Book Report: The Naked and the Dead

So Norman Mailer published this book when he was 25. It was 1948. He'd spent time in the South Pacific during WWII, didn't see much action, but decided to write a 700+ page book about soldiers who do.

I griped earlier about his using flashbacks late in the book to round out characters who have been involved in the story for 400 pages. In the 600s, he was still doing that. Ok, again, if the reader hasn't figured out a character after 600 pages, a cliche-ridden, tedious flashback about how he came from a poor family, met a sweet girl, had these big dreams, then the war happened, well, that just isn't helpful.

That's my complaint. On the plus side, when we're actually on the island in the South Pacific, things move much better. The brutality with which he portrays the soldiers' lives feels honest and gripping, mostly because of the moral ambiguities his omniscient narrator effectively conveys. They're not good people faced with hard choices. They're people of mixed moral integrity making good and bad decisions.

The narration slips in and out of well over a dozen major characters' minds, rarely feeling patronizing. I was most surprised at how well Mailer achieves characters of diverse backgrounds: Martinez, the Mexican with complex emotions about the U.S.; Goldstein, the Jewish soldier alienated by the others; Roth, of Jewish background, but rallying against his Jewishness (the relationship between Roth and Goldstein, as well as the anti-Semitism of the other soldiers, is particularly compelling); Wilson, the Southerner who speaks in a drawl that could easily lapse into caricature, but doesn't; Hearn, the slightly effeminate 'college boy'; Gallagher, the former Communist from Boston; etc.

Good war novels usually necessitate a balance of character and action, told with authenticity. It was clear from reading the novel that Mailer had been in war in the South Pacific. It was also clear that he hadn't seen too much action; the apex of the story slides further from a war story and closer to an adventure tale. But that's a smart choice. Though I grew weary by the final chapters, and had trouble following minor details that earlier were perfectly lucid, the resolution felt appropriate and not forced. It's difficult to close a novel this long (see: the last 20 minutes of the third Lord of the Rings movie). Mailer does it.

Smug Alert!

Someone pointed out to us that there was a recent episode of South Park called "Smug Alert!" (it was up on YouTube recently, but now it's at least available on iTunes) in which Kyle's dad buys a hybrid car, becomes obnoxious beyond belief, then moves the family to San Francisco to be with like-minded people.

The residents of San Francisco are portrayed fairly accurately. Among the highlights:
-They change the pronunciation of names (Allen becomes al-LEN)
-The kids have super-hyphenated last names b/c both parents have different names
-Everybody drives hybrid cars
-Everybody smells their own farts
-The kids do drugs to compensate for their parents' pretentiousness

We've witnessed all of these things except the fart-smelling (though I have my suspicions that this is happening).

Torgo eats fire

On Saturday, we tried one of the Mexican restaurants in our neighborhood. We'd already covered Japanese, Thai, Ethiopian & Eritrean, Italian, Pub food, Frou Frou American, and several others. We'd gone to one burrito spot, but I didn't like the burritos. I found mine dry. M-N loved hers. For some reason, I really like Chipotle's burritos. I don't like that they're a huge chain. I don't like that McDonald's has an interest in them. But I like their food.

Anyway, we went to a sit-down Mexican place by our apt. The popular dish seemed to be the tostadas, so M-N got one. I got the tostaditas, which I thought was a way of getting a tostada with all the meats in one big bowl, but of course, had I remembered my high school Spanish, I would've realized it was just 3 little tostadas.

The real story of the place was the salsa. Mexican restaurants often hand you chips and salsa when you first sit down. I think this is a way of encouraging drink orders. This restaurant clearly had three kinds of salsa (it was an open kitchen, and I could see the salsas). They gave us one that I'd describe as intolerably, esophagus-scarring hot.

Now, I'm all for hot food. I love a meal that's also an endurance test. But this salsa was beyond "Oh my God, that's so hot!" said with a smile. it was "Oh my ahhh, ahh ahh ahh," said as bits of salsa dribble down your chin.

There's a point at which hot salsa moves from fun to punishing. Maybe my threshhold was just weakened. All I know is that I almost took the bottle from the baby to cool my mouth down. But instead, like most people, probably while the restaurant owners looked on and laughed, I just kept eating it, fighting fire with fire.

Thanks Weekend Dad!

The transition from stay-at-home dad to what's more or less weekend dad has been difficult. I don't think there are too many families where both parents experience what it's like to be a solitary stay-at-home mom or dad in the first couple of years of parenthood.

One of the best parts of our new scenario is that I completely understand most of what M-N goes through in her exhausting day. So on those days when my dinner isn't ready when I get home, alongside my slippers, newspaper, and pipe, I'm at least marginally sympathetic.

