Woohoo!!!1!! World Champions!!1!1!!

This will make no one happy.

By now, for those who have interest in these type of things, the United States State Department has 1) completed its review of landmine polilcy and 2) no plans to sign the Ottawa/Landmine Ban Treaty. Let's see what kinda trouble we can get into with this.

Following a google of transparent government Obama, 4+ mill results promised, result 1 of the shown 1-10 had this (pertinent excerpts):

Transparency and Open Government
Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies

SUBJECT: Transparency and Open Government

My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.

Government should be transparent. Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing. ... Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public feedback to identify information of greatest use to the public.

Government should be participatory. Public engagement enhances the Government's effectiveness and improves the quality of its decisions. ... Executive departments and agencies should offer Americans increased opportunities to participate in policymaking and to provide their Government with the benefits of their collective expertise and information. Executive departments and agencies should also solicit public input on how we can increase and improve opportunities for public participation in Government.

Government should be collaborative. Collaboration actively engages Americans in the work of their Government.

Us folks learned that the O Administration took up the review of the landmine policy because they said they finished it. That's fucking transparency and openness and participatory and collaborative? Holy fuck. Or, the audacity of, ya know, meaning or doing whatcha say. Keep hoping, I guess.

Golly, more of my fussing about O is probably too oldhat for anyone (if anyone) who have been following along here,*A but then the stale taste would be even more evident for anyone (seriously, is anyone?) who have been following the - let's not use "progress" because, well, it ain't - going ons of the O. Yeah, landmine policy may not be on every American's hot topics, but it likely is for quite a few. And for the administration to take it up in secret, why? I mean, I get the secret dealings with the the pharmaceutical (ie, not transparent, open, participatory, or collaborative unless you mean, only with the moneyed interest), like hell yeah, what's not too understand about blatant reneging of a campaign promise cuz, like, lobbyists were shoving a shitload of cashmoney down Obama's throat - luckily, he swallows - but landmines? Is there a pro-landmine lobby? Aside from the military, I mean.

*A So it's no all on O, though as Prez, it really is, for whatever role Hillary played in this, and especially if she played none, criticism shared.

As to whether O telling the International Campaign to Ban Landmines to screw off is a right or wrong thing, jeez. I think this. It is a tough decision for any state to relinquish any of her rights, particularly in regards to the use of force and self defense. Yet obviously there is already a long, long list of treaties and conventions that does exactly that, so nothing too unusual here. When asked why not ban, a Whitehouse spokesperson came up with, "We would not be able to meet our national defense needs, nor our security commitments to our friends and allies if we sign this."*B Hrmph, working through this, the other powerhouse non-signatories would be Russia and China. For what it's worth, Steve Groose supplied, "In fact, the U.S. is the only country that has said it will never join the convention. Even others like Russia and China said it will eventually join." Next, all of the NATO pals have signed (or acceded, if ya wanna be super technical). So ... that leaves S Korea and Israel? Both Koreas have laced the DMZ with landmines, in a peculiar form of detente. As for Israel, genocidaires already, ya gonna knock them about landmines?

*B If there is trouble googling the source, or for anything else here, let me know.

I always think describing who is in and who is out of, say, a treaty is a little too gimmicky and cute, but Iraq and Afghanistan ban landmines, Pakistan no.

If it's unclear, I'll be a little more clear: landmines, landmine use, and the gross suffering that they demand, forgotten but potent in the ground years after whatever petty conflict had been decided, are decisively wrong, evil, stupidly evil and bad. Last year, mostly from old, landmines killed and crippled in the thousands and thousands, most of those thousands civilians. Not to mention the ass massive economic and environmental wreckage. The right and wrong is O's decision for the USA to not be part of the ban.

In Obama's, if I had to be kind in assigning an adjective, ironic Peace Prize speech:

I believe that all nations, strong and weak alike, must adhere to standards that govern the use of force. I, like any head of state, reserve the right to act unilaterally if necessary to defend my nation. Nevertheless, I am convinced that adhering to standards strengthens those who do, and isolates – and weakens – those who don’t.

Now, not joining the Landmine Ban treaty is not quite the same thing as throwing a landmine early spring planting party. Critics of O's landmine decision will point to the fact that the US has been in substantial/defacto compliance with the treaty: haven't used 'em since the first Gulf War back in 91, banned the exporting the things since 1992, cut production since 1997, and backed plenty of de-mining work. So that's kinda the light to view the right and wrong. Not extending whatever moral authority/legitimacy the United States may (still) have to a vital humanitarian effort. And trusting the kindheartedness of the Commander in Chief will suffice in upholding standards that govern the use of force. Which ... well, I guess when you factor how the Commander in Chief has (not) upheld requirements of the US Constitution and the ratified Convention Against Torture for, say, privacy, executive misconduct, due process rights, interrogation methods, and etc., yeah, etc.

Not shielded from wrong or concern, the United States has one of the top three stockpiles of landmines, some 10m antipersonnel mines and 7.5m anti-vehicular mines. And have used, recently, cluster bombs, the left behind explosive "duds" that act as de facto mines. So ... whatcha think, right? wrong?

I wish I coulda remember the precise context but over a pretty good dim sum*C in Flushing, Queens, S (for somebody)*D muddled about risk management, how chicks are more and better risk managers, and then religion as a risk management decision, describing a system of thought where it is better to spend an hour praying in case God exist to prevent bad things from or to promote good things to happening. In any case, I gotta believe the one hour praying includes travel time, cuz, like, seriously? Anyway, S asserted a sorta perversion of Pascal's Wager. A term which shoulda'b familiar with those active in forums or comment section of blogs, as Pascal's Wager is easy namedropped by the largest forum/blog habitues, the overspenducated types freshly exposed to philosophy or maybe game theory and stats.

*C The only half decent dim sum houses and, for that matter, Chinese and Korean restaurants in general are found in the boroughs, not Manhattan. If you really want to get down to it.

*D If the jig ain't obvious, when I use a letter to represent a somebody, that letter also is his or her initial. In this case, S is Shel. In other cases, Peter, Christina, Lynn, and so forth. There's a range of reasons, the prime one often being no reason, for doing things this way.

Outside in still balmy for late autumn 39th Avenue, I framed, "Worshipping god as a risk management maneuver don't seem like a feasible idea, or with extremely limited utility, to cover your bases wouldn't ya have to worship MP*E and/ or the moon and/or the fire hydrant? Who's to say any of those ain't God?" Inconsistent revelations is one of the more generic criticism leveled against Pascal's Wager, though I guess I'ma casting it on a much more basic, though I wouldn't say invalid, level. MP is a knockout, ya gotta figure an hour on hands'n knees with her would be ... be... uh, what wuz I talking about again? Essentially, to the bored annoyance of some in the larger party, I persisted, "Where does the idea of religion come from? Or why this alleged god, and not some other, factors in the risk analysis? Ain't everything about (modern) religion from its practice to conceptions of reward and punishment, and so forth, pushed by culture, ie forced by men?"

*E And so forth?

For some reason, S proceeded to posit that the risk management somehow could explain the genesis of religion/religious belief. Like a prehistoric cavedude 'xplaining scary flashing storm clouds or badly timed upset tummies and after some quick and dirty risk analysis by the other primitives, voila, new cult fever. I'm like, you saying that risk analysis explains why modern people practice faith, or was where religion sprang from, or what, both? Serial? Instead I keep a-jabbing with a variation of my questioning, "You mean folks collectively and spontaneously decided that?"

Somehow he granted that religion was/is generated by culture, but still missed the implications of that. By then, I was pretty miffed, and couldn't help but ranted on how in the dawn days of any religious movement, choice wasn't on the table, either believe or die. And dat religion, either as the ruling class or complicit with the ruling class, was a tool to prop the elite and to subdue the vast rest: human sacrifices, witches at the stake, (Tibetan, for example) systemic illiteracy, rigid caste structures, divine emperors, etc. I mean, Christians bided their time as feed for Roman lions or hung broken bodies on crossbeams until they headed the heap, at which point torture and lit bonfires for the unconvinced, or aiding and abetting with the whole indigenous genocide thing. The aforementioned conversos or die.

Nerves restored upon nearing the Main & 39th cross section, white and blue clunky buses jamming up the already too stuffed grid for passenger pick ups & drop offs or shift changes for routes, depending on one's outlook, ending or restarting. I woulda've just added that if the modern age permitted choice in faith, and if risk analysis was done as S described, some weird variation of Pascal's Wager decision matrix, heck, that would be really, really poor risk analysis. Seems to me, it'd'a be more a referendum for, depending on one's taste for cynicism, which male culture was mo betta' at accurately articulating God and His/Her expectations or, well, which male culture is just mo betta'. Only the former slightly plays into the reward/punishment of the matrix. But we had to touch up the old ATM for hard currency cizzash. After that, a coffee break some place.

A-and 'spite how this sounds, to myself even as I review, wasn't meaning to be a blase rascal about religion, god, spirituality, and the rest of that stuff. Them're an entirely different matter. And should disclaim, punching holes in Pascal's argument ain't to dismiss his contributions in mathematics/probability/game theory/so forth. Erhmm, justa long way of saying I didn't know what point my friend was trying to make. The how of his thought processes not the substance, cuz wasn't like it was serious talk 'spite my taking it seriously. Passed the time for the Sunday afternoon alright though.

