Briefly noted

Also on the Wes Anderson front:
The attorney for Travis Henry, the Broncos running back who faces suspension over smoking some weed, is named Steve Zissou.

Dignan learns to laminate

"So he's like, 'Hey, Darjeeling, that's a kind of tea, right? Or, like, a place in India?' And, I'm, like, 'Uh, yeah, dumbass, it's both.'" -- a guy wearing a Sonic Youth baseball cap, standing in line at the Charles Theater in Baltimore, MD, smug as all git-out

So. Wes Anderson, then.

[This is a good article. It articulates a pervasive unease I feel re: Wes Anderson & race. Nothing riles you up more than race, I know, except perhaps liquor stores that won't accept payroll checks after midnight.]

[Here's what may be the prelude to a thoughtful stance. Come on, "cinetrix," you inconstantly third-person narrator, you. Flesh it out, if only for the children.]

We all expected more from Wes Anderson, mainly because of his adroitness at tapping veins of retarded emotion bulging near the surface. We mistook this for depth. It's amazing what a slow Rolling Stones song & borrowed nostalgia can do to the ol' Longing organs. Throw in some Jarmuschish humor & stage it as an elaborate diorama by Dieter Roth or Jean-Pierre Jeunet, and you've got a dedicated following. But that's ok; that's really ok.

A common defense of simple pleasures: they don't pretend to be anything else. But really, why should intent matter at all here? Who gives a fuck if the guy who made my burrito was hoping for a Michelin star? It's a goddamn decent burrito, and it's delicious.

So. I go to Wes Anderson movies for aesthetic rapture. For mild, offbeat laffs. For cheap heartstring-tugging and shallow symbolism. For material fetishization. For Owen Wilson. Not for "ideas," nor for character exploration, nor for the untangling of moral Gordian knots, and least of all for an admirable treatment of race relations. WA is the first half of WASP, and I've learned to live with that reasonably happily.

6.5/10. CC&P says check it out.

Cheap QALY-saver

Here's to topes. ¡Topes!

Concrete mile

I wanted to just briefly serenade a particular kind of bitterness: it's the long walk on a hot day through blinding daylight along some pedestrian-unfriendly stretch of urban desert. You've been there: along the back end of a convention center parking lot on an off day; underneath the Bangkok elevated train; past the unfinished development site in Delhi with weeds growing through the boxy modern concrete houses; plodding from one car dealership to the next, 1/4 mile down the marginal commercial road with plenty of streetlights but no sidewalks.

You feel vaguely ill, inexplicably weary, despite little physical exertion today. You wonder how you could have ever jogged, sprinted, played a game. It is really far to the next thing. It is really hot. There are no other pedestrians around and the air smells like exhaust.

Fantasy Football Wrapup

I caught a few minutes of the Patriots-Cowboys game at a local Baltimore bar. The bar is half-gay, half-straight, 100% depressing. The hilarious yet (for Baltimore) unremarkable 15-minute circus that ensued fits poorly into a blog nugget; nonetheless, I feel compelled to note a few highlights:

• The bar was nearly empty. I requested that they change the TV from a rodeo broadcast to the game.
• 2 beefy straight 40ish guys were too drunk to notice that they'd lost control of their 20ish trashy-hot girlfriends.
• One trashy-hot drunk girl insisted on being taught how to sign "S-E-X-Y" in ASL by the gay identical twins sitting in the corner playing erotic touchscreen. "Oh my God you're deaf and that's so sad, but it's also awesome, really!!!!"
• Her attention was diverted by a Baltimore Dude (30 but looks 50, no teeth, wiry strong, tattoos, white, shaved head) sobbing into his hands on the counter.
• The trashy-hot girl then proceeded to ostentatiously comfort the Baltimore Dude, buying him shot after shot. "It's ok, sweetie, everything's going to be ok, you know that, right? Get drunk with me."
• The Baltimore Dude attempted to touch the labia of the trashy-hot girl during one of the 116 hugs they engaged in. She slurred "That's not appropriate," then bought everyone another shot.
• One of the 40ish beefy dudes pulled her away after he'd been rejected whilst hitting on a 45ish botoxed horror.
• The Baltimore Dude then sobbed for 5 straight minutes. I tapped him on the shoulder and asked if he was ok, which of course he wasn't. He said "yeah," then collapsed backward off his barstool and lay on the floor amid spilled beer, overturned barstools, and wretched shame.
• I've been to this bar twice in the past 6 months or so, and it's the second time I've helped someone up the stairs. The first time, it was a man who looked 150 years old, a ruined Statler/Waldorf, his mouth hanging open so wide it looked like he was cruising for plankton. With his son.
• New England beat Dallas but may have lost Sammy Morris, making Kevin Faulk an acceptable desperation #2 back for week 7.

