellent idea and made for some happy and drunk bridesmaids and groomsmen during cocktail hour). Anyway, behold...

(cry face)

"So, want to get married?"

Hmm...what's that?

It's a bird...it's a plane...

Oh no, it's just my bridesmaids!

Sisters

2010-08-20T11:18:00.006-04:00

As everyone at the wedding can contest, I am lucky to have the fiercest sisters out there. And man do I fucking love them. Thank you maids of honor for being more than I could have ever asked for.

Their speeches were awesome. First they Rock, Paper, Scissored to see who would go first.

Gracie won...or lost. Hmmm.

Then Julia...

Anyway, there's a little family tradition called "Slack Jaw," which I'm horrible at. My sisters, however, rule at it, and they do it all the time, in photos and real life. We have multiple slack jaw photos from the wedding, but here's the sisterly edition.

Name that object

2010-08-19T15:59:00.003-04:00

If you guessed vuvuzela, you'd be correct.
That's my youngest uncle, getting married next weekend. You'd better believe we are going to find a way to, uh, thank him for this one.

Name that tune

2010-08-19T15:55:00.002-04:00

Srsly, I'd love to know what song was playing when I made this move.

Back by popular demand

2010-08-17T17:38:00.000-04:00

I give you the anatomy of cry face.

1) Steel Reserve

2) Trepidation. Laughing to throw them off the scent of tears.

Notice that Fletcher takes my hand. He knows I'm going down.

3) Biting the lip

4) Defeated

Kisses!

2010-08-12T14:46:00.005-04:00

So the context is that my dad looked at me right before we turned the corner to walk down the aisle and started sobbing. And I was all, "Look Dad, I love you so much too, but you cannot do this right now." So then I started making jokes about how I can do more push ups than him (this is not a joke; we had a competition all summer) and then this happened:

Meanwhile, back on the other side of the aisle, there was this:

My dad...he just kept talking!

He was telling me, "When we get to the end of the aisle, I am going to give you a kiss on the cheek."

It was different than this kiss because duh balls, it would be weird otherwise.

But perhaps it was still a little gross?

Blah blah blah, look we made it!

Teh Ceremony

2010-08-12T12:31:00.004-04:00

Pan out.

Now up close. Fletcher says "Don't run away!"

I think that's hilarious!

Reading my vows. Guys, I held it together better than I thought, but then...

Cry face.

Fletcher says, "I'm not going to crack, bitches!"

Oh but he did.

And I just had more cry face.

Legs Crossed edition

2010-08-11T14:17:00.003-04:00

How you doin?

A kiss? Sure!

It will distract people from your "tight junk."

(seriously. best phrase of the day. you can thank Jason Michael for that one)

Concept photography.

2010-08-11T12:24:00.006-04:00

Hey fellas!

Laydeez...

God, it's like we're right out of Bride Magazine.

2010-08-10T17:16:00.001-04:00

Recaps on the way. Maybe. But for now...

2010-08-10T17:12:00.002-04:00

To Be Continued

2010-07-30T11:30:00.001-04:00

How to look like you've grown a head taller.

2010-07-07T23:21:00.004-04:00

Having our vows in the paper of record was always a dream of mine. But alas, I missed the fucking deadline for it.*

*And then I tried to pull in a favor and promptly made enemies with the Style editor because I didn't want our announcement to have the religious affiliation of the person marrying us in it, but apparently he "didn't get what I was trying to do" and, well, that settled that.

So long story short, I moved on. But before doing so, I a) learned that we don't have a single picture with our eyebrows level b) realized that every single couple pictured in the Vows section really does have their eyebrows level and c) weird rule, amiright?

Oh and d) I may have taken a few photos of these shenanigans.

This one says "We're liberal elite but still patriotic." Perfect for the Times. USA, USA, USA. Anyway, totally normal, right?

Wrong.

multitasking is not my forte

2010-06-30T22:51:00.002-04:00

This pretty much sums up my life right now. Let's just hope they stay on different pages for the next three weeks. Otherwise I'll be reciting D.C. city council legislation as my vows and writing a dissertation about getting married on a goat farm.

Three songs that, sadly, won't make the wedding playlist.

2010-06-22T19:39:00.002-04:00

Co-op Comments

2010-05-27T21:16:00.002-04:00

I know that none of you a currently members of the hippy-dippy food co-op that we have here in Park Slope (Oldest and Largest in the Nation!) which means that you miss out on all of the fun that goes along with self-entitled people buying their very own expensive organic foods. Now the co-op is known for its crowds and long lines, so I frequently have the pleasure of overhearing some very insightful conversations. Like this one:

Girl: Ooooh! Tiger's Milk Energy Bars! I used to love these as a kid!

Boy: Says here it's the original energy bar. For like 50 years!

G: Maybe we should get some of these, they were so delish!

B: Can't be any worse than Powerbars.

G: OMG! Look at this! They have corn syrup in them. Ugh. WTF. How could they do that? How can they call themselves an energy bar? That is so disgusting.

I can only hope that the guy was refraining from informing her that while high fructose corn syrup may go against everything she believes, but it is high in "energy" and 50 years ago it wasn't (morally) bad for you.

Man we're bad at this

2010-05-27T20:15:00.001-04:00

I decided to let that last post ride at least as long as it took Lauren to run. And then a few more weeks.

26.2

2010-05-05T11:31:00.006-04:00

On Sunday, we drove up to Long Island for the Long Island Marathon which - wait for it - I ran! I've been training for the past 15 weeks, having finally decided to fulfill a goal I never even had until about 16 weeks ago. I don't know, maybe it was my marriage-life crisis. So how did I do? Well I'll spare you the details, mainly because I've already talked to Fletcher about it incessantly for the past three days. But here are some highlights.

First, my gear. I had a lot of it. Guys, I was SO nervous going into the race. I ended up using Fletcher's shuffle (which I short circuited around mile 21 right after dumping water on my head for the 4th or 5th time - it was 80 degrees and humid - which left me with one working earphone for the last 5 miles. No worries, I just played Sleigh Bells, Crown on the Ground on repeat for 4 of them). If you don't recognize that gray deodorant shaped product, well too bad for you. I used that red pouch to carry three GUs, because they said they weren't going to supply the GU brand. Turns out they did supply it, but not where I wanted it. I took one at mile 12 and one at mile 20. Oh right, I said I'd spare you the details. So fast forward to mile 20.

Mile 20. Notice I still have a smile on my face. Okay, well I turned it on for the cameras. I'm about to "raise the roof" for my number one fans. Note that no one around me was amused by the move. Also, at this point, my pace was somewhere around 8:19. For 20 miles. Sick. I was concerned (rightfully) that that was not going to last.

Okay, fast forward now to the last .2 miles. I thought I was in a full out sprint, but apparently it was more like a fast jog. Regardless, look at those people behind me: I passed the shit out of them. Also, the one in the red shorts is 61. And for the record, I was thrilled to beat grandma.

And fast forward 3hrs43mins later. Woohoo. I did it! (in my hand is the rad sweatshirt I got for finishing. Seriously, it's the coolest thing I own. Okay, not seriously, but it's the coolest thing I got that day...aside from that lunch pack on my right)

This is right when I remembered I packed jelly beans. Fuck yeah, jelly beans!

My mom was REALLY excited about this sign. No comment.

And my bro came not only to cheer me on, but to run the half marathon, which he killed.

So there you have it. It was my first marathon and a great thrill. The race flew by, I beat my goal time by 17 minutes, and there was only a short stretch in the end that felt tough. I trained really hard for the race, and everything came down in my favor on race day. Also, the jelly beans were delish; I ate them all.

Apparently, I was a sweet juror.

2010-04-08T21:23:00.003-04:00

Dear King's County Clerk,

It seems like a lifetime ago that I had the opportunity to serve on a jury in Brooklyn. The glory, the glamour, the free wireless while you wait. It was an experience I really, truly embraced as a red-blooded American. Much like owning a gun or mis-interpreting the meaning of the separation of church and state. Needless to say, I could barely contain myself when I received that magical summons from you.

