So said the epicure Brillat-Savarin, and while an ontological argument based on that aphorism would be hard to sustain in many quarters (or so I pray, at any rate: the idea of my body decomposing into lardons of cured pork and boxes of Good-n-Plenty while the walls of my veins leaked Barolo and Amarone into the velvet walls of my coffin strikes far more terror in me than the normal image which -disturbingly, perhaps - doesn't disturb me in the least), and the more transcendent aspects of his musings on gastronomy and gourmandise are equally unsuited to the realities of our present world, the above quote, read entirely wrongly, of course, and viewed through an ethical rather than aesthetic lens, is what I want to get to here today.
(Update 06.12.08: That was really all one sentence. Someone, save me from myself.)
People like to think of globalism as a brand-new phenomenon. And I will admit that with the population of the world so much greater than ever before, every nation or region has a greater impact on others: I have more people producing more waste over here in country X, so there is a greater chance of some of it reaching you in country Y, for example. But the Chinese have been a global power for millennia, over land and by sea. The silver in Chinese coffers plundered by the British opium trade and subsequent wars and concessions was largely from South American mines, while the tea that the British came to love was, as we all know, an ancient part of Chinese gastronomic culture. Marco Polo brought pasta to Italy, and the cotton plantations of the southern United States arose to fill the growing gap between India's long history of production and current need, while the US is now poised in coming years to become the leader in 'hauling coals to Newcastle' quite literally -- not to mention the huge markets of China, India, Russia, as well as many smaller countries in the developing world.
So.
It may have been the case before, but now that the stakes are manifestly higher we admit it more readily: we are all in this together. Even George W. Bush has come to acknowledge that, at least as far as the ozone layer is concerned, human beings can have some kind of corporate and individual impact on the world as a whole. And I believe that food, our use of it, our approach to it, our taking it for granted or choosing to be deliberate in our choices, can be a significant aspect of living up to our values.
Every left-leaning, bunny-hugging simpleton will recite the evils of McDonalds anytime there is a perceptible lapse in conversation. And, in the Northwest at least, anyone desirous of impressing upon his audience the virtuousness of his life and lower intestine will not fail to (re-) state (the obvious:) his unswerving allegiance to the aisles of Whole Foods for all his home cooking and (natural) grooming products needs.
But in the same way that my sending a check every once in a while to Mercy Corps or the Red Cross does not confer something akin to proactive moral immunity, a lifetime's absolution, or mean I thus have carte blanche to perform human sacrifices or set the neighbor's house on fire because I did good elsewhere, trusting a preacher, or a friend, or - for heaven's sake! - a retailer, as gatekeeper for all our individual, specific ethical choices sells our own conscience and powers of rational contemplation short. There simply is no one guidebook containing every possible moral conundrum an individual can face in the moment. And I think that before we can get to 'we are what we eat' in its moral sense, we have first to accept that we are what we do, overall. We are the choices we make, the mistakes we regret, the issues we feel compelled to stand for, and the hand we do or do not offer a suffering soul.
How this all ties in to food, not to mention my enduring and recurrently proven faith in the human voice coming through miles of wires and anonymity and preconceptions, and not forgetting, as well, my own well-deserved humility and willingness to put crow in cream sauce on my own dinner menu when appropriate, will have to wait until next time, as this preamble to what I intended to say is already too long without even having a body yet!
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Friday, May 9, 2008
It Goes On...
This is from the Weather Underground. I wanted to go down today after work and take pictures of the rhododendrons and bonsai at the rhododendron and bonsai gardens in Federal Way. (That's a city, not a manner of doing things, in this state.) But there is no sun. There was what we call here a 'sunbreak,' perhaps even two, but not enough to justify my trek.
I love many things about Seattle. And I think that, despite our thousands of new cookie-cutter condo developments and 'Tuscan' subdevelopments that could just as easily be in Anaheim or Shanghai, there still remains much here to set it apart from other cities of similar size, latitude, demographics, etc. And all you hear about our rainfall is not true: we don't get an extraordinary amount. We are 50-something, I think, in US cities: all the leaders are in the Southeastern United States. What we do get is months upon months of unremitting gloom. It's not especially cold here, either, particularly considering that we're almost in Canada. But what our snuggle with the 49th Parallel does mean is that our winter days are as brief as they should be at this latitude. When you add in the fact that we get none of those glorious brisk sunny days most other people get intermittently through the winter, you are faced with the reality that our lot is a bunch of short dark days: even when the sun is out, it's not, and then it's back to complete darkness at half-past-four or something.
What also have is a lot of bars, and a lot of suicides. But then spring comes, and there is a riot of color everywhere, including every conceivable and comforting shade of green. The streets are lined with cherry blossoms, and rhododendron bushes and trees bloom from white to purple in yards everywhere. By the time the two months of summer are upon us, no one in the Puget Sound region cooks a single meal inside, and it takes triple the time to get anywhere, as all the bridges are up and down constantly to allow for the the thousands of sailboats, accompanied by canoes, kayaks, bowriders, converted liveaboard tugs, dinghies, trawlers on hiatus, and the lamentable cigarette boats to pass under in hoardes. White legs that would shame Dublin are everywhere, not a play is produced or a concert offered, and tourists are the only people eating in restaurants. The failed suicides of February are out at Greenlake in preposterously colored clingy clothes, thirty pounds lighter, completely sober, and practicing asanas with the emotional stability and optimism of any Self-Actualized Man worth his mudra.
It's a shocking way of life.
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| Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday | Monday |
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| Tomorrow is forecast to be Warmer than today. | ||||
I love many things about Seattle. And I think that, despite our thousands of new cookie-cutter condo developments and 'Tuscan' subdevelopments that could just as easily be in Anaheim or Shanghai, there still remains much here to set it apart from other cities of similar size, latitude, demographics, etc. And all you hear about our rainfall is not true: we don't get an extraordinary amount. We are 50-something, I think, in US cities: all the leaders are in the Southeastern United States. What we do get is months upon months of unremitting gloom. It's not especially cold here, either, particularly considering that we're almost in Canada. But what our snuggle with the 49th Parallel does mean is that our winter days are as brief as they should be at this latitude. When you add in the fact that we get none of those glorious brisk sunny days most other people get intermittently through the winter, you are faced with the reality that our lot is a bunch of short dark days: even when the sun is out, it's not, and then it's back to complete darkness at half-past-four or something.
What also have is a lot of bars, and a lot of suicides. But then spring comes, and there is a riot of color everywhere, including every conceivable and comforting shade of green. The streets are lined with cherry blossoms, and rhododendron bushes and trees bloom from white to purple in yards everywhere. By the time the two months of summer are upon us, no one in the Puget Sound region cooks a single meal inside, and it takes triple the time to get anywhere, as all the bridges are up and down constantly to allow for the the thousands of sailboats, accompanied by canoes, kayaks, bowriders, converted liveaboard tugs, dinghies, trawlers on hiatus, and the lamentable cigarette boats to pass under in hoardes. White legs that would shame Dublin are everywhere, not a play is produced or a concert offered, and tourists are the only people eating in restaurants. The failed suicides of February are out at Greenlake in preposterously colored clingy clothes, thirty pounds lighter, completely sober, and practicing asanas with the emotional stability and optimism of any Self-Actualized Man worth his mudra.
It's a shocking way of life.
Featured Guest: Todd
Long time no post.
Sorry about that, dears. After that last rather apocalyptic bit about the death of good buys as we know them, I've been as busy as I have been verklempt. And I'm not saying I have anything to say, nor certainly that I have any answers as to how anyone not in the $450,000-house bracket is supposed to put food on his or her family's Ikea table while still managing to put gas in the Subaru and rent in the landlord's box on time. It's as bad as, and worse than, I intimated.
On the other hand, I've been sad that I haven't found anything to post about. I recently dug someone up from college, which is always great (at least it's always been so for me), but just today someone dug me up, which is even greater as, as you know, I so dislike having to embody the yang any more than I have to. For heaven's sake, I go to a full-service gas station! (Inside information: they don't charge me, either, because I buy all my Diet Cokes and Tums and '5' Flare-flavor gum there!)
So now I feel obliged. And if there is ever anything that motivates me, it is the ponderous weight of responsibility to others. There may be a great number of words in this blog, but there really aren't that many posts. Anyone finding it amusing will quickly realize he or she has come to the end (which is to say the beginning). So, with living proof that someone, somewhere (and better still, someone I know) (well, in a sense, and not the Biblical one) is reading this, I have renewed inspiration - and duty! - to offer to him and to you more jeremiads on the Death of Decorum, the Horror of Calvinism, the Psychic Pain of 'Comfort Clothes,' and, in the words of the current Pope, Benedict XVI, the 'Tyranny of Relativism.'
