Home sweet home

Beth, Chris, Mary, Casey, and I have a new address. It is:

Flat 3
Wendover Court
Chiltern Street
London
W1U 7NN
United Kingdom

Please address all packages of biscuits here.

Still homeless

We spent about twelve hours searching for a flat today, but nothing seemed quite right. We know our budget is suitable for what we seek, but the number of flats with the right location, configuration, and (primarily) lease duration are few. We'll pick up the hunt again tomorrow. For now, we're headed out to find a pub that's open past eleven.

H2O, miracle drug

This was on my bottle of Suio sparkling water:

BENEFICIAL PROPERTIES*

• Helps the function of the liver
• Microbiologically pure
• Stimulates digestion
• Purifies internal systems

*APPROVED BY THE ITALIAN MINISTRY OF HEALTH

I'm left wondering about all the other organs: Are they somehow less dependent on water than the liver?

We're off to find housing!

The program begins

The Syracuse program began officially for me today. The remaining students arrived this morning, and I was issued my orange binder of information. We had the weekend off, so Chris and I scouted out an apartment that I thought held promise. We did indeed like it, but there were two setbacks that, when added together, proved to be more trouble than the place was worth. Our quest will continue tomorrow.

We had dinner in a banquet room in the hotel, and afterwards took a field trip with all of Syracuse University London to the British Airways London Eye. Feeling like we were being herded around a little too much, we set off for a distant part of town to meet our old classmate Nico. He and some friends were lounging on some nice leather couches in a cool little bar called Jaguar Shoes (or perhaps Dream Bags Jaguar Shoes). I had a great time talking to Gustav, who is from Lund, Sweden, where I spent time visiting Marget in 2004.

One-sided

This evening I felt that I had to make an effort to experience Europe's funkiest hostel at its prime and take in a bit of the night life. The bar turned out to be pretty dull, everyone bunched up by dorm room and guys and girls separated as if it were a middle school dance. (I've come to realize that nearly all the girls opt for "female only" rooms, so all the "co-ed" rooms are filled with only guys.) Given that, I ended up running into my roommates, who in the capacity of good Samaritans helping girls with their baggage had managed to meet some new people who were of the opposite sex. Talking with the newfound acquaintances, I somehow managed to be challenged to name as many African countries in five minutes as I could and wagered a drink that I could name more than the girl who challenged me. As it turned out, she disappeared without going through with it, but I made a list anyway, if only to honor Mr. Beckman's seventh grade social studies class.

• Togo
• Benin
• Cameroon
• Ivory Coast
• West Sahara
• Morocco
• Lybia
• Liberia
• Mali
• Tunisia
• Egypt
• Nigeria
• Chad
• Kenya
• Republic of Congo
• Democratic Republic of Congo
• South Africa
• Zimbabwe
• Swaziland
• Somalia

I'm not sure if 20 out of 46 "honors" Mr. Beckman's class, but I'd wager I did better than most Americans (and certainly our president, who referred to Africa as a country itself).

Arrival

I made it to London in one piece and in a reasonably good state of mind, given the time difference. My flights were more or less on time, and the in-flight movies were familiar and likable (Mission: Impossible and Ferris Bueller's Day Off). I slept a couple of hours between Minneapolis and Reykjavik, and I've limited myself to 45 minutes since, so I'm hoping to beat the jetlag in a single night. Heathrow wasn't too bad; finding the right line for immigration was the only trick. Getting to the Underground wasn't too bad either, although finding the right kind of machine to sell me a ticket was a little more frustrating than it should have been. In the end, I managed to get my own ticket and get on the right train while helping a young lawyer from Philadelphia do the same and assuring three Russians that they were in the right place to take a train to Earl's Square.

The train ride was long and hot, both in part because of the overly crammed cars, the latter also in part due to the rather warm weather. I am very glad I kept my summer attire for the trip. I arrived at the Generator ("Europe's Funkiest Hostels!") after some wandering, some map reading, and some navigation by sun position. I ended up with a four-person room instead of the six- I thought I was getting, so that was a welcome surprise. I also snagged a top bunk, so I'm happy about that. I'm a little disappointed that I didn't get the room mates that the website suggested I'd get ("hot blonde," "rather hungover 'hardman' winner," "hot blonde's mate"), but I've been pleased to make the acquaintances of Michael and John, recent college grads from Austen, Tejas, roaming the world before the settle into the nine-to-five routine. We think the forth sleeper, who has the bunk below mine is Czech, but we've yet to meet him.

I'm taking it easy this evening, forgoing travel on the Underground and probably even travel to anywhere but downstairs. I do plan on hitting the first floor bar soon though: I've got a free drink coming to me during my first happy hour, and I wouldn't want to miss that.

Summer 2007 recap

So, what was I doing all this time?

I kept to a reading list of only female authors:

The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy
Rebecca by Daphene Daphne du Maurier
The Blind Assassin by Margeret Atwood
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

Ms. du Maurier's and Ms. Rowling's books are the most recommendable. Other than the awkwardly extraneous epilogue, Deathly Hallows is a truly remarkable conclusion to the Harry Potter series. While much has been said about the book's look at mortality, I am increasingly impressed by it's politics. I can think of no other book that better illustrates the mechanisms that install tyrannical regimes to power. Parallels between the Death Eaters and the Nazi party are frighteningly elegant.

I also picked up a few new albums:

Sky Blue Sky by Wilco
Era Vulgaris by Queens of the Stone Age
Zeitgeist by [The] Smashing Pumpkins
Live at Radio City with Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds

Era Vulgaris is the probably the most interesting of the lot, and chasing down all the lovely B-Sides is worth it as well.

I saw a few movies in theater as well:

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
Oceans Thirteen
Spider-Man 3
Paris, je t'aime
Ratatouille
Transformers
Rescue Dawn
The Simpsons Movie
Stardust
The Bourne Supremacy

World's End was the best surprise. Not only did I like it more than Dead Man's Chest, it made me like that installment better than I had. Ratatouille was easily the best of the lot.

The site I'm building for Professor Anne Munly is complete for most practical purposes. You can visit it at http://soa.syr.edu/dwelling.

And I got a tattoo! Oh, I guess it was just marker. I think Claire did an excellent job on it though, and I think behind the sniggers, the other lifeguards were secretly envious.

A dialogue

Journey with me, if you will, to a sunny beach, where I am climbing to the top of a lifeguard stand to replace a co-worker. Generic greetings are exchanged, and then a conversation unfolds:

Guard: So when do you leave for Syracuse?
James: I won't be going back to New York until January since I'm going to be in London this semester.
Guard: That's right. So do you speak French well?
James: Uh, no. I took Spanish in school.
Guard: I suppose lots of people speak English anyway.
[long pause]
James: Yeah.
[The guard begins to climb down from the chair]
James: Where exactly do you think London is?
[The guard freezes.]
Guard: Uhhhh, it's not in France?
James: London is the capital of England.
Guard: Oh. They speak English there. What was I thinking of?
James: Paris?
Guard: Paris!

Anyway, I'm going to London soon. I'll be posting more often, I hope.

The 'the' in 'The Smashing Pumpkins'

I just saw the cover for the forthcoming album from The Smashing Pumpkins, and I noticed that the 'the' which first appeared on the epic Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness has disappeared once again.  I'm left puzzling its significance.  Is this a nod to the band's rebirth?  Will the less pretentious 'Smashing Pumpkins' stay in use until Billy feels that the new incarnation of the band has released its own magnum opus?

If you see anybody else's musings on the matter, please post a link to it here in the comments.

Running from the sound of a gun

I was walking to the Warehouse Sunday morning, and I saw that Fayette, my road of travel, was barricaded at both Salina and Clinton, but as the sidewalks were clear, I was able to continue on as normal.  I was expecting to see construction (as is often the case on weekend mornings), but I only found a few middle-aged women in purple shirts as I crossed Salina.  As I was about halfway between the streets, I heard a not-too-distant bang! and the sound of a crowd that had been silent moments before.  I realized that I must be in close proximity to the start of a race, and I thought about making a dash for the other side of Clinton, but I figured there might be cameras, and I had a 50-50 chance that the runners would be crossing behind me instead of before me.  As it was, the runners were in my way, but there were, in fact, plenty of cameras that I'm happy did not catch me crossing foolishly.  So I had to hold up for five minutes as the river of runners flowed past.

It proved to be an interesting populace to watch, as they were still sorted by ambition rather than speed and endurance.  The leaders were in sleek spandex suits, and they were followed closely by runners in shiny running shorts and athletic shirts and sports bras.  Behind them were a large crowd in t-shirts and track pants.  Here the number of iPods began increasing sharply.  Runners in sweatpants and sometimes in sweatshirts followed, and a number of goofy hats could be seen.  Lastly came a few older women, dressed in black, being followed closely by the ambulance.

He's…dead?

