guardtheguardians

Music to Design Interiors To - 2012 Edition

2011-12-31T09:34:00.002-06:00

Happy New Year, dear leader. Download music to design the new palace to, here

Tracklist:
1. Just Another Broken Heart by Al Hazan
2. Wrestlers by Hot Chip
3. Campari Soda by Taxi
4. Harvest Moon Remix by Poolside
5. I've Fallen in Love with You by Carla Thomas
6. Cold Rain and Snow by The Grateful Dead
7. So American by Portugal. The Man
8. Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye by Bettye Swann
9. Dreams Money Can Buy by Drake
10. Changing of the Guards by Patti Smith
11. Be Thou By My Side by Honeybus
12. Life's a Bitch by Nas

a sentence from the news

2011-10-14T15:24:00.001-05:00

About a half-dozen therapy dogs, wearing green vests embroidered with names like Anise and Riley, moved through the crowd providing comfort to mourners.

Will this work?

2011-10-04T11:38:00.001-05:00

30 September 2011

Financial Times
Customer Service

Dear Sir/Madam:

I received the enclosed renewal offer from The Financial Times, but was dismayed to see that the going rate is $199, a 100% increase from my original subscription rate of $99. I understand that the lower price was a special offer, yet to double the price strikes me as excessive and, I’m afraid, financially untenable. Because I very much value the FT, I would be happy to see my subscription increase by a certain percentage annually, not unlike my rent, or the gray hairs on my head. A number around 35%, nearer my age and within my means, seems eminently reasonable. How does $135 sound? If acceptable, please bill me for that amount and I’ll gladly pay.

If this letter should be directed somewhere else, please do so.

Yours sincerely,

an excerpt from my forthcoming college novel, about loneliness, friendship, and the vagaries of the seasons in upstate New York

2011-10-02T11:33:00.003-05:00

'I feel like people don’t talk enough about how fucked up black squirrels are.'

We’re standing under the expanse of a large tree neither of us knows the name of. It’s late August in upstate New York, freshman year of college. I’m waiting with my roommate for another student from our floor to go to the dining hall.

'I guess. I don’t know. Are there no black squirrels where you’re from?'

'Denver? No. Look at it. It doesn’t look like a squirrel at all. It’s like a little bear. A little black bear.'

His emphasis on the word black is just enough to make me uncomfortable. An inconstant wind, already feeling like fall, sends leaves from their branches in swirling twos and threes. He goes on.

'I don’t know dude. Is it racist to say that? Who knows? But I’ll tell you what, I’ve seen more black squirrels here than black students. I’m used to black students but not black squirrels.' He pauses to kick a stick. 'I wonder what black students think of black squirrels?'

'I think we might going in a racist direction,' I say wishing more than anything else my roommate didn’t talk so loud, or so freely, or was my roommate.

'Have you ever been with a black chick?'

I check my phone. I can feel him looking at me.

'Yeah me neither. Hey, a monarch butterfly!'

The black and orange flutters erratically past us.

'You know what they call people who study butterflies? Lepidopterists. It’s Latin. Actually the more obscure word to me is butterfly. I’m not sure where that came from. Butter fly. Did you ever take Latin?'

'No. I did French in high school. Actually, I think I’m going to start French again next semester. I didn’t sign up this semester.'

Another distinctly fall breeze. I think I see our third making his way toward us for our early dinner, the continuation of our friendship trial.

'Have you ever been with a Latin chick? Latina I guess is how you say it.'

'Hey, here comes Paul. Paul!' I shout. 'Over here!' I shout, louder.

Dialogue from a deleted scene from The Wire, where Omar goes to a suburban Baltimore Supercuts for a trim

2011-10-02T11:08:00.007-05:00

Hairdresser [combing out Omar's braids]: You know, your scalp is awfully dry. Do you drink enough water?

Omar [scowling]: It's always been like that, ya feel me?

Hairdresser: What about special dandruff shampoo - have you ever tried that?

Omar [nodding]: Oh indeed.

2011-09-09T18:57:00.002-05:00

2011-07-15T22:06:00.007-05:00

Summer mix 2011, which should be somewhere right around here

Tracks:
1. Devotchka - La Llorrona
2. Portugal the Man - When the War Ends
3. Wiz Khalifa - The Race
4. Roxy Music - Grey Lagoons
5. Cass McCombs - County Line
6. Jerry Garcia - Georgia on My Mind
7. The Fleshtones - Comin' Home Baby
8. Dennis Brown - Song My Mother Used to Sing
9. Neil Diamond - Lady Oh
10. Thurston Moore - Benediction
11. The Rolling Stones - Gotta Get Away
12. Danko/Fjeld/Andersen - When Morning Comes to America
13. Superchunk - Sexy Ankles
14. Liam Finn - Roll of the Eye
15. Harry Nilsson - Living Without You

wait a minute...

2011-06-29T18:15:00.002-05:00

Just what the heck was the sin of Gommorah?

2011-06-29T07:17:00.002-05:00

Is it wrong that this photo makes me slightly uncomfortable?

Dreams of my Someone

2011-06-06T20:13:00.008-05:00

Hey! How's this for kicks? A funny shtick in a contemporary office-themed movie would see two twenty-something colleagues, one male and one female, standing awkwardly around a water cooler. The male, dimly remembering that the woman across from him has recently returned to the office from a wedding, would make small chat about the marriage of two people he doesn't know.

So far, so not very funny, you're thinking. Well, first of all, you can't see these two corporate doofuses in all their doofus splendor. And second of all, just cool down the pace for me little woman.

The kicker - what makes this a bit something that, in my mind, updates 'Who's on First' for the 21st century, is this - she attended a same sex ceremony! Hilarious! The guy doesn't know this, and he's hopelessly square, so you get dialogue like the following:

Guy: So, uh, how was the wedding?

Gal: Oh, yeah, it was really good, really fun. Beautiful, actually.

Guy: And it was a friend of yours from ... where? College?

Gal: Yeah, one of my best friends Jade from Sarah Lawrence.

Guy: And the spouse? Do you approve?

Gal: Yeah, she's awesome.

Guy: But what about her spouse?

Gal: Oh, they're both perfect for each other...

Guy: Oh so you like him?

Gal: Her.

Guy: I know you like your friend, but what about her spouse?

Gal: She's a she.

Guy: No, the guy she married.

Gal: Girl.

Guy: No, not her, the other one.

Gal: Ohhhhh, sorry...of course, I, like, totally love my friend.

Anyways, this careful comic brilliance is a dance that should stretch out for about 15 solid minuets, perhaps spliced throughout this as yet unwritten movie in fragments. To add to the hijinks, I think the guy should be someone like a Mormon, with pasted blond hair and a white shirt and black tie. The girl should be some variation on the stock character of nose-pierced 'bull dyke' (is that the expression?), or the equally tock and equally nose-pierced 'neo-hippy.'

So that's my bit for the night.

2011-05-07T11:44:00.001-05:00

My sister went to the swamps of northern North Carolina and all I got was this lousy...

2011-04-26T20:01:00.004-05:00

...gator. Y'all.

I mean, that shit is medieval. Prehistoric medieval.

