And There We Have It

Bushism of the Day, courtesy of Slate:

"The United States and the U.S. stand together in support of the Iraqi people and the new Iraqi government, which will soon come into action." —Brussels, Belgium, Feb. 22, 2005

From 1966

Dismay

I decided the only thing I wanted to blog about today was: dismay. But then I realized I had no idea what I wanted to say about it. So I googled it.

First came up this page about Celtic music, called Celtic Music and More - Wild Dismay.

That wasn’t quite right.

The next page on google gave me the Dictionary.com reference, which was somewhere, but not fully there yet.

Next came Poems of Death & Dismay, which I definitely did not want to read, but quite liked the dread feeling of.

And finally, google’s fourth entry was this one: The New York Times > National > 2 Reporters Express Dismay but Say ...

Say…what? I don’t know what they say, but I like the idea of changing “2” to “1” and thinking that somehow google knew that there was a reporter out there/here somewhere who just needed to express dismay and say something, even if she doesn’t know what it is.

Thanks, google.

Let's Not and Say We Did

Dear Friend;

This message has been sent to you by a friend or a relative who has recently disappeared along with millions and millions of people around the world.

The reason they chose to send you this letter is because they cared about you and would like you to know the truth about where they went.

This may come as a shock to you, but the one who sent you this has been taken up to heaven…


I don’t like to quote without attribution, so now I will tell you that this comes from www.raptureletters.com, something I (and perhaps you) heard about this evening on “The Daily Show.”

Here’s more, from the home page:

“After the rapture, there will be a lot of speculation as to why millions of people have just disappeared. Unfortunately, after the rapture, only non believers will be left to come up with answers. You probably have family and friends that you have witnessed to and they just won't listen. After the rapture they probably will, but who will tell them?

“We have written a computer program to do just that. It will send an Electronic Message (e-mail) to whomever you want after the rapture has taken place, and you and I have been taken to heaven.”

So, basically, this e-mail letter will go out to your family and friends once you trip a “dead man switch.” “A letter will be sent out to each of them on the first Friday after the rapture. Then they will receive another letter every friday after that.” [itals mine]

Right on. It would suck if they didn’t know, wouldn’t it?

Not Light Reading

Veterans and treatment for PTSD. Illuminating article by Mark Benjamin, called "Behind the Walls of Ward 54", from Salon.com.

Here’s the dek:

They're overmedicated, forced to talk about their mothers instead of Iraq, and have to fight for disability pay. Traumatized combat vets say the Army is failing them, and after a year following more than a dozen soldiers at Walter Reed Hospital, I believe them.

And here’s why it’s important; from the story:

“When you get [to Walter Reed], they analyze you, break you down, and try to find anything wrong with you before you got in” the Army, said Spc. Josh Sanders, in a telephone conversation from his home in Lovington, Ill. “They started asking me questions about my mom and my dad getting divorced. That was the last thing on my mind when I'm thinking about people getting fragged and burned bodies being pulled out of vehicles,” said Sanders. “They asked me if I missed my wife. Well, shit yeah, I missed my wife. That is not the fucking problem here. Did you ever put your foot through a 5-year-old's skull?”

Being and Nothing(ness)

It’s a holiday. It’s a Monday holiday. And I am conceivably working on both a freelance project and work for work that absolutely needs to be done by tomorrow. It’s 3:36. I need to turn off VH1’s “Most Cheesetastic TV Stars” (#12 Bob Ross: "Public television should never be overstimulating or in your face..."), but you can imagine how hard that must be. So instead of offering you my usual array of fascinating articles or web links or fortunes, I use you, my blog reader, as my own distraction.

I. Don’t. Want. To. Do. My. Work.

There. So much better. Yet, not that much time has elapsed. Crap. Back later, I’m sure. (Maybe I will bring with my some fascinating distraction for you. We can all hope.)

I offer an apology for lapsing into the blog world’s worst: babbling about nothing. (I know you’ll forgive me just this once, yes?)

