Pot and Kettle

This just in. Glad to see flip-flopping isn't a partisan sport.

Though, I personally don't think changing your mind is a capital offense -- apparently it is. It seems hard to base the entire criticism of your campaign rival on something that you in close proximity of two statements, no less, have done yourself. Even after staking your entire criticism on the said rival on this particular "flaw." Personally, I could care less whether he thinks we can or can't win a war on terror, largely because such a thing doesn't exist. You can't fight a war against a concept. It's just not possible. The war on drugs -- which isn't really a concept so much as it is an inanimate object -- proved this much over the past two decades. It might be helpful to reframe all of these questions away from a war-like mentality. Perhaps, we can think that we've jumped ahead of this evolutionarily speaking. Though, it might be hard for some people to get their walnut sized brains around it. Perhaps, instead of a war on terror, we could have a picnic lunch against injustice?

I'll make the 'tater salad.

Infuriating.

It is without question infuriating to watch mainstream news media mislead and in general misreport, skew and bungle facts and deceive the entire population at large. In an AP story, as reprinted on Yahoo.com, the reporter claimed over 100,000 people were involved in a march against the current administration. Yet, the headline they chose to use said "tens of thousands protest." Deliberately misleading, when the facts in the story state over 100,000. Tens of thousands is 50 or 70. 100,000 is...well, obviously the AP can't do the math, so I'll give them a hand. It's over 100,000. It's more than 10,000. By an entire decimal place. A factor of 10, if you will.

Aside from that deliberate mislead, the facts are wrong. How do I know this? I struggled for 3 hours to walk 10 freaking blocks! That's how crowded seventh avenue was. If you line up people body to body across the breadth of seventh avenue and then stretch them the length of seventh avenue, you get more than 100,000 people. Especially when you stretch that over the course of 20 blocks.

I was also very impressed with the near Beirut style barricade technique that the NYPD employed as the street approached MSG. It was quite claustrophobia inducing, and felt very much like a blind trap of sorts, winnowing the parade/march into a thinner and thinner street, as if to pen in any possible protest. Or escalate the opportunity for violence. I wasn't sure which. I was glad to have been represented...oh, I'm sorry -- MISREPRESENTED -- by the thoroughly incompetent and highly specious mainstream media that reports on the event. Still, it was worth going. I dont' think a convention has ever been protested with that kind of volume.

I also must say that the reports I hear from the critical mass (which I very nearly attended and would probably be scratching this missive out from a sludge covered jail cell, had I done that) are disturbing at the minimum. It sounds as if the police (as they did when critical mass was at it's most influential in SF several years ago) DELIBERATELY set out to create conflict and foment violence. Nice. I guess they learned that a good offense is the best defense. That ought to be the Republican's motto. It seems to fit all too perfectly in everything they do. They are, without question, patently offensive.

reality?

This just in. Apparently an earnest ad for a television show on TBS. The kicker, for me, is that you're competing for $6000. Six. Thousand. Not a million. Not even 10 thousand, which seems like it might be a nice round number.

Have we sunk this low?

Is this the harbinger of a new sludgy slate of reality television wherein people do stupid, asinine things for no other reason than to be on television in the end? I envision a future world of America where everyone is on television. I think, with blogs, we've begun to see that evolution start. Everyone will have their own reality show, and without any prize. They will be as narcissistic and self-indulgent as the neverending supply of human thoughts can be. And there will be viewers who will want to tune in to see what stupid thing you'll do next. People will have hats with direct satellite feeds back to their laptops where they will encode the daily drama of their life. Look, I'm walking down the street. Oh, wait, is that a dog? Maybe I'll pet it...oh no, it bit me! Indeed this kind of 24/7 surveillance is not a new idea (George Orwell, and probably people before him even). I'm even reminded of the prescient television show from the early 80s called Max Headroom, which foretold a media clogged future.

Is this a better world? I would argue, no.

I was thinking the other night as I walked down the street listening to the irascible chatter from everyone on their cell phones that the level of human noise over the past few years has increased dramatically. Does anyone else remember a time when you could assume that if someone said something out loud near you that they were actually talking to you? I feel a little like pulling a DeNiro taxi driver routine more often than not on the sidewalks of new york. It also has diminished the importance of any utterance. By sheer volume, interesting things become banal. Important items, get lost in the deluge. I think this is the true effect of the information age.

