Cogito, Ergo Sumana for 2002 July

# 01 Jul 2002, 09:16AM GMT+5:30: Recently I've actually finished two books. I didn't like Jon Stewart's anthology Naked Pictures of Famous People as much as I'd hoped, although a few of the pieces were worthwhile. I especially liked "The Devil and William Gates".

This morning, I finished Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick. Very good. I like how Dick's plots just charge ahead whether I'm ready or not, and how his characters think and feel, but not so much as to slow down said plot. There's a passage in the beginning-middle of the book, explaining the concept of "kipple" (entropy, roughly), that I might excerpt here because I love how Dick wrote it.

Last week of school. I'm not looking forward to it. Too much reading to catch up on, too hot, too hectic. And at the end of it: a plane trip. I wish I were more excited than hassle-anticipating about that.

From my wall, the faces of Dmitry Sklyarov and Anna Akhmatova and Jon Johansen and Yuri Gagarin regard me with different expressions: tired resignation, almost-smiling understanding, hip young disinterest, and enigmatic sorrow, respectively. I assume that Gagarin's sad because his helmet is the entire world, according to the conceit of the poster.

Filed under: Reading

# 01 Jul 2002, 11:53AM: I hereby suggest that you read the new Being There, Doing That by the Brunching guy. I hope the feature returns!

# 01 Jul 2002, 03:12PM: From the theme song to Seventh Heaven, a theme song which is even more replete in things to dislike than the Enterprise song: "Where do you go / When the world don't treat you right / The answer is home / That's the one place that you'll find." Even if "go" and "home" rhymed, "right" and "find" certainly don't. Oh, and then top it all off with the exposé of "the world" as plural.

It's summer. Go eat some strawberries.

# 02 Jul 2002, 09:18AM: So I'm not the only one dumbing down my résumé. People hiring for secretarial positions don't want to hear about the technical writing internships. At least, as far as I can tell.

# 02 Jul 2002, 01:33PM: As per the current weblog fad, I tried googling "Sumana is" -- the custom is to then reprint a selection of the resulting sentences in a weblog entry. But -- since I hardly ever run into people named Sumana who aren't me -- I found the experience profoundly unsettling. I saw all these mentions of a Sumana in a narrative that had nothing to do with me and I started getting disoriented. "Wait, who am I? Is that really my name? That's someone else's name." I'm going to stop before I start calling other people "Sumana" or forgetting my own name.

# 02 Jul 2002, 04:10PM: I was trying to remember the quote from Hamlet about funeral meats and wedding tables, and I found this summary of Act I, Scene 2. Just a skim reminded me of how much I like that play. You know what I want to see again? The Ethan Hawke version and the Kenneth Branagh four-hour extravaganza. My AP World Lit class called him "Bran-muffin." Easier to pronounce.

# 02 Jul 2002, 07:33PM: Not only did I get hit today on a search for "Political Science Comedy" (hey, did you hear the one about consociationalism?), but also I am apparently a war3z d00d.* Look, buddy, I'm the last person who can help you with that. On Sunday I was good for beads, but that's about it.

* I refer to people who engage in the trading of illegally copied software ("wares") and media.

# 03 Jul 2002, 08:34AM: Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who's a crazier and more popular sort of Russian Pat Buchanan, prefers "nationalism" to "internationalism" or "multinationalism":

Nationalism is a separate apartment -- not a communal apartment or a dormitory. Living in this apartment, you will visit your neighbors with pleasure, and also have them as guests, but you will not share their dining table or toilet....In my apartment I am the boss. And I alone will decide whom I will invite, and whom I will not even open the door to. As a human being I might feel sorry for the homeless or those who had their homes burnt down, but I am not obliged to let them stay overnight. Especially since there are many of them and I only have a two-room apartment. The same is true in a national state. The Southerners have filled up all of Moscow...

One of my flatmates right now has three guests living here for a few weeks: mother, sister, and another friend. Before that, this flatmate had other guests staying here a few weeks each. Three of the other flatmates have all had people staying here for more than a week. (Only one got approval from the rest of us first.)

Such happenings, I understand, are common when one chooses to live with three or four foreigners. And I should have asked for the house to come to an agreement on protocol for dealing with extended guests, and I would have had I known such guests would be so common. But when I can't reliably get into the bathroom on the second try, I get annoyed.

Zhirinovsky is speaking straight to my heart.

# 03 Jul 2002, 08:37AM: I thought about the weblog fad that disturbed me when I tried it: googling your own first name in the "So-and-so is" phrase and posting sentences that come up. It strikes me that this is a high-tech version of an Indian fable, which I read about in Amar Chitra Katha comic books:

There's a young man whose name is Lowly. He's kind and helpful, and everyone likes him, but he's unhappy because he feels that his name degrades him.

So one day, his guru (teacher) asks him why he's so sad, and Lowly tells the guru that he wishes he could change his name. The guru says, "All right, go around town for a bit and see if you find any names you like." (At least, I think that's what he says; he may just say, "Walk around town for a bit and see if you still feel that way.")

Lowly goes into town and sees a beggar girl being beaten up for not bringing home enough money. He gives the mother some money, and learns that the girl's name is Rich.

He sees a man's corpse being carried to a funeral, and learns that the man's name was Life.

On his way home, he helps a man lost in the forest, and learns that his name is Guide.

At every step, when he evinces surprise, people say, "What do you mean? Names don't determine who we are. They're just labels for telling who's who." And so on.

So he finally returns to his guru and says that he doesn't want to change his name after all, because now he knows that names don't really matter.

So this searching-for-my-own-name process similarly disoriented me by dissociating me and my name. I saw mentions of all these other Sumanas doing things I've never done. Some of them were even of the opposite sex. So I had to stop thinking, "Sumana is me, I am Sumana." Instead, I had to think, "I am me, and Sumana is a label for who I am, and not a unique label either."