Oh, here's a fun one: Saturday night, a 22-year-old Brooklyn Kid, complete with hood cap and oversized jacket, told me I looked like his first-grade teacher. At 4 a.m., I thought that was a rockin compliment. It was the nerd-chic glasses, he said. I replied, "Well, first-grade teacher? I'll take that! That could be a great thing!" (Not even I know what I meant, but Brooklyn Kid laughed, and I felt all too pleased.

More Gates

A competing project to Christo's Gates. Worthy of perusal.

http://www.not-rocket-science.com/gates.htm

The Swerve

This is the best piece of radio I have heard in a long time. Because it is 9:00 on the evening of one of the busiest days I've had in months, I can't recall the details. I can only tell you that it winds from the world of ants to the 28th Street flower district and makes more sense than anything else you'll hear from now until a while. If you have ever wondered how a neighborhood forms, why there is no one person to identify in its coming together yet you see that it is rich, consistent, flavorful and functioning, if you wonder what a queen ant, not to mention queen bee, does when it is done laying eggs, have a listen. (Oh, and if you want to know how it is that walls of fireflies light up in unison along the banks of a river in Thailand, you won't find out here. But you will be mesmerized at the description anyway.)

Robert Krulwich is a genius. (But we knew this.) Newfound respect to Jad Abumrad. Featuring Oliver Sacks. Here is Radio Lab's description:

"What happens when there is no leader?  Starlings, bees, and ants manage just fine.  In fact, they form staggeringly complicated societies, all without a Toscanini to conduct them into harmony.  How?  That’s our question this hour.  We gaze down at the bottom-up logic of cities, Google, even our very brains.  Featured are: author Steven Johnson, mathematician Steve Strogatz and neurologists Oliver Sacks and Christof Koch. "

If you can listen on WNYC, here is when it will air:

EMERGENCE
February 18   3pm 93.9 FM; 7pm AM820
February 20   4pm 93.9 FM; 8pm AM 820
March 1   3pm 93.9 FM
March 8   7pm AM 820

Otherwise: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/current

Spokesbots and Shoe Flinging

Two great entries from Lady Wonkette today.

Please enjoy her (her stand-in’s?) summary of the Dean-Perle debate in Oregon:

“Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee member and Seymour Hersh target Richard Perle thought, for some reason, that it was a good idea to debate Howard Dean in Portland, Oregon. Why didn't he just meet Dean at the Young Lesbian Communists Summit with a big target painted on his ass?

Perle defended the Iraq war with a tired line about the intelligence being the best available blah blah blah that even he didn't sound like he believed. Of course, it's hard to sound too convincing when you're dodging a shoe thrown at you by an audience member screaming "Motherfucking liar."
—C.S.”

[Someone really did throw a show at him. I wonder if he was wearing “bullet-proof vest” just like Bush II at the pres debate…or maybe it would have helped more if it was a communication device that could shout in his ear to duck. But we all know that Bush’s bulge was a VEST, yes?]

And then Wonkette turns back the clock and reruns this bit from the White House Briefing Room. Most of all, I love that she calls Scott McLellan “spokesbot.” But one such as myself can never get enough joy and irritation out of the age-old battle to get a PR flack to actually answer a question:

“This time last year, we found spokesbot Scotty McClellan defending Bush's annual Economic Report:

Q. Then why predict a number? Why was the number predicted? Why was the number predicted? You can't get away with not -- just answer the question. Why was that number predicted?

MR. McCLELLAN: I've been asked this, and I've asked -- I've been asked, and I've answered.

Q. No, you have not answered. And everybody watching knows you haven't answered.

MR. McCLELLAN: I disagree.

Ah, simpler, more innocent times. I wonder if Jeff Gannon was there, or if he was busy with an outcall. — C.S.”

Zoom In

A space-level shot of Central Park with Christo's "Gates." You might need to go to the site to zoom in, so here it is.

(Thanks to J, again.)