Laugh or cry?

It's a tough choice.

We live in a fucked up society right now. I really ought to renounce my chosen profession, all my worldly possessions and retire to a cave somewhere to work on inventing a time travel machine, wherein I could go back in time and fix some of the horrible, horrible misdeeds that have occurred. For one, I'd re-enfranchise the thousands of people in Florida who "decided" that last election. Or at least get enough good blackmailing material on Scalia and Thomas to sway the vote the appropriate direction. Whatever works.

In any case, this humorous tidbit makes me chuckle a bit and then get very, very, very sad. Why? Well, the funniest part about it to me is that someone with the name Edward (or Ted) Kennedy is on a no-fly list. Or similar to that. I would love to see what other odd names have made it onto the no-fly list. This highly protected document is undoubtedly chock full of incorrectly identified names. And to Shakespeare, I say, apparently a lot is in a name. And no, it doesn't smell quite the same.

In any case, I wonder if in the hands of someone with a more humane and human sensibility, if the tragic events of 2001 might've given rise to something incredible, something that may have changed the face of this world, something that could have miraculously taken hold of the outpouring of goodwill that a tragic incident can sometimes cause. I wonder if in the hands of someone with an ounce of compassion or even a smidgen of empathy (or, hey, a group of someones with either compassion or empathy), what intelligent and worthwhile movements that they may have crafted, using goodwill and healing instead of hate and fear and terror. It may have been a wondrous century to live through. Instead, it is nothing more than where all the rest of human society has trampled before, through the Genghis Khans and Alexanders and Caesars of history's tomes lay waste. I guess it would be too much for me to hope that we might rise above being base and crass and unruly and fearful little creatures, like cowering mogwai waiting for our inner gremlin to commence smashing things up. Maybe if the world were more matriarchal. But even that would give rise to the same sort of sharp vituperation, I imagine.

Perhaps the time machine would help save this world from itself. But, more likely, it would just wreak an even kookier future that would make Orwell think things were amiss. To think, he was only 20 years early in his date predictions. I wonder if we'll make contact with a large monolith in 2021.

Americans: Stupid or Daft, #2

Never thought I'd have to make this a running tally...or maybe, it should come as no surprise.

I like the end of the story where his parents are happy that he actually is good at something. The only thing that most Americans are any good at, apparently. But, hey, it's good to support your kids.

Food reviews

I read New York magazine on occasion, often to peruse the latest and greatest food reviews (among other things). I like reading about food, because food is like possibility. There always is this kind of chance that you could go out that particular evening (any evening) and eat a sumptuous sensuous dinner. Granted, I can't afford most of the places that show up between those particular glossy pages. But on occasion a locale pops out. For instance, pizza. This is something that I can most definitely afford as a meal, and the place reviewed was near enough to make the slight trip worthwhile, as it was billed as one of the best pies in the city. That's some pretty high talk for a city of this size. Particularly one with a claim to fame -- New York Style pizza. The location: Franny's, on Flatbush Avenue bordering Park Slope and Prospect Heights (I believe...maybe Fort Greene).

Franny's has a nice plate glass window with bright orange lettering on it to identify it. Once inside, we were told that we would have a fifteen minute wait to sit at a table. Sitting at a counter by the window was immediate. We chose to go immediately and were given the delightful vantage point of the people walking by. And the parked cars on the street, too. It only takes about 1:21 for a car to take an empty parking space, according to some very unscientific calculations. But, anyway, on to dinner. We ordered a sun-gold tomato crostini and a basil pesto ricotta pizza to split between the two of us. Franny's claim to fame, I suppose, is its insistence on sustainable foodstuffs -- using local suppliers, organic whenever possible (I believe). The crostini was amazing. The sweetness of the tomato was tempered with a perfect splash of a very rich olive oil and a not too sharp balsamic vinegar. The crostini itself was crisp and chewy and still warm as it arrived. I could've eaten a tray full of these and probably been completely sated with the meal. The service was friendly and attentive, even for us losers at the spare counter top. The atmosphere, though, was a bit too loud. It seemed more like a bar that served pizzas, in some ways (as my dining partner claimed). Not a great first date spot, truth be told. And with a decent location and a positive review, business will probably be very good for the forseeable future. If you can hack the noise factor, though, the design of the room is rather nice and clean. Angular lines and brick walls.