This chat transpired not too long ago (side conversations pulled):

S: yoo
need help
me: wazzup?
S: i cant think of a present for (a friend)
i looked into a jacket
but they ran out of small
...
im screwed
does she look like a medium to you?
or a small
...
it would be good traveling jacket for her
she is doing a (long) vacation
...
man
if she is a med then im saved, but there is only one left
me: go med
for a shell, usually she's gonna have a fleece or something heavy underneath anyway
and it ain't like she's gonna lose weight

I WAS KIDDING!*F

*F Can't stress enough, totally, just, kidding. I've zero opinion about anyone's appearance. Cuz I don't. And glass house situation, ya know. And that friend, she's a mega cutie pie.

Back ta trashing Godbama. I kidded the other day that I'm gonna quit being an optimist, cuz some train tickets I sought got sold out. The 39 Nays on December 2 from the NYS Senate are an entirely different matter. I can't quite say what I got here is expressly a pro gay site, or weblog, or however the kids define this www stuff, but the right for gays to marry is clearly something I support. Like, it's fucking equality. Now that my state has declared itself a safe haven for bigots, cowards, fascist pigs, & psychotic shitards, I feel lost. Basically it's as if everything positive, great, and hopeful about my state and my being in my state has become misery. And I'm hoping that time or the necessary fight to convince the 39 Nays of their immoral vote will change my perspective, but right now, I just want to get the hell out of this place, bat-style. Go/find/be someplace where all 'em French slangs like liberte, egalite, amitie, raison, charite, justice, vertu, fraternite, etc., where they, you know, actually mean something other than something-to-be-trampled. Not much of a fighter's attitude, is it?

38 of the 39 Nays are the dirtbags State Senators who rejected gay marriage. The remainder nay is for Obama. His position on gay rights gives cover for every coward and scum in politics to continue to deny equality and human rights to human beings. Obama's stance excuses spineless Democrats, and bolsters Republican sleaze. It churns the hate and intolerance machine. This is his great and grand fucking leadership, audacious hope and change? I ain't the type to mitigates the personal responsibility of the 38 NY State Senators for their dirty, horrific vote, but Obama, as the Prez, as the supposed transformative figurehead, as the self-labeled agent of change, why, there is no way to say he don't bear an unique and weighty onus for perpetrating a regime of hideous tyranny against human beings. Resistance to tyranny is obedience to god.*G So the fight goes, incredibly disappointed but unbowed.

*G See *B?

Roman Catholic, union gal, 23rd Senate District NY State Senator Diane J Savino's 7+ minute of realness: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCFFxidhcy0. Play it the whole way through, definitely worth the watch. I could leave it on infinite loop. Was this kinda like following Obama in the early days, well, I mean, besides the fact that Sen. Savino actually/really does and stands for things.

I also gots to read up more on Gov. Paterson, Savino sez her Senate career was due to his tapping her shoulder, and the upswing of decent Democratic Senators may be credited to Paterson's groundwork while in the Senate. Plenty of mediots are saying he's in trouble, questions of competency, snub by Obama, & behind the scene forces squeezing him out of a 2010 run, but I can't say so far he's been awful, or, as politics go, inexcusably awful. Read up beyond re-reading Wiki that is.

MW mentioned midway thru our memorable movie conversation that she saw and liked Agnes Varda's The Beaches of Agnes. Cool, huh? Cuz I adore Varda, and Beaches was awesome. Pedro Almodovar's name came up, cuz his new flick was a standout draw this past New York Film Festival.*H Did I say "memorable?" Yikes, and I don't remember if MW caught Broken Embrace, or wanted to catch the screening but didn't. Well, memorable in not strictly factual detail way? 'Bout Almodovar, I sez, "He's super and all, but, you know, when is he gonna not make just another Almodovar flick?" As in he's peaked, and the recent batch of hyper-saturated melodramas are somewhat trapped and stuck, or let's put it this way, safe. And MW was totally getting what I meant. Well, of course, dudes are easily fooled into thinking any gal he's a talking to "gets" him, especially with alcohol involved. But still, I'ma saying, we more or less agreed. Though going through the motions on such an elevated plane - as my cousin recently caught Broken Embrace and couldn't more highly recommend it - might still be darn good, still worth forking over whatever price the movie theaters charge these days in admission. And who knows? certain moviegoers may never have been hip to Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, and so on.*I Plus Pe Cruz. She is like, like how the fat kids would approve, yums!

*H Bummers, Picasso-esque beauty Rossy de Palma doesn't appear in the trailer to "Broken Embrace." Cat Power in the soundtrack!

*I In roughly a fortnight, give or take some days, it'll be out with the old, in with the new decade. Once upon a time, skimming critics' year/decade/whatever time frame best of movies list was kinda fun. Less so nowadays as there're few/no critics I enjoy reading. But okay, I checked out Time Out's lists (both NY and London). A-and not awful, some good surprises, feels more open and international even if the stink of tokenism still stinks. And since I like to concentrate on the negatives anyway, who were the snubs and what does it mean? Among those with more than one super flick this decade not mentioned at all: Jia Zhangke, Manoel de Oliveira, Johnnie To, Stephen Chow, Jin Jo Hur, Chang Dong Lee, Takashi Miike, & Shunji Iwai. Even from directors who I only saw a single sampling of, still plenty of choices not from the USA or Europe. Maybe too much, as the kids say, wishcasting. Yet.

Even if intermittent avowals that I hate misogyny don't exactly recast these web-sheets to a feminist site, on the subject of bras I support: burn em and ban em. The health reasons are mostly for exceptional cases. And there are more than enough comfort and health justifications to go without them. However, I wanna spotlight a couple more. The first is the important stewardship of our planet. No bras means lots and lots less, depending on country of origin, Kleenex, Scottis, Vinda, Zewa, Tempo, Marcals and Puffs squandered as stuffing material, and the matching conservation of precious limited resources to produce and transport said tissue. Deforestation wrecks far-reaching environmental, social, and biological abuse, you know, endangered fauna and flora, icky pollution, global warming, exploitation of indigenous folks and so forth. No bra, healthier earth.

Second is cleavage fraud. I don't know about you, but it's a bit of a letdown when after the wine, and chow, the phatic babbling, electric light dimmed, wicked light aflicker, Curtis and Marvin grooving the playlist, a-and then, "Alright, now we're cooking," second base petting. Followed by the "Uh, where's the rest of that?" shock -> sorely disappointed look, both of which quickly gotsta be kept hidden as best as possible, cuz don't wanna place at risk advancement to the next base. Am I right? I mean, ain't like I'm mislead all the time, there are times when I'm like "whoa," or "sweet," or "yeah, baby." And the tricky part is I've gotten (see what I'm doing here?) my hands on the genuine enough to nurse expectations, and to get badly nipped for those expectations. Well then, just have to resort to bag of visualization tricks to keep the hard on the hard-on. Sport and nursing bras are a different practical consideration, but otherwise, no need to heave illusions to intrigue. Cup size, I hope I'm not suggesting anything but, hardly matters. Anyhoo, ditch the brassiere, ladies, and no sweatin things out in 8th circle Malebolge. Paired naturally, for dudes, tinfoil wrapped cucumbers bait and switch is a no no too.

Wrote that shit.*J

*J That's borrowed from one of the Matt & Kim youtubes I had prior linked. And I intended to phrase it the same way Matt sez it, but only so much can be done with letters on a screen. So fine, I'm getting the footnotes reader friendlier, but you got to click thru the links yourself.

union and contract

marriage advice, as it is, went like this. first email:

you definitely should tie the nup-knot, but that's purely for selfish reasons. another excuse to head over for your wedding and or bachelor party! from an unselfish perspective, and without meeting the lil gal, can you really do better? and then depending on your answer, i'll stress, are you sure you can do better? i guess if you have someone that you get along with, it'll be hard to beat that.

follow up email:

shoot over some pics of your girl, i'll let you know if she's worth it. haha, obviously kidding. have you spoken about marriage with her? of course, that type of conversation inevitably leads to trouble, as in she wants marriage - and what girl hasn't been daydreaming about that day since, I don't know, 13 years of age - and you respond, "uh...," that kinda kicks the relationship into a different gear, the impending end kind.

still, if you two have been at it for awhile, in a sense, ain't marriage a formality? the past x time frame, weighing it as if you were already married, whatcha think? not bad?

ultimately, you're lucky. you still have so many years if needed. most gals' bloom have been set to fade by the time they hit 18 years old.

that's one way to put it.

anywayz. following the most joyful events/news, like ever, ever, ever, that being the 27th championship by the new york yankees, i gave thoughts to cave and purchase the jay-z alicia keys combo empire state of mind. jeter likes it, which would be good to go for me. casual listening, the tune ain't awful.

but then, i thought it'd be prudent, clickity click, to google the lyrics, and you know what? i fucking hate jay-z, and misogyny, and by extension why the hell would alicia keys back that rap.1 most of negativity fell on the later verses which preached the good girls gone bad cautionary tale, which is fine and all, except. except it's juxtapose with the earlier parts that glorifies stash pot, selling rock, and all that hood/thug/nigga-for-life lifestyle. other words, everything that fosters the situation where women-folk are marginalized and objectified and commodified and made into or thought of nothing but hoes and 'itches. jay-z is such a pedestrian at best, but more often boring, rapper; the storytelling is not much and the worldview is limited and callow.

different rappers offer:

So will the real men get up
I know you're fed up ladies, but keep your head up.2

or:

I love it when you call me Big Poppa
Throw your hands in the air, if youse a true playa
I love it when you call me Big Poppa
To the honies getting money playin niggaz like dummies uh
I love it when you call me Big Poppa
You got a gun up in your waist please don't shoot up the place (why)
Cause I see some ladies tonight who should be havin my baby, bay-bee.

some unfairness, pretty much any rapper today pitted against pac or biggie, respectively, will fail.3 but either one reaches for the brass ring, or is horse poop. and i guess i get it, jay-z ain't trying to elevate the rap game, he's just there to get paid. in which case, stfu jay-z.

and alicia keys, i love her and all, - well, i love that she looks slamming, i've no opinion on her music - how can she sing jay-z styled bright lights as an inspiration? seriously. pretty repulsive, really.