But I miss the boy during the week, when I only get to see him briefly in the morning (as we often share a banana and cereal for breakfast) and briefly in the evening (as we often share dinner, then he gets a bath and it's time for bed).

Fortunately, M-N's going to focus on getting herself some M-N time, which means me and the boy will have some quality time like we used to, back in the days of marathon park walks and meandering car trips through Dedham and Westwood.

Last Saturday, we left M-N at home and headed up. By up, I mean straight up the hill by our apartment. It's about 3 or 4 horizontal blocks, and about 15,000 vertical feet, to the top of Grandview park. From there, you can look west across our neighborhood to the Pacific, North across the Golden Gate Bridge to Marin, East to downtown and the Bay, or South to Ecuador.

I should've brought a camera. Fortunately, others did, and Google found pics for me. It's better that way, because if I had brought a camera, I would have probably left it somewhere as I jettisoned excess weight in climbing the hill.

The top of the hill is a little like a mini-Twin Peaks, which is the neighborhood sort of adjacent to ours. They just have 2 hilltops instead of 1, plus that TV show.

Twin Peaks is considered a great place to live if you're stupid rich, which I don't quite understand. Yeah, the view are great, but they put a gigantic cell phone tower on top of the hill, which may not cause cancer, but is certainly ugly. Our hill just has some trees on the top, plus one park bench.

The Naked and the Foggy

I think there should be a rule. A novelist shouldn't be allowed to write a book that exceeds 700 pages in which he (or she, but we're talking here about a he) writes with straightforward plot development, plot advancement, then, 400 pages in, decides he's going to give the backstory of about a dozen characters, breaking up the backstories to inch along the plot in 2 or 3 page doses.

If I haven't figured out the psychological composition of a character after 400 pages, then who cares? Norman Mailer, I'm talking to you.

That said, I finally passed through the belly of "The Naked and the Dead" last night. Upon entering what might best be described as the bowels, I grew tired and went to sleep.

Which brings me to today. Today it was foggy as I rode my bike in to the office. It was almost misting, but not quite. It's strange. We've been here over 2 months, and still it hasn't rained once. Even the fog is funny. It's foggy to the extent that you can't see the tops of hills, but never so thick that you can't see across the street, at least not where we go.

So it's not a drought, nothing's dry, because the fog keeps things wet. I read that that's how the redwoods grew so tall -- the fog gets moisture to the tops.

But now the sun's out downtown (though still not in our neighborhood). The great part is that I've yet to have to worry about riding in the rain. I think that's coming. But when that arrives, I may just hunker down on the train with another massive novel and wait things out.

Go here now

I don't have a lot of acquaintances who are Oscar-nominated actors. So when one sends me a link about children's protective Christian sleepwear, I pay attention.

DVD Review: The Office: Series 1

Last night we watched the entire first season of the BBC (and original) version of "The Office." I'd seen a couple of the episodes before, but it was nice to see the whole set at once. It's eerie after watching the NBC version. The casting is incredibly similar. British Tim looks just like the American. And Steve Carrell seems to do an impersonation of his British counterpart. Also, the whole bit about the first NBC episode being a word-for-word remake of a BBC episode (which I don't think is entirely correct, but there are definitely clear points where they took plot points, jokes, and dialogue) is odd to watch.

All that being said, "The Office" is awesome. Most people know this by now, so I don't feel compelled to go into it further.

Survival of the whitest

Responding to the criticism that good old-fashioned segregation just isn't what it used to be, "Survivor" has announced that for its new season, contestants will be divided into groups based on race.

This will make it harder for them to vote off the 'angry black chick.' However, as the white group will have the best land, the easiest jobs, and not technically have to compete in the challenges, they should have an easy time.

God help us all

Two phones: the apartment's cordless and my cell phone. Both are relatively small, have buttons, make noises, light up.

One baby: smarter than he probably should be.

Tonight I discovered what M-N already knew. This boy can take a flip phone, open it, turn it on, and dial out. It's not just a fluke. I gave him the closed, turned off cell phone three times and three times he opened it and knew exactly what button to push to turn it on.

Before I realized he had this power, I was talking on the cordless while he dialed Jim K. (Hey Jim, not sure if you got that call. If you did, this here explains the heavy breathing on the other end -- and you thought you had to call out to get that kind of service.) Then he dialed M-N's parents. I know they picked up because I heard her dad on the other end trying to figure out what was going on.

So the boy's smart. We've established this. That's no longer news. What I'm thinking, though, is that I can put this to use. I love that cell phone commercial where the kids are asking the parents for phones, and the kid says, "I think it's time I got a cell phone," and the dad says, "I think it's time you got a job."

