-Sorry it's been so long. Sometimes the world makes too difficult for me to compose my thoughts. Between gay bashings, gay torturings, Obama's idiocy regarding DOMA and DADT, Carl Paladino's iciocy, a brief bout with a seasonal cold, and what might be a touch of early seasonal-affective disorder or plain old creative comedown, I have felt too spread out to make any real sense.
-We saw La Bête on Broadway, which starred a very underused David Hyde Pierce and Joanna Lumley, being steamrolled over by the very good, but very exhausting and not particularly specifically-memorable, Mark Rylance. All the performances are quite lovely, but they are, sadly, weighted down by this play that, well, I just didn't want any part of after fifteen minutes. In writing circles, we might say "I am not the audience for this work."
-Delores Van Cartier, which is the name of the lounge-singer in disguise played by Whoopi Goldberg in "Sister Act," is the best name I've heard in a while.
-Is Sister Act ever really coming to Broadway?
-I found it fascinating that there was press regarding the fact that Jonathan Franzen's fantastic novel "Freedom" was not nominated for the National Book Award. (I found the book to be wholly-engrossing, purely pleasurable, and carefully, wisely written. Pretty fucking fantastic.) It was as if people couldn't stop talking about how they are ready to stop talking about it.
-Does anybody still order transcripts from television talk shows?
-Kip is sitting next to me on the couch, making us a White Tree of Gondor from aluminum armature and sculpey. I am the luckiest guy in the universe.
Showing posts with label TV. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TV. Show all posts
Friday, October 15, 2010
Sunday, August 30, 2009
What's Happening Now
I'm in Brooklyn, sitting on the couch with Kip's cats, who are doing that typical cat thing: putting all their energy into ignoring you. Kip is still in the bed, snoring a bit, sometimes sounding like he's drowning--not a lovely sound, but I'm used to it, and that's comforting, in some way. I'm eating a bowl of cereal and trying to decide if I should watch the new episode of Project Runway, or the Real Housewives of Atlanta--this TiVo is a gay fantasia.
The weather is turning. Or I should say, the seasons are. Fall is my favorite time in New York, and I always look forward to the evenings spent walking around the city, feeling a bit chilly, the air filling your chest. And Fall has the best clothes--yay for looking cute again!
Do you know Gilt.com? My friend Peter turned me on to it. It's designer labels for practically pennies, and I am addicted to it. I don't really buy much--I have bought one shirt and one pair of shoes--but every day at noon, some new crop of clothes goes up and people rush to see how they can spend their money. This week, there was an Alexander McQueen western-style shirt with this really interesting piping and a yoke that looked a bit like the squiggly bracket. It was $300 on Gilt, retailing for $1000. I didn't buy it. Sometimes its a good thing that I'm poor.
Today we're meeting some friends for brunch--I officially hate brunch, refusing to pay $20 to eat an egg or two and lukewarm side dishes that I could prepare better myself at home--but I'm learning how to order better, and I like to see my friends. This evening, there's a benefit party/concert for Circus Amok, starring a cavalcade of singing and honking wonders. I look forward to seeing everyone.
The weather is turning. Or I should say, the seasons are. Fall is my favorite time in New York, and I always look forward to the evenings spent walking around the city, feeling a bit chilly, the air filling your chest. And Fall has the best clothes--yay for looking cute again!
Do you know Gilt.com? My friend Peter turned me on to it. It's designer labels for practically pennies, and I am addicted to it. I don't really buy much--I have bought one shirt and one pair of shoes--but every day at noon, some new crop of clothes goes up and people rush to see how they can spend their money. This week, there was an Alexander McQueen western-style shirt with this really interesting piping and a yoke that looked a bit like the squiggly bracket. It was $300 on Gilt, retailing for $1000. I didn't buy it. Sometimes its a good thing that I'm poor.
Today we're meeting some friends for brunch--I officially hate brunch, refusing to pay $20 to eat an egg or two and lukewarm side dishes that I could prepare better myself at home--but I'm learning how to order better, and I like to see my friends. This evening, there's a benefit party/concert for Circus Amok, starring a cavalcade of singing and honking wonders. I look forward to seeing everyone.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Things I Keep Meaning to Say
--Sean, I promise I'm getting to the whole "childhood corkboard" stuff. As you well know, I've been inundated with "real work" in the last two months, so I have been lazy about taking photos and, like, putting them into the computer. Are there cameras that just beam the photos into the computer now? Without a cord? I'll have one of those, please.
--Who wants a 3D drawing pad, complete with a pair of glasses? You draw your drawings just like regular on the pad, then look at it through the glasses and shazam! Anyone?
--I'm not normally one of those people who goes on about "OMG, can you believe it's the middle of August already?" But did you realize that, OMG, it's the middle of August already?