But, yes, the pizza. The reason for coming. I have to admit, it was good. But it wasn't that good. The basil pesto tasted very mild, relying on the natural essence of the basil to power it, instead of covering it up with garlic (as so many pestos seem to do). The effect was quite lovely and natural, without burning the taste buds out. The ricotta was a beautiful rich and mellow counterpoint to the tang of the pesto. And the crust was flavored well with the coal oven taste. But, it's texture and consistency left a little something to be desired. It was neither the super thin, crisp traditional Italian pie style, nor was it the NY doughy slab. The middle was wafer thin, but the edge crust was beyond doughy, especially when it should've been crisper. Overall, I was a little let down, perhaps by expectations. But, it was some very fresh and tasty food (I was a little surprised that no "normal" salad was offered on the menu, but maybe the kitchen is too small to deal with that), though not the best pie I've ever had. Nor, probably, the best in the city. Maybe not even the best in Brooklyn. Hopefully, I'll find out who deserves that title, soon enough.

I recommend the ice cream shop (that seems like a deserted candy store from the outside) a few doors down. Wow. That's some tasty gelato that they had. And a very friendly scooper, too. I'm heading back there for ice cream again...I can feel it.

Make it up as you go along

Yesterday was my first day attempting something very different. I went to improv class, as held at the "world famous" Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. The classes are held in a small office above 23rd Street. The room itself seems like half storage, half disused sweatshop. A set of plastic molded bolted down chairs sit facing a small rubberized mat (the stage, I suppose). The improvisers trickled in and mostly sat in silence. One or two started introducing one another, but it was a fairly subdued group. In a moment, the instructor started up her introductory spiel and the improv class was going. A few late stragglers made it in under the bell. Then it was off to the races. Sort of. The kind of improvisation practiced and preached by the UCB Theater is called "The Harold" and is a long-form version of improvisation more akin to dramatic/comedic theatrical pieces than to the short and snappy skits that I recall from other improvisational escapades. The instructor talks about finding the truth of the scene and playing to your highest level of intelligence. My mind starts to draw a blank. Hmm...what if I'm not intelligent enough to play to the level of my intelligence? It could get pretty existential in here in no time.

Thankfully, we then spent what seemed like the next hour doing warm-up introductions. Basically a long extended riff on a name game. So, now, not only do I know everyone's name, but I also know what their name rhymes with. I know more than that, too. In fact, the only three requirements that the instructor laid out was to read a required text, see 30 minutes of improv a week, and go drinking with your classmates afterward. Normally that seems easily enough -- except I don't drink. (I get to join the pregnant woman, a lovely woman who is also an art therapist as I found out over seltzers and ginger ale, in the non-drinking group).

After the name game, we played a version of sing-a-long. This game, basically took me back to my least favorite memory from elementary school. In elementary school, we were supposed to write a short story (I loved writing short stories) but to use as many song titles as we could in the service of the story (I knew next to zero song titles because music was not part of my family's social outreach -- they listened to Mozart and Beethoven. Maybe I'd hear a Peter, Paul, and Mary song...maybe). I stayed up waiting for KTEL commercials to glean enough song titles in order to make a cogent story and the teacher said I needed to try harder in comments on the story. Ouch. I had that long momentary flashback as the song game started. I found that I couldn't remember any songs, let alone the lyrics to any of them, let alone sing the one stanza of lyric that I did remember. Thankfully, this game didn't last long and the point of the class (thankfully) was not to unduly humiliate students.

After this embarrassment, improv class moved into an honest and dishonest debate segment, essentially to teach us how to believe strongly in the moment that we were living in and to sell our convictions. I argued vehemently that some human relationships are governed by the laws of physics. And then we were supposed to argue with conviction something that we didn't believe in (there were the usual GWB is the smartest guy in the world kinds of approaches). I argued that Godzilla was going to save us. The woman who was working with me (the "listener" was supposed to agree vehemently with you), played along beautifully. It was quite a nice little silly moment. I still get very nervous when I'm on stage and my voice tightens and I have a huge adrenalin rush and have trouble staying in the moment. Maybe that will go away with practice, though I don't know if it ever goes away. It's almost like I can see myself from outside myself and think, "I'm not usually like this. Why do I sound like this?" It's very odd.

