# 03 Nov 2003, 04:15PM: FDR Was A Patrician, Remember?:
General Wesley Clark had his first IM chat (branded as a "Wireside Chat", argh) recently. You are free to peruse the various nonbad questions and answers, with many misspellings so you can tell it's really live. The funniest part:
17:15:21 Q: Brian Loken - Mitchell, SD - Your military experience has served you well, so you'd be much more prepared than others to answer this question What three things would you take with you on a deserted island?
17:15:55 A: General Clark - Brian, well, if this is about survivor, my adviuce is, don't do it. It is a lot less fun than it looks...But seriously, always keep communications, and water...if you have that, then you can manage almost anything...Maybe a knife would be the third thing.
# 03 Nov 2003, 05:06PM:
Telephone manners dictate that you speak clearly into the mouthpiece. This goes double if you suspect that the recipient will use a cell phone to listen to your message while waiting for you on a busy street corner.
# 04 Nov 2003, 09:08AM:
Visited Rachel Chalmers and her friends yesterday evening and had a lovely time. I got to ask three Australians both whether they are descended from convicts and about "Rabbit-Proof Fence." Evidently it's rather prestigious in Oz to be descended from convicts.
# 04 Nov 2003, 11:39AM:
I have set the VCR to record two shows: Enterprise on Wednesdays and Arrested Development on Sundays. Will be bumming around friends' living rooms on Wednesdays to catch The West Wing, since my TV doesn't get NBC.
# 05 Nov 2003, 03:02PM: Sumana Looks At Her Works Sheepishly:
Sarah, here's an interview with Ira Glass for you.
O: Do you enjoy doing the live broadcasts?
IG: No, I hate it, actually. It's the worst part of the job, next to the pledge drive. In all the other parts of the job, there's room to soar. If you're writing something or you're editing something or talking with somebody, you're wondering, "What could this story be like? Who else should we get?" You laugh and you make up stuff and it's fun, whereas the actual performance of the show is like flying a very complicated aircraft or something. All you can do is f*** up. Every single act is just another opportunity for something to go wrong, but if everything goes right, it'll be invisible, and nobody will know what happened. The whole thing is an exercise in "Oh, please, don't blow this."
O: But isn't there an excitement and an adrenaline rush in doing something like that?
IG: There is an excitement, but it's the excitement of being hunted, not being the hunter....
...we turned to the people at Medieval Times and asked them to give us some tips, and they said we should get horses, because people love horses. So we staged a jousting match on horseback between the newscaster of All Things Considered and the newscaster of Morning Edition. At the end of it, we sort of said to the audience, "Is this what it will take? Is this what you want? Okay, then we've done that, too."
O: Did anybody get hurt in the jousting match?
IG: Fortunately, it was a jousting match done completely through the magic of sound effects. I have to say, I found it very satisfying to do, because you never get to use a horse whinnying in my normal line of work. You're like, "Cue the horse whinnying!" [Impersonates whinnying horse.] The heroic music comes in and [newscaster] Carl Kasell comes in and yells "Take that!" ....
...It's really, really hard, and I'm sure we don't succeed with every story on every show. Basically, anything that anyone makes... It's like a law of nature, a law of aerodynamics, that anything that's written or anything that's created wants to be mediocre. The natural state of all writing is mediocrity. It's all tending toward mediocrity in the same way that all atoms are sort of dissipating out toward the expanse of the universe. Everything wants to be mediocre, so what it takes to make anything more than mediocre is such a f***ing act of will. Anyone who makes something for a living, or even not for a living, if they're really excited about it... You just have to exert so much will into something for it to be good. That feels exactly the same now as it did the first week of the show. That hasn't changed at all. That's the premise of what it takes to make something.
# 05 Nov 2003, 03:30PM:
The Russians use one word-formation to say "I am a boring person" and a different word-formation to say "External events are boring me." The same goes for expressing the two things we might mean by "I am cold."
I am wearing my coat because I am cold (the second meaning), but other people keep thinking that I am about to leave. The situation makes me feel liminal.
# 07 Nov 2003, 06:16PM: He Was Checking On A Dead Chicken:
Sick, bleah. Hence, drinking herbal tea. Tea companies, like Doctor Bronner of castile soap fame, propagandize the captive audience. Celestial Seasonings has inspirational sayings on the box and the tea tag. Stash has them on the individual tea packets. "With constant drinking, fresh and fair." -- Roger DeBussy-Rabutin (1618-1693)
Some are more non-sequitur irritating than others.
The Triple Ginseng packet is too busy extolling ginseng to spare space for Blake or Bacon. Bacon died of a cold, so maybe I shouldn't be thinking of him right now.