I could imagine a variant of the folktale in which Lowly runs into another person named Lowly who is prosperous and a pillar of the community, or several people named Lowly who move in various socioeconomic circles. Not as fun as the ACK version, but more disorienting in a google-your-own-name, Nowhere Man sort of way.

# 03 Jul 2002, 11:20PM: That damn well better have been my last undergraduate final exam today. It went well.

Adam and I made a celebratory dinner. Penne, Muir Glen sun-dried tomato sauce, avocado and carrot that I picked up yesterday at the Berkeley Farmers' Market. It worked.

We also watched my Abbott & Costello video. I appreciate the more absurd skits, like the sanitarium one, better now that I'm older. My sister and I watched this video scores of times when we were younger. That scares me!

Soon I'll pack and clean and sleep and get up and go to the airport and go south. I'll get to see Leonard, who wrote a wonderful bunch of entries today. Hi in advance, Leonard!

# 03 Jul 2002, 11:26PM: Happy birthday, Tom Stoppard!

# 05 Jul 2002, 10:34PM: As of yesterday afternoon, I'm safely arrived. On the Fourth of July I got to experience lots of security trauma, since I got picked for a random second search at the gate in Oakland, and I arrived for my layover at LAX a bit after violence occurred at an El Al ticket counter on the other side of the airport (which is huge). I'll speak more about those tomorrow, I hope. My vacation is going pleasantly, and I'm in the running for two different acceptable jobs, which comforts me.

# 06 Jul 2002, 05:29PM: My Independence Day Story:

I woke up earlier than I had to, as per usual on days when I anticipate something big. I listened to some DDT while getting ready, which was easier since I'd packed the night before. (The most difficult part was finding stuff appropriate to wear to a wedding. I consulted people who happened to be in the living room watching The Godfather Part II: "Is this okay?" "Only if it's an outdoor wedding." "How about this? Aaagh! Damn these rules!")

I headed towards the BART station around seven, wanting to arrive nice and early at Oakland International for my 10:47 flight. And then I found out that the station was closed till eight, since BART was operating on a Sunday schedule. Genius. So I bargained and took a cab, finding out early on that my Punjabi pidgin-English cabdriver had only started driving a cab the previous day -- but, he assured me, "I drive to airport lots times."

He got lost a bit on the way there, but I arrived in time to zip through a two-minute line for the metal detectors and wait three hours for my flight. I listened to the radio a bit. On Pacifica, Democracy Now, I heard a reenactment of Frederick Douglass's speech, "What to the American Slave is Your Fourth of July?" Surprisingly, I could hear the UC Berkeley student station, KALX, inside the Oakland Airport, and on KALX I heard a very funny song called "Here's to the Crabgrass" from My Son the Nut, a musical (?) by one Allen Sherman. A satirical ode to suburbia: "Come, let us go there / Live like Thoreau there."

I started Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, which I've about half finished by now, and conversed a bit with a computer science grad student from Toronto who works on AI and pattern recognition.

Seen in the Oakland International Airport: A news and gifts shop called "www.news gifts.oakland".

Seen within said shop: a book entitled Extreme Management.

Wouldn't you know it, I found myself last in line when the call to board went out, and I had a carry-on bag too large for this particular flight, so I had to check it on the jetway, and I had the special "S" on my ticket that prophecied a random secondary search.

So another Indian-looking man with bad English did a cursory hand search of my shoulder bag and carry-on-to-check. Instead of outrage or even strong dismay regarding this invasion of my personal privacy, I felt moderate dismay at the non-thorough nature of the search. I had tweezers in a first-aid kit! I could have had needles in there! He didn't even see some of the contents of my carry-on! What kind of a cargo-cult search was this?

And then the man asked me whether I wanted for him to wand me, and -- surprised at having a choice -- I declined. But then it turned out that my choice was only between being wanded by him or by a woman, so I waited a few minutes for his supervisor, who wanded me quite competently and courteously, and informed me that yes, airport security is hiring, area agency name of Huntleigh.

As the absolutely last person on the plane, I raced down the jetway.

Flash forward a few hours to the arrival in Los Angeles. I had to take a shuttle to the United Express Terminal, and on the shuttle I heard the first rumors of a shooting that had just occurred somewhere in LAX. I didn't believe it, or tried not to, but when I got to the terminal, most of the waiting passengers were anxiously watching the TV.

Frederick Douglass asked us what, to the American slave, meant the Fourth of July. One of Franklin D. Roosevelt's Four Freedoms was Freedom from Fear. And I had been a little afraid the whole day, flying for the first time since the September terrorist attacks. I found myself in tears whenever I read or thought about the attacks. I felt as though an essential contradiction of American existence could not go on unreconciled: we give up a little liberty for the safety that protects our other liberties, and the balance was shifting towards absurdity. In a world without peace, we can't have peace of mind, either.

And I sat near the Random Search Area, symbolically cordoned off between the restrooms and the gates, where jolly employees joked between surges of searches. I saw a middle-aged white man assuming the spread-eagle pose while a black woman wanded him, and I wondered how he felt, since his expression revealed nothing. Was he dismayed? Was he glad to be doing his part for security? Did he feel numb at The Way We Live Now?

A twenty- or thirty-minute flight got me to Bakersfield without delay, for which I was thankful, because now I'm in Frances's house with her and Leonard. I feel safe and snug and doing mundane errands in the garden and stores and soaking in a hot tub every night. They're great things, hot tubs. They, like your body, are warm, and mostly water, and they dissipate gravity.