While I reliving all my previous joys of service (the brief Foursquare mayorship of the King's County Civil Court!), I just happened to look through my datebook just to see how many long years ago these magnificently foggy memories stemmed from. Lo and behold to my surprise when I saw that I had last served my county in mid-January, which if your math is anywhere near as efficient as your mailing abilities, was a mere 75 days ago. Even more surprising was that upon further investigation, the summons that you wasted 42 cents to mail to me indicates that I was previously absent, which doesn't explain what I did for three days in a courtroom in the depths of winter.

Thank goodness you sent me home with a letter after my service was complete and told me that I wouldn't have to serve for another six whole years. Of course this could all be easily rectified if some where in the letter, or your website, or on the phone help line provided any sort of information on what one is supposed to do when the county clerk fucks up their job and sends a second summons to someone. No, why would you seek to provide your residents with information that they could put to good use?

Sincerely,
Someone who is going to have to bug the shit out of you tomorrow on the phone.

You are what you wear when you sell your soul to love.

2010-03-27T19:05:00.009-04:00

People really eat up wedding blogs. I know one woman who apparently reads 76. Crazytown! Wedding blogs are like US Weekly for the recently engaged and the desperately alone alike. Neither of which I really feel the need to tailor my writing to suit. And as much as we'd love to share all the ins and out of our wedding planning, I'm not prepared to have a nickname like Mr. Taco or Mr. Meatstick foisted upon me.

But really, for all the resources out there to help brides find a wedding dress or flower arrangements or proper napkin folding techniques, you know who really needs help in all of this? That's right, in this patriarchical society wherein we force the womenfolk to abandon their family heritage for the pittance of a rock found by starving orphans in Africa, there aren't an abundance of websites out there to help the groom sort through his societally limited role is the "biggest day of his life" (as determined by the marital-matriarchy complex).

How do you subtly inform your groomsmen that your wedding isn't the time to embarrass you? What are fun activities to entertain the groom's side of the wedding party before an afternoon ceremony? Who cleans up the donkey after it OD's on ketamine at the bachelor party? Is it easier if it's a midget donkey? But really, there's only one thing pressing on my mind at the moment, what do I wear?

We're not doing black tie, so a tux is out. Lauren exerted her pre-wifely authority to nix jeans, so the Texas tuxedo has also been denied. Not even I would want to wear a Canadian tux and look like a ridiculous fool. Where does that leave me? Basically, a suit. I have a couple (navy and a gray pinstripe), and I'm sure that one of those could work, but the wedding is in the July heat on a farm and you want to feel a little special...so we went looking at suits today. I say "looking," but with Lauren by my side, I now understand why she's bought 6 dresses so far. I paid for two suits today.

During this brief search, I learned why the internet tells you to go to J. Crew or Banana Republic to buy an affordable and fashionable suit. Those two stores appear to be the only places to buy a suit for under $500 that isn't absolute crap. I don't know what voodoo they use to produce their suits that forces other stores to stock only things made out of plastic or cost a $1000+. Just no need.

Frankly, I'm torn between just getting something reasonable and basic, like this nice charcoal piece from the 'nana that I bought on plastic just a few hours ago, or something like this "stone" color from J. Dude that I also bought today. The "wheat" or khaki color was also kind of nice. There's always the seersucker as well, but frankly, would I ever wear that again?

Thoughts?

Park Slope and Food Co-op and Zombies

2010-03-25T23:37:00.003-04:00

Bitching about the Co-op is grasping for the low-hanging fruit of white-whines, but I had a grumpy shift tonight because:

1. The crazy old lady on the shift who can't stop talking about her crazy old lady things? Please stop. The Co-op has a voluntary retirement age. People like you make me wish that it was mandatory. Work shifts are not your social hour. I am not your retirement home baby-sitter.

2. Poorly trained spice packer. You must not be a cook, otherwise you would understand that no one needs to buy a $5 bag of paprika unless its international goulash day. Little bags mean fresher, cheaper spices.

3. Lazy/picky spice packer. No one likes to pack the garlic powder or the onion flakes or the cayenne pepper. They are aromatic and can irritate our sensitive skins, but someone's got to do it. I don't understand why those are the barest of the spices every four weeks, but I suspect it is because you prefer to fill up little baggies filled with Earl Grey Tea or cinnamon sticks.

I'm glad that's out, aren't you? I feel much better. So much better that I'm going to tell you about this book that I'm reading, but let me first make an admission. I've never read any Jane Austen. None of the Brontes' either.

Now that I've finished Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, can someone please tell me if the terrible parts of this book carried-over from the original or unique to this, um, adaptation? Because its bad. They really did just take a story and insert zombies at random intervals. They're at a ball, being ladies, and then zombies break in through the windows to eat someone's brain, and then they go back to dancing. Mr. Darcy goes for a walk with Elizabeth and they consummate their love by killing zombies. Also, there are a lot of jokes about "balls" that might be made by a third-grader. And of course the classic closing line:

And the sisters Bennet-servants of His Majesty, protectors of Hertfordshire, beholders of the secrets of Shaolin, and brides of death-were now, three of them, brides of man, their swords quieted by that only force more powerful than any warrior.

Family is the most important thing of all.

2010-03-04T15:30:00.002-05:00

Everyone loves family right? You hate them, but really you love them. Especially other people's families. So when a certain family patriarch was celebrating one of those big birthdays that ends with a 5 or a 0, I was happy to fly to a warm place to participate in a de facto family reunion (but-not-my-family-yet-but-perhaps-soon-will-have-to-be-considered-as-such) that would surround this grand life event.

Of course, with weeks being what they are, with more days lumped into the "work week" than the far superior "week end", it can sometimes be a challenging thing to determine which weekend is the best weekend to celebrate on. This is also the phenomenon that leads to many people celebrating Halloween on October 26th and November 3rd in addition to October 31st itself, and thus causing extensive personal turmoil as you ponder the need to come up with three costume ideas in one year, since it is clearly unacceptable to wear the same thing three times because you can't get those semen stains out of that sexy cat costume that you wore to that high school reunion Halloween party last night. But of course, when it comes to flying someplace warm to be surrounded by someone else's family, it really only makes sense to pin down a single weekend with which to fill full of activities that won't bother all of the neighbors in the retirement community that was once known for forbidding people younger than 60 from purchasing or renting property.

Any guesses where this is going?

If you said, "Finding out that this other person's family had switched the weekend on which everyone was descending like locusts upon this poor home for people who treat golf carts like race cars after you had purchased your non-refundable plane tickets and only finding out about the switch when your future life-partner called her primary life-givers to plan for your airport pick-up a few brief days before you were to board a plane to a warm place filled with people who may or may not wear off-brand Depends," then you are the winner of one chicken dinner.

Apparently we are not going to Disneyworld this weekend, but perhaps Lauren will have to learn contract bridge.

Lauren 1, Prospectus 0

2010-03-03T20:06:00.004-05:00

It's done, bitches!

Spring Break is on.

Priorities.

2010-03-02T15:26:00.004-05:00

Photo evidence that wedding to-dos are a non-existent priority as I work to turn my dissertation prospectus in (and, well, in general really). But lovely stationary (thanks Grandma).

P.S. that says KKK @ RFK! over on the right corner. White supremacy, always exciting.

Way to engage all the senses.

2010-02-26T21:55:00.002-05:00

Guess what the sickly-sweet fermenting smell coming out of our trash can is?

Did you guess those mediocre muffins that I made last week? Yeah, bad muffins getting worse. Much worse. Who knew that baked raisins would turn into little pruno bombs just four days after baking. Which means four wasted muffins and one 3/4s eaten alcoholic breakfast.

On the plus side, this Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales' Maracaibo Especial Special Brown Ale is some tasty shit. Cacao, cinnamon, and orange zest make for surprisingly tasty additions to beer.

That noise upstairs. No, that noise.

2010-02-17T23:34:00.002-05:00

In the least surprising survey result of all time, 68% of NYers report hearing their neighbors gettin'. it. on. In other news 32% of New Yorkers' have permanent hearing loss from riding the subway.

Personally, its been at least 9 years since I last lived some place where I couldn't here someone else indulging in the throes of passion. Its just something that comes with not living in retirement home or boarding elementary school, right? Luckily, we're saving ourselves for marriage, but it sounds like the holiest of matrimonies doesn't score you very much nookie in the Slope.