All I need in this life of sin, is me and my girlfriend,
Down to ride to the bloody end, just me and my girlfriend.4

'noth'r thing, black eyed peas. they (and individually for their side/glam projects) have about the stupidest lyrics, like, ever; the kind that just plumb insults even the half-attentive listener. that they've been exploding ever more into the pop scene - cough, directtv, halfway is mad stupid, cough -5 whether it's ok or not to be a luddite, i'm thankful i am, to degrees, one.

before leaving for northern capital (or beijing), c (for cousin) googled, you know, entertainment options for her holiday. supposedly n.c. is drawing considerable attention for its underground, "experimental"/experimental music scene, no wave and other soundscapes. best of all, she said to me, she'll get to catch a few shows from hot or important acts, as some concerts coincide with her visit. she whipped opened her brother's computer notebook and youtubed a lil something by carsick cars, the one she likes most/more or perhaps the one she thinks i'd be most/more tuned in with, and then a lil video feature on chicks in n.c.'s rock scene, basically an interview of two cutie drummers: shi lu, aka atom, of hedgehog and li qing of carsick cars. i don't pay attention that way, since we were having dinner together, and asked her to email me the links. which she did.

she would shortly ask if i checked the links. "uh, not really?"

later, she hauled back from the vacation a bonanza of n.c. rock/cd trove for me. maybe i'm too preoccupied with my own musical interest, or i wasn't ready to be receptive to new/fringe music but days later, she explored whether i listened to any of the cds, "do you like carsick cars, snapline and pk-14?"

having not played any of the cds left in a stack on a corner of my table, "uh, (some made up poor and incredibly bad excuse)."

"but anyway," she said that, "we're in luck, they are touring the east coast. and shows in new york too. we can go see them." them equating to, from the flyer emailed to me, carsick cars, pk-14, and xiao he.

"uh, i guess," i committed. not really, cause i totally flaked on the free, more experimental session by xiao he and carsick cars' mastermind shou wang in a noho area basement, that she later would quiz why i didn't attend and describe as amazing. i can't really dispute, free shows have a built in advantage of being, well, free.

no matter, a couple of days after, the bands were going to put on a real(er), more conventional rock and roll show in a williamsburg stage. and she was going, and i went. by the entrance way, c knowingly pointed to a cute-ish, four-eyed chinese girl outside, "that's li qing of carsick cars."

"goodie." inside what turned out to be a rather small, but small in the way i like because of the intimacy, club slash dive bar slash, for those who may differentiate, hipster hangout, xiao he was most of his way done with his opening act set. m (for movie girl i had earlier met) was there. serial. m, i soon learned, knew most of the n.c. rockers quite well, and she was there - stationed close to the stage, filming or following along with an earnestness more than, or different from, simply enjoying the bands - as much for business as for fun. a little later that night, when the three n.c. acts finished, she would shake loose her documentarian obligations, and boogie down.

anyway, 2nd up were the supposed veterans of the n.c. scene, pk-14. when they had technical difficulties with a newly purchased amp, i heckled, "was it made in china?" irreverent snark is kinda my thing. an earflap beanie topped girl turned, chuckling, to find me to approve my verbal volley. before i knew it, she totally swiped the joke in hollering the same thing to the stage, but in chinese. biter.

this applies to next to follow carsick cars as much as pk-14, they were ok. by far not as experimental-soaked as i expect, a little too cool or perhaps rehash of their influence to impress me too much. joy division already did pk-14's seething intensity. and i yelled into c's ear halfway into a carsick cars song the summation "yo la tengo," which, while i really, really like hoboken yo la tengo, uh, their haze sound is so mid 1990's. otherwise, it's like they didn't allow their guitars to, as it were, go to 11. not that i necessarily like spine tapping loudness, though generally i do at live shows, but i prefer things slightly more raw or messy. midway into pk-14 sets, xiao he bulldozed through me and the crowd, probably to stagger outside to, i assumed, excavate a portion of the too much alcohol downed.

Was this amazing girl flirting? How come he couldn't tell?6

then, the resident brooklyn bands took the mic and the stage light glare, were slightly louder, and more raw and messy; in particular, these were powers were incrementally funner. soft circle and these were powers were, ultimately, more of the same okay. the fact that it was a cheap admission price, i'd upgraded it all to pretty fun. and then, was m looking at me meaningful? i mean, at me, as in when i turn to look over the crowd, she was clearly looking at me. to come clean, i have no recollection of ever being on the receiving end of that sustained gaze. i likely had been, back in the daze, but then caught up in other preoccupations, i paid no mind. but now, probably due to a slumped confidence, aka desperation, now, i notice her ... noticing.

with some personal history being behind the cornea side of things, first, there is the part where it is just being the thirsty receptacle of not just the light waves bouncing of, from my past experience, the girl,7 but the additional waves seemingly emanating from her. then, reviving a faulty greek notion, the belief that my optic nerve could and would salvo back messages of intent, desire, and more, embedded in so many particles than necessary. no light task, with the particles having to go against the wave, so to speak.

it was not, what the happy hours prowlers are said to excel at, "checking out," as that would be too loose and brief. nor could it be described via the blunt implications of "staring." rather, eyes voluntarily transfixed. finding instead of seeking, as if time would stall for nascent curiosity, speculation, lust, and comprehension. and there! like puneal and seneh ablaze, warning signs to shield my too long held eyes, except i could and would not. it was clear then it was a kind of wish. the distance shortened, narrowing to hushed contraction, or never was. and contact, imminent, even inevitable. or so i felt it to be from the last time i was so struck.

from the lookee side of things, unable to speak on behalf of the girls i looked at, from the experience that evening, one moment i was bounding in place, the first instance, to the bright drum beats of a soft circle's song and, m again, her looking again at me, a these were powers pop concoction. next moment, off guard and confused for being not only the possible object of attention, but perhaps affection. unsure whether or how much to be flattered. the initial unease fast giving way to even more unchartered territories, ie now what? but somewhere the sense that keeping or regaining m's serious and steady look was of utmost importance. or as - perhaps even very - likely, i sequenced events a little off, and the whole business of m's look was the old "what the fuck is he looking at" look. though that look, i kinda feel i'd recognize, easily.

"we should get together," m left things a couple of days later. at a sorta bon voyage dinner for a friend, she was there, more and more beautiful in my mind, already a stunner in real real life. after dinner, i walked m and the nigh homebound friend to a local wine bar in my downtown neighborhood. my botched response, "yeah, we should," before the last round of rushed hugs and farewells, and i started the slightly wistful walk home. was this amazing girl flirting? how come i couldn't tell?

She sat down, took a look at him. The Eastern eyes, the tension of whose lower lids had found a perfect balance between heat and appraisal, certainly were promissory of heartbreak.8

by now, i have played and still regularly play one of the souvenir carsick cars cd, you can listen, you can talk, their newest. not bad. and have clicked thru to the youtube videos. and so forth. uh, ... well, about that. i do not know anything about drums, for that matter guitars, rap, wave-particle duality, or really anything else either. like, zilcho. the strongest and chief memory i have about drums and drumming was from my bloody valentine. colm o'ciosoig's contributions were so there, so assertive and vital to mbv's sound and songs, especially against the band's rep for guitar fuzz and feedback. about the same time most likely, dave grohl with nirvana. shortly thereafter, janet weiss with sleater kinney. later, arlen thompson. most recently and in a big, throught shifting way, wondrously off-kilter kim schifino. one more time! generalizing a bit, i like my drums, you guessed it: 11. exactly, one louder. one more time! something more to the fore, and that stands out in the song and of the drummer's personality. one more time!

in n.c. is a place called heaven's peace doorway (or tiananmen), which infamously and tragically was the setting back in 1989 of what is now inadequately known as the june 4th incident. if you were glued to the tv at the time, or got some of the reporting afterwards, it really was some awful and heart wrenching shit that went, and in many cases still going, down. serial. but, you know what, why does the u.s. media give special coverage to remote china every june 4th, when their own government were the gunmen behind:

orangeburg massacre,
jackson state killings,
kent state shootings,
lattimer massacre,
bay view massacre,
memorial day massacre (of 1937), and
bonus army (of 1932).9

not to mention the government's longstanding complicity and or omission that gave company thugs/gunmen and bigots free rein to murder: greensboro massacre, thibodaux massacre. not to mention the native americans genocide, which is perversely celebrated by national holidays: thanksgiving day and columbus day. not to mention a whole fucking lot of things. not to mitigate or deflect the base stupidity and evil of the red-heads' decision at h.p.d., but i can't shake the suspicion that ongoing u.s. media attention is driven by a different, ulterior agenda.10 you know, if extreme sentiments are being solicited by the media turds, namely that china was/is uniquely barbarous and the u.s.a. is an immaculate virgin to cast judgment, i'd take the other polar tack, namely how things went down at h.p.d. is, and was, typical worldwide, and the lower class's struggle for reform is, as was, perpetual and universal. what is reported is significant for what is not being reported. they got money for war, but can't insure the poor.

