Is that the ocean? Yes. Yes, it is.

Sometimes what's in front of you is so obvious and good and unexpected, that you have to doublecheck, just to be sure. And so the feeling sticks.

From nearly the moment we sat on a bus bound for Atlantic City -- which stopped only briefly, before we could blow all our money on keno and the Billy Idol concert happening there (poor, poor Billy) -- I had flashes of the poem below in my head. I had only the ending memorized, though, wishing I had a way to look up the rest, quietly happy that I was nowhere near a computer to do so. Back now, that same head packed with enough to last for quite awhile, I find it online. Silly as cummings can be, totally on point as he often is:


maggie and millie and molly and may
went down to the beach(to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles, and

milly discovered a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles; and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find at the sea

Poor Tom

DeLay Upset Over 'Law & Order' Line - Yahoo! News

WASHINGTON - House Majority Leader Tom DeLay is upset that a popular NBC crime drama used his name as part of its show.

DeLay wrote NBC to complain that one of the characters on "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" invoked his name in a story line about the shooting death of a federal judge. "Maybe we should put out an APB for somebody in a Tom DeLay T-shirt," the fictional police officer said.

DeLay, in a letter to NBC Universal Television chief Jeff Zucker, called that reference a "slur."

....

"This isolated piece of gritty 'cop talk' was neither a political comment nor an accusation," NBC Entertainment President Kevin Reilly said. "It's not unusual for L & O to mention real names in its fictional stories. We're confident in our viewers' ability to distinguish between the two."

Creator/executive producer Dick Wolf added: "But I do congratulate Congressman DeLay for switching the spotlight from his own problems to an episode of a television show."

Nice.

because it is friday

and because i'm shortly off to what more pretentious people would refer to as a brief "holiday" and what less pretentious people would call a "trip" and what I'll call "something i've really been looking forward to", I hope you will all enjoy the following:

http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/091303/my-calculations-are-correct.gif

http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/090903/with-a-shovel.gif

http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/082903/because-he-was-depressed.gif

http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/072403/canadian-bacon.gif

http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/093004/the-can-factory.gif

http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/091204/i-like-my-coffee.gif

i'm often reminded that i'm not nearly as clever as i had hoped to be...

happy arbor day.

I'll see your pill and raise you a briss

We have a spam filter at work that’s great at identifying messages touting ends to erectile dysfunction and giving promises of ravishing a] Russian brides or b] young Asians. Rather than deleting these generous offers, however, it simply labels them as such, and leaves them in my inbox.

There’s evidently a strange calculus to determining whether or not something’s spam, and as in life and 4-H fairs, point values are assigned. Some of the things that added up to doom today’s message to the spam pile:

1.8 SUBJECT_DRUG_GAP_VIA Subject contains a gappy version of 'viagra'
1.0 SUB_CONT_VIAGRA Subject contains munged viagra
1.9 SUBJECT_DRUG_GAP_C Subject contains a gappy version of 'cialis'

“A gappy version of viagra” - That’s got a nice ring to it, but is somehow worth a tenth of a point less than "a gappy version of cialis." No, I don't know what levitra gets you, John.

As always with these mesages, though, my favorite part is the imagined sender that their million monkeys on a million typewriters have come up with. This time?

From: "Menorahs G. Showboats” -- the middle initial was the giveaway.

Love me some of that gambling Judaism...

The building helps, like a huge steel-needled vitamin shot to the head.

Particle Man hates Triangle Man: And I'm not sure I can blame him.

A Times reporter's pieced together the rather peculiar sentence above, but I'm glad someone wrote about the lucky few who get to work high above Manhattan, looking out on little triangular views of the city few people will ever get to see personally.

Ours or theirs?

Bushism of the Day

'See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.' Greece, N.Y., May 24, 2005 "

and perhaps we could use a trebuchet on the evildoers...

when they found your body....

giant X's...

I don't care if I ever get back...

