Saturday, August 30, 2003
Just a friendly reminder to the Bush administration that we are STILL waiting with great anticipation to hear about the great discovery of all those weapons of mass destruction supposedly in abundance over in Iraq.... If anybody recalls, we launched a preemptive war against Iraq based on intelligence claiming said country was sitting on chemical and biological weapons poised to wreak havoc on the western infidels (us). Well??? Where are they?? Bush? Powell? Anybody? I mean at least please plant some weapons of mass destruction so that we can all sleep better at night. I swear I feel like I'm living some Orwellian Animal Farm nightmare sometimes. Earth to American-overweight-Laci/Pertersen-obsessed-Prozac-addicted-sheep: "Please wake up and pay attention to what your non-elected president is doing..."
Maybe all those hormones they inject into our meat are making us as complacent as the cows they shoot the hormones into. Meanwhile, a soldier a day is being picked off as a result of the lies that the Bush administration propagated in order to get a buy-in from the American public. Even the normally reserved Brits are putting up a better fight against their government in terms of holding Blair accountable for misinformation put forth about the justification for going to war with Iraq (and as a result at least one head has rolled a.k.a. Alistair Campbell, communications director, who in the wake of the public uproar has decided "to spend more time with his family"). Would a Democratic presidential candidate please step up to the plate and squash Bush as he should be on this? Where art thou vicious, on-message Democratic speech writers?
Outstanding Kudos to Colbert l. King, the only journalist of late asking the same question I am: Where are the weapons of mass destruction?. He should be named our ambassador of Not-Forgetting.
Maybe all those hormones they inject into our meat are making us as complacent as the cows they shoot the hormones into. Meanwhile, a soldier a day is being picked off as a result of the lies that the Bush administration propagated in order to get a buy-in from the American public. Even the normally reserved Brits are putting up a better fight against their government in terms of holding Blair accountable for misinformation put forth about the justification for going to war with Iraq (and as a result at least one head has rolled a.k.a. Alistair Campbell, communications director, who in the wake of the public uproar has decided "to spend more time with his family"). Would a Democratic presidential candidate please step up to the plate and squash Bush as he should be on this? Where art thou vicious, on-message Democratic speech writers?
Outstanding Kudos to Colbert l. King, the only journalist of late asking the same question I am: Where are the weapons of mass destruction?. He should be named our ambassador of Not-Forgetting.
Friday, August 29, 2003
Oh good lord I'm a heretic. At least according to Dante's Inferno Hell Test. And I always thought I was just a nice I'm-OK-You're OK-agnostic....
Thursday, August 28, 2003
If you're the kind of person who can smell a rainstorm coming, sense an imminent earthquake, or who just knows the day a season has turned, then you will appreciate that today was for me that day. It is that one day that comes on the heels of late summer. On the one hand the end-of-August-evening-sun slants in such a way that every object is glazed in a lucious surreal light that just takes the breath away. On the other hand the sun sits lower in the sky at six o'clock as I make my way back across the causeway on my four-mile dog walk. It is Nor'East cooler and drier. And there is some kind of intangible demise to the air -- of things dying not growing. You can't quite put your finger on it but you know it's there.
I mind not the shorter days and slightly dropping temperatures. It is the inevitable sentimentality that fall triggers in me that I mind. Like an asthma attack, I am suddenly strangled by memories that criss-cross my forty-three years. One moment I am staring at the patterns of the gray upholestery that lined the little jump seat in the VW beetle that hauled me and my parents through Europe the first four years of my life (I am the Poster Childthat you don't necessarily need a primary color, playworld-of-toys to grow up to be a semi-creative person....). The next moment my mind leaps to adulthood to the many people who have sprung gloriously into my life only to disappear abrubtly at the next change of a job, relocation to a new city, or jump into new circumstances. Poof, gone.
Wait a minute.... My son is going off to college tomorrow. The daughter is soon to be entrenched in her high school senior year of college essays, applications, and sorrowful good-byes to all-that-you-knew-since-you-were-two. Hubby has office in fabuluous section of London. Hmmm. OK, ok I will feel my month of sentimental whatevers. Then hello world of many millions of people and many new wonderful opportunities!
The great thing about being a born-in-Californian is that you are by nature an incurable opptimist that no matter what sees new bright sides. Earthquakes? What earthquakes? Arhnold? Why not. Just look at that sunset! Darling pour me a glass of wine...
I mind not the shorter days and slightly dropping temperatures. It is the inevitable sentimentality that fall triggers in me that I mind. Like an asthma attack, I am suddenly strangled by memories that criss-cross my forty-three years. One moment I am staring at the patterns of the gray upholestery that lined the little jump seat in the VW beetle that hauled me and my parents through Europe the first four years of my life (I am the Poster Childthat you don't necessarily need a primary color, playworld-of-toys to grow up to be a semi-creative person....). The next moment my mind leaps to adulthood to the many people who have sprung gloriously into my life only to disappear abrubtly at the next change of a job, relocation to a new city, or jump into new circumstances. Poof, gone.
Wait a minute.... My son is going off to college tomorrow. The daughter is soon to be entrenched in her high school senior year of college essays, applications, and sorrowful good-byes to all-that-you-knew-since-you-were-two. Hubby has office in fabuluous section of London. Hmmm. OK, ok I will feel my month of sentimental whatevers. Then hello world of many millions of people and many new wonderful opportunities!
The great thing about being a born-in-Californian is that you are by nature an incurable opptimist that no matter what sees new bright sides. Earthquakes? What earthquakes? Arhnold? Why not. Just look at that sunset! Darling pour me a glass of wine...
Wednesday, August 27, 2003
Oh my. End of August and I already received my first Christmas catalogue in the mail. Last week in fact. A hundred or so pages of 'things' destined for a landfill in less than five years.
Read Orion Magazine for SHEER, GORGEOUS THEATER for your mind. A subscription to this magazine isn't cheap but is a lot less expensive than a Broadway theater ticket. Loved one of the September/October articles about CONTRAILS. You have to admire a writer who can hold you captive for six pages talking about nothing other than that cumulus white graffiti that jets scratch across clear blue skies every day. How about the fact that the Pentagon has spent millions of dollars trying to make contrails invisible? Makes perfect sense. You don't want your virtually undetectable $2 billion stealth bomber followed by a white pointer behind it advertising "Here I am! Over here!" One thought leads to another of course and so we can't help but wonder what kind of top-secret chemicals the military is using to achieve this magic feat. Don't worry, we learn that there are already plenty of people who think about stuff like this. There's much more Matt Rasmussen tells us about contrails and thanks to him I'll never look at one the same way again. What Broadway show can boast having that kind of impact?
Never let it be said that I don't give my conservative friends equal billing if and rarely when they have something prudent to say:
In a recent email exchange, I posed this question to one of my wayward conservative buddies (one of many making it extremely difficult for me to fulfill my above-mentioned blog job description)...
My Bloviated Question: It seems to me that the difference between taxing people NOW versus running a deficit that future generations have to pay for LATER is that at least in the first instance, people are making somewhat informed choices based on their needs at that moment in time (education, infrastructure, whatever). This seems much more fiscally responsible than charging up the federal credit card and dumping the bill on future generations (our children and grandchildren) who themselves will have their own social agendas, toxic clean-ups, wars, and what have you that they would like to pay for but can't because they are going to be stuck with a $5.8 trillion dollar debt George Idiot Bush will be handing to them (Leap in Deficit Instead of Fall). And we baby boomers won't be helping the matter -- along with our water bottles and Starbuck's lattes, we'll be busy sucking on the social security and Medicare system. Even if deficit projections are grossly exaggerated, don't you see something fundamentally wrong with strapping (taxing) future generations with a bill you didn't want to pay yourself under the pretense you 'don't believe in taxes'? Isn't running a deficit just a tax by another name? Am I missing something?
Response: In the perfect world I would agree with you that we should not have deficits. We should not spend more that we make (other than as a possible stimulus to a sluggish economy, maybe). In this perfect world spending would be reduced to match revenue reductions. Money would be set aside in good times to help cover the shortfalls in bad times. This unfortunately is not how it works. Politicians are not rewarded for acting prudently. They are rewarded for increasing spending in their districts. There is no "big-picture" plan on how to most effectively and efficiently spend tax revenues. As a result when times get tough no one wants to cut spending in their area and the deficit grows. Rather than taking the Democrats approach - tax the hell out of anyone who makes more than $60K per year and reallocate it to the poor - I would rather the deficit builds up until enough pressure is brought to bear to decrease spending. It's easy to raise taxes but this is counter productive to the financial health of the economy and masks underlying inefficiencies.
I agree that it is a travesty to build up the deficit for future generations but I also think that it is a greater travesty to not address the underlying problems of inefficiency and waste within our system by raising taxes without cutting expenses at the same time. There are very smart people who argue both sides of this issue. Ultimately it comes down to fundamental beliefs about the government's role. How active a role should it play? Do you trust the government to make the best decisions possible and work effectively and efficiently? Do you believe the role of the government should be expanded or reduced? We can argue about these questions until we are blue in the face and we are not going to change each other's minds. But the good news is that I will still respect you in the morning even though you are a bleeding heart democrat. I don't make it personal. Can you say the same thing about your feelings toward Republicans?
Reply to Response: Of course I will still respect you in the morning. In spite of your being a calloused hard-boiled Republican with skewed values. Promise you'll never buy an S.U.V. and quit throwing darts at that Hillary-and-Bill dartboard of yours on the wall of your office and I'll respect you even more...
