Nighttown

Walking down State Street I had a brief experience that seemed as if it came right out of the "Circe" episode of Ulysses, which is a rather long series of nighttime encounters and hallucinations in "Nighttown," the red light district of Dublin more commonly known as Monto.

BUM
Can you spare any change?

JAMES
Sorry.

BUM
(in an entirely serious tone) Don't apologize!

Back in the Madtown / Out

Sarah and I had a smooth return trip to Madison, watching Friday Night Lights (which required more empathy for football fanatics than I could give) and the first two-thirds of the excellent film Collateral. Sarah informed be on the bus that my suite was one of many that had been illegally entered over the break. My losses seem to have been light at only three sodas and a can of Guinness. I'll look into reporting the theft of the sodas tomorrow, since the guilty parties are known. I also learned on the bus that one of my former professors was arrested for sending nude photos of himself to a 14-year old boy. Keith Cohen, who has admitted to having done this, was my comparative literature professor last spring. I liked him very much, and even paid him a visit this fall to tell him about the New York Clasical Theatre production I saw in Central Park on my last night in the City, since we had read a book by the playwrite, Aphra Behn. I had briefly considered him for letters of recommendation, which is somewhat ironic since one of my previous recommenders reportedly left for South America after a relationship with a student became public. It irks me to see nice, intelligent, creative people make stupid choices.

I arrived to find more bad news: Yale and Harvard both offered me their regrets. This saddens me some, but I increasingly like the looks of Syracuse as I read more about its master of architecture program, and it is certainly the most affordable of the lot. It might be a difficult choice if I do get into Columbia, which has been my favorite since attending classes there this past summer. Both schools are very good; Syracuse has the right price, and Columbia has the right location.

On the upside, I made my first ever visit to Qdoba this evening. I had a delicious chicken burrito. Perhaps I need to check out their competitors, Chipotle, and do a taste test.

[Please see also the 13 April update to this post.]

The Week In Review

It was a rather leisurely spring break. I didn't accomplish quite as much as I wanted, but probably as much as I expected. Unlike last year's Spring Break, I didn't make a single trip to the cinema, and watched only a few movies at home. I enjoyed Finding Neverland and the French film Bon Voyage greatly, and I found Fahrenheit 9/11 to be well made, but aimed at a significantly less-informed audience than myself. I enjoyed Garden State, but it didn't live up to the hype that it's generated among college students. I did attend the theatre, however: my family, Claire, and myself visited the Guthrie for a rather energetic performance of Shakespeare's As You Like It. The production had a strong flavor of the late 1960s. Jaques had a bandana 'round his head and Touchstone wore patchwork trousers with suede jacket. I enjoyed it, although I thought some of the songs (most notably "It was a lover and his lass...") were lost in the rock 'n' roll.

After the play we visited Solera, a tapas bar in Minneapolis that has been earning quite a bit of attention in the food world. It was, in fact, the finest meal of the week. As a group we tried roast rabbit, dates stuffed with sausage, kikos is Moorish spices, fried goat cheese, and numerous other dishes. And when I say that this was the finest meal of the week, I'm comparing it to several other very good meals from P.F. Chang's, California Pizza Kitchen, Green Mill, and, of course, the wonders my dad makes in our own kitchen.

There's No Place Like It

After seven hours on a bus traveling through blizzard conditions, I made it back safe and sound to the Twin Cities last night. I was up at 5:30 to shower and eat a bowl of cereal before attending a lifeguard in-service training session. I was back at the pool this evening for a shift. I'm going to need a break from this break if it keeps up like this.

Where There's Smoke

For the past week or so, my suitemate Mike has had problems with our floor's Ethernet hub which is located in the upper corner of his closet. It functions well, but the fans that keep it cool have taken to whining quite loudly at times, and PRH tech services have been characteristically slow to respond. This morning when I awoke around 3:00 to a loud buzzing sound, I thought the problem had gotten truly out of hand. I went over to see it Mike was going to smash the whole thing (I had given the plan my blessing days ago), but I found that the noise was instead coming from the firealarms in the hall. We took a moment to decide whether or not we ought to stay or leave, considering the likelihood that this was a heavy drinker's idea of St. Paddy's Day fun. An inspection of the hall revealed acrid smoke and people shouting to each other, "It's a real fire! It's a real fire!" Thus we concluded that a prompt exit would be prudent.