White-On-White Violence Claims Life Of Accounts Receivable Supervisor

POYNETTE, WI—Foul play is suspected in the death of an accounts receivable supervisor for a regional office-supply company, sheriff's...

He's back!

One of my favorite columnists at America's Finest News Source has been MIA for the better part of two years, but now Herbert Kornfeld has come roaring back with the latest from Midwest Office Supply:

It Wuz Always 'Bout Tha Numbahs

Sleepless hours and dreamless nights and far aways / Ooo ooo ooo, wishing you were here. —Chicago, "Wishing You Were Here"...

The 4-20 solution

Apparently foreign students in Moscow are being holed up in their dormitories for protection from neo-Nazis and other xenophobic crowds who become violent around Hitler's birthday. Call me crazy, but I like the American version of 4-20 a whole lot better. It's too bad we can't just gather up a shipload of confiscated grass and send it over to Moscow and distribute it on the campuses. Things might calm down just a bit...

Year -0015/0026/0044 begins...now

Year Zero is on sale here in the U.S.A.!  Yay, Trent!
My parents have been married 25 years!  Yay, Mom and Dad!
The man behind Puscifer and Tool is 43!  Yay, Maynard!

Saving the best for last

Alex, Alice, William, and I just returned from Grindhouse, the new Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino double feature.  I notice that most of the reviews are marginally favorable and select one of the two features as the letdown—the reason for two-and-a-half stars instead of three-and-a-half stars.  Colin Covert, writing for my hometown newspaper, the Star Tribune, certainly favored Rodriguez's "Planet Terror," but I'll readily join the side of A.O. Scott and Richard Roeper, both of whom favored Tarantino's "Death Proof."  I think the Kurt Russel slasher film would have been entirely enjoyable had I not been restless from sitting in a theater for an hour and half by the time it arrived.   I still enjoyed the flick, but it was just barely sufficient as a reward for sitting though the tedious "Planet Terror."  I'd recommend waiting for the DVD, watching "Death Proof," and then giving "Planet Terror" a try if you're hungry for more.  And don't miss the four fake trailers.  I was disappointed that "Cowgirls in Sweden" didn't make the final cut, but enjoyed the rapid-fire pacing of the trailers I did see.  My favorite trailer was probably that for Eli Roth's Thanksgiving, which was disturbing to the point that I'm sure I would not want to see the movie (were it to be made) but allowed me to get a taste of the Hostel director's work without having to watch for more than two minutes.  (I've seen a few minutes of Hostel and did my best to stop watching is as quickly as I could.)  Rob Zombie's trailer for Werewolf Women of the S.S. didn't seem to have any potential beyond its ingenious title, and the trailer for Machete was perhaps spoiled by the fact that half of its footage was used in the trailers to Grindhouse itself, but at a couple minutes a piece, they certainly didn't do any harm to the jammed-packed spectacle that is Grindhouse.

SDRAM sadness

I finally got up the motivation to re-set my second gig of RAM in my laptop, which I removed when I sent the Alien in for servicing. After checking with two of my neighbors for Phillips screwdrivers, I finally got the card installed, only to find that its presence prevented the computer for booting. Close inspection under a bright light revealed a hairline crack in one of the eight integrated circuits, which seems to be enough to ruin the whole SO-DIMM. I've had to take it out a number of times, but this was the first time that I had to travel with it outside of my computer, and apparently my precautions were insufficient. This saddens me not only because of the inconvenience, but also because the SO-DIMM was a rather generous and timely Christmas gift from my parents in 2005.

+6¢

The details seem a bit sketchy still, but it looks like my last one or two letters to Claire are going to cost an additional six cents to send to Spain, up from the 84¢ I'm paying now. (New rates are going into effect on 14 May.)

Bravery

It's Saint Patrick's day, and downtown Syracuse has been awash with alcohol and drunks since the parade ended around 1 o'clock. I walked home for dinner at 6:00, and if I were to guess, I'd say that 3 out of 4 pedestrians and 1 out of 4 drivers was seriously toasted. To make matters worse, it's been snowing lightly for the last day or so, and the driving conditions are less than ideal.

I started to cross Clinton Street when I got the white walking-man light, and about a third of the way across I noticed that the car approaching me from the left (in the center lane of a one-way street) wasn't showing signs of slowing down. My mind was elsewhere, so after missing a half-stride to confirm that I had the right-of-way, I kept on walking, and the car slammed on its breaks, sliding through the slush to a halt a few feet past the stop line, and a few feet closer to me that I would have liked. I finished crossing and realized that I'd had an audience on the other side. One guy said to me, "You've got balls! You've got balls of steel!" and then he turned and announced to all present, "This guy's got balls of steel!"

Sitting on the dancefloor

Dad and I went to the Year Zero listening party at Varsity Theater in Dinkytown on Tuesday evening, where we got to hear the new Nine Inch Nails album a little over a month before its release.  We spotted the venue easily, since it was marked with a long cue of college-aged kids dressed predominantly in black.  Dad and I did not fit in at all, as I was wearing a tan shirt and (non-baggy) blue jeans and Dad was wearing a grey hoodie.  We found that the "theater" was more of a club, with a small stage, a bar in back, and seating around a sizable dance floor.  We sat down soon enough to snag an edge of the risers, but those after us were left with the dance floor.  The evening started with a video, and the rather subdued crowd quickly sat down on the floor to ensure those behind them a view, so the floor was soon filled with moody-looking college students sitting cross-legged for the whole event.

The album seemed good.  It definitely started fast and grew slower, almost with each song, and the slower songs were more difficult to judge since the sound system didn't deliver very good mid-range frequencies.  Songs that I've heard on the internet like "Me, I'm Not," didn't sound as good, so I can only expect that the unfamiliar songs were being given less than flattering treatment as well.  Dad and I both thought that "Vessel" and "God Given" have great potential.  We left just as "Zero-Sum" was finishing, so I didn't get a very good feeling for the general response, but I'm guessing that enthusiasm peaked before the series of consecutive quieter tracks finished the album.

Small request

My flight from Syracuse to Detroit was delayed because our plane arrived at Syracuse quite late. We didn't get airborne until an hour or so after our scheduled departure time, so I knew that my connection would be very tight, and probably impossible. I didn't let myself worry, and spent as much of the flight as possible sound asleep. Around the time the plane started to descend and we were asked to take our seats, the gentleman next to me in seat 10-E pressed the call button, and a flight attendant came to our row. He noted that the flight was getting in rather late, and he requested that the flight attendant call ahead to Detroit, to let them know that we were getting in a bit late. She assured him that the Detroit terminal was already aware of our status, but he wasn't satisfied. He suggested that she call them to make sure that they hold the planes for a few more minutes. She looked at him blankly for a couple seconds, before murmuring that those decisions would already have been made and slipping away, back towards first class. I was half tempted to tell the bloke that I didn't think anyone would hold a plane for someone who was sitting in the middle seat in coach, but I held my tongue.

Sure enough, I missed my flight and was delayed two hours. I coaxed Northwest into printing off a couple food vouchers, which I blew on a weak margarita. I can't complain, though: even with the delays, commercial flight is still fastest way across the continent in, you know, history.

Luna obscura

The earth may be obscuring the sun from the moon, but the clouds are definitely obscuring the moon from Syracuse.

Total Eclipse of the Moon
SYRACUSE, NEW YORK
W 076°08' N 43°02'
Eastern Standard Time
..........................................Moon's
......................................Azimuth Altitude
Moonrise.............2007 Mar 03 17:50 080.4° ----
Middle of eclipse....2007 Mar 03 18:20 085.6° 04.7°
Moon leaves totality.2007 Mar 03 18:58 091.8° 11.1°
Moon leaves umbra....2007 Mar 03 20:11 105.0° 23.9°
Moon leaves penumbra.2007 Mar 03 21:25 120.5° 35.8°
Moonset..............2007 Mar 04 06:52 275.4° ----

Syracuse Hancock International, New York (KSYR)
Date/Time.........WIND......VIS..WX.........SKY......CEL...TMP
3/3/2007 18:00:00 NNW 03mph 05mi Light Snow Overcast 01900 34°
3/3/2007 19:00:00 WNW 13mph 10mi ---------- Overcast 05000 34°
3/3/2007 20:00:00 WNW 13mph 09mi Light Snow Overcast 04200 33°
3/3/2007 21:00:00 WNW 15mph 10mi ---------- Overcast 07000 31°

Iceland

Walking home from studio was a harrowing experience; the evening's cool rain solidified into a all-encompassing layer of ice. Where the water pooled on the sidewalks the ice crushed forgiving underfoot. Where the water spread thinly the ice became hard, slick, and treacherous. My usual ten-minute walk turned into twenty, and all the trees creaked ominously, occasionally showering me with small shards of ice. I'm sorry that I'll be returning to the studio before the sun has a chance to clear my way for me.