Manny Gluck, 65, Dies; Yankee Vendor No. 1

From a NYT obit. Even someone who cares as little for baseball as I do has to recognize that this guy had a pretty good gig going, and makes for one of the better ways to be remembered.

Emanuel Gluck, a retired middle-school principal who had a rich alternate life as Yankee Stadium's longest-working vendor, signified by his No. 1 badge, died on May 12 at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia hospital in Manhattan. He was 65.

The cause was a heart attack, his wife, Sharyn, said.

Mr. Gluck, 6 feet 6 inches, was the tall guy with the booming bass voice at Gate 4. He was there for every opening day for 50 years, saw every perfect game ever pitched at Yankee Stadium and was on hand for 19 World Series, 10 of which the Yankees won.

Longevity has its privileges. Movie stars like Billy Crystal greeted him by name. His choice location, which his seniority allowed him to select, generated three times the sales of lesser gates. His wife would not say what he earned, but did volunteer that the Yankee Stadium job paid for their trips to gamble in Aruba and Las Vegas and to watch sports in stadiums around the country.

Thursday afternoon

and I’m sitting on the promenade in Brooklyn Heights, the day the plans for the cultural center at ground zero are released [I like, with some reservations] and the day after Donald Trump [I hate] held that joke of a press conference on the WTC redesign so that he could continue to listen to the sound of his own voice.

The sun is beginning to do what it does best in early evening, slowly settling behind the buildings in front of me, and there’s me on my bench, a plastic bag with the salmon for the night’s dinner to one side of me, my other bag full of books and magazines to be gotten through, and the little notebook in which I start writing this.

Abby runs by, nearly done the brisk 10 or 12 miles I’m sure she’s just been on, and stops to say hi, beaming. The light and temperature are perfect, and I’m grateful for this city and our place in it. There’s fish to cook, wine to buy, but I tell her I’ll sit a bit longer, let her finish her run, and she does.

Beside me, a family of four looks at the skyline, then down at a series of bronze plaques inlaid in the stone, depicting the view before them throughout the years, and before it looked in so many ways empty.

The older boy, maybe seven years old, treads on the images he sees, the buildings and ships impossibly large in front of them. And whether he’s acting as all boys do, or because he’s living at a wrong time in this world, as he stomps on the buildings, slowly and just above a whisper, he says, “Smash...Smash...Fire...”

Watching him, I realize that it’s a bit of both; he’s part Godzilla, part kid growing up in these strange days.

The family heads off together, and I gather my things for the walk away from this view I love. When I walk over to look at the skyscrapers that were at his feet, I see views from the 19th-century on up to 2001. The boy was stomping on 1935 -- buildings more sparse, the towers still un-imagined -- as if he knew what would be there and, later, what wasn’t.

but there's so much political capital to burn...

Continuing their sure to be successful quest for global domination, the nice folks at Google have introduced a home page function, which I'm now using. In addition to mail and headlines, it offers up a quote of the day. Today's, my first, calls to mind a president or two:

"The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action."
- Frank Herbert

this is from about a year ago. it seems this is about now, too.

just about everyone dear to me these days is in some kind of a state of flux, settling in or feeling increasingly unsettled, with work, with living situations, with love, with money, with the things they'd rather be doing. this morning, it set me to thinking about this passage in amis' first novel, lucky jim, which is fantastic and should be read now instead of this, thank you very much.

"another thing you'll find is that the years of illusion aren't those of adolescence, as the grown-ups try to tell us; they're the ones immediately after it, say the middle twenties; the false maturity, if you like, when you first get thoroughly embroiled in things and lose your head."

there. and that this book is older than me and that these things haven't changed at all is both comforting and frustrating. it's one of the more important, if easier to forget, things about having people in your life. they exist as both a reminder that we're more or less all in this together, though in our own way, whether 20s or 30s, and that maybe that unsettled feeling - just before you're finally comfortable, or just when you're on the verge of something big and scary - maybe that unsettled feeling is worth having. and should be appreciated for what it is. sometimes you have to lose your head to find where you'd rather it be in the first place.

cue that modest mouse 'float on' song.