Surprises, Surprises, i.e. New York

I don’t mean to gross anyone out first thing in the morning, but this Newsday article about body parts found on the subway is just bizarre.

What is most bizarre about it, surprisingly enough, is the lightheartedness of New Yorkers when they were told about the find:

“Ann Toussaint, 36, laughed upon hearing of the discovery, as many did. She said she's somewhat used to hearing about the workaday harm people are capable of doing to each other - shootings, stabbings, muggings - but severed body parts struck her as absurd.

“’Anything can happen in New York,” said Toussaint, who frequently uses the A station. "You've got to take the train, regardless. Everyday it's something new.’”

Or, this:

"Yo, they just found a body down there," Vedel Folks, 18, said to his friend, identified only as Ref, after climbing to the street.

"They didn't find a body," Ref, 20, said, seeming annoyed. "Just parts."

"Yeah, well, that counts too," Folks said.

I also really loved this bit, a quote from the Jehovah’s Witness who saw someone carrying the bag with the parts:

“How horrible; that's horrible,” said the Jehovah's Witness, who has lived in the neighborhood for 36 years but did not want her name printed. “If this isn't the end of the world, I don't know what else to call it.”

Blessed Be to J (and M. Wilson)

And first, to credit.

J has told me off for not giving him credit when he sends me a site I end up writing about here. Okay. Here you are, J. He sent me this NYT article today, about the police target commonly known as the “Thug.”



It’s a fabulous story by Michael Wilson (who I’ve vaguely had the pleasure of working with once—a nice guy). He goes through the theories of who the image was based on.

Here are some of the options:

This is a sergeant named Fred V. Worell, who taught thousands of New York City police officers how to shoot in his 35 years on the job. Some insist he is the Thug.



One inspector calls it “the Ernest Borgnine Target.”




Others insist it was modelled on Bruno J. Fulginiti, a member of the police department from 1951 until his retirement in 1977.

Weather Underground: New York, New York Forecast

Poor Non Sequitur. Her blog broke. Witness:

Non sequitur says: my blog broke.
Non sequitur says: its like a body part.
Non sequitur says: i tried to link your site and it went crazy on me.
Mcbickle says: what'd you do?
Non sequitur says: i don't know, its broke
Mcbickle says: broke HOW?

[pause]

Mcbickle: on the lighter side, i am looking at a weather forecast, and it says this: It is not out of the question for a rumble of thunder and a brief heavier period of rain during this time.
Non sequitur says: thats the most wonderful thing i have ever read.

[Non sequitur seems momentarily cheered. A moment passes. She relapses.]

Non sequitur says: please put it on your blog.
Non sequitur says: since you have one.
Non sequitur says: and its not BROKE.

[Non Sequitur disappears for an unknown period into the ether. We wait.]

Fast Times at Reporter High

So Fang and I were just discussing the idiocy of interviewees invoking “off the record” privileges. Of course, it makes sense to do this in certain moments, but we’ve both noticed that most people who use it don’t actually have anything all that interesting to keep “off the record.”

And often, Fang feels, politicians use it the most. She speculates they invoke it to feel important.

So sometimes it’s like: “Off the record, I’m going to go buy some toilet paper.”

(Her example.)

All this came up after I spent part of my day interviewing a self-important fellow about his persecution fantasies (something of that nature). About one minute into the interview, he said, “Stop typing and listen to me.”

Wow.

“Sir,” I say to him, “I’m typing because I’m writing down what you’re telling me.”

“Yeah,” Mr. Self-Important says, “But you can’t really hear what I’m saying if you’re typing.”

Me: “If you want me to remember a word you’re saying or have any notes to work from, I’M GOING TO BE TYPING NOW.”

Finito.

Chinoiserie

Fortunes:

You are a traveler at heart. There will be many journeys.

Your example will inspire others.

A smile is your personal welcome mat.


Okay, call me bananas, but that last one sucks. I’m not so interested in letting my smile, or any other part of me, be a “welcome mat”. So let’s just strike that one from the choices.