I'm going to call up Stanford tomorrow and see if they need any supercomputers hardwired. We're just up the road from Silicon Valley. Maybe Google, Apple, or eBay need some help.

A very special message

Yesterday's lesson today: If you want to bleach your clothes, but don't have bleach, just toss a disposable lighter in the washing machine. It works about the same.

Somewhere between lighting the grill a week back and enjoying some burgers, I forgot to take the lighter out of my pocket. M-N found it yesterday, post-wash. The good news is that the wash took out the lighter fluid, and then she caught it before the dryer. What if we lived in a society that dried clothes before washing them? That might have made for a cool explosion, but M-N could've gotten hurt. Plus, why would you dry clothes before washing them? That's just silly.

Everything's Coming Up Milhouse!

Today started around 4:30, maybe earlier, it's a blur. Definitely pre-dawn. The boy has about 85 teeth coming in, mostly molars. He's not being delightful about it, but I can't blame him. Well, I could, I guess, but that would seem unfair.

I then rode my bike in, the first time since last Monday, when my little cold hit. After many days of Paxton Thrashing (that's a metal band, probably), a wee li'l cold, and trainings Wednesday night, plus Saturday and Sunday, I'm far too tired for a Monday. Fortunately, it's mostly downhill for 5 miles coming to work.

I'm not eager to face those hills going home.

But on the plus side, it's a good day at work (providing the gift of knowledge to the masses) and I got a poem published. That's right, a poem.

I haven't sent any poems out since May. It really cuts down on the rejection letters. But today I got an acceptance from a journal I'd long since given up on.

So maybe those hills won't be so bad.

No, actually, they'll still be bad. We parked yesterday on a hill like the one in this picture. (You have to turn your head/screen to understand.)

We parked at a 90 degree angle to the curb and I set my parking brake, b/c that's what I do when I'm pointed up or down a hill. This time, my concern was more that the car would go sliding sideways down the street.

Terrifying movies for small children

We've been reading "Alice in Wonderland" to Paxton -- it's a great book that's fun to read. It reminded us, though, of the 1985 made-for-tv movie that combined "Alice" with "Through the Looking Glass" in order to traumatize me, M-N, and countless other children.

The nightmares came in the form of the Jabberwock (from the Carroll poem "Jabberwocky," of course -- and something I've never understood, why the 'y' in the title, then not in the poem? Rhythm? Maybe, but then why add the 'y' for the title?). In the movie, a little girl is terrorized by a horrific monster that chases her around a house as all she's trying to do is get safely home. I still remember looking into mirrors, worried that I'd see the Jabberwock behind me.

This has been the basis for many Spielberg movies -- terrorizing kids for kicks, and the fact that "Alice" came out in 1985, when we were 6, probably doesn't help.

1985 was a bad year for scared children. It was also the year "Return to Oz" came out. I think this movie is mostly remembered by the poor little kids who went to see it, thinking it would be something other than 2 hours of another poor little girl being terrorized.

I googled for a pic from that movie, and the first thing that came up was what you see here, a wistful cast shot (of the happy players). Not the beginning scenes in which Dorothy is subjected to shock therapy. Not the Queen with her severed heads. Not the Wheelers (who, granted, are just like the flying monkeys from the old movie, but flying monkeys are always, on some level, fun -- they're monkeys!).

The topic of terrifying movies for small children is an on-going discussion for us. I used to blame most of my irrational fears on having seen "Jaws" when I was about six (yeah, six was apparently a rough age). But of course there are lots of kids movies that are equally frightening. I still think "Finding Nemo" can scar kids. And "American Psycho"? I don't know why so many kids went to see that.

Movie Review: Bee Season

Yeah, don't see this movie.

We got the dvd as a gift, but I'm suspicious, having watched it, that it's more of a curse getting passed along to people. We gave it to the baby to play with and it made him cry.

The movie is about a guy (Richard Gere) who is both a college professor and a nutbar dad, pushing his daughter to succeed in spelling bees. He's married to Juliette Binoche, who spends most of the movie trying to walk off the set, eventually going crazy because she's contractually obligated to appear in the film. There's also an older son who has a relationship with Kate Bosworth and Buddhism, both of which seem like they'd make far better movies than "Bee Season."

One problem, among many, is that this is the most depressing family in the world. They never smile, even the son who's sleeping with Kate Bosworth. She smiles, probably because she only has a little bit of screen time.

It's not even worth me going into the other problems.

The time has come

Look what I found:
"The Hollywood Reporter reports Sony Pictures Animation has acquired the film rights to the children's book "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs."