In the meantime, while you are walking around in your terrifying comfort clothes being relative and not opening doors for ladies, go over to 43Things and think about what you really want to do. I hope one of them turns out to be 'pay for a year of Comcast Internet-and-phone-service for the Greenwood Food Bank' -- because she has one line for her phone, fax, and DIAL-UP!!! Not to mention that her clientele, like that of most other food banks in the area, has risen 30% in just the past couple months.
And while we're on the topic of problems around town, I can't find the figures for this, but: housing prices for King County (Seattle's county) rose last year, while those of counties to the north and south, Snohomish and Pierce, fell. Recalling that gas prices are as prohibitive as they currently are regarding long commutes, it's not an entirely rosy picture for individuals contemplating buying a home in the cheaper suburbs. And, again, if you have money to buy a house in Seattle proper, you'll cut down on your commute but pay a great deal more for your mortgage -- although houses in city should continue to rise in value. Maybe.
However, what of the poor schmucks who bought a house in those same sad suburbs (perhaps enticed by loose lending practices, 5-year ARMS, or 100% funding) two or three or five years ago? Even many of those who did put down cash, and did have enough income to make payments are back down to zero equity on their $300,000 house, which would be a $400,000 house in Seattle, and was a $325 or $350,000 house a few years back.
Grrrr.
Well, that wasn't entertaining in the slightest. I do enjoy making global crises out of shed cat hair and ill-considered lipstick shades, but sometimes the weight of reality is such that it defeats the point of deliberately manufacturing problems when there are so many genuine ones to get sick over.
Sorry about that, dears. After that last rather apocalyptic bit about the death of good buys as we know them, I've been as busy as I have been verklempt. And I'm not saying I have anything to say, nor certainly that I have any answers as to how anyone not in the $450,000-house bracket is supposed to put food on his or her family's Ikea table while still managing to put gas in the Subaru and rent in the landlord's box on time. It's as bad as, and worse than, I intimated.
On the other hand, I've been sad that I haven't found anything to post about. I recently dug someone up from college, which is always great (at least it's always been so for me), but just today someone dug me up, which is even greater as, as you know, I so dislike having to embody the yang any more than I have to. For heaven's sake, I go to a full-service gas station! (Inside information: they don't charge me, either, because I buy all my Diet Cokes and Tums and '5' Flare-flavor gum there!)
So now I feel obliged. And if there is ever anything that motivates me, it is the ponderous weight of responsibility to others. There may be a great number of words in this blog, but there really aren't that many posts. Anyone finding it amusing will quickly realize he or she has come to the end (which is to say the beginning). So, with living proof that someone, somewhere (and better still, someone I know) (well, in a sense, and not the Biblical one) is reading this, I have renewed inspiration - and duty! - to offer to him and to you more jeremiads on the Death of Decorum, the Horror of Calvinism, the Psychic Pain of 'Comfort Clothes,' and, in the words of the current Pope, Benedict XVI, the 'Tyranny of Relativism.'
In the meantime, while you are walking around in your terrifying comfort clothes being relative and not opening doors for ladies, go over to 43Things and think about what you really want to do. I hope one of them turns out to be 'pay for a year of Comcast Internet-and-phone-service for the Greenwood Food Bank' -- because she has one line for her phone, fax, and DIAL-UP!!! Not to mention that her clientele, like that of most other food banks in the area, has risen 30% in just the past couple months.
And while we're on the topic of problems around town, I can't find the figures for this, but: housing prices for King County (Seattle's county) rose last year, while those of counties to the north and south, Snohomish and Pierce, fell. Recalling that gas prices are as prohibitive as they currently are regarding long commutes, it's not an entirely rosy picture for individuals contemplating buying a home in the cheaper suburbs. And, again, if you have money to buy a house in Seattle proper, you'll cut down on your commute but pay a great deal more for your mortgage -- although houses in city should continue to rise in value. Maybe.
However, what of the poor schmucks who bought a house in those same sad suburbs (perhaps enticed by loose lending practices, 5-year ARMS, or 100% funding) two or three or five years ago? Even many of those who did put down cash, and did have enough income to make payments are back down to zero equity on their $300,000 house, which would be a $400,000 house in Seattle, and was a $325 or $350,000 house a few years back.
Grrrr.
Well, that wasn't entertaining in the slightest. I do enjoy making global crises out of shed cat hair and ill-considered lipstick shades, but sometimes the weight of reality is such that it defeats the point of deliberately manufacturing problems when there are so many genuine ones to get sick over.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
'We are not for names, nor men,
nor titles of Government, nor are we for this party nor against the other . . . but we are for justice and mercy and truth and peace and true freedom, that these may be exalted in our nation, and that goodness, righteousness, meekness, temperance, peace, and unity with God and with one another, that these things may abound.' Edward Burrough, 1659
Lately it is increasingly hard to find things to write about on here. It is not the right venue for highly personal things, but things in the world outside my nice little life are now so depressing or frightening that using them for entertainment purposes is well beyond my abilities.
To wit:
Here in the Pacific Northwest, we are not plagued first-hand by the mortgage crisis that bedevils much of the rest of the country (despite its effects being felt globally). Our construction cranes are not as in many other regions idly hanging over never-to-be completed condo developments. Google, Yahoo, Adobe, Boeing, Starbucks, Amazon, Costco, Nordstrom, and Nintendo continue to contribute huge revenue, although we not have a corporate income tax or state income tax, and the nature of the tax structure in the state garners but 3.2% from the income of the state's wealthiest one percent of earners. (17.6 for the poorest fifth, as an aside.)
As a region, we are doing just fine, thank you. Washington has the 16th highest median income, and our minimum wage, $7.93 per hour, is among the highest in the country. Nonetheless, some 30% of Washington households are described as low income by the Economic Policy Institute. Moreover, the figures for Washington mirror that of the country as a whole in that slightly under 40% of those households needing assistance for food are households with children. Together children and seniors make up approximately 55% of food bank constituency.
Our local gas prices exceed the national average, with some areas having exceeded $4.15 at the trend's peak. Currently within the city of Seattle prices range from about $3.27 to $3.59. Figures for 2007 report that the median price of a house in Seattle was $450,000. Prices in neighboring counties are lower, but their one-year appreciation rates in 2007 exceeded those within the city of Seattle. The cost of living in Seattle is approximately 8% higher than the national average. An hour commute has become the norm, as lower-income workers are forced to live outside the city limits -- but gas prices continue to rise, and Metro, Seattle's public transit authority, has had to add a $.25 fuel surcharge to the cost of each ride. Meanwhile, while condo developments are being constructed all around the city and suburbs and can sometimes be had for less than the price of a single-family home, many more are being fashioned from what were much more affordable apartment buildings.
The conundrum for me is, if rent/mortgage claims the biggest chunk of income as it traditionally has for most families, and transportation also claims the largest share, not to mention food costs needing a solid 55 or 60% of the same pie, who or where is the mathematician who can tell families how to slice up what doesn't exist? I can't imagine the thousand dollars being sent to each taxpaying household this spring will provide either much illumination or succor - nor will it even pay a month's rent in most of Seattle.
Lately it is increasingly hard to find things to write about on here. It is not the right venue for highly personal things, but things in the world outside my nice little life are now so depressing or frightening that using them for entertainment purposes is well beyond my abilities.
To wit:
- Three airlines went under this week.
- The national unemployment rate is now over 5 percent, after the third month of rising unemployment and a loss of 80,000 jobs in March.
- 914,000 jobs were lost over the past 12 months, for a total of 7.8 million unemployed.
- Consumer prices over the last year have outstripped increases in wages.
- The 2008 deficit is $410 billion, not the paltry $239 billion Bush predicted in his budget request.
- Global retail grocery prices have risen 40% over a year, with some items up even more.
- Wheat is up 100 % over a year ago; soybeans 75%.
- Corn, which ends up in everything from beef to batteries and diapers to dessert, has tripled in price since 2005.
- The World Bank reports that worldwide, overall food prices have risen 75% since 2000.
- UN-FAO notes the shocking spike in cost of dairy products specifically, as well as the increased and more durable price volatility of edible commodities as they increasingly take cues from other markets and global issues.
- Despite a surplus in US dairy products and a retreat from the height of the spike, dairy prices continue to be far higher (as much as 80%) than a year ago.
Here in the Pacific Northwest, we are not plagued first-hand by the mortgage crisis that bedevils much of the rest of the country (despite its effects being felt globally). Our construction cranes are not as in many other regions idly hanging over never-to-be completed condo developments. Google, Yahoo, Adobe, Boeing, Starbucks, Amazon, Costco, Nordstrom, and Nintendo continue to contribute huge revenue, although we not have a corporate income tax or state income tax, and the nature of the tax structure in the state garners but 3.2% from the income of the state's wealthiest one percent of earners. (17.6 for the poorest fifth, as an aside.)