Good luck

2011-04-22T22:20:00.001-05:00

Goodluck Jonathan

"Many coats of many people were cast aside"

2011-04-10T14:04:00.004-05:00

Several weeks had passed, spring was beginning to return, the air was damper and softer, uncertain fragrances and sounds began to assert themselves, coming seemingly from beneath the earth. The earth was soft, one walked on it as on thick supple rugs. You thought you must be hearing birds singing. "Spring is on its way," people on the street said to one another, awash in sensations. Even the stark buildings were taking on a certain fragrance, a richer hue. Such a peculiar state of affairs, and yet it was such an old, familiar phenomenon--but everyone perceived it as utterly novel, it inspired strange, turbulent thoughts, a person's limbs, senses, heads, thoughts, everything was stirring as if all these things wished to start growing anew. The water of the lake gleamed so warmly, and the bridges snaking across the river appeared to arch more boldly. Flags were flapping in the wind, and it gave people pleasure to see them flap. And then the sunshine drove everyone out into the beautiful, white, clean streets in clusters and groups, where they remained standing, greedily luxuriating in the warm air's kisses. Many coats of many people were cast aside. You could see the men moving more freely again, and the women had such strange expressions in their eyes, as though something blissful were emerging from their hearts. At night one heard the sound of vagabond guitars for the first time, and men and women stood amid a whirl of gaily frolicking children. The lights of the lanterns flickered like candles in quiet rooms, and when you went walking across the night-dark meadows, you could feel the blooming and stirring of the flowers. The grass would soon grow again, the trees soon begin again to pour their green over the low roofs of the houses and block the view from the windows. The forest would be luxuriant, voluptuous, heavy, oh the forest.--Simon was working once more at a large commercial firm.

-Robert Walser, The Tanners

2011-03-29T09:40:00.000-05:00

2011-03-28T09:39:00.000-05:00

2011-03-27T09:39:00.000-05:00

2011-03-26T09:38:00.000-05:00

2011-03-25T09:37:00.000-05:00

2011-03-24T09:34:00.000-05:00

2011-03-23T20:17:00.002-05:00

The sound is really crappy, but watch from 4:08 to 4:54, and let's get Hells Angels Forever and watch this!

Interviewer: Are you afraid of the Hell's Angels?

Garcia: Sure. Sure.

Interviewer: Why?

Garcia: Because they're scary, man, you know. They're all big, you know, and strong, and good in all the violent spaces.

2011-03-14T19:54:00.001-05:00

2011-03-09T19:25:00.001-06:00

Office daydream # 47

2011-03-08T21:08:00.001-06:00

Why are the Libyan rebels shooting down aircraft from my office chair?

2011-03-08T21:07:00.002-06:00

I came across the following in a book of Fairfield Porter's art criticism -

"The Boston of the end of the nineteenth century was created by Sargent as an Anglophile Boston that considered itself a province of London....Boston, which felt itself to be (and with some justice), certainly the equal, and possibly the superior to any other American city as a capital of culture. The Bostonians who admired and lionized Sargent identified themselves with English civilization: they had no awe of France....In Boston there may have existed a small climate of opinion as to artistic standards that did not exist in New York or Philadelphia"

What struck me is how far this popularized, culturally influential image of Boston - the Brahmins, the James's, of a refined sensibility and cultural tastemaking - is so far from the popularized, but no less influential image of Boston we have today - the dominance of 'the Southie,' a city whose privilege is seen as foreign, and whose heart is the working class, the uneducated, the proud and clannish, the uncouth. Certainly demographics and economics play a large role here, but there's more to it, I think. Something about the democratization of cultural elitism, and the authenticity associated with representing the working class experience in the arts.

But as I always say, don't hate the player - hate the game.

2011-03-08T20:11:00.003-06:00

You know, if I put my mind to it, I could probably eat 50 of these Lorna Doones. I mean, these things are Lena Horne good!

And though I find the following tidbit about the book Lorna Doone from wikipedia interesting, it's worth asking whether the opinion of your average 1906 Yalie is really a testament to a thing's popularity? I mean, by this rubric, a favorite leisure activity is "ballooning", and the dances sweeping our nation are, in descending order, the grizzly bear, the turkey trot, the bunny hug, and the camel walk.

"It received acclaim from many of Blackmore's contemporaries, including Robert Louis Stevenson, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Thomas Hardy, and Margaret Oliphant. A favourite among female readers,[1] it is also popular among males, and was chosen by male students at Yale in 1906 as their favourite novel.[2]"

Any given Tuesday

2011-02-22T20:42:00.001-06:00

I once thought I lived in a period of time where everyone had lost their mind. People on the street. People in Office. Celebrities, commoners, clergy. The news was filled with recklessness, mutilation, infidelity, suicide. The pictures were damning. And I watched everything. Each scandal stranger, another life ruined; marriages, careers, reputations irrevocably lost.

Then one night I went to sleep, and the following day I awoke. And all around me I saw that what had the previous night seemed a shell of a life - destitute, depraved – now stared back at me healthy, happy. Color pictures of people in the sun.

And my heart sank. This wasn’t triumph over adversity, or the resilience of the human spirit. This was a past with no meaning, this was everything mutable. I don’t know if I can distinguish between hopefulness and desperation.

Work that day was pretty good. I had a nice sandwich for lunch, which I made myself (who says we don’t manufacture anything anymore?), and a granola bar. I was productive, and even used the word “roger” in a joshing way, but one that kind of made me wish I was an air traffic controller, or perhaps a fighter pilot.

So, it’s six of one, isn’t it? And then there’s a half dozen of another.

thoughts on current global politics

2011-02-20T17:33:00.010-06:00

Like a lot of people, I have been reading about the political and social unrest across North Africa and Arabia. Also, I've seen a lot of photos both in the newspapers and on the internet. Two things occur to me in reading about these heady days. First of all, who knew North Africa was such a scarf culture? When I was in Poland, I noticed a certain mustache culture, both in the flesh on the streets and hewed into stone in monuments. But I wasn't surprised. We're all familiar with the stock character of the Polish plumber with his walrus mustache. But I didn't know every young man in North Africa wore jeans, dark jackets, and scarves thrown nonchalantly around their necks. There have been a number of good examples in the press, and I can't find my favorite, but this should give you an idea:

And this brings me to my second point. I realize people are worried about what happens next. What role will Islamic groups like the Muslim Brotherhood play? Will these countries transition into democracy, or will they descend into chaos, paving the way for more dangerous autocratic regimes? But what people aren't talking about, and don't seem to be concerned about, is what if these countries are simply hijacked by these scarf wearing doofuses?

2011-02-19T22:29:00.003-06:00

Holy shit! Secrets and Lies is a damn good movie! And all these years I thought it was about something else somehow.

2011-01-28T01:10:00.000-06:00

What's the word for the feeling when you're online doing something, and you have your gmail open, and you don't necessarily want to initiate contact and yet you yearn - yes, yearn - to hear, however informally, from your list of friends and family all lit up green on your sidebar, and so you manually - yes, manually - set your chat light to a corresponding shade signaling your availability (a rarity!) and yet . . . no one chats with you?

I believe the word is twitter.

Initial casting of the movie version of FREEDOM, by Jonathan Franzen Part I.

2011-01-27T17:00:00.004-06:00

Walter Berglund - A young Richard Dreyfuss

Patti Berglund - A middle aged Patricia Clarkson

Richard Katz - a tall Richard Lewis

Joey Berglund - a youngish Josh Hartnett

Connie - An anorexic Christina Ricci

Jessica Berglund - A Marilyn Manson-less Evan Rachel Wood

2011-01-11T19:39:00.004-06:00

Following a reading of Franzen's Freedom with the 1971/1972 book-length interview with Jerry Garcia is fun! To wit, Jerry Garcia on freedom:

That's the "freedom lie." There's been a lie about what freedom is and the big lie is that freedom means absolutely and utterly free, and it really doesn't mean anything of the sort. The case in point is when you have your own scene like that. Somebody comes in and they're free to move in, but likewise you're free to tell them to get out. Freedom is a premise that's been put forth that's been abused.
For any scene to work, along with that freedom there's implicit responsibility--you have to be doing something somewhere along the line--there is no free ride. And you have to know where you're going. It's helpful to have a scene that will indulge you long enough to let you find out. That's basically what our scene was doing and when people were coming into town and kicking around for a while, they'd learn the ropes, they'd learn how to work it on the street and how to do a little hustling during the day and just survive until they could find something they could really attach on to. That was the general story.