Based on the bestselling illustrated book by Judi Barrett and Ron Barrett, the story centers around a scientist who tries to solve the world's hunger by creating a weather system in which it rains juice, snows mashed potatoes and hails spaghetti meatballs."

This is a great book. It will probably be a terrible movie, as the book is maybe 15 pages long and the entire plots happens in the span of maybe 20 minutes, but still, it's a great book.

E-Poached

"Strange to see Hezbollah moving so quickly to repair Lebanon and folks in New Orleans still hurting. Nasrallah is offering people "decent and suitable furniture" and a year's rent on a house to any Lebanese who lost his home in the war. How places rebuild should be examined very carefully. What can we learn from each war and natural disaster?"
-Posted by Ethelbert on his blog

How to get over a cold in 700 easy pages

This isn't a week I can take a sick day. Instead, I have to work longer than usual hours, including running a training last night that didn't get me home until 11. Then I have to run more trainings both Saturday and Sunday.

But I have an easy way to avoid drowning in misery and self-pity. Reading "The Naked and the Dead," by Norman Mailer. Every once in a while, I read a war novel -- something by Hemingway, maybe, something long, detailed, and depressing.

Nothing makes my little cold and long work days seem less of a bother than reading about soldiers on an island in the Pacific toiling, fighting, arguing, and getting blown up. In fact, the cold seems mostly gone, and it's only been a couple of days. The war, though, still has about 500 pages...

Zombie Writes Obit -- That's just odd

In case you missed it, the NY Times recently ran this obituary for James A. Van Allen, physicist and astronomer.

Ok, but check out the note about Walter Sullivan, the obit's author, at the bottom.

Walter Sullivan died in 1996. On a night just like tonight. In fact, tonight's the anniversary... ok, that may not be true.

So either Sullivan wrote the obit long before Van Allen died and the NY Times decided Van Allen didn't do anything in the last 10 years of his life worth updating the obit for (which is sad), or Sullivan is a Zombie Writer walking among us who must be stopped (which is cool).

Does this make me a Hot Alum?

The current issue of Newsweek has a big feature on colleges, including a list of 25 "hot schools," which it defines as the new elite, the new junior Ivy League of sorts. Colby's on the list, (surprisingly? I'm not sure).

Also on the list is Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering in Needham, MA, which we used to drive by all the time. The Olin's have a building at Colby (as well as about 30 other schools), and it's nice to see that school getting recognized. I've heard great things about it. Apparently, there's no tuition, which is a big plus over Colby, where they charge $50 just to go in the Olin building.

The Keymaster vs. the Gatekeeper

Ethelbert posted this:
"It was discovered by FEMA that the same keys can open many of the 118,000 trailer homes being used by Gulf Coast hurricane victims."

Spike Lee compared the devastation he saw while filming a documentary on Katrina in New Orleans to what Hiroshima must have looked like.

I'm not exactly surprised anymore by what happened, the gross incompentence, the negligence by the President. It can't be called surprise. It's long since stopped being amazement. It's even moved beyond sadness. There's just a numbness. Each new story, even a year later, there are still new stories, new wretched things happening.

I talked to a woman the other day who spent a week gutting houses last January in Louisiana. At first, it was alarming that it got to be January and things were still abandoned, molding and putrefying. It's not alarming anymore. It's just fact.

The Search For Tea

Today's been a day. I seem to have caught a little cold. So after riding my bike yesterday, I decided today was a train day. The train is half a block from our apt, but you can't see it coming until you're at the intersection, or its at the intersection, at which point you need to sprint or miss it.

So I missed one, deciding against sprinting, partly b/c of the cold, and partly b/c of the hot pot, mug, and tea in my bag I didn't want to break. Then I waited half an hour for the next one, when not one but three arrived. But I was starting "The Naked and the Dead," which was good reading for a foggy SF morning.

Then I get in the office, fill up the hot pot, and plug it in, looking forward to some nice lemon ginger Yogi Tea, but the phone rings. It's a parent calling, so I need to pay attention. I had to unplug the water b/c it was making noise (old hot pot, lots of college ramen in its past).

2 hours and several attempts later, I'm just now steeping the tea. But I talked to that parent for about an hour over three phone calls, and she was cool, so it's ok.

I'm supposed to be here

This here is yet another time waster, this time using a simple program to determine all sorts of things about yourself, such as "What type of mythological creature are you?" (I'm a pegasus); "What type of movie are you?" (I'm a black comedy -- examples given included Royal Tennenbaums, American Psycho, and Being John Malkovich); and, best of all, "Where does your inner Californian belong?" (I belong in San Francisco).