# 07 Nov 2003, 06:25PM: Request for advice:
San Francisco people, especially in the south of the city: where do you rent your videos and DVDs? Please tell me.
# 10 Nov 2003, 07:37PM:
I cancelled my obligations for the weekend and got much better. Took a walk on West Portal Ave., which holds about twelve hair salons within a five-block span. Why?
# 13 Nov 2003, 09:22AM: New Rationalizations:
This boy's imitation of the train conductor inspired the latest motif in my dreams. For the last two nights, I have had NPR dreams. On Tuesday night I dreamt that I met Camille Paglia and Andrew Sullivan and desperately wanted them to like me, and on Wednesday night I dreamt that C.J. from the West Wing was driving me somewhere and I was explaining a variant of Harry Potter to her. In both cases, I thought within the dream, "hey, this person is doing a very good imitation of a KQED or NPR person doing a report." Well, yeah.
# 13 Nov 2003, 03:34PM: Hi-ho, Nader!:
I'm evidently alternating between watching West Wing and Daily Show at Susan's and at Rachel's. It's all fun. I have been spending
lunches and evenings with friends. Maybe that helps me work more efficiently; I have
an incentive to finish early or on time, and my relaxation time recharges me.
Soon a friend and I are visiting Herbivore. My prototypical herbivore is a deer,
but Leonard's is a brontosaurus. I like that.
P.S. The title references Home Improvement, not The Lone Ranger.
# 14 Nov 2003, 12:25PM:
Herbivore was not so great, but I will go back and try other dishes before pooh-poohing them completely. Vinay and I do not endorse the "Vietnamese" spring rolls, which need fewer noodles and more mint and basil, and the strawberry-rhubarb pie was pretty wack.I asked Vinay what he thought of when he thought of an herbivore, and he thought of a bear, even knowing that a bear is not an herbivore. He imagines a bear foraging through greens.
Vinay is figuring out what to do after he graduates next year. Like me, he will work while deciding whether to pursue further academic graces. People who ask me whether I would go to grad school end up listening to me babble about the California nonrefundable renter's credit and tax history, just to warn you.
# 14 Nov 2003, 07:03PM: The "Transfer Tubes" Myth?:
"But today's military doesn't even use the words "body bags" — a term in common usage during the Vietnam War, when 58,000 Americans died.
During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the Pentagon began calling them "human remains pouches" and it now refers to them as "transfer tubes."
This is a Toronto Star story by Tim Harper. But he never cites a source and I can't find the phrase "transfer tubes" in the context of pouches for human remains anywhere (via Google) on a .mil or .gov site.
It could be true - only Tim Harper knows how verifiable his info is. A bunch of blogs jumped on it because it's tasty.
Man, that title is Salon-y.
# 17 Nov 2003, 09:00AM:
Ann Marlowe in Salon today decries The Bookseller of Kabul and writes about what's really going on in Afghanistan.
But the best epigram I've ever seen about Afghans comes from the first Afghan-American novelist, San Francisco physician Khaled Hosseini. "Afghans cherish customs but abhor rules," says a character in his moving debut, "The Kite Runner." When you consider that Westerners are nearly the opposite, the inevitable collision of cultural styles becomes clearer.
Hosseini's epigram can be unpacked to explain what I came to see as the Afghans' tragic national flaw: risk-aversion. Coasting on the familiar tide of custom, insulated from the need for organized institutions by their hundred cousins, Afghans have been motivated to develop only the merest skeleton of a civil society. A tendency toward consensual decision-making and risk-aversion means stasis. Especially for those born into higher-status families, there's more to be lost by trying and failing than there is to be gained by trying and succeeding.
Oddly enough, this propensity for risk-aversion, rather than a propensity to violence, may be the best explanation for Afghanistan's often-decried "warlordism": When thinking big is outlawed, only outlaws will think big. Most "warlords" in Afghan society are strivers from poorly connected, low-status families. Meanwhile, Afghan's khan class -- the landed gentry -- collect advanced degrees and impressive job titles like ornaments, and treat government posts with tremendous casualness.
Precisely because few people want to rock the boat, it's easily tipped over when someone does. Bad geopolitical luck, combined with the lack of strong civil institutions, leave custom and the gun as the two easy alternatives. Afghans can't seem to stop killing each other because, like a couple in a bad marriage, they've never tried the scary venture of learning how to have survivable fights.
We Americans, on the other hand, don't leave much to the realm of habit; we interrogate and debate everything; we are never satisfied. While we have created an immensely rich culture and a civil society that makes good on many of the utopian promises of 5,000 years of dreamers -- religious freedom! Legal equality of the sexes! Universal education! -- all too often we have the taste of ashes in our mouths. Cherishing rules over customs does not do much for the heart, and Afghans seem to understand this.
