Red Sky at Night

Going Away Party

2010-02-26T13:55:00.004-05:00

Prologue

The internet is a very disorganized place. I think our children and grandchildren will laugh at us for (among many other things) even trying to bushwhack our way through this chirping, hissing, dripping jungle of data, media, networks-within-networks, and kittens doing adorable things. The next truly killer app will be the one that is able to organize content, suss out what matters and what matters to you, and deliver it to you on a silver platter (or on a lunch tray, or in the Stanley Cup, or however you want it served).

The big question that follows is how, exactly, will content-- written, visual, audio, etc.-- be sorted and organized? Who will be the decider? Will the New York Times editorial board bestow the label of true and important? Will Google's algorithms sort items based on myriad criteria to allow the relevant to rise to the top? Will billions of netizens vote and decide? Who knows.

Here's what I do think is true: In dealing with the oceans of media and content, perhaps the most valuable validators will be our friends. People we know in the "real world" (insofar as it remains separate from the virtual world) will share links, photos, videos, blog posts, quotes, quips, and other stuff they like with you, their friend, and you will share back with them. We already do this of course, through e-mail and IM, status message and Tweet, Google Reader, Buzz, YouTube, Flickr and Facebook. And through our own blogs.

Here's Where it Gets Real

Increasingly, I have found myself using this blog as a way to share stuff I liked with you, my erstwhile audience. Most of my serious thinking and writing goes into Global Mobile these days, so Red Sky at Night became a forum for passing along the good and hilarious work of others. Increasingly, I have found Blogger to be a constraining platform in this regard. I have been yearning for something slicker, smoother, easier to use. Plus, it just felt like time to shed this old skin and sport something shiny, sleek and new.

So I confess, I've been experimenting with Tumblr, and while I felt terrible keeping it from you, I wanted to test it out before inviting my friends over. I like it. I like the way it shows off content, and I like how easy it is to post. So please, come visit, and I hope you'll update your feeds, bookmarks, and whatnot.

Climax

My new home: swdp.tumblr.com

Denouement

Dead? Is this blog dead? Well, yes, probably. It's not going anywhere, but I don't have any plans to use it as an outlet anytime soon. Feel free to never come back, unless you really like it here the way it is now.

Epilogue

You could reasonably ask, after my ponderous introduction to this post, and the sharp left turn down Practicality Lane, whether I think Tumblr is the future of content-sharing on the web. Actually no, I don't. Realistically, I think we'll all gravitate toward something that melds Google Reader's functionality with Facebook's network. I think both mechanisms are pretty crappy right now. And Google Buzz is the worst of both worlds.

BUT, I do think that the final product will give you, the validator, greater power to comment on the content you're sharing, and greater control over how it looks. And Tumblr gives users those capabilities, thankfully. Style, after all, as readers of this blog surely know, matters.

Switching Lanes for a Change

2010-02-14T19:05:00.005-05:00

From the department of plus ça change, a 1980 editorial by Emmett Tyrrell. It's amazing what great strides cycling has made toward the mainstream in the last 30 years, while the vitriol targeted at it remains unchanged. Anybody who can figure out what paper this was printed in wins a gold star. A handwritten note on the article (linked above) makes reference of the Star, but I'm stumped.

All historification aside, this is hilarious:

Switching Lanes for a Change
R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.

Change has again gained the upper hand in America. The vested interests of the old order are being put down and with a thud. Why are Andrew Young and the other recent champions of change not singing? Are they your simple mossbacks?

New York’s Mayor Edward Koch is no mossback. Last week he responded to the desires of the vast majority of his constituents and took on one of the old order’s most articulate interest groups, New York’s powerful cyclist lobby.

Last summer the cyclists, acting no doubt in concert with the joggers, the heliotherapists, and those remaining 1970s hypochondriacs who have yet to poison or otherwise immobilize themselves, prevailed on the mayor to turn the curbside lanes of some of Manhattan’s busiest streets into bicycle-only lanes. Last week the mayor admitted his error and expressed a willingness to eliminate these menaces. They have already cost the citizens $290,000 in construction costs. The personal misery is incalculable.

Millions of trucks, buses, taxis, and privately owned vehicles have been squeezed into narrowed streets. Months have been sliced from the lives of drivers and passengers; a drive from 30th Street to Central Park South is now five to 10 minutes longer – God knows how much longer it is if one begins in Greenwich Village. Access to nearby shops is more difficult, and neighborhood dogs, answering nature’s call, are terrified to venture toward the curb.

In fact millions of pedestrians, standing at crosswalks, have experienced real terror, exposed as they now are to the mercy and moderation of bicycle riders, people whose lawlessness and viciousness are a matter of record.

Close observers of the mayor say he got the idea for his cycling lanes while visiting the People’s Republic of China. There he saw crowds of smiling Mao-men peddling the streets, and he came home convinced that bicycles would be just the right therapy to put smiles on the faces of his irascible constituents.

Apparently it never occurred to him that those smiling Chinese faces would smile even more resplendently were they looking out from the lush seats of Oldsmobiles. Nor did he weigh the anxiety that might be caused in cramped Manhattan offices when clammy cyclists arrived for a day’s work. The mayor foresaw a city of happy, health cyclists and looked no further.

Well he is now a wiser man, and the political message of Nov. 4 has freed him from the coils of such cyclist organizations as Transportation Alternatives, a cycling lobby whose very name suggests its perverse political purpose. The cyclists’ hold on city hall has been broken, and when the mayor’s workmen get around to ripping up those cycling lanes I hope they move on and haul away those ghastly bicycle racks. Cycling in congested cities is not to be encouraged.

Not only are bicycles dangerous, they are as antiquated a form of transportation as the rickshaw. In no advanced city on earth will you find civilized people cycling to work. The urban cyclist is generally a crank, either profoundly antisocial or hopelessly narcissistic and following the strenuous life in hopes of achieving immortality or a legendary sex life. When you encounter him give him wide berth and never turn your back on him.

Bicycles are unstable and dangerous Consumerists would have spoken out against them ages ago were it not for the consumerists’ great passion against the alternative to the bicycle, the automobile. Here we have a passion inspired in part by the consumerists’ hatred of modern life and their even greater hatred of corporations. Yet I have no doubt that if General Motors had a profitable bicycle division, consumerists all over the country would be hauling GM into court.

Bicycles provide no protection whatsoever to their riders. Their handlebars are an ever-present menace to the soft vulnerable parts of those Homo sapiens reckless enough to ride them, and I know of no bicycle whose brakes are as reliable as those of the old Model T. Koch’s incipient move against these hellish devices is but one more commendable move against the excesses of the 1970s. I salute him for his courage even as I sing to myself a few favorite passages from “The Times They Are A Changin’.”

A sweeping doff of the cap to dave on this one.

Who Dat Say Dey Gon Beat Dem Saints?

2010-02-03T20:12:00.004-05:00

In advance of Sunday, there are two things to which I'd like to draw your attention.

Firstly:

And secondly:

Who dat?

Yemen Fail

2009-12-26T18:35:00.003-05:00

RSAN emerges from months of slumber to point out a brief copy-edit fail on the front page of the NYTimes. Think anybody in Yemen noticed?

The Name is Tweed. Harris Tweed.

2009-11-11T21:24:00.002-05:00

In response to the New York Times Styles column that triumphantly claims "Late 19th-Century Dress is Back in Fashion," I can only say-- it's about time. I write today only to quote the authoritative article, and perhaps to modestly suggest that I was a little ahead of the curve on this one:

Not long ago, big brass-buttoned military coats looked a bit extreme. So did high-button, high-lapel vests and slim tweed trousers. And so did guys who tucked said trousers into high, old-fashioned hunting boots. Now these clothes (along with those ever-present beards and mustaches) look like downtown defaults compared with fall runway looks like cardinal-red tailcoats at Ralph Lauren, capes and bowlers at Alexander McQueen and knee breeches at Robert Geller.
As with home design, where curio cases, taxidermy and other stylish clutter of the Victorian era have been taken up by young hipsters, many of today’s popular men’s styles have their roots in the late 19th century. There are the three-piece suits once favored by mustachioed Gilded Age bankers; the military greatcoats and boots of Union officers; and the henley undershirts, suspenders, plaid flannel shirts and stout drill trousers worn by plain, honest farmers.

and then

“There are all kinds of societies that are about dressing up in period costume and then going back to your oversize jeans the next day,” he said. “This is about style as a way of being.” (You can’t help imagining a kind of upside-down remake of “The Wild Ones,” in which a gang of elegant men in knee breeches riding old Raleigh three-speeds descend on an unsuspecting town and freak everyone out with their impeccable manners.)
Even so, tweed states its own case surprisingly well.
“I haven’t worn tweed in a while, but I’m rediscovering it,” Mr. Brewer said. “The Victorian era was about a very trim silhouette and form, and I’m seeing tweeds that are cut that way. The thing is, tweed looks very elegant, but it’s a very sturdy fabric, so you can be dapper and still appear manly and rugged.”

I hope you'll join me this weekend for a tweed ride!

Millennial Multitasking - Matchless Mannerism?

2009-11-04T11:19:00.005-05:00

My (our?) generation is known for many things-- elder social commentators look aghast at our binge drinking, our abandonment of romanticism, and our brash refusal to get flu shots. But perhaps more than anything else, we're known for our dizzying multitasking-- our unparalleled ability to carry on simultaneous conversations via text, phone, e-mail, and seven different chat windows, all whilst engaging the friend actually sharing the couch and, at least theoretically, writing up a report, too.

It's baldly apparent that our forbears don't share this skill. If they're reading the newspaper, they're reading the newspaper, and a ringing Blackberry is not an expected-- even welcome-- diversion, it's a distraction. So my wondering-out-loud question of the day is if this unique skill is a product of growing up in the age of 28.8 kbps dial-up modems.

I remember the day when it took 30 seconds to load Yahoo.com, and a solid three minutes to see a page with lots of pictures. In that era, I and my millions of peers, with our 12 year-old attention spans, had little choice but to find alternative entertainment while Jeeves went in search of the answer to our questions. Whether it was AIM, or an offline game, or something not even computer-related, anything was better than watching a graphic load, one line at a time.

But my question is: Will younger generations (say, those in their toddling years today) also be monotaskers? Will they grow up pampered with high-speed web connections that obviate the need to learn this art? Or is it just the nature of modern technology that encourages our behavior?

Rainy Day Patterns

2009-10-16T17:37:00.002-04:00

Really liked the colors and patterns here-- sweatshirt, scarf, gloves, phone, umbrella... A little brightness on a rainy day.

Russia's Barack Obama

2009-10-13T17:38:00.002-04:00

A man born in Guinea-Bissau runs for Mayor in Russia. Everything ensues.

(h/t)

Endicott Helps to Wash the Plates

2009-10-12T10:41:00.002-04:00

Why can't you be like Endicott?

Earl "Snake Hips" Tucker

2009-10-04T18:54:00.002-04:00

Happy Sunday night / Monday morning:

(h/t corinne)

Fiesta!

2009-09-28T20:54:00.009-04:00

The rainclouds dissolved and the sun burned through on Sunday for Fiesta(!) DC, the annual Latin American Festival that rages up and down Mt. Pleasant Street, a few dozen feet from my new front door. Given the neighborhood's demographics, the fiesta became a de facto a Salvadorian celebration, which, given the succulence of Salvadorian pupusas, was alright with me. I snapped a few photos. Here's a caballero singing to my neighborhood:
Trying on shades. Smiling for the camera.
Hold on to your hat, the parade is about to begin:
Las Señoritas:
Flamenco dance:

Soft Power

2009-09-18T13:55:00.002-04:00

Nothing tastes of Cold War victory quite like former Soviets singing my pop music.

Sing it, Pavel:

I'm an American Potato

2009-09-17T13:19:00.004-04:00

I don't really have much to say about this, except that I understand Italians less than I thought I did.

Global Mobile

2009-09-08T17:16:00.003-04:00

That's the name of my new blog over at NDN.org. We're trying to repackage our work away from the group blog model to individual blogs, so if the occasionally discombobulated nature of the full NDN blog was troubling you, here's your chance to limit your intake to my news briefs and analyses on how mobile technology is changing our world.

Once again, that's http://ndn.org/category/topic/global-mobile.

And as a thank you for your continued readership, here's the song of the day (really looking forward to this album):

Celeb Sighting

2009-08-31T18:58:00.001-04:00

I'm taking the week off, up in New York, and guess who I saw at the Burger King?

Afternoon Groove

2009-08-28T14:23:00.001-04:00

This should get you through your Friday afternoon:

Blowing it on MV

2009-08-28T12:55:00.002-04:00

Mr. President, you look dumb without a helmet.

Swedes in Suede

2009-07-28T11:26:00.003-04:00

We already knew the Swedes have better health care than us. And we seem comfortable with the fact that they're better dressed than us. And we've certainly ceded the lo-fi indie pop space to them. But who knew they could rap?

Biodiesel Dirigible, Ba-Baby It’s Choice

2009-07-25T15:37:00.002-04:00

At least partly to beat my roommate to it, the Audacity of Huge:

I got that grape kool-aid filled swimming pool
I got those Roomba robots that clean the floor

A Thought on Michael

2009-06-28T11:54:00.002-04:00

Included this at the close of my daily roundup at the NDN Blog on Friday. I stand by it:

It is my sad duty to report to you something you already know: Michael Jackson, the king of pop, has died. A man who spent his early life in the limelight, and the prime of his life as a global pop icon, this marks the sad end of a life that had become a sad spectacle in recent years, as the oddity of Jackson's personal life overtook his success as a singer. His passing, however, gives us the chance to remember him as we loved him best, and as he would surely hope to be remembered. He was, at his best, nothing less than a thriller:

Michael Jackson |MTV Music

The Stag Cookbook

2009-06-07T23:17:00.003-04:00

In the great Venn Diagram of things I like, the various circles representing old books, food, and manly things overlap in just a small sliver. I'm glad to say that, courtesy of Saidi, via Yglesias, from a guy named Dave, I've found a gem that satisfies all three, and might delight you as well.

The Stag Cookbook, Written for Men, By Men takes lessons from a variety of manly Americans, and teaches gentlemen not unlike myself how to cook with delicious results. Herein we learn that President Warren G. Harding preferred creamed chipped beef drizzled on his waffles, that Charlie Chaplin was gaga for steak & kidney pie, and that John Philip Sousa, perhaps unsurprisingly, referred to spaghetti and meat sauce as "Pelotas a la Portuguese."

And qualifying for a fourth Venn circle, the book opens with a ridiculous rhyme:

They may live without houses and live without books
So the saying has gone through the ages
But a civilized man cannot live without cooks
It's a libel as proved by these pages

For when left by himself in a small kitchenette
With a saucepan a spoon and a kettle
A man can make things that you'll never forget
That will put any cook on her mettle

Where camp fires glow through the still of the night
Where grills are electric and shiny
Where kitchens are huge done in tiling of white
Where stoves are exceedingly tiny

Where people are hungry no matter the place
A man can produce in a minute
A dish to bring smiles to each skeptical face
With art and real food value in it

At range and at oven at whisper it still
A man is undoubtedly master
His cooking is done with an air and a skill
He's sure as a woman and faster

He may break the dishes and clutter the floor
And if he is praised he deserves it
He may flaunt his prowess until he's a bore
But Boy what he serves when he serves it!