Good luck and 660GB

FedEx came by with Plumtree earlier than anticipated, and I was still in bed. Nate, who overslept and missed his bus, happened to hear the knock and was able to sign for me. UPS showed up with the new hard drives soon after, miraculously catching me between my shower and my departure. So, by great fortune, I have my computer (mostly fixed!) and enough disk space to last me the rest of 2007. This seems good.

When running on full is more like running on empty

Last night I brought to the computer lab Iaroslav, an 80GB LaCie which was the first of my line of external hard drives and houses my photograph archive, including a couple photos I needed but were not on Saint Gleb, which, as my newest 250GB addition, houses most of my current work. Theo, a fellow Minnesotan in this Masters program, asked me why I needed two. I told him that my archives exceeded the size of either disk, and he seemed a bit dubious, having been able to get his work from many years onto a portion of a comparably sized disk.  To make sure that I wasn't deluding myself, I checked Saint Gleb's remaining free space, and unpleasantly surprised to discover that I was down to my last 550MB. A quick trip to Amazon.com became essential, so I'm expecting another pair of 250 gigabyters within the week.

All my hard drives are named after the children of Vladislav I, ruler of Kievan Rus. Iaroslav and Mstislav came first.  Saint Boris and Saint Gleb made the second pairing. I think these two will be Stanislav and Sudislav, since I'm not quite prepared to honor Sviatopolk.  Maybe these two will be the last of this family.

Black and red and white all over

Shield thine eyes before visiting The Daily Pork:  The appearance of the site is rather...intense, but then again, so is their passion for pork.

Der mächtige Ozean!

Martin and I are screening Ocean films this spring! Here's the line-up:

14 Feb – Jaws
21 Feb – The Endurance
28 Feb – A Night to Remember
07 Mar – Riding Giants
21 Mar – The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
28 Mar – The Sea Hawk
04 Apr – Yellow Submarine
11 Apr – Das Boot

Just missing the boat (so to speak), were the Japanese short "Glassy Ocean" and the pilot of the short-lived television series Fishing With John.

Return to the mother ship

Plumtree is travelling back to the manufacturer today for a new motherboard. Hopefully for real this time. Sigh.

Jôurneiing thrugh Sneue for Gōd Ale

Nate and I made a snowy trek this afternoon to Middle Ages Brewing Co., which is located just blocks northwest of the Warehouse. The place isn't much to see with it's grey walls and complete lack of pre-renaissance atmosphere, but there was a health mass of people at the tasting bar despite it being the middle of the afternoon on a weekday—almost as many people as were there when we first visited on a Saturday afternoon last month. While the place is lacking in ambiance, the beer is very good and reasonably priced, especially in the 64-ounce growlers that everyone at the bar had in tow. Nate and I filled up with Middle Ages Pale Ale and Wizard's Winter Ale, which will be making their way to the dinner table, livening up our meals in the coming week.

Who's your yddad?

By now most of the country is probably familiar with the 9-year old kid who ran away from home and lied his way from Washington to Texas via Southwest Airlines. (I've included below an opinion column that gives a very good recap.) Despite a complete lack of evidence I have an inkling that the kid's father—apparently not a regular part of the kid's life—shares my first name.

Maternal instinct flew off to La-La Land

Robert L. Jamieson Jr., Seattle Post-Intelligencer

It's not every day that people get played by a sweet-faced 9-year-old.

One who has the bravado to steal a car in Tacoma and lead authorities on a dangerous high-speed chase.

One who showed smarts to get past security at Sea-Tac Airport.

One who duped Southwest Airlines to fly away to Texas because he needed to get away -- just like the airline ad says.

For his adventures last week, 4-foot-9 Semaj Booker was charged with two felonies and a misdemeanor.

I wrote that Pierce County prosecutors should take into consideration his tender age before coming down too hard.

They say they have never charged a 9-year-old. Consideration for the age of the thin fourth-grader ought to soften the blow of justice, right? I was on the fence, leaning toward leniency.

Now I'm beginning to be swayed by those hardened law-and-order types, especially after a national TV tabloid picked up the story, then aired an interview Wednesday featuring Semaj and his mother.

Some of the comments aired. Others were released earlier in the day by "Inside Edition."

Semaj came off remorseless. Even stranger, his mom, Sakinah Booker, exuded maternal pride over his exploits. The whole thing leaves you shaking your head.

The interview could have been a lens onto a lesson learned between a mother and child.

But what happened left a thought: When should you be able to revoke someone's parental license?

I figured the mother and son would spend the bulk of their airtime apologizing to the person whose car got stolen; to authorities who pursued Semaj in the chase; to airport security and airline officials who already have their hands full with terror fears.

But, instead we got an "attaboy" topped with a tepid mother-and-son hug, and his mother saying with a smile, "Don't ever do it again!"

Rather than holding her son accountable for actions that could have harmed others, we hear her admiration for his precocity.

In a quote released earlier Wednesday, the mother said her son showed her that "'I'm going to achieve anything I want to do; I'm going to just do it.'"

Family values have just left the building, folks.

"I planned it all out in advance," Semaj said during the interview, although that comment also did not air. But the statement will no doubt interest prosecutors, who want to know if Semaj had the mental capacity to understand what he is accused of doing.

On the air, Semaj said he went to Texas because "it's always sunny."

The day after the car chase ended -- he was found behind the wheel of a stolen Acura that knocked into a tree -- he thoughtfully hopped a bus to the airport.

He said on the air that he scanned the airport monitors and briefly contemplated catching a flight to Tokyo -- where the street-racing movie, "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift" is set. Thanks to "Inside Edition," we know he's a fan of the film's high-speed car maneuvers.

"You can drift there," he told the program. "And the cops don't care."

The television show described how Semaj noticed Southwest had the most flights to Texas, then got lucky when he heard the airline page a passenger who had lost his ticket.

He told "Inside Edition" that he walked up to the counter, identified himself as the passenger, Frank, then got a boarding pass, and breezed by a security checkpoint.

(A Southwest Airlines spokeswoman told me Wednesday night the report of the page "is news to us.")

Semaj eventually got caught and was detained in a Texas center for runaways until his mom came and got him a few days ago.

That the pair chose a tabloid television program for their public soapbox speaks volumes.

"Inside Edition" said it paid for Semaj's mother to go to Texas for the blissful reunion.

I put it this way because mother and son seem to be blissfully ignorant of the peeved and aggrieved people -- a car-theft victim, airport officials and prosecutors -- Semaj left behind.

The whole episode sends Semaj the wrong message -- if you do wrong, you land on national TV basking in the glow of mommy love.

The kid needs to be grounded. If his mom won't do it, prosecutors should.

Prosecutors last night said they are going forward with the criminal charges -- including theft and eluding -- against Semaj, who has returned to the area.

"I believe minds are going to differ on this," Prosecutor Fred Wist said of the decision.

Yes. But this bright youth needs to learn that life is neither a video game, nor a movie, nor a tabloid TV show.

There are real consequences for reckless actions. It's not child's play. Better learn it now, not later.

(As a high school student I would have my American Mathematics Competition public score posting attributed to Iksokopeh Semaj.)

Abducted

I finally got my Alienware back after sending it in for repair on 18 December, and I'm sad to report that those dunderhead technicians proved wholly useless once again, as they returned the system unchanged.

...or are you just burning to see me?

Fire in man's pants not started by phone

The Associated Press

VALLEJO, Calif. – A fire that started in a man's pants pocket, critically injuring him and destroying his hotel room, was not ignited by a cell phone as authorities suspected, phone technicians said.

Nokia Corp. engineers found that the charred device still worked Wednesday and convinced fire department investigators that it had not spontaneously ignited in Luis Picaso's pocket.

"He could have been smoking a cigarette, the cigarette fell into his pocket, and it started on fire," Vallejo fire inspector Bill Tweedy said. "We don't know that. We weren't there."

The fire caused about $75,000 in damage to the residential hotel and a ground-floor business. Picaso, 59, was in critical condition Thursday with second- and third-degree burns to his upper body, right arm and right leg.

The fire apparently started in Picaso's pants pocket while he slept on a plastic lawn chair in his room, authorities said. Picaso is under heavy sedation and doesn't seem to remember what happened, Tweedy said.

The usual suspects

I have about as much respect for the Grammy Awards as the creators of the Simpson's do

(Homer: Mr. John, I'm your biggest fan. I tape-recorded all your songs off the radio.
Elton: Oh, that's very sweet. Have a Grammy. (produces one from nowhere)
Homer: Uh … (throws it in a garbage can)),

but somehow I think I'll find it in me to hate the Recording Academy just a little more if the sissy boys of Stone Sour beat Mastondon for Best Metal performance.