As a region, we are doing just fine, thank you. Washington has the 16th highest median income, and our minimum wage, $7.93 per hour, is among the highest in the country. Nonetheless, some 30% of Washington households are described as low income by the Economic Policy Institute. Moreover, the figures for Washington mirror that of the country as a whole in that slightly under 40% of those households needing assistance for food are households with children. Together children and seniors make up approximately 55% of food bank constituency.
Our local gas prices exceed the national average, with some areas having exceeded $4.15 at the trend's peak. Currently within the city of Seattle prices range from about $3.27 to $3.59. Figures for 2007 report that the median price of a house in Seattle was $450,000. Prices in neighboring counties are lower, but their one-year appreciation rates in 2007 exceeded those within the city of Seattle. The cost of living in Seattle is approximately 8% higher than the national average. An hour commute has become the norm, as lower-income workers are forced to live outside the city limits -- but gas prices continue to rise, and Metro, Seattle's public transit authority, has had to add a $.25 fuel surcharge to the cost of each ride. Meanwhile, while condo developments are being constructed all around the city and suburbs and can sometimes be had for less than the price of a single-family home, many more are being fashioned from what were much more affordable apartment buildings.
The conundrum for me is, if rent/mortgage claims the biggest chunk of income as it traditionally has for most families, and transportation also claims the largest share, not to mention food costs needing a solid 55 or 60% of the same pie, who or where is the mathematician who can tell families how to slice up what doesn't exist? I can't imagine the thousand dollars being sent to each taxpaying household this spring will provide either much illumination or succor - nor will it even pay a month's rent in most of Seattle.
Monday, March 31, 2008
'Or new love pine at them beyond tomorrow'
'A hard drinker, being at the table, was offered grapes for dessert. "Thank you," said he, pushing the dish away from him, "but I am not in the habit of taking my wine in pills.' -- Brillat-Savarin, who might well himself have pushed aside a few grapes now and then in favor of their liquid form.
Today was a slow day. I went to church, did some paperwork, contemplated doing tax paperwork, forgot to buy batteries at the store, made the mistake of trying an unknown Indian place, and actually drank white wine. What's more, I enjoyed it thoroughly. A 2005 Feudi Greco di Tufo, a famous variety in the first century, when a thwarted lover was moved to scrawl the following on a fresco in Pompeii:
'You are truly cold, Bytis, made of ice, if last night even Greco wine could not warm you up.'
In my case i am not sure if it was the Greco, or the space heater I keep tucked under my desk, or the excitement of learning more about, and doing more with, another volunteer position this week, but I'll agree with the lovelorn graffitist that it is a truly enjoyable wine. And it is good to get out of the confines of one's prejudices. Alright, I still haven't had the courage to tackle a thundering California cabernet, but I will; I will.
Note to self: Stop using 'thundering,' 'varlet,' 'gamboge,' and 'admittedly.' Broken heels also overdone as personal tragedy trope.
I also ordered a couple books from Amazon, but I really ordered the same book twice. The book I was least crazy to read, as it turns out. I thought I had just sent one of them to my 'cart.' Apparently - as is so often the case - I was mistaken. No names, though, no names; but if you are in need of a one-volume literary grab-bag, then by all means write. (It's not the Agamben or the Josipovici - or even the Nancy. It's something very much in the 'other' column. So be advised. But perhaps, only getting one of them, you'll be less disappointed than I will with two?)
Update 5/8: I figured out how to 'return' before it was sent one of the volumes of the volume I only wanted one of. You get to send a note, too, which helps my guilty conscience: Deepest apologies for all inconvenience; lamentable state of perpetual incompetence; certain it and all your wares of highest quality and greatest importance; just don't need two of any and Thanks.
Same update: the book is really good! If only I had a second copy I'd read it again, I'm sure!
Today was a slow day. I went to church, did some paperwork, contemplated doing tax paperwork, forgot to buy batteries at the store, made the mistake of trying an unknown Indian place, and actually drank white wine. What's more, I enjoyed it thoroughly. A 2005 Feudi Greco di Tufo, a famous variety in the first century, when a thwarted lover was moved to scrawl the following on a fresco in Pompeii:
'You are truly cold, Bytis, made of ice, if last night even Greco wine could not warm you up.'
In my case i am not sure if it was the Greco, or the space heater I keep tucked under my desk, or the excitement of learning more about, and doing more with, another volunteer position this week, but I'll agree with the lovelorn graffitist that it is a truly enjoyable wine. And it is good to get out of the confines of one's prejudices. Alright, I still haven't had the courage to tackle a thundering California cabernet, but I will; I will.
Note to self: Stop using 'thundering,' 'varlet,' 'gamboge,' and 'admittedly.' Broken heels also overdone as personal tragedy trope.
I also ordered a couple books from Amazon, but I really ordered the same book twice. The book I was least crazy to read, as it turns out. I thought I had just sent one of them to my 'cart.' Apparently - as is so often the case - I was mistaken. No names, though, no names; but if you are in need of a one-volume literary grab-bag, then by all means write. (It's not the Agamben or the Josipovici - or even the Nancy. It's something very much in the 'other' column. So be advised. But perhaps, only getting one of them, you'll be less disappointed than I will with two?)
Update 5/8: I figured out how to 'return' before it was sent one of the volumes of the volume I only wanted one of. You get to send a note, too, which helps my guilty conscience: Deepest apologies for all inconvenience; lamentable state of perpetual incompetence; certain it and all your wares of highest quality and greatest importance; just don't need two of any and Thanks.
Same update: the book is really good! If only I had a second copy I'd read it again, I'm sure!
Sunday, March 30, 2008
'Joy Is Not in Things; It Is in Us,'
said Richard Wagner and perhaps, in his staunch Teutonicity, dying in Venice sufficed and he never regretted not having built a 'sun-drenched Tuscan villa' in Bayreuth. It doesn't matter; it isn't 'Tuscany' that is the problem. The houses, and their bathrooms, and their greatrooms, their wall treatments, thematic toilet-brush holders, disguised three-car garages, incongruous media centers and 'authentic details' could all equally well be replaced by 'Hobbit' or 'Siheyuan' or 'Iroquois Longhouse' style with the principle remaining the same. Part of the problem, as I mentioned before, is the lack of hope these buildings signify, but there are other disturbing aspects.
Yes, in a perverse sense, these homes are all about hope, or American optimism, at least in its basest form. They are a testament to material success, to the fulfillment, in all caps, of The American Dream of home ownership. But what appears to me bleak in this reading is the notion that anyone's American Dream reaches its dramatic finale in a tract home rather than an alpaca farm in the mountains or a high-tech ultra-green penthouse condo or a craftsman bungalow with a beautifully, lovingly, tended garden. Your visitors will know you have money -- but will they suspect you have a soul?
A more troubling aspect for me is that the 'Tuscan' home and all its necessary 'Tuscan' appurtenances represent the recent widespread conflation of 'lifestyle' with Life, which then gave rise to the current tendency to disprivilege or ignore the latter in favor of the more comprehensible and convenient former. The problem with Life, I suspect, is that invariably it must be lived. We fall into it sodden with drool and incontinence, often leave it in much the same manner, and in between --
Well, in between we stammer at countless beginnings, stare at the creeping minute hand through lots of tedious middles and cry to ourselves over unfortunate endings; we get punched, sacked, ridiculed, betrayed, lied to, and cut off mid-sentence just before brilliant ripostes. We give our hearts away, we sing babies to sleep, we take up astronomy, then Jung, then Uilleann pipes; we take photographs lest we forget it really was just that beautiful, once. We have one too many, we don't get the promotion, we sit on the edge of the dance floor waiting; we practice kissing with a pillow and proposing with a mirror, we sometimes get the girl and we sometimes get the grippe.
None of that can be purchased. Much of it wouldn't be a very good deal, anyway, at any price, and I suppose that is the point: better to try to ignore it, and then perhaps the breathtaking crescendo of life, what all those clogged sinuses and broken heels and soothing kisses have been leading up to - death, in other words - might get distracted and not disturb us, after all. Life can be boring, painful, taxing, and too long or too short. And it always ends poorly.
Lifestyle, by contrast, is a narrative the user can control. It begins and ends as you wish, and you can leave out any of the parts that don't suit your desired image. Lifestyle, moreover, is nothing but a commodity, and an imaginary one at that. It consists in the things a consumer buys to convey to others and to himself the persona he wishes to inhabit. It is cosmetic surgery for your life, and just as there is a code of conduct regarding what should and should not be said to the obviously pulled, pleated, and plumped, so, too, will your posture as suburbia-dwelling daimyo, pasha, doge, or Indian Chief remain unquestioned by your neighbors. After all, you didn't neglect to include thematic outlet covers.