Music to my Ears

2009-05-06T22:45:00.003-04:00

I realize this is an awfully bloggy thing to do, but I need to use this space to register a small complaint about civic life here in Washington, DC. A wonderful part of riding the Subway in New York is occasionally happening upon a musician performing in the station. It's a little thing that takes you out of your day for a moment-- sometimes all the way to Peru, or to China, or to 1982-- and many of the musicians are quite good.

The quality control, it turns out, is thanks to a audition and regulation process-- one that costs the MTA slightly more than nothing. In Boston, where there doesn't appear to be any audition process, the results are, at worst, slightly annoying, and at best, a similar delight.

Why can't DC let a little music fill their cavernous Metro stations? It's not just frowned upon here, it's illegal, which just seems like an unnecessary and eversoslightly fascistic law. When I'm the mayor of this town...

Also, pause to remember the WaPo article from two years ago, wherein America's most talented violinist played outside L'Enfant Plaza Metro (outside, not in-- even the Post can't flout the law), and nobody stopped to listen.

Slightly pathetic, maybe, but he still made $32 in 45 minutes, which seems like an alright rate to me. Lift the ban and it shouldn't be too hard for some moderately talented musicians to make a half-decent living this way.

Columbia Heights: A Neighborhood of Homes

2009-04-28T21:31:00.007-04:00

On a recent trip through time, I made a splendid discovery. A little book, just about 30 pages, published in 1904 by "The Columbia Heights Citizens' Association." The book is delightfully entitled A Statement of Some of the Advantages of Beautiful Columbia Heights, A Neighborhood of Homes, and it was written to sing the praises of my neighborhood, and attract estimable and upstanding new denizens. A note on the title page lays out the objective clearly:

If it shall aid in bringing desirable residents to this section and thereby contribute toward the realization of the Congressional plans for Greater Washington, this presentation of the commanding advantages of Columbia Heights will most satisfactorily accomplish the object of its publication. THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

A little heavy on the upper-class snobbery, but heck, this is 1904. The first section begins:

Columbia Heights is an ideal section for homes. Every one of its residents thoroughly appreciates the advantages that he enjoys, and never ceases to sound the praises of the "Heights."

Still true!

Then, in the belief that "home-seekers of the desired class should be informed of the facts commending the 'Heights' to favorable consideration," the authors go about describing all the neighborhood's benefits. Proximity to schools and churches rank highly, as do police and fire protection, "street railway facilities," and "attractive residences will all the modern improvements." Most titillating, however, is the description of "Some Advantages of Elevation."

Columbia Heights, you see, sits at an average elevation of 180 feet, far superior to Pennsylvania Ave, a mere 6 to 12 feet above low tide, or even the 90 feet enjoyed on Capitol Hill. Rather:

Those who have tried each of the two locations report that in summer nights the temperature of Columbia Heights is ten degrees less than that of Pennsylvania Avenue and adjacent streets. This has been demonstrated by practical tests. In ten degrees Fahrenheit, more or less, there is a powerful factor in the equation of comfort: and its influence is constant in the direction of high lands. Comfort induces sleep, "tired Nature's sweet restorer."

In hot summer nights, when open cars carry thousands in search of a charm that lulls to sleep, every northbound passenger up Fourteenth Street with his crossing of Florida Avenue, becomes a grateful witness to the soothing zephyrs of Columbia Heights.

Ah, those soothing zephyrs. The pamphlet concludes with "A Wise Man's Summary:"

A gentleman, of National reputation, who has just bought a house in Columbia Heights, thus summarizes:
"I bought on Columbia Heights, because--
"First. It is the highest point on the highlands surrounding the city. It offers me a cool retreat after a hard day's work, and is only twenty minutes' ride from my office.
"Second. It is free from malaria.

He goes on... Another real treat are the many photographs of the handsome Heights homes. I went searching-- most had addresses within a few blocks of my apartment-- and discovered many of these architectural extravaganzas are still standing, camouflaged (or not) in their modern surroundings. Here's one side-by-side comparison, from the corner of 13th and Roanoke (now Euclid):
Pretty neat. As I get other good replica shots, I'll post them here. What a fun look into the past of this neighborhood, which has surely changed in many ways.

The Idaho Stop

2009-04-16T21:46:00.002-04:00

My, my, this is awfully sensible:

Bicycles, Rolling Stops, and the Idaho Stop from Spencer Boomhower on Vimeo.

The next step would be to implement the other half of the law, whereby bicyclists can treat stop lights as stop signs, providing there are neither cars nor pedestrians in their path.

This is all especially true now that we live in a world where daytime TV hosts pregnant with the children of former football stars fall victim to hit-and-runs by bicycle delivery guys.

4/1 Roundup: Obama Freaked Out, Donuts Bid for 2012, Suggestive Winking

2009-04-01T15:27:00.004-04:00

Leader: Obama Legitimately Freaked Out

- President Barack Obama was killing time watching YouTube yesterday, when he came across video of himself speaking about the economy, and realized "just how bad things are" for the first time. "I don't normally listen to the speeches," said Obama, biting at his cuticles, "I just read them." He added that he was "legitimately freaked out,"and apologized to the American people for having to listen to "that terrifying crap" on "every damn channel, all the damn time."

- Press Secretary Robert Gibbs brushed it off as a bit of stage fright in advance of Obama's appearance at the G-20 summit yesterday, but given the President's usual cool, nobody's buying Gibbs's hash. Flying off the reservation, Obama sought out members of the press to tell them he really, sincerely hoped things would get better, but "If you're looking for a good investment, now would be a good time to go long on duct tape and shotguns."

Politics

- In opposition to President Obama and his fellow New Democrats in Congress, a group of GOP House members are banding together in a new group they'll call the "Old Republicans." Said one leader, who remains anonymous, "We're getting back to the basics here-- this caucus is going to be about old-school, racist, unreconstructed xenophobic dogma. It's time for this party to reinvent itself, and we're taking the bull by the horns."

- A new poll gives President Obama a 66% job-approval rating. Nearly nine in ten Americans, however, approve of the way donuts are doing in their job. Should Obama worry about a 2012 primary challenge from donuts? Time will tell.

Economy

- In a bout of life-affirming, if mortifying honesty, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner conceded yesterday that he "doesn't have a bloody clue" what's wrong with the economy, or how to fix it. Later, President Obama assured the public that Geithner still has his absolute confidence.

- The big Detroit auto manufacturers, scrambling to restructure their business after Obama's recent ultimatum, have launched a new marketing campaign advertising alternative uses for their vehicles. The Hummer is being sold to banks as a means to obstruct the front doors of foreclosed homes, while the Pontiac Vibe may see new life as an in-garage aquarium.

International

- This morning's World Cup qualifying match between North Korea and South Korea was interrupted when the DPRK government test launched a new missile, as they have been threatening to do recently. Despite previous assurances they had no intent to do so, a U.S. carrier strike group shot down the Taepodong-2 over Seoul. The missile exploded into the shape of Kim Jong-Il's benevolently smiling face, and thousands of tiny baskets parachuted down filled with a variety of prizes and goodies, including DVDs of some of Dear Leader's favorite films. North-South reconciliation appears imminent.

New From NDN

- If you've already RSVP'd to our event today, you might be holding the hottest ticket in town. On his way to London, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil happens to be laid over in Washington for a few hours, and will be joining Dr. Moisés Naím, Rep. Adam Smith, and Dr. Rob Shapiro for a discussion of the G-20 conference that begins tomorrow. RSVP now, before it's too late!

One More Thing

- Joking about her husband's ubiquity in the press, Michelle Obama said yesterday "Barack will do anything to get in front of a camera." She then winked suggestively, making the press corps slightly uncomfortable, and kind of confused, but mostly impressed.

- Last, here's a fun video about politics:

Cross-posted to NDN.

Talking Head

2009-03-27T10:37:00.005-04:00

Just as promised, I was on your teevee, talking about my shirts. Or my face was. And my voice. My name? Not so much. I don't even know where they got Joseph Keller. Pretty sloppy journalism. Also, they missed my money quote about going back to work and not looking like a schnook.

Anyway, this is about the damnedest thing I've ever seen (embed doesn't seem to be working, hit the link):

Just call me Joe.

Snappy

2009-03-25T17:42:00.002-04:00

Mr. Hawa caved before my demands, and opened up the Cornerstone Cleaners today, and I got my nice shirts back. No bricks necessary. (Thanks to DCist for their top-notch local reporting)

Be sure to tune in to the local ABC affiliate tonight, where you'll hear me speaking about the emotional roller coaster ride I've been riding since my shirts first went missing.

Last, and unrelated: Why do people on the street keep falling on their faces right in front of me?

Why I Look Like a Schnook

2009-03-24T16:13:00.006-04:00

Avid followers of my twitter feed will know that last week I wrote:

dry cleaners mysteriously closed all day. certain i'll never see my shirts again.

I'd made several more unsuccessful trips to the Cornerstone Cleaners, but had hesitated to call in a complaint because somebody had probably died or something.

I may have been inadvertently flirting with the truth there. Now it's news. Here's DCist:

Cornerstone Cleaner, a.k.a. CS Cleaners, the dry cleaners located at 1947 14th Street NW, at the corner of 14th and U Streets, has abruptly closed, with hundreds of garments still locked inside.
A sign posted on the door of the business states: "Store will be close 30 days. Pick-up only. (703) 625-0333." Dialing that number today got you a full voice mailbox for "Uptown Management," meaning you could not leave a message. The same number is listed on a "For Lease" sign posted in the window, with the name "HAWA" printed above the number.

Well, Mr. Hawa, you have hijacked my three nicest shirts, and now I'm going to work every day looking like a regular schnook. You have four days until a put a brick through your window and reclaim my (hopefully clean, nicely pressed) shirts. And I'll be taking a fistful of hangers as interest.

Concerning the Bicycle

2009-03-08T14:43:00.004-04:00

You'll be undoubtedly relieved to know that I've replaced the bicycle that got busted on a Benz last month. I don't have a name for the new one yet, so for now, we'll call her Katherine Parr. And she's a beaut:
And since we're on the subject, I'll draw your attention to an article that showed up in the New York section of today's Times. The author, Robert Sullivan, himself a biker, takes up the question of cyclist civility; generally, he's saying that since bikers have become a relatively ordinary part of city traffic flow, they should stop acting like the persecuted minority they once were. (The title, "The Wild Bunch," I found both gratifying and a little insulting)

The problem he’s trying to rectify is the hatred pedestrians and drivers feel toward bikers. If only bikers displayed a little more civility—giving pedestrians their space, and acting with a sense of self-preservation—we might all like each other a bit more.

He lays out four proposals for the biking community:

* NO. 1: How about we stop at major intersections?
* NO. 2: How about we ride with traffic as opposed to the wrong way on a one-way street?
* NO. 3: How about we stay off the sidewalks?
* NO. 4: How about we signal?

All that is fine. Certainly, a cyclist should ease on the brakes so as not to freak out a pedestrian. But, as he points out in the article, the idea that bikes hurt or kill a lot of pedestrians is a total myth—cars are still far more dangerous both to bicyclists and pedestrians.

It would be nice if bikers were nicer (I do my best to be nice, most mornings) and everybody liked bikers more, but it's not really the problem.

He skirts the hairier questions of bicycle behavior. What about minor intersections? Do we stop there? At stop signs? Suppose there's no traffic at the intersection? What about the Idaho stop? Is it all right for cyclists to pull in front of crosswalks, so they don't fall prey to a right hook? All of the crashes I've suffered in recent years have been the result of drivers forgetting about bikes—opening doors without looking, turning across bike lanes without looking, etc. This conversation still needs to be about protecting bikers and pedestrians from cars-- that's the problem.

I enjoyed Sullivan’s article, and I would recommend it to you as Sunday afternoon reading, but it’s a little fluffy. Wake me up when we start talking about what matters.

dP in Yo Heezy for Sheezy

2009-03-02T16:02:00.011-05:00

In a bizarre out-of-body moment yesterday, I observed myself saying these things into the telephone while on the bus (this is my half of the conversation):

- Sup homie?
- Naw, I been in New York. I'm comin back to DC now.
- Oh word.
- Yeah, bbc fo real. Straight up.
- Oh hell yeah. Shit yeah dawg, I'm down.
- Aight, I'll holler atcha tomorrow.
- Peace, bro.

NB: These lines were delivered without a whisper of irony or self-mocking. I never really knew why nobody liked me. Now I think I know.

That's Wonderful!

2009-02-17T21:46:00.003-05:00

I would've taken a picture of the delicious bananas foster I made myself tonight... but I eated it.

I hope that's sufficient lead-in to this video, which is both hilarious and informative. Chef Jean-Pierre is my new personal professor of cookery:

Mandate & Injunction

2009-02-15T11:02:00.002-05:00

I am compelled to echo Rick Hertzberg and my several friends (each more literary than I) who duly insisted that I put aside my novel and my New York Times and read Zadie Smith's piece in the latest NYRoB, "Speaking in Tongues."

Do it now, please, and tell me what you think.

My Bicycles and Henry VIII's Wives

2009-02-12T15:12:00.006-05:00

Yesterday morning, I rammed my bicycle into the front passenger side of a silver Mercedes Benz, which had taken a left turn in front of me (failing to yield). I had a nice soft landing on the hood of the Benz, complete with a Springsteen-style knee-slide (sans celebration).

The bicycle, however, was less fortunate, and though it succeeded in putting a little dent in the body of the Benz, both the main tubes of the steel bike wrinkled on the impact. I took it to CityBikes later, and the mechanics started getting emotional at the loss of such a fine and noble lugged steel frame bike, and then I started getting emotional, and then the mechanics began the write-up of what they called a "death certificate." *sob*

This was the fifth bike I've ridden in as many years. Not a good record, I acknowledge. No bike, I imagine, would want to be the next I choose. But for any bikes considering the job, I draw your attention to the parallels between my bike ownership, and Henry VIII's experience as a husband:

Henry VIII:

Catherine of Aragon: DIVORCED (Couldn't provide a male heir)
Anne Boleyn: BEHEADED (Ditto)
Jane Seymour: DIED (Provided a male heir... but she was a sickly one)
Anne of Cleves: DIVORCED (Marriage became inconvenient)
Kathryn Howard: BEHEADED (Messing around all over town)
Katherine Parr: SURVIVED (Four years of happy marriage before Henry ate it)

Me:

The Green Giant: DIVORCED (Gave it away.... it barely worked)
Zephyr: BEHEADED (Rode it into the ground.... then took it apart)
The White Waif: DIED (It was always a sickly piece of machinery)
Red Dragon: DIVORCED (I was moving to DC, it stayed Boston, we split up)
Red Deamon: BEHEADED (Executed at the hand of a cruel Mercedes)
...?