Read Orion Magazine for SHEER, GORGEOUS THEATER for your mind. A subscription to this magazine isn't cheap but is a lot less expensive than a Broadway theater ticket. Loved one of the September/October articles about CONTRAILS. You have to admire a writer who can hold you captive for six pages talking about nothing other than that cumulus white graffiti that jets scratch across clear blue skies every day. How about the fact that the Pentagon has spent millions of dollars trying to make contrails invisible? Makes perfect sense. You don't want your virtually undetectable $2 billion stealth bomber followed by a white pointer behind it advertising "Here I am! Over here!" One thought leads to another of course and so we can't help but wonder what kind of top-secret chemicals the military is using to achieve this magic feat. Don't worry, we learn that there are already plenty of people who think about stuff like this. There's much more Matt Rasmussen tells us about contrails and thanks to him I'll never look at one the same way again. What Broadway show can boast having that kind of impact?
Never let it be said that I don't give my conservative friends equal billing if and rarely when they have something prudent to say:
In a recent email exchange, I posed this question to one of my wayward conservative buddies (one of many making it extremely difficult for me to fulfill my above-mentioned blog job description)...
My Bloviated Question: It seems to me that the difference between taxing people NOW versus running a deficit that future generations have to pay for LATER is that at least in the first instance, people are making somewhat informed choices based on their needs at that moment in time (education, infrastructure, whatever). This seems much more fiscally responsible than charging up the federal credit card and dumping the bill on future generations (our children and grandchildren) who themselves will have their own social agendas, toxic clean-ups, wars, and what have you that they would like to pay for but can't because they are going to be stuck with a $5.8 trillion dollar debt George Idiot Bush will be handing to them (Leap in Deficit Instead of Fall). And we baby boomers won't be helping the matter -- along with our water bottles and Starbuck's lattes, we'll be busy sucking on the social security and Medicare system. Even if deficit projections are grossly exaggerated, don't you see something fundamentally wrong with strapping (taxing) future generations with a bill you didn't want to pay yourself under the pretense you 'don't believe in taxes'? Isn't running a deficit just a tax by another name? Am I missing something?
Response: In the perfect world I would agree with you that we should not have deficits. We should not spend more that we make (other than as a possible stimulus to a sluggish economy, maybe). In this perfect world spending would be reduced to match revenue reductions. Money would be set aside in good times to help cover the shortfalls in bad times. This unfortunately is not how it works. Politicians are not rewarded for acting prudently. They are rewarded for increasing spending in their districts. There is no "big-picture" plan on how to most effectively and efficiently spend tax revenues. As a result when times get tough no one wants to cut spending in their area and the deficit grows. Rather than taking the Democrats approach - tax the hell out of anyone who makes more than $60K per year and reallocate it to the poor - I would rather the deficit builds up until enough pressure is brought to bear to decrease spending. It's easy to raise taxes but this is counter productive to the financial health of the economy and masks underlying inefficiencies.
I agree that it is a travesty to build up the deficit for future generations but I also think that it is a greater travesty to not address the underlying problems of inefficiency and waste within our system by raising taxes without cutting expenses at the same time. There are very smart people who argue both sides of this issue. Ultimately it comes down to fundamental beliefs about the government's role. How active a role should it play? Do you trust the government to make the best decisions possible and work effectively and efficiently? Do you believe the role of the government should be expanded or reduced? We can argue about these questions until we are blue in the face and we are not going to change each other's minds. But the good news is that I will still respect you in the morning even though you are a bleeding heart democrat. I don't make it personal. Can you say the same thing about your feelings toward Republicans?
Reply to Response: Of course I will still respect you in the morning. In spite of your being a calloused hard-boiled Republican with skewed values. Promise you'll never buy an S.U.V. and quit throwing darts at that Hillary-and-Bill dartboard of yours on the wall of your office and I'll respect you even more...
Tuesday, August 26, 2003
Monday, August 25, 2003
My agnostic leanings for the week tilt now toward reincarnation. I had been favoring mythology until Zeus recently saw fit to punish me with a blast of supercilious god-like wrath. Apparently displeased by my paltry sacrificial offerings of weekly recyclables (not enough wine bottles?), Zeus heaped upon me a load of jobs no mortal should have to try to fulfill in the course of two days: airport limo driver, nurse, travel agent, veterinarian, de facto State Legislator, personal executive administrator, document editor, house cleaner, auto adjuster, college coordinator, and my most difficult role: full-time cook... So until Zeus and I have patched up our differences and I have been reinstated to my rightful position as earthly Goddess, I am officially advertising receptivity to other religions less volatile.
What I really like about the whole concept of reincarnation is that it gives you a chance to improve -- to finish unfinished business the next time around. Like I can't see how in one lifetime I am ever going to succeed in convincing religious fanatics and ultra conservatives to quit their hell-bent path in destroying the planet and themselves along with it (see blog job description above). On the downside, you seem to have no real control over what you'll be the next incarnation. Reincarnation would be much so better if you could call 'shotgun' on a certain lifestyle and 'dibs' on a person you want in your life the next time round.
A friend recently sent me a website link whereby you enter your birthday and up springs an analysis of who you were in your past life (www.thebigview.com/pastlife/). The site's author claims no responsibility and offers no warranties for said esoteric algorithm used to calculate what your former life may have been (which is probably a good thing for all the people who discover to their horror that they were cockroaches or serial killers).
According to this site, the last time I was seen on earth was around the year 1025. Born a female somewhere in the territory of modern North Africa, I was a handicraftsman or mechanic, seeker of truth and wisdom and may have seen my future lives. My colleagues perceived me as an idealist illuminating the path to the future. The lesson that my last past life brought to my present incarnation: to develop a kind attitude towards people, and to acquire the gift of understanding and compassion.
Oh boy, at the rate I'm going in bringing forth the 'lessons' of my past life I am doomed to regress to a slug.
I don't want people to perceive me as an idealist -- that's just a euphemism for nice people with whacky do-gooder ideas that don't have a chance in hell of getting implemented. I would rather be perceived as an irrefutable Goddess of edicts-that-will-be-heeded: Give up your S.U.V.'s!, your McMansions, your suburban sprawl, your 'scratch-and-itch' addiction to the consumption treadmill! Quit blowing each other up, stop torturing each other, and desist from bullying in the name of God! [at which point we hear the cracking of loud thunder and a flash of lightening]. At this point too Bandit might interject by saying that this idealistic rambling of mine is riddled with hypocrisy... i.e. I am no aging hippie in Birkenstocks living on a commune... I wish I had saved one of his emails to me where he said something to the effect that the perfect world for Anna would be a solar-powered 6-cylinder BMW sports coupe convertible made entirely from recycled produts that gets 80 miles per gallon in the city, has Coach leather seats, and a wine cooler in the trunk. Well you get the idea...
What I really like about the whole concept of reincarnation is that it gives you a chance to improve -- to finish unfinished business the next time around. Like I can't see how in one lifetime I am ever going to succeed in convincing religious fanatics and ultra conservatives to quit their hell-bent path in destroying the planet and themselves along with it (see blog job description above). On the downside, you seem to have no real control over what you'll be the next incarnation. Reincarnation would be much so better if you could call 'shotgun' on a certain lifestyle and 'dibs' on a person you want in your life the next time round.
A friend recently sent me a website link whereby you enter your birthday and up springs an analysis of who you were in your past life (www.thebigview.com/pastlife/). The site's author claims no responsibility and offers no warranties for said esoteric algorithm used to calculate what your former life may have been (which is probably a good thing for all the people who discover to their horror that they were cockroaches or serial killers).
According to this site, the last time I was seen on earth was around the year 1025. Born a female somewhere in the territory of modern North Africa, I was a handicraftsman or mechanic, seeker of truth and wisdom and may have seen my future lives. My colleagues perceived me as an idealist illuminating the path to the future. The lesson that my last past life brought to my present incarnation: to develop a kind attitude towards people, and to acquire the gift of understanding and compassion.
Oh boy, at the rate I'm going in bringing forth the 'lessons' of my past life I am doomed to regress to a slug.
I don't want people to perceive me as an idealist -- that's just a euphemism for nice people with whacky do-gooder ideas that don't have a chance in hell of getting implemented. I would rather be perceived as an irrefutable Goddess of edicts-that-will-be-heeded: Give up your S.U.V.'s!, your McMansions, your suburban sprawl, your 'scratch-and-itch' addiction to the consumption treadmill! Quit blowing each other up, stop torturing each other, and desist from bullying in the name of God! [at which point we hear the cracking of loud thunder and a flash of lightening]. At this point too Bandit might interject by saying that this idealistic rambling of mine is riddled with hypocrisy... i.e. I am no aging hippie in Birkenstocks living on a commune... I wish I had saved one of his emails to me where he said something to the effect that the perfect world for Anna would be a solar-powered 6-cylinder BMW sports coupe convertible made entirely from recycled produts that gets 80 miles per gallon in the city, has Coach leather seats, and a wine cooler in the trunk. Well you get the idea...
Sunday, August 24, 2003
Haven't quite decided whether I should feel inspired or depressed that my 70-year-old mother recovering from a broken collar bone (while body surfing off the coast of Mexico) beat me handedly in tennis during her week-long visit here...
Speaking of tennis, Anna Kournikova (definitely not to be mistaken for the forty-something, sassy liberal Anna here speaking) has some kind of fantabulous agent working the ropes on her behalf. She has just cut a deal with Amazon.com Apparel selling sexy sports bras (the girl is definitely hot); she has a new gig with a major sports network as sports broadcaster (I see into the crystal ball tennis ratings going up, up, up); and she just recently umpired an exhibition tennis match between Agassi and Roddick. The match from the New York Times:
Andre Agassi, Andy Roddick and Anna Kournikova made a pretty good comedy team yesterday. Agassi and Roddick played each other in a 10-point tie breaker at Arthur Ashe Stadium with Kournikova in the umpire's chair. All had microphones and Kournikova told the players to grunt harder. Then Kornikova's cellphone rang. "Oh, it's John McEnroe," she told them. "He said you're both playing like girls." To which Roddick responded: "Wait a minute. How does John McEnroe have your cell phone number?" In a later exchange, Agassi egged on Roddik by saying, "Let's see what you got, big boy." Roddick pointed to his head and cracked to the bald Agassi, "Hair!" Agassi won by 10-8.