I suppose part of the problem for me is that it's just all so rickety. They are in the main not nice houses, just expensive ones. The majority tend to have a distinctly Disney feel, as though around the next cul-de-sac our little boat will sail past Olde Siam. There is an attempt at wholesale replication on the one hand, and a jarring failure in execution on the other. Neither is appealing; both together are horrifying. All art incorporates older elements, some art cross-cultural references; nothing man-made can ever be wholly new. That fact notwithstanding, history, geography, and culture along with form give a work its content, its meaning. The meaning of these tract homes is simply 'Tuscan sells.'
Why is that more troubling than an older neighborhood filled with bungalows or ranch-style homes? Are not all houses, since the dawn of modern real estate, designed to sell, to appeal to the buying public? And what's more, was not the Atomic Age as executed in the American home a perfectly articulated lifestyle, as detailed and complete as the 'Tuscan' variety, down to its Saturn-shaped lamps, spiky, Sputnik table legs, and galactic-design curtain fabrics?
Okay, yes, in theory, but in the case of the 1950s, few people kitted out their entire house in space-age furnishings, and there were plenty of other 1950s looks that mixed with the outright futuristic ones harmoniously. One could have an up-to-the-minute television lamp atop a table from 1947 with no grave sensation of aesthetic malaise nor expectation of scorn from the neighbors. Additionally, the house would not come with an actual satellite in the front yard, which is as good an equivalent as I can imagine for faux-cracked walls, faux-aged fake beams, faux-ruined paint jobs, and murals in the toilet of someplace you are not but which the entire house contrives to make you believe you are. And, yes, too, houses and minimalls and BP stations reflect the aesthetics of the time, but there is the additional problem that the aesthetics of earlier times demanded better craftsmanship and genuine materials. Moreover, people bought furniture differently decades ago, as companies realized they could sell more over time if they offered 'sets' that could be acquired slowly as finances allowed: even the counterparts of today's neo-Tuscans would not have bought a whole new household worth of thematically-congruent furniture, appliances, and accessories when they moved up in the world and bought a better house.
Lastly, 1950s style didn't seem thematic in the 1950s, because it wasn't thematic. It was simply up-to-date. Muddled, forced and fauxed tract-home half-iterations of a Tuscan fantasy lifestyle seem tragic to me because they hold out a series of promises they can never keep. The garish, kooky exuberance of Atomic Age decor cohabited in its enthusiasts' hearts with the very real fear of nuclear annihilation. Gratitude for the end of the War was balanced with the grim knowledge of how the War ended and what that could portend for future conflicts. Satellite table lamp and cars shaped like rockets were symbols not only of the power of technology, but of the hope that with proper stewardship it would lead humanity to more good than ill. It hurts my soul to contemplate the hopes these McMansions encapsulate.
Yes, in a perverse sense, these homes are all about hope, or American optimism, at least in its basest form. They are a testament to material success, to the fulfillment, in all caps, of The American Dream of home ownership. But what appears to me bleak in this reading is the notion that anyone's American Dream reaches its dramatic finale in a tract home rather than an alpaca farm in the mountains or a high-tech ultra-green penthouse condo or a craftsman bungalow with a beautifully, lovingly, tended garden. Your visitors will know you have money -- but will they suspect you have a soul?
A more troubling aspect for me is that the 'Tuscan' home and all its necessary 'Tuscan' appurtenances represent the recent widespread conflation of 'lifestyle' with Life, which then gave rise to the current tendency to disprivilege or ignore the latter in favor of the more comprehensible and convenient former. The problem with Life, I suspect, is that invariably it must be lived. We fall into it sodden with drool and incontinence, often leave it in much the same manner, and in between --
Well, in between we stammer at countless beginnings, stare at the creeping minute hand through lots of tedious middles and cry to ourselves over unfortunate endings; we get punched, sacked, ridiculed, betrayed, lied to, and cut off mid-sentence just before brilliant ripostes. We give our hearts away, we sing babies to sleep, we take up astronomy, then Jung, then Uilleann pipes; we take photographs lest we forget it really was just that beautiful, once. We have one too many, we don't get the promotion, we sit on the edge of the dance floor waiting; we practice kissing with a pillow and proposing with a mirror, we sometimes get the girl and we sometimes get the grippe.
None of that can be purchased. Much of it wouldn't be a very good deal, anyway, at any price, and I suppose that is the point: better to try to ignore it, and then perhaps the breathtaking crescendo of life, what all those clogged sinuses and broken heels and soothing kisses have been leading up to - death, in other words - might get distracted and not disturb us, after all. Life can be boring, painful, taxing, and too long or too short. And it always ends poorly.
Lifestyle, by contrast, is a narrative the user can control. It begins and ends as you wish, and you can leave out any of the parts that don't suit your desired image. Lifestyle, moreover, is nothing but a commodity, and an imaginary one at that. It consists in the things a consumer buys to convey to others and to himself the persona he wishes to inhabit. It is cosmetic surgery for your life, and just as there is a code of conduct regarding what should and should not be said to the obviously pulled, pleated, and plumped, so, too, will your posture as suburbia-dwelling daimyo, pasha, doge, or Indian Chief remain unquestioned by your neighbors. After all, you didn't neglect to include thematic outlet covers.
I suppose part of the problem for me is that it's just all so rickety. They are in the main not nice houses, just expensive ones. The majority tend to have a distinctly Disney feel, as though around the next cul-de-sac our little boat will sail past Olde Siam. There is an attempt at wholesale replication on the one hand, and a jarring failure in execution on the other. Neither is appealing; both together are horrifying. All art incorporates older elements, some art cross-cultural references; nothing man-made can ever be wholly new. That fact notwithstanding, history, geography, and culture along with form give a work its content, its meaning. The meaning of these tract homes is simply 'Tuscan sells.'
Why is that more troubling than an older neighborhood filled with bungalows or ranch-style homes? Are not all houses, since the dawn of modern real estate, designed to sell, to appeal to the buying public? And what's more, was not the Atomic Age as executed in the American home a perfectly articulated lifestyle, as detailed and complete as the 'Tuscan' variety, down to its Saturn-shaped lamps, spiky, Sputnik table legs, and galactic-design curtain fabrics?
Okay, yes, in theory, but in the case of the 1950s, few people kitted out their entire house in space-age furnishings, and there were plenty of other 1950s looks that mixed with the outright futuristic ones harmoniously. One could have an up-to-the-minute television lamp atop a table from 1947 with no grave sensation of aesthetic malaise nor expectation of scorn from the neighbors. Additionally, the house would not come with an actual satellite in the front yard, which is as good an equivalent as I can imagine for faux-cracked walls, faux-aged fake beams, faux-ruined paint jobs, and murals in the toilet of someplace you are not but which the entire house contrives to make you believe you are. And, yes, too, houses and minimalls and BP stations reflect the aesthetics of the time, but there is the additional problem that the aesthetics of earlier times demanded better craftsmanship and genuine materials. Moreover, people bought furniture differently decades ago, as companies realized they could sell more over time if they offered 'sets' that could be acquired slowly as finances allowed: even the counterparts of today's neo-Tuscans would not have bought a whole new household worth of thematically-congruent furniture, appliances, and accessories when they moved up in the world and bought a better house.
Lastly, 1950s style didn't seem thematic in the 1950s, because it wasn't thematic. It was simply up-to-date. Muddled, forced and fauxed tract-home half-iterations of a Tuscan fantasy lifestyle seem tragic to me because they hold out a series of promises they can never keep. The garish, kooky exuberance of Atomic Age decor cohabited in its enthusiasts' hearts with the very real fear of nuclear annihilation. Gratitude for the end of the War was balanced with the grim knowledge of how the War ended and what that could portend for future conflicts. Satellite table lamp and cars shaped like rockets were symbols not only of the power of technology, but of the hope that with proper stewardship it would lead humanity to more good than ill. It hurts my soul to contemplate the hopes these McMansions encapsulate.
Coming Soon: 'The Birth of Venus' on Your Toilet Seat!
Oh, dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, dear, dear. It is not as though it is inconceivable. No, indeed; not in the slightest. Absolutely to be expected, in fact. And, had I troubled myself to think about it, I should definitely both have conceived and expected it. No questions asked, no surprises whatever. One would not be far off to call it ineluctable.
But the fact is that, as with so many other distasteful and frightening things, I rightly - righteously! - keep my delicate soul from straying into such foul places when possible. It is a great stretch to say I am blissfully ignorant of the ills plaguing this world; it is rather the case that I must cultivate what ignorance I can in order merely to sustain the crudest emotional equilibrium, in order not to plunge a 'French Provincial' rooster-shaped carving knife into my jaded heart, or attempt futilely, yet again, to impale myself on a 'shabby chic/Paris apartment' Eiffel-Tower-motif pepper grinder.