Now, you can choose either of the others, because I’m not feeling terribly inspirational in addition to not feeling like a goddamn welcome mat, nor do I foresee too many journeys in the near future. And hey, when I want them, I’ll just make them.

Grab em if you want em…

The Day After Valentine’s Day

Someone just called my cell phone.

“Hello, can I speak to Hate?”

“Who?”

“Hate?”

“You have a wrong number.”

“Oh, okay.”

After the first sentence I knew it was a wrong number, but I really wanted to know if the guy had asked to speak to Hate. I think he did. I don’t think this bodes well…for anything.

Daughters of the Revolution

It seems so many of our conservative heads of nothingness have perfectly lesbian daughters. One day they'll all know this before we do...

Daughter of conservative Republican calls herself 'liberal queer' - Feb 15, 2005

ANNAPOLIS, Maryland (AP) -- The daughter of conservative Republican Alan Keyes referred to herself Monday as a "liberal queer" and urged support for gay and lesbian young people who have been deserted by their families.

Maya Marcel-Keyes, 19, addressed a rally sponsored by the gay-rights group Equality Maryland, saying she was motivated to speak out because of her rocky relationship with her parents and the recent death of a friend who had fallen ill after being thrown out of the house by his family.

Come On, Get Happy

Released today by the Empire State Pride Agenda Foundation:

New York City, February 14, 2005 – Today, fifty-six clergy from across the state representing a broad range of denominations issued a letter to the people of New York letting them know they support same-sex couples having access to the government institution of marriage and the legal rights and protections that come with it.

Signers of the letter said that marriage for same-sex couples as a religious rite was a decision for denominations to make on their own, but were clear in stating their belief that government should not be withholding the legal rights and protections of marriage from same-sex couples that it provides to other families. In the letter clergy said, “To deny those rights is to engage in discrimination” and then stated, “Discrimination is immoral.”

The fifty-six clergy were from faith communities that include American Baptist, Episcopal, Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, Jewish (Reform), United Methodist Church, Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, Buddhist, Metropolitan Community Church, and Unitarian Universalist. Geographic representation across New York State was equally broad, ranging from Oneonta to Rochester and from Watertown to Syosset.

Time for Something New

In the detritus of the office is now a bowl filled with candy hearts, the kind with messages on them. So today, instead of fortunes, I hereby present:

Candy hearts, the kind with messages on them.

“KISS ME”

“UR MINE”

“LOVE YOU”

“JUST ONE”

Did you catch that last one? What the hell does that mean, “just one”? “Just one” what? If you know the answer it’s yours.

Where are you Stanley Warner?

I’m a sucker for creepy, old foreign documents, so here you go, this one courtesy of CNN.com.


[CNN caption: A document from Russian archives lists American servicemen in Soviet custody in May 1945.]

The U.S.-Russia Joint Commission on POW/MIAs has come out and said that the number of Americans held in the gulags during the Cold War and Korean War is in the hundreds.

Sort of shocking, but not really, I think. But what I find strange is this blip in the article:

“In one case, the daughter of a man imprisoned in a Siberian gulag told investigators in 2002 that her father had met an American named Stanley Warner. In 1957, another former prisoner reported having seen three U.S. soldiers there -- one of whom called himself Stanley Warner.”

Playtime

Lots of fun for the kiddies this morning.

Give a go at The Baby Name Wizard: NameVoyager and click on “Launch Name Voyager.” See a funky graphic about the popularity of names over the years. It’s better than it sounds. Say, for instance, you put in “Adolph,” well, after the 1940s, you’ll see that the name dropped off considerably. Surprisingly enough, lots of people were still naming their kids that till the 1970s, though…

And even more fun…

www.gizoogle.com, “Fo all you beotches who wanna find shiznit.”

Just try it.

And consider the next time you go to a strip club wearing headphones and rocking to your own music. This idea brought to you by a man who smells like pumpkins.