I look forward to a long, happy marriage with my next bicycle. Coming soon...

UPDATE: Thanks to brother George, who corrected my British royal history: Henry divorced Anne of Cleves not because it was "inconvenient," but rather because "she looked like the back of a bus."

Meat and Vegetables

2009-01-29T13:00:00.004-05:00

PETA isn't generally an organization with which I feel much lefty camaraderie. Sure, I'm against torturing cute furry animals-- even to make fabulous fur coats-- but trying to rename fish "sea kittens?" Come on. Do fish feel pain? Maybe. Are fish "intelligent?" Doubtful. Do I care? No.

And then PETA comes out with this new ad, which NBC is refusing to air during the Super Bowl because it's too racy, and I'm forced to reconsider my position on the organization.

UPDATE: But maybe it's all a lie!

Post-Inaugural Epidemic Saps Obama's Support

2009-01-23T20:00:00.001-05:00

WASHINGTON - Less than a week after his inauguration, Barack Obama is quickly losing support in his new home city as thousands of its citizens blame him for their recent flu-like symptoms. As many as half of all DC residents have taken ill since Tuesday. The epidemic is believed to have been directly caused by the hours residents spent shivering in the cold winter morning, waiting to hear Obama’s speech and claim their share of American history.

The illness is characterized by chest congestion, post-nasal drip, and a certain dubiousness about the nascent Obama presidency. “Sure, I voted for the guy,” says DC resident Chaz Steelman, “But in his campaign he never mentioned the body aches and runny nose.” Chaz left his house before six o’clock on inauguration day, and along with his three roommates and two million others, stood in the frigid shadow of the Capitol for nearly eight hours. “I probably should have worn a scarf,” he admits, blowing his nose into the last of his Kleenex.

While the President’s call for “a new era of responsibility” has lifted spirits and steeled resolves in Boise and Little Rock, and his plan to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility has resonated from Cambridge to Berkley to Brooklyn, Obama may have to work to regain the trust of his new neighbors. “Enough of this horses**t about green infrastructure and tax cuts—we need chicken soup, we need Vick’s VapoRub, and we need a fat gallon of NyQuil,” says Whitney Dolby, 24, of the Columbia Heights neighborhood. “If this chump wants my vote in 2012, well, let’s just say that the people need relief.”

Some see the pandemic not as Obama’s fault, but as the fault of the attendees themselves. Sandy Benson, who came from Boston for the event, practiced expert layering technique, and prefaced her trip with a daily dose of Emergen-C. “It’s silly to blame this on Barack, these DC people just don’t know how to deal with the cold,” she said, stifling a sneeze and pulling her coat tight around her.

How this sudden loss of faith will affect the Obama administration is not yet clear. Although many previous presidents have evaded all responsibility for the people of Washington, DC during their four or eight years here, and others have screwed the city outright, hopes were high during the transition period that Barack would prioritize his relationship with his new home. Surely, the current friction is nothing another trip to Ben’s Chili Bowl can’t fix.

Our Multilingual President

2009-01-23T12:32:00.001-05:00

Oh my goodness, this is so refreshing:

As President Obama worked the rope-line at the State Department Thursday, a State Department staffer named Charles Silver, knowing the President once lived in Indonesia, shouted out, "good afternoon" in the local language.

Obama responded back in what Silver later told ABC News was "very good" Bahasa Indonesian. The two then chatted briefly about the neighborhood Obama once lived in.

Hit the link for a video.

Inauguration Preparation

2009-01-16T17:27:00.012-05:00

Many devoted RSaN readers have been clamoring for photographs of D.C.'s preparations for Tuesday's inauguration.

Okay, that's not true.

But here you go, anyway:

The presidential viewing platform, being erected just in front of the White House. As the parade parades by, Barack will sit there behind bulletproof glass, and smilingly observe

This city is mad for bunting-- mad for it, I tell you.

The Presidential Inaugural Committee takes the bodily functions of inaugural spectators very seriously, as you can see.

Rachel Maddow made off with the other three letters, and she won't give them back.

Here's the block of Pennsylvania Avenue that passes in front of the White House, just half a block from the my office! The stands are built, the trees are boxed.

Our hallowed Capitol, from where Obama will address the nation on Tuesday morning.

The PEBO's motorcade, screeching around the corner just outside the NDN offices.

Cross-posted at NDN.

10 Steps to a Successful Presidency

2009-01-16T16:23:00.001-05:00

Excerpted from the New York Times, and noted without further comment:

Dear President Obama,
Here is a list of the first 10 things you should do as president:
1. Fly to the White House in a helicopter.
2. Walk in.
3. Wipe feet.
4. Walk to the Oval Office.
5. Sit down in a chair.
6. Put hand-sanitizer on hands.
7. Enjoy moment.
8. Get up.
9. Get in car.
10. Go to the dog pound.
— Chandler Browne, age 12, Chicago

Regarding Pants

2009-01-07T21:46:00.006-05:00

So I recently got a couple pairs of pants from Brooks Brothers (bougie, I know.... they're not actually even pants-- they're trousers), and in the process of selecting my pants, I encountered a few decision points that all serious-minded men must contemplate at least once in their lives.

To pleat, or not to pleat?

I am of two minds about pleats (my mother is not, she hates them). On a pair of formal trousers, they lend a certain degree of gravitas. The pleats say, here is a man who takes his pants seriously, who knows where he stands, and stands there firmly. In part because they've gone somewhat out of style, they indicate that the wearer has made a conscious stylistic decision to go pleated-- and I support conscious stylistic decisions in business wear.

They also provide the benefit of extra room for one's honkin' thighs, or one's pistol.

On the downside, pleats can lend a slightly unattractive shape to the pants, particularly when the pockets are weighted down with wallets, keys, and sundry electronics. Plus, conscious stylistic decision or no, they're a little square.

I got one pair with pleats, one without.

Whither cuffs?

According to Wikipedia, cuffs were invented to add weight to the bottom of the pant leg, thereby helping the fabric sit properly on the leg. Like pleats, however, they are not particularly relevant in this modern world in which we live. They're irritating when it's raining and they fill up with water (does that happen to other people?), and confusing when unrolling a rolled-up pant leg. But one only need compare cuffed and uncuffed pants to see the argument in favor.

Cuffless pants just seem to peter out-- to suddenly, surprisingly, awkwardly come to an end. Cuffs say: "Hey. Welcome to the bottom of the pants. Want more pants? Better turn around, buster."

I went for cuffs twice. And I'm happy I did.

What are your thoughts on the matters above?

Merry Christmas, You're Cleared of all Charges

2008-12-25T13:32:00.005-05:00

Devoted readers of this forum might recall an episode in early October, in which I was ticketed and fined for biking the wrong way on a one-way block of New Hampshire Avenue (you may also recall the vitriolic comment thread that followed). Needless to say, I contested the fine.

Well, Happy Christmas to me, the District has dismissed the violation:

I'd be happy to give detailed pointers to anybody contesting a similar violation, but the gist of my defense came out of a few helpful posts and comments on Greater Greater Washington. Basically, I argued that going the wrong way on NH was the only safe way to navigate that part of the city, and that DDOT has recognized this fact in their plans to install contraflow bike lanes on that very block. Victory!

2008 Roundup: The Year in Festive Verse

2008-12-23T11:21:00.003-05:00

‘Tis the night before Christmas and DC is away
Or lounging in bed, or perhaps led astray
The news has gone quiet and journos are napping
After quite a long year of political happ’ning
And heck, they’ve all earned it, so I’ll take a crack
At recapping the year with a rhyming look back

Concord, New Hampshire, and Reno, and Ames
A year back began our electoral games
And that was the end of John Edwards and Biden
(Or so we thought then! ‘Twas just 8 months of hidin’)
Bill Richardson also then bowed out with grace
As did Rudy and Fred from the opposite race

On a real super Tuesday, McCain mopped the floor
With his weaker opponents, who soon saw the door
And in the left corner, we were left with just two
Democratic contenders, in a Senate who’s who
There was Barack Obama—young, black, and cool
Who could give a mean speech—his most evident tool
And then Hillary Clinton, of first lady fame
A force in the Senate, and an ace at the game

Barack barnstormed Iowa, and though dared not brag
He looked good in New Hampshire—it was all in the bag
But Clinton held strong, put her campaign in gear
Gave an impassioned speech and—wait—was that a tear?
It’s hard to say now, but the outcome was decisive
And they continued campaigning in a race quite divisive
Of Reverends and fist daps and American identity
Our once-civil quarrels now laced with obscenity

They battled for months, until one day in June
It was suddenly over, not a moment too soon
Obama had clinched it, a real upset win
With a campaign quite free of both malice and sin
Then hit July, and with smiling elation
We all read a novel and went on vacation

Olympics in August kept us glued to the telly
The Michael Phelps gold rush turned insides to jelly
Brown air aside, we admired Beijing
Where athletes faced off and did battle for bling
Saint Paul and Denver fended off the attacks
Of hoards of political junkies and hacks
The endless campaign approached final conclusion
As the Veepstakes at last yielded full-ticket fusion

Joe Biden was swell, a real old-fashioned mensch
And Palin, well, we’ll just say was a wrench
First in Barack’s campaign, and then in her own
As she proved to be more than excessively prone
To non-answers, half-answers and full-blown live gaffes
Summoning cringes, and head-slaps and too many laughs
The campaign’s sad attempts to make blunders less big
Were like trying to put lipstick on an unwilling pig

In debates we heard all about mavericks, my friend
As ec’nomic signals began to portend
Of a hyper-grade meltdown to ruin us all
And the banks soon had all of their backs to the wall
As Lehman neared death, Paulson refused them bail
AIG, it turned out, was much too big to fail
And with crisis still rising the red team got dumber:
Based their whole fiscal plan on Joe/Sam the not-plumber

Riding high on his promise of change and of hope
Barack pulled ahead, looking ready to cope
With whatever foul chance fate should throw his direction
The American people preferred his protection
And on November fourth, took an historic leap
Of such powerful force it made stolid men weep

Since then we’ve been basking in electoral glow
And saying goodbye all our earned dough
Our stocks and our bonds continue to sink
GM and Chrysler are now on the brink
In Iraq, shoes are flying; here we’ve got Blago
The lord of the darkness in seamy Chicago
So we’re distracted with stories about Caroline Kennedy
And Colmes’s depression over breakup with Hannity

But here comes ’09, ripe with fresh opportunity
A time for community and national unity
And from K Street to Petworth to far Kalorama
Everyone’s eyes follow Barack Obama
Hopes ride on Barack, and he’s got quite a task
So I won’t request much, just one small Christmas ask:
Our country is busted! Make everything right!
Now, Merry Christmas to you, and to you, a good night

Merry Christmas to all, and to all, a good night

Cross-posted at NDN.

The Naming of Shysters

2008-12-10T21:16:00.004-05:00

I suspect you'll agree with me when I say the scandal that has blown up on all sides of Rod Blaogjevich is bizarre and amazing and depressing almost beyond rational comprehension. Once you've made the mental leap to understand that he was seriously trying to sell a senate seat, it's an easy next step to realize that this guy must have put a price on everything. And when I read about his sad, pathetically delusional conversations about how he hoped to run for president-- it's hard even to know if this guy was living in the same dimension as the rest of us.

As Adlai Stevenson, another Illinois governor who surely had close personal experience with Blagojevich types, once soberly observed (and I'm sure to misquote here, because I'm only remembering what my grandfather told me, and can't find this quote on any of the internets):

The grabby pols wax fat in the land.

They do, indeed, Mr. Governor, they do indeed.

I'd also like to add that I'm sorry to see Jesse Jackson, Jr. has been nailed as Candidate #5. I was very impressed with him when I saw him at the Convention, and I thought him savvy enough, smart enough, and honest enough to avoid this. It's of course too early to indict him, and I hope he comes out of all this looking better than he does now, but it sure doesn't look good.

Last, and perhaps most importantly, I'd like to make the case for renaming Blagojevich in the popular media. Understandably, everyone has quickly taken to calling him Blago, which has a nice onomatopoaeic quality to it, considering his moral standing. I, however, am pushing for a more descriptive and, I would argue, more literary moniker: "Crooked Rod." And that's all I have to say about that.

District of Beards

2008-12-07T22:39:00.002-05:00

I’ve been troubled by Bill Richardson’s decision to shave his beard as he ascends (or descends?) to his new role at the head of Commerce. The basic takeaway here, for me, is that he’s endorsing and acceding to the idea that you can’t be taken seriously in Washington if you have a beard. Troubling indeed.

I’ve taken this question up with some of my most trusted, bearded consiglieres, and I’ve heard a few new viewpoints. For one, you have to account for the bearded and powerful among us, most notably Ben Bernanke. He, however, is a bit of an academic, and certainly above the fray. So perhaps the qualifier is that one can’t be a politician with a beard in DC and be taken seriously. Still troubling.

Jon Corzine is one exception to this rule, but his beard is perhaps unique in that it is part of his trademark– part of who he is– and in that he has always been bearded. He’s also not in DC anymore.

Richardson’s beard, much like Al Gore’s beard, may be too closely associated with his defeat in the presidential race (much in the way that that a teenage girl who just got dumped by her boyfriend might go gorge on a pint of Ben & Jerrys, these guys consoled themselves by letting their facial hair go wild), and thereby be a political liability. Hard to say. Regardless, I think the man made a mistake, because beards are coming back in a big way, and Richardson rocked his pretty well.

I’d like to see a study on the rise and fall of beards among the American people, and how those trends are reflected among our leaders. Here’s a start (at the bottom).

The Barack Obama Candidate

2008-11-23T21:52:00.003-05:00

I'd like for a moment to ignore the political struggle that's presently obsessing Washington (that being the imminent and already historic presidency of Barack Obama), and do one final (no promises there) post-mortem on the political struggle that was obsessing Washington until about three weeks ago-- that being, of course, the Historic Campaign of Barack Obama (which, at this point, I don't think can even be referred to without the adjoined modifier). I'm moved to write on this outmoded subject by an essay I've just read written by the recently-dead David Foster Wallace, in which he covers part of the 2000 presidential campaign (which part he covered will be revealed, consequentially, in a moment) for Rolling Stone magazine. In particular, I find myself moved to advance a thesis that I think you might find attractively counter-intuitive (because who wants to hear an intuitive argument?).

Here you are: Candidate Obama's true forbear was none other than John S. McCain III, circa 2000.