Proposed cast for potential film about the 1983 Braves

2011-01-07T11:43:00.007-06:00

Dale Murphy: James Franco

Bob Horner: Will Ferrell

Steve Bedrosian: Sam Rockwell

Claudell Washington: Don Cheadle

Rafael Ramirez: Mos Def

Glenn Hubbard: Zack Galifinakis

Pete van Wieren: Bob Balaban

Mrs. van Wieren: Renee Russo

Skip Caray: William H. Macy

Chip Caray: Haley Joel Osment

Ted Turner: Paul Rudd

Gordon Soley: Richard Dreyfus

Mr. Wrestling II: Keifer Sutherland

Phil Niekro: Kevin Costner

right here right now

2010-11-23T20:26:00.003-06:00

Some day I'll write something new, something good. And that something will be worth the wait. I just need a little time right now, a little space, I guess. But I promise you, I do....I won't let you down.

2010-11-16T09:04:00.000-06:00

Drinks with my cousin

2010-10-06T07:11:00.003-05:00

“You know one guy I know said that reducing his hours was the greatest thing that ever happened to him.” My cousin's perched on a bar stool, drinking a vodka tonic. He’s just told me he’s doing an eat to live diet and avoiding beer. He still looks youthful, and no bigger than the last time I saw him. His face is slightly flush with vodka and the power of the pulpit he naturally holds. “He raised his prices, and lost half his clients, but he kept the ones he cared about because they saw him as worth the price. So this guy gained 20 hours a week in free time, didn’t lose any income, and then he had this space where he could do his own shit.”

“Huh.” I say this unconvinced.

He stares at me searchingly for a moment, looking for traces of sarcasm, and stirs his drink agitatedly. “So what I’m saying dumbass is that you should see this period as a chance to do your own shit. Your brother does his shit, he’s there, but I don’t see you doing your shit. There's tons of stuff you could be doing. You could have all sorts of ideas for apps, whatever.” He takes another gulp.

I clear my throat and shift, uncomfortable on my bar stool. “Yeah, well…”

“I mean, how old are you again?”

“Thirty-five.” This I answer definitively. This I know.

He leans back on his stool with a demonstrative exhale and grimace.

“Shit…” he says shaking his head.

2010-09-23T08:25:00.000-05:00

2010-08-06T17:17:00.006-05:00

Today I went to work and the server didn't work. I couldn't figure out how to fix it and didn't know who to call.

I left the office early and went to see the Fairfield Porter show at a gallery on 57th Street. Mainly landscapes of Maine and lush greens and flowers. A couple great portraits, one of his son and one of a shaggy haired bearded man. A large painting showed a group of older people reclining in Adirondack chairs in a July afternoon. That this did not seem smug, or boring, or, say, elegiac, but instead inviting is a testament to Porter, the warmth of his tones and depth of his colors, the subdued, domestic, yet poignant quality to his subject matter.

I took the subway down to 23rd Street, and to the last day of this show called 'Swell', about surf culture and Southern California from the 50s to the 90s. It's supposed to be in three galleries, but I could only find one, and when I left I thought about asking the group of attractive gallery staff, busily typing on their computers in front of price lists which contained numbers in excess of my annual salary, but decided against it. Decided that the other galleries must be right next door. They weren't, and I walked down to 14th Street resolved to speak up, to ask a question if I have one, to say something if I think it.

At Nevins Street, while switching trains, I affirmed a young woman's question about whether an approaching 5 train would stop at Franklin Avenue.

Home, I went into my room and did 100 push ups, and around 200 sit ups, and rocked back and forth lifting barbells while perched on my wooden desk chair with its slightly over sized sticky pads on the ends of its uneven legs.

I put on a pair of corduroys and a white tee shirt and went to the corner deli and bought four beers. Now I'm listening to McKay's mix and plotting making an omelette, and considering the delicate balance between drunkenness and reading ability, and wondering if I'll finish Joan Didion's Play It As It Lays tonight, or if I'll have to abandon it for something less demanding like a movie, or music, or the Yankee game if I can find a quiet bar.

And that should bring us to tomorrow.

2010-08-06T09:00:00.000-05:00

Extract from employment Application number 461, under 'additional information':

I understand that my resume is not typical, but I have excelled in high energy, fast paced and extremely important environments/projects. I am a severe go-getter and have and will never quit until successful.

2010-08-05T20:47:00.002-05:00

Extract from resume #98, under 'Interests':

Interests:

*Volunteering time for a worthy cause and keeping up with international as well as regional events

*Traveling abroad. Traveled areas include: All major areas of the US, Canada, UK, Milan, Bergamo & Rome Italy, Paris & Cannes France, Balearic Islands of Mallorca, Ibiza, Main land of Spain (Barcelona/Madrid), Holguin Cuba, Dominican Republic, Athens Greece, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Pulau Tioman Malaysia, Hong Kong & Macau China, Dubai & Doha Qatar UAE, Australia, New Zealand, Bora Bora, Papeete Tahiti, Africa Tanzania, Mexico

*Participating in regular sports related activities

*Dance Movement & Dance Choreography

*Licensed Scuba Diving & Horseback Riding

2010-08-01T19:46:00.007-05:00

TWIB notes mix, download here. I think.

2010-07-30T12:00:00.001-05:00

Extract from resume number 29:

Objective: To join an organization whose commitment to excellence and pursuit of success mirrors my own drive and determination. Interested in working collegially, yet pursue success aggressively, within a team concept. I look forward to bring my proven success as a closer, to intuitively understand the needs of my prospects, customers and team, to an organization, for the betterment of all, achieving that most elusive of victories, the win-win-win scenario.

To which one can only add, with liberty and justice for all!

2010-07-29T12:00:00.000-05:00

Extract from writing sample on poverty, a college essay, submitted along with resume number 401:

Inequality drives society. Conflict is the essence of life. Without conflict, there is no marriage, no media, no upper or lower class societies.

2010-07-28T12:00:00.000-05:00

Extract from resume number 61:

Objective: To obtain a position in which I can manifest my professional and interpersonal skills.

2010-07-27T18:44:00.001-05:00

Extract from resume number 1217, under work experience:

Starbucks Coffee

* Tasted and smelled distinguished, with a degree of accuracy, differences and similarities in intensity of flavors coffee

2010-07-16T13:00:00.002-05:00

Internal interview evaluation, number 480:

"Couldn't really explain why he hadn't been working for the last year and a half."

2010-07-15T20:48:00.004-05:00

Internal interview evaluation, number 64:

"Cried in interview."

2010-07-14T13:00:00.000-05:00

Excerpt from resume number 311, under 'Interests':

Art, music, colored contact lenses

2010-07-13T13:00:00.001-05:00

Excerpt from resume number 17:

Objective: Obtain a position where I can utilize my experience, along with my ability to think critically dealing with various situations as a team leader and team member to help your company achieve their overall business goals.

2010-07-12T13:57:00.000-05:00

Excerpt from resume number 79:

Objective:

To obtain a job in to use and grow my skills

Qualifications:

Organization is one of my highest qualifications. Prioritizing projects and completing them by or prior to the date through organization allows me to get the task at hand done without problems. I'm very user friendly with computers. I am very knowledgeable with most Microsoft Programs and I am quick learner on computers. I type fast and accurately, and can multi-task on the computer very easily without a problem.

Management is one of my qualifications. Two of my past jobs allowed me to manage a team in which each time we successfully, as a team, completed each day without problems and succeeded some of our personal goals.