I kid, I kid. I know our upstairs neighbors like to engage in baby-making dry-runs, but at least they're respectful of our ears and bang it out in five-minutes or less. The previous tenant up there? Not so kind. First off, she was some kind of failing actress, so it was rare that she got home before 1 AM to stomp aimlessly around her apartment in what I can only assume to be dominatrix boots or tap shoes. But on the weekends...man...have you ever been woken up at 4 AM to the sounds of the most bored sex ever? How long do you think that you could listen to the flat refrain "Oh god. Oh god. Yes. Yes. Oh god." on non-stop loop before you snapped? Myself? After an hour of it, I started considering what the impact would be on my current relationship if I went upstairs and finished the guy off myself, because she couldn't get the job done. It was like listening to porn version of Away We Go. Can't this shit finish so I can get another Netflix disc? I got one word for you honey, whiskeydick. Of course, there were other times when, I shit you not because I had a lot of time to consider this in the moment, I think she was having sex with an exercise ball. There are some noises that even an Ikea mattress can't muster.

So yeah, unless you can manage to score a sub-prime mortgage to get yourself a detached house, you're probably going to hear some things you won't like. Or maybe you will, you freak. Us? We just subject our neighbors to the grunts of 30-Day Shred kicking our asses.

I'm convinced

2010-02-16T21:16:00.001-05:00

Although in fairness, if you're using a loofah, it probably doesn't matter what your body wash smells like.

Apologies to all

2010-02-15T12:05:00.002-05:00

In the cold light of day, I realize how inane that last post was. It was meant to be all OMG Yums! and NOM-NOM-NOM. But that got lost in translation from my brain to my keyboard. What it should have read was, soup=a great way to fool your body into thinking that its eating something.
Torta=
'Cept I still had my beard on, so it was a dripping mess of greasy delicioso smeared all over my face, but I was the only person who spoke English, so no one could tell me that I looked like every child's nightmare until my 20 minute subway ride ended at my mirror.

Also, if you're staying home from work (because this is NSFW), you should note the all important difference in google ranking for my photo there above using the terms "meat on a stick" and "meat stick".

You know what I love?

2010-02-14T22:16:00.005-05:00

Food. And Lauren, obvios, but really, food. As winter drags on, I get called to cook and eat, and a three day weekend is as fine an excuse as I need.

Saturday brought slow-cooked chicken with apricots and dates. Simple and easy, but it was missing some depth of flavors. Maybe a little more spice next time?

Sunday started off with a trip down to Puebla Mini Mart for one of their awesome tortas stuffed to the brim with carne asada, jamon, bacon, and queso blanco. Follow that up with some banana bread to tide me over through a lazy holiday Monday. Then the coup de grace, this apple and parsnip soup for dinner. I can't recommend this one enough (Catherine). The sweet of the apple blend deliciously with the peppery parsnips to create the perfect delicate winter soup on this "heart-y" winter night.

Of course, the real Valentine's Day gift was turning in my beard card.

Who Dat? SNOMG!

2010-02-07T19:58:00.001-05:00

Lost is on, bitches!

2010-02-02T21:07:00.003-05:00

So, like, OMG, we all know that Lost is the best thing on TV since The Wire (and the hottest since Dallas!). I, for one, am stoked like a 12-year old before the SI Swimsuit Issue release, but can you have too much of a good thing? (Vicky's catalog?)

Maybe, but you can have a good thing and then take it up a notch. Like watching Lost while taking part in a Lost Fantasy League. Eat it suckers. Now not only can my mind be BLOWN by the single greatest event on Tuesday nights between 9 and 10 PM, but I can feel like the characters are actually doing something for me in real-life (ironically titled fantasy, not to be confused with actual fantasies. Like TV of the non-guido beach kind.).

Yeah. Awesomes. I'm making a face like Taylor Swift.

Whoops. This shit be on NOW!

High above the L.E.S.

2010-01-31T19:02:00.002-05:00

The beauty of getting older is that you get to accumulate experiences that would make your younger, less experienced self jealous. I mean, have you ever partied at a fancy hotel? Me neither. I get queasy just thinking about dropping a couple hundred dollars on a place to sleep for a night. Of course, this is why Lauren cried when she saw some of the hostels that we were staying at in Europe.

So last night, despite it being 15 degrees, I trekked out to the Hotel on Rivington, that monument to gentrification that leaves good ~~architects~~ trustafarian hipsters confused, for a friend's birthday party. The suite had a stunning view overlooking all of Manhattan that made me wonder if perhaps I would be better off in life pursuing a career that would afford me the outrageous sums of money that would be required to maintain such a view in my life. But that's neither here, nor there. What's here is that at 12:30, approximately 5 minutes after the birthday girl had arrived in her suite for the night, before anything memorable and uber-rockstarish could occur, we were told to leave the suite. Because the maximum occupancy for the hotel is 4 people per room.

Now I know this is bullshit if for no other reason that the shower has four shower-heads, with plenty of spare room for the dirty parts of a 20 person orgy to take place out of the morally cleansing stream of water. Oh yeah, and a bench. So if some ritzy swingers can have their fun, why can't a group of 20- and 30-somethings?

At least Home Sweet Home was filled with hipsters who could care less about our crushed dreams.

Why people hate the fucking MTA

2010-01-29T21:46:00.002-05:00

When the MTA works, its almost like it isn't there. Sure, the stations may stank of aged urine. And everything moves at half speed when it rains or it dips below freezing or its the weekend and every line is under construction. But the rest of the time, it usually is gang-busters. Except when it isn't.

Like when you pull into Canal St. on the Q and they tell you exit the train because someone was ill. It happens. Someone gets sick on the train, they should abandoned in a puddle of their own vomit, but whatever. You get off. You wait a few minutes while the train sits there. Then they tell you that you have to go upstairs where they have a Q train waiting on the local track. So, you and the other 500 people on the train start to make the long haul to the R line.

And when you get there, guess what isn't waiting there. And guess what doesn't come? Or come? Or come?

Wait for it.

Then the MTA comes on the loud-speakers to inform everyone that just hauled ass to hurry up and wait that they have to go back to where they started. Fuckers.

Welcome to the city.

Okay wedding planning has its moments.

2010-01-28T20:16:00.005-05:00

Seriously y'all, planning a wedding is like riding a roller coaster. But we had a nice moment today when my dress came (that's right, I ordered it off the Internet, from Nordstrom, for under $400, bitches). I tried it on for Fletcher (omg he saw me in it before the wedding. suck it). And, well, his reaction was super awesome. So that would be one Internet order, one dress right off the rack, and one more to-do considered done.*

*Okay two internet orders and three dresses.

Wedding planning is a foreign language.

2010-01-25T23:18:00.003-05:00

The following exchange happened today via text message

sister: "dark purple hydrangeas and white? with sunflowers on the table? OR more wildish dark purple compilation bouquets with light green accents on table"

me: "i love you but we are beyond my point of having an opinion. you are speaking a foreign language."

I would like to point out that these conversations have taken precedent over oh say finding a venue or pinning down a date or retaining a photographer, even though the wedding is now less than six months away. or not.

Fun-yuns in o-vens.

2010-01-25T23:04:00.003-05:00

Winter is usually cooking time around this house, and this winter has been a tad slow. I made some Carolina-style pulled pork for the BCS game. With a side of Texas chili con queso. Then I roasted some chickpeas like the Kitchn told me to do. Sarah even talked them up, but I'm not really feeling them. Maybe they needed to cook longer, or maybe I'm just content with air-popped popcorn and Thai lime-chili cashews from TJs.

But every once in a while, you come across a winner of a recipe, and you're not sure whether you should tell everyone you know or hoard it to score more potluck invites? Yeah, that kind of recipe. Particularly in the deep dark recesses of winter, a recipe like this one can help to get you through. Catherine, this is one that'll help you to make good on that New Year's resolution (when you make it back to the States, obvio).

Roasted Beet, Blood Orange, and Goat Cheese Salad:

You should go there to get the recipe, but I'll tell you that you can simplify it. First off, don't shirk on the beets, they're the earthy contrast to the tangy sweetness of the citrus. Second, you don't need to use blood oranges, you could use any sweet citrus that isn't too pithy. I tried a pomelo, but it was too pithy. A grapefruit might be too bitter. I'd stick with the orange family, but have fun with it. Third, you can simplify the vinaigrette down to olive oil, white wine vinegar, lemon juice, salt, and a little dijon mustard. No need to juice extra blood oranges unless you're really trying to impress someone. Finally, add goat cheese for a little extra richness. Or not, its your salad.