# 06 Jul 2002, 05:31PM:

Analogies I discovered yesterday:

I have, for no good reason, a stuffy nose and occasional sneezing. Once in a while the nose-blowing gets kind of yucky, like scooping skeins of scum out of the fish pond in Frances's backyard.
Yesterday evening we attempted to use an electric ice-cream maker to make frozen yogurt with strawberries from Frances's garden. Leonard got rather frustrated with the recalcitrant machine. The instructions told us that, as soon as one removes the machine from its storage place in a freezer, it begins to thaw, so one should make sure that he has all the ingredients ready, and then take out the machine and begin using it immediately, to ensure proper cooling of the product. I said, "They make it sound like a heart transplant." In our case, the patient died.

# 06 Jul 2002, 05:35PM: Overheard on BART on the way to SF Pride: A man, with the woman he's dating: "We share a Salon.com subscription. It's good."

Also, the same man detailed how his girlfriend has "good car karma" because she doesn't have a car. That is to say, she has a nice driver's license photo, and wherever they go they see terrific parking spots open.

# 06 Jul 2002, 05:52PM GMT+5:30: I'm reading The Master and Margarita, which is quite fun, and which mentions the Solovki Islands, which instantly endeared it to me. However, one incident in the story moves me to both remember an episode in the Mahabharata and to issue you, my faithful reader, a grave warning.

In the Mahabharata, Ghatotkacha and his buddies stage a wedding kidnapping/sabtoage. They set up a diversion in the bazaar: a clothing exchange! "New clothes for old," they shouted in the streets. "New clothes for old!" And the people thought, "What a great deal!" and exchanged their clothes. But, on the wedding day, oh no! Their clothes fly off into the sky, because the magicians have spirited them away.

From Bulgakov: A magician doing a show offers women the chance to exchange their old dresses for stylish new ones. Many women take the offer, after initial skepticism, and turn out looking fabulous. Until, that is, they leave the theater and their fashionable new dresses start disappearing.

Moral of two stories: Don't take a nomad's offer to exchange your old clothes for new ones. Stay with brick-and-mortar shops for that.

Filed under: Reading

# 08 Jul 2002, 10:14AM: Leonard and I went to a wedding yesterday, a short but moving ceremony in which his friends Adam and Kim got married. Congratulations and best wishes!

Unfortunately, Leonard and I had to leave the reception early because he fell ill. He's still feeling under the weather, and I hope he feels better in time to enjoy his birthday. Birthdays don't seem to be good to him recently.

# 08 Jul 2002, 05:33PM GMT+5:30: Leonard is still ill. On the up side, he's almost finished Mark Twain's wonderful The Innocents Abroad, I finished Mikahil Bulgakov's off-the-rails The Master and Margarita, Adam and Kim came over for a short personal visit, Frances made chocolate ganache cake, and I oiled a bunch of doors so that they don't squeak anymore. In bonus good news, I got another call from a potential employer to arrange an interview!

But man, I wish Leonard weren't ill. I'd give up all that to get Leonard feeling well again.

Filed under: Reading

# 08 Jul 2002, 10:34PM: For some reason it's more satisfying to meet someone who dislikes the same widely-liked thing that I dislike than to meet someone who likes the same widely-disliked thing that I like. I found this out yesterday at the wedding, although I can't recall the context.

Leonard's birthday party was well-attended and featured yummy cake and other food, superbly prepared by Frances. A good time was had by all, except for Leonard. Well, he was glad and all, but he had to go lie down rather early.

Back to Northern California early tomorrow morning.

# 09 Jul 2002, 11:19AM: Back in NorCal, after a bad drive: lots of traffic and a passenger (Leonard) who couldn't talk because his stomach hurt. Now to start packing for my impending move...

# 09 Jul 2002, 08:03PM: "Which Side Are You On" is one of the very few things about which Leonard and I conversed on the ride home. I started it with my accidental mix-up of the (false?) dichotomies: "They say in Harlan County / There are no neutrals there / Oh, will you be a lousy scab / Or a thug for J.H. Blair?"

Also suggested were "Harlan Ellison County / ... / Oh, will you be a motherf****r..." and "Are You On The Side?", postulating the existence of only one side.

When Leonard heard the song for the first time or so, he laughed at the lines that go something like, "Don't scab now for the bosses / Don't listen to their lies". He proposed an Equal Time version of the song, featuring J.H. Blair (sort of a jaunty Michigan J. Frog type, I imagine) on vocals: "Oh, scab for us, good workers / Please listen to our lies!"

# 09 Jul 2002, 10:29PM GMT+5:30: Yesterday night I stayed up too late reading Philip Pullman's The Ruby in the Smoke, the first in the Sally Lockhart trilogy of mysteries. Today I finished Vernor Vinge's The Peace War. Early on in the Vinge I noticed superficial similarities in the protagonists of the two novels. They're very smart young people who have trouble adjusting to new homes where everyone treats everyone equally. I liked them both. I think I liked the Pullman better than the Vinge, but that's just because Pullman writes mythic fairy-tale fantasy and Vinge writes far-out, alien sci-fi with premises building on top of premises. One is comfy and the other is cerebral.

Filed under: Reading

# 09 Jul 2002, 11:18PM: Huh?

I hope Steve gets better soon, and Leonard is almost well again. I wish that the aforementioned Steve and Alexei would write more in their journals, because said journals are so entertaining. Steve's has really documented his political development over the past year, while Alexei's diary (Caution! Only updated while Alexei is overseas!) gave me Japan better than even Dave Barry did, since Dave never went clubbing in Tokyo.

In other weird reminiscing-related news, I'm beginning to get used to having graduated. I'm relieved and feel a little more grown-up.

# 10 Jul 2002, 08:00AM: Yup, to hell with it. I'm not going to try much harder to find a carless way to get from my house to my interview in San Jose today. TripPlanner has spoiled me when it comes to San Francisco and the East Bay, and it doesn't yet cover Santa Clara and environs. Looks like I'm going to borrow a car.