BTW -- I had a fling with McEnroe believe it or not. Even so I wasn't mentioned in his new book 'You Can't Be Serious.' Bastard... I was nineteen working at the Plaza Hotel in New York managing a little boutique called Mark Cross, a fine leather goods' store eventually bought out by Coach. 'Managing' is somewhat of a misnomer given that the only person in the store was myself -- but that was indeed my title at the time. The store was a little cubicle of a thing too small for anyone to feel very comfortable walking into unless they were desperate for a gift. That left me a lot of time to stand outside the store star gazing. Which is how I got kissed in the middle of the Plaza Hotel by Muhammad Ali one day. And how I met John McEnroe. Call it a star-struck thing because McEnroe at the time was a soda-guzzling, burger-hungry obnoxious boy that just happened to be just the thing for a bored nineteen-year-old-regretting-she-had-put-off-college-to-go-work-in-New-York-for-a-year.
He asked me 'after' whether I was going to light a cigarette. "Why would I do that?" I asked. "Well it just seems like you'd do something like that. After this." Instead I grabbed his curly hair. "Don't do that," he protested. "I don't have all that much hair as it is. By the way, I want you to grow your hair out."
"What?" Needless to say when I arrived back in California I never returned his call. He went on to Tatum O'Niel.
Are tennis players obsessed with hair or something?
Speaking of tennis, Anna Kournikova (definitely not to be mistaken for the forty-something, sassy liberal Anna here speaking) has some kind of fantabulous agent working the ropes on her behalf. She has just cut a deal with Amazon.com Apparel selling sexy sports bras (the girl is definitely hot); she has a new gig with a major sports network as sports broadcaster (I see into the crystal ball tennis ratings going up, up, up); and she just recently umpired an exhibition tennis match between Agassi and Roddick. The match from the New York Times:
Andre Agassi, Andy Roddick and Anna Kournikova made a pretty good comedy team yesterday. Agassi and Roddick played each other in a 10-point tie breaker at Arthur Ashe Stadium with Kournikova in the umpire's chair. All had microphones and Kournikova told the players to grunt harder. Then Kornikova's cellphone rang. "Oh, it's John McEnroe," she told them. "He said you're both playing like girls." To which Roddick responded: "Wait a minute. How does John McEnroe have your cell phone number?" In a later exchange, Agassi egged on Roddik by saying, "Let's see what you got, big boy." Roddick pointed to his head and cracked to the bald Agassi, "Hair!" Agassi won by 10-8.
BTW -- I had a fling with McEnroe believe it or not. Even so I wasn't mentioned in his new book 'You Can't Be Serious.' Bastard... I was nineteen working at the Plaza Hotel in New York managing a little boutique called Mark Cross, a fine leather goods' store eventually bought out by Coach. 'Managing' is somewhat of a misnomer given that the only person in the store was myself -- but that was indeed my title at the time. The store was a little cubicle of a thing too small for anyone to feel very comfortable walking into unless they were desperate for a gift. That left me a lot of time to stand outside the store star gazing. Which is how I got kissed in the middle of the Plaza Hotel by Muhammad Ali one day. And how I met John McEnroe. Call it a star-struck thing because McEnroe at the time was a soda-guzzling, burger-hungry obnoxious boy that just happened to be just the thing for a bored nineteen-year-old-regretting-she-had-put-off-college-to-go-work-in-New-York-for-a-year.
He asked me 'after' whether I was going to light a cigarette. "Why would I do that?" I asked. "Well it just seems like you'd do something like that. After this." Instead I grabbed his curly hair. "Don't do that," he protested. "I don't have all that much hair as it is. By the way, I want you to grow your hair out."
"What?" Needless to say when I arrived back in California I never returned his call. He went on to Tatum O'Niel.
Are tennis players obsessed with hair or something?
Friday, August 22, 2003
ICE CREAM UPDATE
Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream is now available in four euphoric organic flavors. Boy am I relieved. Now my body won't go into pesticide/hormone shock the next time I sit down with a pint of chocolate fudge brownie ice cream... One of their tagline reads: "Thanks From the Earth for the Certified Organic Ingredients Cultivated in Environmentally Sustainable Ways." Well that's good. Makes up for the environmentally unsustainable styrofoam cooler that comes with the ice cream if you order it from their website to send to that special someone in your life.
WANT TO KNOW WHERE TO INVEST?
"Food giants are hungry for a slice of the fastest growing segment in the food business. Last year, consumers spent $11 billion on organics, compared to $1.5 billion in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. That’s still barely 1 percent of the nation’s food sales, but it represents several years of near 20 percent growth. In a business where 1 percent growth in any sector is considered good, organic food is the rock star of the food supply." San Francisco Chronicle
Hello organic Cheetos!
Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream is now available in four euphoric organic flavors. Boy am I relieved. Now my body won't go into pesticide/hormone shock the next time I sit down with a pint of chocolate fudge brownie ice cream... One of their tagline reads: "Thanks From the Earth for the Certified Organic Ingredients Cultivated in Environmentally Sustainable Ways." Well that's good. Makes up for the environmentally unsustainable styrofoam cooler that comes with the ice cream if you order it from their website to send to that special someone in your life.
WANT TO KNOW WHERE TO INVEST?
"Food giants are hungry for a slice of the fastest growing segment in the food business. Last year, consumers spent $11 billion on organics, compared to $1.5 billion in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. That’s still barely 1 percent of the nation’s food sales, but it represents several years of near 20 percent growth. In a business where 1 percent growth in any sector is considered good, organic food is the rock star of the food supply." San Francisco Chronicle
Hello organic Cheetos!
Thursday, August 21, 2003
REPAIR AND MAINTENANCE DAY
By 6 a.m. yesterday morning I had brought the husband to the airport so that he could again have the pleasure of flying across an ocean to get to his office. He just recently started at what we hope will be the very last start-up company we'll ever have to do -- another 'great opportunity' that this time happened to be in Europe. Oh please Zeus, Allah, Jesus, Buddah, let this one put us on an island in the Caribbean sipping Campari; we're getting too old for this shit.
The back and forth time-zone-traveling-thing sounds glamorous but in fact is exhausting. And jumpstarting a new company spun off from a multi-billion dollar conglomerate sounds like an exciting challenge unless you've done this enough times already to know all the road blocks you're likely to encounter ahead. The first one has already hit: new executive management team meets wary, feather-ruffled employees bitter that new management has usurped the positions they thought they were going to get. One in particular I am watching closely from the sidelines -- she is a forty-something woman who as far as I am concerned is giving a very bad name to professional women everywhere i.e. she really isn't being mislabled 'bitch' for what would simply be called 'assertative' if a man were to do the same thing; no, she really IS a bitch. Good thing hubby has had so much practice dealing with me all of these years or I might have said he'd met his match.
By 7:30 a.m. yesterday morning I had returned from my airport run in time to get the son to the hospital for a tonsillectmy and septoplasty (our second attempt to straighten out his nose so that he may breathe easier/snore less/someday have a girlfriend who will want to sleep in the same bed with him). It must have been Repair and Maintenance Day because we saw a number of teens waiting his/her turn for an incision of some kind or another. I love how when my son put on the flimsy cotton three-quarter-sleeve bathrobe they handed him, he immediately rolled up the sleeves so it would look cooler. He may be vain but he is also a MAN, I noticed yesterday. Gone are the days when the medical staff would direct information and questions at me. They spoke only to him (especially the nurses: "you sure don't look eighteen..."); I was only somebody there keeping him company before they wheeled him off to the operating room. Cost: $6000+.
By 3 p.m. yesterday afternoon my daughter and I had made it to the oral surgeon's office to get her a full-mouth x-ray. Time to pull the wisdom teeth. She'll get them out next Tuesday thus foiling my plans to have both of my teenagers quiet for a week. Cost $1800. Leave it to entrepreneurial humans to make a killing while we wait for evolution to phase out all of these useless vestiges. I hear the latest is women having 'toe work' done to better fit into pointy-toe stilletos. The good doctor showed us a nice little video which included information about all the risks applicable to only a 'small percentage of patients.' "Nice mouth," he chirped when he checked inside. Which struck my daughter funny and she cracked up. She of course does have a nice mouth thanks to flouride sealants when she was young and bi-yearly check-ups since the age of three. Not one of her pearly white teeth has a cavity, in good part thanks to never having been without health insurance. It's an inexcusable travesty that so many American families are without and it amazes me that people are not more outraged about it; the calls I get from my constituents on a daily basis just sound abjectly resigned rather than angry.
On a cummulative scale, the dog just cost $84 for her annual check-up. Body work on the fender bender my son had at the beginning of the summer $700. Groceries that will last three days: $240. A scheduled trip for my daughter and me to go to Pennsylvania to check out colleges: about $700. Another to trip to Virginia for same purpose: $ditto. And possibly a trip to St. Louis: $ditto. Once we've narrowed in on six college choices, there will be $50-each application fees. The son goes back to college the end of the month: $200 airfare plus stuff he will need for his new dorm/apartment ($300?). And I need my highlights re-touched again, plus a haircut: $200. My daughter does too: $ditto. Upcoming Abercrombie expenditures: $hate to think about it.
Then there is TUITION: $obscene, ROOM AND BOARD: $outrageous. But these colleges aren't stupid. Demand exceeds supply which allows them to charge you a small fortune in order that your child can spend a good chunk of his freshman year puking his beer-marinated guts out. You simply feel so lucky that your child beat out 17,000 other applicants competing for 1600 coveted slots -- one of which your son or daughter just snagged.
I don't know what to say folks. Am I thankful to have the financial freedom to choose all of the above-mentioned commodities? Of course. Do I see something VERY wrong with this picture? Yes. Do I know what to do about it? Well Bush isn't helping. We need someone who has a viable, executable vision for taking care of THIS country and I don't just mean the privileged top 10% of the population. Universal healthcare. The economy. Education. Homeland security. Well-informed, strategic foreign policy.