At the movies

I'm just back from Curse of the Golden Flower a Chinese piece of palace intrigue and occasional martial arts. It's only the most recent of a long string of films I've seen lately. In theater I've attended: Apocalypto, The Fountain, The Prestige and Casino Royale. On video I've watched: Das Boot, The Bourne Supremacy, Miami Vice, Lucky Number Slevin, Thank You For Smoking, The Big Blue, The Perfect Storm, and Man of Aran. I'd recommend Wolfgang Petersen's Das Boot to just about anybody who can handle subtitles and Mel Gibson's Apocalypto to anyone who can stomach very graphic violence; both are well crafted and highly potent films.

By the numbers

Claire and I celebrated a year-and-a-half together with a lunch at Wolfgang Puck's 20.21 in the new Walker Art Center. We were already visiting the building so that I could shoot some video for a project I'm working on for a professor, so the restaurant lent itself to our cause quite readily. We both enjoyed the pan-Asian cuisine, which managed to take enough pleasantly unexpected turns to set the menu apart from, say, the local LeeAnn Chin. The pot-stickers we ordered for an appetizer came with a vinaigrette instead of the usual soy sauce concoction, and the lettuce wraps had a much more complex blend of vegetables than I've tasted in similar dishes. I wouldn't make a special trip to 20.21, but I was pleased to find that the food justified the high costs that one normally finds in art museum restaurants.

More spectacular was 112 Eatery, which we visited this evening as my official (albeit delayed) birthday dinner. I started out with duck & radicchio salad, which was heavy to the (very delicious) dressing, but the entrées Mom, Dad, and I ordered (tagliarini w/ blue prawns & vin santo, nori encrusted sirloin w/ ponzu, and pork tenderloin w/ sweet potatoes & Roquefort butter, respectively) were truly spectacular. Laura, never quite as adventurous, ordered the 112 cheese burger, which managed to frustrate her with its exotic array of cheeses. She was happy, however, with the cauliflower fritters, a side we all shared. More than once we felt that the familiar food in front of us (sirloin, sweet potato, cauliflower, or other) was better prepared than anything we'd previously experienced.

Live from UWEC

I'm visiting Eau Claire, and Claire is presently taking her final exam of the semester. I came into this computer lab to check my email and remind myself the order of the electron shells (Wikipedia tells me it's s p d f g—Claire and I couldn't remember g). I managed to get around to it eventually, but I first managed to get myself involved in editing a cover letter for one Joseph T. Jensen, who is graduating this weekend and is searching for a job in the mortgage-lending business. I helped him with his wording (active voice!), cleaned up his punctuation, and showed him that there are better fonts than Times New Roman. I always get a kick out of people's reactions when they're looking over my shoulder as I write/edit.  I'm sure I'd react similarly if I had the change to peer over the shoulder of Stephen King or maybe Thomas Pynchon, whose exquisitely-written Against the Day I'm beginning to read.

Ruining the barrel

While I'm always pleased when someone gives Apple—a company that seems monomaniacally determined to dull their customers' intellect—a good bashing, this site run by Greenpeace is perhaps too depressing to be purely amusing. Despite my utter disdain for iPods, iTunes, and Mac OS, I've been very impressed with the new MacBook's size and power, so I'm frustrated to learn that it's a mini eco-disaster. Hopefully Apple will clean up their act soon: I'd like to have my options wide open when I buy my next notebook in three or four years.

I am the very model of a modern mage or general

Year of the whale

It took me 349 days, but I finally finished Moby-Dick.  I have no doubt the sluggish pace can be attributed to the long passages of plotless descriptions of whales and whaleships which made the middle third of the book a real chore to read.  I did, however, greatly appreciate the plot, dialogue, and overall excellent prose in the first and last thirds.

Digression exemplified digitally

I'm trying to find the adverb form of the word 'analog' in the "opposite of digital" sense. The dictionary isn't immediately clear, so I'm Googling for the answer. I came across this message board, where one Nate Branscom asks the same question. He receives a multiplicity of uncited and unsupported answers before the conversation digresses into a conversation about audio formats in the 1970s or something like that. Go ahead: take a look and see if you have the patience to follow the winding thread.

No surprise here...

What American accent do you have? Your Result: North Central   "North Central" is what professional linguists call the Minnesota accent. If you saw "Fargo" you probably didn't think the characters sounded very out of the ordinary. Outsiders probably mistake you for a Canadian a lot.
The Midland
The West
The Inland North
Boston
The Northeast
Philadelphia
The South
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

...but I do pronounce "orange" (a frequently used word here in Syracuse) with two syllables. I worked to kick the Midwestern monosyllabic "ornge," while I was dating Marget, whose beautiful pronunciation of the word made me dissatisfied with my own.

BC@SR

Talking with my good friend and fellow alum Sameer Agrawal, I learned that my old school and first home away from home, Simon's Rock College of Bard, will be changing its name. It has used a variety of names over the decades, and the newest one will be "Bard College at Simon's Rock." Apparently a lot of alumni are upset, and that's understandable. Many alumni spent their most formative years there, and I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling that a disproportionately large amount of my growing-up occurred in Great Barrington. We want it to remain a time capsule because its painful to imagine otherwise. But change is inevitable, and in this case we must ask ourselves that age-old question: What's in a name?

We know that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, and surely the same will be true of Simon's Rock; it will remain the place we've loved. But I will go on to say that the name change will make the college a more attractive rose. I think back to my very first contact with the school: I received a small blue postcard in the mail asking me to apply to the Acceleration to Excellence Program. I took one look at it, saw the name "Simon's Rock," and threw it in the recycling. I threw away my first message from the school purely on account of its name. By that point in my life I had already distanced myself from my Christian upbringing, and I didn't want to attend a Christian school. Fortunately my mother came across the card and did a little investigation at the public library. I count her recovery of that little blue card as the most fortuitous event in my life, and as an A.A. recipient, a Dolliver R.A., and a yearbook editor I'd like to think that it was fortuitous for SRC too.

But it didn't need to come down to that. Had "Bard College at Simon's Rock" been written on the card I probably wouldn't have recycled it. And I'm betting a similar story has unfolded many times without such an improbable intervention. How many excellent students have we missed because of our misleading name? Maybe some market research could tell us, and I don't know if there have been polls or surveys conducted. I hope so because the school should always be making the most informed decisions. For me, an alum with no official say in the matter, my personal experience is more than enough. I can embrace 'BC@SR' wholeheartedly.

Make no mistake: I wouldn't be so supportive of just any new nomination. I support this move because I think the board has selected an excellent name. Unlike the old "Bard College of Simon's Rock," the newly-minted "Bard College at Simon's Rock" quite elegantly leaves the place-name alone. That bit of land off of Alford Road—that place full of winding wooded trails, that place with a well loved community garden, that place with mismatched buildings, that place where we did so much growing up, that place that was every bit as important as the formal lessons taught there—that place remains 'Simon's Rock.' The academic institution located there is taking the name of Bard College, but it's at Simon's Rock, and the new name makes no bones about it.

Drink up for better health

Nate and I share a lot of the foods in the fridge, but we've each got our own juice. Nate's a firm believer in the power of Tahitian Noni, which purports to solve any number of health issues. I can appreciate its deep currant flavor, but, always the skeptic, I stick with more vitamin-rich juices, specifically the two Goodness from Bolthouse Farms. Claire introduced me to Green Goodness a couple years back, and I've kept it in my fridge as a green vegetable substitute and ROCKSTAR mixer ever since. I just spotted Blue Goodness in Wegmans for the first time Saturday. It's heavier to B vitamins but lacking in A, so it won't be a regular purchase for me. Still, it's unmistakable blueberry flavor will make it hard to pass-up.

Love shack!

This current residence is my first "real" apartment in the sense that the building isn't school owned and it isn't filled with students. In fact, Nate and I are the only students in the building. The difference is usually quite notable: the place is quiet during the work day, the muted sounds of TVs replaces explosively loud AIM pings, and smoke—whether it be from cigarettes, marijuana, or burned popcorn— is entirely absent. The floors don't need to be an indestructible linoleum, and we can save money by conserving energy since electricity isn't included. I like it very much.

Still, it's frequently obvious that the real world isn't all that different from the collegiate one. One of our neighbors is a professor, which definitely gives the building a not-so-far-away-from-campus feel. And I've mentioned our downstairs neighbor Norm, who is in many respects a frat-boy with a job. The fourth apartment (the other one on our floor) is no exception. Jay and Kelly are a young couple (dating, not married), who both seem to have a serious night life. They're often out as late as Nate and I are (although certainly having more fun), and conjugal activities happen within a few minutes of 1:30 am more often than not.