2010-07-09T13:54:00.000-05:00

Excerpt from resume number 169, under 'interests':

avid sports fan of major sporting disciplines

2010-07-08T13:52:00.001-05:00

Internal interview evaluation, number 711:

"could not clearly articulate current role; swore during interview"

2010-07-07T13:47:00.000-05:00

excerpt from cover letter number 1241:

'Leadership is not just about opening doors, but holding it open for others to walk through.' That quote was told to me when I was in High School, and it has always been branded on me and with everything I do in life. I have made many attempts to work in an environment that allows me to help others, and I have failed many times. I will not give up until I find my ideal opportunity....

The core values and 'work hard' mentality keeps me motivated to succeed in all aspects of life, whether it be the community or in a professional setting. I have experience working in teams and following a leader, and also being that leader and having teams follow me to ensure the most efficient way to meet a goal. My qualifications include working in inclement weather, time management, and interpersonal skills as well as leadership through my determination to succeed personally and see the overall company succeed. Some say my ability to relate to people is through my customer service skills is a heavy strength of mine. I come with a background where strong verbal, written and in-person communication was necessary for success and achieving goals.

And here is the internal interview evaluation:

"poor communication skills - did not use proper english"

2010-07-06T13:44:00.000-05:00

excerpt from resume 841, under 'skills':

* Powerful aura that generates revenue

* Had many college graduates with impressive degrees working for me and provided them with hands on business training, which included monitoring production, asking the good questions so as to plant the right seeds that was conducive to the system, strategizing each and every week to not only make everyone's position enticing, but a progression piece just as well so the company's quarterly sales statistics would flourish.

2010-07-05T13:42:00.002-05:00

excerpt from resume number 1729, under 'skills':

To enhance the identity and increase the revenue of the business I work for based on intellect, strategy, and the keen ability to stay ahead of the curve by seeing the entire picture, as well as all of the moving parts in the moment.

2010-06-16T12:23:00.001-05:00

2010-05-12T08:54:00.001-05:00

Is it me, or are pigeons becoming lazier?

2010-04-22T21:48:00.001-05:00

2010-04-22T21:48:00.000-05:00

2010-04-22T21:47:00.000-05:00

Riddle me this...

2010-03-26T16:19:00.004-05:00

Sometimes, when I'm walking along the street, I'll all of a sudden have a sense of being in a soccer or basketball game. It's not a flashback, rather the moment is unfolding right in front of me, in real time. I'm 34 years old and on my way to work but I can see vividly a ball coming towards me. And I see - and feel - the path I need to take to meet it. I picture weaving in and out of pedestrians, receiving the ball with a sure touch, giving a little fake, and then setting up for a strike or a jumper that flies by a diving keeper or falls truly through the hoop. This is an immensely satisfying daydream.

Sometimes I have this fantasy with golf, too.

But...why?

I played sports unspectacularly and my overall physical memory is, more often than not, one in which I'm - well, I believe leaden is the right word. What's the deal with this phantom fluidity (and that's what I fantasize about - the beauty of the movements)?

Also, unrelatedly, I have allergies! I was up all night last night blowing my nose, and it's now a raw, red beacon. I took some Claritin, but it's not working as fast I had I hoped. I need a good placebo.

I see now that this is one of my more boring posts. You can feel free to disregard.

2010-03-19T12:00:00.002-05:00

It is not true that self acceptance automatically comes with age. It is true that when we are older our earlier aims seem more dubious and it is easier, cheaper, more painless to smile at our youthful ambition; but this is not the same as self-acceptance. In a certain respect, even, it becomes more difficult as we get older. More and more people to whom we look up admiringly are younger than ourselves, our allotted span grows shorter and shorter, resignation becomes easier and easier in view of our nonetheless honorable career, easier still for those who have no career at all and can console themselves with the thought of their unrecognized genius...

-- Max Frisch, I'm Not Stiller [1954]

Overheard on Nostrand Avenue

2010-03-18T12:41:00.001-05:00

"Look at them legs, Duchess. Mmm-hmmm."

- Man, 40ish, to bulldog, in wake of young woman

Prayer to St Catharine of Siena

2010-03-18T12:00:00.001-05:00

O St Catharine of Siena
Patroness of Siena College
where I went to basketball camp as a young lad
back when I used to think I was black
and had a high and tight
and stayed with my grandparents
who fed me prunes and drove me to camp
in a Buick that smelled of Winstons

Look down on me tonight, O Saint Catharine,
me and the men's team from your College
and give them victory over Purdue
(who are Lutherans, most likely)
which would give me a much
needed 13 points in my upset pool

O Lady, then, in the second round
(hopefully against Texas A & M)
give them another victory
for I need those extra points in round two.

Generally, O Saint Catharine,
bless my bracket and all my picks
Guard tendons and ligaments, and give freshman,
such as that Wall kid on Kentucky,
wisdom beyond their years
as well as consistency at the free throw line.

For all this I pray, in the hopes of
making my May rent in various pools

Amen.

Modern Man

2010-03-17T12:00:00.003-05:00

I can now see this missing Stiller pretty clearly. He seems to be very feminine. He feels he has no will power, and in a certain sense he has too much -- he employs it in willing not to be himself. His personality is vague; hence his tendency to radicalism. His intelligence is average, but in no way trained; he prefers to rely on hunches and neglects the intelligence; for intelligence forces one to make decisions. At times he reproaches himself with cowardice, then he makes decisions which he later cannot keep to. He is a moralist, like almost everybody who does not accept himself. He often runs unnecessary risks, or puts himself in mortal danger, to prove that he is a fighter. He has a great deal of imagination. He suffers from the classical inferiority anxiety that comes from making excessive demands on himself, and he mistakes his fundamental sense of inadequacy for depth of character, or even for religious feeling. He is a pleasant person, he possesses charm and doesn't argue. When he can't get his way by charm, he withdraws into his melancholy. He would like to be honest. In him, the insatiable longing to be truthful is partly due to a special kind of untruthfulness: he is truthful to the point of exhibitionism so that he can use the consciousness of being particularly truthful, more truthful than other people, as a manner of skirting around a sore point. He doesn't know just where this point lies, this black hole, that keeps cropping up again, and he is afraid even when it doesn't appear. He lives in anticipation. He likes to leave everything in suspense. He is one of those people who, wherever they are, cannot help thinking how nice it might be somewhere else. He flees the here-and-now, at least inwardly. He doesn't like the summer, or any other state of immediate fulfillment; he likes autumn, twilight, melancholy; transience is his element. Women very quickly have the feeling that he understands them. He has few men friends. Among men he feels he is not a man. But in his fundamental fear of being inadequate he is really afraid of women too. He conquers more than he can hold, and once his partner has sensed his limits he completely loses his nerve. He is not willing to and not capable of being loved as the person he is, and therefore he involuntarily neglects every woman who truly loves him, for if he took her love really seriously, he would be compelled as a result to accept himself -- and that is the last thing he wants.

--Max Frisch, I'm Not Stiller [1954]

To which I say - Frisch! You old numbnuts! Turn that frown upside down!

My Monday Night

2010-03-16T17:00:00.002-05:00

In the brightly lit and colorful aisle of a Met Market, I labor for far too long in choosing between Florida's Natural and Tropicana Grapefruit juice while holding a basket weighed down by a week's provisions - pears, cheese, pasta, cold cuts, milk, plum tomatoes, honey wheat bread - and inadvertently bopping my head to a song whose chorus repeats "birthday sex" over and over and over again.

2010-03-11T13:37:00.006-06:00

Receptionists can make the day the most difficult. And it’s a pity, as you encounter them first. But it seems that the people most likely to resent temps are those who see little value in engaging with them. People at the top and the bottom prove generally welcoming. Both managers and the mail room often are cordial and civil. But receptionists and secretaries, who cultivate close relationships with the powerful and get value from their everyday intimacy, at best see little point in talking to temps, and, at worst, see us as unpredictable and unwanted presences. Any information divulged from these surly sources is presented in a way to highlight obvious ignorance and confusion. Never have I been told quite as quietly witheringly where I could put my coat as I was this very morning.