--Sometimes I wonder what people are thinking. Watching Kathy Griffins show where she has meetings with Random House has been really interesting. They don't seem to enjoy Kathy's dick/vagina/hymen jokes. Did they forget who they gave a book contract to? I realize that Kathy is most likely turning the volume up for her own show, and thus maybe the Random House people are feeling a bit like their time is wasted...but did they really not laugh at Kathy's desire to put a picture of her flipping to major birds on the cover? And did the designer really say "It might not play well in Wal-Mart in Kansas." Who do they think her audience is? Why are they always so serious?
--Publishing things makes writers happy. There, I said it.
--Some books are just not for me.
--Who wants a 3D drawing pad, complete with a pair of glasses? You draw your drawings just like regular on the pad, then look at it through the glasses and shazam! Anyone?
--I'm not normally one of those people who goes on about "OMG, can you believe it's the middle of August already?" But did you realize that, OMG, it's the middle of August already?
--Sometimes I wonder what people are thinking. Watching Kathy Griffins show where she has meetings with Random House has been really interesting. They don't seem to enjoy Kathy's dick/vagina/hymen jokes. Did they forget who they gave a book contract to? I realize that Kathy is most likely turning the volume up for her own show, and thus maybe the Random House people are feeling a bit like their time is wasted...but did they really not laugh at Kathy's desire to put a picture of her flipping to major birds on the cover? And did the designer really say "It might not play well in Wal-Mart in Kansas." Who do they think her audience is? Why are they always so serious?
--Publishing things makes writers happy. There, I said it.
--Some books are just not for me.
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Letter from Greece, Part 4 of 10
Day Two: Athens
By accident, we sleep until two o’clock in the afternoon. I wake up once or twice in the night, my usual amount of insomnia, currently stuck on level five out of ten. I don’t check the clock, for fear that it might be earlier than I can bear. Every time I turn over, fussing with the pillows, I worry that it might be three, four, five in the morning, and I will have to lay there, bored and anxious until a reasonable waking hour. It never occurs to me that it could be noon.
At the same corner coffee shop we buy “Greek salad sandwiches” from the same blonde woman. Is she the owner? The waiter? The fill-in? She seems not to recognize us, and I wonder if perhaps we look like every other set of American tourists that stroll through to buy a cup of coffee, or drink a beer and smoke a cigarette. Something about her seems so shy, and she seems to understand so little, despite all the hand-written signs in English, that even my rudimentary (or just rude?) pointing is met with a stare. But she takes our money, wraps the sandwiches in wax paper, and smiles. “Enjoy,” she says, and then I wonder if I’ve misunderstood the entire interaction. The sandwich is a floury baguette with olives, feta and tomato. It makes a perfect breakfast.
Clearly, the architects and designers involved in building the Parthenon wanted the reveal to be a spectacular event. You hike through the scrubby trees and brush along the pathways up the west side of the Acropolis, emerge from the narrow width of the dramatic Propylaia, to find the Parthenon set back in three-quarter view. Imagine the structure untarnished, elaborately colored, incredibly rich—most importantly, complete. Stories of wars and celebrations were depicted in sculptures along the roofline, some life-size, in stunning detail. For the Greek people, the visit must have been a deeply satisfying, transformative experience.
All around the Parthenon there are huge chunks of marble, as if the entire structure had exploded—at one point it did, under the Ottomans, who were using it as a gunpowder magazine. The area looks like my five year-old nephew’s playroom, building blocks in every configuration of stacked, toppled, and forgotten. There is new marble waiting to be matched and assembled as part of the current restoration efforts, and there is ancient marble—all of it from the famous quarry at Mount Pentelikos—cracked and worn by 2,500 years of wind, rain, pollution, fire, earthquakes, canons, restless infantry, the Christians, the Muslims, the Turks, the Venetians, and the British. Finally, the 20th Century American and Italian tourists wearing high heels are carving divots into the walkways.
On the southern slope of the Acropolis, there is the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, which is still in modern use, seating about 5,000. “Memorable performances,” according to some on-site literature, include the return of Nana Mouskouri after a two-decade absence, and Yanni’s “landmark” 1993 performance. During our visit, the stage is being prepped for a production of Aida, with huge Egyptian obelisks being moved through a deep red proscenium.
Everywhere there are structures, and the remains of structures. There is the Theatre of Dionysus Eleuthereus, the Sanctuary of Asclepius, the Odeum of Pericles, the Temple of Athena Nike, the Stoa of Eumene—all bearing the enormous crushing weight of layers and layers of history, revised and repaired, rethought and repurposed. We hear this story over and over again in Greece—the Romans replacing the marble or stealing the marble, the Christians dedicating the Parthenon to the Virgin Mary, the Greeks themselves moving statues and buildings, the frescoes buried underground during the war, more fakes on display. I keep wondering what remains of a culture that has re-imagined itself for more than 2,000 years.
On the northern side of the Acropolis, there is the Erechtheum, with its striking Porch of the Caryatids: six women, draped in fabric, holding up the roof with their heads. Some of the original statues are displayed in—so I’m told—helium-filled glass cases, in the not-yet-open-to-the-public Acropolis Museum; the ones on the actual Acropolis are replicas. Lord Elgin, perhaps the most famous looter of Greek artwork, had one of the original Caryatids removed and later displayed at his sprawling estate. At night, they say you can hear the statues crying out, wailing for their missing sister.