this has been simmering since june, when the coverage, conversations and outrage for that h.p.d. incident boiled anew. though, depending on whether one is a calender half done or half to go type of person, either still means considerable steam loss here now.

and in the daylight we can hitchhike to maine
i hope that someday i'll see without these frames
and in the daylight i don't pick up my phone
cause in the daylight anywhere feels like home

when, or possibly if, i attest to being a new yorker it is from the angle of city pride. but before the end of the year or, what the optimist might describe as, soon, the state senators will be privileged in doing the amazingly right thing, following the lead of the assembly-folks, by passage of S04401 to allow gay marriage, and restoring civil rights and equality. mad props to black and blind gov dave paterson for having the audacity and moral fortitude that pres barak did not muster in putting the executives branch weight behind same-sex legislation. i hope one doesn't have to be black and blind to understand what human/civil rights and basic dignities are and mean.11 for whatever reason, i'm keeping faith for good news out of the normally dysfunctional senate, well, because i can't believe, despite ample contrary evidence, that reasonable people can be long unreasonable and flat out vile. that is saying i believe in long shot miracles, isn't it? but i'm all set to be the beaming proudest and happiest new yorker, like, ever. new yorker as in a citizen of new york state. as for roughly 53% of the 60% registered voters of pine tree state maine, go fuck yourselves.

plus: world. series. champion. new. york. yankees. !.

--------------------------------------------------------------

1. fuck, down on kayne, down on jay-z, down on the black eyed peas, down, so far, on nobel prize winner barak, does it seem like the only black folks i do like are dead black folks, tupac, biggie, malcolm, & martin? ... awkward. mmm... i really like spike. and tyler perry. and, well, badass carsten charles. 27, baby.
2. course, things ain't never that simple. a lot of tupac's rap trek the same misogynistic and gangsta terrains. tupac was also too entrenched, by association and or choice, in that thuglife scene. and the sexual assault conviction, even accepting tupac's version of events, is bad, bad business. for jay-z's real life, what can be said other than he's a soldout shill, which is awful but mostly innocuous. which still, i love tupac. there's his music. but also, 1) he served his sentence; 2) (maybe it's just an excuse, but) he was a young dude; and 3) he was still sorting his way and place in the world, still learning and growing. this might being a poor way of reconciling things, blinded a bit, but tupac was getting there, you know, black jesus, lennon, marvin, getting there to be transformative, something greater. except, well except tupac couldn't get out of his own or bullets way.

3. keep ya head up and big poppa, respectively.

4. me and my girlfriend, yeah, thanks jay-z for fucking up tupac's classic track.
5. so many dumbass commercials during the baseball postseason broadcast.
6. against the day, tom pynchon
7. that would, of course, be my crush-for-life girl, t.

8. see fn6
9. this had the added benefit of federal tanks rolling in to handle things.
10. yeah, there is a scale differences between china's crackdown and certain of the massacres/killings/shootings perpetrated in the united states (some but not all), but come on, there's so many chinese people, per total pop, it's really not that ... yikes, better not finish this. probably worth mentioning, and under reported, is that mass protest are frequent events across china, as are the associated unrest, riots, and severe government responses.

11. oh snap.

... four letters. Only L O V E.

What a klutz I am. I should have added, by way of a footnote, about the tyranny of viewing arts, letters, drama, culture, politics, progress, etc., primarily, even strictly, through a Western perspective. At the same time, I really do not know nothing, I mean nothing, about the theater traditions in Asia or Africa, or America. I mean, I know dey got their pageantries, like kabuki, puppets, mask shows, songs, dance, backflips, but. But I'm saying, well, those ain't narrative drama/tragedy/etc. They's opera, pantomime, musicals, dance, whatever, something else what ever else.

I guess from those cultures that have an extended rich written traditions + poetry + literature + whatever else - that'd be mainly Asians and Arabic - why no parallel track to what the Greeks were doing, and the rest of the Western culture/Europeans would strive to develop. Something that was realistic/naturalistic. Or, strictly secular. Instead the Indians, Arabs, Chinese, Japs, Koreans, etc., stuck with exaggerated spectacles.

Was it democracy? Burgeoning humanism? A beneficial byproduct of competing/conflicting nation states sharing a more or less linguistic source? Or the riches gained through trade and exploitation nullified the stifling oppression of the religious state?1 Or just the way the beach ball bounces?

By the way, I know nothing about the cacophonous cross national/cultural achievements or ambitions, I should state outright, if it was not obvious enough. And I'm not talking about influence, because Western/European culture have been influence big time, always have. I'd imagine the renaissance got its big injection from what the Arabs preserved and spread to Western thought, or Bartelby's aggressively passive "I'd prefer not to" seems some kind of Buddhist mantra, Picasso got his African masks, modern art got its re-conceived perspective via Asian art, Hitler filched his party logo from the East, Pound's Chinese/Japanese induced imagism, Pollock's Mexican muralists, the Beats and Beatles and their Swamis, it goes on, and on and on.2 But what I am getting at is the reverse. How these other national/ethnic got transformed, influenced, and so forth by the West, or perhaps how non Western societies tackled the issue of modernity. Did linear perspective blow up the Japanese art scene? Did Shakespeare, Goethe, Moliere, Ibsen, Brecht, etc., transform and expand Korea's theater?

I know in other mediums Western influence was well incorporated and reciprocated. The most glorious, for example, movies and movie tradition sprang up in Japan, Sengal, India, etc. And literature. In both cases, the Western modernist traditions were absorbed then redirected in a way that still retained cultural vitality/identity. Yet, for the life of me, I don't know one play originating from Korea, China, Lebanon, etc. not just historically, but also in today's time frame.3 However, it'd take an especially powerful naivety to be blind that it is a small n' easy step to go from screenplays and teleplays to the stage. So if I were to discuss Thorton Wilder, and the innovations and development of the dramatic tragic theater, and I totally skipped any consideration on what was going on in Korea, Iran, etc., while I kinda can't really blame myself, I kinda don't mind being hard on me self, and say I fucked up.

Or flatly, I feel horrible, a sickening type of horrible in perpetuating the cultural imperialism that I find rotten and repugnant. I should have qualify my hackneyed theater discourse by stating that it was framed around a predominantly Western/English language perspective, and or also acknowledge the high probability that similar developments were going on in other cultures. Heck, those various cultures likely even done in faster and mo' better. And other apologies.

Not that I need any positive reinforcement or kind words; or, I do need them. Someone wrote: "I love [that'd be me here]. I'll never tell him to his face but i am very fond of that lad." Thank you.

The uhd'r thing I shud a' ad'd was that I'm so fucking well read and deep and know who Andrew Marvell is and my shit is so fucking brilliant, and works on so many multi-planes. Or not. But I lapsed in not footnoting "criminal coyness," which jokingly references: "Had we but world enough, and time, / This coyness, lady, were no crime."4 See, deep, brilliant, and fucking well read. Or not.

A couple more things regarding this. Way back in the daze, I pretty much, over long distance, old-fashion copper wires, relayed to my cousin a line by line reading of Marvell's poem for her English/writing class essay. I feel dirty about that, aiding and abetting her transgression, but I guess, whatevs.

Another thing, I still feel, perhaps with some guilt, that Prufrock is amazing.5 I remember, back in the daze, on a coffee break from the trading desk, my then co-worker pal read to me and Sixth Avenue Prufrock the whole way through . That recital had a large part in my "getting" Eliot and his remarkably accessible fun and lyricalness.

Third and last, only that I have not explicitly expressed, J (for just a perfect someone) is perfect. Recently, a friend L (for lass) somehow got the impression that I wrote poems, and asked to read 'em. So, well, I e-sent one poem to L. An older poem, back, again, from the daze, when I still, like, actually wrote poems. L said it was aight, and ask for more. I obliged, sending to her my last proper poem. That poem had a part that was a mediation on J.6 I guess since I don't often re-visit my back-then writings, preferring to just leave them as is and move on, I hadn't re-consider that piece much aside from setting an implicit threshold that future poems should exceed.7 But re-reading it before gmailing to L, god, it brought back all these beautiful memories of beautiful J. In all honesty, whatever I/reason/god(dess)(e/s)/books/pop tunes hadn't already transformed in me from, it's hard to describe, but from something extremely and deeply guarded, elusive, and shrouded to a more blatant openness, she blew the covers off, and finished the job. I don't think of myself much as a confessional type poet, or really writing much about/for a particular person, because I guess, that is not the type of writing I'm interested in. But that poem, or that part of the poem, when I had to think of someone to model a "you", that was all and only J.

Fuck, this is drowning in opacity. The point is that she compelled me to love and to love her. Which I do, then, and now.