Trump Notwithstanding,

and just because, and with no pressure to agree, I nonetheless feel obliged to put this up.

New York City

You called me last night
On the telephone
And I was glad to hear from you
'Cause I was all alone
You said
"It's snowing
It's snowing
God, I hate this weather"
Now I walk through blizzards
Just to get us back together

We met in the springtime
At a rock and roll show
It was on the Bowery
When it was time to go
We kissed on the subway
In the middle of the night
I held your hand
You held mine
It was the best night of my life

'Cause everyone's your friend
In New York City
And everything looks beautiful
When you're young and pretty
The streets are paved with diamonds
And there's just so much to see
But the best thing about New York City is
You and me

Statue of Liberty
Staten Island ferry
Co-Op City
Cats
And there's Tiffany's
Central Park
Brooklyn Bridge
The Empire State where Dylan lived
Coney Island
And Times Square
Rockefeller Center
Wish I was there

You wrote me a letter
Just the other day
Said "Springtime is coming soon
So why don't you come to stay?"
Packed my stuff
Was on the bus
I can't believe it's true
I'm three days from New York City
And I'm three days from you

'Cause everyone's my friend
In New York City
And everything looks beautiful
When you're young and pretty
The streets are paved with diamonds
And there's just so much to see
But the best thing about New York City is
You and me

'Cause everyone's my friend
In New York City
Everything looks beautiful
When you're young and pretty
The streets are paved with diamonds
And there's just so much to see
But the best thing about New York City is
You and me

They Might Be Giants

with thanks due to A

consider this, young readers. Don't major in English, either.

Trump's unveils his vision for downtown Manhattan

If they don't build it, will he shut the fuck up?

Click above so you don't miss such incisive analysis as CNN's offering:

The real estate mogul said he aims to build two 111-story buildings, one foot taller than the 1360-foot buildings destroyed on Sept. 11, 2001.

The Trump plan would require scrapping the Libeskind plan for a 1,776-foot Freedom Tower, symbolizing the year of American independence, which continues to be hotly debated.

for a lot of people, for a lot of reasons these days

For friendship

For friendship
make a chain that holds,
to be bound to
others, two by two,

a walk, a garland,
handed by hands
that cannot move
unless they hold.

-R. Creeley

donor research gone awry

or, men giving birth, smiling.

citrus saves the day

My difficulty with mornings has been lifelong, and even after an early night in bed, I find myself in constant struggle with a part of the day that's often so beautiful. Coffee helps, as does the following:

F train subway smells are as different and varied as the people who ride it, which is why the scent of something is usually not to be looked forward to. Today, however, trying to do the book/coffee/poll balancing act, there's something better than Chanel and almost as good as Drakaar Noir. But what is it? It's the woman next to me, slowly eating a tangerine -- maybe that's what morning people smell all the time. It almost worked for me, even.

naps

Long songs are usually hit or miss, but The Catherine Wheel has always been a favorite in the long, droning category. I bought their record Chrome what seems like more than 10 years ago. I don’t know if that’s possible, but hearing Fripp just now is always like the first time -- one of those songs and one of those bands you can go months without hearing, then wonder why you don’t listen constantly. This song, like most things, seems differently charged these days.