But we don’t hear any crying.
Do the replicas cry out? Or the originals, now drowning in helium? I try to get a sense of how the ancient mythology might interact with daily life today—but no one wants to talk about that. They only want to talk about how polytheism is crazy, about what the ancients did and didn’t do on the most basic behavioral level, nothing about what it meant to them, how it felt to be them. Tourism, or maybe plain old capitalism, has co-opted the culture, dimmed it, and arguably destroyed it. Contemporary Greece seems to say, about the past, only: “Here, buy this plastic toy Parthenon for two Euros.” When I visit the Lincoln Memorial—a structure that owes so much to the Parthenon in look and feel and use—I get a small sense of a living idea at work, a striving. In Athens, I can’t figure out why everything around me feels dead.
For dinner, we end up at Estia, a lively modern café in the heart of the Plaka, the oldest neighborhood in Athens, full of restaurants and souvenir shops. I try to order the local sheep cheese, which, as the menu states, comes with honey and sesame seeds. The waiter promises that we won’t like it, and bullies us into the saganaki: fried cheese, not a horrible choice. We eat more grilled lamb, a delicious mousaka, various dips and garlicky things, and finally end with a warm chunk of walnut pie, and shots of cinnamon schnapps.
Across from our table is the entrance to an open-air movie theater, on the roof of what appears to be an art gallery. There is one 11:15pm showing of the Ron Howard-directed “Angels & Demons,” which, in Greece, has been renamed “Something something something Illuminati.” The movie is horrendously bad, a grotesque insult to the intelligence of the audience. (Or maybe I am mistaking the film’s audience.) At one point, Ewan McGregor flies a helicopter straight up into the night, above the Vatican, so that when the anti-matter explodes it doesn’t kill everyone—no, really. It was a marvelous experience: a rooftop in Athens, the glowing Parthenon set back on the hill, the cooling night air, street cats slinking through the holes in the fence, cold beer.
Back at the hotel, we watch an episode of “America’s Next Top Model,” with sections dubbed into Greek, and CNN, with Anderson Cooper interviewing Ani Difranco about her visit to Myanmar. There are advertisements for cream-filled croissants in various flavors, which are made, it seems, by cartoon bumble bees with giant eyes. There is “Scandal” brand ice cream in square boxes that old ladies eat with wooden spoons. There are 6:00am morning shows with goofy hosts, dressed ready for a nightclub. There are cheap exercise machines sold along side cellulite creams, with manicured hands massaging thick, pasty thighs. Then there is Jessica Alba selling some kind of watch, or was it just a piece of jewelry? This, I think—advertising—is the language that I will never understand.
When I’m awake at 4:40am—insomnia on 6 out of 10—I wonder if maybe it’s the jetlag, just my confused internal clock. William Gibson wrote that jetlag was the slow-moving soul trying to catch up to the body, which had crossed the globe at higher speeds. This sounds about right. I entertain myself by trying to remember each item in the minibar from left to right: milk chocolate Toblerone, that purple-wrapped candy bar with the white goop inside, two cans of Coca-Cola, one can of Coke Light, one box of orange juice, one bottle white wine, one bottle champagne. The door is filled with tiny bottles of liquor, amber and clear and one that looks like pale blue antifreeze. There seemed to be one more thing. What was it?
By accident, we sleep until two o’clock in the afternoon. I wake up once or twice in the night, my usual amount of insomnia, currently stuck on level five out of ten. I don’t check the clock, for fear that it might be earlier than I can bear. Every time I turn over, fussing with the pillows, I worry that it might be three, four, five in the morning, and I will have to lay there, bored and anxious until a reasonable waking hour. It never occurs to me that it could be noon.
At the same corner coffee shop we buy “Greek salad sandwiches” from the same blonde woman. Is she the owner? The waiter? The fill-in? She seems not to recognize us, and I wonder if perhaps we look like every other set of American tourists that stroll through to buy a cup of coffee, or drink a beer and smoke a cigarette. Something about her seems so shy, and she seems to understand so little, despite all the hand-written signs in English, that even my rudimentary (or just rude?) pointing is met with a stare. But she takes our money, wraps the sandwiches in wax paper, and smiles. “Enjoy,” she says, and then I wonder if I’ve misunderstood the entire interaction. The sandwich is a floury baguette with olives, feta and tomato. It makes a perfect breakfast.
Clearly, the architects and designers involved in building the Parthenon wanted the reveal to be a spectacular event. You hike through the scrubby trees and brush along the pathways up the west side of the Acropolis, emerge from the narrow width of the dramatic Propylaia, to find the Parthenon set back in three-quarter view. Imagine the structure untarnished, elaborately colored, incredibly rich—most importantly, complete. Stories of wars and celebrations were depicted in sculptures along the roofline, some life-size, in stunning detail. For the Greek people, the visit must have been a deeply satisfying, transformative experience.