Curiouser and Curiouser

V’s recent entry Oh Look! A Castle! is a beautiful/gross foray into the psychological metaphor of people and a drippy taco. It encapsulated really well some questions I’ve been pondering about a few people I know/think about way too much. Now here comes this New York Times article, For the Worst of Us, the Diagnosis May Be 'Evil', which has me saying, “Hmm,” even louder in my head.

Take a look at this excerpt:

“As part of an extensive, in-depth interview, a trained examiner rates the offender on a 20-item personality test. The items include glibness and superficial charm, grandiose self-worth, pathological lying, proneness to boredom and emotional vacuity. The subjects earn zero points if the description is not applicable, two points if it is highly applicable, and one if it is somewhat or sometimes true.”

See, now that just sounds like these characters I know, unfortunately. But then you get to this:

“Last April, Canadian and American researchers reported in a brain-imaging study that psychopaths processed certain abstract words - grace, future, power, for example - differently from nonpsychopaths.”

Still sounds about right. Then there’s this:

“Broken homes and childhood trauma are common among brutal killers; so is malignant narcissism, a personality type characterized not only by grandiosity but by fantasies of unlimited power and success, a deep sense of entitlement, and a need for excessive admiration.”

Take away the fact that no one I know has killed anyone (yet, that I know of), and the rest just sounds blandly familiar. I’m not in the mood to talk degrees of mental disorders, so let’s just stop here and say that I think I am friends with psychopaths. Either that, or some drippy tacos.

There's Nothing Else to Say

A Chance to Name a Monkey.

God Help Us and Our Retirement Benefits

Bushism of the Day
By Jacob Weisberg

"Because the—all which is on the table begins to address the big cost drivers. For example, how benefits are calculate, for example, is on the table; whether or not benefits rise based upon wage increases or price increases. There's a series of parts of the formula that are being considered. And when you couple that, those different cost drivers, affecting those—changing those with personal accounts, the idea is to get what has been promised more likely to be—or closer delivered to what has been promised. Does that make any sense to you? It's kind of muddled. Look, there's a series of things that cause the—like, for example, benefits are calculated based upon the increase of wages, as opposed to the increase of prices. Some have suggested that we calculate—the benefits will rise based upon inflation, as opposed to wage increases. There is a reform that would help solve the red if that were put into effect. In other words, how fast benefits grow, how fast the promised benefits grow, if those—if that growth is affected, it will help on the red."

—Explaining his plan to save Social Security, Tampa, Fla., Feb. 4, 2005

My Favorite Kurds/Words

Certain sentences said by certain people have really rung in my head lately. Yesterday, the Man In Baghdad wrote to me:

“My favorite Kurd just had a hernia.”*

Say it out loud: “My favorite Kurd just had a hernia.”

Feels good, right?

Then, just now, on IM, Non Sequitur (aka Bella) told me about a guy coming into the gallery where she works and asking if it was okay to look around.

“We are not consumers,” he said.

“We Are Not Consumers.”

Feels pretty good too, right?



[* the entire phrase was actually: “But what kind of luck do I have? My favorite Kurd just had a Hernia.”]

Base

So the story of this drawing is this:

I made it in college—charcoal on paper. I was quite pleased with it. It was the first day of my Drawing II class, senior year. My professor asked us to write “Base” on the corner so that we would know all semester that this was the drawing we started with, one to compare others to. The thing was, I ended up liking this one best out of all the ones I did all semester.

One year while working at the Met, I entered it into the employee art show, which was very cool because the museum reserved for a month whole galleries for us that would be closed to the public. So my drawing hung on a wall where (I remember specifically) Vermeers had previously hung. With that osmotic imprint, I was quite pleased to give the framed drawing to my father as a gift.

My father promptly forgot I had ever given it to him.

Over the years, I have asked him if he ever found it, you know, that drawing that hung at the Met? Never did find it or remember receiving it. But I’m pleased to say that that was the last Bad Thing I recall my father doing. At least one that I am still bitter about.