I should say that it is a bit of a shame that aside from an everlasting affection and admiration, I didn't try, or try harder, to fan the flames of that relationship beyond the platonic flicker. I don't think I could or would ever be good enough for her. Is that really low self esteem?8 It's odd in the sense that J swelled and stretched and ballooned the outer limits of my romantic/spiritual soul, but in that I cannot be by her side, it is just fucking heartbreak. And, not that I ever stop thinking of her, but in re-reading the poem, it was like she was in front of me just again, and I was re-finding all the words and images for how I felt about her. Which in a way, since she could only produce the most profound and truest loving feelings from/in me, that was terrific, but well, then again, J ain't in front of me, and I'm not with her, that's much less than terrific. "look elsewhere for answers; answers are selfish and whitewash. / only questions seduce, and incite; you: why, how, and what exactly?"

And a retraction, I take back whatever endorsement of Mike Bloomberg. Bill Thompson is just not so awful of a mayoral candidate to say Bloomberg is clear cut better. I'm still irked by Thompson's mindless response to accusations that he took campaign cash money from investment managers doing business with the city. But, if I had to really think about it - and I guess I won't have to think about it until I am behind the black curtain at the polling station - flaunting term limits is not right.

Thompson doesn't seem to be the most eloquent public speaker, but more important than that, he lines up with my view on most issues and he looks like he can handle the local petty politics. And what has Bloomberg done in eight years that really needs four more?

I suppose City Comptroller and Public Advocate are foregone conclusions. Though regarding John Liu: do we really need shoe throwing in City Hall?9

Hmm... any good movies out? Funnily, I almost hardly ever watch a movie more than once in the movie theaters, partly because movies, as NY prices go, are hella pricey. Second, I can rarely justify going for a second viewing when there are so much that I haven't even seen for the first time. Yet, I love 35 Shots of Rum and it was freaking marvelous watching it again. Second time: Mati Diop still ravishing; Gregoire Colin still riveting; Alex Descas still badasses; and Claire Denis is still Claire Denis da bomb. I actually would be tempted to see 35 Shots a-again. That is how much I love Mati Diop, and that stunning wedding dress she wore, and that absolute blisteringly masterful bar room sequence. And Gregoire Colin. And superlatives etc.

Also, City of Sadness. Hou Hsiao Hsien's early masterpiece is great and all but I was planning to skip it this past weekend. However a good pal/movie buddy said he was going, so what the hay, it's in Brooklyn and I love grey old Brooklyn too. And Tony Leung is young and earnest, and Tony Leung, above all. I guess City of Sadness is a complicated movie - or I can understand if some folks find it that way, telling a complicated piece of Taiwanese/Chinese history/terror, without watering it down, but rather enhancing its complexity with an austere, elliptical style - but I found it follow along-able and still damn good.

Lastly, if your idea of fun is some handjob action between father and son, you can count your lucky sicko stars because Taiwanese - speaking of movies, cross-culture, and modernity - virtuoso Tsai Ming-Liang is getting a sort of mini retro treatment at Asia Society.10 Some omissions in the selection of movies, but whatevs. Tsai deserves more exposure.11 Lots of boredom there, but I get a cinematic hard-on from boredom. Which reminds me, I had a really fun flick conversation with this chick at a LES bar recently, we were comparing White Material with 35 Shots, and Resnais, and Jia Zhangke, Antonioni, Haneke, and so forth.12 Haha, we agreed that boring, static, nothing happening, extended sequences are brilliant awesomeness.13 I should have asked what she thought of Tsai.

---------------------------

1. Need it be said that I don't know anything about anything, just taking wild stabs here. I wonder if it's worth reading Jacques Barzun's From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life 1500 to the Present. A friend of mine was reading it - or carrying it - and if the book's take isn't too myopic, which is kinda my point there, it might be interesting. But then again, since it's a shit load of pages, I need something stronger than "might" to motivate me to start it. Plus, I always think of Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Society when I think of history.
2 Uh, Google?
3 I blame Google or Wikipedia!

4 see Fn 2?

5 see Fn 4.
6 I titled that poem 3 components. Hmm... is it bad that I don't include the poem itself?
7 I should have stated: future, if any, poems.
8 I don't mean it quite like that, but J is just too/so beautiful, perfect and lovely. In a way, it's intimidating. In another way, I feel that there would be time or occasions despite my diligent efforts to make her happy that I wouldn't succeed. And in that she should ever be unhappy, due to me, for even a moment, I could not or would not be able to bear it. Of course, what kinda sick, miserable bastard am I that would want a relationship where I could bear to make my partner unhappy. Jeez, that's what I'm saying, ain't it? Otherwise, I'm happy that she likely is happy now with whomever she's happy with.
9 Like this example. Is that bad stereotyping?
10 More info. I should withdraw that handjob comment because Tsai Ming Liang isn't mainly/solely/at all about that. Or that shouldn't be a reason not to go watch his movies.
11 This is funny. How Wikipedia describes Tsai's The River: "a 1997 Taiwanese New Wave Film by Tsai Ming-liang. The plot focuses around the character Xiao-kang, a young man in his early 20s, who begins to suffer inexplicably from severe neck pain." Without giving it away: So. Not. Close. To. Describing. The. Movie. At. All.
12 She asked which directors/movies I like and, like, I completely blanked! Doh, as a outdated, 4 fingered, thin haired, bulbous cartoon homeboy might say. I am loathe to do this, because I love Claire Denis, and sitting at Alice Tully I was captivated with it, but White Material came up short to whatever bar I think Denis has set. Still amazing stuff, but. Well, all that "but" implies.
13 I had planned on more. On Herman/Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent, which was really, not in a good way, boring as hell, but, I guess in a good way, pretty interesting. Then more stuff about the media, and how it relates to, oh I don't know, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc. Hmm... the main gist of it could be: what the fuck is going on there, why are American soldiers still there, do you know that flesh and blood human beings - woman, children, regular folks - are getting slaughtered there, and the fucking mainstream media is such complicit and ugly dogs. Also, considering that most media folks can read, and presumably have read Manufacturing Consent, how the hell do they live with themselves. And you know who is gay, Glenn Greenwald. I kinda suspected it because sometimes from the TV, he looked just a smidge too clean cut and thin. And sometimes on the radio, boy, is he overbearing. You know, in that gay way. It kinda all falls in place now. Only kidding. But he is, apparently. And with a partner already. Good for him. But, like I said, more planned but have to cut this short and sweet, because I really feel bad if anyone, actually I'm assuming no one, you know, reads this blog, but if he/she/they did, and voted or supported Bloomberg because of me - in which case, youse an idiot.

They Are Crazy About? Romance and Illusion?

Melville's Bartleby, the Scrivener is terrific and irritating. Or I am having a difficult time cracking it. Perhaps an old fashion attitude, as if something must/could/should be taken away from a piece of writing/art/music/etc. But if there is a point (a larger point, a grander point) that Melville is putting out there with Bartelby, I'm having a hell of a time narrowing in on it.

Like, who is the hero, or heroic, and then how and why so? And then: really? Does free will and passive resistance need a (noble) cause to make it admirable?

Maybe something about the limits of compassion, understanding and/or sympathy? Or, re-examining/testing/pushing those limits? for no other reason than that more compassion, understanding and sympathy may be administered? for someone not seemingly receptive to compassion, understanding, mercy and sympathy? I don't know. It feels like I'm stretching Melville's story to fit my agenda. And, not that I have to "get" it right away.

The terrific part is that Bartleby has awesome prose work, and is such a wild, wickedly absurd comedy. The story was way ahead of its time. And Melville is the shit.

Perhaps another reason Bartleby is sticking to me as problematic is that I read it after reading Billy Budd, Sailer: An Insider Narrative. That other titular character Melville casts in the most sympathetic and glorifying cloth, draping welkin-eyed Baby Budd with descriptives like handsome, angelic, and innocence. Bartleby on the other hand is matched, inscrutably, with pallid, forlorn, ghostly, cadaverous, etc.

I should say that unlike, I'll characterize as additionally lazy, common readings of Bartelby as one who has been dehumanized by a capitalistic and industrial system, I don't see him as that. And against more popular critique, I found a genuine evolving humanism with the narrator.

I should add that one big problem I had with Orwell's 1984 was the characterization of Julia, that she was half drawn and served mostly and merely as a prop for Winston's story. I say this because perhaps the same issue might be charged against Bartleby, that since his motivations were not mentioned or, at best, implied, he was a prop for the narrator. Without looking back at 1984, at least in Melville's story, it was written in a voice/person from the narrator's perspective and the information about Bartleby was constrained/limited to what the narrator could receive/perceive, which is not so with 1984. 1984, I believe, had a more omnipresent third person voice. I believe. Or I could be sloppily applying contradicting and different standards.

Only perhaps tangentially related:

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.1

Shakespeare is also the shit. Shakespeare is a necessity, ya know.

Not that long ago, I caught Wilder's Our Town. Having never read nor watched it previously, my understanding of it springs mainly from a couple of its most popular scenes, and the ideas behind its innovative staging, structure, and use of the narrator. But seeing the whole thing, via a well crafted production, Wilder's play deserves the classic tag. What I got, as modernity and time accelerates, it is not (or perhaps, not only) technology and tradition that gets transformed/waylaid, but core values, virtues, and humanism may as well; and truthfully anyway, these (moral/ethic) things consistently teeter on the edge, even in the best of time. Which, really, is one of the obvious themes/messages of the play. Hopeful not sounding quaint, but with the impression that Our Town laments a bygone halcyon age (way back in 1938), the play remains up to date and resonates on today's issues/problems.