Mid-October nuggets

• You hung over? Feelin' like you need to reboot the works? Wanna purge the toxins? Read this article about Gawker. It's nauseating.
• A quote from the Washington Monthly about the article: "The vast emptiness at the core of what these people do is almost unfathomable, and their self-loathing ranks right up there with crack addicts..."
• Concert Review: 10/14/07, Of Montreal. Good music, wanted to punch Kevin Barnes in the throat. Biggest divergence between singer/song impressions since Telly Savalas' "Telly" (1974). I don't have anything against preening pretension, honestly, but I was in a bad mood; Freddie Mercury was in retrograde or something.
• I was all set to launch a spirited discussion of Gary Taubes' piece on epidemiology (as made manifest in diet/chronic disease etiologic research: weak associations, unmeasured confounding, shaky conclusions), but then I got bored. And you would have too. So instead, I thought we could-- together, you and me-- launch a jihad against the phrase "junk science." Consider this an amateur fatwa (the hottest kind).

Instructions for making a nuclear bomb

Here is a surefire recipe for constructing a nuclear weapon:

1. I have always been curious to see who searches for this kind of thing. Radioactive Boy Scouts, for instance.
2. Presumably, there's all kinds of crappy or scarily useful information posted online by lunatics.
3. Therefore, this post probably won't make it into Google's top 100 search results.
4. I might need some specific ordered combination of terms, like "bomb recipe" or "step by step nuclear bomb" or "nuclear bomb instructions."
5. Nonetheless, it would be awfully interesting if I got hits on this site from people searching for such a thing. I will report back to you.
6. I'm sure the NSA and the FBI and the BBC and BB King have posted all kinds of lures and traps online, and play the "track IP address" game.
7. By simply posting about this topic, I may find myself face-to-face with scary waterboarders in dark suits tomorrow.
8. Tell my mother I love her.
9. Mix 3 cups of flour, 1 tsp of baking powder, and 1 tsp of salt in a bowl.
10. Add 2 oz bourbon, a dash of bitters, and 1/2 a teaspoon of Triple Sec.

Colbert didn't quite nail it

Although I wish he didn't look quite so smug in his photo, I think Frank Rich writes good columns. Here's one you should read. I'm looking at you, you complacent ass, stuffing your face with grilled chicken panini. You!

Don't roll your eyes at my motto, bro

Apparently I was out of the loop. I thought "Don't tase me, bro" was a sufficiently obscure reference to serve as this blog's motto. Apparently not. Apparently I need to read blogs produced and owned by Wired magazine.

A quote from the story: "For those of you who've been on vacation on a Greek Island, or are just logging onto your computer from a remote location in China..."

This kind of embarrassed disclaimer preceding an explanation chafes my nerves almost as much as the phrase "Party foul!" does. Yes, for those of you who aren't pale men aged 15-40 who spend all day checking out the "most viewed" videos on YouTube...

Ok, fine. I'm just mad that I didn't hang out backstage with "Don't tase me, bro" before it was signed to a major label. Before the Nigel Godrich production and the string section. Anyway, I've replaced the slogan with a new one, a non-jokey one, taken from a nice essay by John Updike. I like this phrase. It is just the right flavor of bloggy narcissism.

24-23

Hyperbole never tasted so sweet:

"Yes, in the wake of the greatest upset in college football's entire history--a history that stretches back to 1869, four years after the Civil War came to an end--one can fairly say that somewhere in a land of peace and joy, Bill Walsh is smiling broadly as he looks down on pupil Jim Harbaugh, and a bunch of Stanford men who have just attained a considerable measure of gridiron immortality."

Arabbers, dirtbikes, wheelchairs

The streets of Baltimore prominently feature three means of conveyance that are at best rare in other cities. Bullet points!