In any case -- it's a nice rush and I can sense a level of camaraderie that may develop through the course of the several weeks of class among the students as we prepare for a final presentation. Thoroughly recommended. And if you're around, you can fork over the $5 and come see my final performance on October 4. I think. More on that later...

America: Stupidest people or just plain daft?

You make the call.

From an AP story about GWB's falling approval rating on the Iraq War:
"Iraq was getting out of hand," said Kim Rivers, a 35-year-old Republican who works as a teacher's aide in Champlain, N.Y. "It should have been done a long time ago."

Firstly, where does the AP find these nitwits? And secondly, what is in the drinking water that makes people in the middle of nowhere so ill-informed? I would love to know exactly how Ms. Rivers believes that Iraq was getting out of hand. And maybe she wasn't around in 1989 (though, being 35 years old, one would presume that her memory extends that far back)...but it WAS done a long time ago. Didn't anyone else get that horrible deja vu feeling?

Sound

I had the fortune of taking in a concert at Joe's Pub a lovely old room with much newfangled soundproofing that is attached to the public theater in NYC. Located on Lafayette street, it's a nice location -- and the just ceased summer rainfall made the evening quite a pleasant event. Again -- I'm hitting nearly the middle of August and I have yet to experience the swelter that I heard so much about. This morning there's even a nice cool breeze coming into my upper floor windows. Anyway -- back to Joe's Pub.

The concert in question was Tanya Donnelly, former lead singer of the band Belly, one time Throwing Muses conspirator, and some kind of relation to Kristin Hersh (whom I've seen a few times in concert). The opening act was Rachel Goswell (I think), who had a lovely foreign accent (British? New Zealand? I'll never know), but was what I like to call a "one note" songwriter. Essentially all of the songs she performed maintained the same tempo and tonalities, in such a way that no one song was distinguishable from any of the others. This, to my mind, is the mark of what separates great songwriters (one of the things, anyway) from capable or mediocre songwriters. If you can mix things up song to song, that shows a range of skill that helps to showcase whatever talent you may have. If you can do this same switch in the middle of one song, even better (and make it work for the song). She was sparsely accompanied by a lone guitarist. And one song featured a concertina, though, the melody played on it was simple and didn't vary either. Kind of emblematic of her performance. Though, to be fair, she had a lush and gorgeous voice and might just need some time to mature as a songwriter. There seem to be (the more music I see) an entire genre of women who fall into this clique -- the "one note songwriter." I'm thinking it's just a young songwriter virus more than something intrinsic about NYC, though.

In any case, Donnelly took the stage and began with a number of songs that I hadn't heard before. Which would've been fine, except the sound board operators at Joe's Pub seemed to lack even the basic awareness of what constitutes a mix. The piano that accompanied her was overwhelmingly loud to the point that you couldn't even make out some of the words that she was singing. The reverb washed over everything. So much so that the monitors were reverbing back to the front stage speakers. Maybe the room was poorly designed acoustically (it certainly was poorly designed for seating and standing purposes), but the mix was atrocious. Part of the set was disturbed by what sounded like a slightly flat guitar (hers, I believe) but she may not have noticed because the mix was of such poor quality. The instrumentation that was used -- guitars, steel pedal guitar (?), kurzweil keyboard, seemed to compound the wavelength of soundwaves instead of separating them out into distinct tones. This is, perhaps, why a simple drum, bass, guitar combo works so well -- each takes on a separate range of tone that doesn't conflict with the other. The steel pedal guitar had the added disadvantage of turning most of the songs into a country & western lilt, which again could've been due to a mediocre mixing job. Some of her songs stand out and keep ringing in your head after the show is over, and her vocal range (take note Rachel Goswell) during the song and between songs is outstanding -- as well as her ability to go from loud to soft, slow to fast, and make it synchronize with the meaning of her lyrics. At the end of her first a capella (save for an overwhelmingly washing reverbed piano) song ended with her own child crying out from the audience toward her, and eliciting a slight smile. At least, I assumed it was her child. If not, some poor mother should be careful what kind of sonic mixing atrocities they expose their offspring to -- they might grow up to mix as poorly as the fellows at the board at Joe's Pub. Hint to future sound board operators everywhere: If it doesn't sound quite right, adding more reverb doesn't automatically make everything better.

Sand in the bull's eye.

This is the ancient battle of rhetoric, after all. It's an amazingly effective approach to anything. Instead of addressing what is being asked of you, you throw sand in the question and point out something else entirely, thus redirecting the course of discussion.