All around the Parthenon there are huge chunks of marble, as if the entire structure had exploded—at one point it did, under the Ottomans, who were using it as a gunpowder magazine. The area looks like my five year-old nephew’s playroom, building blocks in every configuration of stacked, toppled, and forgotten. There is new marble waiting to be matched and assembled as part of the current restoration efforts, and there is ancient marble—all of it from the famous quarry at Mount Pentelikos—cracked and worn by 2,500 years of wind, rain, pollution, fire, earthquakes, canons, restless infantry, the Christians, the Muslims, the Turks, the Venetians, and the British. Finally, the 20th Century American and Italian tourists wearing high heels are carving divots into the walkways.
On the southern slope of the Acropolis, there is the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, which is still in modern use, seating about 5,000. “Memorable performances,” according to some on-site literature, include the return of Nana Mouskouri after a two-decade absence, and Yanni’s “landmark” 1993 performance. During our visit, the stage is being prepped for a production of Aida, with huge Egyptian obelisks being moved through a deep red proscenium.
Everywhere there are structures, and the remains of structures. There is the Theatre of Dionysus Eleuthereus, the Sanctuary of Asclepius, the Odeum of Pericles, the Temple of Athena Nike, the Stoa of Eumene—all bearing the enormous crushing weight of layers and layers of history, revised and repaired, rethought and repurposed. We hear this story over and over again in Greece—the Romans replacing the marble or stealing the marble, the Christians dedicating the Parthenon to the Virgin Mary, the Greeks themselves moving statues and buildings, the frescoes buried underground during the war, more fakes on display. I keep wondering what remains of a culture that has re-imagined itself for more than 2,000 years.
On the northern side of the Acropolis, there is the Erechtheum, with its striking Porch of the Caryatids: six women, draped in fabric, holding up the roof with their heads. Some of the original statues are displayed in—so I’m told—helium-filled glass cases, in the not-yet-open-to-the-public Acropolis Museum; the ones on the actual Acropolis are replicas. Lord Elgin, perhaps the most famous looter of Greek artwork, had one of the original Caryatids removed and later displayed at his sprawling estate. At night, they say you can hear the statues crying out, wailing for their missing sister.
But we don’t hear any crying.
Do the replicas cry out? Or the originals, now drowning in helium? I try to get a sense of how the ancient mythology might interact with daily life today—but no one wants to talk about that. They only want to talk about how polytheism is crazy, about what the ancients did and didn’t do on the most basic behavioral level, nothing about what it meant to them, how it felt to be them. Tourism, or maybe plain old capitalism, has co-opted the culture, dimmed it, and arguably destroyed it. Contemporary Greece seems to say, about the past, only: “Here, buy this plastic toy Parthenon for two Euros.” When I visit the Lincoln Memorial—a structure that owes so much to the Parthenon in look and feel and use—I get a small sense of a living idea at work, a striving. In Athens, I can’t figure out why everything around me feels dead.
For dinner, we end up at Estia, a lively modern café in the heart of the Plaka, the oldest neighborhood in Athens, full of restaurants and souvenir shops. I try to order the local sheep cheese, which, as the menu states, comes with honey and sesame seeds. The waiter promises that we won’t like it, and bullies us into the saganaki: fried cheese, not a horrible choice. We eat more grilled lamb, a delicious mousaka, various dips and garlicky things, and finally end with a warm chunk of walnut pie, and shots of cinnamon schnapps.
Across from our table is the entrance to an open-air movie theater, on the roof of what appears to be an art gallery. There is one 11:15pm showing of the Ron Howard-directed “Angels & Demons,” which, in Greece, has been renamed “Something something something Illuminati.” The movie is horrendously bad, a grotesque insult to the intelligence of the audience. (Or maybe I am mistaking the film’s audience.) At one point, Ewan McGregor flies a helicopter straight up into the night, above the Vatican, so that when the anti-matter explodes it doesn’t kill everyone—no, really. It was a marvelous experience: a rooftop in Athens, the glowing Parthenon set back on the hill, the cooling night air, street cats slinking through the holes in the fence, cold beer.
Back at the hotel, we watch an episode of “America’s Next Top Model,” with sections dubbed into Greek, and CNN, with Anderson Cooper interviewing Ani Difranco about her visit to Myanmar. There are advertisements for cream-filled croissants in various flavors, which are made, it seems, by cartoon bumble bees with giant eyes. There is “Scandal” brand ice cream in square boxes that old ladies eat with wooden spoons. There are 6:00am morning shows with goofy hosts, dressed ready for a nightclub. There are cheap exercise machines sold along side cellulite creams, with manicured hands massaging thick, pasty thighs. Then there is Jessica Alba selling some kind of watch, or was it just a piece of jewelry? This, I think—advertising—is the language that I will never understand.