I hurried back to my room to put on some shoes, and I recall that as I tied my laces in a half-asleep state I looked for my paperback copy of Ulysses but was unsuccessful. My friend Claire is right: I am obsessed with that book. Anyway, bookless but shod I joined the file in the back stairway. Leah, one of the RAs, was waiting at the third floor, shouting at us to use emergency exit instead of cutting through the building to the main door, but I had to reshout the order once we reached the critical juncture since the people ahead of me we still mostly asleep. We found ourselves waiting for about a quarter of an hour in the freshfallen snow across the street. I took lots of jabs about looking like Hugh Hefner in my blue Bill Blass bathrobe, and word got around that the culprit behind our interrupted slumber was our unreliable elevator (which I've always hated and avoided as much as possible). Upon returning I opened my window all the way and tried to get the party started again with a cry for an early-morning Guinness, but I had no takers.

Taste o' Dublin

It was a busy day: I had three power-lectures, a two-hour exam, and a productive trip to the library. When I returned from all this, I found a friendly little St. Patrick's Day party in my suite, and Mike welcomed me back with a double Baileys on the rocks. I followed that with a can of Guinness stout and the very last shot of John Jameson Irish whiskey in the house. We had ten guests throughout the course of the evening, if you count me as a host despite my limited role. The party was deemed a success, and we did it without a single drop of green beer.

49-51

I was sorry to see that Senator Cantwell's Amendment No. 168 to Resolution No. 18 (which is the current appropriations resolution) was rejected yesterday. The amendment was "to strike section 201(a)(4) relative to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge." Simply put, it would have taken drilling in ANWR off the table while leaving the rest of the bill intact. I was quite pleased, however, to see my own Republican senator was one of only seven to break with his party and vote sensibly on this issue. I still don't have the same respect for Norm Collman that I do for Arizona's John McCain or Maine's Olympia J. Snowe, two of the other Republican Senators who voted 'yea,' but I like Stormin' Norm more than I did a week ago. And I think its safe to say I like him way more than Mike Crapo of Idaho, who voted against the amendment. But what else can you expect from a guy named Mike Crapo?

The R-Word

Last year actress Lindsey Lohan was in the habit of using the word 'retarded' whenever she meant 'stupid,' 'silly,' 'baseless,' or any of a number of other more appropriate words. Lorriane Sheehan, president of Arc Of The United States, reprimanded her saying that "there are few more deeply wounding words than these, which are painful reminders that people with disabilities are still not fully welcome in our society." I like to think that I'm more sophisticated with my vocabulary than Ms. Lohan, but every now and then I use 'retarded' lightly, although more often than not I keep it in my head.

This evening I was eating dinner at the Towers, and I was sitting close to a table of a half-dozen guys who were discussing blackjack, baseball, pizza, beer - all things I enjoy, but not things to which I devote a lot of discussion. Apparently they had received some sort of free pizza deal through some situation I couldn't fully grasp from their conversation. One guy who had been thinking deeply suddenly exclaimed Wait guys! Just listen to this. We still tipped the delivery guy for those pizzas, right? Someone said, yeah, they had all chipped in a buck. So that's like twelve bucks, our thinker continued. That's not free pizza. That's just a discount or something! At this point I muttered to myself, "What is this guy? Retarded?" Just then our thinker asked his tablemates What do they think we are? Retarded?

Grasshopper grasshopper scoot!

Happy St. Urho's Day! St. Urho, of course, was that heroic Finlander who drove away the locusts with his pitchfork while shouting, "Heinasirkka, heinasirkka, menetaalta hiiten." But perhaps you haven't heard of him. That's understandable; there are many naysayers who claim that Minnesota Finns cooked up this character just so they could tap into the green beer a day before the Irish. As one who considers himself to be more of a Minnesota Finn than anything else, I'll take pride in either version.

Half Of A Swedish Pop Group

I got two exams back today, and I was quite surprised to find that I had done better than expected in both of them. I got a 98% (an A) on the cryptography exam and a 87% (a high B) on the James Joyce exam. An 'A' in math and a 'B' in English: that certainly sounds like me, even as far back as Cedar Island Elementary School.

Out

I learned of my acceptance to Syracuse ten days ago, and since then I've talked to a number of people about the school and the others to which I applied. People frequently ask me if I'm interested in going to Syracuse, which is an understandable question, since many people apply to schools in which they have little interest. I'm not one of those people. I've been telling those politely curious people that the only school to which I applied about which I'm not actually enthusiastic is Princeton. It is a good school, and I've heard they have some of the best scholarships, but it never felt right. My two major issues with Princeton have been that [1] I think their elitist mentality surpasses both Harvard and Yale and [2] I really don't want to live in New Jersey. Given this, I'm not too distraught by the "bad" news I received a few minutes ago.

"I regret that you will not be joining us at Princeton," Dean William B. Russell told me in an email. They would, however "be more than pleased to provide a properly formatted" paper-and-ink letter of rejection; I need only call and request it. I refer you to reason [1].