Now, this should all be read with the caveat and understanding that, in 2000, like a still-curled fern, I didn't know what the hell was going on. I recall having enough vague awareness to ask Mr. Crandall, my 8th grade Social Studies teacher, when we might be rid of this bothersome electoral college and, after hearing his assertion that such a day would surely arrive when a candidate won the popular vote but lost the electoral vote, having the judgment to speculate that it would be entirely possible for George W. Bush to suffer such a fate that very November. (A flawed judgment, obviously, but in retrospect, I maintain that my prediction was a more likely outcome than the alternative we were forced to suffer)

As evidence, I'll just pull a few quotes from the opening of this Wallace essay, which he wrote around the time that John McCain became effectively obsolete in the 2000 election.

The next big vote is South Carolina, heart of the true knuckle-dragging Christian Right... and when McCain's chartered plane lands here at 0300h on the night of his New Hampshire win, a good 500 South Carolina college students are waiting to greet him, cheering and waving signs and dancing and holding a weird kind of GOP rave. Think about this -- 500 kids at 3:00 AM out of their minds with enthusiasm for . . . a politician.

To me, this sounds awfully familiar. There he was, a relatively obscure challenger, up against the party favorite, finding himself a sudden celebrity to a surprisingly diverse coalition-- one that skewed toward the young, the previously politically disengaged, and those yearning for someone who could bring Change to the White House.

He was also, evidently, the grandfather of Obama the Internet Candidate. Where Barack raised half a billion dollars and put together a social network two million strong over the internet in 2008, and Howard Dean rose from nowhere to prominence on the back of web-organized fundraisers and support from the nascent blogosphere in 2004, John McCain raised money on the internet in 2000. Not a lot of money, but enough that Wallace makes note of it as something unique about his candidacy. That may sound small, but it's not.

In 2000, I had only just gotten my first e-mail address, and the idea of ordering a book from still-unprofitable Amazon.com was pretty scary to most people ("But how do you know where your credit card number goes, once you click OK?!"). Wallace describes a fellow journalist this way:

A. Mitchell is trying to settle a credit card dispute on his distinctive cell phone, which is not a headset phone per se but consists of an earplug and a tiny hanging podular thing he holds to his mouth with two fingers to speak, a device that manages to make him look simultaneously deaf and schizophrenic.

Point being: 2000 was a very long time ago, and raising money on the internet back in that day was quite a feat. Without a doubt, he was the first candidate to use the web as a tool.

Ok, fine: Throughout the history of American presidential elections there have been reform candidates with broad popular appeal, some of whom even took advantage of new technology. And the Historic Campaign of Barack Obama was historic for other, bigger reasons than those it shares with McCain c2000, but I wanted to point out something that I hadn't read previously, that in the 2000 election, John McCain was the Barack Obama candidate.

Pardon my prolixity. Intrepid readers are rewarded with a picture:

LdP in your NYT

2008-11-22T19:18:00.004-05:00

When you open the Westchester section of Sunday's New York Times to page 10, you will find a profile of a local illustrator who is not only incredibly talented, successful, brilliant and beautiful, but also happens to be my mother (accusations of bias will be met with challenges to duel).

What's that? You don't receive the Westchester section in the local edition of your paper? Not to worry! You can read it online.

(Take careful note of the article's reference to her 23 year-old son. This marks the first time that our paper of record has acknowledged my existence. Ok!)

An Open Invitation to the President-Elect

2008-11-17T13:10:00.004-05:00

I heard part of Barack's 60 minutes interview on the radio this morning, and this part bummed me out:

That's something that I don't think I'll ever get used to... Being able to just wander around the neighborhood. I can't go to my old barber shop now. I've gotta have my barber come to some undisclosed location to cut my hair. You know, the small routines of life that keep you connected I think - some of those are being lost. One of the challenges I think that we're going to be wrestling with is how to stay pretty normal.

I suppose this is one of the downsides of being such a young president-- they'll have to put up with high security and celebrity not just for the next eight years, but for many more after. Losing the ability to luxuriate in the routines and occasional moments of quiet anonymity that keep life sane-- that is a dreary loss to weather.

So I'd like to extend an invitation. If, President Obama, you ever need to step back from the hustle, bustle, and tussle of Presidential life, you are welcome at my Columbia Heights apartment for an evening of chilled out, non-presidential normality. We'll have a few working man's beers (Slev and I share an affinity for the brews of the proletariat), watch some SportsCenter (assuming we get cable by that time), and shoot the shit about life in DC. Michelle can come too.

Any time, Mr. President. It would be my pleasure.

I Choo-Choo-Choose Freight Rail

2008-11-13T16:26:00.003-05:00

This is pleasant news from MoJo: Warren Buffet and Bill Gates are both in big (for a total near $10 bills) behind some of the bigger freight railroad lines.

Anybody who's ever ridden on a train with me knows I really like trains. Romanticism aside, they're a lot more efficient than trucks, cars or planes as both people-movers and stuff-movers, but have languished for a long time because our economy has been so happily dependant on cheap oil.

Now, passenger rail and freight rail tend not to play nice together. They share the rails, and freight trains go slow, while passenger trains want to go fast. The US has long had a pretty good freight infrastructure, but a crappy passenger one, because our country is so darn big (Europe, thanks to its high density of cities, has had it the other way around). Investing in the freight infrastructure will supposedly make passenger rail travel more attractive because trains will run more on time, but frankly, I don't see the present situation changing much-- people still won't go Chicago to LA (or New York to San Fran) by rail.

But this kind of investment can't hurt: Investment like adding extra tracks on high traffic lines will make business more profitable for the freight companies, getting more trucks off the road. Let freight trains rule the interior of our country.

Now, the change we also need: The California High Speed Rail Authority has a proposal for a west-coast passenger line that would get you from San Fran to LA in 2.5 hours for $55 (thanks, slev). I imagine doing the same thing on the east coast would be a little trickier-- because we have more cities, closer together; because the whole coast is more densely populated; because existing rail lines wouldn't cut it at all-- but not impossible. Really, there should be no reason to travel between Boston and Washington (and all points between) by any means but rail, but service now is slow, expensive and irregular. I look hungrily forward to the day...

Rip Van You

2008-11-13T15:37:00.002-05:00

Imagine you fell asleep some time in late 2003 or early 2004, and didn't wake up until today. And after you'd taken a quick shower and had a cup of coffee, you picked up a paper, and somewhere back around A14 you run across the headline telling you: "Barack Obama will Resign Senate Seat Sunday."

What would you even think? How would you get over the fact that a guy named Barack had been a U.S. Senator while you slept? Would you assume he'd been forced to resign because his last name rhymed with Osama?

Hopefully there'd be a medical team on hand to resuscitate you after discovering the truth.

Ahhhhhhmerica

2008-11-11T16:08:00.003-05:00

Yesterday, Barack Obama showed up in Washington to meet with Pres. Bush and measure the drapes in his new office. Working just a block from the White House, a few colleagues and I went to observe with stony faces (being the hardened political operatives we are) as his motorcade went by.

He didn't pop out the sunroof-- it wasn't even entirely clear which speeding limo he was in-- but it gave me a little thrill nonetheless to know that Barack is in the House.

And moments after he went by, the sun came out from behind a cloud. Literally.

I'm Sam duPont and I Approved This Message

2008-11-03T22:32:00.004-05:00

It's hard to believe that election day is finally here. It's even harder to believe that, unless the bottom drops out, Barack Obama is going to be elected president tomorrow. A lifetime has passed since I drove to New York on a February morning to atone for my delinquency in applying for an absentee ballot. And since the dark hours that followed as JJ and I tried to rationalize out how it would be ok if Clinton were the nominee. And now that the day is nearly on us, I'm still rationalizing, still drumming my fingers nervously as the specter of unanticipated events haunts my thoughts.

I have the mortifying task of spending my days at work toiling under the assumption that Obama has already won: Preparing our post-election analysis, and helping to craft policy recommendations that ride on the supposition of a friendly White House. My unease was sufficient to bring me to Prince William County, Virginia this weekend, knocking on doors for Barack. I was working alongside three other people-- one of whom had traveled from Dallas to get a crack at some swing state voters. They were, like so many other people I've met, such good people, so passionate, and with such honest belief in Obama, it reminded me why I originally decided to support him over a year ago.

Many people could be competent, or even good presidents. Barack Obama, because of who he is and because of the dire situations he will face, has the potential to be a truly transformational president. Not simply in that he will deliver changed policies or progressive ideas, but that, in doing so, he could bring this nation together, and reverse the polarization that has been pulling our country and our government in two. This election is so big, so important I can hardly stand it. And I would go on like this forever, but I needn't, because there's somebody who says it much better than I do:

To steal the line Cafritz sent with this video...

See you all in a better world.

Happy Halloween!

2008-10-31T10:20:00.002-04:00

I dressed the candidates up in their costumes. Does this change who you'll be voting for?

Mixed Nuts

2008-10-25T17:56:00.004-04:00

I was standing in line for the Bank of America ATM in Columbia Heights (there's always a line...) when a deranged old white dude with a scraggly beard and gnarled teeth came and gave me a talking to. I have no idea what he was saying, but it was not complimentary.

After he'd gone, and I glanced toward the short, middle-aged black lady in front of me (she'd been waiting for my eyes), she let me know what was on her mind:

"I hate to say it, but it's good to see a little diversity in the crazy people around here. It sounds bad, but it's true. This way it's mixed a little. You know, mixed nuts."

Ha!

This one's for George:

(Hat tip to SLNG)

The God Vote

2008-10-22T18:20:00.004-04:00

Sarah Palin is confident that "God will do the right thing on election day." Unfortunately for her, God is registered to vote in San Francisco, and California is already in the bag for Obama.

One all-knowing, all-powerful deity, one vote-- that's the rule. This is democracy.

(In writing this post, I encountered a question that I'm not sure I answered perfectly: If you were God, where would you live? In an apartment overlooking San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate? In a mountain lodge outside Aspen? In Hastings-on-Hudson? Weigh in via comment.)

Rooting for the Winner

2008-10-22T16:20:00.001-04:00

(Cross-Posted here)

The press is pulling for a close election, and doing their best to report it as one, but all the indicators point to Obama continuing to widen his lead. With everyone expecting McCain to make a run, why isn't it happening?

My feeling is that it has to do with one of America's most cherished traditions: Love for winning. Though most Americans might have favored John Kerry's policies in 2004, or Al Gore's experience in 2000, George Bush knew how to talk like a winner. He looked like a winner. He was confident and sure of himself. The same was true of Bill Clinton, and people gravitated toward him.

Since the conventions, McCain has looked increasingly like a guy who's about to lose an election. He's nervous, he stumbles in his speeches, he looks awkward on stage, and his campaign is all over the place. Obama, by contrast, looks ever more presidential. In the debates he was calm, cool, well-spoken and connectable. He's acting like a winner, and everybody wants to be on the winning team.

This has created a positive feedback loop for Obama: The further ahead he gets, the more he looks like a president, and the more confident people become in his abilities. I still think it's reasonable to expect McCain to pick up a few points in the polls, but most of America is now expecting-- and looking forward to-- a President Obama.

The Troubled Economy Says Hello

2008-10-20T22:20:00.004-04:00

I got a slightly awkward call at work today from the D.C. office of unemployment. She was calling to verify the details of the welfare application submitted by the guy I replaced.

Oops.

Phoenix Fall

2008-10-18T15:39:00.003-04:00

Today is the first honest day of fall here in Washington, DC.
--
The summer is the present, it is now. Summer living is about capturing each moment and wringing out every drop of what is good about life. Catching every drop of sunlight, playing in every wave, spending each night sitting on the porch about to fall off the front of the house sipping strong drinks telling rude jokes and laughing too hard.

And then the summer fades, the heat contracts into a hard chill, and then one morning, you wake up and your nose is frozen and it’s fall. But rather than stepping forward from the present into the future, the whole world hits the rewind button and sinks into the sofa to sip hot cider and look at crackling home movies from the nearly-forgotten past.

The air in the fall is cold and crisp, but not yet sharp, and an unexpected breath of it will black you out with memories of playing soccer and football in ankle-deep crunchy brown leaves, and faint images of lugging around bags heavy with candy on a chilly Halloween night, and red cheeks and seeing your breath in the air for the first time. A chest full of fall air is good as an hour flipping through old photos.

When you take in that breath, everything begins to end: the end of free, unencumbered summer, and the beginning of death. The end of the brown, yellow, red leaves as they float to earth, and the end of red tomatoes bursting off the vine, anxious for you to take a hungry bite out of their side.

By the time you breathe out, everything is new again, reborn cool and fresh. Reams of clean paper are snapped into new binders, and two white sneakers are ready to carry you to the first day of school. The earth is beautiful and sad as it rises from the ashes of decadent summer into something innocent and pure.

Or perhaps it’s not sad at all—just beautiful—and I imagine that sadness, because I can’t fathom something so perfect as fall.

Barackman v. McPenguin

2008-10-15T15:20:00.005-04:00

McCain is losing so badly right now (538 is calculating a 96% chance that Obama wins the election), that the odds are up for the Republican candidate to do something dramatic (and dramatically stupid). As such, tonight's debate has the potential to not be incredibly boring-- we might get some fireworks. Obama, of course, will be steady and even-keeled-- which is exactly what Americans want to see right now-- but old Johnny may make some dramatic attempt to gain back lost ground tonight.

The Penguin may have a model for McCain here.

Isn't that wild? McCain has clearly been taking cues from the Penguin-- promising no more mudslinging immediately before mudslinging, playing up his opponent's associations with shady figures to frighten the electorate, completely alienating the public with wrongheaded strategy... The only real difference here is that the Penguin is more animated and fun to watch.

I <3 teh internets

2008-10-11T10:57:00.002-04:00

One of the really great things about the internet (as has been discovered by countless pedophiles and Nigerian spammers the world over) is that nobody knows who you really are! I've lately been receiving email from Stanislas Dupont, who, I think, believes I am his younger brother Samuel Dupont. Last week, I was inundated with photos of Stanislas' family, and today I was invited to a "réunion tupperware":

Bonjour

Eh oui, le congé maternité amène à beaucoup de choses... J'organise une réunion tupperware le jeudi 23 octobre à la maison (14h à 16h30). Si ça vous interesse...je peux vous faire parvenir un catalogue.

Je vous souhaite un très bon week-end, le soleil sur Omissy a dû mal à percer ! j'espère qu'il va arriver...

A bientôt et gros bisous

Laeti

If anybody out there can draft a brief, polite note, telling Stan that he's got the wrong guy, but that his children are adorable, I'd be greatly appreciative.

Whether I'd actually send it to him is another question. I secretly love being able to observe his family from afar...

Another One Bites the Dust

2008-10-09T16:51:00.003-04:00

It feels a little bit like reading a suicide note-- seeing a paper publish a report about its own bankruptcy. The Washington City Paper, a once-reliable source for news, investigative stories, nightlife, etc., has thrown up their hands and thrown in the towel.

Well, not quite-- as their FAQ feature explains, "content bankruptcy" means they've got 120 days to get their act together and figure out a way to make money. Trouble is, nobody has figured out a way to make money. Prospects are not good.