There's a shark shaped fin
In the water of my dreams
An alligator screams from the depths there
I'd swim with you there
I'd swim with you there, yeah yeah

In the house that I use
There's a psycho on the loose
He's playing with the fuse of a bomb there
I could live with you there
I could live with you there

Bye bye long day
I need to sleep so much
You shine on me
Too much is not enough

On the sheets and pillow case
In my bed for heaven's sake
The devil's dancing until late in my head there
But I could sleep with you there
I could sleep with you there

Always
Always

Bye bye long day I need to sleep so much
Nineteen hours straight
Too much is not enough
Too much is not enough
Too much is not enough
Too much is not enough

Too much is not enough
Undivide your love
Undivide your love

tetherball

my little internet radio station must not have slept too well either. because so far this morning, it's coughed up sonny and cher, and a band called 'player'. now back to the postal service, things are settling down a bit, but not before i hear a song i haven't thought of since the charming end of napoleon dynamite, and hadn't ever thought of before that.

lyrics, of course:

Artist: When In Rome
Song: The Promise

If you need a friend,
don't look to a stranger,
You know in the end,
I'll always be there.

And when you're in doubt,
and when you're in danger,
Take a look all around,
and I'll be there.

I'm sorry, but I'm just thinking of the right words to say. (I promise)
I know they don't sound the way I planned them to be. (I promise)
But if you wait around a while, I'll make you fall for me,
I promise, I promise you I will.

When your day is through,
and so is your temper,
You know what to do,
I'm gonna always be there.

Sometimes if I shout,
it's not what's intended.
These words just come out,
with no gripe to bear.

I'm sorry, but I'm just thinking of the right words to say. (I promise)
I know they don't sound the way I planned them to be. (I promise)
But if you wait around a while, I'll make you fall for me,
I promise, I promise you...

I'm sorry, but I'm just thinking of the right words to say. (I promise)
I know they don't sound the way I planned them to be. (I promise)
And if I had to walk the world, that make you fall for me,
I promise you, I promise you I will.

I gotta tell ya, I need to tell ya, I gotta tell ya, I gotta tell yaaaa ...

I'm sorry, but I'm just thinking of the right words to say. (I promise)
I know they don't sound the way I planned them to be. (I promise)
But if you wait around a while, I'll make you fall for me,
I promise you, I promise you...

I'm sorry, but I'm just thinking of the right words to say. (I promise)
I know they don't sound the way I planned them to be. (I promise)
And if I have to walk the world to make you fall for me,
I promise you, I promise you I will ...
I will...
I will...
I will...

awww...

I don't know which of these facts is more frightening:

Two one-ton horses broke loose near the Meatpacking district this morning, galloping down sidewalks among startled morning commuters, after the stagecoach they were pulling tipped over and the drivers were flung from their seats.

or this:

The red stagecoach, promoting a new Shania Twain fragrance by Stetson's....

Probably the second thing.

--

Also, where in the unwritten rules of journalism is it mandated that reporters use incredibly stupid quotes from bystanders to any event?

"I heard someone screaming, 'Look out! Watch out!' " said Carla Morreale, a software company employee, who had just come out of the Subway stop when she saw the horses bearing down on her. She ducked into a building entryway with two other women. "You don't expect horses to be charging towards you on your way to work on the sidewalk in Manhattan," she said.

Or on the sidewalk anywhere, Carla.

Chester Burroughs, 62, was sitting at his desk just inside the lobby of the Teamsters building on 14th street when he saw the horses run by. "I had to get up and look again," he said. "It was strange to see two horses loose on 14th Street."

I'll bet it was strange, Chester. Listen, have you met Carla? You two should have obvious babies together. Jesus.

Blessing in Disguise: Gene Greytak as Pope John Paul II: Impersonator

UNEMPLOYED.

I don't know why, exactly, but this fact makes me a little sad.

If you REALLY were a lookalike, wouldn't be unneccesary to say who you looked like?

These questions fill my days.

And the answer seems to be no.

Gene Greytak a.k.a. The Pope - after attending a performance of 'The Honkey Tonk Angels,' at the Gold Coast later that evening. Sharon Haynes as Pasty Clone. Corrie Sachs as Reba McEntire, Lori Legacy as Dolly Parton.