Today’s assignment is at a midtown Public Relations firm. There’s another temp from the agency there, too. A tall, young man, still wet blond hair carefully combed, neck red with acne and the aggravation of a morning shave. He annoys me at first by engaging in pleasantries with the coffee bar hostess. This office has its own coffee bar complete with eight stools right in the lobby. Offered a cup of complimentary coffee he refuses politely (as do I), but as we wait for our contact to appear he ventures an exchange with the barista - “Do you have a favorite coffee to make?” Idiot, I think. Patronizing idiot.

We are charged by a very friendly young woman with saving a number of documents on to flash drives. It is boring, but rhythmic. There is a pile of them and we must get to the bottom, one at a time. I am pleased by the time it takes for the files to be copied and could happily spend the morning doing this. I am slightly annoyed when my colleague comes up with the idea of using both USB ports to double our productivity. “I don’t know, maybe it won’t save any time?” “No, it’s a good idea,” I reluctantly acknowledge. But if we finish...what then?

Lunch. We are told to be back in the office at 1:30. I’m a couple of minutes late having accidentally got on an express elevator which took me with an astonishing speed to the 46th floor despite my frantic pressing of button 17. For a moment I fantasize that the elevator’s gone haywire, and I’m ascending to the roof of the building ever faster only to burst through in a splinter of concrete, steel, and timber where I’m suspended momentarily in mid-air before crashing down in an arc of destruction onto the city street below. I cringe. Not in terror, but in mortification. While at lunch I had sat in a park where children played in a sunken concrete ring filled with simple sand. The parents - or ethnic guardians, as seemed to be the case - stood along the outside, arms crossed and watchful. It was like a gladiatorial event miniaturized and stripped of bloodlust. Instead of Romans and lions, there were little kids, curly haired and clumsy in brightly colored and oversized coats and ribbons, innocently sifting sand and walking in circles. They do this oblivious to the click clacking high heeled passers-by and the pitter patter of the small dogs who lead along an endless stream of elderly ladies.

Our friendly young woman is not quite ready for us upon our return and we’re instructed to hang out at the coffee bar. We pass a pleasant 45 minutes watching CNN and chatting. I’m warming to my young colleague. I talk of Dublin, he talks of his struggle to find work that is meaningful. I sympathize, and offer to get him another complimentary coffee.

The afternoon brings us to a conference room looking out over Manhattan and views of balconies draped in the spring sun. Folders in need of collating and reorganizing await us, along with some of the untouched offerings for an executive’s meeting canceled earlier. We help ourselves to cold sodas.

The frantic activity that keeps tearing our friendly young woman from us (How many years younger than me is she, I momentarily think - could it be a decade?) and the purported reason for our being there is a launch by a major Japanese electronics company of a 3D television. Our folders contain information useful to the organizers of this event, including too many references to how cool and un-cumbersome the special glasses needed for the TVs are. We learn of a performance by a popular hip hop group at the launch. At one point, we see a script which has the Japanese head of this major electronics company ending a very brief welcoming speech by painfully quoting from the current hit by this band. I’m embarrassed. Doesn’t anyone object to this foolishness?

By 5 PM the work we were really hired to do is still not yet ready, and won't be ready for a number of hours. And so we are anti-climatically sent home, despite being contracted until 6PM. “Don’t worry,” our friendly young woman says, cheerful to the end. “I’ll sign off on a full day.”

Interesting

2010-03-04T13:45:00.003-06:00

The apartment I'm subletting contains the single largest collection possible of extant D'Angelo albums. There are only two extant D'Angelo albums. Ergo, the apartment contains both of them. A third album is evidently eagerly anticipated by a lot of people including, presumably, one if not both of the full time residents of this apartment. Though it is not eagerly anticipated by this listener. No, that will be one release that will sail under the proverbial radar.

I have enough on my plate without D'Angelo breathing heavily in my ear.

Remember when it was all snowy up in here??

2010-03-02T11:10:00.011-06:00

That shit was hilarious!!!!

Petty grievances, NY Phil edition

2010-02-26T16:13:00.002-06:00

In my life I've had my share of old man tiffs. You know the sort of things I'm talking about - the standing argument with a dry cleaner over a spot or a missing shirt; or, revealingly, the feud with a certain liquor store proprietor who wouldn't accept my thousands of disparate beer bottles carelessly thrown into scattered boxes all because they happened to be of uncertain provenance. 'What?' I said. 'They aren't foreign currency for Chrissakes. Do you know how much beer I've bought here over the years? What's the difference?' This plea fell on the proverbial deaf ears. An oblique threat to take my business elsewhere lasted exactly two weeks, before the encroaching evening, New England blue laws, and a devilish thirst brought me back, petulantly.

But now I have a new vendetta, and I can't say I'm not glad to be feuding again. My sworn enemy? The NY Philharmonic. Someone from their organization called me this morning as I was enjoying a delicious Dunkin' Donuts bagel with cream cheese. An eager young woman was kind enough to ask me if I had been to the philharmonic recently. As I thought back to the last time I'd seen the Phil, some time ago mind you, I had to fight to keep my imagination from conjuring up a rather voluptuous classical music lover on the other end of the line. But she wasn't really interested in the last time I had been to the symphony, instead she broke right into an aggressive narrative of fundraising, educational initiatives, and a large sum of money that they hoped to make up in a short amount of time.

Eager. Motivated. I like her, I thought, as I licked stray cream cheese from my wrist.

But the conversation took a sobering turn when she began to inquire as to how much I'd be willing to give. If I could only steer this patter to Sibelius, I might be alright, I thought. But it was impossible, so I interrrupted her apologetically with a protestation of impecuniousness.

She interrupted me forcefully, but not without humor, with the right bon mot that I need not make up this staggering aforementioned difference myself.

We laughed for a while. Or I laughed. She seemed rather breathlessly poised like a jungle cat on the other end of the line.

I coughed nervously and told her I just couldn't give now.

'No?' She pushed. 'Not even $25?'

I bristled. 'No,' I said. 'And frankly I don't like being pushed.'

'What about $15 or even $7?'

This was a bit much. 'Now look,' I said. 'This smacks of desperation...'

But before I could finish scolding her, she hung up! A courtesy caller hung up on me. This, my dear readers, must be a new sort of low.

V.H.

2010-02-18T10:51:00.003-06:00

Who is this idiot interviewing Horowitz?

I think I first heard the name Vladimir Horowitz watching Jeopardy! The category had something to do with the initials V.H. Who was Vladimir Horowitz netted you $800. Some of the other answers from that particular show? Vaclav Havel. Victor Hugo. I've forgotten the other two. We could probably reconstruct them, don't you think?

Once, when I was young and watching Jeopardy! with my family, I was delighted to be able to blurt out Lake Titicaca to the great amusement of my brother and the mock puritanical shock of my mother. Even younger, I once successfully answered a Trivial Pursuit question with The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. I don't remember doing this, but I'm told that my grandmother looked at my mother with a good degree of skepticism as to the moral fiber of our household. I wish I remembered this.

Eff this.

2010-02-15T20:47:00.003-06:00

You guys can find me on google buzz.

I'm talking about getting my buzz on, Aldrin style.

It's good to know that, in the world, there are still men who, when they want to say something really inane, often repeating what has just been said by someone else, will adopt a falsetto, an odd stress pattern, and a sing-songy cadence.

That's [altogether now] Caaaa-dence!

This goes out to the fellows at my new temping job! A little teeeemp-ing!