 


Before it hung at the Met, the drawing hung in my downtown apartment. That is an ex off to the right, and a Berenice Abbott print to the left.

Plus, I Live in New York

Last night, in my sleep, I went to work. But I couldn’t get there. The trip took me past my office and past a small airport, until I was incredibly late and didn’t know how to find my way. I stopped and asked directions.

“Oh, you just go this way, through Arizona, then you’ll hit this highway and this state…” etc., a kind woman told me. She wrote it all down.

I tried to follow the directions on my bike, but it was already getting dark, and I was even more lost than when I’d begun.

I realized, finally, that I could not get to work because every time I’d ever tried to go, I’d been lost. And how can you ever know the way if you never got it right?

On my real way to work this morning, I couldn’t help but get a little sentimental about the dream: How do you know which way to go in the world if you were never quite shown how to do it? I think it’s terribly self-pitying for me to say this, but I can’t help but feel like a child who wants to kick and scream until an adult takes my hand and takes me to school, I mean work.

Yeah, well, that never really happens, it seems. Maybe that’s the point. Yes, she says to herself, that is the point.

Bob Called Me

I got a call this morning from a Vietnam vet. He called because he saw a recent article I did on veterans, and it seems he wanted to share a poem with me. The guy is trying to build a memorial to veterans who have been mentally wounded in wars, and the inscription he wants to put on the monument is a poem, written by him. (I won’t name it here or share much of it out of discretion.)

The man, who I’ll call Bob, asks me if I have a minute to listen to his poem. “No, actually, now’s not a good time,” I say. But Bob launches into a lengthy preamble, explaining what the poem is about. Then he begins to read it. “While his heart is wounded/It continues to beat…”

I’m not sure what is happening, or why I am listening to this, but I choose to wait until he is finished to tell him again that I can’t really stay on the phone. People call often with something that may or may not be the nugget of a story. Sometimes I listen because I may be able to write something about what they are telling me, sometimes I just don’t know how to get off the phone.

Partway through the poem, the call cuts out. So I hear, “Something something something…He’s seen so much/He still needs your touch…”

And click.

No, I think. There is a Vietnam vet out there who thinks I just hung up on him because I hated his poetry. I feel uneasy.

But Bob calls back.

“My cell phone’s not so good,” he says. “Let me read it to you again.”

And so he begins again.

The phone cuts out.

But Bob calls back. This time I don’t answer.

Minutes pass. The phone rings again, and I pick it up.

“I forgot to give you my number,” Bob says. “It’s 555-12…”

The phone cuts out.

An hour or so passes, and I decide I will not answer the phone, even though I am waiting for an important call for a story. Finally, it rings. I let it got to voicemail.

Bob reads the entire poem to my machine.

I wish I could write it for you here. But I won’t. So I think it will probably just exist in two places now: in Bob’s head, and on my voicemail. I’m not sure what else there is to do with it, or, really, if anything else should even be done. I’m sort of just waiting for him to call me back.

You'll Want to Know, Trust Me

Find out what kind of dog you are on this site:

www.gone2thedogs.com

I'm a French bulldog, which I'm quite pleased about. My personality is apparently a good companion and compassionate although "owners have to get used to its gentle snuffling." My French bulldog self also, apparently, has a tendency to "wander off and sulk on rare occasions."

You?

Just So You Don't Get Too Bummed

by that last post...

Monkeys Pay to See Female Monkey Bottoms:

"A new study found that male monkeys will give up their juice rewards in order to ogle pictures of female monkey's bottoms."

But really, does it go vice versa? Do female monkeys care enough to give up their juice for that?

Holy Crap

From this USATODAY.com story:

"One in three U.S. high school students say the press ought to be more restricted, and even more say the government should approve newspaper stories before readers see them, according to a survey being released today."


I'll say it again: holy crap. From now on, I think I'll let the
government vet my stories first. That sounds about right.