Odd, or not so odd, is that all the innovations within the text, or historically in the staging, which Cromer utilizes deftly, along with his surprise twist in the end, went over my head. Or didn't strike me as unusual as the 1938 crowds may have thought when first viewing Our Town, and, the surprise twist, didn't strike me as unusual as all the subsequent, post 1938 crowds visiting Our Town, as I didn't have that pent up history and expectations. In the first case, those innovations that Wilder included in Our Town, sparse sets, the stage manager breaking the "4th wall", temporal shifts, and more, are commonplace these days. Commonplace in the mainstream, even. And Cromer's added touch, without familiarity to what specific convention he was breaking/stretching from the usual Our Town staging, I accepted it as just par the course of a contemporary minded staging.

Though by saying it didn't strike me as unusual, is not to say that it was not awfully powerful and thoughtful. All that stuff was powerful and thought provoking.

I can't work at all. The moonlight's so terrible.2

Jennifer Grace, with what I found to be at times awkward and at times, or perhaps simultaneously, charming diction, was pretty off the hook super as Emily Webb.

If I had to think about it, what is mercy and how is it better or different from kindness, compassion, charity, etc. Thankfully, at this moment, I am not thinking about it. Though generally I aim for a certain precision.3

Not that I don't miss the mark either.4 If I had use the word honesty or some derivation, as an example of what I might have said, which I can't quite remember having expressed thusly but certainly easily could, I would prefer if your email was more honest, it could have been imprecise. I don't mean honest in the sense that instead of what was actually written that I wanted something else, some type of big bean spilling confession. In general, if given the option, I guess I wouldn't mind if folks take a shut the fuck up approach. But what I did mean, if I used honesty (or a derivation), is honestly. Communicate in such a way where the meaning/intention and what is expressed lines up, a sort of directness or plainness, sans abstraction, nuance, subtlety, and criminal coyness.5

More perhaps tangential:

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.6

Orwell is alright. I'd say the great enemy of clear language is unclear language. The great enemy of sincere language is insincerity? Though as excerpt and quotation goes, there is the context bugaboo to factor in.7

It is an inaccuracy to consider innovation (or avant garde or modernism) through the lens of newness or radicalness. Part of it is that, fo shizzle, but just as much is how it relates to the historic/classical/traditional approach and whatever is contemporary or for that matter timeless. In that sense, art/culture/science/politics/technology/anything is not a search for newness or strangeness for its own sake, but, or what I most look into, is what type of dialogues are transpiring, and how or why these dialogues are meaningful.

Take, for example, Wilder's shattering the 4th wall.8 Circa 1938, that device of commenting directly and somewhat objectively with/to the audience was something, but as innovation goes, the playwrights way back in Pericles' days routinely did so via the chorus. And then Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream ends with Puck disclosing to the audience/reader:

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
if you pardon, we will mend:
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call;
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.

And besides, Luigi Pirandello's Sei personaggi in cerca d'autore.

Which is to say, yeps, there is a new or unique quality to Wilder's Stage Manager, but also with more than a cursory long look back at the traditional/conventional classics.

Along with how it relates to the past, Our Town engages the progression in its contemporary culture/politics/arts/etc. Literature already had long ago taken to addressing the reader in a straightforward manner, but modern literature, via Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, etc., opened up the mechanical parts by emphasizing language and structure. Movie house newsreels gave direct and immediate narrative to current events. And RCA, Westinghouse, GE, Zenith, Atwater-Kent, one of those consoles ruled the waves, radio waves that is. In addition to the regular radio programming dominating the familial experience, there were those casual, intimate, chatty President FD Roosevelt fireside chats. And Pirandello (and Bertolt Brecht, for that matter) blew the spot already. Wilder's innovation(s) was propagated by its time, or perhaps a comment or summation of the manifold confluences going on.

This play is called Our Town. It was written by Thornton Wilder.9

From there, television, movies, and theater ran with it, most typically utilizing a 4th wall breakdown for comedic effect, or cynicism, or hipster posing. But oh wellz. Though I don't follow enough theater/art/culture to really qualify a proper opinion. Sam Beckett does/did some innovative stuff, I know that.

Like most other (perceived) innovation (avant garde and modernist posturings too), the actual innovation is not discovering something totally new or different, but focusing on a narrow strip of what was already existing, like what the Greek and Shakespeare already did, and stretching, pulling, prodding, stripping and otherwise refining it from a contemporary minded perspective. Innovation or modernism, or forward progress, for the most part is an exploration of stripping or taking away. Along the same lines, it is not so much (or not solely) the subject material that is so cutting edge or explosive, but refining or rethinking techniques or the medium. Look at Manet.

Let me backtrack to more personal stuff. I get picked on for favoring modern, though I'd say I like contemporary/minimalism/conceptual more than modern per se, art. But I concede on a certain level it is all the same, in terms of what it does to a viewer's expectation, modern and contemporary. Anyways, take the Italian renaissance, it was partly predicated on rethinking representation via linear perspective lines, and using it to enhance representative realism and to create a focal point/area. Popularized by Brunelleschi, formalized by tradition and the academy, and tired by tradition and the academy.10 Linear perspective rose from innovation and descended to rigid, bored convention.

Then, in terms of the development of Western art, whatever the perspective rules were they were splintered by Manet with his multilayered perspectives and flatten/shallow surface/plane. Among other things, in say Le dejeuner sur l'herbe half tones are eschewed, lighting is exaggerated and crafted as oppose to naturalistic/realistic; in say Olympia the composition is reduced to a two plane spatial construct with no middle, lighted foreground fronted a dark/black background that, to me, recalls the gothic/pre-Renaissance days; or in say Un bar aux Folies-Bergere and its ambiguous, destabilized, or irreconcilable mirror reflection.11

Not to suggest that was all Manet did, cause he had plenty of other tricks up his smock sleeve like his color palette, texture, brushstrokes, choice of subject matters, and more, but to my point, Manet could see what linear perspective was offering and how muted or disconnected painting under that regime had become in commenting on and communicating with contemporary times.12 There is the old standby of photography's emergence shaking things up for both the creators and viewers of art, and Asian art, African art, world art just getting more and more accessible. Plus all the other mid 1800s going ons, fervent industrialization, martial skirmishes, rampant colonization and so forth. Manet unhinged the rigid application of perspective, stripping it down, loosening it up, and opened a way for a new dialogue. And his updating ultimately paved the way for further experimentation with impressionism, post impressionism, cubism, non objective, abstract, pop, minimalism, etc.13

Actually, horrible. I am so out of my element in discussing art as I know jack about it. You rightfully'd say, anything else for that matter. Not to mention how incomplete this whole redundant digression is.

Dreams dressed in blue,
It's all they need for now and forever,
Dazed by the moon,
They shatter their heartbeats,
With singing.

Somebody lurks in the shadow,
Somebody whispers,
Somebody lurks in the shadow,
Yeah yeah yeah.14

Just one more thing about innovation. Pretty much everything descends to rigid, bored conventions. The thing, in the end, is to stay opened, and tuned.

I just want to end saying, considering Kayne's lyrics, is it that shocking that he disrespected Taylor Swift? Fuck Kayne.

Oh, and Michael Moore. Lots of folks take exception to him perhaps playing a little loose with the facts, or self promotion, or manipulative editing or whatever. Which I mostly come away quite perplex. Moore comes out and brings attention to some of the more vital issues going around, attacks them with a tremendous sense of urgency and humanity, that coincidentally is (shamefully) no way addressed by most other mainstream media outlet. And above that, most of the haters I think insist on a level of accountability or credibility that they don't turn around and hold let's say business leaders, the media, or government officials to anywhere close to the same standard. I totally don't get it, and it's mad stupid.

And oh, I regularly check out Glenn Greenwald's blog. In one entry, he spotlighted two things, which I liked so much, I am doing the same. This about Iran and, from that site's comment section, Iranians ain't no Arab.15 And then a young lad chats with his parents.16 Really really nice story. Good for him/them.

This, respectfully, is for the fallen dead Mid East veterans:

Over here are some Civil War veterans. Iron flags on the graves - New Hampshire boys - had a notion that the Union ought to be kept together, though they'd never seen more than fifty miles of it themselves. All they knew was the name, friends - the United States of America. The United States of America. And they went and died about it.17

---------------------------------
Footnotes:

1. Will Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice.
2. Our Town.
3. Achieve is a totally, like, different matter.
4. See footnote 3.
5. Fuck, this teeters too much to too personal and whiny indulgence.
6. George Orwell, Politics and the English Language.
7. Great, now I have to read the essay. (theme music) Ok, maybe slightly out of context, but whatevs. Yeesh, I don't think my blog writing would please Orwell's corpse. Orwell's essay was too preachy, and kinda boring. And gives less incentive to complete Herman/Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent. Yet, this line was nice too: Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
8. 4th wall implies, and this is my made-up, not-very-helpful definition, a reassessment of the relationship among the audience, text/author, and the production/performance, and with cross complicity or collusion.
9. Again, Our Town. That's how the play begins.
10. Popularize because I don't want to quite get into the re/discovery debate with regards to linear perspective. A taste of the controversy.
11. Or perhaps reconcilable after all.
12. A lot of critical and popular writing have focused on Manet's choice of (controversial) subject matter. Which is interesting, but not the main thing I key in on. Partly because I'm much more of the art for art's sake camp, and don't need a narrative to make things compelling. Partly because speculating on the subject matter either is too gossipy or too much pushing for an agenda. And partly, well, I don't think it is that controversial/shocking/necessary/etc.
13. Picasso and Matisse throw out Cezanne as the "father of us all." But come on, Manet is the guy when it comes to advancing modernism. Moreover, Manet really came from the Salon/Academie/classical tradition and he was really pushing against that from the inside. Manet ended up obliterating the old mold is another story. And the impressionist and post impressionist and Cezanne sprung up, taking certain things Manet was doing to a new place, and adding to it. I had a bunch more on Manet's relationship with the classics, but, uh, that's why Google invented itself. Right?
And this is from me who before really did not appreciate and really hadn't love Manet's stuff.
14. M83, Kim & Jessie.
15. I'd like to visit Iran one day.
16. Definitely tangential. In the local mayoral debate recently, a question asked was whether the candidates thought Obama had done enough for gay right. Thompson said, "He's been there for nine months, Yes." Bloomberg after a pause, "No." From brief Googling, Thompson supposedly has supported gay equality/rights for a long time, but his affirmation for an administration who has done absolute zilch for gay rights, typifies why he can't win. Bloomberg, I don't know, I don't feel quite like NYC has gone through a rainbow renaissance under his 8 year mayorship, I guess I take his more accurate assessment of Obama's piddling record. That, and other reasons, this is my official endorsement, 4 more years of Mayor Bloomberg.
17. Our Town, still. Excerpt with Paul Newman as Stage Manager.