2010-02-10T06:53:00.003-06:00

Good morning hos and bros! It's snowing here in New York. My morning question - what's the word, the term, for when a computer generated avatar looks remarkably like another human being other than the one he is intended to resemble? How does one refer to an avatar's avatar? I'm thinking we need to update 'doppelganger' for the digital age. All of this inspired by the fact that the avatar of Jake Sully in ~~Dances with Wolves~~ ~~Lord of the Rings~~ Avatar looks remarkably like a cousin of mine.

And all GuardtheGuardian-ians should read this article, recommended by one Colonel Knowledge. Is he trying to tell me something?

week round up

2010-02-05T08:15:00.003-06:00

And what a week it was! We laughed at a couple of ridonkulous political ads.

We enjoyed the art of Shane Neufeld.

We took out a couple books from the library, but haven't started reading them yet.

We flipped through Karate Boogaloo's Daily Travels section of his website for NYC subway photos.

And every once and again the internet seems worth it somehow.

There's a lot more to do!

2010-01-30T19:49:00.002-06:00

"Brent had a deeply self-destructive streak. He didn't have much supporting him in terms of an intellectual life. I mean, I owe a lot of who I am and what I've been and what I've done to the beatniks from the Fifties and to the poetry and art and music I've come in contact with. I feel like I'm part of a continuous line in American culture, of a root. But Brent was from the East Bay, which is one of those places that is like nonculture. There's nothing there. There's no substance, no background. And Brent wasn't a reader, and he hadn't really been introduced to the world of ideas on any level. So a certain part of him was like a guy in a rat cage, running as fast as he could and not getting anywhere. He didn't have any deeper resources.

My life would be miserable if I didn't have those little chunks of Dylan Thomas and T.S. Eliot. I can't even imagine life without that stuff."

--Jerry Garcia on Grateful Dead keyboardist, Brent Mydland, in Rolling Stone

This is something

2010-01-28T19:12:00.002-06:00

F.Scott Fitzgerald on Ring Lardner in the The New Republic. This is memory. This is life.

I'm very pleased

2010-01-26T14:01:00.003-06:00

about my increased Asian readership! Keep the comments coming!

Did this happen?

2010-01-24T08:08:00.002-06:00

Overheard on a New York subway platform at 2AM, said by an upset man to woman in tears.

"Jesuitry? Jesuitry!? Do you even know
what that means? Equivocator, maybe, but outright Jesuitry? Uh uh."

Newsflash!

2010-01-23T18:25:00.002-06:00

I'm no hero, I'm just a man with a remote.

I'm beginning to think there's a bounty on my head with all this ticketing a-goin'-on...

2010-01-12T14:06:00.001-06:00

12 January 2010

Justice Court Town of Bedford
321 Bedford Road
Bedford Hills, NY 10507

Re: ticket number [redacted]

Dear Sir/Madam,

Please find enclosed a ticket left for me on January 6th. Here is the problem – that morning, around 7:07 AM (give or take a few precious minutes) I trudged through the freezing cold to pay my five dollars to park for the day, yet when I entered spot ‘113’ an invalid reading came up. I typed it again. Once again I was rebuffed. There was nothing to do aside from go back to my car and switch spots, or leave a five dollar bill under my windshield wiper (would that do, I wonder?), or to dash to the train hoping to make the 7:17 and equally hoping that I wouldn’t get ticketed for this, of all things. I chose the latter, and my hopes were dashed at about 7:35 that night.

I’ve been thinking long and hard about what might have caused this mix up. I think someone might have paid for 24 hours sometime between, oh, 6AM and 12 PM on January 5th, and then returned at any point before then, leaving their spot empty but with money still on the meter. Thus when I went to pay that fateful morning, the machine wouldn’t accept it because there was already money on the meter and unfortunately it seems that you can’t add time to an existing meter. Regardless, the meter expired by the time your diligent attendant checked at 12:30 PM leaving me with a ticket that, I would like to argue, I should not be held accountable for.

What do you think? Should I be on Law and Order, or what?

Sincerely,

Sheridan Dupre

P.S.

2010-01-05T15:22:00.002-06:00

Is there a bigger idiot than David Denby?

I don't know about you...

2010-01-05T15:13:00.004-06:00

...but 2010 is both off to a good start, and simultaneously distressingly similar to 2009. It's a colder year, though - isn't it? A colder decade, probably. But it's already had its share of pleasant surprises. My 13th victory in Minesweeper; the conductor on the train not collecting my ticket; the book of stamps I got for free through a glitch in the stamp machine. I think these are good tidings. Yes, I think it's safe to say this is going to be my year, my decade. In the 'tens, all of my mail will go out. There are no excuses any more, not with free stamps, free transport. No, not with this kind of luck. No excuses.

for you, Albany

2009-12-30T19:20:00.001-06:00

Meanwhile, in a distant corner of the interweb (are there corners?), you can read this , by moi.

Reflections on a Freezing Shower

2009-12-26T13:10:00.003-06:00

There is always a hint of heat even on the coldest mornings as you stand shivering, hand tentatively outstretched under a reluctant, groaning stream. One chooses one’s moments and one must act quickly. You know this faint warmth will not last forever. And yet you think, this morning of all mornings, this very morning might hold constant and true with the promise of warmth. This first stage is hope.

It is too late to undo what has been done. This realization strikes you with the rapidly cooling water. You turn the dial slightly to the left, closer to the ‘H,’ but you don’t dare go all the way because once there, there’s nowhere further to go. And there’s heat in that dial that needs to be coaxed out, like milk from a reluctant Heifer’s teat. And so it goes. Once more to the left and you know you are getting close to the end, that soon that dial will not turn and you’ll be left, alone and naked, to reckon with what you’ve wrought. This happens every morning. This second stage is the confrontation with cold reality.

Just as you’ve resigned yourself to the cruelty, just as you’ve cursed - Job-like – your suffering, something happens. There is a trace of slight warmth in the torturous cascade – Is this delusion? Early hypothermia? Diminishing definitions of what is “warm” and what is “cold”? No, there is real heat there! The worm has turned and though you never end in a torrent of hot water, there is a wisp of steam in the bathroom as you exit marginally less frozen than when you entered some eight minutes ago. (Eight minutes! Was it only eight minutes?! Nay, two lifetimes!) Is this the virtue of patience? Is that what we’ve learned?

This pilgrim’s progress holds until you shower elsewhere. Somewhere where the stream is hot and pressured and you’re torn between thinking this comfort somehow decadent, and thinking, alternatively, that the narrative of morning ritual you live with is wholly misguided, that it needn’t be like that at all.

And then you have a good think.

2009-12-15T16:07:00.003-06:00

But it was his job he hated talking about most of all. He dreaded meeting people because he knew that a considerate, logical question to someone you've just met is 'what do you do?' He didn't object to it on philosophical grounds, or see it as a negative reflection on a certain type of person who can only talk about work. Indeed, if he allowed himself a moment of small satisfaction, it was on his overall charitable attitude towards people. Rather, it was the physical prospect of such an exchange, the give and take of an average polite conversation, that made him anxious. He could feel himself growing hot and uncomfortable, beads of sweat on his brow, his back. And his hands - his cold, clammy hands. With each week that passed in his job, with each new introduction, it just seemed to get harder. His description became more circumspect full of rambling, borrowed phrases, rather than concise. He dreaded the question more, not less. He spoke quickly and apologetically to smiling people who seemed to have jobs that they didn't care about or jobs that they cared so much about.

How did all these people get so secure and sure of themselves?

He clung to the idea that we are not what we do. But he harbored deep skepticism about this position. After all, in a very real way, we are what we do.