Take, for instance, the pounding assertion that Kerry doesn't have "strong convictions." Which, is to some extent, what I've heard repeated ad nauseum by the mainstream media. That somehow, someone who is paid $400,000 a year to ostensibly represent a diverse constituency of 300 million individuals ought to have "strong convictions." The only strong conviction that I think someone who is a paid representative of me and the rest of the country I live in shoud be is that he actually listens to the concerns and strong convictions of those that he represents. And then weighs, appropriately, the course of action to take. It's not that this country isn't brimming with thoughtful ideas and public policy matrons who can wonk with the wonkiest out there; rather, it's that we have people who lead with all too strong convictions of what is right and what is wrong and don't have the patience, wherewithal, or true leadership skills to even listen to what else might be out there. Dogmatic inflexibility is not a leadership skill, though it may seem like strong convictions at times, which sounds so much more positive when you listen to it. It's practically mellifluous.

Strong convictions, decisive actions. These are nice traits to have. But I don't see where they've gotten us, except in a whole mess of trouble, in a world that we've created through headstrong actions that haven't been properly thought out. It'd be nice to meet someone who actually listens for a change. And then see what happens when we lead, and the leaders do, in fact, follow.

Welcome to the 20th Century, America...

Though it seems like it probably will be another example of fabrication and rubber stamping, this welcome sign of international cooperation and, shall we say, "law enforcement" seems to me to be a step in the right direction. I have a few suggestions of where to deploy monitors -- shall we say, oh, Ohio (where the manufacturer of Diebold's voting machines said that he would do what it takes to deliver Ohio to Mr. Bush) and Florida (whose administration's criminal malfeasance in the last election seems to put any other voting shams to shame (are you listening, Chicago?)). I'm sure there are other states that could do well to have some monitoring, too, though it's always hard to figure out where the next electoral fraud will be perpetrated. It is laughable that anyone (as is quoted in the article) could say that we've been holding free elections for over 200 years (yes, free if you were white and male, perhaps). And the flip side being that it seems to smack of "me thinks he doth protest too much," when you complain about having a foreign auditing company (not the military, more like a bunch of accountants) taking notes on your electoral process (as in, "what do we really have to hide?" And apparently, the answer would be, "a lot."). Wouldn't this, rather, be a shining opportunity for America to stand up and show that it does actually hold free elections, as proclaimed by an international monitoring group? But, no, showing ourselves as the shining example of democracy (that we think we are) is still a bit of a stretch for those who might feel this is an intrusion, as opposed to a cultural exchange (which is what it should be...we'll see as to whether it actually transpires that way). My guess -- no. But, hey, I'm cynical.

Highly Anticipated...

Yes, indeed, it's the highly anticipated "blog about the bike ride to Piermont" blog. Or is that too many blogs? Hmm...anyway, it is true, that on Saturday I undertook a fantastically long bike ride...and sadly, did not finish it due to a minor injury. So, it ended up just being a somewhat long bike ride. I blame my equipment (as any true amateur has a right to) -- a recently installed rear rack to my bicycle which had the added disadvantage of rear weighting my bike so significantly as to induce strain into my lower quadricep muscle. This is perhaps incorrect as a diagnosis, but it's the best I can do on such short notice. In any case, without further ado...Piermont.

The road to Piermont from Brooklyn is quite a distance. It starts with a jaunt across the Brooklyn Bridge, across Chambers Street (bumpy, bumpy....paving seems to be optional in parts of lower Manhattan) to the West Side greenway. Up the west side greenway (quickly, quickly...I do so like the west side greenway's ease of use) all the way to a cross-over ramp/bridge above 181st St. It should be noted that there is one of the shortest, steepest inclines in a greenway before this ramp and it was probably here that I ended up straining my knee, trying to make a mad dash up the hill with an untested rear weight (no, not my ass!). In any case, across the ped/bike bridge, up a hill (another long-ish hill) and then follow the signs to the George Washington bridge bike path. It was quite cool on this particular day (another bad condition for knees, I hear...yes, this is all about my poor knees), but we made it across there...and that's when the road traveling starts in earnest.