I stumbled upon this site trying to research a donor. It's safe to say he is NOT pictured here. Nor is his lookalike. And while I'll never get this 15 minutes of my life back, I particularly like the picture of the Pope [old then, now dead] on a couch with Dolly Parton [old, too stacked Dolly].

There's something about water.

They're testing models of the WTC memorial in Canada. I hope it's as moving as I know it could be.

That aside, this is a tall order:

The goal is to create a veil that will not splash visitors or disintegrate in the wind or roar deafeningly or freeze in winter or clog up in autumn when the oak leaves begin falling in the surrounding plaza.

life's full of 'em

and today's question of the day is...

Why James Lipton should have a bench on court street

Because in addition to scaring away the pigeons and yappy dogs, he could learn a hell of a lot about dialogue for his creepy Actors Studio show.

Here we are again, outside of George's Pot Pourri:

Cast: George and 4 of the neighborhood ladies, combined time in this nieghborhood estimated to date to the precambrian era. Hearing them, I'm put in the mind of Italian versions of my Irish grandmother, Katherine. Impossibly still hair, beauty parlor fixed, clipped consonants, and what I surmise to have been carton a week habits. They're gruff, but sweet. They will yell at you for stepping on their flowers, but they mean well. They make you wish your grandmother was still around.

Scene: Ladies leaving the coffee shop, coffee-less. perhaps too full of people like me for their liking.

George: No coffee?

Ladies: We'll have coffee tomorrow. Thrusday.

George: Coffee at Starbucks is 5 dollars. SPECIAL coffee. Why don't you go to your house, then your house, and your house?

Ladies: Why don't we come here?

George: You pick a date. I'll sell you 4 chairs, 5 dollars.

Ladies: What, you sit on them, they break?

George: We don't sell chairs that break. How many people were in church? 10? I hear he's gonna start counting how many people are going? What are they gonna do, close the church?
Doesn't anybody have a hook in the father, know what's going on?

Ladies: Nobody goes anymore.

George: He has no activities for the people in the neighborhood! no card parties, no bingo.

later, on the money coming in...donations, welcomed and extracted.

George: $150 per kid to make communion!! Where the hell do you come off making a price like that? [yes, he said that, across the street from the church.]

Ladies: I never heard of that.

George: Well, you heard it now.

I certainly have. I love this neighborhood.

a number of people don't understand dogs in this town

from overheard in nyc:

Woman #1: Ah, look at those beautiful puppies.
Woman #2: Puppies are bullshit.
--Bay Ridge

Kid #1: Yo, blind people can rake mad money walking dogs.
Kid #2: I hear you!
--M15 bus

Course Correction

I just learned yesterday that a musician I have a great deal of respect and admiration for came to the difficult conclusion that the stresses and obligations of touring would have to defer to an urgent need to ground himself emotionally, regain a stability lost.

Sad to see the tour cancelled, more sad to know that yet another person I know has had to deal with his kind of thing -- this fight to keep the darker sides of our nature at bay. I don't really know him, of course, but if I did, I'd send to this to him -- different as they are, the things people turn to maybe aren't really that different after all:

"Let us remember...that in the end we go to poetry for one reason, so that we might more fully inhabit our lives and the world in which we live them, and that if we more fully inhabit these things, we might be less apt to destroy both."

--Christian Wiman, Editor, Poetry Magazine

I remember him saying something quite a bit like that himself once, and hope it sticks.

Write The Caption Contest: We Have A Winner! : Gawker

At least I was a runner up.

In which things I am learning to be true are frequently confirmed by Jeanette Winterson

This morning, I read this on the train, nodding:

Some people say that the best stories have no words. They weren't brought up to Lighthousekeeping. It is true that words drop away, and that the important things are often left unsaid. The important things are learned in faces, in gestures, not in our locked tongues. The true things are too big or too small, or in any case always the wrong size to fit the template called language.