# 17 Nov 2003, 06:33PM: I Never Thought Lemurs Could Be So Awesome:
This weekend, Susan took me to the San Francisco Zoo, and then we watched Elf. Evidently I am ten.
Especially when visiting a zoo with Susan, who writes about animals and has a degree in biology and everything, one begins to grade the exhibits on how happy the animals could possibly be in their provided enclosure. Lemurs, the tapir, the rabbits and guinea pigs, the anaconda: A or A+. The elephants, the bears: not so good. Fortunately, as Susan points out, the lemurs are right next to the zoo entrance, so you can come in, while away some happy time with the lemurs, and leave again if you like. The flamingos are near the Leaping Lemurs! Cafe, and they are also fun to watch.
I thought, "a petting zoo! I would like to pet a sheep or goat!" but, as it turns out, I want to observe without being observed. You can buy kibble from a vending machine and then feed it to the sheep and goats, but the sheep and goats are now wise to this system, and approach you even as you are getting the kibble out of the machine. One goat jumped on me, leaving a hoofprint on my shirt. So maybe I don't like that aspect of petting zoos. I did like touching a snake and a hedgehog.
Elf entertained us. Will Ferrell's character, a human who has been brought up by elves at the North Pole, reminds me of Brutha in Small Gods by Terry Pratchett. Also, a disagreement over the best way to get people to believe in Santa Claus (after all, if people see proof, then it isn't really faith) reminded me of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
A few phone calls, an early bedtime.
# 17 Nov 2003, 07:06PM: SPOILER:
In Elf, Will Ferrell plays Buddy, a human brought up by elves at the North Pole. So of course he takes offense when he sees a department-store Santa Claus - the impostor! Buddy hisses accusations at the fake Santa, even as the impostor dandles a boy on his knee. "You smell like beef and cheese. Santa doesn't smell like that. You sit on a throne of lies."
It is so beautiful to hear Will Ferrell venomously whisper, "You sit on a throne of lies."
# 18 Nov 2003, 06:50PM: The Laundry Is Not Leotards Or Leg-Warmers:
Two upcoming errands: dropping off a rented video (the controversial and pretty good Fire by Deepa Mehta) and picking up dry-cleaning. According to Leonard, I'm in the 80s.
# 19 Nov 2003, 11:48AM: RSI and You:
Zed wrote, "Unfortunately, in real life, struggling your hardest is no guarantee of everything coming out all right in the end. The same workplace that's willing to overwork you to injury does not care about your well-being. They won't reward you for hurting yourself to meet your deadline. They'll only punish you for your now-diminished capacity to work."
# 19 Nov 2003, 12:28PM: Calling Alton Brown:
Or Christopher Kimball, for that matter. A gynecologist learns how to cook a turkey. Letting the turkey spend the night in a bath of salt, sugar and water seemed like overkill to Lee. But Bennett, who gave up a veterinary career to go to culinary school, decided to rely on her medical background to explain it to the doctor. The salty brine helps increase the amount of water in the cells, Bennett said. Lee got it immediately. "It's sort of like edema!" she said....
"Put the meat thermometer parallel to the femur," Bennett instructed.
"Ah, language I can understand," Lee said. "But I need an X-ray here. I can't see the femur."
Later, when Lee carved the bird, she would again be stumped by anatomy. A kitchen cleaver -- especially Lee's poorly sharpened one -- was no scalpel.
Bennett tried to explain how to cut the breast off whole, running the blade down the breast bone and against the rib cage. It wasn't working.
"She's a fabulous surgeon, but she doesn't do thoracic surgery. That's the problem," said [another doctor]...
# 19 Nov 2003, 01:04PM: Argh:
In the past few months, I've forgotten to attend a party, an improv performance, and now a lunch with Sarah. And I really did want to do all of these things! I am sorry, Zed, Sarah. What is wrong with me?!
# 20 Nov 2003, 06:32PM:
Less than a week till Leonard returns for the Thanksgiving break. I'm quite glad.
In the meantime, I am watching West Wing, Enterprise, Arrested Development, and the original Bedazzled movie. And I am beginning to read The Oresteia Trilogy, whose last play (The Eumenides) sounds like it starts out like a Law and Order episode.
# 21 Nov 2003, 01:18PM: Recommended:
Bedazzled has quite funny lines re: the devil, God, and religion in general. Example (the devil bemoans his help): "What terrible sins I have working for me. I suppose it's the wages."