9W is one of those deceptive roadways -- kind of like biking on the side of the freeway. Cars zoom by, but seem accustomed to the packs of cyclists that zip on the shoulder as well, so they tend to leave a wide berth. There is a stretch, though, that is under construction and the thought of hitting potholes or uneven pavement and sprawling out in front of a car going 50 did cross my mind, repeatedly. This, thankfully, didn't happen, although I did run into a orange pylon on the return trip (whoops! Sorry NJTransit...). 9W splits onto Sylvan Road which then branches off onto another road (which I can't remember the name of) that features a monstrously long hill and then a not as monstrously long hill. On the return trip, I was forced to run up the taller hill in order to prevent my knees from falling off. Kind of like a triathlon...in any case, be forewarned, it's quite a hill, if you're not used to hills (or, unlucky enough to strain a muscle). I passed through the quaint village of Tenafly and then took Piermont road out of there the whole way to the quaint town of Piermont. There seem to be an abundance of quaint towns.
Before Piermont (which is in NY, while Tenafly is in NJ), there is a small creek bed that runs behind a number of bucolic little cottage-houses. Picturesque, to say the least. I could imagine living in such lovely summer splendor...for about five minutes, before the sheer boredom and overwhelming upkeep on the house (not to mention the chance of eternal flooding) would send me screaming for the hills. Or some city with a good levee.

Piermont has a number of nice little shops, but sadly (for some odd reason) this particular August Saturday was freezing! So, I remained outside, trying to remain warm and had a yogurt and granola with my riding partner. And then, it was back on the bike and struggling to make it all the way home without causing irreparable harm. Unfortunately, I was only able to make it to 72nd Street before common sense kicked in and I hopped on a subway train (I love that you can take your bike on the subway here...) and made it home. I believe Piermont is 10 or 15 miles over the border and approximately 30 from Brooklyn. My measurements are always a little awry, so maybe it's only 7 miles over the border, and 15 round trip. In any case, it's not that far, and I hope to heal up and be in healthy enough shape to revisit it. Perhaps on a warmer day.

Because honesty blows chunks...

This just in...in case you were wondering why all of your dates were ending early...

Things they don't teach in film school.

An entrepeneurial spirit joins the long list of hoax perpetrators in the annals of history. Sadly, he didn't make it through/to film school or he might have had that class that tells you posting hoax videos of beheadings on the internet might cause the FBI to show up on your doorstep.

The real kicker in the story is the last line.

Take Away the Vote!

This, from an article about a recent poll on whether John Kerry would be a better president based on security issues comes a gem of a quote:

"I don't think Kerry's ready to be president," said Laura Weber, a 37-year-old Republican from Pierre, S.D. "Bush would be more decisive."

Yes, Laura Weber, because being decisive is important in your president. Especially when he makes those decisions dogmatically, quickly, with inaccurate information (or none at all) and those decisions are all wrong!. Far be it that your president might actually consider an issue, investigate it, and debate the merits of his decision before making up his mind and acting on it.

I would make some comment about how I think it'd be great if they repealed the vote for some people or something, but hey, if we get Laura Weber's wish, they will! Don't think that "disenfranchisement" is a central plank to the Republican party's platform? How else can you rule the world, if not through a military dictatorship?

Voting can be so pesky sometimes. Especially when those uppity non-white folks in Florida exercise their 15th Amendment rights.

Which I guess gives me the thread that we really do get the leaders we deserve. The stupid ones, apparently, is what "we" deserve.

Finally, the truth from the administration

Seems like it only happens during a "misspeaking engagement."

Just lovely.

PEN pals

I had the great fortune of being able to sneak into a special reading by some of the literary world's luminaries tonight at the PEN "State of Emergency" seminar. Don DeLillo, Salman Rushdie, Francine Prose, and many others added their voices to other author's works (Ariel Dorfman reading Cervantes in both Spanish and English, A.M. Homes reciting Ferlinghetti, for instance). Each piece was meant to be related to the removal of rights that have occurred thanks in large part to the Patriot Act, in their campaign to amend it.