I know that. But I know something else too, because I was brought up to Lighthousekeeping. Turn down the daily noise and at first there is the relief of silence. And then, very quietly, as quiet as light, meaning returns. Words are the part of the silence that can be spoken.

corcoran.com | 84 MERCER

This may be the only chance I have of becoming friends with Cindy Sherman -- buying her apartment. Seems unlikely, no?

There is a shortage in the blood supply, but there is no shortage of blood.

Or, of songs. Here's 415 of them. And he has more, dozens more. And, quite often, they're better than just about anything I've heard.

I knew that last night's Mountain Goats show would knock me on my ass; I just didn't know how exhilarating that trip would be, or how it would feel more like being pulled up than down.

Simply amazing.

I wanted to sit down and bang out some thoughts on the evening, but I don't think that's possible, or necessary, really. I was there, others were there, and, next time, it'd be a smart thing for you to consider as well. Or go on your own, if I can't make it to Kalamazoo.

hold, please.

I would like one of these.

"Ways of Expressing resentment"

Helpful hints for a few people I know lately having some aggravating days.

Compiled by this very thoughtful person.

I have been helping teach English recently. I have also been feeling resentful about various things. This got me started thinking about all the idiomatic ways of expressing resentment in English. There are many commands, such as "Bite me", and there are many forms of sarcasm, such as "Oh, joy." As the saying goes, "Saracasm is anger in disguise." As I think about the countries I have visited I wonder if there is more resentment, more sarcasm in places like the USA and England. This is where I have noticed these kinds of comments the most.

I don't know what the fuck he's talking about.

Froogle Search: $1.75

The pizza man just tried to sell me one of those small bottles of Poland Spring water for 175 pennies. Bullshit. This is what that money could be better spent on. A personal favorite of mine is this sweet ninja patch, which I may just have to order now. Excuse me.

Now, if I had $2.50 [someday, tim, someday] I'd buy the patch and what is the best product description EVER. "New Full Length Adult Videos That are Nice."

tonight, the mountain goats

easily among the most memorable shows i've ever been to, and i suspect tonight will join the other three times. whenever you see someone play, you always half-hope that they'll play THAT song. i don't yell out requests at shows, partly because that never works, but mostly because i don't yell.

these three words, i screamed at the top of my lungs:

going to georgia

the most remarkable thing about coming home to you is the feeling of being in motion again
it's the most extraordinary thing in the world
i have two big hands and a heart pumping blood and a 1967 colt .45 with a busted safety catch
the world shines as i cross the macon county line
going to georgia

the most remarkable thing about you standing in the doorway is that it's you
and that you're standing in the doorway
and you smile as you ease the gun from my hand and i'm frozen with joy right where i stand
the world throws its light underneath your hair
forty miles from atlanta, this is nowhere
going to georgia

the world shines as i cross the macon county line
going to georgia

I already have chills.

"You know darn well"

This is for a friend of mine. She wants magic. She deserves magic. With me as a friend, she gets this. Let it be a reminder to all y'all:


I never believed in things that I couldn't see
I said if I can't feel it then how can it be
No, no magic could happen to me
And then I saw you

I couldn't believe it, you took my heart
I couldn't retrieve it, said to myself
What's it all about
Now I know there can be no doubt

You can do magic
You can have anything that you desire
Magic, and you know
You're the one who can put out the fire

You know darn well
When you cast your spell you will get your way
When you hypnotize with your eyes
A heart of stone can turn to clay
Doo, doo, doo ... [never forget that part - that's important]

And when the rain is beatin' upon the window pane
And when the night it gets so cold, when I can't sleep
Again you come to me
I hold you tight, the rain disappears
Who would believe it
With a word you dry my tears

You can do magic
You can have anything that you desire
Magic, and you know
You're the one who can put out the fire

You know darn well
When you cast your spell you will get your way
When you hypnotize with your eyes
A heart of stone can turn to clay
Doo, doo, doo ...