Preferring more targeted mailings

2010-01-25T22:07:00.002-05:00

Who says Google adverts hit too close to home sometimes? At least those are useful. On the other hand, old-timey businesses send their junk through the US Postal Service, thus saving us tax dollars in subsidies. But really?

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher,

There are a number of questions that every family must have the answers to. That's why Pinelawn Memorial Park wants you to have the information you need right now to provide your family with total protection and peace of mind. Our family planning booklet, "Let's Face It Now" will give you specific instructions regarding: Wills, Insurance, Memorial Property, Social Security Benefits, Veterans Benefits & More!

These and other related issues, are explained in this easy-to-follow booklet and it's yours absolutely Free!

Next week, crematoriums!

Social media I can get behind.

2010-01-19T23:32:00.002-05:00

During a long shift at our local food cooperative, in the midst of huffing cayenne powder and apple pie spice, I realized that aging is a difficult proposition. I'm not talking about turning 30. Or 40. Or even 50. No, I'm talking about that point in life when you volunteer for labor that your age exempts you from for the sole purpose of engaging your fellow laborers in conversation.

At this point, not only are you not working, but you may very well be bothering other people who, while likely already less than excited to be working, recognize that you don't understand their overt attempts to disengage from them because you are clearly not recognizing their overt attempts to disengage with you. Because you are old and are no longer properly capable of functioning in society. Or perhaps because you were a failure of a social person to begin with. Its hard to tell sometimes.

So I'm thinking that Foursquare or Gowalla should create a social tagging system in which people can anonymously mark old people as societally functional or not and users can get notified when they are approaching a "crazy old person."

Let's get on this.

There's that zip from Zipcar

2010-01-18T23:32:00.004-05:00

After 4 months of never needing to use a car (suck it sub- and ex-urban lifestyles!), we finally decided to put that Zipcar membership that we'd never used to, well, good use. You see my loving, caring, and wonderful grandmother, for Christmas, gave me an article of clothing that I would never wear. Is it a faux pas to tell her that I would prefer her to return to the pre-1995 days where I got a hand-knit sweater every year? Cause that shit is burning up the hipster fashion scene? Yeah, nice scarf you got there, my grandma crocheted me this steez.

Have you ever been to a Kohl's before? Its unclear to me why a store like this would continue to exist. Haven't all of these places been replaced by either Targets or Wal-marts? Or does it exist solely to feed off-brand clothing lines into the Marshall's racks?

Any rate, we got to cruise down their in a speedy little Mazda and see what the BK looks like beyond the reaches of the brownstones. There are reasons why people want to live in brownstone Brooklyn. And its not all convenience to Manhattan. On the flip side, I don't know of any other city that has a distinct of a look as outer borough NYC. Its like we have three cities in one. Also, Bay Ridge? Kind of cute, who knew.

So the zip. Yeah, sometimes you reserve a car for a shorter amount of time with the thought that you might extend said reservation as needed. And then you find out that someone else jacked your time and you have 20 minutes to drive across Brooklyn or get hit with a hefty monetary penalty. And you don't really know where you are, because honestly, you don't even bother to check out the bottom of the subway map. And then you think that maybe, just maybe, you might not live to see your unconceived child perform in a terrible school play like Bye Bye Birdie because the womb-owner of your aforementioned unconceived child is not the best of drivers under the best of conditions and now, while freaking out about monetary penalties, makes this not the best of conditions. But in the end, you make it. With 30 seconds to spare, because as I mentioned, its not a "Zipcar" for no reason.

One of these things is not like the other.

2010-01-17T23:32:00.004-05:00

I'm going to venture a guess and say that I'm probably the first person ever to purchase these two items together.

Shipment 1 of 1

Shipped
Delivery Estimate: January 12, 2010

The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality
Graham Burchell, et al
Sold by: Amazon.com, LLC
10 Minute Solution: Blast Off Belly Fat
Suzanne Bowen, Andrea Ambandos
Sold by: Amazon.com, LLC

In consideration of books as heritage

2010-01-17T21:58:00.002-05:00

In callously stealing, mutilating, and destroying rare and unique elements of our common intellectual heritage, [Daniel] Spiegelman did not simply aim to divest Columbia [University]of $1.3 million worth of physical property. He risked stunting, and probably stunted, the growth of human knowledge to the detriment of us all. By the very nature of the crime, it is impossible to know exactly what damage he has done. But this much is clear: this crime was quite different from the theft of cash equal to the appraised value of the materials stolen, because it deprived not only Columbia, but the world of irreplaceable pieces of the past and the benefits of future scholarship.

-United States v. Spiegelman, 4 F.Supp.2d 275 (S.D.N.Y 1998)

For reasons unknown, the theft of books typically is treated as a white collar crime in which there are no real victims. However, in this case, the judge grasped what was truly at stake.

In service to my...county

2010-01-14T22:10:00.002-05:00

In these lean times it really feels like an honor to be selected by society to sit with my peers in judgment of other peers. Kind of like every day life, but with an official blessing and maybe some money changing hands.

Now this was civil court, which is kind of like Judge Judy meets low-budget institutional decor. In fact, it is exactly like that because that's what it is. Which is cool and I'm sure that society needs it to function, blah blah blah, whatevs. There are clearly some structural shortcomings in the system. Like:

-Jury selection is premised almost solely upon peer pressure. If you are willing to to flat out lie during voir dire and screw over the other potential jurors, well, then you've earned your $40 dollars for one day's attendance.

-Actual jury service is, well, I didn't get to that part, and I suspect that most people that are sworn in to juries (certainly in civil cases where people are suing one another for $$$) never actually get to perform their duty because the lawyers and their clients decide to settle. Which is great and how the system should work, except that it only happens under the imminent threat of 6 strangers passing an independent and unpredictable judgment. Which means that 6 people have to waste a day of their lives in order to prove that everyone is serious about the whole lawsuit thing. Couldn't we find a more efficient way to do all of this? In these trying economic times, Lauren had the bright idea of having the unemployed volunteer to be on juries. Certainly $40 a day means more to them than to others.

-Using my 16 person selection group, it seems that there really are a lot of lawsuits. I think that 75% of the folks in the room were currently or had recently been involved in a lawsuit. But not me. I also wasn't related to a taxi driver (this was a taxi collision case). When the lawyers left the room to discuss who was being chosen of the jury, the fat lady sitting next to me turned and said "Book man, you are so shit out of luck. Have fun on this jury." And you know what, she was right. And I knew it. And that blew. I should have said that I don't recognize the legitimacy of the American legal system in light of the abuses at Guantanamo Bay.

All in all, it could have been worse. I got two paid days of reading and sitting, and now I don't have to serve in NY for another 6 years.

The best part, is upon our dismissal from the court, one of the lawyers came up to ask if I could take on some conservation work for him. Well done justice.

Reading Reviews, 2009.

2010-01-11T08:42:00.001-05:00

Looking back on the past year, I read the shit out of some books. Perhaps I was overshadowed by Lauren and her "orals" readings, but I found a rhythm-method of my own for getting through books. All which means that "read more" is not making it onto the list of New Years Resolutions that I have yet to make up for 2010. Grand total: 74 books. Which is a book every 5 days. That only pales in comparison to the 137 Netflix discs we got through.

I'm getting old, aren't I?