We know this because they don't really do anything quietly. They don't often make a ruckus like Norm, but they're not subtle. They're loud on the stairs, both vocally and in step, they're loud loud in the bedroom, both vocally and rhythmically. My bedroom is on the stairwell, so I get most of the former; Nate's bedroom borders theirs, so he gets most of the latter. Still, they don't seem to confine themselves to the bedroom, so I get a dose of the aural experience with some frequency (not unlike my time in Broadway). I've had some good chuckles with both Nate and Jean-François about some of the particulars, which may or may not find their way into another post down the line. At this point it will suffice to say that it's rather inescapable due to its volume.

This evening we were eating our supper in our main room, which is in the back half of the apartment building, and the moans started to issue through the wall. Nate looked at me incredulously. "In the kitchen?" he asked in a hushed voice. I decided that a gentle deterrent was in order. I raised my voice and rambled randomly: So I said to Withers, 'I say! the slope of the tangent of the circle is clearly less than the hypotenuse of the triangle!' And of course what could Withers do but admit that I had a point? 'Quite right you are!' he said to me. Really he was a right good chap about it and didn't let a little thing like that get him down for even a moment!

This seemed to prove sufficient, since the moaning came to an abrupt stop. Well, if I was pleased with myself then, the satisfaction was certainly not to last. At three this morning, our doorbell buzzed for a solid twenty seconds. Shortly after it stopped, a whole party of people came stomping up the stairs, carrying on loudly. They seemed to spend all of two minutes in Jay and Kelly's apartment before turning around and heading back out (this time the boisterous talk was accompanied by a harmonica). Nate and I both fell back to sleep promptly, but both of us are hoping it was a one-time event and unrelated to my dinner time theatrics since we generally like both of them when we have actual contact with them.

Turkey and ham with Netskis and Wellingtons

Thanksgiving 2006 played out a lot like Thanksgiving 2005, with the exception of transportation. Chris was already down at the lake house, so I rode with classmates Alex and Nico. I was also a little more ambitious with my cooking: in addition to the cranberry sauce that went over so well last year (see below), I made a butternut squash cassoulet that seemed to get a good reception even though it didn't make it to the table in the condition I had hoped. (I cooked it only part way, with plans to cook it more upon our arrival, but navigation issues delayed us a full hour, thus reducing further cook-time.)

Dinner was excellent again, and afterwards Uncle Jimmy treated us to a very impressive performance of "Alice's Restaurant" (at the correct tempo, no easy feat!). All of the extended family left before too long, so Chris's parents joined the four of us future architects in a game of Trivial Pursuit (with a 1981 "Genus I" edition board). Nico and Sarah got into an early lead, but never managed to snag the orange wedge. Chris and Alex accumulated their pieces in a slow and steady fashion, but Ed and I managed to comeback from last place and take the game at the very end (which is my kind of exciting end!) Over the course of the game, I was reminded that:

• The Battle of Hastings occurred in 1066.
• It was Vincent van Gogh who cut off his ear (not Pablo Picasso, whose name I carelessly blurted out while Ed was putting away leftovers).
• There are 32 named points on the compass rose. (Wikipedia tells me it works like this:
  270.00° West
  281.25° West by North
  292.50° West-Northwest
  303.75° Northwest by West
  315.00° Northwest
  326.25° Northwest by North
  337.50° North-Northwest
  348.75° North by West
  360.00° North
  I had guessed 16, since I didn't understand the "___ by ___" directions.)
• There were two guns of Navarone.

So, it was both an an enjoyable and educational day. Now to educate you, dear reader, here's the recipe to my now-traditional sidedish:

Cosmopolitan Cranberry Sauce
3 limes
1 orange
½ c. water
12 oz. cranberries picked over
1 c. sugar
¼ c. orange-flavor liqueur
1. Zest the limes and the orange. Juice the limes (and orange if desired) into a measuring cup, and add water to make ¾ c. liquid.
2. In 2-quart saucepan combine juice, sugar, cranberries, and zest; heat to boiling over high heat, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to medium-low and cook, uncovered, 5 minutes or until most cranberries pop and sauce thickens slightly, stirring occasionally. Remove saucepan from heat; stir in liqueur.
3. Refrigerate in a covered container at least 3 hours; freeze to expedite the process if necessary.

This was adapted from a recipe in Good Housekeeping. I almost always make a double batch.

Passing

I'm saddened to learn of Robert Altman's passing on Sunday, but I'm pleased to remember that his A Prairie Home Companion was the cinematic highlight of my summer and an appropriately poignant finale to his career.

The best of both worlds

I switched to Internet Explorer 7 tonight, and it's very promising thus far. I'd been giving Firefox a second chance this past month, but I found it to be as buggy and crash-prone as it was two years ago when I first tried it. Microsoft, as usual, seems to have done a very good job of incorporating the best ideas of their more creative competitors into a useful package. It's good to have tabs and stability. It even seems to be able to handle AJAX as well as Firefox can. Mozilla's got nothin' on it now!

San Narciso 49ers

I just finished Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49, my first novel from the author. I liked it; my most significant critcism is its brevity, for found myself done before I had a chance to make myself at home among its pages. This shouldn't be a problem with his newest novel, however: Against the Day, due out Tuesday, boasts a thousand pages (slightly more or less, depending on which sources you believe).

Mead over merlot

I attended the second in a series of preparatory meetings for the semester abroad (which for me will be a year from now). I was expecting another informational meeting like the first, but I instead found a simple response form for us to declare our intended destination. I've been waffling between Florence and London for about six months now, and I didn't mark my choice the moment I got it, but really when it came down to it, London was increasingly intriguing, and I've never doubted that it would be the more comfortable fit. I'm sure I'll be missing out on the Tuscan cooking, but I'm confident that I'll find some very pleasing drink in the Square Mile.

Voops!

My classmate has a copy of Single Grape Wines on her desk. I was initially confused about the contents of the book however, because I read the title off the spine, which calls the book "Single Grape Vines" (a substantially less useful subject). It would seem to me that if there was any part of a book that deserves double proof-reading it's the title.

Poll worker charged with assaulting voter

By Jessie Halladay, The Courier-Journal

LOUSIVILLE &ndsh; A poll worker at the United Auto Workers hall on Fern Valley Road was arrested after he was accused of assaulting a voter Tuesday, said Lt. Col. Carl Yates, a spokesman for the Jefferson County Sheriffs’ Office.

Jeffery Steitz, 42, was charged with interfering with an election and fourth-degree assault, said Yates.

The incident happened about 10:30 a.m. when the poll worker wouldn’t process the voter’s ballot because he had not cast votes for the judge elections, Yates said.

The voter, William Miller, apparently cast a ballot that did not go through the voting machine, Yates said.

When Steitz, who was being paid to work the election and assist voters, looked at the rejected ballot, he told Miller it didn’t go through because he’d left all the judge elections blank.

After Miller insisted that he did not have to vote for the judges, Steitz allegedly assaulted him, Yates said. (Voters can cast ballots in any or all of the races, as they see fit.)

Steitz is accused of choking Miller and then pushing him out of the polling place, said Paula McCraney, a spokeswoman for the Jefferson County Clerk.

Another worker at the location called the main election office to report the incident and election officials sent sheriffs’ deputies to relieve Steitz of his duties, McCraney said.

When deputies arrived, Miller came back inside the polling place and asked that charges be filed against Steitz, McCraney said.

Yates said once the charges were filed Miller was allowed to cast a new ballot.

Claire Left And I Reminisce Electronically

Michael was kind enough to drive Claire and myself to the airport this morning so that we could say our good-byes and she could fly back to MSP. As we approached the terminal I told him we were looking for Delta check-in. His response was "Don't expect luggage to arrive." Sure enough, Delta managed to make Claire's day a difficult one. Upon arriving in Cincinnati, she discovered that her connecting flight had been canceled, and she was being moved to a Northwest Airlines flight four hours later. Only after she specifically requested a meal voucher did they give her one. And, upon arriving in MSP, she had to wait an additional 45 minutes for her luggage to catch up with her since Delta hung on to that themselves, even though they gave Claire over to NWA.

Fortunately, the frustrations of her trip home were atypical of the weekend as a whole. We generally kept things simple and at home. We cooked most of our own meals (Claire made pad thai and pancakes, I baked cookies and chocolate martinis, and we teamed up to make spinach lasagna). We watched a film on DVD instead of going to the movies (Y tu mamá también was the Road Film of the week). We got plenty of sleep and did a bit of homework when we got ourselves sufficiently motivated. Our one dinner out was a disappointment (due to outrageously slow service), but the potluck we hosted for my classmates was a success. All in all, it was a lovely weekend, and I expect the six remaining weeks until the end of Claire's semester will seem all the longer for it.