But the deeper questions weren't as troublesome as the shallow, fleshly ones. And this was more of a problem that needed to be solved than one that needed to be mulled over. Interests! He needed interests! Something to steer these conversations towards. And talking points! A teleprompter even, to keep him on cue as he squinted into the bright, judgmental lights of everyday social interaction. He needed anything to keep him from saying another word about working for a company that provides solutions.

2009-12-15T10:45:00.002-06:00

"I have put this restraint upon myself and kept it there all these years to keep from breaking my wife's heart, whose contentment I value above the salvation of the human race." -- Mark Twain

I just wanted to write this down so I don't forget it, and because I think it says something about the prerational bond that family can have and the ways that love is invariably limiting.

2009-12-10T18:23:00.003-06:00

"But what if it's not going to be ok?" he asked. "Things don't have to work out, do they?"

The reply was hasty. "Of course not, of course not. But you have to have hope, right? Don't you? You just can't give up!"

"I don't know. I mean, I guess."

He looked up uncertainly and then spoke quickly, accusatively.

"Where'd that come from anyway? All this hope business?"

They didn't look at each other.

"I don't know. The Bible? Shakespeare? But you know, there are things, like maybe your friends, and little pleasures. Like watching TV."

He brightened and smiled on the verge of a tired laugh.

"There is always TV."

cliches that need debunking #8

2009-12-03T17:57:00.002-06:00

Whoever said whenever a door closes, another opens, has clearly never been locked in their childhood bedroom. That, and they've never been buried alive. What door opens then, Mr Know-It-All? Huh? Maybe THE DOOR OF LIES!!!!!

Keep reading next week for cliches that need debunking #9 - "it all comes out in the wash." Patently, it doesn't.

2009-12-03T08:30:00.003-06:00

What you might call an aversion to work, I call a delicate sensibility.

What have I been doing recently? Reading The Magic Mountain for starters. Oh Hans Castorp! You're such a dolt!

in the annals of hair brained and half baked ideas...

2009-11-19T12:46:00.002-06:00

...was *this* the most hair brained and half baked?

Needless to say, my Irish is still remedial at best.

The more things change

2009-11-18T20:36:00.004-06:00

I just got my lap top back on Tuesday. Tonight is Wednesday. I have played 64 games of minesweeper. I haven't won a one.

At work today I watched Algeria versus Egypt on an Arabic stream. They were playing in the Sudan - neutral territory - because of the threat of violence. Tonight, of all nights, North Africa must be volatile. There was no one in the office but me.

A thought - from whence springs stability? We take it for granted here in Fairfield County that people won't take to the streets and burn our towns. But I've often thought - why? I have it in me, and you have it in you. I know this is a horrible thing to ask in light of Ft Hood, and of some poor girl shot in the Bronx, and of serial killers in Cleveland, but sometimes I'm surprised there isn't more violence, that the fabric of civil society isn't more undone. Economics clearly figure into any answer, but it seems to me it's culture more than economics. We assume a measure of civility, are shocked by its breaches. But culture's fragile and everything can change for the worse.

Man, I just had a delicious bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream! Is there anything better? I think cultures with large amounts of reasonably priced mint chocolate chip ice cream are more likely to be stable than those without. I could be wrong, but I don't think I am.

Town of Bedford Parking Authority letter

2009-11-12T15:42:00.003-06:00

You remember this? Well, it was dismissed! So then I got another ticket, in another town, and wrote this. Dismissed again!

****

29 October 2009

Justice Court Town of Bedford
321 Bedford Road
Bedford Hills, NY 10507

Dear Sir/Madam:

I am writing in regards to ticket number [redacted] which I received today, 29 October at 11:57AM, at the parking lot adjacent to the Katonah train station. Spot 309, if you’re keeping score at home. It was neatly tucked under my windshield wiper when I returned from New York at approximately 4:30 PM.

But our story begins some six hours earlier. I had parked and made my way to the meter machine with a crisp five dollar in hand only to discover that it was not taking cash. I, and a few other befuddled commuters, tried every which way to no avail. I soon had to give up my labor in order to make the 10:30 train.

I commute to New York three times a week, parking in the metered section of the lot around the corner from the Katonah station. As I hope you know, one of the machines there doesn’t accept cash, leading to a line of ill-tempered and borderline volatile commuters every morning in front of the one machine that works. This strikes me as outrageous. Surely it should not be the case that it is easier and more efficient to park in the remotest regions of Romania than here, in Westchester County! The metered spots are great, a veritable godsend for those of us who commute on an as need basis, but their maintenance desires closer attention.

I hope that this ticket will be thrown out.

Sincerely,

Sheridan Dupre

epithet, epigram, epigraph, epitaph

2009-11-12T14:40:00.005-06:00

I ain't going out like that. I AM, however, going out like this:

or this:

or this:

You decide, 2009 edition

2009-11-10T19:58:00.004-06:00

I'm mulling over the following posts, each of which seems to have both its positives and negatives. Perhaps my readership (and here I'm talking about you - yes, you! - you who just arrived after googling 'lost love analogies' and have found yourself here, broken hearted and looking for the right words) can help me decide. That's why I've titled this post "You decide, 2009 edition," because you, the reader, can decide which post I do, and also because it is 2009, and I wouldn't want you to confuse it with the '08 or, God forbid, the '07 edition. Are we clear, lost love analogies? Hang in there. Always darkest and what not.

1. A blog post that gives lists of books, newspapers, reading devices that I see on my commute on the 6 and A trains. Positives include sociological interest. Negatives include boredom for my readers, and awkward prying moments for me on the train.

2. A series of surreptitiously shot photographs of riders on the subway. I would do this by pulling my arms into the body of my trench coat so the sleeves hang down limblessly and then point and shoot through a small gap in the jacket somewhere north of my privates. Positives include Walker Evans revisited. Negatives include distinct possibility of misinterpretation of form or intent resulting in loud and unruly accusations of being a garden variety pervert, and/or being busted by NYPD for illegally photographing locations deemed extremely sensitive by homeland security.

3. Some other stuff. Positives include the element of surprise. Negatives include the necessity of original thought.

Perhaps more potential blog posts will come to me, and I'll blog about them, in due course. But one never knows if I will or if I won't. Probably what keeps you coming back to this site. The sheer unexpectedness and delight in variety; that, or simply a few moments to kill in your lives and this address for whatever reason left in your browser's history.

File under "baseball", "political activism"

2009-11-03T19:19:00.003-06:00

Glory thought, that strange and particular grace a man's body seems never to forget. Scooping up grounders and throwing sidearm. When her brothers were at home, even Jack would play baseball. That may have been why they were all so taken up with it. Even Jack would be drawn into arguments about records and statistics. He would sit around the radio with the rest of them to listen to the games. And sometimes when he played on a team he would make a beautiful catch or lay down a perfect bunt, exactly sufficient to circumstance as he never was elsewhere, and there would be a general happiness that included him, for a little while at least. She had forgotten all that....He put the mitt on his hand and popped the ball into the pocket with the flick of his wrist. That ancient gesture.

--Marilynne Robinson, Home

Marilynne Robinson and Phil Rizzuto are basically my dream team of basball announcers. Enough of ESPN idiots and John Sterling, the fool! Yes, we get it - you can't predict baseball.

Chant with me, if you will:

What do we want?! The slow food school of baseball analysis!
When do we want it?! Within our lifetimes, ideally, but if not our own, perhaps our children's children's!

Transcript No. 1

2009-11-01T14:19:00.002-06:00

Following the Jets/Dolphins game on line, I decided to jump into the conversation! I've cut and pasted the relevant bit. You need to read from the bottom up. I'm afraid the formatting's been lost in the transfer, but you will see the name, the time of comment, a 'Report Violation' option under the name, and then the comments themselves.

What fun!