# 10 Jul 2002, 10:55PM: My job interviews went well, I think. I'll find out more in a few days.

In other news, never drive. I wish I'd taken public transit to San Jose. Three transfers among buses and BART would have been better than baking in stop-and-go traffic as I did today. I could have read a hundred pages of Foucault's Pendulum!

I should pack, in preparation for moving.

# 10 Jul 2002, 11:13PM GMT+5:30: There is a mildly malevolent character in The Peace War called Roberto Richardson. I find this hilarious. Also the fact that in one or two passages the protagonist silently calls him Señor Loudmouth.

Filed under: Reading

# 11 Jul 2002, 07:50AM GMT+5:30: Thanks to Cam for pointing us to Russian Jokes Translated Into English.

I just started Foucault's Pendulum and I hate it, but I'll try to finish it anyway.

Filed under: Reading

# 11 Jul 2002, 03:56PM: I hear there's a great moving sale coming soon.

# 12 Jul 2002, 01:58PM: Hey, I just found out that, at the moving sale my house is holding this Saturday and Sunday, we're selling a bunch of shoes (men's and women's) and brand-new oil painting and sculpting supplies that my flatmates left behind. Any artists in the audience?

# 12 Jul 2002, 03:47PM: From last night with Leonard:

"....Like the Goebbels quote. Nazi minister of propaganda. 'When I hear the word "culture," I reach for my gun.'"
"That wasn't Goebbels. That was Chairman Mao."
"No, it wasn't!"
"Oh, yeah, you're right. I was conflating it with 'Political power flows from the barrel of a gun.' I had this joke, 'When I hear the words "political power,' I reach for my gun, to pour some out.'"

You can't find it at the Guardian web site, but Annalee Newitz favorably mentioned Collab.net, my boyfriend's employer, in a recent column. Yay! Hey, SFBG, why do your techsploitation archives act as though it's 2001?

For Leonard, a pick-me-up:

What's bothering Leonard today?
Well, know that it all goes away.
You're funny and bright,
And I'll see you tonight
And keep all your demons at bay.

# 12 Jul 2002, 10:32PM: As afraid as I am of permanence, I wish I had a house. I'd never have to move again!

Happy Bastille Day in advance, everyone.

Speaking to the manager of Cody's, I asked what days the store is closed. He said that he knew Cody's is closed two days a year but had to look up the exact dates. I suggested, I think, Bastille Day and May Day.

# 13 Jul 2002, 01:43PM: Rachel's recent entries from London are quite fun.

No, I'm not at the moving sale today, but I will be for part of tomorrow.

# 14 Jul 2002, 11:11AM: From Zack:

Another dream. I was at a party. There were these two people going around trying to kill the other party-goers because, they insisted, they were servants of the Handmaiden of Death. I said something like "Why settle for the handmaiden?" and began a ritual to summon Death.

From Andy: "I just went to check my own weblog to see if I'd updated again yet." Hey Andy, while sorting through old papers, I found a sign my sister had made: "GO AWAY. ANTIFLUX: A Bad Neighbor."

I've also found such treasures as a geometry proof-type answer that began "It just is!", and a career search report that detailed opportunities and preliminary tasks in the careers of freelance writer, political activist, and meatcutter.

# 15 Jul 2002, 07:48AM: I'm moving again. Today. I have access to a car. I just need to pack and go, pack and go, pack and go, repeat as necessary.

Oh, wait, I also need to help in getting rid of the mattresses, loveseat, pots, pans, bookshelf, desks, and other stuff that can't be here when we leave. And clean the place. Sigh. Well, to work.

# 16 Jul 2002, 09:30AM: I write this at my new abode, a two-bedroom flat in Oakland proper. I have my own room, but there are cats. Yesterday I moved, thanks to my sister's car and the intermittent help of friends.

Strong memories I have of yesterday include the strong scent of barbecued meat from Flint's BBQ near my old place, incredible back pain from helping Benoit's family lug its anvils (disguised as suitcases) to the Ashby BART station, and the hope and belief -- whilst lugging my computer monitor up and down stairs -- that someday everyone will have flat-screens.

I'll miss Benoit and Paulina especially, and the large kitchen and the location. I liked a lot of things about my old place, but I'm glad I only stayed there a semester.

Yesterday, just before Benoit's family left, I got a call from the manager of Cody's Bookstore at Telegraph and Haste. He offered me a full-time job, and I accepted. I'll start tomorrow. I feel very relieved to be done with the job search and with moving. Yes, I have to unpack and train and get used to a new lifestyle, but right now I can actually see past the nuisances to look forward to it.

Zack and I had dinner last night at the Chinese place next to the movie theater on Shattuck. It's now called "Gourmet House" or something like that and the emphasis on their water filtration is much reduced. I was glad to see him and experience a respite from the stress of the day. At one point I tried to explain why I had quoted his recent dream in my journal. I ended up saying that it somehow embodied him for me, his amusing and cutting application of systematic logic to a huge pile of domain knowledge in areas I barely know, such as magic and speculative fiction. I think most of my friends do this sort of thing, which is why they're my friends.

# 16 Jul 2002, 03:24PM: I forgot to mention that the other bit of news I received yesterday is that I got a 165 on the LSAT.

As Andy dreamt of me, I dreamt of leading a group in a rousing chorus of "Solidarity Forever" (delayed by a recalcitrant cassette tape), and of arguing with Leonard about when to leave for a They Might Be Giants concert. The night before, I Dreamt I Saw Professor Rogin That Night. Within the dream, I knew he was dead, but I could still talk with him, and I began to think about all the ways I'd have to change my beliefs to account for ghosts. Then, when I woke up, I was sad that the real world is less wonderful, and that when people die they're gone forever, and I really never will see Professor Rogin again. I think I see him all the time, when I see old bald men with glasses in a crowd.