By 6 a.m. yesterday morning I had brought the husband to the airport so that he could again have the pleasure of flying across an ocean to get to his office. He just recently started at what we hope will be the very last start-up company we'll ever have to do -- another 'great opportunity' that this time happened to be in Europe. Oh please Zeus, Allah, Jesus, Buddah, let this one put us on an island in the Caribbean sipping Campari; we're getting too old for this shit.
The back and forth time-zone-traveling-thing sounds glamorous but in fact is exhausting. And jumpstarting a new company spun off from a multi-billion dollar conglomerate sounds like an exciting challenge unless you've done this enough times already to know all the road blocks you're likely to encounter ahead. The first one has already hit: new executive management team meets wary, feather-ruffled employees bitter that new management has usurped the positions they thought they were going to get. One in particular I am watching closely from the sidelines -- she is a forty-something woman who as far as I am concerned is giving a very bad name to professional women everywhere i.e. she really isn't being mislabled 'bitch' for what would simply be called 'assertative' if a man were to do the same thing; no, she really IS a bitch. Good thing hubby has had so much practice dealing with me all of these years or I might have said he'd met his match.
By 7:30 a.m. yesterday morning I had returned from my airport run in time to get the son to the hospital for a tonsillectmy and septoplasty (our second attempt to straighten out his nose so that he may breathe easier/snore less/someday have a girlfriend who will want to sleep in the same bed with him). It must have been Repair and Maintenance Day because we saw a number of teens waiting his/her turn for an incision of some kind or another. I love how when my son put on the flimsy cotton three-quarter-sleeve bathrobe they handed him, he immediately rolled up the sleeves so it would look cooler. He may be vain but he is also a MAN, I noticed yesterday. Gone are the days when the medical staff would direct information and questions at me. They spoke only to him (especially the nurses: "you sure don't look eighteen..."); I was only somebody there keeping him company before they wheeled him off to the operating room. Cost: $6000+.
By 3 p.m. yesterday afternoon my daughter and I had made it to the oral surgeon's office to get her a full-mouth x-ray. Time to pull the wisdom teeth. She'll get them out next Tuesday thus foiling my plans to have both of my teenagers quiet for a week. Cost $1800. Leave it to entrepreneurial humans to make a killing while we wait for evolution to phase out all of these useless vestiges. I hear the latest is women having 'toe work' done to better fit into pointy-toe stilletos. The good doctor showed us a nice little video which included information about all the risks applicable to only a 'small percentage of patients.' "Nice mouth," he chirped when he checked inside. Which struck my daughter funny and she cracked up. She of course does have a nice mouth thanks to flouride sealants when she was young and bi-yearly check-ups since the age of three. Not one of her pearly white teeth has a cavity, in good part thanks to never having been without health insurance. It's an inexcusable travesty that so many American families are without and it amazes me that people are not more outraged about it; the calls I get from my constituents on a daily basis just sound abjectly resigned rather than angry.
On a cummulative scale, the dog just cost $84 for her annual check-up. Body work on the fender bender my son had at the beginning of the summer $700. Groceries that will last three days: $240. A scheduled trip for my daughter and me to go to Pennsylvania to check out colleges: about $700. Another to trip to Virginia for same purpose: $ditto. And possibly a trip to St. Louis: $ditto. Once we've narrowed in on six college choices, there will be $50-each application fees. The son goes back to college the end of the month: $200 airfare plus stuff he will need for his new dorm/apartment ($300?). And I need my highlights re-touched again, plus a haircut: $200. My daughter does too: $ditto. Upcoming Abercrombie expenditures: $hate to think about it.
Then there is TUITION: $obscene, ROOM AND BOARD: $outrageous. But these colleges aren't stupid. Demand exceeds supply which allows them to charge you a small fortune in order that your child can spend a good chunk of his freshman year puking his beer-marinated guts out. You simply feel so lucky that your child beat out 17,000 other applicants competing for 1600 coveted slots -- one of which your son or daughter just snagged.
I don't know what to say folks. Am I thankful to have the financial freedom to choose all of the above-mentioned commodities? Of course. Do I see something VERY wrong with this picture? Yes. Do I know what to do about it? Well Bush isn't helping. We need someone who has a viable, executable vision for taking care of THIS country and I don't just mean the privileged top 10% of the population. Universal healthcare. The economy. Education. Homeland security. Well-informed, strategic foreign policy.
Sunday, August 17, 2003
SUNDAY MUSINGS
Kicking back on a Sunday morning reading the NY Times and drinking a cup of coffee are right up there with the greater pleasures in life -- at least in my book.
Good thing the east coast blackout didn't occur on a 10-degree-Fahrenheit winter afternoon.... MSN had a very funny headline the day the blackout occured: "Ten Tips From Iraqis on How To Deal With a Blackout." Someone over in the news department has a sense of humor.
Most interesting thought in today's Sunday NY Times came out of the NY Times Magazine section. Walter Kirn talks about what globalization will do to the American middle class i.e. the draining of jobs to cheap-labor countries. He has a great idea that capitilizes on two things that Americans do very well: buying and using products. He says, "Maybe Americans should be paid consumers, retained by China to absorb the output of the factories that closed here and opened there but won't be able to stay in operation unless the American workers who got canned can purchase the things they no longer get paid to make. How about a Marshall Plan for Cleveland financed by Beijing?" Now that is a great idea.
The NY Times SundayStyles section had an amusing article about spoiled pets in the Hamptons (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/17/fashion/17PETS.html?8br) -- where dogs are treated to doggy camps, doggy play dates, baskets of toys inner city kids could only dream of, and a guy who writes out prescriptions for Clomicalm (antianxiety medication) from his van with a license plate that reads K9SHRINK. And out on the west coast where I come from? Try dog spas, acupuncture, and a cabinet full of vitamin supplements equal to the GNP of many a developing nation. Someone out there knows who I am talking about, right?
Also in the SundayStyles section was the Sunday selection of smiling NY couples en route to the altar (after which statistically 50% will be headed to the divorce courts). I remember a few months ago the big flap from the right (I think Ann Coulter led the charge) about the newspaper's new policy to also feature gay couples. I am frankly more concerned about all of the heterosexual couples who seem to be subconsciously choosing mates that look like they could be their brother or sister... It's positively creepy.
There were some glossy furniture ads that caught my attention enough that I just checked out their websites (I'm dreaming of deck furniture for the deck, and a new couch for the living room in my dream house that exists only in my head). The Stickley furniture website gets the Anna's Bloviations Award for smart, cost-saving, and environmentally friendly advertising/marketing. You can now download their catalogue as a pdf file (they probably figure that most people who can afford Stickley furniture will also have a color printer). I would only recommend further that they start using Zinio, software that gives you the same look and feel of reading a hardcopy print magazine or catalogue on your desktop.
Pay-back is a bitch i.e. the mountain of life that awaits you when you return home from a week-long trip. At least the house wasn't destroyed by my teenagers and the dog was still alive, so I have that to be thankful for. I know my nineteen-year-old didn't have a party here while we were gone because he has never once been able to cover up his tell-tale tracks well (bottle caps under the couch, sticky floor, beer rings on the glass table, etc., etc.). My daughter may have had a party but I have no conclusive evidence to prove that this was the case. I only found it odd that the upstairs toilet seat has suddenly become loose as if someone had been supporting him/herself by their forearms as they retched into the toilet. There were also a few streaks of hardened 'something' on the outside bowl that may or may not have been traces of vomit. Perhaps I am being unduly suspicious. The only reason I know about the icky stuff around the toilet bowl is that I had a sudden urge to clean the house top to bottom after I got back from London. I hope that this random act was just that and not some foreshawdowing of pre-menopausal hormonal spikes to come (how else to explain such erratic behavior). I was like a cleaning machine gone hay-wire -- cleaning crevices of the house no man or woman had been before (certainly my cleaning woman had not been there before). It was as if an obsessive compulsive space alien had invaded my body. I even dragged out all of the Oriental rugs, heaved them over the porch bannister, and beat out large quantities of dust and sand with an old tennis racquet.
An even better way to clean an Oriental rug is to take it out in the winter after there has been a dusting of fresh dry snow. You lay the rug out flat onto the snow and beat the back with a broom or tennis racquet. All the dirt and pet hair sticks to the snow (as opposed to ending up in your nostrils and lungs). I learned that from my days living in Austria years ago. The women in the apartment building where we lived were determined to make a good Austrian housewife out of me, and properly beating a rug was one of the many useful things they showed me how to do. First they had to scold me for rolling up my rug and dropping it like a dead body from my fifth floor window onto the snowy ground below (I just thought it would be easier than lugging it down five flights of stairs). But apparently throwing the rug out the window wasn't allowed.... I give them a lot of credit for taking on such a hopeless case as me. And I guess all of these years later, a few things sunk in after all, including a lifelong fondness for ironing. I still owe a story on that one...
Kicking back on a Sunday morning reading the NY Times and drinking a cup of coffee are right up there with the greater pleasures in life -- at least in my book.
Good thing the east coast blackout didn't occur on a 10-degree-Fahrenheit winter afternoon.... MSN had a very funny headline the day the blackout occured: "Ten Tips From Iraqis on How To Deal With a Blackout." Someone over in the news department has a sense of humor.
Most interesting thought in today's Sunday NY Times came out of the NY Times Magazine section. Walter Kirn talks about what globalization will do to the American middle class i.e. the draining of jobs to cheap-labor countries. He has a great idea that capitilizes on two things that Americans do very well: buying and using products. He says, "Maybe Americans should be paid consumers, retained by China to absorb the output of the factories that closed here and opened there but won't be able to stay in operation unless the American workers who got canned can purchase the things they no longer get paid to make. How about a Marshall Plan for Cleveland financed by Beijing?" Now that is a great idea.