That last one seems largely based on the simplest of factors: what kind of beach do you like, what kind of job would you like, where do you shop, and what kind of music do you like? I answered it a second time and got San Diego. But seeing as my first time gave me SF, that's pretty cool.

The Craigslist Thrillcam

The Craigslist Thrillcam is a pointless way to waste time, sure, but it's also a view from the Craigslist home office onto 9th Ave by Judah, which is just a few blocks from our apartment, and a street we walk down often.

Movie Review: To Sir, With Love

I'm not entirely sure how we ended up watching this movie. M-N picked it out at the library, but it seems an odd choice.

Sidney Poitier is struggling to get a job as an engineer, so in the meantime he takes a job at a rough school in London, teaching the rejects from other schools. That sounds familiar.

Only, these aren't exactly "Dangerous Minds" or "Stand and Deliver" kids. They look a bit like they're attending their own 10-year reunion. Maybe it's just 1967, but they're the nicest-looking bunch of ruffians I've seen.

Still, Poitier struggles with them, they push him, then he miraculously wins them over, teaching them life lessons and taking them to a museum.

It has its moments. It's not a bad movie. Poitier is a great actor. The same can't exactly be said of "Lulu," one of the students in his class. We discover near the end that she's not just an actress, but a singer as well. And not only that, but she sings the title song, "To Sir, With Love." Also known as "To Sir-r-r, with lo-o-ove."

What's bizarre about the song is that it plays over the opening credits, then THREE times during the movie (including one performance by Lulu herself), then AGAIN over the end credits. And it's not a great movie song, either. Picture Celine Dion's Titanic song FIVE times in that movie, plus Celine Dion appearing as a lead actress (though it'd be fun to see her go down with the ship) -- ok, and if Titanic was under two hours. That means the ratio of the time the song is playing in the movie to the time it isn't playing is so small that you can't help but get the damn thing stuck in your head. I'm not just talking about playing the chorus or the melody -- they play the verses, too.

Somebody either paid a lot for that song, thought it was just great, or owed a huge favor to Lulu's agent.

Book Report: The Pastures of Heaven

Yeah, it's a small picture. That's the cover from the edition I read though. Back when paperbacks cost 60 cents. (How expensive are things? There's no key on the keyboard for the 'cent' sign.)

So anyway, this is John Steinbeck's second book (after Cup of Gold). In it, he tells a bunch of stories that are loosely interconnected about people living in this valley community (near San Francisco) called Las Pasturas Del Cielo, or the Pastures of Heaven.

This one is pleasantly short, but can't quite decide if it wants to be all serious or a mix of serious and whimsical. The problem is, when Steinbeck is serious, he tends to be preachy, moralizing, and heavy-handed. Everything's a signifier (see: Grapes of Wrath). When he's whimsical, he's just writing about interesting characters and their daily adventures (see: Sweet Thursday or, better, the first 2/3 of Cannery Row).

Parts of Pastures of Heaven have interesting characters living interesting lives. There are two women (Maria and Rosa) who make great tortillas and start a Mexican lunch spot in their home, but business is slow, so they begin rewarding anyone who eats three enchiladas with sex. It's not exactly prostitution as much as a twist on a Happy Meal. It's a fun story.

Better, there's a story (a story that itself wanders around for a while before figuring out that it's about) that concerns a guy who loses his wife and is left to raise their son, only the guy is an aimless philosopher/storyteller with no incentive to farm his land. He just sits on a tree branch all day talking about whatever interests him. So he raises the kid to be the same. Eventually, they become the heroes of the schoolyard, and wackiness ensues. What's great in this story is how the boy isn't ostracized at school because his father is essentially a bum and he shows up dirty, barefoot, and poor; rather, the other kids want to emulate him because he's unusual and his father is entertaining and playful.

But then there are many stories that degenerate into formulaic exercises. I guess they're more exercises than formulaic. In his later works, he seemed resigned to Steinbeckian tropes and returned to established patterns of how a story goes (see: East of Eden). In Pastures of Heaven, he was so early in his career that I guess they really are just exercises. They're rough, that's the problem. Sloppy almost. It feels like he just threw together some stories he hadn't quite polished and called it a book (see: the movie Crash).

The book is ideal for reading as I did, in scattered pieces on those days where I took the train to work instead of riding the bike, as continuity isn't essential. I wouldn't recommend reading while riding a bike, especially not in a city, definitely not in a city with big hills and short blocks.

So "Pastures of Heaven" -- I'd give it a few notches above the "Geisha" 'eh' but definitely below my last obscure Steinbeck discovery, The Wayward Bus.