And if I wanted to
I could never be free
I never believed it was true
But now it's so clear to me

You can do magic
You can have anything that you desire
Magic, and you know
You're the one who can put out the fire

You know darn well
When you cast your spell you will get your way
When you hypnotize with your eyes
A heart of stone can turn to clay
Doo, doo, doo ...

You're the one who can put out the fire
You're the one who can put out the fire
You're the one who can put out the fire ...
--

Wow. Frost was a hack. THAT is poetry. America Rules [yes, the band AND the country]...to think I'd never heard of "Green Monkey":

When the deep blue night is running close on your track
And you can feel the green monkey crawlin' across your back
Don't take me so real that you forget how to feel
Don't let the threat of the dagger turn your heart into steel

Smell the perfume of the silent dream
Fly the ocean, read a story to me
Speak the wisdom of a redwood tree
Speak to me

So you think that star cluster shining bright in the sky
Will speak the fate of your evening, tell the truth to your lie
Don't let the features you read control the tickets you buy
Soon as you learn that you live, you're just beginning to die

Smell the perfume of the silent dream
Fly the ocean, read a story to me
Speak the wisdom of a redwood tree
Speak to me

Smell the perfume of the silent dream
Fly the ocean, read a story to me
Speak the wisdom of a redwood tree
Speak to me

my new favorite word

Tincture

A tinge or shade of color; a tint; as, a tincture of red.

One of the metals, colors, or furs used in armory.

The finer and more volatile parts of a substance, separated by a solvent; an extract of a part of the substance of a body communicated to the solvent.

A solution (commonly colored) of medicinal substance in alcohol, usually more or less diluted; spirit containing medicinal substances in solution.

A slight taste superadded to any substance; as, a tincture of orange peel.

A slight quality added to anything; a tinge; as, a tincture of French manners.

To communicate a slight foreign color to; to tinge; to impregnate with some extraneous matter.

To imbue the mind of; to communicate a portion of anything foreign to; to tinge.

poorly used by this guy here:

Franchetti chimed in: "He had researched to some degree my family's charity giving, and that made me realize that his own interests were tinctured with morality and therefore not worth my while."

um, that makes you look like the jerk, i think, no?

i have been riding the wrong car on the f-train

Overheard in New York: Notes from the New York Underground

why we eat

Though I'll write more about this new food obsession, it's easier now to just let Raymond Carver say better than I can what's going through my head.

From his amazing short story, "A Small, Good Thing", which instantly came into my head the moment I realized that the comfort of eating, is also present, even more so, perhaps when we're not at our best, when we're far from it.

Here we find parents who just lost a child, angrily confronting a man not responsible for their grief, but a party to it -- someone at whom to direct their anger, someone from whom the recieve more than they ever could have imagined.

It was warm inside the bakery. Howard stood up from the table and took off his coat. He helped Ann from her coat. The baker looked at them for a minute and then nodded and got up from the table. He went to the oven and turned off some switches. He found cups and poured coffee from an electric coffee-maker. He put a carton of coffee of cream on the table, and a bowl of sugar.

"You probably need to eat something," the baker said. 'I hope you'll eat some of my hot rolls. You have to eat and keep going. Eating is a small, good thing in a time like this,' he said."

Kitchen Tested, Taste Guarantee

What if we didn't have to eat to survive? What if food always tasted like, say, pudding, but more bland? These are silly questions, but ones I want to think about. Part of the reason is because of the events of last evening.

On another of those nights where I'm reminded why I live here, and why I'm grateful for so much, I started out at the U.N., looking at photographs, drinking wine, and eating bland hors d'ouevre at the invitation of Mike. I hadn't been to the U.N., let alone in it, since I was of the acid washed jeans age. Strangely imposing, unwelcoming building. But back to the food.

Because mini beef whatevers were not up to par, we decided to give burgers a try. To have a place nearby that you can go to for an always dependable good meal should make one feel more than a little fortunate. To be able to sit down with three of your better friends and talk about everything from work bullshit to neighborhood crazies to friends in saigon giving speeches to the communist party should make one feel fortunate. To see four burgers come out of the kitchen at the same time thanks to strategic ordering should make one feel fortunate. None of this is lost on me.