At any rate, here are the 8 best books that I read in the past year, ranked in order of bestestness for your pleasure:

A Happy Marriage: A Novel Yglesias, Rafael
The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon Grann, David
Netherland O'Neill, Joseph
Chronic City Lethem, Jonathan
Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World Koeppel, Dan
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus Mann, Charles C.
Kafka on the Shore Murakami, Haruki
The Ministry of Special Cases Englander, Nathan

And just because this is my ego-building blog and I can do whatever I want, here are all 74 books in reverse chronological order:

The City Of Dreaming Books Moers, Walter
Mannahatta: A Natural History of New York City Sanderson, Eric W.
The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal Mezrich, Ben
The Emperor's Children Messud, Claire
History as an Art of Memory Hutton, Patrick H.
Motherless Brooklyn Lethem, Jonathan
Garbage Land : On the Secret Trail of Trash Royte, Elizabeth
Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives Palfrey, John
The Ridiculous Race Hely, Steve
Chronic City Lethem, Jonathan
The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite Kessler, David A.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time Haddon, Mark
The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature Pinker, Steven
Thinking Through Craft Adamson, Glenn
A Happy Marriage: A Novel Yglesias, Rafael
Cryptonomicon Stephenson, Neal
Tree of Smoke: A Novel Johnson, Denis
A Passage to India Forster, E.M.
Hollow Earth Standish, David
Bright Young People: The Lost Generation of London's Jazz Age Taylor, D.J.
The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America Shorto, Russell
A Canticle for Leibowitz Jr., Walter M. Miller
Liar's Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage of Wall Street Lewis, Michael
The Great Bridge McCullough, David
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus Mann, Charles C.
Kafka on the Shore Murakami, Haruki
Marvel 1602 Gaiman, Neil
Under the Banner of Heaven Krakauer, Jon
Genesis Beckett, Bernard
Create Your Own Economy: The Path to Prosperity in a Disordered World Cowen, Tyler
The Great War and Modern Memory Fussell, Paul
Goodbye to All That Graves, Robert
The Brooklyn Follies: A Novel Auster, Paul
The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon Grann, David
The Mapmakers: Revised Edition Wilford, John Noble
The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game Lewis, Michael
History of the Restoration and Conservation of Works of Art Conti, Alessandro
Unaccustomed Earth Lahiri, Jhumpa
The White Tiger Adiga, Aravind
Castle: A Novel Lennon, J. Robert
The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University Roose, Kevin
The Great Cat Massacre: And Other Episodes in French Cultural History Darnton, Robert
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War Brooks, Max
A Fortunate Age: A Novel Rakoff, Joanna Smith
Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Capetown Theroux, Paul
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down Fadiman, Anne
Lanark a Life In Books (Picador Books) Gray, Alasdair
Shadow of the Silk Road Thubron, Colin
Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work Crawford, Matthew B.
Barbarians to Angels: The Dark Ages Reconsidered Wells, Peter S.
Who Owns Antiquity?: Museums and the Battle over Our Ancient Heritage Cuno, James
From Humanism to the Humanities Grafton, Anthony
Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling and the Culture of Consumption Miller, Laura J.
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life Kingsolver, Barbara
The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It Collier, Paul
The Craftsman Sennett, Richard
The Rise of the Creative Class: And How It's Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life Florida, Richard
Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World Koeppel, Dan
Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating with More Than 75 Recipes Bittman, Mark
Classics for Pleasure Dirda, Michael
My Name Is Red Pamuk, Orhan
Dry Manhattan: Prohibition in New York City Lerner, Michael A.
Art Restoration: The Culture, the Business, and the Scandal Beck, James
Reading Matters: Five Centuries of Discovering Books Willes, Margaret
A Universal History of the Destruction of Books: From Ancient Sumer to Modern-day Iraq Báez, Fernando
Straight Man: A Novel Russo, Richard
Salt: A World History Kurlansky, Mark
Bel Canto Patchett, Ann
Ministry of Special Cases, The Englander, Nathan
Netherland O'Neill, Joseph
The World Without Us Weisman, Alan
Watchmen Moore, Alan
Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time Mortenson, Greg

Some resolution.

2010-01-07T11:30:00.001-05:00

Alright, I'm slowly coming to grips with twenty ten. So in my final days off before school starts back, I want to reflect on some of my goals.

Last year, I made some resolutions. And for the most part, I stayed true to them. I like to think I cry less (Fletch?), and I haven't had a sip of soda all year. My posture might be better, I still don't have a Facebook profile, and I went ahead and took comps early (and passed)! So holler to all that.

Unexpected things that got resolved: well, I moved to Brooklyn, and we got engaged. Also, my heart healed. In September, I ran a half marathon (okay well technically I ran 14 miles on my own a few weeks before the race I was going to do but didn't). And I watched the entire 5 seasons of Lost (umm all between the end of comps and this week. That's intense. Bring on season 6)!

Things that still need to happen: I've yet to beat Fletcher at Wii...like at any of it, so now that comps are over, I'd like to try and do that. I also didn't start my Roth IRA last year (okay this maybe should have happened but then I loaned that money out and just recently got it back to invest). Plus Fletcher, for my birthday, agreed to help me do it. So that will happen soon. Joining the co-op has helped me eat better (and when I say better, I mean more things with fewer chemicals), but in the final months of comps, everything I ate, save for what Fletcher cooked for me, came out of a wrapper or snack sized bag. So hopefully now that I'm not in panic mode, I'll make time to continue to be mindful. Fewer bars and more beans or something. And, finally, like Catherine, I still don't wear perfume. That might be my destiny, but this year I'm still going to try and remember to put it on. You know, occasionally.

New things that need to be resolved: well, I think we're getting married this year, so hopefully we'll figure out how to make that happen. Woah, wait, wha?? Also I will be ABD soon and start work on my dissertation. So I'd like to channel the focus and dedication I had these past 6 months for the next month and a half to write my prospectus. I'd like for that to be turned in by spring break and defended right after. I'm also on a panel in April about geography, which is funny, because that's not a field I know anything about. They asked me what kind of geography I did, and I told them the historical kind. So that will be interesting. But more to the point, I'd like for it to be interesting, not because I'm talking out of my ass but because I know what I'm saying. I also want to be a good teacher. When I read last semester's feedback, I had everything from "a teaching style that was hard to connect to" to "best section I've ever had at Yale." I'll have twice as many students this semester, so hopefully I can make it more like the latter comment for more of the students. Then I guess there will be some dissertation shenanigans that will happen, but that's too far out to set goals about. I guess I'd like to have a chapter finished by the end of the year?

Moving on, I'd like to see some shows this year. There was a time in my life when I saw a show a week, but here in New York the shows I want to see are sold out before I hear about them. So I have to figure that out. I have been staying current on new music, however, which is nice. Finally, I think some real travel should happen this year. Our big trips were 4.5 years ago (6 week cross country trip camping in national parks) and 2.5 years ago (three weeks in Croatia, Venice, Prague, Budapest, and Vienna). We're not planning a honeymoon for right away, but I think some adventure should happen. Oh and finally thanks to Arlene for reminding me that I want to go clay shooting.

Where grown-up kiddie gifting meets adulthood.

2010-01-04T22:54:00.002-05:00

This holiday season had a distinct kitchen tinge to it. My favorite presents were a stockpot, cast iron pan, and a french press. My parents got all foods produced in Brooklyn (pickles, granola, and chocolate). And friends? They got homemade Aquavit. Do you like subtle spices mixing on your palate? Something this easy and tasty shouldn't be this boozy.

2 teaspoons caraway seeds, or more
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
2 teaspoons dill seeds
2 star anise
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
1 whole clove
One 1-inch cinnamon stick (optional)
2 teaspoons cumin seeds (optional)
One 1-liter bottle potato vodka

Mix together, let sit for two weeks, strain, and serve.

Warms you right down to your soul. Makes me want to try some other infused vodkas to get through what looks to be a long cold winter.

In which we try to figure our where "upstate" begins.

2010-01-03T20:10:00.003-05:00

There was a time not too many years ago when the idea of going up to a b&b for the weekend with some friends would have seemed like an idea for people far older than we. That something like this would happen on New Years Eve? Nigh unthinkable.

Apparently we've matured.

Of course, the place we ended up had just been visited by Adrian Grenier. So we got a kick out of figuring out on which surfaces he had had sex. Bed? Check. Jacuzzi tub? Check. Dresser? Probably. I don't even want to think about the four-poster bed. Needless to say, I now want a king-sized bed with a feather top. But that might be a dream for when I am forced to reside in a place with below-average real estate prices.

As for New Year's Eve itself? Fun people in a small town bar makes for a great time. If only someone had thought to include Saugerties, NY in Foursquare, I would be mayor of an entire hamlet.

The next morning, we marveled at the number of tourist trap tie-dye shops lined the main street of Woodstock before heading over to a friend's cabin deeper into the Catskills. I'm pretty sure that we would have even more exciting tales to tell had it not been 7 degrees and snowing the entire time. A warm fire, picture window overlooking snow covered fields, and hot toddies make for a pretty complete weekend.