Amend it? How about repeal the damn thing! I mean -- really, as Rushdie eloquently put it at the beginning of the evening, "how we deal with fighting the terrorist threat will probably be the defining battle of (this) civilization. Will we become our enemy?" Many more eloquent moments, brought forth from quotes from suffragette before her time Susan B. Anthony (via Barbara Goldsmith), as well as a rendition on imperial tendencies (Mark Twain via Russell Banks) and the use of bully journalism (the bible of America, as he wrote). Eve Ensler pounding the microphone with her pulpit delivery reading from Egyptian novelist Nawal El-Sadaawi (whose name I'm sure I've badly butchered, thanks) whose words rang as true now as ever. The grim estimations of Henry David Thoreau on the nature of unjustice (via Paul Auster's equally grim delivery) which also rang contemporary. Overall, the impression based on the excerpts chosen to my mind was that what we are going through is a horrible thing -- but it is not unprecedented. In fact, it is not even unexpected in some sense. America has long been a country of indelible injustices, stretches of imperialistic fervor, and occasionally we do the right thing, though often too late or too little. The readings of this evening drilled home that cyclical nature of our country, perhaps for better or for worse. I may not live to see this one unravel itself properly, but freedom is always a fragile cracked piece of ceramic, and will always need to be glued back together and treated carefully if you hope to enjoy its presence at your tea time the next year. By ignoring it, we -- as a society -- will insure its eventual fall and shattering.

The evening also featured one of the more surreal readings -- a "poem" crafted like mosaic from GWB's actual words (as arranged and orchestrated by Jonathan Safran Foer) which began with some hilarious verbal hiccoughs, but lost a little bit of its steam as Safran Foer took so much poetic license as to create concrete sentences from collaging various phrases into whatever he felt the need to say, instead of just letting the absurdity of what Bush had said stand on its own ludicrously poetic merit. The biggest laughs came not from the decontextualized parts of his poetic collage, but rather from the verbatim, in context comments. Which should teach anyone that the truth is far more powerful, strange, and hilarious, than any didactic fiction.

Overall, a fairly amazing evening, and another reason why I am glad to live in New York City.

At last, the hype

Okay, so I finally broke down and took in F-9/11, Michael Moore's latest opus du jour. And, unless you've been trapped underneath a television running the Fox News Channel, you undoubtedly know what this is all about. From a strictly "documentary" perspective, though, it fell very short. Clearly, trying to organize a project of this magnitude -- and a constantly moving target (documenting "history" as it happens is a notoriously slippery object), created some problems. The most powerful moments came with footage hardly seen of wartime mutilation (horrifying to witness -- if this were broadcast consistently on television news, would we be able to sit through dinner and watch the evening news? Doubtful...) and most strongly with his Flint, MI, mother of a son in Iraq. These moments were the most eloquent and real and felt akin to the final act of Bowling for Columbine -- in fact, it seems like most of Moore's movies follow a similar coda, with the tilting toward a windmill in order to create some semblance of solace in the face of something simply awful (destruction of his hometown's economy, gun violence, the illegitimate reign of George II...). Yes, it does make one mad to be faced with all of the overwhelming (and already known) evidence that paints the current faux-administration as nothing more than history's most craven war profiteers, slaves to a petrochemical master ensconced in the middle east. Though, the link in F-9/11 is never made strongly enough or conclusively, possibly because that link is kept very, very well-guarded. The hearsay and conjecture surrounding it, though, would be almost enough to convict in front of a jury of peers. One might be hopeful that jury might show up this November. I'm skeptical, though quite certain that Teresa Heinz-Kerry (bless her, she'll give the wags at the conservative rags something to harp on for the next several months) summation of 4 more years of this (as "hell") is an understatement of the millenia. Hell will look like a vacation compared to another 4 years of endless fear tactics (that are arguably patently laughable) and slash and burn economic and environmental approaches to this country and the world.

Despite F-9/11's shortcomings, cinematically, it still managed to pull off some very moving moments. Though, it definitely was hamstrung a bit by Moore's tendency to caricature and beat over the head with a hammer his overall point. The most irritating, perhaps, was his returning to a certain shot of GWB looking perplexed in a Florida classroom on 9/11, covered by Moore's heavily sarcastic voiceover questioning what Bush might be thinking. I feel there must have been a more potent way to work this together coherently. And my hat is off to the researchers/archival producers who worked on the project -- they did an amazing job culling through the available footage (and securing the rights to it) to create an incredible portrait of one of the most disturbing periods in American history. I'm so glad that I get to say I lived through it. So far. The year isn't over yet.

If it's Monday, it must be al-Queda...