But here (and I swear I was looking for something else; you must believe me; I am not a masochist, nor do I enjoy inflicting this sort of thing on you!) on Design Observer I couldn't help but read every last letter, and linger over every last plaintive semi-colon, of a heart-rending account of those Tuscan varlets' invasion of solid, stolid - and hitherto predictably 'Spanish'/neo-rancho in its design choices for suburban subdevelopments - Orange County, California. Tuscany already has the Renaissance, Michelangelo, Dante, da Vinci, Botticelli, Brunello, Vino Nobile, and Chianti. It doesn't need to annex the whole bloody United States (not to mention parts of China, too!).
Look, I understand if postmodernism scared off a few people, looked a bit jarring, felt a bit dislocating. And I for one don't ever need to see another purportedly postmodern BP station, I assure you. However, at least postmodernism was inquisitive. At least it involved thought. At least it was, well, not inherently dishonest, not an impoverished, anemic, false, wheezy new version of a distinctive, geographically specific older thing.
You can object that 'thought' and 'inquisitiveness' are not exactly what most people are looking for in a bedroom or latrine, but I fail to see the superlative soothing powers of pseudo-Tuscan kitsch. Granted, I am not the sort who wishes to stay in the 'Jungle Room' or 'Circus Room,' either, or indeed find myself in the sort of hotel that has such things, but as Ms. Wild correctly points out,
'Perhaps it is not so much styles per se, and "Tuscan" in particular, that I am whining about, but the transformation of styles generated from the heart and the brain that actually contained meaning, to lifestyles generated by highly paid marketers and branders that are deliberately emptied out of meaning.'
It could even be argued that the Jungle Rooms of this world, coming from the (admittedly kitsch-riddled) heart as they do, do contain meaning, because they are an expression of someone's honest desire. The only desire the faux Tuscan McMansions of the world express is the vulgarian's desire to seem cultured, rich, and stylish: Nabokov's poshlust, in other words:
'Russians have, or had, a special name for smug philistinism—poshlust. Poshlism is not only the obviously trashy but mainly the falsely important, the falsely beautiful, the falsely clever, the falsely attractive. To apply the deadly label of poshlism to something is not only an aesthetic judgment but also a moral indictment. The genuine, the guileless, the good is never poshlust. It is possible to maintain that a simple, uncivilized man is seldom if ever a poshlust since poshlism presupposes the veneer of civilization. A peasant has to become a townsman in order to become vulgar. A painted necktie has to hide the honest Adam's apple in order to produce poshlism.'
I would also concur with Ms. Wild that the variety of anachronisms and other discontinuities that inhere in such endeavors as tracts of 'Tuscan' homes irritate rather than soothe in my case:
'The appearance of this faux Italianate style (tile roofs, stucco walls, shuttered windows and crenellated corners) is not all that different from the "Spanish" but it seems a world away from the coherency of the rancho house. This is not helped by the fact that the new construction in this style is generally too big and proportioned poorly, and made of materials that are veneers, blatantly more contemporary than the image that they are constructing. Real Tuscan villas possess a sort of laconic elegance from their relatively unornamented rustic style: the rough hewn here is more of the Home Depot "I forgot" variety. And the houses sport "great rooms" and "master bedroom suites" and beveled or stained glass windows and brass fixtures that no Tuscan house ever witnessed.'
I need to be more careful in my browsing, more judicious in my reading. Heaven knows the sort of permanent damage that could befall my psyche should I continue to encounter such troubling stories.
But the fact is that, as with so many other distasteful and frightening things, I rightly - righteously! - keep my delicate soul from straying into such foul places when possible. It is a great stretch to say I am blissfully ignorant of the ills plaguing this world; it is rather the case that I must cultivate what ignorance I can in order merely to sustain the crudest emotional equilibrium, in order not to plunge a 'French Provincial' rooster-shaped carving knife into my jaded heart, or attempt futilely, yet again, to impale myself on a 'shabby chic/Paris apartment' Eiffel-Tower-motif pepper grinder.
But here (and I swear I was looking for something else; you must believe me; I am not a masochist, nor do I enjoy inflicting this sort of thing on you!) on Design Observer I couldn't help but read every last letter, and linger over every last plaintive semi-colon, of a heart-rending account of those Tuscan varlets' invasion of solid, stolid - and hitherto predictably 'Spanish'/neo-rancho in its design choices for suburban subdevelopments - Orange County, California. Tuscany already has the Renaissance, Michelangelo, Dante, da Vinci, Botticelli, Brunello, Vino Nobile, and Chianti. It doesn't need to annex the whole bloody United States (not to mention parts of China, too!).
Look, I understand if postmodernism scared off a few people, looked a bit jarring, felt a bit dislocating. And I for one don't ever need to see another purportedly postmodern BP station, I assure you. However, at least postmodernism was inquisitive. At least it involved thought. At least it was, well, not inherently dishonest, not an impoverished, anemic, false, wheezy new version of a distinctive, geographically specific older thing.
You can object that 'thought' and 'inquisitiveness' are not exactly what most people are looking for in a bedroom or latrine, but I fail to see the superlative soothing powers of pseudo-Tuscan kitsch. Granted, I am not the sort who wishes to stay in the 'Jungle Room' or 'Circus Room,' either, or indeed find myself in the sort of hotel that has such things, but as Ms. Wild correctly points out,
'Perhaps it is not so much styles per se, and "Tuscan" in particular, that I am whining about, but the transformation of styles generated from the heart and the brain that actually contained meaning, to lifestyles generated by highly paid marketers and branders that are deliberately emptied out of meaning.'
It could even be argued that the Jungle Rooms of this world, coming from the (admittedly kitsch-riddled) heart as they do, do contain meaning, because they are an expression of someone's honest desire. The only desire the faux Tuscan McMansions of the world express is the vulgarian's desire to seem cultured, rich, and stylish: Nabokov's poshlust, in other words:
'Russians have, or had, a special name for smug philistinism—poshlust. Poshlism is not only the obviously trashy but mainly the falsely important, the falsely beautiful, the falsely clever, the falsely attractive. To apply the deadly label of poshlism to something is not only an aesthetic judgment but also a moral indictment. The genuine, the guileless, the good is never poshlust. It is possible to maintain that a simple, uncivilized man is seldom if ever a poshlust since poshlism presupposes the veneer of civilization. A peasant has to become a townsman in order to become vulgar. A painted necktie has to hide the honest Adam's apple in order to produce poshlism.'
I would also concur with Ms. Wild that the variety of anachronisms and other discontinuities that inhere in such endeavors as tracts of 'Tuscan' homes irritate rather than soothe in my case:
'The appearance of this faux Italianate style (tile roofs, stucco walls, shuttered windows and crenellated corners) is not all that different from the "Spanish" but it seems a world away from the coherency of the rancho house. This is not helped by the fact that the new construction in this style is generally too big and proportioned poorly, and made of materials that are veneers, blatantly more contemporary than the image that they are constructing. Real Tuscan villas possess a sort of laconic elegance from their relatively unornamented rustic style: the rough hewn here is more of the Home Depot "I forgot" variety. And the houses sport "great rooms" and "master bedroom suites" and beveled or stained glass windows and brass fixtures that no Tuscan house ever witnessed.'
I need to be more careful in my browsing, more judicious in my reading. Heaven knows the sort of permanent damage that could befall my psyche should I continue to encounter such troubling stories.
Glowing Balls of Wisdom
The post a couple days back looks like I'm accusing Ron Reagan, Salman Rushdie, and Georg Lichtenberg of being unthinky atheists. It's really just because while I could get them aligned right to left in the box as I wrote, and thus format the pictures spatially where it made sense with the text, Lichtenberg would crawl all over Rushdie once I posted. Not being a gay man, it was more perplexing than hot. (Not that I am accusing the gay world of having crushes on Salman Rushdie and Georg Lichtenberg, mind you; the world may be a strange place, but I don't think it is that strange.)
Had the post gone as I had wished, i.e., had my formatting prowess been simply sub-par rather than hideously, unfathomably, preternatually low, then under 'devout atheist' in pink the three would have been arrayed left to right, with Lichtenberg and his glowing ball in the middle. Then and only then would have come the stuff about being reactionary and anti-reason. Unlike Seattle weather, my technological abilities will - quite often, really - cease to amaze.