Movie Review: Memoirs of a Geisha

In a "Will & Grace" scene set in a movie theater lobby, Will is standing around when Taye Diggs comes out of a theater at the end of a movie.

Will: Did you just see "Memoirs of a Geisha"?
Taye Diggs: Are all these people walking out going, "Eh"?

M-N just finished the book, so we watched the movie. Apparently, in the book, there are major differences. In fact, I think, in the book the lead role is played by a woman who is actually Japanese, not Chinese.

Like many bad book-to-film adaptations, "Geisha" tries to hard to include everything from the book (which it can never do) and add elements to make it more "cinematic" (which here come off as tired cliches). Worst of all, I was left feeling like the life of a Geisha:

A) Isn't all that bad
B) Isn't all the great
C) Is just, well, eh.

They didn't even manage to make the geishas alluring. Everything just felt rushed, mechanical, and dull.

Maybe if the book wasn't written by a white, American man from Tennessee and directed by a white, American man from Wisconsin, it might have at least had some authenticity to it, instead of dripping with stereotypes. Not stereotypes of Japanese culture, but stereotypes of how movies are supposed to go, old stereotypes, with the too evil to be real villain, too good to be true knight in shining armor, and 'everything will turn out just perfectly for the heroine' theme.

Eh.

Common sense

This was in an AP story today:
"That theater we see, of people taking off shoes, is not going to stop a suicide bomber. The terrorists have already sniffed out the weak spots and are adopting new tactics," said Irish security analyst Tom Clonan, who noted that security measures usually are designed for the last attack, not the next threat.

This reminds me of that John Malkovich/Clint Eastwood movie, "In the Line of Fire." It was kind of a dopey movie, but Malkovich, in attempting to assasinate the president, sneaks a gun into an event by crafting it out of plastic (to get by metal detectors) then breaking it up into pieces (to get by x-rays).

There's always going to be a creative way to get by any security measures. That doesn't mean they should stop screening people, just that they should keep reality in perspective before the draconian laws push people too far. So you break up a terror cell. Great. Then all the people already at the airport that day have to throw out all their bottles and cans -- at least give the people some warning, some options. Or take all those tossed shampoos bottles, sell them on eBay as 'confiscated possible terrorist weaponry,' and buy the people flying some in-flight service.

Come fly with me

Great news! Now you can't take liquids on airplanes!

All those warnings about getting dehydrated on long flights? All those cutbacks on in-flight service leaving you thirsty? Don't worry! At least your plane won't blow up.

So some terrorists planned to make liquid bombs they carried onto planes. Now no one can bring bottled water, shampoo, or that citrus stuff that smells like oranges and gets sticker gunk off on any flights. I love that citrus stuff. It wasn't specifically mentioned in the warnings, and probably can't in any way be used to make a bomb, I was just thinking about it...

Anyway, first the terrorist used little blades, so they banned pocket knives. Then Richard Reid used his shoe, so now I have to take my shoes off every time I go through security. Now this.

I'm just waiting for a terrorist to hide something up his bum or have a fake baby. Then we'll all get rectal probes and the boy will get frisked. Eventually, they're going to ban people from flying. That will certainly shorten the lines at security.

What little fun and enjoyment there ever was in flying is pretty much gone now. It still beats driving a rental truck while towing a car across the mountains and planes. But just barely.

Whose blood is this?

This is the new game I like to play. By 'like to,' I mean 'have to.' And by 'game,' I mean 'awful moment of panic.'

A couple of times over the last month or two, while playing with the boy, I've spotted a touch of blood on my clothes, on a toy, somewhere. Then the race is on. Is it his blood? Is it mine? Has the cat finally lashed out, seeking her ultimate vengeance upon the cruel world?

Last night, he was climbing onto the futon, off the futon, dive-tackling the magazine I was reading, the usual stuff. Then I spotted a speck of blood on my t-shirt. Then on my leg. Then on the toy phone he playing with.

With two adults, this isn't so much a game as a simple, polite conversation:
"Good sir, are you bleeding?"
"Why no, it must be you."
"Oh, what a bother, it is me."
"Whatever might have happened?"
"I seem to have been lanced by a marlin!"
"Bloody hell!"

The boy doesn't take as kindly to such inquiries. One time, when I discovered he actually was the one bleeding, it was his hand. He's learned, through countless attempts at cutting his fingernails, that anytime I want to examine his fingers or hand it's something terrible and he should squirm and plead and running flailing into the night.

After several attempts, I managed to examine both hands, his face, the whole package, and he seemed more or less clean. That's only reassuring to the extent that it's not the child bleeding. There's still blood, and the cat was mysteriously furtive.