The toaster is toast

Last year I posted about the ambitious prose accompanying my Toastmaster Toaster. Apparently the words were all the thing had going for it, since the thing stopped working without warning a month ago. Last week I finally got my hands on its replacement (with help from Alex, who drove me to the UPS depot). This time I invested a little more cash with hopes that I'd get a longer-lasting bread-crisping companion. I selected the KitchenAid KMTT200 (how's that for a catchy name?), in plain ol' silver. It's downright classy, if not as posh as my parent's KitchenAid PRO LINE Series toaster. It certainly recalls for me William Jay Smith's wonderful little poem "The Toaster":

A silver-scaled dragon with jaws flaming red
Sits at my elbow and toasts my bread.
I hand him fat slices, and then, one by one,
He hands them back when he sees they are done.

This was one of a score of poems I memorized in Mrs. Tobler's second grade class. It's one of the few that has stuck with me totally intact.

The Man Behind The Curtain

I just did something I rarely do: I clicked on a banner ad. I feel that I made a solid decision, as this website both amused and astounded me. Amused and astounded you ask? Yes. I was amused by the content, and astounded when I realized that it was an advertisement for a porduct of Microsoft, a company from which I've never before seen the slightest sign of a sense of humor.

DSC-III

While a handful of posts to this blog have included pictures taken with one of my digital cameras, I've yet to give the devices themselves much attention. My first camera, the DSC-P71, was a dual-graduation gift from my parents (as a congratulations for earning both an Associate in Arts and a High School Diploma in the spring of 2003). Its 3.2 mega-pixels served me well through my first year at Madison (including my first trip to Scandinavia) and my summer at Columbia University.

After returning from NYC I took my camera in for an alignment, since the blue was being recorded slightly offset from the red and green. Best Buy declined to fix "Li'l Digi" (as Marget and I had called it), so I was allowed to select a new camera from the shelf. Picking the DSC-P100 was an easy choice. The upgrade cost me the price of new batteries, but I was able to reuse the old case, which housed the new, smaller camera reasonably well. That 5.1 mega-pixel beauty served me for over two years, earning me a few bucks from James Block's political campaign shoot and gaining attention with a photo in a major newspaper.

Like the P71 before it, the P100 ended its days with me on the road. It was my constant companion in Los Angeles, but I made a last minute decision to stow it in my checked luggage when I discovered that we'd be flying home on rather small planes. I certainly regretted the decision when I arrived home to find the case in my bag and the camera missing from the case. My pilfering claim is still being processed, but I couldn't waste time in finding a replacement. Thus, on Monday UPS and Amazon.com connected me with my new photon-collecting friend: the DSC-T30. While I'm pleased that it boasts a cushy 7.2 mega-pixels, I'm still getting used to the feel of it, and it'll be while before I stop missing the old camera. I get rather attached to these things.

Form follows function

I'm still pretty happy with the overall appearance that this blog has had since late 2004, but its functionality hasn't been all that fabulous. I just couldn't put up with the linear archive any longer. I'm adopting this modified Blogger template, and I will attempt to tweak it until it more closely resembles my own design.

The Return

On my way home I looked up into the night sky and watched a plane descending slowly for landing at Hancock, its magnificently bright lights casting beams a quarter mile ahead of it.

Plumtree is back from Florida. I'm back from L.A. It's time to get back to it.

Driving Force

I've agreed to help out Martin Houge, the professor who led the Landscape in Flim course I took last semester, on his semesterly film series. This semester will be centered on Road Films. We finalized the lineup over the past couple of days. Our schedule will be:

07 Oct - Easy Rider
14 Oct - Two-Lane Blacktop
21 Oct - O Brother, Where Art Thou?
25 Oct - Sans toit ni loi (Vagabond)
04 Nov - Y tu mamá también
08 Nov - Stranger Than Paradise
11 Nov - Badlands
18 Nov - Vanishing Point

I'll be hanging posters and running the projector, which shouldn't be too bad. The fun part will come as we plan next semester's theme and line-up...

Understandable

While Googling around for information on UV radiation in LA I came across this friendly message:

Bonjour,
le service est indisponible momentanément...
Merci de votre compréhension.

This service is temporarily unavailable...
Thank you for your comprehension.

Scissors cuts paper, questions unnerve architects

I went to the Syracuse Connective Corridor open formum yesterday.  Four teams of architects presented their visions for our city, and the audience submitted questions to a moderator who posed a few of them to the presenters.  I asked the second team about their ideas for preserving parking availability since their plan calls for the reclamation of a number of parking lots for green spaces.  After receiving the questions all members looked nervous, and one fellow said softly to his teammates, "Do we rock, paper, scissors for it?"

Since 1984

Happy twenty-second, Claire!

Boom-da-da-boom-da-d—

I was walking back from the Warehouse, and a Ford Excursion with chrome rims rolled up at the red light next to me. The bass it was putting out easily surpassed anything that I've ever heard from an automobile, and I think I could even hear the glass of the car behind it and the windows in the building next to me vibrating. The twenty-something driver was looking rather pleased with himself, and the girl in the front seat seemed impressed—until the light turned green, that is. Almost as soon as the signal changed, the SUV stalled, the music went silent, and all I could hear were the usual sounds of a car starting up. I guess he must have diverted a little too much juice to his beats.

Syracuse international

Syracuse has been in full party-mode this past month. We've had a Latino Festival, an Irish Festival, and now we have Festa Italiana. This most recent one was only a half block away from my apartment, so I couldn't possibly miss out on the fun. (Nate and I strolled through the Irish festival a few hours before Plumtree died). I ate a light dinner so that I could sample some foods, but I still wasn't able to try everything I would have liked. I greatly enjoyed some "Greens Gentile" (escarole, sausage, broccoli, cherry peppers, and cheese) from Gentile's Restaurant and cooled my mouth with some gelato (which wasn't anything spectacular). Tonight I'm going back for the bacon-wrapped scallops on a stick, which will hopefully tide me over until the next big party: Oktoberfest!

Computer Over

The hard drive of plumtree, my primary computer, died today. I'm going to be stuck with quidnunc, my old Dell, for the next three weeks. quidnunc has no wireless, so updates to this blog before early October may be infrequent. (So what else is new?)

Wish me luck.

For whom?

I've always been one to look at the dedication pages of books, and I'm usually please when I find one that is interesting due to the presence of a familiar name or a bit of humor. In the last few days I've eyed the one in Francis MacDonald Cornford's translation of The Republic a few times. It reads:

TO
F. C. C.
in gratitude for many hours
patiently given to the amendment of this version
by one whose sense of good English
in a never failing guide

which I don't consider very interesting, although somewhat preferable to

For Louise, again, always

which precedes James C. Scott's rather excellent book Seeing Like a State. Today my real estate development textbook arrived, and I was pleased to find a freer spirit at work:

This book is dedicated to the memory of Jim Graaskamp—
dynamic, insightful, slightly opinionated,
and one helluva guy.

It sounds like a good way to be remembered to me.

A trip to Wal-Mart

I'm not a Wal-Mart fan, but Nate's parents (who eat organic foods and buy their cars based on Consumer Reports reviews) don't choose to fight that particular battle, so to Wal-Mart we went, and I wasn't as pained as I might have been. I did try to complete my more significant purchases at Minneapolis-based (and Guthrie-sponsoring) Target, but I bought a few little things from the Evil Empire, one of which was a rubber stopper for our kitchen sink. It took much looking, but finally I found one (while looking for something else, actually). The package had no brand name, but was simply marked "Sink Stopper." On the back it had a list of features to recommend it:

· PVC Material
· Flexible Snug Fit
· Unique Soft Grip
· Convenient Octopus Design

Yes, the thing is molded to look like an octopus sitting on top of a disc. Moreover the octopus has a face with two circles for eyes and one for a mouth. I seem to remember a Beanie Baby with similar anatomical incorrectness, but this one's a whole lot creepier. Yes—I think 'creepy' is definitely more accurate than 'convenient.'

Thems Fightin' Words!

Last night all grads were invited to Blue Tusk for a pre-semester drink. The restaurant and bar serves many drinks (Chris got a drink she calls "Sprite with two cherries"), beer is definitely their forte. I'm guessing they have around 5o beers on tap. I'm always tempted by Guinness, but I decided to try a War of 1812 Ale Sackets Harbor Brewing Company, since a truck bearing their logo had graciously waited for me to cross a street earlier in the day. I'm still to new to beers to review them seriously, but I liked it, and I liked the name. In some respects it reminded me of Bender, made by my hometown brewery Surly Brewing Co. I susptect there are a good number of beers out there that go by some fightin' words. Maybe I should try the locally brewed ImPaled Ale, made by Syracuse-based Middle Ages Brewing Company.

The Moose Are Safe In This Wood

Our attempt at a class trip to Ithaca may have been unsuccessful from the standpoint of attendance (only five of us went, and my own presence was due to some last-minute coaxing from Chris), but the food we found on the road kept our spirits high. We saved our appetites for Moosewood Restaurant, which seems to have achieved fame in its creation in 1973, especially among vegetarians and vegans. The quasi-vegetarian menu (a seafood dish seems to be offered most meals) is perfectly sized at five entrees and a handful of soups, salads, and sandwiches. I had Sante Fe chowder, a tomato and mushroom pasta dish, and a roasted plum teacake, and all the food very good casual fare. The chefs of the Moosewood seem discontent to keep their creations to themselves, and the restaurant has an impressive array of foods to go and cookbooks for at-home enjoyment, although the books are a little out of my price-range at present.