When I’m awake at 4:40am—insomnia on 6 out of 10—I wonder if maybe it’s the jetlag, just my confused internal clock. William Gibson wrote that jetlag was the slow-moving soul trying to catch up to the body, which had crossed the globe at higher speeds. This sounds about right. I entertain myself by trying to remember each item in the minibar from left to right: milk chocolate Toblerone, that purple-wrapped candy bar with the white goop inside, two cans of Coca-Cola, one can of Coke Light, one box of orange juice, one bottle white wine, one bottle champagne. The door is filled with tiny bottles of liquor, amber and clear and one that looks like pale blue antifreeze. There seemed to be one more thing. What was it?
Thursday, April 02, 2009
Briefly
--Seems that Prague has turned into Greece. A few nights in Athens, a few nights in Santorini. We're forgoing Mykonos, because we'd like to be in a single place for a bit longer. No, I don't really do beaches, but who knows? A person can change, right? (Not really.) Very excited. Mid-may.
--Yesterday I began reading the new novel, "Cutting for Stone," by Abraham Verghese.
--Every writer should read Lorrie Moore's story "How to Become a Writer." You don't even need to buy the book. Look, it's right here. Brilliant from the first line: "First, try to be something, anything, else." But, perhaps my favorite image: "Later on in life you will learn that writers are merely open, helpless texts with no real understanding of what they have written and therefore must half-believe anything and everything that is said of them."
--I decided to go back and read everything Lorrie Moore has ever written. After the Verghese novel.
--"Golden Girls" is the best show on TV. The writing is insanely good, and quick, and smart. Those four ladies make the rest just look like actors who work. The Golden Girls changed my life, I'm sure of it. My brother and I spent Saturday nites with my grandparents -- or was it Fridays? -- and we watched "Golden Girls," which came on before "Empty Nest." I LOVED it then, and also now. When I die, play episodes at the funeral.
--If you see me, ask me to tell you the joke about the doctor who farts. It's too long to type.
--Yesterday I began reading the new novel, "Cutting for Stone," by Abraham Verghese.
--Every writer should read Lorrie Moore's story "How to Become a Writer." You don't even need to buy the book. Look, it's right here. Brilliant from the first line: "First, try to be something, anything, else." But, perhaps my favorite image: "Later on in life you will learn that writers are merely open, helpless texts with no real understanding of what they have written and therefore must half-believe anything and everything that is said of them."
--I decided to go back and read everything Lorrie Moore has ever written. After the Verghese novel.
--"Golden Girls" is the best show on TV. The writing is insanely good, and quick, and smart. Those four ladies make the rest just look like actors who work. The Golden Girls changed my life, I'm sure of it. My brother and I spent Saturday nites with my grandparents -- or was it Fridays? -- and we watched "Golden Girls," which came on before "Empty Nest." I LOVED it then, and also now. When I die, play episodes at the funeral.
--If you see me, ask me to tell you the joke about the doctor who farts. It's too long to type.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Eight Things About Me
I was tagged by the thoughtful blogger over at Leaf-Stitch-Word with this strange, boundless meme, in which you are supposed to write eight things about yourself. As far as I can tell, those are the only rules. Usually these things come with a set of constrictions--and thus you get to work within the form to find something interesting. This, however, is so freeing as to be impossible. So--here's my stab at it:
1) The first CD I bought was the Indigo Girls record "Nomads. Indians. Saints." It came in a long box, and I picked it out after having seen them on the Austin City Limits songwriter's special. This would have been 1990. The opening chords of "Hammer and a Nail" sounded so right, as if I'd never heard music so perfect before. They were from the South, they were out, they wrote about themselves with folky-abandonment. I still buy their records, nearly 20 years later.
2) If you ask my what my favorite movie is, I will tell you "Farewell My Concubine." This is not my favorite movie, but who has just one favorite movie? It is an important movie for me. What I want to say when someone asks about my favorite movie is: "Ask the question that you really want the answer to."
3) I don't like to eat apples without cutting them into pieces, and if then: Mutsu, Braeburn and Ginger Gold varieties.
4) I started writing a novel in the 6th grade called "Thomas and Herman's Incredible Adventure at the Bottom of the Sea." A turtle and a hermit crab go to the bottom of the sea and have incredible adventures. I was saving it on a black floppy disk, back when you did that sort of thing, and hiding the disk in the broken wall of the computer lab. When I moved on to the 7th grade, I abandoned it.
5) I love The Suze Orman Show. "Oh, Barbara, you are so denied, you do not have the money to buy this car, what are you thinking...?"
6) My kitchen looks clean, but it is not. Trust me.
7) I don't think there is such thing as good music or bad music. There is only music that you like and music that you don't.
8) Every day I fantasize about winning the lottery and having millions of dollars. With the money, I buy a huge building and create a center for artists and writers to work and live together rent-free. I support a small number of non-profit organizations. I hire my friend Keith to decorate my loft. I go to Iceland once a year, by myself. I buy a Prius and spend 6 months driving around the United States, visiting all my friends. I write a book about the travels. Trouble with all this is: I don't even play the lottery.