Had the post gone as I had wished, i.e., had my formatting prowess been simply sub-par rather than hideously, unfathomably, preternatually low, then under 'devout atheist' in pink the three would have been arrayed left to right, with Lichtenberg and his glowing ball in the middle. Then and only then would have come the stuff about being reactionary and anti-reason. Unlike Seattle weather, my technological abilities will - quite often, really - cease to amaze.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot
Temperatures throughout the Seattle-Tacoma area are expected to stay above freezing in most parts tonight! (Not unlike today,) snow tomorrow will likely be confined to elevations above 300 feet.
So far, the 'tomorrow' part of that has subjected us only to grey skies. The clouds, at least, don't seem to have that gamboge backlighting that usually heralds imminent snow. But we'll see - I'm not trusting anyone these days in the atmospheric-sciences realm, least of all the atmosphere itself.
So far, the 'tomorrow' part of that has subjected us only to grey skies. The clouds, at least, don't seem to have that gamboge backlighting that usually heralds imminent snow. But we'll see - I'm not trusting anyone these days in the atmospheric-sciences realm, least of all the atmosphere itself.
Gay Post #3 (Don't Worry Mom; I Still Only Love Michael Bywater. I Swear.)
Well, I couldn't be more excited. Headbang8 of the Deutschland űber Elvis (still here) blog blogrolled me after my lauding his witty recounting of an uncomfortable encounter with the Deutschlandisch police. I'm tickled, well, pink, I guess, not only because that's my only chromatic option in that cliche, but also because his blog is by turns very funny and well-thought-out, and he is as gay as my gay exhusband. Which I suppose means nothing other than that if I were gay, we'd have that in common, and that pink is somehow therefore apposite. A tenuous link, but one I'm more than happy to grasp at. Plus, even though he is a devout atheist, 
he is not one of those stinky, unthinky kinds who are as dull as their religious-fundamentalist counterparts: he asks questions, as all good believers and non-believers alike should do. (As opposed to just the people in between, who seem to be the only ones consistently and reliably to have no problem doing that!) (Which makes the religion question different from, and in fact less prickly than, the musical theatre one, as there are no agnostics with regard to that particular cultural phenomenon.)
Anyway, I so routinely experience near-meltdowns while tackling technological issues (notice my sorry excuse for an umlauted u above and you'll get the picture; other than the MS Character Set, and pillaging them from other sites, I don't know how to get one up on Blogger) and forget what I am doing halfway through, that I at some point abandoned giving the descriptions of sites I like, or even separating the list into categories. Mr. 8, however, apparently encounters no such difficulties routinely, and therefore appended a brief description of me to his link.What he put as his description was 'very, very well read,' so I put a different version of the Unamuno header up to substantiate that accusation. Of course, that required some mind-bending, positively deadly HTML, much hand-wringing, and forty-five minutes of crying into the neighbor's cat's fur, not to mention the fact that I destroyed my carefully-crafted color scheme and now have to put the blog name and rotating blog description in black in order that they be seen over the too-variable hues of the picture. I also tried black-and-whiting versions of the previous blue-and-red header so that I wouldn't wreck the color scheme, but it looked wrong with all the colored photos around.
Anyway #2, I don't really know what I think of a complete stranger encapsulating me as 'very well read.' Of course, he is gay, so 'gorgeously well read' is perhaps hoping for a bit much. After all, I look nothing like Celine Dion (I'm sorry, gay people; I know it's a cheap shot, but I can't help it any more than I can tolerate her mincing anorexic-motherhood persona), so what would he know? I am so much more, of course: poor driver, good cook, bad hairstylist, great decorator, inept photographer, skilled volunteer, terrible flyer, cloying writer.
---Nuts! I have to go! I feel a song coming on!
Friday, March 28, 2008
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Gaeity Girls and Those Who Love Them
Well, fine, I'm on a (gay) roll with inexplicably yogurt-loving, antisocial lesbians. I came upon this brilliant old (last October) post on Deutschland ȕber Elvis about attempting to teach irony to German police, while looking for something totally different (Schoenberg somethingsomething, if you care). The story is great, it's well told, and I can viscerally relate to odd encounters with traffic cops.
However.
What I want to know is why do The Gay People love the musical theatre? And, once we've figured that out, why don't The Straight People, and why don't The Lesbians (whatever side of the yogurt fence they stand on)?
My exhusband is gay, so rest assured I have even less insight than the straightest of all other straight people. Clearly. All I can tell you is that he seemed ungay enough for me to marry him and, looking back on his lax attitude to home furnishings and clothing, not to mention his complete silence on hot guys and ideal gay vacation spots at the time, the only thing I can look back on with any sort of reasonable self-accusation is his fondness for the musical theatre.
And, boy, did he love it!
Whereas, I and my lesbian and inveterately heterosexual friends will never be persuaded to care at all where precisely it is that the wind (allegedly) goes sweeping down the plains. The less advanced of our two races easily get Lerner and Loewe confused with Leopold and his friend! Apart from a sentimental fondness for Marlene Dietrich resulting in casual knowledge of a few too many 1930s cabaret songs and Holländer riffs, and possibly here and there a cruel delight in the spectacle of Marlon Brando breaking into 'song' with no defensible narrative impetus, we just don't care. And we can't be made to.
Yes, I admit I crank up the Kurt Weill every so often, but it's only ever the Brecht-Weill, and it's never Teresa Stratas; I never forget myself and let things slip into Gilbert and Andrew Lloyd Anything. And if ever there were an argument that from the very start Gays Are Gays and the Rest Is Rest, it is to be found at the crucible of Musical Theatre. If we can have a Nalgene, we can certainly have a Gay Gene, and if little Jake or Tyler or Ronan knows what the Hills Are Alive with, and whether or not there is One Maiden Breast (Oh!) and can sing a musical list of Argentinean place-names before he knows whether to pass the Phillips head or the hex bit when Daddy is again sandwiched between the Ikea sofa and the Crate and Barrel rug, then the fight should be over, the debate won, and all the gay men and their straight female friends should retreat to their corner in victory (and eat celebratory yogurt to the strains of 'Gypsy' or 'Cats,' erroneously convinced that they are too fat).
Meanwhile, we contentededly chunky straight and lesbian people can go out for some pizza and double bock, knowing there is nothing we can do to make ourselves like Broadway or Celine Dion, but feeling a little better knowing we don't even have to try. It's an argument that everyone wins!
However.
What I want to know is why do The Gay People love the musical theatre? And, once we've figured that out, why don't The Straight People, and why don't The Lesbians (whatever side of the yogurt fence they stand on)?
My exhusband is gay, so rest assured I have even less insight than the straightest of all other straight people. Clearly. All I can tell you is that he seemed ungay enough for me to marry him and, looking back on his lax attitude to home furnishings and clothing, not to mention his complete silence on hot guys and ideal gay vacation spots at the time, the only thing I can look back on with any sort of reasonable self-accusation is his fondness for the musical theatre.
And, boy, did he love it!
Whereas, I and my lesbian and inveterately heterosexual friends will never be persuaded to care at all where precisely it is that the wind (allegedly) goes sweeping down the plains. The less advanced of our two races easily get Lerner and Loewe confused with Leopold and his friend! Apart from a sentimental fondness for Marlene Dietrich resulting in casual knowledge of a few too many 1930s cabaret songs and Holländer riffs, and possibly here and there a cruel delight in the spectacle of Marlon Brando breaking into 'song' with no defensible narrative impetus, we just don't care. And we can't be made to.
Yes, I admit I crank up the Kurt Weill every so often, but it's only ever the Brecht-Weill, and it's never Teresa Stratas; I never forget myself and let things slip into Gilbert and Andrew Lloyd Anything. And if ever there were an argument that from the very start Gays Are Gays and the Rest Is Rest, it is to be found at the crucible of Musical Theatre. If we can have a Nalgene, we can certainly have a Gay Gene, and if little Jake or Tyler or Ronan knows what the Hills Are Alive with, and whether or not there is One Maiden Breast (Oh!) and can sing a musical list of Argentinean place-names before he knows whether to pass the Phillips head or the hex bit when Daddy is again sandwiched between the Ikea sofa and the Crate and Barrel rug, then the fight should be over, the debate won, and all the gay men and their straight female friends should retreat to their corner in victory (and eat celebratory yogurt to the strains of 'Gypsy' or 'Cats,' erroneously convinced that they are too fat).
Meanwhile, we contentededly chunky straight and lesbian people can go out for some pizza and double bock, knowing there is nothing we can do to make ourselves like Broadway or Celine Dion, but feeling a little better knowing we don't even have to try. It's an argument that everyone wins!
The Tulips Are Lying. And Where Are My Sorels?
It snowed today. Honestly.
As you faithful reader(s) know(s), I cannot do math. Because I cannot do math I live by rounding. Sometimes I round up and sometimes I round down: this allows me to believe that 'everything evens out' in some theoretical Final Reckoning I won't understand in the slightest. Even if today's specific roundings include only one upward with bills and one downward with mileage, I content myself with the belief that in the near future I will do the opposite and things will therefore again attain equilibrium.