The NY Times SundayStyles section had an amusing article about spoiled pets in the Hamptons (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/17/fashion/17PETS.html?8br) -- where dogs are treated to doggy camps, doggy play dates, baskets of toys inner city kids could only dream of, and a guy who writes out prescriptions for Clomicalm (antianxiety medication) from his van with a license plate that reads K9SHRINK. And out on the west coast where I come from? Try dog spas, acupuncture, and a cabinet full of vitamin supplements equal to the GNP of many a developing nation. Someone out there knows who I am talking about, right?
Also in the SundayStyles section was the Sunday selection of smiling NY couples en route to the altar (after which statistically 50% will be headed to the divorce courts). I remember a few months ago the big flap from the right (I think Ann Coulter led the charge) about the newspaper's new policy to also feature gay couples. I am frankly more concerned about all of the heterosexual couples who seem to be subconsciously choosing mates that look like they could be their brother or sister... It's positively creepy.
There were some glossy furniture ads that caught my attention enough that I just checked out their websites (I'm dreaming of deck furniture for the deck, and a new couch for the living room in my dream house that exists only in my head). The Stickley furniture website gets the Anna's Bloviations Award for smart, cost-saving, and environmentally friendly advertising/marketing. You can now download their catalogue as a pdf file (they probably figure that most people who can afford Stickley furniture will also have a color printer). I would only recommend further that they start using Zinio, software that gives you the same look and feel of reading a hardcopy print magazine or catalogue on your desktop.
Pay-back is a bitch i.e. the mountain of life that awaits you when you return home from a week-long trip. At least the house wasn't destroyed by my teenagers and the dog was still alive, so I have that to be thankful for. I know my nineteen-year-old didn't have a party here while we were gone because he has never once been able to cover up his tell-tale tracks well (bottle caps under the couch, sticky floor, beer rings on the glass table, etc., etc.). My daughter may have had a party but I have no conclusive evidence to prove that this was the case. I only found it odd that the upstairs toilet seat has suddenly become loose as if someone had been supporting him/herself by their forearms as they retched into the toilet. There were also a few streaks of hardened 'something' on the outside bowl that may or may not have been traces of vomit. Perhaps I am being unduly suspicious. The only reason I know about the icky stuff around the toilet bowl is that I had a sudden urge to clean the house top to bottom after I got back from London. I hope that this random act was just that and not some foreshawdowing of pre-menopausal hormonal spikes to come (how else to explain such erratic behavior). I was like a cleaning machine gone hay-wire -- cleaning crevices of the house no man or woman had been before (certainly my cleaning woman had not been there before). It was as if an obsessive compulsive space alien had invaded my body. I even dragged out all of the Oriental rugs, heaved them over the porch bannister, and beat out large quantities of dust and sand with an old tennis racquet.
An even better way to clean an Oriental rug is to take it out in the winter after there has been a dusting of fresh dry snow. You lay the rug out flat onto the snow and beat the back with a broom or tennis racquet. All the dirt and pet hair sticks to the snow (as opposed to ending up in your nostrils and lungs). I learned that from my days living in Austria years ago. The women in the apartment building where we lived were determined to make a good Austrian housewife out of me, and properly beating a rug was one of the many useful things they showed me how to do. First they had to scold me for rolling up my rug and dropping it like a dead body from my fifth floor window onto the snowy ground below (I just thought it would be easier than lugging it down five flights of stairs). But apparently throwing the rug out the window wasn't allowed.... I give them a lot of credit for taking on such a hopeless case as me. And I guess all of these years later, a few things sunk in after all, including a lifelong fondness for ironing. I still owe a story on that one...
Thursday, August 14, 2003
LONDON AT 100 DEGREES (Summer 2003 review)
London was sizzling, record-breaking hot. But no complaining. I was a trooper and have the blisters from walking all over the place to prove it. Poor air quality was also record breaking -- with daily weather advisories warning people to JUST STAY INDOORS. Judging from the odorous sea of sweating tourists jockying for pictures of Big Ben, I don't think many heeded the advice. I figure in my walking around London’s midday, ozone-thin toxic haze for six days, I have probably managed to fast-forward my skin’s inevitable quest towards raisinhood by about five years. And I can now boast having Marlboro-Man lungs to boot.
THE UBIQUOUTOUS. London’s eye catching red telephone booth – not one of which I ever saw occupied the entire week I was there -- thanks to the even more ubiquitous cell phone. Someone needs to come up with a new purpose for these lonely red relics!
Double-Decker’s are still around although half of the fleet has morphed into sawed-off tour buses to accommodate hoards of sun-thirsty tourists too young to remember London’s pre-global-warming days when the city was actually known for rain and fog – not scorching heat.
The ever elegant London taxis, with their rounded rumps and black exteriors, are going rainbow! Sort of. Hunter green and deep burgundy are popular colors now. Or there are also a small percentage of drivers who are getting their cars painted bumper-to-bumper ad copy e.g. London Financial Times pink, or Laura Ashcroft’s red lips splashed on the door promoting Tomb Raider. Want to make a unique car statement in the States? Contact Car Bodies in Coventry, England and for about $55K (doesn’t include shipping), one of those very adorable cars can be yours. http://www.taxi-l.org/tx1.htm
Starbucks are everywhere and during the heat wave I was very thankful for them too. Deep freeze temperatures in every one thank you. But what’s up with the new phallic cups? Or maybe in the guy’s subconscious, they’re boobs? Whatever. Filled with an iced mocha-colored espresso latte, a straw stuck in the round hole in the middle of its clear domed top, there is definitely something sexually subliminal going on. Hubby thinks I’m crazy i.e. the domed top is just to make the customer think he is getting more and keeps the whipped cream from getting squished. Yeah right. I don’t believe for a minute that those Starbuck’s marketing folks didn't think about all this stuff when they talked about launching a new worldwide design for their summer drinks campaign. Just go buy an iced latte today and you’ll see what I mean. When did all of humanity take to nursing water bottles and suckling on straws in public all the time anyway? There is a doctor’s thesis in there somewhere…
CLOSED DURING THE DAY. London’s Eye, a huge Ferris wheel of sorts that offers panoramic views of the skyline, had to be closed all week. “Gee honey. It’s 100 degrees out. Let’s climb into a clear plexi-glass pod for half an hour until the kids get fried a nice shrimp-pink and fall over from heat exhaustion...” http://www.cityeventsonline.com/eye1.htm?afid=dhtd1
FASHION EYE SORES. For such a cosmopolitan city, London’s 2003 summer fashion was abysmal occasioned by a good-looking anomaly now and again. I think we all pretty much have the visual of the super-sized American tourist: white Nike sneakers and white Nike socks incredulously supporting 300+ pounds of congealed fat on which somewhere dangles a camera. Enough said other than that is most assuredly not a pretty sight in hot weather. Let’s move on. The English, French, and Eastern European men this summer were sporting the Robinson Crusoe stranded-on-an-island look replete with frayed Capri pants and hoop earrings. Thanks to the heat, they also had the, I’m-dying-of-thirst-on-my –stranded-island look too. The Italians are all sticking with their cornered niche on fashion: tight-fitting expensive short-sleeve t-shirt tucked into black cigarette pants cinched by expensive leather belt. And over-cool sunglasses.
The women were an utter disappointment. Turns out if you forget to stand up straight and suck in your stomach, those too-tight tank tops even make thin women look flabby (I’ll have to remember that). The Italian and African women saved the day somewhat – not because what they were wearing was that exceptional but because their graceful carriage lends itself to anything looking good on them, including probably, a burlap bag. Which leads me to a tip for American women: don’t bother spending a lot of money on an outfit if you’re going to walk like you’re trudging across a Prairie trail…
MUSEUM HEIST POTENTIAL. Next to the London Eye is the County Hall Museum which houses a really superb Salvador Dali exhibit – a rare collection of sculpture, etchings, lithographs, jewelry, glassware, and watercolors. I’m no thief but I do have an imagination. While resting from the heat for a bit (again no A.C.), I started to case the joint. OK, no security guards anywhere. The exhibit is situated on the first floor, about a five-foot jump from any one of the numerous gaping-open-wide windows facing the street below. Even if there was a surveillance camera I didn’t see, so what? With a convincing wig, quick hands, and good shock-absorbent knees, you could bag three or four of Dali’s watercolors in seconds, jump out the window, and be off in your get-away car. What you would then do afterwards I do not know.
BRITISH MUSEUM. Speaking of stolen goods, the British Museum has quite an impressive collection of plundered Egyptian artifacts including the Rosetta Stone. The visit to this museum as well as my visit to the National Portrait Gallery was in lieu of a visit to London’s hot-ticket Saatchi Museum; I just couldn’t bring myself to pay to see pickled sheep.
SOLD OUT. Manchester United David Beckham soccer jerseys Nr. 7 (I got the last one [for my son]).
HAD THE DOLLAR BEEN HIGHER. And me about twenty years younger, I would have liked a Tanner Krolle handbag. Originally an English saddle maker, Krolle has retro-fitted its business model to the 21st Century and now produces very beautiful luxury leather attaché cases, jewelry boxes, and handbags in attractive zippy colors. Maybe when my daughter turns eighteen I’ll get her one…
THEATER. Noises Off – a farcical funny play that’ll make you laugh a lot in a slapstick kind of way but won’t change your life one iota for having seen it other than you’ll be $70 poorer afterwards and a lot sweatier (no A.C.) if you happen to be in London during a heat wave. Prepare to have your pants or skirt sticking to your back upon exiting and under no circumstances wear linen (or risk looking like a walking accordion).
GOOD RESTAURANT. Quillon Restaurant at 41 Buckingham Gate, Tel 020 7821 1899. Just go. It’s very good Indian. But again no A.C. It’s a romantic setting particularly if you like your mate perspiring profusely throughout dinner.