I'll tag: Aaron, Mario, How History Feels, and Amanda.
1) The first CD I bought was the Indigo Girls record "Nomads. Indians. Saints." It came in a long box, and I picked it out after having seen them on the Austin City Limits songwriter's special. This would have been 1990. The opening chords of "Hammer and a Nail" sounded so right, as if I'd never heard music so perfect before. They were from the South, they were out, they wrote about themselves with folky-abandonment. I still buy their records, nearly 20 years later.
2) If you ask my what my favorite movie is, I will tell you "Farewell My Concubine." This is not my favorite movie, but who has just one favorite movie? It is an important movie for me. What I want to say when someone asks about my favorite movie is: "Ask the question that you really want the answer to."
3) I don't like to eat apples without cutting them into pieces, and if then: Mutsu, Braeburn and Ginger Gold varieties.
4) I started writing a novel in the 6th grade called "Thomas and Herman's Incredible Adventure at the Bottom of the Sea." A turtle and a hermit crab go to the bottom of the sea and have incredible adventures. I was saving it on a black floppy disk, back when you did that sort of thing, and hiding the disk in the broken wall of the computer lab. When I moved on to the 7th grade, I abandoned it.
5) I love The Suze Orman Show. "Oh, Barbara, you are so denied, you do not have the money to buy this car, what are you thinking...?"
6) My kitchen looks clean, but it is not. Trust me.
7) I don't think there is such thing as good music or bad music. There is only music that you like and music that you don't.
8) Every day I fantasize about winning the lottery and having millions of dollars. With the money, I buy a huge building and create a center for artists and writers to work and live together rent-free. I support a small number of non-profit organizations. I hire my friend Keith to decorate my loft. I go to Iceland once a year, by myself. I buy a Prius and spend 6 months driving around the United States, visiting all my friends. I write a book about the travels. Trouble with all this is: I don't even play the lottery.
I'll tag: Aaron, Mario, How History Feels, and Amanda.
Thursday, October 04, 2007
Top Chef
I was briefly--very briefly--on the Bravo series Top Chef the other night. One of the challenges involved shopping at the Greenmarket, and in this shot, if you look carefully, you can see me, bearded and standing there, in the background.
The season was somewhat un-exciting, as I remembered the chefs involved in the challenge that day, and so I knew that at that point, whenever it was--this guy, this one, and that woman--they would be the ones left. But I still love the show.
Here's a better look:
The season was somewhat un-exciting, as I remembered the chefs involved in the challenge that day, and so I knew that at that point, whenever it was--this guy, this one, and that woman--they would be the ones left. But I still love the show.
Here's a better look:
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Here's What I Think
1) Blake never wanted to win. And I wonder if he's got a soul in there somewhere.
2) Jordin sealed the deal when she wrung out those tears. And they were real tears, which is what the show is all about. Cinda-fuckin'-rella.
3) I don't care about the records, but when Melinda comes to town doing her Tina Turner/Bettye LaVette thing at Irving Plaza, or wherever, I'm so there.
2) Jordin sealed the deal when she wrung out those tears. And they were real tears, which is what the show is all about. Cinda-fuckin'-rella.
3) I don't care about the records, but when Melinda comes to town doing her Tina Turner/Bettye LaVette thing at Irving Plaza, or wherever, I'm so there.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Project Podcast
Anyone who's a fan of Project Runway must immediately go to their iTunes and subscribe to Tim Gunn's podcast. Each Thursday, you can hear Tim talk for about thirty minutes about what really happened on the episode you just watched the evening prior.
For example, who would ever have known that (perhaps) the reason that the judges kept Robert Best over Bradley Baumkirchner was because when Robert designed the modernized outfit for Jackie O. that the judges decided she just wouldn't wear, it was Diane Von Furstenburg who came to the rescue, finishing the dialogue about the garment. Tim explains in the most recent podcast that Diane said "I did know Jackie, I knew her very well. And I think she would wear it."
Tim also puts to rest (well, not really) those questions about Bradley's sexuality. Tim assumed he was queer as the day is long -- but when it surfaced that Bradley didn't really know who Cher was, well Tim noted, what kind of self-respecting gay man doesn't know Cher?
Any self-respecting Project Runway fan must also peruse the Store, where you can buy limited edition t-shirts designed by each of the designers, in addition to bidding on the ACTUAL winning (and losing) looks from each episode.
For example, who would ever have known that (perhaps) the reason that the judges kept Robert Best over Bradley Baumkirchner was because when Robert designed the modernized outfit for Jackie O. that the judges decided she just wouldn't wear, it was Diane Von Furstenburg who came to the rescue, finishing the dialogue about the garment. Tim explains in the most recent podcast that Diane said "I did know Jackie, I knew her very well. And I think she would wear it."