I will leave you with this nugget of wisdom for 2010: be careful with manually lit gas ovens, they do not mix well with facial hair.

Wow, 2009.

2009-12-21T00:31:00.007-05:00

About a year ago, I was in immense pain. My world was turned upside down in May 2008, and I was having a hard time trusting that the hole in my heart would ever get smaller. And I'm happy to report that a year and a half later, it has. Nothing will ever be the way it was again, but in many ways, it's for the best. Circumstances have changed, relationships have been mended, we went through hell and back, and got the help we needed to move on. Not that I will ever stop being haunted by the past, but the more time goes by, the more trust I have that the future will be different. Things got worse before they got better, as they sometimes do, but in mid-April, things started to improve. My family became whole again, everyone was safe, and happy memories started to fill the spaces previously occupied by worry, hurt, and sadness.

In April, I also left New Haven for sunny Brooklyn. It was a move based on wise advice that took 10 months to act on. The move has made for an unenviable commute, but it's only twice a week. And when I come home, I am in the home that I've made with Fletcher. I get a hug every day, and all my clothes in one place. Anyway, sometimes it blows my mind how much has changed. In June 2008 we went to San Francisco for a week and I felt guilty the whole time, feeling like I should have been somewhere else. This June, we went to Panama and I didn't think much about home at all. In July 2008, we went to the Cape and I felt like I was keeping a million secrets. This August we went to the Cape, and the only secret is that we ate 1/2 a pound of lobster each. So, you know, that's nice.

Most of all, I wanted more than anything to be okay for Fletcher, who stood by my side patiently through everything. But I couldn't be okay for him until I was okay for me. And I got there, thanks to a lot of work and determination and love. So in October, when Fletcher proposed, I was ready to say yes. I mean, I was ready before then, but the point is that it couldn't have happened before I was ready to get better. The man I love with all of my heart deserved to be engaged to someone ready to be happy again. And at some point during this year, I was. So there was that.

In the middle of all of this, I studied for comps. Then in December, I took them and passed! But most importantly, I did so with my family supporting me every step of the way. So yeah, 2009: you kicked my ass and then I kicked yours. As for 2010, well I'm not going to be greedy. All I want is for everyone I love to be happy. At first it sounds like a lot, but what I learned this year is that the opportunities to be that way are always there; when you're ready to let go, you'll find your way.

Feel the burn

2009-12-15T23:06:00.003-05:00

No one really cares about another person's work out schedule. Except for Lauren. But my gym membership expired last week, and I've been too lazy to bother to renew it. So I've been working on building the holiday paunch. As a gift to Lauren, obvio, because who wouldn't want to have more of me to love?

Anyways, tonight I did 20 minutes of 30-Day Shred. Ouch. Apparently, the past year of running and cardio has left my upper body shriveled and weak. Luckily Gillian Michaels is willing to cajole me into shape. And now I will eat more christmas cookies.

Studying for...PSYCH it's over!

2009-12-13T23:37:00.002-05:00

Well now that that's over, I am slowly putting my life back together.* I started with a sushi dinner with my lovely fiance who put up with my stressed out shenanigans for the last few weeks (though he might argue longer). Then I slept for 12 hours, went to a hedge fund-snuggie party (srsly, I have to wrestle photo documentation from Fletcher, but it's true), slept another 12 hours, played a lot of wii, window shopped on 5th avenue, took my sister to a taping of Saturday Night Live (woo!), slept another 12 hours, went to an ugly-sweater holiday party (see aforementioned wrestling of photos--the best part was when Fletcher and my sister swapped sweaters), and watched half the first season of Lost. I experienced boredom for the first time this afternoon, and it was awesome. I still have some grading to get to, but for real? A's for everyone; I'm done suckers. Anyway, the best part is I've read a total of three pages since comps, and it was only because Fletcher's uncle forced me to read a selection from Theodore Rex. Other than that, I am off-duty!

During those rough days and nights I was toiling away, wiping away tears and generally feeling lousy, I came up with a list of what I'm going to do now that I'm free. Some of the items on this list seem like really? you couldn't do that in the past 6 months? But the answer is no, I could not. Comps took everything out of me and made the smallest of tasks feel overwhelming. Now that it's over I'm going to:

fix my watch (broke five weeks ago)
fix my nano (broke 3 months ago)
clean the house (last tackled 2 months ago)
organize my clothes (omg, I've been waiting to do this forever. Am so excited. It's a multiple day process. Last tackled in March 2009).
buy hangers (because Fletcher finally figured out I've been stealing his. And also, I have a pile of clothes I bought a month ago that are waiting to be hung up)
buy frames and hang prints (have been waiting since May 2009)
buy holiday presents
read backlog of ny magazines (from October on)
plan wedding (yeesh. Wedding TBA but probably in August)
eat food that doesn't come in bars or snack size bags, see e.g. vegetables (srsly, I thought I was going to turn yellow from vitamin deficiency by the end. Thank god for luna bars, not for any real nutrition but for ensuring I didn't die)
see friends and family (slowly being remedied but was in serious withdrawal)
watch movies that don't have to do with the geography of postwar cities (amen)
go to the movies
play wii (also being remedied)
watch all 6 seasons of Lost in time for the season 7 premiere Feb 2

Anyway, lots to do. Had no idea how worn out I was until comps were over, so I think it'll take a while to ease back into a normal life. Thank god I can leave my siege-mentality behind.

*And for those curious, everything went great! I was really happy with my performance, and after the sheer terror faded away, I actually had fun. But it took a good 45 mins for that to happen. Also, I couldn't eat all day and listened to the same three songs on repeat until I took them. Anyways, enough. It's over!

Studying for comps, week 25

2009-12-06T15:06:00.004-05:00

I finished reading for comps on Friday. These last few weeks have witnessed herculean feats of the brain. I take comps on Wed, so catch y'all on the flip side.

This week:
Soja, Edward W. “Exploring the Postmetropolis.” In Postmodern Geography: Theory and Praxis. Claudio Minca, ed. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2001.
Mitchell, Don. “Postmodern Geographical Praxis? The Postmodern Impulse and the War
against Homeless People in the ‘Post-justice’ City.” In Postmodern Geography:Theory
and Praxis. Claudio Minca, ed. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2001.
Katz, Cindi. “Hiding the Target: Social Reproduction in the Privatized Urban Environment.” In Postmodern Geography: Theory and Praxis. Claudio Minca, ed. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2001.
Smith, Neil. “Rescaling Politics: Geography, Globalism, and the New Urbanism.” In
Postmodern Geography: Theory and Praxis. Claudio Minca, ed. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2001.
James, David E., ed. The Sons and Daughters of Los: Culture and Community in L.A.
Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2003.
Brooks, Michael W. Subway City: Riding the Trains, Reading New York. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press: 1997.
Carter, David. Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2004.
Thompson, Krista A. “Performing Visibility: Freaknic and the Spatial Politics of Sexuality, Race, and Class in Atlanta.” TDR: The Drama Review 51:4 (Winter 2007): 24-46.
Kim, Claire Jean. Bitter Fruit: The Politics of Black-Korean Conflict in New York City. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000.
Rose, Tricia. “All Aboard the Night Train: Flow, Layering, and Rupture in Postindustrial New York.” In Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America. Hanover: Wesleyan University Press, 1994.
Butler, Jeremy G. “Redesigning Discourse: Feminism, The Sitcom, and Designing Women.” Journal of Film and Video 45:1 (Spring 1993): 13-26.
Baldwin, James. The Evidence of Things Not Seen. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1985.
Bayor, Ronald H. Race and the Shaping of Twentieth-Century Atlanta. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996
Lynch, Kevin. The Image of the City. Cambridge: The M.I.T. Press, 1960.
Garreau, Joel. Edge City: Life on the New Frontier. New York: Doubleday, 1991.
Smith, R.J. The Great Black Way: L.A. in the 1940s and the Lost African-American Renaissance. New York: Public Affairs, 2006.
Newman, Harvey K. Southern Hospitality: Tourism and the Growth of Atlanta. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 1999.
Shfrin, Elana. “Le Noir et Le Blanc: Hybrid Myths in Devil in a Blue Dress and L.A.
Confidential.” Literature Film Quarterly 33:3 (2005): 172-181.
McInerney, Jay. Bright Lights, Big City. New York: Vintage Books, 1984.
Gottlieb, Robert, Mark Vallianatos, Regina M. Freer, and Peter Dreier. The Next Los Angeles: The Struggle For A Livable City. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005.
Klein, Norman M. The History of Forgetting: Los Angeles and the Erasure of Memory. New York: Verso, 1997.
Fine, David. Imagining Los Angeles: A City in Fiction. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2000.
Dear, Michael and Steven Flusty. “The Postmodern Urban Condition.” In Spaces of Culture: City, Nation, World, eds. Mike Featherstone and Scott Lash. London: Sage Publications, 1999.
Harvey, David. “Flexible Accumulation Through Urbanization: Reflections on ‘Post-
Modernism’ in the American City.” In The Urban Experience. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985, 1989.
Dear, Michael. “The Los Angeles School of Urbanism: An Intellectual History.” Urban Geography 24:6 (2003): 493–509.