The drive home was supplimented with icecream from Doug's Fish Fry, which was enjoyable and reasonably priced. I regret to say that we passed by a place called "Googer's Cakes and Things" without stopping. It may very well have been closed, however, since word has it that Googer has moved on to bigger and better things...

A Pose By Any Other Name

After an afternoon at the beach we took a dinnertime siesta and then regrouped at Carousel Mall to see Little Miss Sunshine at the Regal Theater on the third floor. Chris, who's been my angel-of-transportation this week, drove me, and we arrived with enough time to head into Victoria's secret to find a pair of underwear that would satisfy the requirements of a coupon she'd had in her purse. I hung back for the first couple of minutes she was checking tags, figuring I'd be more in the way than anything. Eventually I did jump in, digging through the disorganized piles (in an ultimately fruitless search), but while I was waiting during those first two minutes I noted a rather prominently displayed add featuring model Heidi Klum. Black and white photos of Ms. Klum posing in a smooth black brazier were completed with the following quote, attributed to the model herself.

"Now I have a bra named after me."

Which got me to wondering: what's the bra called? The 'Klum'? The 'Heidi'? Sadly the 'Klumcupper' seemed out of the question. 'Heid' & Chic'? No. Then I joined in the search for panties (solid color; pink, white, or black; $5; and, of course, a size and cut to suit Chris's tastes), and bras had to be forgotten.

But not for long. Thumbing through the newest edition of The Week when I got home, I found a tidbit lifted from this bit in New York's Daily News:

Elle's shock over 'Body' double Klum

Is Heidi Klum a 'Body' snatcher?

Fellow supermodel Elle Macpherson, who's been known as "The Body" ever since Time magazine dubbed her that in a 1986 cover story, has every reason to think so.

This week, Klum has been claiming the title for herself in a saturation Victoria's Secret ad campaign for The Body bra. "They call me The Body—and now I have a bra named after me," the German hottie claims in TV commercials.

But not so fast, Fräulein Klum!

"We saw that and were like, Oh my god!" Elle Macpherson Intimates spokeswoman Melissa Edwards told Lowdown yesterday. "We were initially flabbergasted."

Now it's a battle of the supermodel moguls—Macpherson, the 42-year-old, 6-foot Aussie mother of two, against Klum, the 33-year-old, 5-foot-9 mother of two (with one on the way).

Elle's flack, Edwards, invoked the 1986 Time cover and added: "We have numerous press clippings in the office referring to her as 'The Body.' Everything from Harper's Bazaar to Vogue to the recent Sports Illustrated calls her that. In terms of public record, that name belongs to Elle."

Macpherson markets her own skin-care line, "Elle Macpherson The Body," along with a lingerie brand and a fitness video titled "The Body Workout." Klum—who was once called "The Body Two," in deference to Elle—is a relative Heidi-come-lately, and didn't hit the United States until the late 1990s. Both Klum and Macpherson have been favorites of the Sports Illustrated annual swimsuit issue, and both appeared in the mag's latest.

But what's up with "The Body" doubling? A spokeswoman for Klum and Victoria's Secret didn't respond by deadline to detailed messages.

This had me really confused, because I was absolutely certain that "The Body" referred to retired Navy SEAL, ex-professional wrestler, and former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura! This led me to recall his expressed desire to be reincarnated as a 38-DD bra. I momentarily panicked, but Wikipedia says he's still alive. Whew. I need sleep. I never thought a trip to Victoria's Secret would have me in such a tizzy.

Good News Wasn't New By The Time I Realized It Was Good

I've had Modest Mouse's Good News for People Who Love Bad News on my computer for over a year now. I wasn't too sure about it at first, but that savagely delightful track "Satin in a Coffin" kept me coming back. Now the whole album is sounding good. I'm usually slow to warm to the albums I like the best and the longest, but this has been an unusually long thaw. Maybe my disdain for bad news stood in the way. Have you listened to this well crafted piece of music? Let me know. Maybe we can get a half dozen responses.

Indirect deposit

I'm trying to arrange a direct deposit of my TA stipend to my checking account. My initial attempt was foiled due to a shortage of forms at the TA Information Fair. Fortunately, I was told by the guy running the payroll table, I would be able to take care of the whole thing online at myslice.syr.edu. Unfortunately, I discovered today, I don't have access to employee on-line services for reasons unknown. Fortunately, I was able to find a printable PDF of the direct-deposit application which will serve the same purpose. Unfortunately, my printing account in the Warehouse has been deactivated until the school year begins, and there are no buses up to the main campus until that same time.

I've also been informed that the wireless network may be deactivated here in the Warehouse for the entire remaining week. I'm praying that doesn't happen, because I have no idea what I'll do if I'm without furniture, transportation, internet, and a grocery store for a whole week.

Spanish For 'Cacophony'

Working on the fifth-floor of the Warehouse I was listening to a new track from the Mars Volta when a raucous chorus of honking cars from outside overwhelmed the music in my headphones. I looked out to see the visible portion of Fayette Street filled with cars draped in Puerto Rican flags and dozens of go-carts weaving in and out down the line. A bit of Googling led me to the most probable source of the commotion. Let's hope that the noise I heard was not the end product of the one-hundred thousand dollar grant from the New York State Music Fund.

3,289 Pages Later...

I'm back in Syracuse after spending my summer as a lifeguard and bookworm. I'll be returning to Moby-Dick, which I left on the shelf for the months I had access to the the Hennepin County Libraries' collection. During that time I read:

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood
On Writing by Stephen King
Hearts in Atlantis by Stephen King
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susannah Clarke

Hemingway's book was the least recommendable. I found that the word-for-word translations of Spanish phrases and the awkwardly omitted obscenities stifled the simple and elegant story. I'm hesitant to declare Clarke's book my favorite, but I will say I had the most fun reading it. I didn't quite get around to reading the Domesday Book, despite its new availability online.

Guts

I found another mutilation on top of Chair 1. This time it was...chunkier.

Blood but no guts (thankfully)

I started my day at work at Chair 3, and upon climbing to the top I found myself surrounded by dried blood, tufts of fur, and piles of feces. I can only guess that an owl deemed the guard-stand to be an ideal place for its nocturnal nibblings, which as an abstract idea has a decided appeal to guy who did his fifth-grade animal report on great-horned owls. The reality, however, was quite a different thing, especially for a guy who passed on every science-class dissection except (ironically) the owl pellet. Shredded remains or not, I'm glad to be working in the middle of a nature reserve. Of course, getting to watch a mother duck leading her seven ducklings across the pond a few nights a week certainly helps to offset the occasional unpleasantness.

First Rush

Claire and I celebrated our one-year anniversary this evening with a trip to the new Guthrie, which had its grand opening last weekend. The first official production, The Great Gatsby doesn't open until 21 July, and previews don't even begin until the fifteenth, but a touring production by the Druid Theatre Company of Galway, Ireland, is breaking in the McGuire Proscenium Stage this week. The rather complicated run of DruidSynge involves the presentation of some combination of plays, varying nightly, by writer John Millington Synge. Claire and I saw one-act The Shadow of the Glen followed by the more famous The Playboy of the Western World. Claire and I both struggled to follow Shadow on account of the actors' thick brogue but enjoyed Playboy, which offered more meat to the plot, more time for adjustment to the accents, and more cushion for those lines that were lost upon us.

If the show itself lacked accessibility, the overall experience in the new Guthrie made up for it with a vengeance. The new building was both gorgeous and functional [I'd like to address the architecture in a separate post], and the enthusiasm among the other attendees was noticeable. Claire and I, being on a tight budget arrived without tickets and instead took our chances with the rush line, which sells all tickets at $15 a piece starting 30 minutes before the start of the show. I made certain we arrived early, and we claimed the first spot in line, making us the first Friday night rushers for the new theater. The manœuvre paid off: we snagged sixth-row center-section seats (valued at $55 a piece). After the show Claire and I enjoyed magnificent deserts at the Level 5 Café and enjoyed each others company at the end of the endless bridge, overlooking the Mississippi river.

I'm looking forward to returning to the new Guthrie. And, of course, I'm looking forward to spending another year with Claire.