IN THE NEWS. The Hutton Inquiry (David Kelly’s suicide). The Heat Wave. Fires in Portugal. Arnold Shwarzenegger...(the jokes are already coming in on that one what with my Schwarzenegger-esque Austrian husband...)
HALLMARK MOMENT. The elderly English couple having a picnic way down on the Thames, far from the tourists. He in a pale yellow short-sleeve dress shirt and brown slacks. She in a button down pink A-Line dress and sensible walking shoes. Between them on the bench a navy blue canvas bag – one which looked like it had shared many a picnic with them. She was taking out sandwiches wrapped in wax paper while he poured into small cups from a matching navy blue thermos (tea perhaps?). They each had magnificent white hair -- his parted on the side and styled a little longer the way English men seem to prefer. Hers swept up neatly in a bun. Judging by the lines on their faces, they looked like they had enjoyed a pleasant life together. Very quaint. Very nostalgic English.
London was sizzling, record-breaking hot. But no complaining. I was a trooper and have the blisters from walking all over the place to prove it. Poor air quality was also record breaking -- with daily weather advisories warning people to JUST STAY INDOORS. Judging from the odorous sea of sweating tourists jockying for pictures of Big Ben, I don't think many heeded the advice. I figure in my walking around London’s midday, ozone-thin toxic haze for six days, I have probably managed to fast-forward my skin’s inevitable quest towards raisinhood by about five years. And I can now boast having Marlboro-Man lungs to boot.
THE UBIQUOUTOUS. London’s eye catching red telephone booth – not one of which I ever saw occupied the entire week I was there -- thanks to the even more ubiquitous cell phone. Someone needs to come up with a new purpose for these lonely red relics!
Double-Decker’s are still around although half of the fleet has morphed into sawed-off tour buses to accommodate hoards of sun-thirsty tourists too young to remember London’s pre-global-warming days when the city was actually known for rain and fog – not scorching heat.
The ever elegant London taxis, with their rounded rumps and black exteriors, are going rainbow! Sort of. Hunter green and deep burgundy are popular colors now. Or there are also a small percentage of drivers who are getting their cars painted bumper-to-bumper ad copy e.g. London Financial Times pink, or Laura Ashcroft’s red lips splashed on the door promoting Tomb Raider. Want to make a unique car statement in the States? Contact Car Bodies in Coventry, England and for about $55K (doesn’t include shipping), one of those very adorable cars can be yours. http://www.taxi-l.org/tx1.htm
Starbucks are everywhere and during the heat wave I was very thankful for them too. Deep freeze temperatures in every one thank you. But what’s up with the new phallic cups? Or maybe in the guy’s subconscious, they’re boobs? Whatever. Filled with an iced mocha-colored espresso latte, a straw stuck in the round hole in the middle of its clear domed top, there is definitely something sexually subliminal going on. Hubby thinks I’m crazy i.e. the domed top is just to make the customer think he is getting more and keeps the whipped cream from getting squished. Yeah right. I don’t believe for a minute that those Starbuck’s marketing folks didn't think about all this stuff when they talked about launching a new worldwide design for their summer drinks campaign. Just go buy an iced latte today and you’ll see what I mean. When did all of humanity take to nursing water bottles and suckling on straws in public all the time anyway? There is a doctor’s thesis in there somewhere…
CLOSED DURING THE DAY. London’s Eye, a huge Ferris wheel of sorts that offers panoramic views of the skyline, had to be closed all week. “Gee honey. It’s 100 degrees out. Let’s climb into a clear plexi-glass pod for half an hour until the kids get fried a nice shrimp-pink and fall over from heat exhaustion...” http://www.cityeventsonline.com/eye1.htm?afid=dhtd1
FASHION EYE SORES. For such a cosmopolitan city, London’s 2003 summer fashion was abysmal occasioned by a good-looking anomaly now and again. I think we all pretty much have the visual of the super-sized American tourist: white Nike sneakers and white Nike socks incredulously supporting 300+ pounds of congealed fat on which somewhere dangles a camera. Enough said other than that is most assuredly not a pretty sight in hot weather. Let’s move on. The English, French, and Eastern European men this summer were sporting the Robinson Crusoe stranded-on-an-island look replete with frayed Capri pants and hoop earrings. Thanks to the heat, they also had the, I’m-dying-of-thirst-on-my –stranded-island look too. The Italians are all sticking with their cornered niche on fashion: tight-fitting expensive short-sleeve t-shirt tucked into black cigarette pants cinched by expensive leather belt. And over-cool sunglasses.
The women were an utter disappointment. Turns out if you forget to stand up straight and suck in your stomach, those too-tight tank tops even make thin women look flabby (I’ll have to remember that). The Italian and African women saved the day somewhat – not because what they were wearing was that exceptional but because their graceful carriage lends itself to anything looking good on them, including probably, a burlap bag. Which leads me to a tip for American women: don’t bother spending a lot of money on an outfit if you’re going to walk like you’re trudging across a Prairie trail…
MUSEUM HEIST POTENTIAL. Next to the London Eye is the County Hall Museum which houses a really superb Salvador Dali exhibit – a rare collection of sculpture, etchings, lithographs, jewelry, glassware, and watercolors. I’m no thief but I do have an imagination. While resting from the heat for a bit (again no A.C.), I started to case the joint. OK, no security guards anywhere. The exhibit is situated on the first floor, about a five-foot jump from any one of the numerous gaping-open-wide windows facing the street below. Even if there was a surveillance camera I didn’t see, so what? With a convincing wig, quick hands, and good shock-absorbent knees, you could bag three or four of Dali’s watercolors in seconds, jump out the window, and be off in your get-away car. What you would then do afterwards I do not know.
BRITISH MUSEUM. Speaking of stolen goods, the British Museum has quite an impressive collection of plundered Egyptian artifacts including the Rosetta Stone. The visit to this museum as well as my visit to the National Portrait Gallery was in lieu of a visit to London’s hot-ticket Saatchi Museum; I just couldn’t bring myself to pay to see pickled sheep.
SOLD OUT. Manchester United David Beckham soccer jerseys Nr. 7 (I got the last one [for my son]).
HAD THE DOLLAR BEEN HIGHER. And me about twenty years younger, I would have liked a Tanner Krolle handbag. Originally an English saddle maker, Krolle has retro-fitted its business model to the 21st Century and now produces very beautiful luxury leather attaché cases, jewelry boxes, and handbags in attractive zippy colors. Maybe when my daughter turns eighteen I’ll get her one…
THEATER. Noises Off – a farcical funny play that’ll make you laugh a lot in a slapstick kind of way but won’t change your life one iota for having seen it other than you’ll be $70 poorer afterwards and a lot sweatier (no A.C.) if you happen to be in London during a heat wave. Prepare to have your pants or skirt sticking to your back upon exiting and under no circumstances wear linen (or risk looking like a walking accordion).
GOOD RESTAURANT. Quillon Restaurant at 41 Buckingham Gate, Tel 020 7821 1899. Just go. It’s very good Indian. But again no A.C. It’s a romantic setting particularly if you like your mate perspiring profusely throughout dinner.
IN THE NEWS. The Hutton Inquiry (David Kelly’s suicide). The Heat Wave. Fires in Portugal. Arnold Shwarzenegger...(the jokes are already coming in on that one what with my Schwarzenegger-esque Austrian husband...)
HALLMARK MOMENT. The elderly English couple having a picnic way down on the Thames, far from the tourists. He in a pale yellow short-sleeve dress shirt and brown slacks. She in a button down pink A-Line dress and sensible walking shoes. Between them on the bench a navy blue canvas bag – one which looked like it had shared many a picnic with them. She was taking out sandwiches wrapped in wax paper while he poured into small cups from a matching navy blue thermos (tea perhaps?). They each had magnificent white hair -- his parted on the side and styled a little longer the way English men seem to prefer. Hers swept up neatly in a bun. Judging by the lines on their faces, they looked like they had enjoyed a pleasant life together. Very quaint. Very nostalgic English.
Thursday, August 07, 2003
Bye,bye. Boppin' with big bird to Britian to bloviate with brainy Blair. Beautiful.
Tuesday, August 05, 2003
This is my first summer as government employee working at the State House. It is molasses slow. At least on the House side it is; the corridors echo ever so quietly with the footsteps of the few-and-far-between. It’s a strange feeling because for all ostensive purposes NOBODY, if I put my mind to it, would ever know whether I was at work or not (my boss is gone for a month and my co-worker on vacation). Except for maybe Fritz.
Fritz is a rather adorable guy I’ve become very, very fond of. He tends to pop into my office unexpectedly; sometimes he is so fast he startles me and then I startle him and then he runs out again. He’s quick on his feet and except for a nervous twitch of his nose, is an all in all very attractive mouse.
I’m negotiating with him to keep quiet about the fact that I will be going to London for a week this Thursday. “Haven’t I helped those two families get housing, Fritz?” And what about that job recommendation I wrote, and that big school event I lined up for the fall?” He drives a hard bargain but I think I may have clinched a deal with him. He’ll get a few extra leftover crumbs from my all-time favorite sandwich place and while I’m gone, he’ll go over and hang out in the ‘scary’ offices so he doesn’t go hungry.
The scary offices are located in the windowless section of the basement (as opposed to the basement with windows where I work). Most people avoid going down there at all costs. Not even the mice like it down there. But if you happen to be the PR person who needs to get a digital picture copied onto a CD so that you can send your press release out on time to the papers, down you must go.
I’m no IT girl here (tech support), but I would THINK that it would have made a whole lot of sense to have given the state photographers access to email so that when they upgraded to digital photography, they could have emailed the respective jpg. photo to the office that had requested it, rather than everyone having to trudge down to the State House photographers' cave in the basement. But why do things simply when you can make them complicated?