Since 1985

Happy twentieth, Jenny!

Since 1985

Sarah began her third decade today, and her parents came to town to celebrate. They were kind enough to include me in the major event of the day which was lunch at Hawk's Bar & Grill. I had a Reuben and honey onion soup. The sandwich was quite good, and, while I don't think it will ever replace French onion, the soup was tasty too. I had met Sarah's mother briefly on my own birthday, but this was my first chance to get to talk to either one of them at any length. They seem to be very different people, and I think Sarah falls halfway in between them. I gave Sarah a copy of Bubba Ho-Tep to celebrate the occasion. I told her I'd be happy to swap it for something safer if she doesn't care to keep it, but I'm hoping that her love of both the grotesque and the underappreciated will allow her to enjoy this bizarre little film as much as I did.

Gold and silver and bronze by gold

I met Jenny this morning for tea and mint hot chocolate. It occurred to me that I've now been friends with Jenny (whom I met in Ms. Braun's seventh-grade high performance English class) for over one-third of my life. It's an odd thought, if only because it makes my junior high days seem so distant. It's also a very comforting thought to know I have a friend of over seven years.

I met Sarah, a much more recent acquaintance (six months to the day by one definition), for lunch and an early-afternoon stroll. She took me to the Monona Terrace, which I had previously neglected to visit. As much as I dislike Frank Lloyd Wright in many respects (most notably what I view as pride of the inefficiency of his architecture), I have to concede that he was a genius. Sarah and I were the only two people of our age that we saw, and I was one of only three or four males. Sarah poked her head into one of the auditoriums and found that there was a workshop on wedding-related arts and crafts in progress.

This evening I read the eleventh episode of Ulysses, which is generally known as "Sirens." It was one of the more difficult episodes I've encountered thus far since the structure emulates music (which, of course, is central to the sirens' powers). The chapter begins with an "overture" of sorts which, using fragments of text, maps out the entire chapter. The sirens in this book have no magic, however; they are regular barmaidens (one brunette and one blond). I suppose, though, that many men would consider the effects of alcohol to be sufficiently enchanting.

Prudence

Nat and I went to see the Bernard Shaw play Misalliance this evening. The first half was slow, but it proved to be a good setup for the second half, which was quite entertaining. We were both surprised by the presence of some rather modern-sounding femenist ideas in this pre-World War work. There was also a bit about socialism that certainly came before Red October. Nat recognized one of the actresses as a former TA of his, and I saw a student from my James Joyce class in the row ahead of me. We went back to his place afterward to sip wine and and discuss art, women, and religion (seperately and in certain combinations). After what I suspect came to about three glasses I was far more prepared for bed than debate, so we called it a night, disagreeing on friendly terms.

Since 1986

Happy nineteenth, Miranda!

Since 1985

Happy twentieth, Kyle!

Yay for venus

Happy International Women's Day. I'm sorry we need such a thing.

Nickel-And-Diming For Peanuts

I have been an infrequent customer of the vending machine in the lounge this year. I've probably averaged one candybar each month, getting a Snickers about half the time and a Pearson's Salted Nut Roll the other half. Tonight I say "no more!" I went down and found that every 65¢ label has been carelessly covered with a 75¢ label. Considering the fact that the machine uses no electricity except when it is actually dispensing something and the amount of human labor required to keep it stocked is almost nothing compared to the amount of labor required to man the register at Walgreens, I see no good reason for Wright Vending to charge more than the corner drugstore. Obviously they think people will be willing to pay the extra 10¢; I'm going to do my part to prove them wrong.

Non Serviem

In the course of my campus wanderings I encountered a young lady wearing a sandwich-board sign with a picture on which was drawn a pineapple drawn in magic marker. She had a clipboard and a pad of paper with the words 'WHOLE FOODS' at the top. She asked me if I would like to sign a petition to get organic and non-genetically modified foods labeled as such.

Organic foods actually are labeled, but the criteria is questionable, so I assumed that's what she meant. As far as GMOs are concerned, there is actually government pressure not to label, and personally I would like to see that change. My reason for this is primarily that I believe consumer knowledge to be one of the basic elements of a healthy market economy. I am quite comfortable with some of the genetic modifications about which I've read, and I'm quite wary of others, and I'd like the chance to speak with my wallet. Still, I like to know what it is on which I'm putting my signature.

"Who or what are 'Whole Foods?'" I asked.

She replied that it's just another name for organic, non-engineered foods, and she started telling me some basic propaganda that I've long known, so I jumped in and asked her who she was petitioning.

She responded, "Whole Foods."