But I couldn't place it. Phantom blood - why do you vex me?

I'd like to stay lost, thank you

I'm a big advocate for maximizing my time, hyper-efficiency, crap like that. But I'm also into mindless wastes of time. One occasionally good waste of time is googling my name. I usually come up with old poems, Colby things (though these seem to be disappearing over the last couple of years -- I guess they're erasing any memory of me), and then other members of my family.

But yesterday I found this: SPAN: the State PIRG Alumni Network's page of missing alumni. At first, I thought this was alarming - the PIRG's are searching for me, trying to suck me back in. Then I realized there are about 10,000 former PIRGers on the list (which doesn't say a heckuva lot for their retention rate, does it?) and all of those people are likewise 'lost' (which doesn't say a heckuva lot for their exit interview process).

Speaking of which, that was one of the strangest exit interviews I've ever had. I think it was the only exit int., but still, it was strange. It was over the phone, I was in Denver, the guy was in Boston, I think, or D.C. Anyway, he got very defensive and there was actual shouting involved. I really just left to go be closer to M-N, teach English, leave behind a discombobulated director who spent a little too much time smoking pot while canvassing in New Jersey and saw that as the pinacle of what the PIRGs do, and, well, ok, that's about it.

It was bittersweet, though, to see two of my best friends from that job also on the list. We all left around the same time. One of my friends went to fight wildfires, his dream job. I lost touch with him a couple years ago. Another from the list is just really missing. I checked out the CoPIRG website, and her boyfriend (or former boyfriend, I guess) is still working there, setting some sort of longevity record. Yet she's missing. So now I'm just reminded of our big exodus, but I still don't know where they are.

Weird nostalgia

I was reading the latest issue of our alumni mag from Colby last night, the one in which the boy's birth announcement appears (a mere 12 months after he was born, much like our marriage announcement, except this time they spelled our names correctly).

Whenever I read that magazine, I get this weird nostalgia, remembering how great it was and how much fun I had and how I loved being at Club Colby. Yet I get this feeling while reading the letters from horrible alumni who write with incredible arrogance and obnoxiousness about completely idiotic topics.

In this issue, there was a series of letters responding to an article I didn't read in the last issue where, apparently, an old professor lamented the lack of institutionalized liberalism at the school, reminiscing about the crusades he'd led int he 60s and 70s to make left-wing politics the standard. The letters were the typical smarmy right-wing, Bill O'Reilly, na-na, you lose garbage.

Personally, I don't agree with either side of the argument (despite my suspicions that right-wing philosophy is rooted in pure evil). And what bugs me the most is the condescension dripping from both sides.

Still I found myself fondly remembering the times when I had the same arguments and I was one half of the shouting match (though I tended to write obnoxious arguments, not actually shout them). I look through the class notes and most of the people in there that I remember I remember intensely not liking. I read about members of the administration who I thought were jerks. (Although, it's funny to read about the annual student uprising last spring -- this time they protested Colby's potential investments in companies that do business in Burma, though apparently they didn't check before they staged a demonstration at the trustee's meeting to see exactly which, if any, companies those might be.)

I don't know. I guess I just get nostalgic for the freedom of the atmosphere there, despite realizing how silly most of what I took so seriously was, something that becomes more and more clear as I look back on the younger classes doing the same things.

It was fun being in the bubble for a while.

Movie Review: Crash

I thought it sucked.

That's my short review. I think enough people went into enough detail when this movie first came out and then when it won the Oscar for best picture about how heavy-handed it is. Like an 8th grade history paper, the thesis is stated over the opening credits, then supporting examples (with minimal, implausible connections) are presented, then it sort of trails off at the end into montage sequences.

It's a film that deals openly with race. Sure, great. It has some strong acting. Ok. It also has some bad acting. But worst of all, the writing is awful. I'm not sure if the writer missed any cliches, I doubt it, he might have gotten in a few more if he added a couple more characters.

I also wondered, throughout the movie, if he'd seen Magnolia. There is a growing body of these patchwork movies set in L.A., with too many characters whose lives intersect over the course of a day and they all learn important, Family Ties-style lessons.

I was reminded of Magnolia most of all, because that film also took itself very seriously, had a culminating musical montage sequence, and a bizarre weather moment. Crash, though, just interested me far less.

M-N can cook

When I was staying home with the boy (I feel like I'm saying that too often... like crotchedy old man - "When I was your age..."), anyway, it took me about 5 or 6 months to figure out how to cook some elaborate dinner while keeping him occupied before M-N got home from work.

She seems to have that figured out already. Granted, she was always a better cook than me. She taught me how to read a cookbook, after all.