• Arabbers. They deserve their own post, if not Presidential Medals of Freedom. They are a dying breed (by a recent count, only 6 remain) of street vendors who hawk fruit and sundries from pony-drawn carts. They maintain an African-American tradition dating back nearly 200 years. I once noticed horseshit in my alley, and wondered: what the fuck? Then I saw some Arabbers passing through the neighborhood, shouting and vending, and I understood.
• Dirtbikes. This is unreal. Groups of dirtbike riders careen through Baltimore like showboating swallows at dusk. Wheelies at 60 mph. Flying through parks, cutting through yards. Dodging traffic, even flying the wrong way up Highway 83. You hear the buzz of the motors after the kids are already past you, all pulling wheelies and exhibiting daring beyond anything you've ever displayed. Cops can't stop them. Every black kid in East Baltimore wants a dirtbike. The 8-year-old kid I mentor covets one like you'd covet a Red Ryder carbine action two-hundred shot range model air rifle with a compass in the stock. When we draw, he asks me to draw dirtbikes. I've thought about pedantically drawing him pictures of massive head injuries, but my artistic skills are limited. So I draw him dirtbikes. Dirtbikes!
• Motorized wheelchairs. There are neighborhoods where they clog the streets. Distressingly piloted by young men, who exhibit an "I got nothing to lose" indifference to automobiles.

Lonely at the top

I won both my fantasy baseball leagues. Yes, that's right. Shout it from the mountaintops. I won. And you know what victory looks like?

Victory looked like this: a slouched posture in front of the computer. An empty beer bottle in my right hand. Outside, ruined Baltimore briefly flattered by the dying sun. An empty apartment. The mild annoyance of friends. The utter indifference of loved ones. Countless hours of life wasted. And for what? For what?

All the National Bohemians I can drink. I don't think King Pyrrhus ever got that reward. Time to pay up. You know who you are.

stop the coming war

Time to write your congressional rep. Really.

Be my Mal Evans

I've spent the last week shirking my trivial epidemiological responsibilities and immersing myself in the Beatles. If you've never watched the 8-part Anthology-- and I hadn't-- it's well worth the time.

Much of it is crudely sequenced and laughably staged. Paul is interviewed while apparently captaining a tugboat. Later, he is interviewed while casually tending a campfire in the woods. Paul is kind of an ass. George, though admirably humble, sardonic, and down-to-earth, is interviewed in his palatial home. It appears to have been decorated by a billionaire Uzbek immigrant. 1994 brought some questionable sartorial choices. Paul's mullet. George's colorful sweaters. Ringo's LA Raiders cap.

But the documentary is riveting. Their Elvis encounter is a Liverpudlian Rashomon:

• Ringo & George seem to be telling the truth about it (I paraphrase): "We were stoned out of our minds & all of us forgot where we were going. Then we realized, oh yeah, we're gonna meet Elvis. We fell out of the limo giggling, and there he was, hanging out on the porch watching TV and playing a bass guitar. It was weird. He was surrounded by sycophants and seemed kind of out of it. We stayed a few hours. Shame he was so threatened by us later, telling Nixon that we corrupted America's youth and all. Whatever."
• Paul: "Oh, yeah, I was blown away. What a historic encounter."
• John: "We just jammed with him, you know, all the old rock & roll standards."
• George: "John said he jammed with him. Must have been when we were out of the room."

Much of the footage is surprisingly moving. Some highlights:

• A performance of "I Am The Walrus" from Magical Mystery Tour.
• Music videos of "Paperback Writer" and "Rain."
• Twickenham bickering and jamming.
• Yoko perched like a vulture, watching the lads play "Let It Be."
• John being consistently clever and acidic. If you're going to be an asshole, might as well be interesting-- take note, Sir McCartney.
• Ringo comes off well.
• The transition from publicly well-behaved lads to irreverent hippies is shockingly rapid. It was only four months between "You're Going To Lose That Girl" and "Norwegian Wood," and less than a year between matching suits and Sgt. Pepper.
• The transition from goofy hippies to gaunt, bearded sages is similarly rapid.
• The mythopoiea of the Maharishi sojourns and lysergic trips is deflated by all the footage of young confused folks behaving in entirely recognizable ways. '60s envy is ameliorated if not cured.
• Just watching the 4 of them play together is pretty damned thrilling.

The Semaphore of Squamuglia

You really ought to check this out.

It was forwarded to me by DR, who says "It's hard for me to imagine something you'll find more interesting." DR knows me; what can I say?

[clarification: DR is not the Dominican Republic, with whom I have had little correspondence, other than a series of increasingly urgent communiqués in 1973 stemming from a diplomatic misunderstanding. Apparently "puta" is not Spanish for "put," FYI.]