**************************************

Miami 17, NY Jets 12
GameCastBox Score Play-By-Play Drive Chart Photos RealTime Conversation
1 2 3 4 T
MIA (2-4)
0 3 14 17
NYJ (4-3)
0 3 9 12

3rd Qtr 3:26
CBS
1:00 PM ET
November 1, 2009
Giants Stadium,
East Rutherford, NJ
Miami Dolphins at New York Jets

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• Comments (505-554)

21numbers (11/1/2009 at 3:07 PM)
Report Violation
screw you Dupre

JOE777COOL (11/1/2009 at 3:07 PM)
Report Violation
Sierra1250 (11/1/2009 at 3:03 PM) Report Violation Well boston, we don't have to worry about your sorry Red sucks do we.
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hahahahahahahaaha
"red sucks"
hahahahahahahahah a
how whitty and original, never ever heard that one before!

iceman_419 (11/1/2009 at 3:07 PM)
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I hope Bess dies on his way home tonight...that #### piece of ####...

goodgodgodisgood (11/1/2009 at 3:07 PM)
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wow

goodgodgodisgood (11/1/2009 at 3:07 PM)
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Very costly mistake.

iceman_419 (11/1/2009 at 3:06 PM)
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Thanks Bess I'm glad you care more about the beach than winning football games. You pathetic cokc sucking piece of ####...

XELOR01 (11/1/2009 at 3:05 PM)
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Dirty Sanchez..lmao

marlin7137 (11/1/2009 at 3:05 PM)
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and here we go !!!!!!!!!!!!! woww!!!

masc24 (11/1/2009 at 3:05 PM)
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god dammit, we cant put teams away...

SheridanDupre (11/1/2009 at 3:05 PM)
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Haha Joe777Cool, I DO like special teams!
Hey, you guys know what’s a good book for when the game is over? Marilynne Robinson’s HOME. Surely you’ve read her earlier stuff, and this won’t disappoint. It’s very moving about the strong bonds and peculiar burdens of family.

JOE777COOL (11/1/2009 at 3:05 PM)
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wow..... if you like special teams scoring this is your game

lilfab18 (11/1/2009 at 3:04 PM)
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wow bess has really struggled today

iceman_419 (11/1/2009 at 3:04 PM)
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I changed my feeling about Ginn after I saw the picture in SI of him stopping the TD. That was one of the worst officiated games in NFL History. Ball bounces out of the endzone from the 2 yet it's a freaking TD.
Watch out for the fake punt Miami!

BrentS007 (11/1/2009 at 3:04 PM)
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Yes.

masc24 (11/1/2009 at 3:04 PM)
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iceman, are you stupid? greene didnt throw and int, he fumbled it. And there was no wild cat either.

bk8282 (11/1/2009 at 3:04 PM)
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I still hate ginn

SupaMarlin (11/1/2009 at 3:04 PM)
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I'm a Phins fan and a realist, this is a rivalry game and no cheering from me until the clock reads 0:00 and the Phins are the winners because a break COULD go back to the paper airplanes and the Phins would be back on their heels.....

21numbers (11/1/2009 at 3:04 PM)
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oh my god

SheridanDupre (11/1/2009 at 3:03 PM)
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@ rickrizzle – What writers do you like?

myers1919 (11/1/2009 at 3:03 PM)
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the fins are slowly but surely climbing the ranks within the east and they will sneak into the playoffs even if the pats take the title....the only thing for certain is that sanchez and the jets will be watching the post season from home.

masc24 (11/1/2009 at 3:03 PM)
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2nd missed int of the day...

rickrizzle (11/1/2009 at 3:03 PM)
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haha..where are all those Ginn haters at now?? haha

lilfab18 (11/1/2009 at 3:03 PM)
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Jets are not going to be able to come back with this offense

SheridanDupre (11/1/2009 at 3:02 PM)
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Personally I prefer his novels to his short stories, and I think the novels written in English the best of all.

iceman_419 (11/1/2009 at 3:02 PM)
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Were the Jets running the wildcat when greene threw the int?

centurionelite23 (11/1/2009 at 3:02 PM)
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Go Fins!
Glad to see Ginn finally do something and the D step up. LOL @ all the Jets fans booing Sanchez, where is your savior now?

marlin7137 (11/1/2009 at 3:01 PM)
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for real i almost cried for the way they gave away the no game lol

SheridanDupre (11/1/2009 at 3:01 PM)
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What do you guys think of Nabokov?

MYBOSOX1 (11/1/2009 at 3:00 PM)
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I love the look on Ryan's fat face, After that T.D.
PRICELESS !

PUMAPLAYER420 (11/1/2009 at 3:00 PM)
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GO JETS

eckesg1 (11/1/2009 at 3:00 PM)
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masc
Not quite yet

iceman_419 (11/1/2009 at 3:00 PM)
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Don't celebrate yet lilrichard. Miami has a way of giving away games. Lets see if this D can be consistent.

NYanksfan1010 (11/1/2009 at 3:00 PM)
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wow really a touchdown off of a fumble recovery. ####!

eckesg1 (11/1/2009 at 2:59 PM)
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MyBOsox
WHat do you have against New York?
If you root against the Yanks, you root against the Giants, not the Jets

File under, "That Explains It!"

2009-11-01T09:56:00.003-06:00

Can I be blamed? Can I be held accountable for who I am, for the decisions I make, for the clothes I wear, when you look, now, here, with me, at how I was dressed as a child?!?

Note, dear reader, that the year of this photo is not 18 fucking 78. And note, dear reader, that it is not Halloween. This is how my parents dressed me circa 1978, when the rest of kids were wearing corduroys and listening to disco. I was dressed like Oscar Wilde and Lord Douglass's adopted son.

I think, if you're honest, you will look at this photo and give me some leeway.

2009-10-31T15:07:00.005-05:00

Pascal's Wager: If there is a God and you believe and behave accordingly, you are rewarded with eternal life. If there is a God and you willfully disbelieve, you are punished with eternal damnation. If there is no God, and you behave as though there is is, you gain nothing. If there is no God and you behave as though there isn't, you also stand to gain nothing. Disbelief then presents a graver risk possessing the possibility of eternal loss, whereas belief gives you the prospect of eternal gain, and nothing to lose.

Dupre's wager: If there is only one Luigi's Italian Ice in the freezer, and I eat it under the nose of my father who is in the other room and who would also like to eat it, my father will be pissed. If there is only one Luigi's Italian Ice in the freezer and I don't eat it, I will be pissed. If there is no Luigi's Italian Ice in the freezer, there is no dilemma. So, after I eat it and discard the evidence, and my father says, wasn't there a Luigi's left? and I say, no, and boy would I have wanted one, you know - Mom should buy some more, and my father agrees and starts yelling loudly that we need more Luigi's, then everyone wins, with the exception of my father, who doesn't know he's lost, and my mother, who is now sorely annoyed, but in not eating Luigi's doesn't know how many were in there to begin with.

The score? Dupre 1, Pascal 0.

2009-10-13T21:24:00.003-05:00

Newsflash - The Iliad is fucking boring.

Adonis, son of George Stephanopolous, grandson of the coupling of Jackie Onassis and Zeus, esteemed in the eyes of gods and men, hurls his bronze pointed spear at Yanni. But the goddess from My Big Fat Greek Wedding watches and breaks the spear in half as it strikes Yanni's leather shield. Anger fills Yanni's loins and he strikes Adonis at the neck where the veins with blood run wide, and hews him solidly on the nape. The dark blood flows and the dark mist covers Adonis's eyes.

Repeat for 268 pages thus far.

One can't help but think that after the success of The Odyssey, Homer just phoned this one in.

Soooo...

2009-10-08T17:54:00.002-05:00

Does everyone know that it's "for all intents and purposes" and NOT "for all intensive purposes"? Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Also, "segue" is NOT pronounced "seeg".

Carry on.