# 16 Jul 2002, 03:33PM: Every time I read a bunch of Boxjam's Doodle strips I laugh out loud. Case in point.

My entire upper body is still sore from the moving yesterday.

# 16 Jul 2002, 04:39PM: Found at my parents' house, while throwing away artifacts of my adolescent life:

3rd place plaque in team debate -- I was on a team with my sister for a year -- from 1994.
a Dinotopia poster.
a few spelling bee awards and other trophies and plaques for scholarships and speeches and trivia games (e.g., Quiz Bowl and Academic Decathlon).
a velvet painting of a pouting dog that I bought for a few cents at a garage sale.
a career search report on the job of ethicist.
two different college visit invitations that began, "Great Scot!" or "Great Scott!" One was from Agnes Scott College; the other was from Lyon, in Arkansas.
journalism notes from the first high school editorial I ever wrote, my first assignment. I wrote on the embargo on Cuba.
stage manager records from the yearly eighth grade play on Freedom.
a Mathcounts program.
a report on Missouri history, with a special section on Samuel Clemens.
girly fortunes I did with friends and my sister. MASH: Mansion/Apartment/Shack/House. One gave, say, three or four answers to each question (e.g., "Who will you marry?" "What color car will you drive?"), and then a random number n was chosen, and one went through the bunch of answers crossing off every nth until only one in each category remained, and then that was your future.

I threw all this away.

# 16 Jul 2002, 10:04PM GMT+5:30: I have a free DSL modem and bike helmet, left over from flatmates at my old place, for anyone who wants them.

The velorutionary angel is littering! But yeah, she is beautiful, as per the MemeMachineGo! mention. Then again, is she wearing a bindi?

Kris-style Pet Observations: My new place features two cats, Little Kitty [sic] and Juniper. I keep thinking of Juniper as "Paul," since Juniper seems oversensitive and difficult to manage, much like Paul in Willa Cather's "Paul's Case" and Paul in D.H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers (my current reading). This follows my months-long habit of accidentally calling Scott, a friend of a former flatmate, by the name "Roger," since I thought "Roger" suited him more. Seriously, Scott didn't seem like a Scott, he seemed like a Roger, and this cat acts like a Paul. As my new flatmate puts it, "Junie is damaged goods."

Today I playfully sprayed Paul with a bit of water and he immediately ran away. Not even bouncing the gold string around got his trust back right away. I don't really like the cats, but I hope neither of them grows to despise me and pee in my bed or anything.

Speaking of Lawrence, Sons and Lovers, like other Lawrence I've read, develops characters unerringly. Every interpersonal relationship is spot-on realistic. Ideas with a capital I don't receive Ayn-Rand-style pages and chapters of blathering except in the context of how characters struggle with their own conflicts, and I like that. There's no better place to read Lady Chatterley's Lover (and de Maupassant's stories and The Great Gatsby) than on a long train ride between St. Petersburg and somewhere else, but wherever you are will do.

Filed under: Reading

# 18 Jul 2002, 01:58PM GMT+5:30: I missed the They Might Be Giants concert. Maybe I'll catch 'em sometime when I'm Older. Oh, and you may wish to check out Seth's perspective.

I now realize that the wacky character from Gordon Korman's terrific A Semester In the Life of a Garbage Bag is proto-indie.

My new job at Cody's is interesting and fulfilling, at least today (the second day). I'm sure you know there's lots to learn. But that's not my fault, that's just an artifact of the short duration of my tenure there.

Back to work.

Filed under: Reading

# 18 Jul 2002, 11:20PM: When I worked at tech companies, I made lots of money, but my job was boring and monotonous, and I stared at screens instead of talking with people. At my new job, I get to perform varied, sometimes challenging tasks that actually help people fulfill their needs and desires, but I don't make as much money.

At my old jobs, I signed Non-Disclosure Agreements and received a nametag/badge that let me into the building. At my new job, I signed no NDA, and I get into the building by knocking on the door and waving to a supervisor. I wear no nametag (as They Might Be Giants put it, you can't tell the staff from the customers ("Man It's So Loud In Here")).

At a few tech jobs, I commuted two hours each way via some combination of bus, BART, and ACE train. My new job is perhaps a ten-minute bike ride from my home.

At my old jobs, I spent way too much time checking my e-mail at my personal computer terminal. At my new job, I don't have access to e-mail as I work, nor do I want it. I'm busy enough without it.

I'm sure I'll come up with more useful analysis later, à la Porn Clerk Stories. In the meantime, the classic stand-up comedy questions have been answered!

# 20 Jul 2002, 11:00AM: I saw a headline at SFGate: "Our Suspect, No Doubt." Reminds me of the India Currents article on the drummer for No Doubt, who's Indian: "No Doubt He's Indian."

I'm hoarding my political capital at Cody's so that when I make a staff recommendation people value it. Right now I'm leaning towards "we should carry one or two books by Gordon Korman."

# 20 Jul 2002, 09:39PM: Cat report: I'm beginning to feel alternately parental and Randian about the cats. One cat, Little Kitty, doesn't meow at me without apparent reason, and purringly submits to petting. I like her and even feel emotional and affectionate towards her. The other, Paul (ne� Juniper), meows and meows and meows. I try following him around; net, his vectors go nowhere. I try checking the food and water; no problems. I open the door or window, but he doesn't want to go out. I try dangling the shiny gold string in front of his face, but that cat won't hunt. I talk to him and pet him and pet him and pet him, and maybe finally he calms down, even as he doesn't seem to enjoy my petting.