Tim also puts to rest (well, not really) those questions about Bradley's sexuality. Tim assumed he was queer as the day is long -- but when it surfaced that Bradley didn't really know who Cher was, well Tim noted, what kind of self-respecting gay man doesn't know Cher?
Any self-respecting Project Runway fan must also peruse the Store, where you can buy limited edition t-shirts designed by each of the designers, in addition to bidding on the ACTUAL winning (and losing) looks from each episode.
Monday, August 07, 2006
Starting Over
I am so lucky. At Kip's house this morning, after we ate our bowls of strawberry/banana Cheerios, I got to watch most of today's episode of the syndicated daytime cry-fest "Starting Over." I was shocked (or maybe not so shocked) to see that some of the women who were in the house today, had been living in the house back in January, when I discovered how much I loved watching it. (I've not figured out yet, however, if we're watching reruns now, so maybe this was an old one, I dunno.)
Back in January, when things were really heating up, one woman had to wrap herself in ace bandages, replacing the fat self she used to be with this fake fat, because even though we may lose the weight, unless we've changed who we really are inside, what good does it do, right? Right! Not only did she have to walk around the house for who-knows-how-long covered in this fake fat suit, she had to then write in black marker all over the bandages things that she was holding onto: "Mother didn't love me," "I feel ugly," "Lack of intimacy," and whatever else.
At the same time there was a woman who had been relying on so many crutches. A-ha! The brilliant life coaches (or maybe it was the producers?) gave her some real crutches to walk around with for a while, so she would see what it REALLY felt like to rely on crutches. She had to write things on these tags which hung off the crutches, more "mother didn't love me" and stuff like that. The whole house was full of women in these ridiculous costumes taking themselves so seriously.
From their website, here is today's "Life Coach Tip:" "Call a thing a thing. Call your pain your pain. Call your hurt our hurt. Your anger our anger. Your joy your joy. Call everything what it is so that you'll know what is going on in your life." (Brought to you by Easy Off Bam, of course.)
I love you Starting Over--I call my joy my joy. I can't wait to see what masochistic psychobabble you dream up for the ladies next!
Back in January, when things were really heating up, one woman had to wrap herself in ace bandages, replacing the fat self she used to be with this fake fat, because even though we may lose the weight, unless we've changed who we really are inside, what good does it do, right? Right! Not only did she have to walk around the house for who-knows-how-long covered in this fake fat suit, she had to then write in black marker all over the bandages things that she was holding onto: "Mother didn't love me," "I feel ugly," "Lack of intimacy," and whatever else.
At the same time there was a woman who had been relying on so many crutches. A-ha! The brilliant life coaches (or maybe it was the producers?) gave her some real crutches to walk around with for a while, so she would see what it REALLY felt like to rely on crutches. She had to write things on these tags which hung off the crutches, more "mother didn't love me" and stuff like that. The whole house was full of women in these ridiculous costumes taking themselves so seriously.
From their website, here is today's "Life Coach Tip:" "Call a thing a thing. Call your pain your pain. Call your hurt our hurt. Your anger our anger. Your joy your joy. Call everything what it is so that you'll know what is going on in your life." (Brought to you by Easy Off Bam, of course.)
I love you Starting Over--I call my joy my joy. I can't wait to see what masochistic psychobabble you dream up for the ladies next!
Monday, July 31, 2006
Political Bullshit
On July 25, 2006, New York State Democratic gubernatorial candidates, Tom Suozzi and Eliot Spitzer, participated in a televised debate held at the Schimmel Theater at Pace University. In his opening introduction, moderator Dominic Carter, explained that during the latter part of the hour-long debate, "we will end...with a series of lightning round questions where the candidates can only answer yes or no to the questions that I will ask them."
The audience, both at the Schimmel Theater and at home, would therefore be treated to the simplest of answers when it came to difficult questions. There would be no fuzzy unclear babbling on, no talking around an issue. The audience would accept only the most direct of answers.
On the contrary.
Take this exchange during the "lightning round," with Carter, the questioner, putting a rather complicated issue in front of Suozzi:
The audience awaited an answer. Suozzi was essentially given two options. The first, the more rational, would be to admit that it would be a huge, near-impossible feat to provide universal health care to the state of New York, and that the least he could do would be to attempt, given the limitations of his power as governor, to implement such a system. Or, he could take the easy way out, the "political" way out, and answer that yes, he would succeed in providing universal health care.
At this point the audience cheered, roaring in support of Spitzer's positive answer, indicating that what they indeed wanted was to be delivered empty promises by men in suits. What they wanted was some old school political bullshit.
The audience, both at the Schimmel Theater and at home, would therefore be treated to the simplest of answers when it came to difficult questions. There would be no fuzzy unclear babbling on, no talking around an issue. The audience would accept only the most direct of answers.
On the contrary.
Take this exchange during the "lightning round," with Carter, the questioner, putting a rather complicated issue in front of Suozzi:
Q. Mr. Suozzi, can you achieve universal health care in the state — again, universal health care in the state — if you are elected governor?