They really hit the problem on its head at the end of the FAQ: The only news sources that people use anymore (and thus, the only ones making any money)-- RSS Readers, Blogs, aggregators like Google News and Huffington Post-- don't actually generate any content. Meanwhile, the real sources of news-- old-fashioned newspapers and magazines, and their reporters-- get neither credit nor cash for their work. And reporting is an expensive business! It costs the NY Times half a million dollars a year to keep a correspondent overseas.

The result is the imminent, total collapse of the news industry. The LA Times is cutting reporters right and left, the Washington Post is propped up by Kaplan, and the roof of the TimeLife Inc. building is precariously held up by People magazine, and nothing more.

Anyway, I hope you're happy, you people reading blogs and not newspapers. Seriously, you're ruining America. Get off my blog.

Of Parks, Debates and Ghosts

2008-10-08T12:15:00.005-04:00

Sorry for the radio silence-- Slev and I have moved into our new apartment, and are presently without any of the internets in our home. Not a single one. We do, however, have two working fireplaces in our apartment. How cool is that? We're on University Place, a relatively quiet block in lower Columbia Heights. Send us a letter.

Good news: Our new place is nice, and superbly located.
Bad news: We have ghosts.
Good news: Very realistic Halloween party planned. Details to follow.

Exploring my neighborhood on Sunday, I made a terrific discovery (maybe discovery is the wrong word... It's a huge park around the corner from our place). Meridian Hill Park has a very New York feel. It's an elegantly landscaped park, with fountains and waterfalls, and it's packed with stately statues. On Sunday afternoons, if the weather's fine, people from the diverse communities surrounding the park come together, primarily around a drum circle that lays a funky afro-latin beat. A few photos of the gathering are below.

Regarding last night's presidential debate, I have very little to add beyond what the mainstream media (and mainstream bloggers) are saying. Obama was very steady, McCain less so, and Barack only solidified his commanding lead. At this point, something very weird will have to happen for Obama to lose. I'm anticipating a landslide. Check out my Daily Roundup for good links to debate commentary, plus thinly veiled commentary of my own.

Tie Goes to the Senator

2008-10-03T02:00:00.003-04:00

I'll synthesize my initial thoughts on the VP debate, here and now.

Everyone's expectations for Sarah Palin (and I mean everyone, from Joe Schmo to Joe Scarborough) were exceeded. Though she was talked up by both campaigns and the MSM beforehand, we all expected (hoped for? feared? planned our evenings around?) some verbal abomination. It didn't come, and overall, I think she held her own. Her "folksy charm" (Charm? Is that what I'm feeling?) actually carries some weight in some parts, and when she has a simple point to express, she expresses it effectively. But boy do those longer sentences get confusing.

Joe Biden, for his part, excelled. He did a very good job of speaking to John McCain, and avoided getting caught up in petty bickering with Palin. He got a little too wordy and senatorial at points, but when it really mattered-- especially on Iraq-- he brought his points home, and he brought them home hard. And how does he get his teeth so white?!

I'll give Biden the edge, just because, for the vast majority of Americans, Obama & Biden are on the right side of the issues, and Biden did a great job communicating the big points. Palin succeeded by virtue of not failing, but that's not going to win anybody any elections.

Veep!

2008-10-02T21:25:00.003-04:00

I'm liveTwittering the vp debate. check me here:

http://twitter.com/samdupont

Also, elephant in the room duly acknowledged.

Seriously?

2008-10-02T14:34:00.007-04:00

This morning I got a ticket. While riding my bike.

A cop stopped me and another biker on New Hampshire Avenue, for going the wrong way down a one-way block. We've each been fined $25. I just cannot believe it.

I took a new path this morning, because I wanted to swing by K Street Bagels for some homestyle nourishment. In fact, I even looked at my route before I left, and noted the single block of NH Ave that is one-way. Bah, I thought, one measly block, shouldn't be a problem. And it wasn't; there was no traffic on it-- just a couple bikers going the wrong way. And a cop, fat ass parked on the back of his car, waved us both over and asked us for I.D.

My co-conspirator tried insisting he hadn't seen the signs (clearly false), and I thought about denying that I had any ID on me (what would they do?) but didn't want to run the risk of being hauled downtown. I thought also about high tailing it in the opposite direction, but again, I'm an honest soul, and the only other time I'd been flagged while on my bike (also in D.C., of course) I just got a stern verbal warning. Then I thought about pointing out that I was saving the world while he-- his car idling in the street-- was destroying the world even as he wrote us our tickets. But I didn't.

And now I owe $25 to the city. I guess I can take some solace in the fact that, even over the past 24 hours, I've probably committed enough moving violations on my bicycle to work it down to about a dollar a pop.

I discovered recently that you can offer anonymous police tips by texting to 50411 (give the 5-0 the 4-1-1!). So I'm going to spend the rest of this week texting in tips every time I see a bicyclist (myself included) commit a moving violation. I invite you to join me in this undertaking.

View Larger Map

And the bagel, if you're wondering, was pretty good.

Thoughts From Messrs. Huxley and Faulkner

2008-09-29T19:58:00.004-04:00

I was recently forwarded a pair of interviews published by The Paris Review. One with Aldous Huxley in 1960, and one with William Faulkner in 1956. They both are brilliant, and I feel compelled to share some choice quotations from each herein.

All of us failed to match our dream of perfection. So I rate us on the basis of our splendid failure to do the impossible. In my opinion, if I could write all my work again, I am convinced that I would do it better, which is the healthiest condition for an artist... Once he did it, once he matched the work to the image, the dream, nothing would remain but to cut his throat, jump off the other side of that pinnacle of perfection into suicide. -WF

There are lots of excellent storytellers who are simply storytellers, and I think it’s a wonderful gift, after all… When you can find storytelling which carries at the same time a kind of parable-like meaning (such as you get, say, in Dostoyevsky or in the best of Tolstoy), this is something extraordinary, I feel. -AH

The trouble with Freudian psychology is that it is based exclusively on a study of the sick. Freud never met a healthy human being-- only patients and other psychoanalysts. -AH

Everybody talked about Freud when I lived in New Orleans, but I have never read him. Neither did Shakespeare. I doubt if Melville did either, and I'm sure Moby Dick didn't. -WF

I never got very much out of Ulysses. I think it's an extraordinary book, but so much of it consists of rather lengthy demonstrations of how a novel ought not to be written, doesn't it? He shows nearly every conceivable way it should not be written, and then goes on to show how it might be written. -AH

You should approach Joyce's Ulysses as the illiterate Baptist preacher approaches the Old Testament: with faith. -WF

I have a great difficulty in inventing plots. Some people are born with an amazing gift for storytelling; it's a gift which I've never had at all. -AH

Interviewer: Some people say they can't understand your writing, even after they read it two or three times. What approach would you suggest for them?
Faulkner: Read it four times.

If I had not existed, someone else would have written me, Hemingway, Dostoyevsky, all of us... The artist is of no importance. Only what he creates is important, since there is nothing new to be said. Shakespeare, Balzac, Homer have all written about the same things, and if they had lived one thousand or two thousand years longer, the publishers wouldn't have needed anyone since. -WF

I'm all for satire. We need it. People everywhere take things much too seriously, I think... I'm all for sticking pins into Episcopal behinds, and that sort of thing. It seems to me a most salutary proceeding. -AH

The writer's only obligation is to his art. He will be completely ruthless if he is a good one... If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the "Ode on a Grecian Urn" is worth any number of old ladies. -WF

I think fiction, and biography and history, are the forms. I think one can say much more about general abstract ideas in terms of concrete characters and situations, whether fictional or real, than one can in abstract terms... My goodness, Dostoyevsky is six times as profound as Kierkegaard, because he writes fiction. -AH

The best job that was ever offered to me was to become a landlord in a brothel. In my opinion it's the perfect milieu for an artist to work in. It gives him perfect economic freedom; he's free of fear and hunger; he has a roof over his head and nothing whatever to do except a few simple accounts and to go once every month and pay off the local police. -WF

My own experience has been that the tools I need for my trade are paper, tobacco, food, and a little whiskey... Between Scotch and nothing, I'll take Scotch. -WF

Oh! Hello, Irony! Welcome back.

2008-09-26T12:11:00.004-04:00

A week ago I wrote about collar stays, and how they give me a secret feeling of satisfaction and superiority, because they make me look so good, while everyone else is walking around with curly collar points.

Today, my boss had me go buy him a package of collar stays.

I have no further comment at this time.

Yes We Can, Can

2008-09-25T23:42:00.003-04:00

I recently discovered a really great song from 1973 recorded by the Pointer Sisters. It's called "Yes We Can, Can," I can't help but wonder if Barack Obama may have lifted his slogan from the Sisters. Listen below, and read the lyrics, which also dig on Barack's jive.

Now's the time for all good men
to get together with one another.
We got to iron out our problems
and iron out our quarrels
and try to live as brothers.
And try to find a piece of land
without stepping on one another.
And do respect the women of the world.
Remember you all have mothers.
We got to make this land a better land
than the world in which we live.
And we got to help each man be a better man
with the kindness that we give.
I know we can make it.
I know darn well we can work it out.
Oh yes we can, I know we can can
Yes we can can, why can't we?
If we wanna get together we can work it out.

And we gotta take care of all the children,
the little children of the world.
'cause they're our strongest hope for the future,
the little bitty boys and girls.

We got to make this land a better land
than the world in which we live.
And we got to help each man be a better man
with the kindness that we give.
I know we can make it.
I know darn well we can work it out.
Oh yes we can, I know we can can
yes we can can, why can't we?
If we wanna, yes we can can.

Tearing Down the House that Ruth Built

2008-09-23T22:58:00.002-04:00

Yankee fans have said their last goodbyes to their temple, and I feel I should do the same. I went to a couple games last week here in DC, watching the Nats play in their brand new ballpark. It's a nice place-- a terrific place to watch a game-- but it doesn't feel the same; doesn't have the same aura of majesty that Yankee Stadium has.

I wonder how the new stadium will feel. As replacements go, I couldn't ask for much more. I'm glad they're keeping it in the South Bronx, in the neighborhood, and I'm really glad they're designing it to mimic the old Yankee Stadium. But even moving across the street, it's going to be different. It will be strange not to have the Stadium's same imposing silhouette peering down on me next time I ride the train past it.

Having lived away from New York for seven years now, my commitment as a fan has waxed and waned-- but mostly waned. Still, I feel bad not to have paid a last visit to Yankee Stadium. It feels as though they just pulled the plug on an old friend's life support, and I didn't make it to say goodbye. Sure, he was a vegetable, and he might not have even known I was there, but it would have helped with a sense of closure. Bad analogy, sorry.

The Times has done a series of good pieces on the Stadium's last days, if you'd like to get more teary-eyed:

The trouble with early bedtimes

2008-09-23T00:40:00.001-04:00

An incomplete list of the topics that occupy my mind as I try (and fail) to fall asleep at night:

The time I forgot my lines in a play

The competing benefits of renting a Zipcar and asking my roommate if I can borrow his car

Stumbling over the first hurdle in the 110m preliminaries at NEPSA interschols, 2004

Russian loose nukes

Losing the Geograbee after buzzing in and citing Sicily and Sicilia as the two largest islands in the Mediterranean. I meant Sicily and Sardinia, honest.

The proper alignment for the bed I don't yet have in the room I don't yet live in.

An interview of Aldous Huxley that I read one time.

Car Free Fall

2008-09-22T13:29:00.002-04:00

Happy first day of fall! This, ladies and gentlemen, is the best season of the year.

Washington, DC kicks off the fall with Car Free Day today. What better way to breathe in some of that crisp autumn air, while also saving the planet and reducing traffic fatalities, than by biking to and from work!

Unfortunately, Car Free Day didn't stop one homicidal maniac from trying to plow me down with his SUV this morning. I would guess that my average commute features one episode of me hurling oaths and expletives at a passing driver. Seriously, you wouldn't believe these morons.

Small Joys in Office Life

2008-09-20T17:16:00.003-04:00

In my two weeks as a working professional (and I use both those terms loosely), I've quickly discovered that, to maintain shreds of individuality and bits of soul, one needs to find and embrace small joys that, however petty or absurd, keep one of your feet planted firmly somewhere other than the ground.

The Snap Crackle Pedometer might fall into this category.

To be sure, the swelling sense of chest-thumping pride that comes from writing a flawless memo, or the feeling of indomitability that grows out of scheduling a crucial meeting into an already jam-packed day, or the blind, delighted surprise of getting through another day without being fired-- all of these things bring joy to office life.

But sometimes one longs for something more.

This week, I discovered something new that helps make every day a winning day at the office. I discovered collar stays-- and I love them. Pausing while drafting an e-mail to a colleague sitting less than fifty feet away from me, putting my hand to the collar of my shirt, and feeling the starched stiff formality of a pointed collar, I'm momentarily relieved of the monotony of office life, and removed to a thrilling, secret world of self-satisfaction.

This, I suppose, is part of the larger office joy of, simply, looking good and dressing well. Being able to take business casual, and turn it into something that deserves the attention of the Sartorialist-- this is part of what makes my days worthwhile.

As Robert Pante told us: "If you look good and dress well, you don't need a purpose in life."

Count My Steps!

2008-09-15T14:25:00.003-04:00

I opened up a fresh box of Frosted Mini Wheats yesterday morning, and what do you think I pulled out?

A Snap Crackle Pop Pedometer. Emblazoned with your three favorite onomatopoeically-named cereal cartoon people, the gadget is clipped to my belt, and is counting my steps.

So far today? 780 steps. Take that, childhood obesity.

Put it on ice

2008-09-14T15:55:00.008-04:00

La Hacienda FC fought to a tie today: a good start to the season that holds great promise. Our team is led by a squadron of Andover cluster soccer all-stars, and we've brought in a crack bunch of ringers to round the team out. Once we get in our groove, we'll be unstoppable.

If you happen to live in the Columbia Heights area, and you don't read New Columbia Heights, you should. More importantly, though, you probably haven't heard about the sidewalk salesmen who will make you a shaved ice treat for only one dollar. Particularly on a day like today, when it's a hundred goddamn degrees outside, these creations are really refreshing. They'll give you a huge pile of shaved ice in a chinese food take-out container, and they don't skimp on the flavor syrup, either. Plus, it's for a good cause-- to benefit a local charter school. Go see them on the corner of 14th and Irving!

Post-consumption issue: colored tongues.

Pow

2008-09-07T22:33:00.004-04:00

Miraculously, the rain stopped, the skies cleared, and Hurricane Hanna moved on just as I arrived in Washington yesterday. Perhaps because of my good fortune, though I've been wary for the last day... You know the scene in Independence Day when Will Smith shoots down the alien in the desert, then goes and opens up his spaceship, punches him in the face, and says "Welcome to Earth"? For whatever reason, I've been expecting a "BAM. Welcome to Washington" moment. Hasn't really happened yet. I didn't get shot or mugged, I didn't get hit by a car, and I didn't meet any Senators. I will remain on my guard.