She's been on a tear over the last couple of weeks. She's made red beans and rice, chicken divan, some chicken/rice/saffron dish, a spaghetti-based stovetop lasagna, and several more. Everything's been awesome. Last night, I made spaghetti and meatballs, as though the meatball recipe I have (via my mother, via my father's grandmother, via Italy), is somehow unique and special. It's really just 6 ingredients. (The sauce, when I take time to make it, though, is something else.)

But I realized last night how nice it's been to come home and smell onions or green peppers frying. We decided last week that we should keep a pan with some olive oil and chopped onions on the stove all the time. There's nothing quite as nice, unless you add some fresh garlic.

I take my bike to the backyard via an enclosed walkway that runs behind our kitchen. So far, I've been able to identify onions, peppers, and pasta -- I think she was a bit surprised that I picked up the smell of pasta, but it definitely has a smell.

Tonight it's leftovers. I don't remember being as excited to eat leftovers.

Our first SF earthquake

That blue box just below Santa Rosa in the picture represents our first SF earthquake. The epicenter was about 40 miles north of SF, but we felt it clearly in our apartment.

It was 8:08 pm and we were hanging out on the floor in the boy's room, in his post-bath, pre-sleep partying slot.

The floor just started swaying back and forth like a big truck or train was going by (except we were in the back of the apt, so it'd have to have been a big truck in our backyard). It lasted maybe 5 seconds.

The USGS says it was between 4.4 and 4.6. That's moderate, with little or no damage.

Still, the only earthquake I'd experienced before was in Maine. There was a 3.0 quake during my sophomore year at Colby. I think b/c we were built on bedrock there, that one just felt like a single bang, with no shaking or swaying.

So, less than two months in and our first tremor. I'm just glad it wasn't a giant, carnivorous earthworm tremor.

Possession

Continuing on the Zipcar theme, I'm realizing more and more the lack of a need to own things. A while ago, some friends posted the link to Pandora - a fantastic internet radio site where you can basically just type in the artists you like and it'll play those artists plus similar-sounding artists.

When I got an iPod, I started selling off my out-of-control cd collection. In SF, I'd been lugging the iPod to the office to listen to music. (I have a $5 clock radio, but for some reason, possibly related to it costing $5, it only gets two bad stations, even on the 4th floor with the antenna out the window -- I bought it to listen to Sox games in the kitchen in MA, where it got their station, but not NPR.)

Now I just use Pandora. It's remarkably simple. If I feel like hearing Erykah Badu, I type her name in, and they play a song by her. I put in a little mix of artists (Badu, John Coltrane, R.E.M., Morphine, etc.) and I now get those artists plus a nice medley of R&B, jazz, and indie rock. In addition to making instant requests, unlike regular radio, I can also skip songs I don't like.

So I don't need a car. I don't need cds. I do need a computer, but that's work. I also need a bike, but at least that's non-polluting. Low tech wheels and high tech radio, that'll be good.

Life without a car

After successfully downsizing from 2 cars to 1 before leaving MA, we're now planning on going from 1 to 0 in SF. We just don't seem to need a car. Having lived most of my life either in the suburbs or in rural areas where car = survival, it's weird to think of not owning one.

But I don't drive to work. I couldn't really if I wanted to - there's no parking downtown. We don't have to drive to run errands, go out to eat, go to the park, anything we do. Everything is in our neighborhood.

Plus, there's Zipcar. We've liked the concept of Zipcar for a while, but now, it seems perfect for us. There's a station less than a block from our apt (and many, many more close to my office). That way, should we need a car, we can borrow a Prius by the hour or day.

Our footprint will be smaller, that's the best part. Also, instead of paying insurance on a car we only get in to move for street cleaning, we'll just pay as we go.

Speaking in Hands

When I stayed at home with the boy, every time I fed him, I showed him the sign language for "eat" and "more." He stared, somewhat blankly, with little sign of comprehension beyond, "The time you take to make those silly gestures is time you're not spooning food into my mouth."

I was patient, though, and kept it up. Still, he never really signed much with me, other than perhaps accidentally. Those baby hands sometimes just go in random directions.

He's been home with M-N for just over a month, if that, and now he's signing constantly. He mastered "more," but now it means "want." He also picked up "bathtime," "sleepy," "mom," "dad," and "The Macarena."

Over the weekend, he signed a complete sentence. He said, "It's time for my bath and then sleep." Ok, so I added some articles, but he showed the logical flow.

I could take credit for laying the foundation of his signing, but M-N is really the pioneer. I think she's moved on and is focusing on ancient Mayan dialects, so he can watch Mel Gibson's new movie and pick up the anti-Semitic slurs.