SUOZZI. You want a yet or no for that?
Q. Yes or no.
SUOZZI. I can’t say I’ll try?
Q. Yes or no.
SUOZZI. Could I say —
Q. Yes or no.
SUOZZI. Uh —
Q. Yes or no, Mr. Suozzi.
The audience awaited an answer. Suozzi was essentially given two options. The first, the more rational, would be to admit that it would be a huge, near-impossible feat to provide universal health care to the state of New York, and that the least he could do would be to attempt, given the limitations of his power as governor, to implement such a system. Or, he could take the easy way out, the "political" way out, and answer that yes, he would succeed in providing universal health care.
SUOZZI. I’ll try. I can’t answer that.
Q. Yes or no, Mr. Suozzi.
SUOZZI. No.
Q. Mr. Spitzer?
SPITZER. Yes.
At this point the audience cheered, roaring in support of Spitzer's positive answer, indicating that what they indeed wanted was to be delivered empty promises by men in suits. What they wanted was some old school political bullshit.
Friday, December 23, 2005
Gay Husbands
Yesterday on the Oprah Winfrey Show, the topic was gay husbands. Meaning, the focus of the show was really straight women who wake up one day to learn that their husband of 7 or 15 years is gay. Some of the men had long-term relationships, some just slept around; one of them had more than 1000 sexual partners throughout his thirty year marriage.
The show was frustrating, because Oprah didn't seem to get it. I think she dumbs herself down for the at-home audience -- asking the questions that not so much she wants to hear, but that they want to hear, asking her guests over and over again for a simpler explanation.
"Why do you get married in the first place?" Oprah asked.
The men gave the usual answers: I thought I would change; I was really in love with her; I thought that it had been only one time with a man and that the feelings would pass.
These are not, however, the reasons.
What do we value in this country? Marriage, family, money, success, fame, having a strong religious faith (of a certain kind, of course,) and perhaps education, though I am reluctant to add that one. What we don't value is personal happiness. Which is to say that until gay people are 1) considered a whole, essential, integral part of our society, and 2) given the same rights as every individual living in that society, then gay men will forever marry straight women as a way of arriving at those very values that we hold high. Only until there is a new normal.
Never did the idea come up -- which is to say that Oprah never mentioned this idea -- that gay people are maligned, disenfranchised, oppressed, made jokes of. And periodically tied in chains and dragged behind pick up trucks until their limbs come off, or barb-wired to fences, beaten and left for dead in the desert.
"I still don't understand why you would get married in the first place," Oprah kept asking. None of the men gave the real answer: Because I didn't want to be one of them.
The show was frustrating, because Oprah didn't seem to get it. I think she dumbs herself down for the at-home audience -- asking the questions that not so much she wants to hear, but that they want to hear, asking her guests over and over again for a simpler explanation.
"Why do you get married in the first place?" Oprah asked.
The men gave the usual answers: I thought I would change; I was really in love with her; I thought that it had been only one time with a man and that the feelings would pass.
These are not, however, the reasons.
What do we value in this country? Marriage, family, money, success, fame, having a strong religious faith (of a certain kind, of course,) and perhaps education, though I am reluctant to add that one. What we don't value is personal happiness. Which is to say that until gay people are 1) considered a whole, essential, integral part of our society, and 2) given the same rights as every individual living in that society, then gay men will forever marry straight women as a way of arriving at those very values that we hold high. Only until there is a new normal.
Never did the idea come up -- which is to say that Oprah never mentioned this idea -- that gay people are maligned, disenfranchised, oppressed, made jokes of. And periodically tied in chains and dragged behind pick up trucks until their limbs come off, or barb-wired to fences, beaten and left for dead in the desert.
"I still don't understand why you would get married in the first place," Oprah kept asking. None of the men gave the real answer: Because I didn't want to be one of them.
Friday, September 09, 2005
The Age of Data
Someone in Elk River, Minnesota visited by blog for one minute and thirty four seconds yesterday after having performed a search on MSN for "where do I put my hands on the piano." A link to me was returned because of this post, in which we talk about hands in the comments, and of course, the name of my blog popped up from the word 'piano.' And on August 31, someone in Niles, Illinois visited the same post -- this time for only 7 seconds -- after having performed a Google search for "short stubby fingers."
I think of those TV shows you see where the boats dump hoards of teeming fish onto the deck. Even though they're casting for mackerel, they catch everything else along with it.
Were these people confused by my post? Annoyed at the proliferation of amateur information-farmers, who fill up search results with musings on the culture? Or was seven seconds all this person in Niles needed to learn everything he cared to about short stubby fingers?
I think of those TV shows you see where the boats dump hoards of teeming fish onto the deck. Even though they're casting for mackerel, they catch everything else along with it.
Were these people confused by my post? Annoyed at the proliferation of amateur information-farmers, who fill up search results with musings on the culture? Or was seven seconds all this person in Niles needed to learn everything he cared to about short stubby fingers?
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