As promised, I offer below my thoughts on the current political race in the form of an aimless rant.

Sarah Palin is, of course, the story of the moment. Baby-mama-drama aside, we should be a seriously asking whether she's even a half-decent choice to be our next vice-president. She certainly presented very well at the RNC-- she looked good, she spoke well, and it became clear that, politically, she benefits the ticket in a few crucial ways. She’s mobilizing the socially conservative base, she brings a much more lively feel to the Republican ticket, considering McCain's lack of, shall we say, energy, and I'm sorry to say it, but this pit bull with lipstick may turn out to be a pretty effective attack dog. In her big speech, I found her snide, sarcastic tone to be totally off-putting, but it may fit the cynical humor of our time. We'll see if it remains palatable for the people.

But Palin darn near torpedoes the "experience" argument against Obama, and frankly, it just seems irresponsible to choose a VP with such a short, unremarkable political career. The gasbags on TV who are arguing that she's more experienced than Obama and Biden combined ought to be perforated and hung out to dry. If it isn't obvious enough that running Wasilla-- or even Alaska-- is a fair bit less responsibility than serving as a Senator, it should at least be obvious that that their metric suggests that she's also more experienced than McCain. Idiots. What it comes down to with Palin, I think, is the old competition of style vs. substance. She looks good, she talks good, and she seems to be a great political choice-- but a deeply, cynically political choice as well. Beyond her electoral benefits, I'm just not sure she's got much to offer.

McCain, as I think his speech made apparent, is running on a phony argument and the fumes of W's coalition. He flipped back and forth between dishing on the Bush administration-- talking about "change," and about moving above the morass of Washington politics-- and blowing the same old jingoistic smoke out of his ass. How is it that the right wing seems to have a monopoly on patriotism? Why does the American flag feel like a symbol of the Republican party? To me, the hyper-nationalism of the sort on display at the RNC—the random USA chants, the “my country, right or wrong” idea, the whole concept of “country first”— feels like the precursor to fascism.

He has a compelling personal story, there's no doubt about it, but is he starting to seem like an old man who tells the same stories over and over? At a certain point, one has to say: Ok John, I like you, I respect you, and I salute your service, but that was forty years ago; why should I vote for you now? Once again, I think it comes down to style vs. substance, bluster vs. ideas. Will people see past the posturing and recognize that McCain's stated policies make him frightfully similar to Bush? Will they get over the patriotic urge to vote for a vet, and realize that a McCain presidency would make things worse, not better for our military and their families?

A last note on the RNC: Far and away, I thought the most tasteless shtick at the convention was the bashing of Obama’s experience as a community organizer. Thompson did it, Giuliani did it, Palin did it twice. Since when is working to help underprivileged families a laughable pursuit? Especially if they’re then turning around to talk about the importance of service—why is one kind of service so much more honorable? I think that was a mistake that they can’t keep making. It may have been good for a laugh in St. Paul, but if they keep at it, I think it will backfire.

Someday soon, I’ll go beyond telling you why you shouldn’t vote for McCain, and tell you why you should vote for Obama. But that is a task for another day.

Of Hurricanes and New Beginnings

2008-09-06T15:45:00.003-04:00

It is something less than auspicious to arrive in a new city in the midst of a hurricane, but I think Hanna may be an appropriate metaphor for the political squall I suspect awaits at the end of this bus ride.

(Aside: Have you ridden the Bolt Bus yet? Running the Boston-NY-DC corridor, the coaches feature extra legroom and free wireless. And if you're the first person to buy a ticket for a given trip, your ticket is $1! If, as I hope, they sponsor Usain Bolt, I'll never again patronize another bus company.)

In Washington, I'll be going to work for NDN, a progressive policy think tank and advocacy organization, as personal assistant to President Simon Rosenberg, and as a staff researcher. It feels like a good time to be working for Democrats-- even if not directly for a campaign. The race for the presidency is close, competetive and getting to be nasty. I'll offer a few thoughts in a forthcoming post.

I feel compelled to put in a plug for my mother's new book, even though, if you're reading this, you probably already own a copy. Jim Copp, Will You Tell Me A Story got a rave review from Daniel Pinkwater on Weekend Edition this morning, and has since shot up to #54 in books on Amazon.com. If you've got a little cousin, or a baby shower to go to, or a 6 year-old's sense of humor (I include myself here), you'd be a sucker not to buy a copy.

The sky is clear-- I think I'm in the eye of the storm. Washington, DC-- here I come!

UPDATE: Me mum's book peaked at #30 on Amazon's best-seller list... but then Amazon ran out of copies! Now you can't get the book anywhere for two weeks... While it's nice to know it's so popular, the loss in sales is pretty irritating.

Exhale

2008-08-30T23:50:00.004-04:00

Tomorrow afternoon, Invesco field will once again be a football stadium, as the CU Buffs take on the Colorado State Rams in the Rocky Mountain Showdown. Before long, the speech prep office at the Pepsi Center will go back to being the locker room for the Colorado Avalanche, and Howard Dean's headquarters will return to its rightful owner, Avalanche Head Coach Tony Granato. The Democratic National Convention is over, and Denver is going back to being a nice, quiet city.

I was about a thousand feet up in the air, three rows from the top of Mile High Stadium for the big show on Thursday night. When you see a guy like Obama speak, you sort of expect the earth to shake. In an astute political move, Barack lowered his rhetoric a bit, and sounded more like a normal person that he usually does. That, combined with the fact that all the themes of his speech had been recycled over and over again throughout the week left me a little disappointed, feeling as though Barack had come up short.

I've warmed up toward his speech since then. By lowering his rhetoric and talking about real policy ideas, Barack laid out some much-needed specifics. And despite my perception that his
speech was a bit hackneyed and clichéed, it's since occurred to me that was only because I (unlike most people watching on TV) had heard most of other speeches all week. In sum, Barack's speech, like most major speeches this week, was good, and covered the territory it needed to. But don't take my word for it... watch it here.

In the hopes that you weren't glued to C-SPAN all week, I'll also recommend a few of the lesser speeches that, though quite good, probably slipped below your radar. Check out:

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer (who broke every rule in the speech giving rulebook, thus shooting the moon, and got so excited he ran 7 minutes over time)
Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (who is a really smart young guy with a big future in front of him)
Former Sen. Tom Daschle (complete with crazy glasses)
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (complete with crazy)
Rep. Jose Serrano (complete with the word "South")

The charades are done, which comes as a bit of a relief-- a full week of 14 hour days has left me pretty beat. I'm on my way back to New York tomorrow, then on to DC in a week. Stay tuned...

Convening

2008-08-26T00:43:00.003-04:00

You may have seen me on television today. I was the one in the dark gray pinstripe suit behind Jesse Jackson Jr. and Nancy Pelosi, looking not entirely unlike a secret service agent. I was also the fuzzy gray blob above Anderson Cooper's left shoulder. I was not the fuzzy gray blob to Anderson Cooper's right. That's Wolf Blitzer.

Conventioneering is a pretty good sport, for an intern with the speech preparation team. I spend my days mooching around speech writers and coaches, as they prepare the dozens of speakers for their few minutes in the spotlight. Occasionally, I'll do something useful, and once today, I did something extraordinary-- I added a word to a speech. Mission accomplished.

The speaker was Rep. Jose Serrano, and the word was "south," as in "South Bronx." The member of the Hispanic Minority Caucus keenly pointed out that his district-- the poorest in America-- is located within walking distance of the wealthiest district in the country (that being, of course, the Upper East Side of Manhattan), and is situated within the wealthiest city in the world. His point, well taken, is thus: What the heck?

Rep. Serrano also won points for hilarity. He walked into the speech prep room, went to the podium, and began speaking before the text was even in front of him. "What do I have in common with George Bush?" the Puerto Rican native with the Bronx accent asked his befuddled audience. "English as a second language." Sadly, this line didn't make the final cut.

For the sake of fanfaronade, I'll add that today I met 7 Senators (favorites: Patrick Leahy and Sherrod Brown), 4 Governors (favorites: David Paterson and Deval Patrick of my home states), and a gaggle of Representatives (who, taken as a group, shake my faith in government).

What did you think of Michelle Obama's speech? I won't take too much credit for that one.

Out of the Wild

2008-08-20T02:21:00.005-04:00

I'm back in Boulder, and still trying to process and comprehend the seven days I spent in the Weminuche Wilderness, walking 55 miles along the Continental Divide trail with uncles Charlie and Billy. It was a great trip-- lovely weather, sweeping views, swell company and near total isolation. That last perk is something I'll savor in the coming months in my new city of Washington, DC.

At any rate, since the whole trip, at this point, seems like a bit of a dream, I'll let you try to make sense of it yourself. I offer a series of photos, courtesy of RSaN friend Roger Moss, Nature Photographer.

Roger Moss, Nature Photographer

2008-08-11T02:05:00.004-04:00

The first in what will be a series of nature photographs. Please understand that I look down on nature photographs, and these, continuous file numbers notwithstanding, were not taken by me-- not at all. Rather, these were taken by a new friend of mine, Roger Moss, Nature Photographer.

Omaha Bizarro

2008-08-11T01:45:00.002-04:00

Half a week of day hikes and acclimatizing in southern Colorado, I'm now drumming my fingers the night before my two uncles and I take off on our big expedition into the Weminuche Wilderness. For your amusement and edification, a meditation on my second night of couch surfing, which was way weirder than the first:

The smell of the ancient smoke rooted deeply in the couch told me where I was, before I opened my eyes. The morning sunlight slipped through the crack between the window frame and the curtain-- once a louche red velved, to match the room's wood paneling, now a paisley pink shred of fabric was draped lazily over the bar. I think I caught fleas that night.

We had arrived late, astonished to see the number in brass above the door. A massive brick manse-- part Ole Miss sorority house, part masonic lodge-- a thick chain of long-forgotten purpose hung in a shallow U over the entryway, and red caution tape, tied to the banister, floated in the breeze. A perky blonde hipster came flying out the door in a blue dress. We were welcome, Shelly was inside playing Donkey Kong, the right side of the house was condemned, and we could sleep on any couch that wasn't already taken. Omaha, it turned out, was a popular destination that Sunday night.

It was hard to keep track of whom were the proper denizens of the manse, and who were my fellow transients. After squeaking in the front door, I met a flurry of faces-- three bobbed brunettes with a French style about them, a tall shaggy Italian, a mutton-chopped bro. The room was a jumble of couches, mirrors, cats and Polaroid photographs, with bodies-- sleeping and awake-- strewn on every surface. It was a 1960s flophouse, a hipster hideaway, a traveler's safehouse and new to me.

The night got late, the room grew dark, and the restless went to drink and smoke on the stairs. As I lay drifting on my couch, a smiling face framed by bobbed brown hair appeared, and a pair of hands thrust a musty pillow toward me. I smiled back, and drifted away again.

Enormous States of America

2008-08-04T20:30:00.004-04:00

Driving across the country, one gets a sense of the sheer vastness of the darn place. What a bloody pain it must have been to get around before cars or roads were invented. Likewise, how tricky it surely was to wage war without the speed of either information or transit that we enjoy today.

So we pose a new question to you, dear reader (especially if you happen to be a scholar of Civil War military tactics): How would the Civil War had gone differently if General Lee had been equipped with an iPhone? (Assuming he also had access to a functional 3G information network and an in-horse charger)

Deep Farm Thoughts

2008-08-04T18:49:00.003-04:00

Brooke has put forth two more important questions that need to be raised in a public forum

Why are barns red? Is it so that animals don't run in to them?

Whatever happened to all the wild cows?

I might suggest that if we built more brown barns, the wild cows might finally come home, though perhaps with chipped horns and bruised noses.

Alternatively, Brooke posits a tragic possibility: The wild cows went extinct after they died on impact with the camoflaged walls of the barns.

(this post brought to you by iPhone)

Day One: Didn't Get Murdered

2008-08-04T08:52:00.001-04:00

I write to report on a first successful day, and to publish a few questions that were debated throughout the day:

Is Lake Erie properly categorized as a lake? Ought it be re-classified as the fifth ocean?
Tollbooth operator: cushy government gig, or among the worst jobs in America?
If he's winning all the battles (and he is), why is Barack only barely winning the war?
Why do halls of fame (Basketball, Boxing, Rock 'n' Roll...) seem to congregate around Interstate 80?

Feel free to weigh in with your own thoughts via comment.

The day concluded with a night (as days tend to do) at the home of Jesse, where we successfully avoided being axe-murdered, despite staying with a complete stranger we found on the dubious social network "couchsurfing.com". Jesse works taking pictures at nightclubs, plays several musical instruments, has a girlfriend who likes to travel, has never been west of Chicago, and is on a spiritual quest. Swell dude.

As for tonight... Objective: Sleep in Omaha. Prescription: More driving, More couch surfing (this time with a bevy of blonde college girls and their seven cats). Prognosis: Wild, wild success.

Farewell, Boston

2008-08-02T23:47:00.002-04:00

Seven years ago I picked up and left my ancestral home in New York, shipping up to Boston (to Andover, really) for school. My education complete, it's time to go, and tonight is my last night living in Massachusetts.

Tomorrow, I'm joining forces with Brooke, a traveling partner from my days on the lam in China. We're hopping in her Hyundai, and charting a course for Boulder, Colorado, aiming for Cleveland on Sunday night and Omaha on Monday. In Boulder we part, as Brooke presses on to begin anew in Seattle.

I'll be staying a few days with Dave in Boulder, then a week or so hiking with uncles Billy and Charlie in the Weminuche Wilderness Preserve, then back to the metro-Denver area, to work as an intern (gofer) with the speech-writing team at the Democratic National Convention. Friends, politics, the out-of-doors-- what more can a guy like me ask for?

Check back here for frequent updates, pictures, and a play-by-play account of how I will escape a bear, only to be captured by a political operative.

For now: Farewell, Boston. Thank you to all my friends who made this summer so much fun, and these seven years here everything they were.

Marshall Plan Creep

2008-07-20T11:41:00.005-04:00

More and more often, the Marshall Plan is used rhetorically-- by politicians, pundits, and the like-- as a paragon for what this country needs. Just in the past month, the Plan has been used as a model for what we need on foreign aid, Iraq, literacy, Pakistan, economic security, climate change, and Czech missile defense. And that's just the beginning of the list.

I'm as much enamored with the success of the Marshall Plan as anybody else (I even went to a panel discussion of the Plan's legacy at the German Marshall Fund last summer), but let's get serious here. The investment required for the Plan is not the kind of thing we can pop off for every issue that rolls around. What's more, it's not a great analogy for things that don't entail sending piles of money overseas to help rebuild allies. The most apt analogy in that list is foreign aid-- kudos to Barack for that--but I, William Easterly, and other aid skeptics aren't sold on Obama's idea that doubling foreign aid to Africa will solve many problems.