No to the bowels of the building you must descend, CD in hand, expecting at any moment a troll to jump out at you from around some dark corner. There is a receptionist down there -- an elderly lady whose job description seems to be to play solitaire on the computer all day. She is as pasty and pale as you could ever imagine a state employee to be and I don’t mean I-finally-figured-out-the-sun-isn’t-good-for-you hip pale -- I mean doughy and sallow from years of sitting at a desk letting your mind and body atrophy. I’m actually not entirely sure she isn’t dead.
The two state photographers are tucked away in a windowless closet slammed shut by a solid wooden door with a sign outside saying Please Knock. Honoring the Please Knock sign is a courtesy gesture that allows them to extinguish their cigarettes before you walk in. If you make the mistake of entering without knocking, then suddenly they can’t find the picture you had just called to say you would be down to get and then ask would you mind coming back later. At which point you cough out a groveling apology through the nicotine shroud making its way into your gym-healthy lungs.
I’m looking forward to my trip to the other side of the pond. It’s supposed to be pleasant dry weather in the eighties all week in London. I could use some fresh air and I want to finish my Jonathan Franzen book, Corrections (which I could just as easily be reading while sitting in my office but I don’t). I am only about a third of the way through but so far I have to say it is a pretty depressing book – full of dysfunctional individuals extraordinaire. I also have my new Atlantic Monthly magazine to take with me for the plane. And packed deep into my suitcase underneath my underwear and socks will be the Ann Coulter book, Treason, which I promised Bandit I would try to digest… I mean read. No thine enemy so to speak. “Oops! I can’t imagine how it fell into the Thames…”
BTW, I went with a girlfriend to see the animated movie NEMO. What a colorful and imaginative piece of work. PIXAR studios has really elevated animation to a whole new level -- amazing and vibrant backdrops that frame characters that you can relate to. They remind you of people you know. And cleverly, PIXAR drops in just enough stuff for the grown-ups to smile at -- like the seagull scene in NEMO that definitely was plucked from the old Alfred Hitchcock movie, The Birds. Marlin, the clown fish worried sick about the evils of the sea and his lost son reminded me and my friend so much of a mutual friend of ours that at one point we looked at each other and at the same time yelled his name! It's Cream Puff!!! (I'm using his nickname to hide his identity). Kudos to PIXAR, and damn there goes another company I didn’t have stock options with early on…
Fritz is a rather adorable guy I’ve become very, very fond of. He tends to pop into my office unexpectedly; sometimes he is so fast he startles me and then I startle him and then he runs out again. He’s quick on his feet and except for a nervous twitch of his nose, is an all in all very attractive mouse.
I’m negotiating with him to keep quiet about the fact that I will be going to London for a week this Thursday. “Haven’t I helped those two families get housing, Fritz?” And what about that job recommendation I wrote, and that big school event I lined up for the fall?” He drives a hard bargain but I think I may have clinched a deal with him. He’ll get a few extra leftover crumbs from my all-time favorite sandwich place and while I’m gone, he’ll go over and hang out in the ‘scary’ offices so he doesn’t go hungry.
The scary offices are located in the windowless section of the basement (as opposed to the basement with windows where I work). Most people avoid going down there at all costs. Not even the mice like it down there. But if you happen to be the PR person who needs to get a digital picture copied onto a CD so that you can send your press release out on time to the papers, down you must go.
I’m no IT girl here (tech support), but I would THINK that it would have made a whole lot of sense to have given the state photographers access to email so that when they upgraded to digital photography, they could have emailed the respective jpg. photo to the office that had requested it, rather than everyone having to trudge down to the State House photographers' cave in the basement. But why do things simply when you can make them complicated?
No to the bowels of the building you must descend, CD in hand, expecting at any moment a troll to jump out at you from around some dark corner. There is a receptionist down there -- an elderly lady whose job description seems to be to play solitaire on the computer all day. She is as pasty and pale as you could ever imagine a state employee to be and I don’t mean I-finally-figured-out-the-sun-isn’t-good-for-you hip pale -- I mean doughy and sallow from years of sitting at a desk letting your mind and body atrophy. I’m actually not entirely sure she isn’t dead.
The two state photographers are tucked away in a windowless closet slammed shut by a solid wooden door with a sign outside saying Please Knock. Honoring the Please Knock sign is a courtesy gesture that allows them to extinguish their cigarettes before you walk in. If you make the mistake of entering without knocking, then suddenly they can’t find the picture you had just called to say you would be down to get and then ask would you mind coming back later. At which point you cough out a groveling apology through the nicotine shroud making its way into your gym-healthy lungs.
I’m looking forward to my trip to the other side of the pond. It’s supposed to be pleasant dry weather in the eighties all week in London. I could use some fresh air and I want to finish my Jonathan Franzen book, Corrections (which I could just as easily be reading while sitting in my office but I don’t). I am only about a third of the way through but so far I have to say it is a pretty depressing book – full of dysfunctional individuals extraordinaire. I also have my new Atlantic Monthly magazine to take with me for the plane. And packed deep into my suitcase underneath my underwear and socks will be the Ann Coulter book, Treason, which I promised Bandit I would try to digest… I mean read. No thine enemy so to speak. “Oops! I can’t imagine how it fell into the Thames…”
BTW, I went with a girlfriend to see the animated movie NEMO. What a colorful and imaginative piece of work. PIXAR studios has really elevated animation to a whole new level -- amazing and vibrant backdrops that frame characters that you can relate to. They remind you of people you know. And cleverly, PIXAR drops in just enough stuff for the grown-ups to smile at -- like the seagull scene in NEMO that definitely was plucked from the old Alfred Hitchcock movie, The Birds. Marlin, the clown fish worried sick about the evils of the sea and his lost son reminded me and my friend so much of a mutual friend of ours that at one point we looked at each other and at the same time yelled his name! It's Cream Puff!!! (I'm using his nickname to hide his identity). Kudos to PIXAR, and damn there goes another company I didn’t have stock options with early on…
Monday, August 04, 2003
Religion is my weakest link. Well, that's not true actually. I'd be skating on thin ice if I had to hold a conversation very long on the subject of Quantum Physics, Calculus, Astronomy, or Eastern Civilizations. Oh all right -- there might quite possibly be a couple of other subjects I couldn't hold ground on for very long...
But while I might not know my Allah from Adam, I have no qualms about weighing in on religion. I figure until there is proof in the pudding -- and I don't mean an apparition of Jesus showing up on a window of some high school (there are scientific explanations for that) -- my beliefs are as good as anybody else's.
I personally think the agnostic route is really the way to go; I'm hedging my bets that there is 'something' out there, although what or who I do not know. So while others fondle their rosary beads, or meditate about the eightfold path, I have been busy writing out appropriate meet-my-maker(s) flash cards to have ready when I stand before the gates and need to know the password to get in. I am not too particular who the maker should be although I admit I am a little partial to mythology; I will have absolutely no problem assuming my rightful and well-practiced place as Goddess. I picture Zeus greeting me at the doors. "Heh there Zeus!" I'll say. "Whoa, so you're the man! I never doubted for a MOMENT that you were the man!" Then Zeus will say to me, "Anna girl, come RIGHT on in. I watched during your years as a mortal how well you honed your goddess skills and I think I have the perfect position for you... here let me show you to your throne."
Plus we agnostics are incredibly peaceful and accepting creatures. You don't see us hurling stones at a group of Catholics who want simply to march up a street for god's sake. Heh, and if my son wants to date a Jewish princess from Rhode Island, great! I love matzo balls. I mean what is up with all of these Catholics, Protestants, Hindus, Shiites, Muslims, Judaists, beating the holy shit out of each other in the name of their God or a scrap of god-forsaken land promised to them thousands of years ago by some mistranslated piece of scripture?
Some of these religious groups just really need to lighten up. Especially the one's that take every word written in their scriptures verbatim. Like I think it would be very useful if every religious fanatic were forced to play the game 'telephone.’ Anyone who has played this game as a kid knows that the original message that you whisper to the person sitting next to you is going to end up a hilarious garbled rendition by the time it is whispered to the last person sitting in the circle: What starts out as 'Jamey is Wearing a Plaid Shirt', ends up 'Amy is Swearing in a Pasture.’ Plain and simple, words get misheard and misinterpreted all the time, sometimes by accident, sometimes by design. Maybe a lightbulb would go off in their heads...
Take what just happened to the Muslims recently. According to a renowned scholar in Luxemburg, what may actually have been meant by seventy-two buxom doe-eyed virgins ("houris") waiting for them in the afterworld is in fact a bunch of "white raisins" and "juicy fruits!" Great for the digestive tract but not much else. No wonder the scholar who just published this finding is using a pseudonym... If I knew that all that awaited my blown-up remains were a bowl of wrinkled raisins and a glass of apple juice, I'd be pissed too! Now see if they had played the game telephone they might have been less inclined to be so gullible (oh boy, did I just hear someone say fatwa).
Or how about my translation yesterday of that German text as an example? My German is pretty good and I would say that the translation I gave was pretty accurate. But not 100%. Where I wrote “titillating erotic short stories,” the literal translation would have been “tingling erotic short stories.” Now if we just think for a moment about how the stories in the bible and in the Koran have been passed down through the CENTURIES, and then imagine what a few mischievous people like me could do with just one well-placed teeny tiny liberty with the translation….
Heh maybe, as one email joke that gets circulated quite a bit speculates, it wasn’t 'celibacy ' but 'celebrate ' after all!
But while I might not know my Allah from Adam, I have no qualms about weighing in on religion. I figure until there is proof in the pudding -- and I don't mean an apparition of Jesus showing up on a window of some high school (there are scientific explanations for that) -- my beliefs are as good as anybody else's.
I personally think the agnostic route is really the way to go; I'm hedging my bets that there is 'something' out there, although what or who I do not know. So while others fondle their rosary beads, or meditate about the eightfold path, I have been busy writing out appropriate meet-my-maker(s) flash cards to have ready when I stand before the gates and need to know the password to get in. I am not too particular who the maker should be although I admit I am a little partial to mythology; I will have absolutely no problem assuming my rightful and well-practiced place as Goddess. I picture Zeus greeting me at the doors. "Heh there Zeus!" I'll say. "Whoa, so you're the man! I never doubted for a MOMENT that you were the man!" Then Zeus will say to me, "Anna girl, come RIGHT on in. I watched during your years as a mortal how well you honed your goddess skills and I think I have the perfect position for you... here let me show you to your throne."