I resent Paul, because his helplessness forces me, the more powerful entity, to make sure he isn't unhappy. He drove me to tears just an hour ago with this routine. I feel really horrible when he seems unhappy and there's nothing I can do to stop him from plaintively meowing. Send me your tips, please.

Clerks: I'm getting used to being a bookstore clerk. Most of my colleagues are quite amiable, and I enjoy helping people find reading material. Some notes from my first few days:

I find myself plugging Bookfinder and John McWhorter's The Power of Babel an awful lot, and I should probably cut down lest someone accuse me of some variant of nepotism.
The most common answers to customer questions: "10 am till 10 pm" and "down that hall and to the left." Over the phone, unfortunately, people don't ask the way to the restrooms. Eric (a supervisor) joked that people should ask for directions to the bathroom as they ask for directions to Cody's, so they won't have to ask in the store itself. "Take 80 across the bridge, keep holding it..."
I got to recommend Indian, Thai, and Mexican restaurants to a random visitor yesterday.
For common search requests (by author or title or ISBN) I'm now about as bad with the computers as everybody else. Just now, I found myself trying to use Escape instead of the left arrow key to go to the previous page in lynx. Also, I think in my dreams last night I was searching for something in the Cody's system. Also in my dream, the university's departments were arranged like our book shelves, and I was leading Eric, a white man, though the African-American studies section, whose residents did not like that at all.
Yesterday I had my first irritating customer, who was unhappy with having to look through all of our Film section since we don't separate out books about non-US cinema.
Two different customers came in within ten minutes of each other seeking Aldous Huxley's Doors of Perception. I thought it would be in Drugs, but no, it's in Philosophy.
A summer school student from the university came in with a syllabus from Political Science 118AC: Three Cultures. She sought a particular film book, and I saw it very near Professor Michael Rogin's Blackface, White Noise, and I felt very sad that he's gone.

# 21 Jul 2002, 08:27PM: Links for today: the history of Russia, an internship at Tor, and a best-of-craigslist ad.

# 21 Jul 2002, 09:58PM GMT+5:30: I realize that my current job as a lowly clerk at Cody's makes me some bizarre triangulation between Anirvan, who founded Bookfinder, and Seth, who frequents bookstores and whose dad is in the brick-and-mortar bookstore biz. Seth is the only person I know who has nearly as many bookmarks as I do.

I finished Sons and Lovers, whose ending is not as good as its beginning and middle. I don't care for how the character of Paul changes; I'd rather just read about his childhood for a hundred more pages than see him grow up as Lawrence thinks he does.

Filed under: Reading

# 22 Jul 2002, 08:29AM: Zack saw it too! Leonard and I saw that vehicle on Saturday as we walked on Fulton between Bancroft and Durant. He felt an affinity for it, and now I know why. I think the important aspect that caught Zack's and Leonard's eyes is the number of tractor treads -- four, not two.

# 22 Jul 2002, 08:45AM: The Orinda Shakespeare Festival tends to put on four plays each summer: three Shakespeare (this year, The Winter's Tale, Macbeth, and A Midsummer Night's Dream), and one other classic or related-to-the-Bard (this year, Chekhov's The Seagull; a few years back, Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead). For the fourth slot, I nominate The King's Duck, which is too painful for me to read.

# 22 Jul 2002, 10:44AM: Yesterday, my most interesting inquiry from a bookstore customer: "Where do you keep the pseudohistory?"

"Do you mean the history that you and I think is bogus, or the history that even the author knows is bogus?"

The customer elucidated that he wanted wacked-out conspiracy theories on the history of civilization, preferably involving the Holy Grail ("you should have a woo-woo section"), so I led him towards our occult/conspiracy/UFOs/astrology/earth-based spirituality section, as opposed to alternative histories (e.g., Kim Stanley Robinson's The Years of Rice and Salt) in sci-fi/fantasy.

In the Porn Clerk Diaries, our narrator recounts a strange moment in which she asks herself why, approaching her thirtieth birthday, she is on her knees restocking incredibly degrading porn. Yesterday I realized: the only part of my job that I really mind is reshelving and organizing hokum. I don't want to make it easier for people to find How the Aliens Saved Civilization (not a real title) (I hope) or Sydney Omarr's astrology bunk. So I exert my meager influence to highlight and face-out worthwhile titles such as Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy instead.

But not all of astrology is hokum. And I don't even mean to say something like "maybe the movements of the stars don't control us, but reflect some deeper force that actually does," which is a whole nuther can of worms of a different color.

My parents are astrologers. My father learned BASIC and wrote a program to calculate horoscopes. Parts of their house are littered with star charts. My mother read my palm when I was younger, and tells me that the influence of Mars (I think) will obstruct my professional successes for two more years. And years before I even began to doubt my Hindu upbringing, I outspokenly believed that astrology qua astrology was nonsense -- a bunch of Taurus, as the joke goes -- and I still believe this.

But my parents aren't hucksters. I'm not sure to what extent they actually believe that the stars control our fate. But I do know that my mom, at least, mixes her horoscope readings with common sense and good advice. And they're not alone. I've read at least one account of a 900-number psychic who tried to use her influence to give callers useful advice. And Neal Stephenson in In the Beginning Was the Command Line points out that benevolent memery, e.g., environmentalist messages, in Disney parks and movies positively influences the hoi polloi more effectively than do, say, books and New York Times Review of Books concerned editorials.

I applaud all efforts to use influence benevolently. And I don't begrudge good advice its soapbox. But I do wish it wouldn't come wrapped in bunk and tackiness and surrounded by genre flim-flammery.

In cat news: If I want to be alone, I can drive the cats away by bowleggedly running towards them and muttering "booga booga" ominously.

In "my dad is hilarious" news: he cc'ed my sister and me on an email to a friend of his in which he bragged about his children's accomplishments. Near the end of the email: "Please pray for my sake, for you in India it is Local Call..."