Later, returning home to find a package from someone too close to me to be so far away -- at least that's how it feels sometimes -- there is a letter and a book. a cook book. cook books are these things that have nice pictures and recipes inside that tell you how to make meals i often pay good money for. Q's tried to get me to cook for years now, with little success. These days, though, I'm getting better. Slowly. I know so many people who cook seriously, religiously, and their varied reasons for doing so. And I'm beginning to understand.

The recipes in the above-mentioned book are touted as being Kitchen Tested [thank god] and have a Taste Guarantee [good to know]. Cooking's always been vaguely intimidating to me, but armed with this perhaps I'll be more willing to take that leap. The cover of the book pictures this pork dish garnished with bacon [I KNOW!! 2 kinds of pork! genius] and lima beans. And while I wouldn't necessarily think lima beans and bacon are the first thing people might think to pair, these days half make me think that that little bit of difference is reason enough to give it a try.

put those lucky charms back, you're hideous.

Startling Scientific Breakthrough.: as reported in the NYT.

"Parents would certainly deny it, but Canadian researchers have made a startling assertion: parents take better care of pretty children than they do ugly ones.

Researchers at the University of Alberta carefully observed how parents treated their children during trips to the supermarket. They found that physical attractiveness made a big difference."

Somewhere, the Olsen twins are fighting over who got more attention and who was uglier, failing to realize that no study could ever take into account their magnitude of what's commonly referred to as "yuck."

Found a profile of someone whose work I greatly admire, but know next to nothing about. That's often the case. Kay Ryan's a poet living in CA, and I stumbled across her in an issue of The New Yorker, which has introduced me to more than a few people over the years. Her A Hundred Bolts of Satin floored me, and went from the magazine to my wallet to a wall in my bedroom.

I need to read the article, and think about her a bit more, but this can go up now. Urgent's a favorite word of mine, concise is another. She's both, and quite often


Hope

What's the use
of something
as unstable
and diffuse as hope -
the almost-twin
of making-do,
the isotope
of going on:
what isn't in
the envelope
just before
it isn't:
the always tabled
righting of the present.

With Abby this weekend, walking a familiar and welcome stretch up Henry Street in the Heights, we passed a church -- we always pass churches -- and I read a quote by Andrew Young, another person I'd never heard of.

"Wishing, of all strategies, is the worst."

And they both have a point, of course. Hoping, wishing, both with their place in this world, each something useful and the opposite of useful, to the extent they get us to make things happen or keep us inactive.

From Becker to VanGogh to Steinbeck to Winterson to these people, I find myself coming back to that again and again. "Your best chances are the once you take," Robin reminds me, daily.

and from some intelligent cow:

"A wish is a desire without an attempt."

-- Farmer Digest

the leads are weak

I saw Glengarry Glen Ross years after I should have, but am glad I finally got around to it. There's a bit of swearing, but otherwise it's fun for the whole family. That said, childen under the age of 4 will not be admitted to the Royale Theatre, where a revival of the Mamet play is being put on. You wanna go? Great. You wanna take me? Tickets, it should not surprise me, are expensive. So in lieu of that, one of my favorite lines. ever:


Blake: You call yourself a salesman, you son of a bitch?

Moss: I don't have to listen to this shit.

Blake: You certainly don't pal. 'Cause the good news is -- you're fired. The bad news is you've got, all you got, just one week to regain your jobs, starting tonight. Starting with tonights sit. Oh, have I got your attention now? Good. 'Cause we're adding a little something to this months sales contest. As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anyone want to see second prize? Second prize's a set of steak knives. Third prize is you're fired. You get the picture? You're laughing now? You got leads. Mitch and Murray paid good money.

-

Like $100?