Two Franc Pieces

When I am not writing, I read. Then, when I am not reading, I write.

But that's not the case. Most of the time I, uh, sit?1

Or most of the time I, uh, take to the drink.

Let's leap to those more mundane considerations.2 In America, there is this personal, widely anticipated, yearly holiday called birthday; practically everyone has one, and it occassionally involves the giving of cards, text messages, phone calls and presents. In other countries, I assume, that celebration goes under the guise of Christmas or Saint Patrick's Day, possibly, and salted cods or candied persimmons or gold teeth are the only items exchanged instead. But being American, or a native United States-er, I have never exclusively received fish, fruits or dentures.

Recently and, I will come out and say it, too often, I've received, instead, t-shirts. I was going to call one particular relative to tell him (with due ingratitude), "no more cups" then "no more t-shirts."3 I got the "no more cups" part out, when I spoke with him on the phone, but he responded, "don't worry, no cups, just check your mail for t-shirts." Oh thanks. Never mind the fact that for years and years, while I'll take it as a compliment, he - and his family, I suppose -had sent me t-shirts a size too large.4

No more t-shirts.

Coincidentally enough, one friend, among the friends who returned from the vacation in Asia, got me two t-shirts as souvenirs from Vietnam.5 Cool. He probably paid, like, a buck a piece for them.

So with this big American birthday tradition, though it is, already, for me in the rearview mirror, this year, it ain't too late to bring up to date my gift/wish list.

- I like a hand blender, one of the immersion joints. Soups, shakes, and homemade mayo, yo.6
- I could also use a universal pot lid. I have a couple of 11"+ skillets that invariably I go wishing I had a lid for, in which case, I guess it doesn't happen often enough so that I cannot make do with aluminum foil as an ad hoc solution. Other hand, needing a larger lid happens more often than you think cuz, or at least ubiquitously whenever I pretty much cook for more than 1 person.
- Salad spinner. Water kills salad dressing, so it has been told. It's also practical to have to prevent spoilage and facilitate storage for when/if I buy a big mess of leafy veg.
- Silicone spatula. I have whichever phobia it is that surfaces whenever nonstick cookware and utensils are used.
- I guess Silicone tongs, for that matter. I stir and prod most often with tongs. Or, I pretty much and definitely use tongs for just about everything.
- No Silicone babes, however.7
- Le Creuset pot. It'd be nice to have a heavy, versatile, and highly heat retentive pot, to braise and stew, from stovetop to oven to anything else.8
- A splatter guard. Perhaps more luxury than necessity, because it is not too much fuss to clean and wipe, but why not.
- Seems kitchen intensive? I'd take a decorative piece for one of my wall. My apartment "living room" is a dull large whitewash pane.

There is still a shit load of DVDs that I had hope would hit the market or, if available, attainable. I am gonna go lazy and just crib from earlier lists, with some updating.

- Olivier, Olivier: Agnieszka Holland's flick screened at the MOMA early, early in the year. I saw it. Liked it. It should get the big splashy DVD treatment.
- Cold Water: This is just about one of my most favorite movies ever. For me, it's Olivier Assayas at his finest and with the incomparable jailbait Virginie Ledoyen.9
- Les miserables: The marathon French version, with, and mainly for, Virginie Ledoyen as Cosette. Just slap some subtitles on the sucker for us non-French speakers.
- Inquietude: My initiation to Manoel de Oliveira, who is amazing.
- Doomed Love: I want more Manoel de Oliveira, particularly this which many consider another masterwork.
- Celine and Julie Go Boating. I saw this too. Really, really lovely, as is all the Jacques Rivette flicks.
- Drunken Master 2: The action sequences are so damn out of this world elegant. I believe some big company has shanghaied the DVD rights but cannot recall who.
- My Sassy Girl: The Korean theatrical, and the best, version needs to be packaged as a DVD.
- Mahjong: The hope for a complete Virginie Ledoyen collection continues. But I otherwise really dig Taiwanese New Wave'r Edward Yang.
- A Brighter Summer Day: An important as a director as Edward Yang needs to have more of his shit on the retail shelves.
- Terrorizer: See A Brighter Summer Day comment.
- A Confucian Confusion: I have yet to see this, otherwise, see A Brighter Summer Day comment.10
- Night Zoo: If you did not know, I could not have a higher opinion of Leolo. Night Zoo is Jean-Claude Lauzon's other, as well as debut, movie.
- Make Way for Tomorrow: The inspiration for Ozu's Tokyo Story, and my pal David suggests that it's terrific.
- Rancho Notorious: Fritz Lang is a favorite of mine. I like Westerns. Therefore, I have been dying to see Rancho Notorious somewhere.

Available DVDs in the United States that I would love to see on my DVD pile:

- The Art of Buster Keaton. I absolutely love the Great Stone Face.
- Les vampires by Louis Feuillade.11
- The Decalogue by Krzysztof Kieslowski.
- Marx Brothers Silver Screen Collection: The one that includes Cocoanuts, Animal Crackers, Monkey Business, Horse Feathers, and Duck Soup.

There are also CDs that I probably want.12 Though, at the moment, there is only one CD that I desperately want:

- You Made Me Realise by My Bloody Valentine: An early EP, but make sure it is the version that includes the song Drive It All Over Me.13

A little old school media charm, I still acquire books:

- Slow Learner by Thomas Pynchon: Only the paperback version.

I would want to load up on more Will Gaddis, or WG Sebald, except upon reflection, it's been a bit while since I got into a fiction book written by a chick. Maybe old guard George Eliot, Ruth Rendell, or George Sand?

Are there good contemporary chick writers? Margaret Attwood? Kelley Link on my Amazon wishlist, no Zadie Smith, maybe Scarlett Thomas, Jeanette Winterson, is she still hip? Annie Proulx?14

My cousin likes to tell what she've seen that is so good or so amazing or so etc. Books (in which case, it'd be read, not seen) or DVDs. She likes Cassavates, There Will Be Blood, Herzog and stuff like that. She dissed La Notte. I basically said, the only shit you like is where folks overact or act crazy. She defends by saying she likes slow stuff too, Tsai Ming Liang for example. I counter, plus shit that is overran by sexual deviancy. She's been trying to convince me to read a couple of erotic Jap writers.

Showboat acting, by the way, is not a signifier of inferior quality. I bring it up more to identify her preference. It is also true that it is something that I am definitely not drawn to too. I don't really care how great Daniel Day Lewis is if the whole point of, let's say, There Will Be Blood is to watch him jerk off, acting wise. At the same time, acting is likely one of the strong suit of the American movie industry. Unfortunately, with the blind ascendancy of the star system, the Hollywood movie basically is purely a vehicle for and dominated by the movie star. I am not sure when exactly this shift happened, I think of someone like Paul Newman, certainly a tremendous star, but he is so generous in his flicks that even in a somewhat straightforward vehicle like Cool Hand Luke, the rest of the cast share in the heft and glory. I am not a cinema historian, but by the time we arrive at Tom Cruise, Will Smith, or Tom Hanks, the entirety of any movie picture is to be utterly secondary or subservient to the movie star. Not that my cousin would, heaven forbid, entertain anything by the more traditional or mainstream lead actors.15

Oh dear, one birthday too many, I guess I am not talking exactly on point because there is a big superficial difference in a Daniel Day Lewis movie and a Tom Cruise movie. Actually, I think my point is there is not that big of a difference, it is a systemic thing where the bent of the American movie industry, big studio or the indies, are all star geared, There Will Be Blood exemplifies with its forceful hollowness. A picture gets green-lit because a star signs onboard, and so the script or the director tailors pretty much the whole raison d'etre for the star. And that is part of why so much stuff coming out of the United States has over the top acting. And therefore is just not my bag.

I should say that I also like a view of the steamer sex side too. Go read Henry Miller'sTropic of Cancer, it is grandly stupid/ridiculous.