# 22 Jul 2002, 11:57PM GMT+5:30: Reading Arthur C. Clarke's Imperial Earth, which I like.

Filed under: Reading

# 23 Jul 2002, 10:33PM: lifesize professionally made clown manequin- $50

# 23 Jul 2002, 10:56PM: Tonight, at dinner with Adam, I found myself referring to "the cats I work for".

I find myself reading a month or two of Jon Carroll archives every day, and I find at least a gem a day. Today: On the Utility Of Failure. Also: some Leonard-style worrying:

Regular or cherry. Why did "cherry" become the logical alternative to "regular"?.... And in what sense is "regular" a flavor?
Are all "regular" flavors the same flavor? I don't know; I'm reluctant to experiment. I'm just getting used to the notion that "ranch" is a flavor. Can we just take any noun and make it a flavor? Table-flavored snack cookies! Hood-ornament-flavored nighttime cold medicine!

# 24 Jul 2002, 08:59AM: I guess I should say "Oh no!"; Rob Lowe is leaving one of my favorite TV shows, The West Wing (good fan site). He plays Sam Seaborn, evidently up till March 2003. To tell the truth, certainly I'm fond of Sam, but I'll be perfectly happy seeing more of C.J., Leo, Charlie, and Ainsley.

Listening to Dar Williams, One-Track Mind, and the Capitol Steps. One-Track Mind is a little-known band whose drummer took my Politics of the Midlife Crisis class and gave me their CD. The Capitol Steps is the lovely, outdated Clinton-era Sixteen Scandals.

# 24 Jul 2002, 02:53PM: John McWhorter has mentioned in interviews and in lectures that his next book will be about some aspect of black culture in America. One time he mentioned a title -- The New Double Consciousness. Just now when I searched the Cody's site for his name, up popped a mention of a forthcoming book -- Authentically Black -- to be published in 2003. It may be old hat, as I've already read a lot of McWhorter rants on authenticity, but I'm sure it'll be entertaining. I'll post more news as I happen upon it.

# 26 Jul 2002, 12:50AM: Want a laugh? Go to any erotic story archive on the web (e.g., literotica) and check out the table of contents of slash, parodies, and/or celebrity fantasies. Some of the combinations involving Jeri Ryan (Star Trek: Voyager's Seven of Nine) are particularly amusing (e.g., "The Borg Come To Boston Public").

Today I unknowingly told an author that our copies of his book were bring returned to the publisher due to poor sales. Rather mortifying.

# 26 Jul 2002, 11:49AM: Working nights and weekends messes up my temporal orientation. Today's Friday?

I guess another thing that messes up my temporal orientation is listening to political parody from six years ago.

# 26 Jul 2002, 11:51AM: Happy System Administrator Appreciation Day!

# 27 Jul 2002, 12:10PM: Hey, my Bachelor of Arts in Political Science actually came in handy at work yesterday!

"I'm looking for books by Dahl. D-a-h-l."
"Roald Dahl. Well, we have a number of books by him in the children's section --"
"No! That's not the right one."
"Do you mean the Dahl who wrote on power? How Democratic is the American Constitution?"
"Yes, that's the one!"

I remember reading Dahl's slim $23 volume, Modern Political Analysis, in Comparative Politics freshman year.

Also yesterday: a fella came in looking for G.K. Chesterton (yay!), and a fella told us we didn't seem to have any travel books on Cuba. (Turns out they weren't in Central America, but in The Caribbean.) I briefly entertained the notion that we kept all our travel books on Communist countries in some separate division.

The store got rather crowded and loud last night because Chuck Pahlaniuk and Joelle Fraser, authors of Fight Club and The Territory of Men respectively, spoke and signed books here. A number of fans of Fight Club came dressed as waiters with fake bruises and wounds. Chuck was quite impressed.

# 29 Jul 2002, 12:38AM GMT+5:30: Anirvan stopped by the Cody's information desk today. I asked him: "Can I help you find a book?" He replied: "I think my bookfinding needs are pretty much taken care of, thanks." Funniest thing I'd heard all day.

Second funniest: I was humming "The Farmer and the Dell" and happened to ask Leonard, "What is a dell, anyway?" He said, "It's what you're getting, dude." Upon his explanation that he was referring to the recent Dell TV ads, I threw something at him, and then laughed.

I've read a few books lately. I like not having homework!

Today I read Neil Gaiman's Coraline. Short and yummy. I blew through it during my lunch hour, and enjoyed it. More stylish but less moving and epic than Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which makes sense, since Gaiman writes a hundred pages about one girl's very personal quest, and not hundreds on a save-the-world battle. I haven't read enough children's fantasy to call it "best" or not.

Yesterday I read Johanna Hurwitz's The Rabbi's Girls in even less than 60 minutes, probably. I picked it up whilst shelving in the children's lit room, and it sucked me in. Sometimes the narrator's voice seems a little too careful for an eleven-year-old in explaining Jewish traditions, but the end moved me to tears, even under the fluorescent lights of the Information Desk.

I'm not quite ready yet to write about G.K. Chesterton's The Napoleon of Notting Hill, which I finished yesterday. I found it illuminating and irritating, and I have to figure out why.

A few days ago, I finished Imperial Earth, by Arthur C. Clarke. I've mentioned before how sparse Clarke's books seem to me. I see now that he builds fascinating universes with very few strokes and I resent how little I get to see of them. But I do enjoy the plotting and quite believable characters and neat ideas in Clarke, and Imperial Earth is no exception.

Right now, I'm reading some R.K. Narayan, Swami and Friends. I enjoyed My Dateless Diary, and Swami's schoolboy adventure stuff reads like ethnic Wodehouse. Which is a good thing.