Plus we agnostics are incredibly peaceful and accepting creatures. You don't see us hurling stones at a group of Catholics who want simply to march up a street for god's sake. Heh, and if my son wants to date a Jewish princess from Rhode Island, great! I love matzo balls. I mean what is up with all of these Catholics, Protestants, Hindus, Shiites, Muslims, Judaists, beating the holy shit out of each other in the name of their God or a scrap of god-forsaken land promised to them thousands of years ago by some mistranslated piece of scripture?
Some of these religious groups just really need to lighten up. Especially the one's that take every word written in their scriptures verbatim. Like I think it would be very useful if every religious fanatic were forced to play the game 'telephone.’ Anyone who has played this game as a kid knows that the original message that you whisper to the person sitting next to you is going to end up a hilarious garbled rendition by the time it is whispered to the last person sitting in the circle: What starts out as 'Jamey is Wearing a Plaid Shirt', ends up 'Amy is Swearing in a Pasture.’ Plain and simple, words get misheard and misinterpreted all the time, sometimes by accident, sometimes by design. Maybe a lightbulb would go off in their heads...
Take what just happened to the Muslims recently. According to a renowned scholar in Luxemburg, what may actually have been meant by seventy-two buxom doe-eyed virgins ("houris") waiting for them in the afterworld is in fact a bunch of "white raisins" and "juicy fruits!" Great for the digestive tract but not much else. No wonder the scholar who just published this finding is using a pseudonym... If I knew that all that awaited my blown-up remains were a bowl of wrinkled raisins and a glass of apple juice, I'd be pissed too! Now see if they had played the game telephone they might have been less inclined to be so gullible (oh boy, did I just hear someone say fatwa).
Or how about my translation yesterday of that German text as an example? My German is pretty good and I would say that the translation I gave was pretty accurate. But not 100%. Where I wrote “titillating erotic short stories,” the literal translation would have been “tingling erotic short stories.” Now if we just think for a moment about how the stories in the bible and in the Koran have been passed down through the CENTURIES, and then imagine what a few mischievous people like me could do with just one well-placed teeny tiny liberty with the translation….
Heh maybe, as one email joke that gets circulated quite a bit speculates, it wasn’t 'celibacy ' but 'celebrate ' after all!
Sunday, August 03, 2003
Heh here's a German blog post I came across -- somebody from Germany flexing their blog fingers for the first time. Let's see if my German is still any good and I can translate it for you (my translation follows the string of impossibly long looking words strung together almost entirely by consonants):
Zu Beginn
Warum ich ausgerechnet ein Weblog schreibe, ist mir selbst auch ein wenig ein Raetsel. Der wohl typische deutsche Weblog-Verfasser ist 23, weiblich, hat leichtes Uebergewicht, eine Brille, Beziehungsprobleme, 2 Katzen und ist fest davon ueberzeugt, literarisches Talent zu besitzen, das aber ausser ihm noch nie jemand bemerkt hat. Wie auch nur - man hatte ja noch nie etwas veroeffentlicht! Also beginnt man zu schreiben, in sein eigenes kleines Weblog, das gibt's ja kostenlos und ausserdem kann man es auch waehrend der Arbeitszeit erledigen. Ist ganz einfach. Man beginnt den Beitrag mit ein oder zwei Saetzen ueber seine Kaetzchen ("ich koennte sie den ganzen tag knuddeln"), schreibt dann ein wenig ueber den doofen Freund ("ich koennte ihn den ganzen tag NICHT knuddeln") und beendet das Ganze dann mit irgendwas, Hauptsache uninteressant ("den ganzen abend gemuetlich ferngesehen.") Und wichtig: alles klein schreiben - das ist naemlich zur Zeit angesagt und wirkt nicht so muffig und spiessig wie das Verwenden von Grossbuchstaben.
Und genau so ein Weblog wuerde ich gerne auch schreiben, nur habe ich weder Haustiere noch Beziehungsprobleme und kann noch nicht mal "prickelnde erotische Kurzgeschichten" verfassen. Aber wenn interessieren denn schon Inhalte? Dich vielleicht?
TRANSLATION:
To Start
Why I would ever think to write a Weblog is a mystery to me. The typical Weblog writer is 23, a little overweight, wears glasses, has relationship problems, 2 cats, and is convinced that he/she has literary talent -- talent that no one else has yet discovered. Suffice to say, the writer hasn't published anything yet! So, one begins to write in one's little Weblog; it's free and one can do it during work. It's simple. One starts the entry writing a few words about the cats ("I could have cuddled with them the whole day"), and then adds a few sentences about one's stupid friend ("I could have NOT cuddled with him the whole day"), and ends the blog with preferably something uninteresting ("I watched TV the whole evening"). And most important -- everything should be written in lower case -- that's the in thing to do -- less stuffy and square as using uppercase letters*.
And I would love to write just such a Weblog , but I don't have any pets, or relationship problems, and can't even entertain the reader with titillating erotic short stories. But who cares about the content? You perhaps?
*The reference to lower and upper case letters has to do with an ongoing battle in German-speaking countries as to whether they want to eliminate the use of uppercase letters to denote nouns. This blog writer obviously holds to the old school of writing.
Zu Beginn
Warum ich ausgerechnet ein Weblog schreibe, ist mir selbst auch ein wenig ein Raetsel. Der wohl typische deutsche Weblog-Verfasser ist 23, weiblich, hat leichtes Uebergewicht, eine Brille, Beziehungsprobleme, 2 Katzen und ist fest davon ueberzeugt, literarisches Talent zu besitzen, das aber ausser ihm noch nie jemand bemerkt hat. Wie auch nur - man hatte ja noch nie etwas veroeffentlicht! Also beginnt man zu schreiben, in sein eigenes kleines Weblog, das gibt's ja kostenlos und ausserdem kann man es auch waehrend der Arbeitszeit erledigen. Ist ganz einfach. Man beginnt den Beitrag mit ein oder zwei Saetzen ueber seine Kaetzchen ("ich koennte sie den ganzen tag knuddeln"), schreibt dann ein wenig ueber den doofen Freund ("ich koennte ihn den ganzen tag NICHT knuddeln") und beendet das Ganze dann mit irgendwas, Hauptsache uninteressant ("den ganzen abend gemuetlich ferngesehen.") Und wichtig: alles klein schreiben - das ist naemlich zur Zeit angesagt und wirkt nicht so muffig und spiessig wie das Verwenden von Grossbuchstaben.
Und genau so ein Weblog wuerde ich gerne auch schreiben, nur habe ich weder Haustiere noch Beziehungsprobleme und kann noch nicht mal "prickelnde erotische Kurzgeschichten" verfassen. Aber wenn interessieren denn schon Inhalte? Dich vielleicht?
TRANSLATION:
To Start
Why I would ever think to write a Weblog is a mystery to me. The typical Weblog writer is 23, a little overweight, wears glasses, has relationship problems, 2 cats, and is convinced that he/she has literary talent -- talent that no one else has yet discovered. Suffice to say, the writer hasn't published anything yet! So, one begins to write in one's little Weblog; it's free and one can do it during work. It's simple. One starts the entry writing a few words about the cats ("I could have cuddled with them the whole day"), and then adds a few sentences about one's stupid friend ("I could have NOT cuddled with him the whole day"), and ends the blog with preferably something uninteresting ("I watched TV the whole evening"). And most important -- everything should be written in lower case -- that's the in thing to do -- less stuffy and square as using uppercase letters*.
And I would love to write just such a Weblog , but I don't have any pets, or relationship problems, and can't even entertain the reader with titillating erotic short stories. But who cares about the content? You perhaps?
*The reference to lower and upper case letters has to do with an ongoing battle in German-speaking countries as to whether they want to eliminate the use of uppercase letters to denote nouns. This blog writer obviously holds to the old school of writing.
Saturday, August 02, 2003
"The military said that Saddam is running out of places to hide. Let's just hope he doesn't hide with his weapons of mass destruction. Then we'll never find him." —Jay Leno
Friday, August 01, 2003
Want to see minimalist writing?
"These days I'm trying to use the language as though it were a piece of wood, and I craft it, I hone it down. I sand it, I polish it, and I make sure there are no cracks, no extra pieces or frills that might fall off. I try to keep it as compact as possible. " -- -- Suzanne Vega "The Cutting Edge Of Folk"
What is Anna not ? A minimalist writer. But here's my attempt and it's not even my own stock (I'll work on it though):
Hummer: 10 mpg
Model T: 25 mpg...
How's that? BTW, here is a fun 'minimalist' blog site -- www.whatadamsreading.blogspot.com. This blog site gives you links and quick one-liners to the serious and the sordid. I have no idea who Adam is. The Adams' I know wouldn't have the time or patience for the amount of media consuming this guy does -- it's just a blog site I happened to find.
"These days I'm trying to use the language as though it were a piece of wood, and I craft it, I hone it down. I sand it, I polish it, and I make sure there are no cracks, no extra pieces or frills that might fall off. I try to keep it as compact as possible. " -- -- Suzanne Vega "The Cutting Edge Of Folk"
What is Anna not ? A minimalist writer. But here's my attempt and it's not even my own stock (I'll work on it though):
Hummer: 10 mpg
Model T: 25 mpg...
How's that? BTW, here is a fun 'minimalist' blog site -- www.whatadamsreading.blogspot.com. This blog site gives you links and quick one-liners to the serious and the sordid. I have no idea who Adam is. The Adams' I know wouldn't have the time or patience for the amount of media consuming this guy does -- it's just a blog site I happened to find.
