Wednesday, November 12, 2008

A great song about a dog

My wife will dance to this one - dig the elementary school flute solo!

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

11/11


Some of you have the day off - good for you. Veteran's Day never meant much more than that to me either, until I became enthralled by the English poets Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves, and others. That led to a fascination with WWI in general, and the Western Front in particular. I think I could make a pretty convincing argument that much of the way we think today, and many of the international crises we currently face, can be traced back to that terrible conflict that ended 90 years ago, and the botched carving up of Eastern Europe, Africa, and the Middle East that followed. Whether it's "the former Yugoslavia", Iraq, the Congo, or many other places, just look back to 1918-19 and you'll usually find the peremptory and unrealistic decisions that all but guaranteed animosity and bloodshed would erupt again in a matter of decades.

Today, the English will all wear red paper poppies on their lapels in memory of the fallen from WWI and other wars. Perhaps we should all adopt the same practice as a reminder that the costs of war are measured not just in lives, not just in dollars, but in generations to come who will be burdened with our folly. It is not only our hearts that are stained, but also the hearts of those who follow us.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Liberty's sword has a double edge

We had about 30 people over at Treat Street for the November 4 results. By the time I arrived home at about 6:30, they'd just called Pennsylvania, and I did a little jig as I walked across the threshold. I'll admit that well into the summer, well into October, even well into Election Day, I was unconvinced we'd pull it off. The New York Times recently had a piece about people with frayed nerves and terrible sleep patterns due to the election and the economy, and I felt they were writing about me. Like that terrible beast slouching towards Bethlehem, the world looked like it was coming apart in just a few short weeks, moving inexorably from one crisis to the next. And somehow Sarah Pailn embodied the attitude that I thought would undo us all - the unblinking, unwavering certitude, the absolute faith in values that didn't require any connection with empirical evidence. It's that conservative optimism that suggests that everything will be great with the world provided that everyone simply adopt the views of the extreme Right. It had made me tired.

So we drank wine and watched TV and checked Indiana and Ohio and Virginia county by county. Our friend Jani told my wife that if she'd seemed out of sorts in the past 8 years it was because she hadn't been herself with Bush in office. It seems a tall claim, but I think I know what she meant. My own animus was like a bank account, compounding interest over the years, then doubling again in November 2004.

Then they called Ohio and the math said it was over. We all got quite jolly and picked up the pace on the wine and champagne. Then just a few minutes after the polls closed on the West Coast, the call was made all across the media. Exultate! Tiger Woods' fist pumps! Tears! Hugs! I ran out to my car and honked the horn for a few minutes.

McCain gave the best speech of his venal campaign. Obama just another in his expanding collection of greatest hits. We cheered some more. I was watching my wife's home state of Indiana as the numbers went from bleak to iffy to too close to call. Taking Indiana was the twist of the blade I needed.

As the evening wound down, attention turned to Prop 8. The news didn't look good, but I guess the bitter comes with the sweet. And even the elation of the results has to be tempered with the burdens yet to come. Eight years of Bush, Cheney, Rove, Gonzales, Rumsfeld,the Stanford girl Condi Rice - there is much to be repaired, and little else we can accomplish before the mountainous ash-heap of the global economy is somehow addressed.

Kelly and I slept pretty well Tuesday night, but this is hardly a result - it's just an opportunity.
And to my friends and to all people who can't marry as I have - that's also an opportunity to keep striving to move us forward too. Congratulations to Senators Obama and Biden. Serve us well.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Turkey Lurkey Time

We need to return to this kind of unbridled, unironic enthusiasm. What alternatives are there after all? 2008: The year the Turkey Lurkey returned to public consciousness.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

I know a guy and he's a writer. A legit writer!





You ought to write a book. Really, you should. You're witty and well-read, nuanced and multi-dimensional. Problem is, writing a full-length novel isn't something that happens in those interstices when you're feeling witty, nuanced, and multi-dimensional; it is a grinding slog involving months of existential mirror-gazing, when the self-doubt and and less salutary brain chemistry embrace your every keystroke. That's why you've never even tried it.

I met this guy, Toby Barlow, through my lovely wife. He is witty, accomplished, and an excellent man to meet for cocktails. We spent a week at his place in Brooklyn once, and I saw that he had 3x5 cards up on his bedroom wall with Ideas. Not ideas. Ideas. The kind of Ideas that come to you from time to time that you would love to realize but probably won't, because you have to work or you're just too tired or there are errands you haven't taken care of. I won't say what was on the cards on his wall, except to say that they were grand and fun. I didn't make too much of them at the time, but I now know that Toby is the kind of fellow who isn't just whistling Dixie when he affixes 3x5 cards to his wall - he's actually finding the wherewithal to make good on his Ideas.

Like this epic poem/novel he has written. It's called Sharp Teeth and it's about werewolves in Los Angeles. Except that it's not just about werewolves in Los Angeles - it's about all sorts of untidy emotions and the people who have them. The people just happen to be werewolves. And it's good. And while the plot is a rollicking yarn, it's the stuff about love and loyalty and betrayal that's particularly fine. And I'm pretty sure that he wrote it because he had an original Idea and wrote it on a 3x5 card and then followed through. And that's really impressive.

He came through SF on a book tour some months ago, and someone asked him how he managed to write Sharp Teeth and have a demanding job and tons of other responsibilities. He said he worked on it in hotel rooms when he was traveling, and I thought about how I can't even work on the crossword puzzle after work most nights. And again, this book doesn't read like something someone was tackling in their off-hours at the Sheraton. Although there is a significant sub-plot set in a hotel.