I tell you this because it means that in the realm of rounding, and therefore in the realm I inhabit, today is early April, and that means that it is snowing, in Seattle, in early April. It is, moreover, predicted to continue for days. Apparently, I was one of the few who arrived home safely, so I poured the last glass of Quinta do Et Cetera and congratulated myself on my prescience for not yet having put away the foul-weather drinks and clothes. I have no idea what the tulip-trees and daffodils are thinking, but I cannot express how deeply I want winter to end.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Lesbian Flavored Yogurt: The Sixth Horsewymyn of the Apocalypse?
In Greece, when you go to a regular neighborhood market looking for yogurt, you choose between the texture/thickness of the yogurt, and the type of milk. Perhaps at a chain supermarket you can get some wacky sugary ones from Sweden with berries in them, but there is not a whole aisle devoted to 533 different varieties as there is here.
And I for one am sick of yogurt. I am sick of there being 533 kinds, I am sick of wanting the taste of yogurt and then being unable to find a yogurt-flavored yogurt, and I am sick of the ads with the poorly-substantiated claims for the yogurt that makes your bowel movements 'regular' and likewise for the other yogurts that make you lose weight.
But I am utterly at my wits' end with the ostensibly unending, years old series of ads for yogurt in which two vapid bints staged in various social situations attempt to one-up each other in tiresome encomia to their favorite bacteria-laden dessert brand. Throughout the years, after a first unwitting encounter with this ad, I have taken what precautions I can not to hear any version of it. However, like so many others, I am human, too, and I recently heard and saw what I imagine to be the newest incarnation.
Here the hideous duo are kitted up in over-the-top stereotypes of the Bad Bridesmaid's Dress. After looking this ad up in an attempt to find some of the actual dialogue (in lieu of watching Lifetime programming for days on end hoping for a chance to see a commercial I don't want to see), I learned that the African-American component of this unctuous couple is famous for being, and playing, a lesbian, and thus some of her lines can be read as in-jokes to those in the know.
I am neither in the know nor in the care because these ads are wretched and unwatchable. Extradiagetical biobits cannot redeem their inspidity. I would still know nothing after seeing one of them about what sets this particular yogurt apart from similar brands or styles except that a lesbian who plays a lesbian on television got paid to wear a puffy dress and say vapid things about it. I do not surround myself exclusively with lesbians, to be sure, and I have not attended an unusual amount of weddings, I confess, but my (admittedly limited) experience and keen intuition tell me that lesbians are no more likely than any other subset of wedding guests to sneak away from the festivities with a friend to eat yogurt.
I realize it is just an ad. I realize the point of the ad is to make me want to eat their yogurt, not to present an accurate 30-second snapshot of American suburban reality. And I further realize that 99.9 percent of all catered or preplated food little resembles, in taste, texture, or even color, the freshly-cooked dishes it vainly attempts to duplicate or evoke (take that, Herbfarm, you pretentious, hideously-decorated, lukewarm-food-serving, taco truck without wheels!).
I know all that. When I went to a music conference in BC for the arts council in my town I lived on Pellegrino, Diet Coke, minibar Jelly Bellys, vodka gimlets and sourdough rolls for four days, because the thing went on all day and all night and there was no way to leave the hotel. And whether it is a conference or a wedding or funeral, I would never eat my one-of-three-thousand tepid chicken breasts over stale brown rice with a day-old shallot-dill sauce. However, I would also not tuck two yogurt containers and spoons in my purse so that I could invite my best friend out to the veranda for curdled milk with high-fructose fruit compote while everyone else was drinking enough and having a sufficiently festive time dancing and congratulating the happy couple not to trouble themselves overmuch about the realities of catered food.
But let's say I were the sort of person destined to find the hidden pain in every experience. I know the food is going to be wretched, I know I'm going to be petulant, and I don't want to risk ruining yet another social occasion for my significant other. The hosted bar alone may not suffice; perhaps I'll get violently drunk like the last four times and tell the hosts just what I think of their elastic chicken breasts and scorched sauce.
No, this (ridiculous and entirely implausible scenario) calls for forethought. I eat a bit in advance and tuck a tiny treat into the handbag, perhaps. A treat, ladies and gentlemen, not a one-cup serving of nonfat bacterial cultures. Yogurt is not a treat. In this country it is punishment food for people who think they are fat.
The risible point of this and other equally cloying ads is that by adding loads of sugar and a portion of denatured fruit, the punishment food becomes a pallid - but good enough when you're starving yourself! - simulacrum of the sort of foods that always have a lot of sugar, as well as flavor, texture, and fat. The consumer buys the 'lemon meringue pie' yogurt because she has resolved to deny herself lemon meringue, and all other pies, cakes, tortes, and pastry, until she has lost a certain number of pounds. Not to put too fine a point on it, but for those of you who hadn't realized it up to this point, there is no transubstantiation involved. It's really still nonfat sugared yogurt - and it's really still crap.
Nonetheless, here are some of the sighingly orgasmic, fatuous (mmmm, and - hamfistedly ironic! Get it: not catch the bouquet? I'm a lesbian!!!) sighs of the two bridesmaids as they curb their hunger and sartorial angst with spoonfuls of Lactobacillus and Streptococcus:
"This yogurt is not-catching-the-bridal-bouquet good."
"It's burning this ugly bridesmaid dress good."
"It's getting out of these uncomfortable shoes good."
I'm in too much pain to delve into why one of them should be so disturbed by being paired with an usher shorter than she is; clearly the job description must be a more, em, encompassing one that in the past if physical compatibility is such a large part.
And I for one am sick of yogurt. I am sick of there being 533 kinds, I am sick of wanting the taste of yogurt and then being unable to find a yogurt-flavored yogurt, and I am sick of the ads with the poorly-substantiated claims for the yogurt that makes your bowel movements 'regular' and likewise for the other yogurts that make you lose weight.
But I am utterly at my wits' end with the ostensibly unending, years old series of ads for yogurt in which two vapid bints staged in various social situations attempt to one-up each other in tiresome encomia to their favorite bacteria-laden dessert brand. Throughout the years, after a first unwitting encounter with this ad, I have taken what precautions I can not to hear any version of it. However, like so many others, I am human, too, and I recently heard and saw what I imagine to be the newest incarnation.
Here the hideous duo are kitted up in over-the-top stereotypes of the Bad Bridesmaid's Dress. After looking this ad up in an attempt to find some of the actual dialogue (in lieu of watching Lifetime programming for days on end hoping for a chance to see a commercial I don't want to see), I learned that the African-American component of this unctuous couple is famous for being, and playing, a lesbian, and thus some of her lines can be read as in-jokes to those in the know.
I am neither in the know nor in the care because these ads are wretched and unwatchable. Extradiagetical biobits cannot redeem their inspidity. I would still know nothing after seeing one of them about what sets this particular yogurt apart from similar brands or styles except that a lesbian who plays a lesbian on television got paid to wear a puffy dress and say vapid things about it. I do not surround myself exclusively with lesbians, to be sure, and I have not attended an unusual amount of weddings, I confess, but my (admittedly limited) experience and keen intuition tell me that lesbians are no more likely than any other subset of wedding guests to sneak away from the festivities with a friend to eat yogurt.
I realize it is just an ad. I realize the point of the ad is to make me want to eat their yogurt, not to present an accurate 30-second snapshot of American suburban reality. And I further realize that 99.9 percent of all catered or preplated food little resembles, in taste, texture, or even color, the freshly-cooked dishes it vainly attempts to duplicate or evoke (take that, Herbfarm, you pretentious, hideously-decorated, lukewarm-food-serving, taco truck without wheels!).
I know all that. When I went to a music conference in BC for the arts council in my town I lived on Pellegrino, Diet Coke, minibar Jelly Bellys, vodka gimlets and sourdough rolls for four days, because the thing went on all day and all night and there was no way to leave the hotel. And whether it is a conference or a wedding or funeral, I would never eat my one-of-three-thousand tepid chicken breasts over stale brown rice with a day-old shallot-dill sauce. However, I would also not tuck two yogurt containers and spoons in my purse so that I could invite my best friend out to the veranda for curdled milk with high-fructose fruit compote while everyone else was drinking enough and having a sufficiently festive time dancing and congratulating the happy couple not to trouble themselves overmuch about the realities of catered food.
But let's say I were the sort of person destined to find the hidden pain in every experience. I know the food is going to be wretched, I know I'm going to be petulant, and I don't want to risk ruining yet another social occasion for my significant other. The hosted bar alone may not suffice; perhaps I'll get violently drunk like the last four times and tell the hosts just what I think of their elastic chicken breasts and scorched sauce.