For class: read Dreams From My Father. I found it pretty compelling. Go-bama, etc.

Studying for comps, week 24

2009-11-30T00:56:00.003-05:00

the end is near. panic has not set in yet. probably effective tomorrow. also 2 more days of class left. sorry kids, i will be a better teacher next semester. also, my thanksgiving consisted of reading, eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner, and doing 30 day shred. it was as pathetic as it sounds. maybe more so. there were tears. also, i watched west side story. a little cheesy, but the songs are pretty spot on.

Abu-Lughod, Janet L. Race, Space and Riots in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007
O’Connor, Flannery. “A Good Man is Hard to Find” (1953), Artificial Negro” (1955), and “Everything that Rises Must Converge” (1961) in The Complete Stories of Flannery O’Connor. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1974.
Hackworth, Jason. The Neoliberal City: Governance, Ideology, and Development in American Urbanism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2007.
Hayden, Dolores. The Power of Place: Urban Landscapes as Public History. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1995.
Hays, Constance L. The Real Thing: Truth and Power at the Coca-Cola Company. New York: Random House, 2004.
Grem, Darren E. “‘The South Got Something to Say’: Atlanta’s Dirty South and the
Southernization of Hip-Hop America.” Southern Cultures 12:4 (2006): 55-73.
Andranovich, Greg, Matthew J. Burbank, and Charles H. Heying. “Olympic Cities: Lessons Learned From Mega-Event Politics.” Journal of Urban Affairs 23:2 (2001): 113-131.
Beaureguard, Robert. Voices of Decline: The Postwar Fate of U.S. Cities. Cambridge: Blackwell, 1993.
Bullard, Robert D. and E. Kiki Thomas. “Atlanta: Mecca of the Southeast.” In In Search of the New South: The Black Urban Experience in the 1970s and 1980s. Bullard, Robert D., ed. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 1989.
Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York: The Modern Library, 1961, 1993.
Wolfe, Tom. The Bonfire of the Vanities. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1987.
Foer, Jonathan Safran. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005.
Meriwether, James. Proudly We Can Be Africans: Black Americans and Africa, 1935-1961. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2002.
Scott, William B. and Peter M. Rutkoff. New York Modern: The Arts and the City. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999.

Bear with me

2009-11-24T23:04:00.000-05:00

Catherine's post reminded me that once upon a time, I was the outdoorsy type who loved nothing more than to frolic out in the woods and commune with nature. I'm pretty sure that even as a wee lad, I was never as afraid of bears as Catherine and Lauren are, but maybe my fears were just displaced by other, realer fears:

Like moose.

Or male testosterone. I once watched a man brand himself with a cattle brand because he was so fired up from hiking. This was before Black fraternities popularized it. Did I mention it was a cattle brand?

Or human stupidity. Caramel apples are a delicious and easy treat to make while camping. Melt some caramel squares, stick an apple on a fork, dip, and enjoy. Of course, if you replace the fork with a pocket knife and then take a giant sticky, sweet bite, you end up slicing through three inches of your cheek. All the blood makes the caramel look more like one of those crappy candy apples that your hill-billy cousins prefer.

Or psychopaths. After graduating high school, some friends and I spent a month backpacking around Yosemite. Unbeknownst to us, on the morning that we set off, the police had found the decapitated body of a park ranger not more than thirty miles from where we started out. Needless to say, our parents were crapping their pants until we made it to a telephone 8 days later.

Or isolation. I spent a bunch of summers building trails in New Mexico. It was fun being out in the mountains for weeks at a stretch with a bunch of other 16-20 year old guys, not needing to shower or bothering to wear underwear. There were a bunch of other groups scattered around and every once in a while we'd hike over to see the other groups for dinner or compare cocks or something. There was one group that was too far away for us to get to, but we started to hear a pretty weird story. Apparently, a woman had been riding a donkey on a trail where these guys were working, when a thunderstorm suddenly blew through. She was struck by lightning, killing the donkey instantly. She was fine. Discuss amongst yourselves the miracle of grounding or something. So these kids, they hike over to the donkey with all of their tools and start to go lord of the flies meets godfather on it. They then box up the head and ship it back to the base camp on the next supply run to be delivered to the tent of some guy they don't like. A five day old severed donkey head. Shit's unbelievable right? Some kid took pictures. All of them standing around the donkey, taking turns with a saw. With donkey blood on their faces like some warpath voodoo shit. Fucked up, no? When I finally saw some of these guys, its even worse. Turns out they couldn't do it. They got a third of the way though the donkey's neck and it was too hard/too gross for any of them to continue. Then one dude picked up a pulaski, aka the baddest tool in the history of man, and just went to town on the spine until they could drag it off.*

Of course, there's really only one thing to fear while out in the woods. And that's mountain lions.

*Needless to say, this particular program was reorganized shortly thereafter to provide additional supervision. I also can't believe that I haven't told this story before, it may be the most amazing story in my arsenal.

why we don't talk anymore

2009-11-24T22:15:00.003-05:00

Sitting on the couch this evening Lauren asked me about a song.

L: Do you know that song on your iPod?
F: Ummmm?
L: On your shuffle?
F: Uh, sing it for me?
L: Its about a woman who has three daughters, who crawl out of the sewer onto the sidewalk and then her body goes cold and then they get married and the bride trips on the vase and all the wine spills?
F: Ummmmm....Was it a male or female singer?
L: Male.
F: Exactly how many times did you listen to this song today?
L: For four miles.
F: ...

Turns out that it was Death Cab's "Death of an Interior Decorator". In fairness, she described the lyrics pretty accurately, except for the part where Lauren mistook her uterus for a sewer. But I guess them's the breaks in metaphors.

Studying for comps, week 23

2009-11-22T22:24:00.003-05:00

Sick of these updates? Then imagine how sick I am of reading books. Speaking of sick, apparently I had the swine flu this week. And apparently that's how Fletcher got it. So it's been pretty sick up in this joint. At any rate:

Bender, Thomas. The Unfinished City: New York and the Metropolitan Idea. New York: The New Press, 2002.
Himes, Chester. If He Hollers Let Him Go. Chatham, NJ: The Chatham Bookseller, 1945, 1973.
Currid, Elizabeth. The Warhol Economy: How Fashion, Art, and Music Drive New York City. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007.
Schneider, Eric C. Vampires, Dragons, and Egyptian Kings: Youth Gangs in Postwar New York. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999.
Rotella, Carlo. October Cities: The Redevelopment of Urban Literature. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
Brown, Claude. Manchild in the Promised Land. New York: Macmillan, 1965.
Miller, Warren. Cool World. Boston: Little Brown, 1959.
Miller, Warren. Siege of Harlem. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964.
Marc, David. “Comic Visions of the City: New York and the Television Sitcom.” Radical History Review 42 (1988): 49-63.
Chang, Jeff. “Race, Class, Conflict, and Empowerment: On Ice Cube’s ‘Black Korea.’” Amerasia Journal 19:2 (1993): 87-107.
Sánchez, George J. “‘What's Good for Boyle Heights Is Good for the Jews’: Creating
Multiracialism on the Eastside during the 1950s.” American Quarterly 56:3(September 2004): 633-661.
Pynchon, Thomas R. “A Journey into the Mind of Watts.” The New York Times Magazine. 12 June 1996.
Guthey, Eric. “Ted Turner’s Media Legend and the Transformation of Corporate Liberalism.” Business and Economic History 22:1 (Fall 1997): 184-199.
Mele, Christopher. Selling the Lower East Side: Culture, Real Estate, and Resistance in New York City. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000.