As for the other problems on that list, I might invoke other successes of 20th century American history as more apt analogies for what's needed. Let's not forget the Manhattan Project, the Interstate Highway System, the Apollo program, the GI Bill, and others. I'm a fan of massive, concerted investment by the government-- these are some of the greatest successes of the past 80 years, and they yielded new technology, new infrastructure, and renewed faith in America. Of course it costs, but investment is sacrifice, and our country has gotten too fat and comfortable, too used to getting what we want without giving anything up. Note that the most recent of those successes, the Apollo program, reached fruition nearly forty years ago. So, while I'm cynical about the overuse of the Marshall Plan as a rhetorical device, I'm generally inclined to agree with the sentiment.

And that's what I hope to see from Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention in August. I want him to ask me to do something, ask me to make a sacrifice, tell me that even though the economy isn't in great shape, now more than ever we need to come together and put our energy toward solving the daunting challenges we face. In the vein of JFK's "ask what you can do for your country," I want to hear Obama make a call for everyone to make small sacrifices for a larger cause, something bigger than themselves. People want to believe in America, and they need to hear this. My generation, particularly, wants it, and, I think, would respond.

Saturday Song: Obama, by Extra Golden

2008-07-19T13:55:00.007-04:00

The Kenyan-American fusion band Extra Golden blends rock with benga-- a guitar-heavy Kenyan dance music that's been around since the 1960s-- creating a groove so deep you can't see the bottom.

They came together through Ian Eagleson's doctoral research which brought him to study benga in Kenya. He and his band partner Alex Minoff teamed up with Otieno Jagwasi and Onyango Wuod Omari of Orchestra Extra Solar Africa to record an initial album in 2004, shortly before Otieno's untimely death.

They were invited to the 2006 Chicago World Music Festival, and Opiyo Bilongo (who, according to the band's website, "has been a dangerous presence on the Kenyan Benga scene for over a decade") stepped in for Otieno, with Otieno's brother, Onyango Jagwasi, contributing as an occasional songwriter and lyricist.

The trouble was, neither Opiyo nor Onyango Wuod Omari could get visas to the states. With their American partners pulling every string in sight, eventually they got help from Senator Barack Obama, and the two Kenyans were able to visit the U.S., traveling outside West Africa for the first time in their lives.

Out of gratitude to the Senator, their second album, Hera Ma Nono, features a song of thanks and praise titled "Obama." According to benga custom, the band also thanks his wife, Michelle, and his mother, Ann. Listen here, and enjoy the video clips of Barack being Barack, plus some sexy benga dancers.

After two years apart, the band reconvened this year for a tour. They received critical praise for their performance at Bonnaroo. They're still around, and if you've got any sense at all, you'll go see them. Those who share my musical tastes, take note: they're sharing the Prospect Park bandshell with Habib Koite on August 3rd!

A Meditation on Pilots

2008-07-04T10:04:00.005-04:00

I like airplane pilots. They come across as strong, gentle, fatherly men (and they’re always men… how odd), their voices calm and confident on the loudspeaker. Not like recalcitrant airline ground employees or snippy flight attendants, I never get the sense that the pilot is my opponent in some miniature battle. He’s a lawyer, combating dictatorial air traffic controllers and gnarly turbulence on behalf of his charges—a fellow human, fighting for you to be treated with the dignity you deserve, but rarely receive as a passenger and customer.

But pilots all have a peculiar tic that makes them seem a little removed from the common man. Every pilot I’ve ever flown with is obsessed with the wind. Whenever you take off and land, and sometimes mid-flight, the pilot will always—always—let you know which way the wind is blowing, and how fast, both just outside the plane, and at your destination. Sure, I’m glad they know about wind—I suspect it plays a role in how they fly the plane, and without this knowledge, we’d probably end up in a charred wreck. But they don’t seem to realize that nobody else knows or cares much about the wind. I don’t even really know how fast a knot of wind is. Would one knot make it difficult to read a newspaper? Would three knots be enough to fly a kite? I find it hard to imagine that many vacationers make any plans based on current wind conditions.

(Hey Chuck, the long fairway on the 15th hole at Pebble Beach heads right into the setting sun! With a four knot tailwind out of the south-east, I just might birdie that son of a gun!)

Me and the Sea

2008-07-03T12:58:00.004-04:00

Screwed by Peter Pan and a mean, stubborn bus driver, I stood stranded and exhausted at the Woods Hole ferry station after 10 o’clock on a Saturday night, 8 hours before the next ferry would depart for Martha’s Vineyard. Alongside eight fellow victims, I was not alone, but we were at the end of the line, and I began scouting the wharf for a nice spot to sleep.

A swarthy man in a Steamship Authority uniform ambled up. After chewing out our bus driver for failing to expedite our trip and get us there four minutes earlier, he offered a last-ditch option. The Patriot Party Boat—a chartered fishing boat—would make an 11pm trip to carry the morning newspapers to the island. Feeling like commandos, the nine of us piled into a cab, and rocketed through Falmouth to the boat’s berth. We arrived to find the harbor nearly empty, save for a few silent Chinese fishermen dangling lines off the pier. We fruitlessly searched the port’s buildings, but our hope was renewed when a gabby Indonesian man showed up, and I sweet-talked him into driving me down to investigate the other end of the wharf, where the Patriot Party Boat Too was docked. The far end, it turned out, was more deserted than the near. I returned, and my group of nine began to despair, while I again looked for a comfy bundle of ropes to pass out on.

As if materializing out of the mist, an ageless man appeared in work pants and a white button-down shirt, open at the top, revealing dark chest hair, sprinkled with white. “Looks like you folks need a ride to the island;” he was like the stalwart, friendly father out of “One Morning in Maine,” and our savior. As it turned out, we were just lucky—the early edition of the Sunday Globe had already gone over, and the news sections wouldn’t go for a few hours yet—but the friendly fisherman had to make the trip to pick up a five-piece jazz band that had just finished their set in Oak Bluffs.

The ocean is black at night, and we passengers sat silent, exhausted and relieved, enveloped by darkness as the harbor lights grew small. Only the roar of the diesel engine cut through the thick gloom. The summer solstice moon rose in the east as we hummed over the water, and it sat lazily on the horizon, looking as though someone had dipped their thumb in red-orange paint, and smudged it on the sky.

Going to the Office

2008-06-26T10:29:00.013-04:00

Being unemployed (or "looking for work" or "a freelance writer," depending on how you like to see it), I find myself constructing an alternate reality in which I almost have a job that I go to every day. Clichéd as it may be, I get up every "morning," hop on my bike, and head down to a café, where I "work" on my Apple laptop, sipping iced coffee. Some of this work, mind you, is actual work-- I do some research for a guy-- but a good chunk of it is checking my e-mail for job offers that never arrive, sending e-mails requesting jobs that aren't available, and now, apparently, blogging.

It's a relatively short rotation of cafés I visit in Somerville, and so I see a number of the same people on a day-to-day basis. There's goatee-man-with-the-huge-stomach, there's awfully- audacious-with-leaving-her-laptop-unattended-lady, there's Redbones-deliveryman-who-makes- out-with-his-girlfriend-in-Diesel-Cafe-guy, and of course, there's crazy-guy-with-the-beard- who-smells-but-is-friendly-enough-all-things-considered. In a way, I think of them as my co-workers. None of us, it appears, actually have anything to do during the days, so we all get together, sip our iced coffee, and validate one another.

It's frustrating, leeching on society (and particularly on the free wireless at True Grounds) and feeling generally unproductive. Still, the life has its perks. This morning, my alarm went off at 7:30 because I was feeling ambitious last night... I got out of bed at 9:15. And I'm planning on shoving off around 2:30 to go watch a soccer game. Things could be worse, really.

Beijing vs. Shanghai

2006-12-20T02:13:00.000-05:00

Having now spent a semester in Bejing, and 57 hours in Shanghai, I feel qualified—and, indeed, obliged—to weigh in on the Beijing vs. Shanghai debate. Who wins? Let me tell you, it’s Shanghai, and it’s no contest. Allow me to lay out my reasons in the structure of an obnoxious list I’ll call the “8 W’s.”

• Weather: I certainly have a lot of respect for the hardy folk of Beijing. The winters are as dry and as cold as, say, Al Gore, the summers are hot and sweaty, and the spring brings blinding sandstorms that carry the Gobi desert closer every year. The fall, which is absolutely gorgeous, is three days long. Sure, Shanghai is pretty hot in the summer, but heck, we’re tropical creatures anyway, aren’t we?

• Width: These few days in Shanghai I cris-crossed the city on foot, finding the next neat-looking place on the map, and walking there. Yesterday, I began at the Moganshan art district, and after a morning there, moseyed my way to the other side of my map, arriving after a few hours at the Duolun Museum of Modern Art. In between, I passed through as much excitement and street life as I’ve seen in three months in Beijing. It is a big city, definitely, but it manages to feel quite small, broken up into dozens of smaller communities within the city.

This morning, back in Beijing, I thought I might walk from Tiananmen Square to Beida. After 35 minutes, I was still walking alongside the Forbidden city, and up to that point it had just been me, the wall, and the occasional policeman. No matter where you are in Beijing, it’s an hour’s drive to wherever you’re going. It was one of the more frustrating things about being there, and the idea of a smaller, walkable city, is an attractive one. Shanghai’s population is just as big, but they pack ‘em in better. It’s more of a New York, while Beijing exhibits more of a Los Angeles sprawl. Eulgh.

• Wuran: Wuran is Chinese for pollution. Shanghai’s air is dirty, and Beijing’s is way, way worse. Enough said.

• Water: History tells us it’s a bad idea to let Republican senators (Washington DC), eagles holding snakes (Mexico City) or anything other than common sense decide where we build our cities. Beijing is a case in point. There’s no river there, no sea, no ocean… it’s just there, in the middle of what was once presumably an endless sea of rice fields. Bad idea. It’s hard to exactly define, but Shanghai’s dissection by the Huangpu river and Suzhou Creek break it up in a way that makes it more manageable, more natural, and, really, more pretty. Plus, the proximity to the ocean allows the aforementioned reasonable weather.

• Women: Any Chinese can tell you that Shanghai girls are among the prettiest in China, and after three days, I can confirm this report beyond any reasonable doubt. Next stop: Chungdu—I’ve heard Sichuan girls are the most beautiful of all.

• Waiguoren: Again, with the Chinese—Waiguoren is Chinese for “foreigners,” but I don’t mean that in any bigoted or otherwise pathetic way. Shanghai has seen a lot of European influence in the past couple hundred years, and it has resulted in a fantastic array of architecture in the city, The city’s former French Concession is a gem, and the old Jewish ghetto is totally wacky and out of place—in a good way. Beijing is mostly filled with the ugly, blocky sorts of buildings one often finds in capital cities, especially communist capital cities. I do enjoy Beijing’s ancient influence, but Shanghai has some of that, too, in moderation. One of my favorite things about New York is the variety provided by such a vast array of different kinds of people, and Shanghai benefits from the same. At the same time, though, the waiguoren presence in Shanghai is not oppressive. Really, as long as one is not in any of about three places, the number of white faces will be next to nil.

• Wow: Shanghai’s wow factor is off the charts. The glitz and excess that come with sudden wealth are in full evidence there: take, for instance, the large LED displays one finds at some intersections, announcing the current sound level, in decibels. Or take the skyline, or the Times Square-like glamour of Nanjing Road, or the sweeping grandness of the Bund, Shanghai’s riverside park. It’s all over the top, in an impressive sort of way. There is definitely a lot of wow in Beijing’s Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, and many of the sites that are really old. Really, though, they’re good for about one visit each, and after that, one begins to realize that they stay mostly the same—the same they have been for the past god-knows-how-long. Even the trees at Jingshan Park are the same trees that were planted 12 centuries ago. Christ.

• Wictuals: Although this may never have happened, if someone of Polish descent were to say the word “victuals,” this is how it might sound. An old Andover gal by the name of Michelle Miao treated me to a first-rate lunch on Sunday. Presently a resident of Shanghai, Michelle knows what’s up with the local cuisine, and now I do, too. It’s pretty darn good. Beyond the fine dining to be had, Shanghai is maybe most famous for its xiaochi—snacks—such as savory fried pancake things, and the succulent baozi—steamed buns— which will leave pork juice dripping from your hands. It’s better than it sounds, really. Beijing’s roast duck is amazingly good, but on the whole, northern food just lacks a bit in flavor.

Shanghai is, camera thieves aside, a great place, as you have no doubt inferred by now. There aren’t many cities I bother comparing to New York, but this one deserves the comparison. One other cultural observation I couldn’t squeeze in above is the omnipresence of pajamas on the city streets. One never sees this up north, or, really, anywhere else, but for whatever reason, Shanghai women love to go out in their jammies. It’s mostly women aged 40-60, and they mostly have very comfy-looking quilted pj’s. Not a bad way to live, I suppose.

Also, if you have never seen a rat run through a crowd of 200 Chinese schoolgirls, that is an experience I recommend you actively seek out.

Tomorrow at 1:55 PM I board a plane bound for Toronto, Canada, and arrive on the same day exactly 5 minutes later. The miracles of modern air travel! You can expect one more post here, a reflection on the semester and a consideration of the future of this website. But if that sounds dreadfully boring to you, well, then, zaijian!

小偷

2006-12-17T07:53:00.000-05:00

The semester has ended, many sad farewells were said yesterday afternoon, and now I'm in Shanghai. Just here for a couple days, staying with my old friend Sunny from last summer, and checking this place out. Expect a more substantial update on this after it's been digested.

Good news for people who hate my photographs! My camera was stolen today. Looked away for a moment in People's Square, the geographical (though no longer ideological) center of Shanghai, and poof, it was gone. So I feel like death now, and shan't write any longer. Instead, I give you something written a week ago that never made it up here. I feel it needs to be said:

In recent months, I have said some regrettable things about the sport of Table Tennis, and I would like to take this opportunity to clear up any misunderstandings that may have arisen as a result of those comments.

The controversy began a few weeks back, when I showed up for my first game with the Beijing University baseball team. I think my consternation, upon finding cars parked all over our field, was understandable. My aggravation was elevated when I discovered that the baseball game, an American pastime, had been trumped and bumped by a Ping Pong tournament in a nearby building. Evidently, the spectatorship for said tournament had gotten completely unmanageable, and they had to send people to park on the Baseball field.

It was at this time I made a few comments that I now recognize as both reprehensible and spurious. Most notably, I suggested that China get a “real” national sport, and may have referred to ping pong players as “a bunch of paddlewhackers.” Although reprimanded at the time, it wasn’t until a recent evening that I realized the magnitude of my mistake.

I sat in a local restaurant, eating a late dinner alone, and noticed a crowd of people gathered around a television in the corner. I went to take a closer look, and found they were eagerly watching the semifinals of the women’s team table tennis event at the Asian Games in Doha, Qatar. The Chinese women were in tight competition with the Koreans, another of the world’s best teams. With no other occupation while I finished my fried noodles, I stayed to watch.