There are innumerable reports about an alleged terror threat to carry out car bombing in the East Coast...soon. Or sometime soon. This "alarming" intelligence comes straight from the al-Queda coffe klatch in Pakistan, apparently, and has Tom Ridge in a dither, to be sure. I thought he was resigning? (Hell, if I had his job, I'd resign -- I get to run around like Chicken Little while all of the funding that is rightfully mine, is being spent to half-ass our way through a country that simply wasn't a threat EVER? Sign me up!)

In any case, I'm a little skeptical of the veracity of any information that might leak out of Pakistan. Not that I don't doubt that there are a bajillion al-Queda operatives wandering free and clear in this lovely neck of the world. However, knowing a smidgen of how "terrorists cells" operate doesn't give a whole lot of credence to this information. If one were to study the resistance of any war -- WWII, for instance -- and choose to use those models as an example of what al-Queda emulates, it would make sense that any of that information would be thoroughly bogus, because one arm of the cell wouldn't know what the other one is doing. That's the way the cells stay safely operating. It's a very clear approach to "resistance" (I do loathe to use this word in relation to a-Q, but the parallels are the strongest in terms of understanding tactical approaches). In fact, it would make complete and utter sense to have a bevy of incorrect and, in fact, highly detailed fake information at the disposal of some members of a cell in order to sew chaos, fear, and panic as well as divert attention from the real and actual targets. Does it strike anyone as odd to not question the messenger in this regard? In journalistic parlance, "if your mother says she loves you, check it out." But, as journalism is now becoming a lost and forgotten art form (akin to underwater basket weaving or some such), actually verifying sources is de classe. In this case, verifying highly anonymous sources who may be close to people who want nothing more than to make you get panicky and do something stupid while misdirecting you in every possible way...makes for not very reliable (even if highly repeated, as these "threats" seem to be) information. Color me unimpressed, I suppose.

The only way to truly break the cell up, is to infiltrate the exact cell that you're working on finding...i.e. the cell that might be operating in Paterson, New Jersey, for instance. Isn't that where most of the 9/11 guys happened to be hanging out? Might it not be reasonable to assume that Paterson still holds a few leftovers, hangers on, or god forbid, a whole different cell operating concurrently but disconnectedly to the 9/11 group? And once infiltrating, being able to extract information from that cell alone, to shut it down. This is, unfortunately, a systemic approach, and very time and labor intensive (two things we're not particularly fond of here, I think). If all of the billions of dollars that we were pissing away in Iraq were to be redirected appropriately, however, I'm fully confident that this slow and treacherous cell extinction process could occur. But, we pissed that away, right and proper because if we actually were in a safe and comfortable place, why would we need GWB?

All of this screed, of course, probably puts me on the top 10 list of people most likely to get raided by some random illegitimate arm of the justice department. I guess for once I'd like to see common sense win out over fear, hysteria, and insecurity. Just once. Maybe next life.

(The weird thing is -- this is a win-win situation for those in power: if they predict it and nothing happens, they can say, "Oh, we were just doing our jobs well." If they predict it and something happens, they can say, "Oh, see, we were right, but we weren't given enough resources and martial law to enact the kind of security we thought you should have." Sigh.)

Head of State

Reading The Economist is always good for some thought provocation -- they're stridently pro-current administration slant ends up giving a pretty fair estimation of the way of the vast and varied US of Aigh. In reviewing Kerry's campaign, they continue to drive home the point that he has no platform, save for the obvious, "I'm not GWB." That in and of itself is pretty compelling stuff for most sane individuals. Sadly, we don't live in a sane country. Any place that considers a strip mall to be cultural has some reality issues.

For the record, I wish someone in the Democratic party HQ would pop in a copy of "Head of State." Granted, this isn't Chris Rock at his most incisively brutal and hilarious. Rock, for the most part, plays it very close to the vest and safe with his material. But his "That ain't right" mantra during a somewhat impromptu speech in the middle of the movie is something that anyone campaigning against an incumbent might do well to think about. At least emulating it for a smidgen of a germ. Because so much of this country just ain't right. And a lot of those ain'ts exist because of collapsing, foolish, backwards policies generated by an administration that still thinks it's 1980 (when most of the think-tank rejects in the administration were theoretically in their prime).

Anyway, that ain't right. I would only hope that Kerry (or Edwards or somebody) might find a mantra that catches hold as cleverly as that. American's like jingles (much more so than actually trying to comprehend difficult public policy decisions). Maybe a jingle would be the way to go.