At night when I look at Boris' goatee lying on the pillow I get hysterical. O Tania, where now is that warm cunt of yours, those fat, heavy garters, those soft, bulging thighs? There is a bone in my prick six inches long. I will ream out every wrinkle in your cunt, Tania, big with seed. I will send you home to your Sylvester with an ache in your belly and your womb turned inside out. Your Sylvester! Yes, he knows how to build a fire, but I know how to inflame a cunt. I shoot hot bolts into you, Tania, I make your ovaries incandescent. Your Sylvester is a little jealous now? He feels something, does he? He feels the remnants of my big prick. I have set the shores a little wider. I have ironed out the wrinkles. After me you can take on stallions, bulls, rams, drakes, St. Bernards. You can stuff toads, bats, lizards up your rectum. You can shit arpeggios if you like, or string a zither across your navel. I am fucking you, Tania, so that you'll stay fucked. And if you are afraid of being fucked publicly I will fuck you privately. I will tear off a few hairs from your cunt and paste them on Boris' chin. I will bite into your clitoris and spit out two franc pieces...

Moreover I pretty much got my movie legs from the twin bootleg videotape bill of Clockwork Orange and Betty Blue. Boy, did we think that Gabriel Yared's Betty Blue soundtrack was the shit back in the day.16 And Leolo, gloriously, with a panning away shot, has a juvenile delinquent fucking a pussy cat.

I just don't have the enthusiasm to dig fully that marginalia/fringe of Marquis de Sade, Anais Nin, etc. I don't rejoice in the naughtiness, depravity, or the transgression, or the whatever.

Since first reading Sebald - what has turned out to be - many years ago, I, uh, haven't read anything else by him, but would love to. He has an interesting experimental bent but in a different sense. Whereas, say Gaddis, Markson or other writers that I like, plow through linguistic, Sebald tills in the Proust tradition, uprooting memory or perhaps subconsciousness, which as theme or subject goes, gets me weak at the, let's say, intellectual knees.17 And in case I have not said it enough, j'adore Marcel Proust.18

Perhaps not widely advertise, and most mundane, is that I'm a huge Yankee fan. With that:

- a Yankees autographed item;
- a Yankees jersey or a Yankees cap;
- a Yankee World Series championship; a Yankees victory; or, last resort,
- a chance to watch a/the game on television.19 I am coaxial free, Time Warner less, no YES.20

You know what is not super delicious? Usually, whenever I prepare a meal, as I go through the mise en place, the last thing I do is the garlic, because well, since it's typically among the first or second thing that goes in, I prep it close to last to spare washing another bowl to hold it. And then through the normal course of cooking I am busy timing what goes in next and what follows what, and maybe washing the larger prep items, that the knife and cutting board is not washed right away. Then serving and eating and that stuff. But, let's say, I want a piece of fruit to end, I absentmindedly and inevitably go to the same knife and cutting board to cut up, most recently like, my apple. And then of course, garlic apple. Less delicious than even that sounds.

- Maybe a garlic press? Though I really frown upon shortcut clutter devices like that, but why not.21
- Well, as I am just wetdreaming, a new pair of kicks would be nice, specifically New Balance 1110.



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1. Here you go, a paraphrase from / reference to one of my most favorite book, Markson's Wittgenstein's Mistress. And, for whatever reason, partly because it is short, it is accessible to quoting and paraphrasing for many situations. And I love it, where the supposed mystery or exoticism of the creative process or life is debunked by more mundane considerations.
2. To be honest, and prosaic, attracting notice or visitors to this/my site is not, for me, trivial. Then again, that consideration is violently strained in relation to what is actually written and, uh, the frequency of said writing. This, sadly, reinforces that strain.
3. Tongue cheek no more cups because once I was given a couple (or few) novelty cups that in all honesty got consigned to pen holders, dust collection, and whatnot pretty much instantaneously. I have a wee apartment, a micro studio I'd say, and if I already have anything there already, like cups or mugs, it is pretty much all the space that can be afforded to those items, or that necessity permits. I ain't got room for another bunch of cups. And I only have that many pens, ya know. Dust, however, is another matter.
4. I since had enough and emailed his oldest daughter, "For the future, I wear medium." That's not a hint, by the way.
5. I like to visit Vietnam one of these days. Insightful! Except who wouldn't.
6. Since I have been experimenting in the kitchen with greater regularity, I feel I am gambling at the various food poisons roulette table: bacteria, worms, parasites, oh my, Salmonella, E coli, toxoplasmosis, trichinosis, and so forth. Lots of chicken, runny eggs, runny cheap eggs, some pork, everything done to the just medium rare demarcation. Though, perhaps, the use of the various bad fats are a greater, more severe and long reaching concern, bacon fat, butter, duck fat, etc. Otherwise, you know what's the key ingredient for mayo? raw egg yolks.
7. That might be too judgmental.
8. Or is that super bougie? I just like a lil something versatile enough to stick in the oven if need be. One of the ghetto ripoff options will do, I suppose.
9. I am much less enthused about Assayas these days but I suppose I wouldn't mind catching Summer Hours. He is still good, but not quite the groundbreaker I first thought.
10. Since I first threw up this list, Edward Yang passed away. The local theater is showing 24 City, by Jia Zhangke. That, I really want to catch that. In case I have not mentioned it in quite this way, Jia is pretty much an everest on my favorite movie directors range. He has a brilliant formalism in his flicks. At the same time, he, through several movies running, documents China, shifting urban life, shifty capitalism, the twenty first century like a motherfuck. A lazy habit, but I frequently name check Godard when I bring up Jia, for many reasons, but one is that they both really are in touch with what is here and right now (or Godard in the 60s) while also amplifying it to a universal context. Yang also engaged in this type of zeitgist critique/mirror as Taipei and modernity collided.
11. Not that Rivette owes anything to Assayas for their shared filching from Feiullade and Les vampires. Rivette has overtly been doing so for decades, and perhaps I should state outright that I have not seen Les vampires except for some excerpts and of course the iconic Muisidora images. Irma Vep probably is the Olivier Assayas movie, at least what stakes his reputation, and squeeky latex'ed Maggie Cheung is probably, up to now, I'll be optimistic, his most lasting impressionable image, and it might have prompted Rivette to put in that awesome up through the skylight sequence in Va savoir, and I really love - though some of my friends are less enamored by - Jeanne Balibar, in which case, purely as a homage the Va savoir scene was nicer, by perhaps being more playful about it. Of course, Irma Vep bluntly and actively is tilling Les vampires.
12. Even more mundane, I really wish for or need to win over a pal or pals who are earnest music fans. There is just too much music that I want to check out that I know already will not hold much interest for me beyond a song or two or be so so overall. Like right now, including some others I have mentioned in passing, I do not want to buy the Boy in Static cd or the Land of Talk cd, but I do want to give it a good listen to. And really, I buy a lot of other stuff and can hold my own when it comes to reciprocating. Otherwise, see update at footnote 17?
13. My upstair neighbor, by the way, when I open my iTunes app and check his shared library, has Drive It All Over Me. I do not know how to broach a request to burn me that tune.
14. Not that I am particularly a slave to award winners, I looked over the the National Book Award finalists for the past couple of years, and boy, there are a decent amount of chicks representing. Eesh, now I have to look through them to see who actually might be worth my credit money. Marilynne Robinson, Julia Glass, Shirley Hazzard, Lily Tuck, Jennifer Egan, Francine Prose?
15. Oops, that heaven forbid was uncalled for. I am the same way, a summer movie by the top Hollywood money makers turn me off too. At the same time, which actor starring in a role plays a very minimal part in which movie I catch.
16. I leave Betty Blue as it is, because, well, it's kind of a so so movie but is saved by being personally essential, fun, a remarkable intro to gap tooth pinup Beatrice Dalle, and an exemplar of quality soft core french movie. Ha! Complete coincidence, Betty Blue got renewed distribution, a director's cut no less, oh my.
17. If I appear to accuse my cuz of a type or types, I certainly have a type, as well. Mostly it's an enhanced or elevated formalism. For movies, who directs the joint contributes by far the biggest factor for my viewing decision. At the same time, but mainly because it's the aspect that I can most easily fawn over, the acting bits are usually what I comment most on. Zhao Tao, I since caught 24 City by the way, continues to be fucking awesomeness. My biggest beef also continues to be the insufficient or nonexistent praise for Zhao's tour de force performances.

  Supposedly, this past May, the New Yorker magazine ran a mountainous feature on Jia Zhangke. I am no subscriber, so if anyone is, please forward me a copy or scan of the article. Thanks. I should throw that up on my list. And finally, if you do click thru to the various Jia Zhangke trailers, his choice of music in said trailers and throughout his movies is phenomenal, ain't it? UPDATE: Googling a bit, and this is interesting, as it this piece. In which case, I definitely want some CDs by Taiwanese Lim Giong, for example. Pretty kickass.

18. Proust, I am unsure the relevance of, was a reader of George Elliot and George Sand.
19. The thing is, it is common knowledge among pals that I am a huge Yankee fan, and also no secret I am cable less, also; everyone I know has cable and therefore have access to Yankee games. Invite me, biz-atches.
20. Yankees Entertainment and Sports.
21. Small living square footage, limited utility (though I do use a lot of garlic), not minimal price tag, more cleaning, etc.

  Completely unrelated, I should add that I don't understand this hyper crackdown on trailers on youtube/internet. Granted, a lot of the trailers I hope to get were older movies, back before the creation of the www. But it is flat absurd how much vital material is being brought down.