No, this (ridiculous and entirely implausible scenario) calls for forethought. I eat a bit in advance and tuck a tiny treat into the handbag, perhaps. A treat, ladies and gentlemen, not a one-cup serving of nonfat bacterial cultures. Yogurt is not a treat. In this country it is punishment food for people who think they are fat.
The risible point of this and other equally cloying ads is that by adding loads of sugar and a portion of denatured fruit, the punishment food becomes a pallid - but good enough when you're starving yourself! - simulacrum of the sort of foods that always have a lot of sugar, as well as flavor, texture, and fat. The consumer buys the 'lemon meringue pie' yogurt because she has resolved to deny herself lemon meringue, and all other pies, cakes, tortes, and pastry, until she has lost a certain number of pounds. Not to put too fine a point on it, but for those of you who hadn't realized it up to this point, there is no transubstantiation involved. It's really still nonfat sugared yogurt - and it's really still crap.
Nonetheless, here are some of the sighingly orgasmic, fatuous (mmmm, and - hamfistedly ironic! Get it: not catch the bouquet? I'm a lesbian!!!) sighs of the two bridesmaids as they curb their hunger and sartorial angst with spoonfuls of Lactobacillus and Streptococcus:
"This yogurt is not-catching-the-bridal-bouquet good."
"It's burning this ugly bridesmaid dress good."
"It's getting out of these uncomfortable shoes good."
I'm in too much pain to delve into why one of them should be so disturbed by being paired with an usher shorter than she is; clearly the job description must be a more, em, encompassing one that in the past if physical compatibility is such a large part.
Of Mice and Men
Well, people have told me, people have insisted to me, people have remonstrated with me, and now I must accept it: the neighbor's cat truly is my cat. It's not because he sleeps on my bed six nights out of the seven; it's not because I feed him or turn on the bathtub water when he wants it, nor is it even because I leave out a couple paper shopping bags for him to lie on.
I have to accept that our relationship has reached the committed stage because he has brought me a second dead mouse. The first one could have been a fluke. He could accidentally have dropped it off here en route to its true recipient. He could have been distracted by sounds from outside and lost his train of thought. But this one was hard to mistake, as he was alternating between intently playing with it and intently trying to offer me a bit of the action.
There are very few things I like to do at four in the morning. Nowhere on that very short list is wresting a still-warm little mouse carcass from a predator's paws, bundling it up, bundling me up, and heading to the dumpster bleary-eyed, nauseated, and considering reconsidering my current sleeping partner.
I've never tried straight bleach in the carpet cleaner before. I wonder how that works.
I have to accept that our relationship has reached the committed stage because he has brought me a second dead mouse. The first one could have been a fluke. He could accidentally have dropped it off here en route to its true recipient. He could have been distracted by sounds from outside and lost his train of thought. But this one was hard to mistake, as he was alternating between intently playing with it and intently trying to offer me a bit of the action.
There are very few things I like to do at four in the morning. Nowhere on that very short list is wresting a still-warm little mouse carcass from a predator's paws, bundling it up, bundling me up, and heading to the dumpster bleary-eyed, nauseated, and considering reconsidering my current sleeping partner.
I've never tried straight bleach in the carpet cleaner before. I wonder how that works.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Hydra-cephalic Phonology
I have so little to complain about that the blog is suffering. I could write about the apparent epidemic of somewhat inept and apathetic volunteer coordinators in this city -- but that's more boring than writing nothing. I could tell you that I a) actually went to a Barnes & Noble today (very specific desire, and one best met by a warehouse of a store, yet always still a deeply tragic voyage) and b) was forced to leave before making my purchase because the music was that intolerable. (I don't know her name, but yet another of the baby-voiced, on-the-verge-of-tears female singer-songwriters.) Or I could describe how the neighborhood sphinx is causing me to be cognitively impaired and narcoleptic with his indecipherable and unslakeable cries for something at all hours of the night. Or that, as a result of this ongoing REM deprivation, I slept from one AM to four PM today and could thus not go out for a glass of wine with a friend, as that would have meant having wine for breakfast, even if breakfast were being served at eight at night.
However, in an earlier post when writing about ways not to seem alternately boorish and mincing in the handling of import words in English, I mentioned 'Paree' as always being de trop, and 'intaglio/seraglio' as keeping some, but not all, of their Italian heritage in the course of their Anglicization. While looking for something entirely different today (why I speak Spanish like a Salvadoran) I came upon an old thread on phonoblog in which a few posters struggle mildly to figure out through what principle or principles in US English 'Chartres' comes close-ish (minus the difficult Gallic r's, that is) to the original, while 'Paris' never does, and why a more native pronunciation of Latin American place-names seems to mark one as a leftist still, and also does not carry over into the individual's pronunciation of words in other languages with which he might be equally familiar. I also learned that the English pronunciation of 'Catalan' is supposedly the same as for the primitive plastic. Since the time I first knew what Catalan was, it seems I have been pronouncing it in an off-putting way for most native English speakers -- but, luckily, perhaps, equally in a manner not likely to suggest to antique dealers that I am in the market for an earring-and-brooch set in the shape of a raspberry cluster.
Nothing was resolved in my mind as to why we use foreign endonyms for some things and exonyms for others, nor why we say 'Filleep/Feeleep Paytann' and 'Sharl d'Gall' (I don't have easy IPA access, so we'll make do) in reasonable, good-faith, and (also important) not unduly encumbering English approximations of 'Phillipe Pétain' and 'Charles de Gaulle' yet also canonically say 'Catherine the Great' ('of Russia' at times) and 'Philip of Macedon.'
I think in casual conversation the rules vary according to the group, but for what it's worth, I do say ΥΔΡΑ, with a thelta sound and minus an 'h,' for the island I lived on, instead of 'Hydra' with the 'h' and with an unaspirated 'd' -- the way Americans pronounce the mythological monster. But I don't in English say 'Makeδonίa' for the area of Greece, or any variant of 'Makedonija' for what nationalistic Greeks derogatingly call 'FYROM' and which many other people call 'Macedonia' or 'the Republic of Macedonia.' And I still don't know the ways in which I sound Salvadoran except for one, and now due to my abortive mission to the hideous book barn, I can't use a new Latin-American Spanish Dictionary to figure out the mystery. At least I am well-slept!
However, in an earlier post when writing about ways not to seem alternately boorish and mincing in the handling of import words in English, I mentioned 'Paree' as always being de trop, and 'intaglio/seraglio' as keeping some, but not all, of their Italian heritage in the course of their Anglicization. While looking for something entirely different today (why I speak Spanish like a Salvadoran) I came upon an old thread on phonoblog in which a few posters struggle mildly to figure out through what principle or principles in US English 'Chartres' comes close-ish (minus the difficult Gallic r's, that is) to the original, while 'Paris' never does, and why a more native pronunciation of Latin American place-names seems to mark one as a leftist still, and also does not carry over into the individual's pronunciation of words in other languages with which he might be equally familiar. I also learned that the English pronunciation of 'Catalan' is supposedly the same as for the primitive plastic. Since the time I first knew what Catalan was, it seems I have been pronouncing it in an off-putting way for most native English speakers -- but, luckily, perhaps, equally in a manner not likely to suggest to antique dealers that I am in the market for an earring-and-brooch set in the shape of a raspberry cluster.
Nothing was resolved in my mind as to why we use foreign endonyms for some things and exonyms for others, nor why we say 'Filleep/Feeleep Paytann' and 'Sharl d'Gall' (I don't have easy IPA access, so we'll make do) in reasonable, good-faith, and (also important) not unduly encumbering English approximations of 'Phillipe Pétain' and 'Charles de Gaulle' yet also canonically say 'Catherine the Great' ('of Russia' at times) and 'Philip of Macedon.'
I think in casual conversation the rules vary according to the group, but for what it's worth, I do say ΥΔΡΑ, with a thelta sound and minus an 'h,' for the island I lived on, instead of 'Hydra' with the 'h' and with an unaspirated 'd' -- the way Americans pronounce the mythological monster. But I don't in English say 'Makeδonίa' for the area of Greece, or any variant of 'Makedonija' for what nationalistic Greeks derogatingly call 'FYROM' and which many other people call 'Macedonia' or 'the Republic of Macedonia.' And I still don't know the ways in which I sound Salvadoran except for one, and now due to my abortive mission to the hideous book barn, I can't use a new Latin-American Spanish Dictionary to figure out the mystery. At least I am well-slept!
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
I'm Such a Liar.
I totally lied. But I have no time to write about anything interesting. So the ugly pants table will have to do. And I'm sorry. Really. It hurts me more than it does you. I'm not lying.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
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