So kudos to you Toby, and I'm unreservedly recommending that people check out this book. It is about a lot of things, but for me, it's mostly about the triumph of Ideas over all that stuff in daily life that usually holds Ideas in abeyance.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Hitler Plans Burning Man

This is how it must be for those diehards still willing and able to spend a week in the Nevada dust as people like me slowly peel off into a settled middle age of barbecues and white wine.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

I miss my youth...

It was never like this, but it's how I imagine it might have been had I grown up in NZ and been the son of a rabbit farmer. This song (Death and the Maiden by The Verlaines) got stuck in my noggin and I couldn't find it on iTunes, so thank you YouTube. Watch a video by any eighties era band from New Zealand and you'll find the same low production values and touching innocence. I imagine that the band's mums were in a room off-camera fixing up a nice luncheon for everyone. Lead singer Graeme Downs? Now a professor at the University of Otago teaching music theory and composition. Fancy that.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Consume less!



(Me talking to myself): Stop shopping when you're hungry! And if you buy a head of cauliflower, eat a head of cauliflower!

Hey! You look like that guy!


Among the people I have been said to resemble, Kirk Cameron has to be the unkindest cut of all. I am getting pretty long in the tooth to still be hearing that one, but someone at work hit me with it the other day when my hair was a little too lively. During my high school teaching years, many students took to calling me Tom Hanks, but their brains were still forming and visual pattern recognition must come fairly late. There were several occasions in college when women of a certain age would stop me on the street and ask if I was related to Joseph Cotten - I eventually picked up his autobiography and some of his early photos did present an eerie resemblance. That's him above when he was filming The Third Man with his buddy Orson Welles. Don't bother with his autobiography by the way - he's a little too pleased with himself. I've heard lots of other names too - some plausible, some ludicrous - that make me wonder what it is about me that "looks like that guy." I'm not insulted so much as curious. I can think of very few people I know who bear even a whiff of resemblance to someone else I've ever seen. I think it has to be the rubbery quality of my face. The Kirk Cameron thing though? Keep that to yourself.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

All the wrong reasons - by Jeff Scher

Remember "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" from the Beatles' Yellow Submarine? This is like that without the repetitiveness. I wish my dreams looked this way...

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Best novel of 2007 (and I haven’t even finished it).



Bolano actually published The Savage Detectives in 1998, but the English translation just came out last year. In the tradition of vivid, mystical Latin American novelists like Allende and Marquez, Bolano captures the zeitgeist of ‘60s and ‘70s Mexico City, where everyone is a poet and no one knows where they’ll sleep tonight (or with whom). While I haven’t finished the novel, Part One was an enjoyable bildungsroman and Part Two has shifted to a multi-voiced mystery about ulterior motives that isn’t always easy to follow, but is always satisfying. Bolano died young, but left a decent body of work that I’m looking forward to reading.

Monday, January 14, 2008

The end times never looked so good...

Psychedelic political treatise! Who's with me?

Friday, January 11, 2008

Mexico vs. 24th and Mission - A Comparative Study

*Note: Impressions of Mexico based on a week’s stay in San Miguel de Allende, which isn’t exactly representative of all of Mexico, but that’s where I went. Impressions of 24th and Mission based on years of up close and personal experience.

Bus transportation: advantage – Mexico.
Except for the videos of The X Files in Spanish blasting at 50 or 60 decibels on our 3 hour trip from Mexico City.

Street cleanliness: advantage – Mexico .
It turns out that throwing trash in the street is not a Mexican national pastime; it must be an American thing.

Mexican food: advantage – Mexico.
Mountains of starchy rice and refried beans in your burrito? That’s a Mission thing. My greatest discovery in Mexico? Tortas and more tortas. They know their sandwiches.

Restaurant service: advantage: 24th and Mission.
Super friendly in Mexico, but their policy is to promise you anything and then promptly forget to follow through.

Homeless/impoverished street people: advantage – Mexico
While the stream of consciousness rantings of your 24th and Mission homeless person might be colorful, the dignified desperation of a wizened abuelita gets the nod here. At least the Mexican homeless would take advantage of any opportunity not to be homeless, and you get a sense that they aren’t merely a product of a whole bunch of bad choices.

Sidewalk vending: advantage – Mexico
Fresh cucumber and watermelon sprinkled in chili powder? Corn on the cob? Hand-made yarn holiday ornaments? Dangerous fireworks? Much better than cheap plastic cell-phone cases and slightly suspicious popsicle vendors grouped in odd bunches of twos and threes. You could follow a pretty healthy diet in Mexico just snacking on the street.

Observance of traffic regulations: advantage – 24th and Mission.
This was a close call. It seems to me that traffic safety is inversely proportional to fervency of religious belief. I guess that would make Taliban suicide bombers among the worst drivers in the world. They should do a study on this.

Internet access: advantage – 24th and Mission
This was not a close call, but our friend Dave is narrowing the gap with his internet provider business in San Miguel. The cable TV was fine in our hotel though. I had no idea I would be able to watch college bowl games on our vacation. Neither did my wife…


Pharmacies: advantage – Mexico
While I did not visit a pharmacy in San Miguel, my friends assured me that expatriate Americans are like kids in a candy store there, what with no scrips required for a multitude of powerful pain relievers, muscle relaxants, and stimulants. Looking to retire in a state of permanent glassy-eyed bliss? Go to Mexico.