And for class, I read Natasha Tretheway's Native Guard. I highly recommend. She's awesome.

Two more weeks, here we go.

Studying for comps, week 22

2009-11-17T00:03:00.006-05:00

When I thought I had the swine flu this weekend, I freaked out. What if I was so sick I couldn't read any more books????? And you know what, that idea sounds kind of awesome. In three weeks, I shall try doing just that. But in the meantime:

Read

Smith, Anna Deavere. Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992. New York: Anchor Books, 1992.

Greene, Melissa Fay. The Temple Bombing. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1996.

Zukin, Sharon. The Cultures of Cities. Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers, 1995.

Dickey, James. Deliverance. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970.

Jones, Tayari. Leaving Atlanta. New York: Warner Books, 2002.

Reviewed

*Menjívar, Cecilia. Fragmented Ties: Salvadoran Immigrant Networks in America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.

*Hamilton, Nora and Norma Stoltz Chinchilla. Seeking Community in a Global City: Guatemalans and Salvadorans in Los Angeles. Philadelphia: Temple University Press,2001.

*Kosek, Jake. Understories: The Political Life of Forests in Northern New Mexico. Durham: Duke University Press, 2006.

*Perez, Louis A. On Becoming Cuban: Identity, Nationality, and Culture. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1999.

*Dávila, Arlene M. Barrio Dreams: Puerto Ricans, Latinos, and the Neoliberal City. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.

*Pitti, Stephen J. The Devil in Silicon Valley: Northern California, Race, and Mexican Americans. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003.

*Stephen, Lynn. Transborder Lives: Indigenous Oaxacans in Mexico, California, and Oregon. Durham: Duke University Press, 2007.

*De la Torre, Miguel. La Lucha for Cuba: Religion and Politics on the Streets of Miami. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.

*Chomsky, Aviva. Linked Labor Histories: New England, Columbia, and the Making of a Global Working Class. Durham: Duke University Press, 2008.

*Hoffnung-Garskof, Jesse. A Tale of Two Cities: Santo Domingo and New York after 1950.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007.

Feeling sick, feeling better, feeling sick again

2009-11-15T12:04:00.003-05:00

On Friday night, I thought I was getting the swine flu. It turns out I shouldn't have taken my temperature right after running 6 miles and eating soup. I'm still not feeling great, but an escape from my cave on Saturday boosted spirits. I bought this awesome new coat and skirt.

And I got these for free. Are they jeans or are they leggings??

Trick question: they are denim leggings. Not sure how I feel about them. As my mom suggested, I got ripped off.

However, I also got this ridiculous bruise, but I don't recall hurting myself.

Studying for comps, week 21

2009-11-09T00:36:00.001-05:00

Lots of review this week, plus some more city reading. Really enjoyed Art and the City, highly recommend. Anyway, back to my cave, 4 weeks to go.

Read
*Lamb, Robert. Atlanta Blues. Augusta: Harbor House, 2004.
*Bulter, Octavia. Parable of the Sower. New York: Warner Books, 1993.
*Dunne, John Gregory. True Confessions. New York: Henry Robbins, 1977.
*Schrank, Sarah. Art and the City: Civic Imagination and Cultural Authority in Los Angeles. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009.
*Berman, Marshall. All That Is Solid Melts Into Air: The Experience of Modernity. New York: Penguin Books, 1982, 1988.

Review
*Fairclough, Adam, To Redeem the Soul of America: The Southern Christian Leadership
Conference and Martin Luther King, Jr. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1987, 2001.
*Green, Laurie B. Battling the Plantation Mentality: Memphis and the Black Freedom Struggle.Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2007.
*Gutiérrez, David. Walls and Mirrors: Mexican Americans, Mexican Immigrants, and the Politics of Ethnicity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.
*Sugrue, Thomas. The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996, 2005.
*Cohen, Lizabeth. A Consumers' Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America. New York: Vintage Books, 2003.
*Fones-Wolf, Elizabeth. Selling Free Enterprise: The Business Assault on Labor and
Liberalism, 1945-1960. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994.
*Schrecker, Ellen. Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999.
*Meyerowitz, Joanne. “Beyond the Feminine Mystique: Reassessing Postwar Mass Culture, 1946-1958.” Journal of American History 79:4 (March 1993): 1455-1482.
*Dudziak, Mary. Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.
*Brooks, Daphne. Bodies in Dissent: Spectacular Performances of Race and Freedom, 1850-1910. Durham: Duke University Press, 2004.
*Johnson, E. Patrick. Appropriating Blackness: Performance and the Politics of Authenticity. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003.
*Singh, Nikhil. Black is a Country: Race and the Unfinished Struggle for Democracy.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004.
*Plummer, Brenda Gayle. Rising Wind: Black Americans and U.S. Foreign Affairs, 1935-1960. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996.
*Borstelmann, Thomas. The Cold War and the Color Line: American Race Relations in the Global Arena. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002.
*Anderson, Carol. Eyes off the Prize: The United Nations and the African American Struggle for Human Rights, 1944-1955. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
*Von Eschen, Penny. Race Against Empire: Black Americans and Anticolonialism, 1937-1957. Ithica: Cornell University Press, 1997.
*Gaines, Kevin. African Americans in Ghana: Black Expatriates and the Civil Rights Era. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2006.
*Westheider, James. Fighting on Two Fronts: African Americans and the Vietnam War. New York: New York University Press, 1997
*Guglielmo, Thomas A. White on Arrival: Italians, Race, Color, and Power in Chicago, 1890-1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
*Sanchez, George. Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900-1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993, 1995.
*Perlstein, Rick, Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus. New York: Hill and Wang, 2001.
*Teles, Steven M. The Rise of the Conservative Legal Movement: The Battle for Control of the Law. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008.
*Kennedy, David M. Over Here: The First World War and American Society. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1980, 2004.

Glen Beck's rotting appendix is a metaphor for the soul of the Republican Party

2009-11-08T14:03:00.001-05:00

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

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www.thedailyshow.com

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High Horses and Low Brows

2009-11-03T22:56:00.002-05:00

I would regale you all with the awesomeness that is our life, but I'm ashamed to spend too much time talking about the HBO-Skinamax cross-over that is True Blood. I will say this, Twilight:True Blood::Dude Where's My Car:The Hangover. One is done by Disney and the other is done well with unnecessary amounts of adult content. But we're not here to talk about vampire bondage, we're here to discuss high brow academic texts, like Steven Pinker's The Stuff of Thought: Language as a window into human nature.

This is some deep shit.

Unless you have any exposure to linguistics, in which case you probably spend much of your time wondering how he slipped chapter 7 past his publisher.

Some people have been puzzled about why cunt should be taboo. It is not just an unprintable word for the vagina but the most offensive epithet for a woman in America and a not-too-polite term for a man in Britain and the COmmonwealth. One might have thought that in the male-dominated world of swearing the vagina would be revered, not reviled. After all, it has been said that no sooner does a boy come out of it than he spends the rest of his life trying to get back in. The puzzle becomes less mysterious if one imagines the connotations in an age before tampons, toilet paper, regular bathing, and antifungal drugs.

I don't get it, what are you saying here Steve?

Studying for comps, week 20

2009-11-02T13:52:00.002-05:00

More on the ATL. Also, I've heard Play It As It Lays is one of the top contemporary books, but well, hmmm. At least it's refreshing to read fiction...

*Vitale, Alex S. City of Disorder: How the Quality of Life Campaign Transformed New York Politics. New York: New York University Press, 2008.
*McCall, Nathan. Them. New York: Atria Books, 2007.
*Foote, Horton. The Young Man From Atlanta. New York: Dutton, 1995.
*Didion, Joan. Play It As It Lays. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1970, 2005.
*Rutheiser, Charles. Imagineering Atlanta: The Politics of Place in the City of Dreams. New York: Verso, 1996.

Also I gave a lecture today. Also I have trouble sleeping. Also when I do sleep, I have very active dreams. They currently combine studying for comps and wedding planning. This shit has to stop.

I follow catherine's lead.

2009-10-28T23:47:00.002-04:00