I suspect that Bedazzled influenced Good Omens, but possibly it's just that a satirical British sensibility underlies them both.
In other God news, Paul Wright considers a balancing act between humanism and Christianity: "But after reading the book one feels like telling him, as one sometimes has to do to friends who lose someone, that God's not coming back and he should just move on."
# 21 Nov 2003, 03:34PM: The Anti-Anti-Spammers:
The anti-spam battle is a long, hard slog.THIS IS NOT A HOBBY. If you want to be an anti-spam advocate, if you want to write software or maintain a list or provide a service that identifies spam or blocks spam or targets spam in any way, you will be attacked. You will be attacked by professionals who have more money than you, more resources than you, better programmers than you, and no scruples at all. They want to make money, this is how they have decided to make money, they really can make a lot of money, and you’re getting in their way.
# 21 Nov 2003, 05:09PM:
Josh Kornbluth has a moment in one of his monologues where he can finally confront a work task as just that, a bit of labor. And he doesn't project onto it his fear or anger or self-loathing -- they are just letters.
When I can finally get there with customer help requests, especially the hostile and demanding ones, my life gets better.
# 23 Nov 2003, 07:17PM GMT+5:30: It Was Election Day:
A year late, I got around to typing up my hands-wrung-over introduction to a Garrison Keillor event.
Good evening to you, ladies, gentlemen.
We welcome you to this evening's event.
Thank you for coming, since some of you want
To check tonight if your vote made a dent.
Instead, you're here, and, thanks to Cody's Books,
Tonight I have the honor to present
Garrison Keillor, master of the pen
And one-man radio establishment.
But first, a few administrative notes.
Please silence cell phones......yes, NOW, go ahead.
The bathrooms are behind you, on the right.
Sure, go, but don't make noise to raise the dead.
After his reading, he'll take Q & A
And then he'll do a signing, row by row.
I'd like to thank the church for our venue
And Cody's Books for putting on the show.
You may know Mr. Keillor from his show,
"A Prairie Home Companion," which is great.
Or maybe you have read some of his books,
like "Lake Wobegon Summer 1958." Er, six.
He also does "A Writer's Almanac,"
where every day he reads one poem, no more.
And he's compiled them in his brand-new book,
"Good Poems." (You can buy it at the door.)
I've listened to his show since I was twelve --
But you didn't come here to hear 'bout me.
So I thank Mr. Keillor, and I say,
I give to you the man you came to see:
Garrison Keillor.
# 24 Nov 2003, 03:24PM:
Number Portability Tips include waiting until Christmas to switch.
# 25 Nov 2003, 07:01PM GMT+5:30: If You Haven't Seen It, It's Greek To You!:
Oresteia and Pratchett's Small Gods are alike in that they both propose a more rational, constitution-based relationship among gods and humans. Sort of.
I want to see both plays in the Continental Divide sequence/cycle/set/wave/particle in mid-December, and am tentatively settled on Sun. Dec 14th to see them both. If you'd like to join me, please make contact.
# 26 Nov 2003, 11:37AM: Butterflies:
My tummy is a little jumpy -- in just a couple of hours I'll get to see Leonard again. This morning I listened to one of the Jonathan Richman CDs that Leonard left with me.
When even fourth grade starts looking good, which you hated
And first grade's looking good too, overrated
And you boys long for some little girl that you dated
Do you long for her or for the way you were?
That summer feeling is gonna haunt you one day in your life
# 26 Nov 2003, 12:07PM GMT+5:30: Methodist, Baptist, Catholic, Presbyterian:
Wesley Clark talks about his spiritual beliefs. He's regularly attended a few different churches in his life. Right now he considers himself a Catholic, but doesn't attend a Catholic church.
...One night I walked out of the church when the priest said that we should never have fought the Revolutionary War and every war was bad. It was 4th of July. It was an outrageously political statement. I just never felt right when people in the church would take these overtly political positions especially when I felt like I was a good Christian, I was serving my country, and I just didn't feel like I deserved to be lambasted by the priest on the 4th of July...
This passage really underscores the difficulty of reconciling a career in the military with a commitment to the Christian faith. I'd love to have a deep, off-the-record discussion with Clark about that.
Clark and his campaign make the right noises re: religious tolerance ("Wes Clark Sends Warm Greetings to Muslims for Eid Al-Fitr" today) and, earlier in the interview, we see that Clark loves his religion for its comfort and power of leadership and moral guidance. I'm more comfortable with that than with the crusader-like Christianity of George W. Bush.
# 26 Nov 2003, 03:58PM: He's Back,:
and I am relieved.Leonard has longish stubble which, I maintain, is a beard, and which he calls a proto-beard.
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