Today I shelved a little bit of everything: some Asian philosophy, some Islam, some computer science, some US and California history, some political science, and a lot of travel guides. Travel books depressed me today, because I had to reorder and shelve and stare at all these colorful guides to places I've never been and probably never will be. The Lonely Planet guide to Russia (and Ukraine and Belarus) struck such a yearning in me that I had to put it down. I hadn't known I wanted to go back so badly!

Nandini's in Europe, Rachel's in Europe, Alexei's in Europe, why aren't I in Europe? Why shouldn't I be?

I do have to admit: I'm the perfect customer for the Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook people. I love reading warnings and guides to dangerous places (e.g. the Lonely Planet guide to Iran). (They do still flog women for going about with "indecent" clothes on, although if you're a foreigner it's much more likely that you'll just be deported.)

I've been trading California Central Valley experiences with Joelle, a co-worker. As it turns out, she and I went to rival high schools in Lodi. We also have mutual acquaintances. Today I learned that one of my high school classmates -- who should, by all rights, be starting his last year of college this fall, as he's pretty smart -- is married! With a kid! Aiee! Stop the world, I want to get off.

Dreams lately have been rather vivid and imaginative. In a retread of a similar dream I had a few months ago, I was attacked in Kabul for being dressed immodestly. In another dream, or more properly inside a film within another dream, the national security apparatus was sophisticated enough to arbitrarily explode any given residential house in the US for suspected sedition. I then saw that the house across the way was occupied by Michael Douglas's character and his family, planning what they'd say at the show trial, since they'd never liked their neighbors anyway. The Michael Douglas character went out to retrieve the daily paper, and exclaimed, "This isn't the paper, this is my high school yearbook!" And there was full-motion video, a montage of young Indians, blacks, and whites dancing and melodramatically interacting to a Kuch Kuch Hota Hai soundtrack.

Disregarding the other absurdities for a moment, what character would Michael Douglas best play in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai? The headmaster? The protagonist? Miss Briganza?

Filed under: Reading

# 29 Jul 2002, 12:45AM: Don't let me forget! On Tuesday night I have to attend a workshop, and then my writing group, and then the next day I drive to Sacramento to take a civil service exam.

# 29 Jul 2002, 11:06PM: BART Tests Extension: Local politicos are among the invitees for a test run of transit system's extension to SFO. Is It Just Me, or does this sound like an engraved invitation addressed to Disaster Mansion?

Main shelving today: depressing travel guides and depressing psychobabble self-help books.

# 29 Jul 2002, 11:09PM: Recent Beetle Bailey comic strip that Leonard and I discussed at some length:

Panel One: the Sarge comes across his anthropomorphic dog, Otto, half-dressed (hat, shirt, and boxer shorts) and angry, next to Otto's doggie bed, in which a female poodle rests beneath the sheets.
Panel Two: the Sarge blushes on his front steps, saying, "He should have told me he was using the room tonight."

How does Mort Walker believe that this is funnier than it is disturbing?

# 29 Jul 2002, 11:14PM: "Ewww, this cheese is even smellier than you are!" Kids are creatively cruel -- creatively, mind!

# 29 Jul 2002, 11:37PM: As long as I'm talking about comics: the other day I saw a Hagar the Horrible that seemed to have forgotten that it was a daily comic strip and not a vaudeville act. Dilbert and Zits and Foxtrot and Boondocks tend to have two punchlines per strip, while Blondie and Dennis the Menace and Hagar and and the Chesire-cat-like Sally Forth average about one. But this one had none.

"Your wife is threatening to sue you for divorce!"
"On what grounds?"
"Not taking out the trash!"

Does this even count as a joke? I sent an innocent man to jail!

Filed under: Comedy

# 30 Jul 2002, 11:25AM: One can always count on Bob Herbert to find shocking isolated incidents of racism. It's important work and I'm glad he does it and brings the awful stuff to our attention, but, at the same time, I'm glad that not every columnist is a Bob Herbert.

# 30 Jul 2002, 12:11PM: My sister's in Europe, and I have the keys to her car, and I find myself driving on a regular basis. When I have a late shift at work, I drive there and back, since I don't have a lamp and reflectors for my bike yet. Today I'm going to drive to a laundromat and a grocery store and a workshop.

This new me is unfamiliar to the old me. This new me enjoys the convenience and speed and safety of driving, even as the old me bugs the new me about environmental consciousness. And I find myself actually caring about petty things like good parking spots and stoplights that stay red for "too long." I'm glad that I'll get paid soon, so I can get reflectors and a headlight for my bike. I'm also glad that my sister will be back in a few weeks.

# 31 Jul 2002, 01:21PM: I'm in Sacramento. I write this from the well-furnished and pleasant Sacramento Public Library, which provided me with a temporary library card so that I could use the Internet terminals here.

This morning I rushed to the US Government office here to take a series of exams that might qualify me to work in the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The motto of the Department of Justice, as I saw in the seal on the tests, is "Qui Pro Domina Justitia Sequitur." From some rude word-order inferences, I thought this might mean something like "from power follows justice" or "who has power has justice." But no, there's a weird controversy: "The motto has been variously described as 'hopeless: its translation ha[ving] baffled more than one good Latin scholar'..." This sounds like a job for...Seth David Schoen!

In the tradition of the loony CIA Kids Page ("Policy makers, like the President, do not have time to read all the other countries' newspapers ... there are just too many of them. Also, there is information that other countries will not share with the United States, called secrets."), here's the DOJ Kids Page.

I walked through a farmer's market in Cesar Chavez Plaza after the tests. A man was playing the acoustic guitar and accompanying himself by whistling with awesome virtuosity. I came here and leafed through some Pauline Kael -- most of her work is out-of-print. Soon I'll get some lunch and go back home.

Finally, someone wittily notices those disturbing ads.