1969 Old Farmer's Almanac

• During the months in 1968 while we have been compiling this 1969 OFA, we have been constantly reminded, by student revolts, racism, et al., of the need in this country for such strong traditions as this Almanac.
• Don't graft trees when moon is on the wane or not seen.
• "A common Case this, to call in our Neighbours to rejoice when all the good Liquor is gone." -Pliny
• Abortion is no longer not being talked about. However, it may well be that medical science may render such laws obsolete almost before they are written. The "morning-after" pill....
• "The Soviet Union could still efficiently destroy the United States even after absorbing the full weight of an American first strike," Mr. McNamara stated as he left office in May 1968.
• In general, with NORAD in operation, it may be said we have about a 15-minute warning of a missile attack from anywhere in the world. This would allow three counter-attacks... however, there is not as yet any active defense against an ICBM.
• [advertisement] KEEP DRY "The Masculine Way" -- MALE-DRI. $5.95 with 3 snap-in absorbent pads.

Ceramics and skulls

A friend wrote me & helpfully informed me that she considers the new CC&P design to be "Very Southwestern New Age."

I was hurt, and even considered changing the background to a different detail of the same painting-- one with uniformly dark colors that evokes only haunting and very stylish Swiss expressionism. Not bolo ties, turquoise earrings, coyote trickster spirits, and desert tai chi.

Rain

I don't have much to say today, this fine Thursday, other than a small suggestion. I believe this may be the solution to the minor problem you have. Consider this to be your horoscope for the day, but a scientific kind of horoscope, calibrated in antiseptic conditions by Finnish scientists. I think you should put on the Beatles' "Rain," and turn the volume up as high as your speakers can stand without distortion.

By the way, the Didion quote below is from an interview she gave to the Paris Review in 1978. I found it yesterday when I was cleaning out my "Favorites"-- the collection of 60 or so bookmarked links that I never, ever visit. I don't know when I found it, but I'd never read it. Along with the Didion interview, I found this and this. Please to enjoy.

Excerpt

Q: How did the "fragility of Joan Didion" myth start?

A: Because I'm small, I suppose...

Look out, DiMaggio

My friend and I share a subscription to MLB TV, which allows one to watch most games online. However. Said friend sneakily chose an password that is a crude play on my name. Let's just say it involves two obscenities ingeniously compressed into one. Had my schoolmates discovered this innovation back in 3rd grade, I might never have recovered.

So every time I log in, I am forced to slander my good name. It's, um, as if my beer mug were constructed of dried manure. (That's two fecal analogies in two days. Every streak starts small.) I don't intervene to change the password because I hate myself.

[Also, I switched templates because of bugginess w/my old template. Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused you and your loved ones.]

When it rains

Michael Hirschorn recently wrote an article in the Atlantic that assails "quirk," in particular the brand peddled by This American Life. In my judgment, Hirschorn's point is like a nugget of tasty corn in a well-formed stool. Anyhoo, this passage caught my eye: "[Quirk] becomes a kind of psychographic marker, like wearing laceless Chuck Taylors or ironic facial hair—a self-satisfied pose that stands for nothing and doesn’t require you to take creative responsibility."

It's true. For too long, people with Chuck Taylors have evaded creative responsibility for their footwear. For the record: my pose is clearly labeled. My email address and cell phone number are featured prominently on my pose (28 pt all-caps Trebuchet font), and there is a comments section.

*Also, Lindsay Robertson points out that Mr. Hirschorn is creatively responsible for the presence of Celebrity Fit Club on VH1.

Keeping the doctor at bay

I have missed you, blog. Oh, how I've missed you. It's just that I didn't really have anything I wanted to write. In conclusion: I haven't missed you, blog.

But today begins a noble experiment (forced daily posts) with two non-exclusive outcomes:
a) sweet creative release, preventing my tumescent creativity from bursting through an inconvenient collection of body tissues. O Creativity! Why must you swell inside me like a banal balloon?
b) declining blog quality, assuming we haven't zeroed out here already.

Null hypothesis: a = b. Effort is pointless but harmless. Life is meaningless. Sell your possessions, kiss a baby, murder a kitten; it doesn't matter; zero is the sum.
Alternative hypothesis: Corn Chips and Pie will save/destroy the world.

It's nothing at all

• I finally got around to watching Slow Century, the Pavement DVD. The highlight-- ferret around for it, because it's worth it-- is a clip of some KROQ promo guy or DJ stepping onstage before the band comes on. Upon being instantly heckled, he gamely carries on for a minute or two. When his multiple attempts to announce "upcoming shows" are met with angry shouts, he reacts by taunting the crowd: if it wasn't for KROQ, you guys wouldn't be "turned on" to Pavement, etc. Boos and cups of beer come flying at him. He keeps winding up the crowd. He stays onstage far longer than he has to (probably for 5 minutes), like a punch-drunk boxer keeping his feet. "Call and response, baby, call and response. It's an old blues trick. Picked it up in the House of Blues." He's not a hero; he's just a regular guy in extraordinary circumstances.
• I also liked how Thurston Moore, the Ancient One of indie cool, was filmed in wrinkle-proof, deifying yellow light.
• A long day of football awaits. Pray for me.