A decade of May

I made my annual visit to Dr. James F. May this morning, knowing well that it may be the last with my soon-to-be-retired orthodontist. I was still a bit saddened to hear him tell me that future check-ups will no longer be necessary. Trips to the orthodontist, while never fun, have been a reassuring routine in my life for over a decade. The first appliance he installed was a trans-palatal arch, which he and his staff tweaked every month through 1996. On a cold January day of the following year he installed my braces, and from the start of 1997 to the summer of 1998 they cranked on the braces too. After the day of emancipation (in late July, I recall), my visits with Dr. May became ever-so-much more pleasant. Since then he's checked my retainers' fit annually, and has always found it to fit well, and our appointments have been brief, happy affairs. I may not see him again, but I suspect Claire (another patient of his) and I will reminisce on Dr. May (and the suffering through which he put us) for years to come.

New Jacks

My mother and I ate at the newest Original House of Pancakes in the world today, a mere 400 minutes after the doors opened. We both enjoyed the fare; she had pecan pancakes and I had coconut pancakes with a side of ham, and everything on the table—right down to the orange juice and freshly made tropical spread—was vastly superior to anything I've had at a Perkins, Shoney's, Denny's, or IHOP. The dining room was light and beautiful, the lofted ceilings accented with dark wood trim. I had a few quibbles with the use of stone, but I suspect there would be no apparent problem to a less architecturally-minded person.

Fine dining (bread and water)

At a recent auction my dad bought a 100-dollar gift certificate to Tiburón Caribbean Bistro for 115 dollars, the profits going towards ALS research, and this evening we dined at the downtown-Minneapolis restaurant. It was dead when we arrived, but that was to be expected at 5:30 on a Monday evening, and was certainly no indication of the quality of the experience. The atmosphere was pleasant (a large, snaking aquarium divided the bar from the dining room), and the food was excellent. There were a great number of appealing options, so I ordered all four courses from the chef's June specials, which may be a first for me in spite general feeling that specials should be ordered as often as possible. This month's spotlighted country is Cuba; although I can't attest to the authenticity of the food's nationality I can attest to the deliciousness of all four courses, which were: Fried Plantains with corn salsa, queso fresco and topped with lime sour cream; Lobster Stuffed Avocado Salad a light and refreshing salad, served on a bed of field greens drizzled with a light balsamic dressing; Mojo Chicken with a warm avocado mango salsa—sautéed chicken breast with a sweet citrus glaze served on a bed of coconut rice; and Fried Ice Cream topped with chocolate and mango sauces and fresh berries, and served in a fried cinnamon tortilla bowl. I'm hoping a return trip in a later month can be arranged.

Later this evening I went to Kinkos to print photos and to Cub Foods to pick up water for Laura's forthcoming graduation party, and I decided to grab some bread while I was out. Since my local Great Harvest bread store closed during the past semester, I've been having a great deal of difficulty finding a loaf a whole wheat bread that doesn't have that Wonder Bread consistency that afflicts all of the rectangular, presliced loafs in the bread isle. Byerly's the local upscale grocery store has "artesian" breads of excellent texture, but each one uses soccer-mom-safe white flour. Whole Foods has good bread, but its even more expensive than Great Harvest's Honey Whole Wheat. So this summer I've been turning to Cub Foods for my staple food. That's right. Plain ol', brown-bagging, florescent-lit Cub Foods. For some reason they've started carrying high-quality take-and-bake loafs from the New French Bakery in Minneapolis, and the price ain't bad either.

I was, however, slightly chagrined to find myself going through the check-out line with only bread and water, which seems only a step above the chips and soda the solitary young white male shopper behind me had in his basket.

Guns and love disastrous (five illuminations)

(I)
I'm sitting on Chair 1, guarding a moderately busy beach during an uneventful three o'clock safety brake when the boy approaches me. He's four years old.
Are you a lifeguard? he asks.
I am, I answer.
Do you have to be able to swim?
I have to be able to swim a whole mile!
Do you like being a lifeguard?
I do. Does he want to be a lifeguard when he's older?
He answers without the faintest hint of a smile. No. FBI agent. He reveals a squirt gun which has been tucked into the back of his swim trunks. Holding it in the air he turns and runs.

(II)
The water is cool and clear early in the day, but with the strong June sunshine and a frenzy of activity it becomes warm and cloudy by midafternoon. As the sun sinks, it becomes a calm place, even a private place if only up to a foot below the surface. But those deeper areas are enough, and occasionally we lifeguards must remind lusty young couples that the beach is a family-friendly facility—that is to say it is a place meant for the raising of existing children, not the making of new ones. What percentage of copulating couples do we catch? Who knows. We occasionally learn of some incidents only from patrons more observant or simply closer to the action than we are. Sometimes such reports come from children, but, thankfully, their own innocence protects them when we fail. We were displeased, if not exactly alarmed, this evening when a child told us of a couple in the water "kissing and fighting."

(III)
The boys were in the shallow end, pointing their fingers at each other in the manner that has allowed children to engage in bloodless gunbattles for generations. Perhaps these fellows of ten and twelve weren't armed with the plastic facsimiles that have supplanted the fingers and the imagination for this most recent generations, but the older of the two had certainly acquired a modern, gory idea of gunbattles. While "Bang! You're dead!" sufficed for Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang, who were no doubt raised on nearly bloodless war movies like "Kelly's Heroes," which dispatches dozens (hundreds?) of Nazis without a single bullet wound. This boy spoke in a manner more fitting of young Marvin's demise in Pulp Fiction. His younger duelist was quieter, so I heard only one side of the imaginary showdown:
"I shot you!"
"I killed you!"
At this point the boy's mother cried, "John!"
"I shot your head off!"
"John!"
"I blew your face off!"
"John! Don't talk like that!"

(IV)
I'm riding along Weaver Lake Road, on my way to Claire's house (she's back from the jungle), and I'm gaining fast on young couple walking side-by-side down the center of the path. I shout my customary bicycle on your left, and the girl (who I see is no more than sixteen) casts look over her shoulder. She starts to move to the right, and realizing that her male companion has not heard she begins to pull him towards her. Feeling her tug, he turns to her for a kiss, but she pulls him past her, and he takes a stumbling step onto the grass, evidently perplexed until I fly past.

(V)
A hundred yards farther down the road I come to a stop at a red light. I cast a glance around the intersection and see a large black SUV with windows proclaiming in fingerpaint JUST MARRIED. Inside the groom is at the wheel talking animatedly. The bride is gazing out the passenger side window with a look of resignedness. The light turns green, the bride blows me a kiss, and we ride on.

The reel deal

After two or three years of gentle pestering, I finally convinced my dad to buy a reel mower for our lawn. He took the first crack at it over the weekend when I was busy working at the pond, but tonight I got a chance to try it out, and I was as pleased as I anticipated. It didn't cut quite as perfectly as the gas-powered Lawn Boy, but it didn't do too shabbily either. It was quiet, consumed no gas, and generated no exhaust (which I missed slightly, as the fumes tend to keep the skeeters away). Perhaps the best part was the increased work-out; after a school year of minimal activity every little bit of exercise is welcome this summer.

Oddly enough, I can't find even the slightest mention of their "Classic" mower on the Scotts website. Goodness knows I can find as many chemicals as I could possibly want to spread around my lawn. I'm glad to see Scotts has their priorities in order.

Corruption Of Cocoa

I've been wondering this for a few months now: Are Hershey's Kissables the worst use of chocolate ever? A coworker of mine brought in Kissable cookies—nothing impressive, but not too shabby—but even that level of attention and effort wasn't enough to overcome the nasty taste of those retched candy pieces. Having seen better candies disappear after just a few months, I can only hope this scourge is gone by the end of the summer.

Aspiring Sleuths

I've had a lot of fun with Google's Da Vinci Code Quest over the past 24 days, and I'm very much hoping that I made the final phase, if only because it will give me a couple more puzzles to play; I don't think I stand a chance of winning the speed competition for the grand prize. Both the daily puzzles and the official site play a bit like a Myst game, albeit without the ingenious subtlety of the Riven chapter. Maybe I can pick up Myst IV on the cheap this summer to keep from going through puzzle withdrawal.

Change Of Address

I signed the lease on an apartment with fellow architecture student Nate Chesley. We'll be living on the fifth and sixth floors of 317 Montgomery Street, just a nine-minute walk east of the Warehouse. We're quite excited.

Album with depth

UPS delivered Tool's new album, 10,000 Days, to me yesterday afternoon, and I'm quite impressed. The 11-track disc has—I'd argue—seven complete songs, and the sequencing seems perfect. The title track is actually the second half of the 17-minute "Wings for Marie," a song to vocalist Maynard James Keenan's departed mother, and not only does it feature the band in top form, it includes the most poignant use of a weather soundtrack that I've heard in any piece of music.

The packaging almost lives up the the contents. Unlike anything I've seen, the case folds open to form a stereoscope, which allows the enclosed booklet to be viewed in 3d. I think the lenses would have been better placed inside, so as not to dominate the closed cover, but this is a small detail, and I'm generally appreciative the exquisite—if tiny—artwork.