If you don’t know it already, let me be the first to tell you: that sport is seriously intense. I watched as Guo Yue, who was described to me as “really famous” in China, took on Moon Hyun Jung, presumably a hero to Korean girls. There was screaming, grunting, and jumping for joy as the contestants dashed around, taking full-body swings at a little white dot. The ball whipped back and forth, almost too fast to follow with the human eye. The women displayed jaguar-like reflexes, and a sniper’s precision as drops of sweat flew from their brows. The crowd went wild, waving Chinese flags, when Guo Yue prevailed, and even wilder when China clinched a spot in the final with teammate Guo Yan’s defeat of Kwak Bang Bang (not kidding).

I hereby retract my previous comments, and hope I can be forgiven for my mistakes.

Points of Disapperance

2006-12-13T18:59:00.000-05:00

Yesterday morning, I woke up and blew my nose. To nobody's surprise, it came out black. Fortunately, it cleared up a bit in the afternoon, and today it even improved to a "pretty good" day after a few "oh my god" days. Still, if there is one thing I won't miss from this city, it's the air. Whoo.

Pictured here is an attempt to show you just how thick the air is with soot and ash.

Today, while walking through the middle of Beida campus, I passed a van, trunk open, with people crowded around. I assumed correctly that this was some shady operation, as is the norm when doing business out of vans. Upon getting a closer look, I discovered that some scam artist was selling not handbags, or watches, or even puppies, but bootlegged textbooks to students on a budget. Only in China.

Oh yeah, I have a blog

2006-12-11T09:15:00.000-05:00

A scant four days of classes remain for me here at Beijing University, before I skip out along with my fellow CIEE students. Everyone else is condemned to an extra 3 weeks of classes, plus two weeks of exams… it comes with living in a country that doesn’t believe in Jesus. I’m making preparations for a short trip to Shanghai early next week, after which I’ll be back up to Beijing to catch my flight out on the 21st. Heavens, how time flies.

Speaking of ends and conclusions, my final column appears in today’s issue of the Tufts Daily. The friendly editors kindly squeezed in a poetic verse at the end of the article, which, though absurd, makes for a grand farewell. Enjoy.

The highlight of this past weekend was an event held by the Beida Hip-Hop club, of which several of my classmates are members. They rented out a dance club downtown, and held a party/dance competition, which was both excellent entertainment and terrific fun. Some students from neighbor Qinghua (China’s #2 University!) showed up, and danced everyone’s pants off, to say nothing of their own.

On a note entirely unrelated to China, I have concocted a brief activity for you, my readership. In commemoration of the United Nations inducting a new Secretary-General this Thursday, I offer you this quiz:

Below are 18 names; 9 of them are the 9 Secretary-Generals of the United Nations, past and present. The other 9 are characters from Star Wars. You have to pick out the Secretary-Generals— no cheating!

Kofi Annan
Kleb Zellock
Calo Nord
Ban Ki-moon
Gizor Dellso
Boutros Boutros-Ghali
Yarna D'ai Gargan
Joh Yowza
Javier Pérez de Cuéllar
Dag Hammarskjold
Kitik Keed'kak
Trygve Halvdan Lie
U Thant
Plo Koon
Kurt Waldheim
Clegg Holdfast
Momaw Nadon
Gladwyn Jebb

Administer the quiz yourself, or send me your guesses. In test runs thus far, nobody has scored 100%, and I have given it to several people whose intellects I used to genuinely respect. The first person to get them all right wins a wallet-sized picture of me.

To help you digest this absurdity, I have included some Chinese characters, photographed.

Strongbox

2006-12-04T12:05:00.000-05:00

Nobody panic! If you’ve already wept your way through today’s column in the Tufts Daily, my intimations therein that it would be my last are fictitious. I was informed this morning that, by virtue of Tufts’ strange but perennial decision to hold a single day of classes on the Monday of reading period, I have one last column coming next Monday. I’ll be taking requests.

I’d like to share with you all a perfectly brilliant incidence of Chinglish that has really turned my world upside-down since I first saw it. In the men’s room at a nearby teahouse, there are a pair of what appear to be advertisements, one over each urinal. The first, which is otherwise blank except for a tiny picture of a giant squid, reads thusly:

The thief begin to criticize his prentice. “We spend the whole night to open all the strongbox, but every one is empty. Until we open the last strongbox, and you say they are stolen from the strongbox factory!

The second features a poor drawing of a car’s interior, and the caption: Your car is not a strongbox.

If anybody knows what a strongbox is and where I can buy one, please let me know— I’m in the market.

EDIT: According to Noah Webster, 'strongbox' is a perfectly legitimate synonym for 'safe' or 'cash box.' Not that that clarifies the meaning of the advertisements in the least.

While you ponder, pictured below is Beida's famous pagoda tower.
How very Chinese.

Weather Report

2006-12-02T02:27:00.000-05:00

After a few dreary weeks of suffocating grey in Beijing, the wind picked up yesterday, and blew all that filth away. Not least among the boons that came with the sun were a few photographs that aren’t total crap. I went for a jaunt around Beida campus yesterday, accompanied by a few of my fellow CIEE students. So if you like pictures of people, commence scrolling.

Ben, left, and Ian pretend not to be cold.

My mother, who asks me every six months if I have an adequate winter coat, will be glad to know that I recently invested in a terrifically Chinese jacket, complete with “fur” lining, senseless English on the left breast, and zippers that don’t work. It’s warm, though, and was a bargain at just ¥100 RMB ($12).

Its purchase was necessary to combat the Beijing winter, with temperatures falling through the floor. It’s getting to the point that the highs are around freezing, and the lows are five or ten degrees below zero (centigrade, naturally). Ice is appearing, but no snow— aside from the light dusting I mentioned a while back, it has precipitated three times since I’ve been here, all in the form of a brief, light drizzle. It’s almost enough to make me long for soggy Boston.

Vickie thinks it's hilarious that her kite just crashed.

Speaking of which, departure is coming up fast, faster than expected, and I’ve got just two weeks of class left here. I can’t help but feel a bit like I’m copping out by leaving when I am, after just a semester here. I am really only just becoming comfortable in this place; only just figuring out what I like, who I like, where I like to go, and where to stay the devil away from.

A semester is not a long time, and I’m feeling the pressure to do and redo everything in these last weeks. Beyond all that, goodness knows my Chinese is nowhere near any “conversational” level, and could certainly do with another five months of attention.

Ben looks hard while Jay looks Korean

On the flip side, if I were planning to stay for the year, I might be filled with dread right now and anxious for some international incident to require my immediate repatriation. In any case, I am going home, and I’m confident it’s the right decision. I think I’ll probably be back again before too long.

You can tell this photo of Ian is artsy because it's out of focus.

Looking forward to my week of unbridled freedom after classes end and before I fly home, I’m considering a trip to Shanghai, to revel in the opulence and humidity. Chengdu is another candidate, but that’s kind of a hike from here.

Julie is Vietnamese, but she lives in Oregon. She laughs because that's funny.

This post is getting long, and I haven’t really said anything interesting yet, so I’ll close with a story. I went out last night with some friends for a dinner of Korean Barbecue. It was delicious, as always, made especially so by a grand gesture from some guy on the other side of the restaurant.

Apparently, this guy was in a really good mood last night, and as is the Korean tradition when one is in a really good mood (this according to my Korean friend, Jay, pictured above), he bought every table in the restaurant a dish and a bottle of Soujiu, Korea’s famously potent liquor. As a show of thanks, we sang him happy birthday, though I’m not sure it was his birthday.

The four CIEE men of Writing Chinese, level 6, have accurately been compared to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. From left, Michaelangelo, Raphael, Donatello and Leonardo.

This Is Just to Say

2006-11-27T10:50:00.000-05:00

It's midterm-week, round two, so I haven't got time to entertain you. I'm giving a long, boring presentation tomorrow on Beijing's air pollution. Wish you were here?

Just wanted to report that a new Red Sky article appears in today's Tufts Daily, and you-- yes, you-- can read it here . The article, incidentally, is also about Beijing's air pollution, and is also long and boring.

Unlike my presentation in Chinese, however, it is chock full of snarky jibes and waggish wordplay. Also unlike my presentation in Chinese, the article has spaces between its words.

Nothing Much

2006-11-24T13:25:00.000-05:00

It's late on a Friday night in Beijing, but I've been lolling about for too long, and sleep is unappealing. So I thought I would write to tell you all that it's snowing here, and though it's not sticking yet, the ground may have a little coat by morning. The past week has brought a(nother) steep drop in the temperature, to the point that I'd be willing to guess it's colder here than it is in Boston right now. Kind of makes me miss the ocean, and its climate-stabilizing properties.

This time of night is the time for overblown and magniloquent analogies. So here's one that will probably leave you feeling woozy afterwards.

The Chinese language is like a wall. A wall in Beijing—- which is to say, a wall shrouded in a haze of coal dust. It goes on endlessly in two directions, and the top is out of sight in clouds of soot and smoke. During my semesters studying the language in Medford, I got up close with the wall, going over it with a magnifying glass, trying to figure out how to get through. Can’t go around it, can’t get under it, no ladders… I decided to come to China, with high hopes.

I stepped back, ran full speed, and threw my body against it, expecting to crash through and find myself in a paradise shared by a billion Chinese and a few odd outsiders—but no such luck. As it turns out, this wall isn’t drywall, or even loosely piled stones—something closer to brick. So I dislocated my shoulder smashing against the wall, and here I am, bloodying my fingers, crumbling the mortar away one little pebble at a time.

And if you misbehave again, I’ll make up another analogy and flog it to death.

Climacteric Elements

2006-11-20T06:37:00.000-05:00

A new column is available for your reading pleasure in today's Tufts Daily. But before you go a-clicking, allow me to preface: I was a little disappointed to note that, somehow, somewhere in the editing process, the first paragraph of my column got clipped off, like the leafy branch of a great, majestic elm tree. Unfortunately, this was a load-bearing branch. As an exclusive for those lucky few who read my columns online, the real first paragraph appears here:

I think I’ve fallen in love with noodle girl #0110. It’s not her palindromic ID number that’s so attractive, nor is it the teal apron she wears over her starched-white uniform. No, what turns me on is the way she doles out justice with every ladleful of Shanxi-style cut noodles.

Now continue reading it here.

Think on this one.

Honestly, China

2006-11-19T07:31:00.000-05:00

The ATMs in China will only give you 100 RMB bills. This is reasonable enough— roughly equivalent to $12 USD, they’re the biggest China has, and a few of them will last you though a week. The trouble comes when you try to use them. For unknown reasons, shopkeepers and cashiers in China are fanatical about exact change, and no matter how you try to pay for your 7.5 RMB bag of persimmons, they’ll look at you dolefully and ask if, perhaps, you have 5 mao— half an RMB.

But when you whip out a 100 RMB note, that's when all hell really breaks loose. The proprietor will usually open with a startled shriek, and look slowly up at you with an expression that seems to cry “et tu, Brute?” I usually try to look abashed and mumble in Chinese, but it’s often a lost cause; if I’m making a purchase under 5 or 10 RMB, they’ll turn away my business in favor of some ass with an endless supply of small bills. Honestly, China, what's the problem here?

The generator above is just another example of Chinese ingenuity, along with gunpowder and paper. In other news, yesterday's baseball game was canceled-- we showed up, and cars were parked all over our fields. Apparently, there was a Ping Pong tournament in the neighboring gym that had attracted an overwhelming crowd. Honestly, China, get a real national sport.

Men in Green

2006-11-17T08:37:00.000-05:00

I’ve joined the Beida baseball team. I went to my first practice on Wednesday, and today I was starting at shortstop and batting third. It’s a relatively recent arrival in China, and certainly not popular like it is in Japan. The team itself is a sort of club team—they aren’t funded by the school, and they have to fight for crappy field space… which sounds sort of familiar, now that I think about it. They do manage to have games against other Beijing university club teams, and I’ll be playing in my first one tomorrow.

Nearly five years removed from the last time I picked up a bat, my calluses are coming back slowly and painfully. Everything else, though, snapped back like it was last week. All the muscle memory behind swinging a bat, throwing a ball, fielding a grounder… it came back quickly and joyfully. My teammates probably take me for some kind of idiot, because I couldn’t wipe a huge smile off my face through a good portion of our 3-hour scrimmage this afternoon. It’s been too long, and I love this game.

They practice twice a week, for four hours—it’s a lot, but it’s a good way to fill up afternoons that have become increasingly long and empty. I can also persuade myself that I’m making good use of my China-time, because I’m hanging out almost exclusively with REAL CHINESE PEOPLE. Certainly, one of Baseball’s advantages over silly sports like soccer is that it’s a social game, and you spend at least half your time hanging around, scratching yourself, spitting and, under normal circumstances, talking with your teammates. I’m not quite managing that last bit, but I can understand more and more of what they’re saying, and when I have an urgent thought, I can usually make myself understood.

During practice today, a film crew showed up and started shooting the practice. As usual, it took them about 10 minutes before the producer called me aside to get some special footage. I’m not totally clear what the video was for, but she gave me a brief on what she wanted me to say, and I think I more or less understood what she wanted. So I introduced myself, and gave the 10 second explanation of how I had found the baseball team, and was very happy to be playing with them at Beijing University. My brief speech had the whole film crew in stitches, but it seems my content was clear enough to satisfy them, and I went back to hitting home runs.

Above, the police in Tiananmen Square are humorless, to say the least. Below, a slightly photoshopped picture of a crazy looking Yam guy outside the East gate of Beida. I have no idea what his gang-sign means, so don't ask.

Idling

2006-11-14T08:09:00.000-05:00

Having wasted three hours of my day reading his essays, I urge you to do the same, and visit Maciej Cegłowski's weblog: idle words. He's just a guy- "a painter and a computer guy"- who happens to be a great writer, and happens to be in Beijing. Many thanks to Stork (whom you may just know as Storkus Maximus, or, if you are his mother, Aaron) for pointing me towards this web-gem.

He writes about all manner of topics, but China has been the recent trend, as that's where he is. His essays manage side-splitting hilarity, truly perceptive insight, and occasional poignancy. It should give you a taste of what this blog would be like, if I were a better writer.

Try out The Day That Nothing Happened, a fantastically clear and incisive look at the woes of China's working class. Hong Kong is a great and hilarious picture of that city, and I Spy is a ridiculous and characteristically Chinese account of some shenanigans right in my neighborhood. Frankly, I wish I had written these essays.
Poor lion.

As for my own life, I was walking through Beida campus today, on my way back to my dorm, when a teenage chef- clad in the appropriate white garb- shot out the back door of some dining hall kitchen, and ran like the dickens up the road, apron waving behind him. He was followed, seconds later, by an identical-looking being, wielding some weapon- maybe a spatula, maybe a chicken head- and chased around the corner. It was all good fun and jocularity- but just the sort of absurdity that the western-conditioned mind forgets to expect in China. The image of Chinese is of a hard-working, quiet, well-behaved people, and though this is often true, the opposite is true, too. These Chinese people- sometimes they'll catch you by surprise.