Confused, I asked if that was some sort of food wholesaler, and she started repeating her definition. So I asked who it was that would be receiving the signatures.

She paused and said, "that's a good question."

I walked away without signing telling her, "I'll be coming back this way later," but she was gone when I returned.

Do I Contradict Myself?

STOPzilla! is a program designed to block pop-up advertisements and spyware. I was hit by an ad for it while checking my usual morning comics (Get Fuzzy and Pearls Before Swine). It wasn't technically a pop-up, but I was required to click once to get past the advertisement. I usually have little patience for these types of ads and even less patience for anything that makes noise or worse, loads a video. STOPzilla! did all these with a single QuickTime video. And I didn't care. Their video was actually funny. You can see it here. I guess if you're going sell net-ad blocking software with a net-ad that is designed to get past blocking software you've got to knock the socks off your audience if you want to win them over.

In

Today was a day of good news.

I've been accepted to the Syracuse University School of Architecture. I've joked with people, that Syracuse has been my "safety school," and truthfully I have considered it to be my best chance, but I'm still extraordinarily happy. It's a fine school, and I'll be quite satisfied if I do end up there.

Also, I managed to snag one ticket to the Nine Inch Nails show in Chicago on 6 May. (I had been trying for two tickets so that I could go with Eric Rogers, who's kindly agreed to put me up for the night, but the competition on Ticketmaster.com proved too fierce. Perhaps we can find a ticket for him that night, since he only risks a forty-minute trip instead of a four-hour busride.) I'm quite excited about this show; I've heard NIN shows are quite spectacular, and I'm almost as excited about the support act, the Dresden Dolls, who have been earning quite a bit of attention in music circles lately. The ticket price was only $30.00, but I ultimately paid $45.58 after all the fees. I was hesitant about spending the money with grad school just around the corner, but I strongly suspect that I'll view this as money well spent twenty years from now, and I can't imagine a more tempting concert than this.

Almost Infamous

Dear readers, please let me introduce to you Mr. Gary Arthur Medrow through these two extracts from Chuck Shepherd's weekly column "News of the Weird."

From a 2004 "best of" column:

In Milwaukee in 1997, Gary Arthur Medrow, 53, was charged with 24 counts of impersonating a police officer in connection with his unique obsession. What Medrow does, according to police (who have arrested him various times over the last 30 years for the same thing), is telephone a woman and try to convince her to lift another person in the room and carry her or him a short distance, sometimes telling the woman that he's a police officer and that it's an official request. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 10-7-97]

From a November 2004 column:

UPDATE
Gary Arthur Medrow, 60, first made News of the Weird in our inaugural year, 1988, but his criminal record (mostly for impersonating police officers) goes back at least 10 years before that. Medrow's preferred scene is to call someone (usually a woman) on the telephone, pretend to be a police officer on an investigation, and ask her to try to lift up another person in the room and carry him or her into another room. He was charged again in New Berlin, Wis., in September. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 9-20-04]

Now let me recall for you from my 15 February post this photo of my friend Sarah Linwick that appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:



It seems that Mr. Medrow saw this picture and was intrigued. In the past week, he called Mr. and Mrs. Linwick, impersonated an officer, and told the couple a story involving Sarah and a carcrash. Apparently the story he told wasn't sufficiently convincing and he never got to his usual request. I suppose he's been unsuccessful many times before, and he'll probably be unsuccessful many times again. Poor guy.

Now that we can be reasonably certain that no one is in danger I must say that I'm tickled to no end that I managed to, in some small way, interact with this man with whom I have been most amused for many a year.

East and west, north and south, and the far east

I found myself moving back and forth between campus and the Highlander with greater than average frequency today. I skipped math class to study for my James Joyce exam, which accounted for my first westward trip at 10:45 this morning. I stopped on my return trip for my weekly lunch at the Towers with Langdon Resident Director Ben Moss. I found myself westbound a couple hours later for my Post-Colonial Architecture lecture, then eastbound to call Ben to solidify our evening plans. Then I headed back west for a lecture of U.S./Cuba relations. The line for food after the lecture looked unpleasant and not at all worth the paltry offerings, so I popped across State Street to the Humanities building, where the Honors Student Organization was having pizza and a "movie," which turned out to be Seinfeld episodes. I ate quickly and bailed before the show could start, sped home, showered, met up with Ben at the Langdon, then headed west to Memorial Union where we saw Zatôichi, a Japanese flick that had almost as many non sequiturs as Shaolin Soccer. It was amazingly violent, utterly perplexing, and thoroughly entertaining. A final eastward trip brought me home to Highlander, where I've eaten more pizza. I will sleep well tonight.

Since 1986

Happy nineteenth, Danielle!