Cicada nuggets

• A long time ago, I wrote a post about a box of treasures and its unknown provenance. Recently, a man contacted me out of the blue-- he was a family friend of the woman who owned the box, and had some light to shed on her life. I'm shipping him the box; he certainly has a greater claim on it than I do. I'll miss you, Loie.
• Ayn-Rand-worship, or even Rand-tolerance, never fails to irritate. Recently, it came to light that a shadow corporation involved in ground zero demolition-- and possibly corruption-- was named John Galt Corporation. Now it comes to light in the New York Times that a company providing software to TastyKake is named John Galt Solutions. Truly, there is no nobler manifestation of man's will and achievement in the field of excellence than the TastyKake. With the sign of the TastyKake as our symbol — the sign of free trade and free minds — we will move to reclaim this country once more from the impotent savages who never discovered its nature, its meaning, its splendor.
• I hate baseball. What a silly sport! Grown men chasing a tiny ball around. It's so boring. How can people watch it? Me, I'll take the frenzied excitement of a nil-nil match between Portsmouth and Liverpool over a 11-10 "base-ball" yawnfest. This has nothing to do with the fact that the projected starting lineup for the Giants next year features Bengie Molina at cleanup and about 8 speedy light-hitting centerfielders competing for the leadoff spot. I honestly couldn't care less that the Giants' last 1B above replacement level was Will Clark. Maybe I'll become an Orioles fan. They seem like they're on the right track.

Of course, when I think of "burrito tunnel," my imagination conjures something else entirely

I like.

Pieces

RIP Bill Walsh.
RIP Ingmar Bergman.
RIP Michelangelo Antonioni.
RIP Dr. Nick Riviera.

George Comstock

RIP.

Tiny nugs

• I was drinking some coffee in the East Village t'other day when I noticed that the guy next to me looked like Vin Diesel. Nah, I thought. Then I figured, yeah, prolly, because Parker Posey and her little annoying white dog came and sat with him after hugs & air kisses. Do all celebrities know one another? Is Buzz Aldrin best buddies with Shia LeBouf?
• I guess I'm kind of like the Jet Li character in "Unleashed." Trained from birth to fly into a violent rage every time I see Robin Williams smiling smugly in bed with a curiously splotched Mandy Moore in the poster for "License to Wed." Except that my violent rages may be better described as impotent whining.
• I really don't understand Tony LaRussa.
• Owsley Stanley once said, "Everything in Cirque du Soleil is wet and French and gay and on fire." The LSD doesn't help, apparently. Or maybe it was Patton Oswalt; whatever.

Peanut shell buffalo

I was hungry, so I decided to eat. There is a good burger place a few blocks away from me called Five Guys. It is a small chain in the Washington - Baltimore area. They make really good burgers.

I walked outside and into the hot soupy evening. It was like walking through a nice split pea, or perhaps potato leek, soup. I did not want soup; I wanted a cheeseburger. I was kind of angry when I got to the restaurant.

I ate my cheeseburger and fries in the air-conditioned restaurant, and my mood improved. It was a really good burger. Then I walked to the door and noticed a sign: "DUE TO SEVERE PEANUT ALLERGIES IN SOME NEIGHBORHOOD CHILDREN, PLEASE DO NOT THROW OR CARRY PEANUTS OR PEANUT SHELLS OUTSIDE THIS RESTAURANT."

Five Guys gives you free peanuts as a snack while you're waiting for your burger. This is pretty nice of them. Peanuts cost money.

I was curious about these neighborhood children, so I tried an experiment. I took a peanut shell outside, and dropped it onto the sidewalk. Nothing happened for a little while. Then I heard a low rumble that grew into a tremendous thundering, like the sound of buffalo hooves in the ears of Lewis and Clark. Around every corner, through every bush, over every rooftop, out of every drainpipe cascaded hundreds of slavering children with peanut allergies. Their eyes were not human. They had only one thing on their minds: peanut. The Peanut Horde approached with the rapidity of an allergic jet plane. Spittle was getting in my eyes. I snatched the peanut shell up off the ground just in time. The children disappeared imperceptibly, disinterestedly, shuffling off to their dens.

3 products that I will not buy

• I was in a bookstore and saw a book called "Punk Marketing."
• I was listening to the radio and heard a commercial for RideAccidents.com, which is a website designed for people who are paranoid about dying on a roller coaster.
• I was in a drugstore and saw a medicine named "666 Cold Preparation."