40 Days of Lent: Day Fourteen

Given the cost and the number of people who see them every day, I'm still surprised at how amateurish and just plain bad the advertisements in New York's subways are. Say "Dr. Zismor" to anyone in NYC and they'll immediately know who you're talking about but not necessarily in a good way.

Of course there's "bad" and then there's "so bad is this maybe an art project?" Towards that end I present shots of the most fascinating and awful subway ads I've seen.

As with most bad things that serve a higher purpose than aesthetics, you can't help but wonder "why did they imagine this would help their cause? Whoever thought that an anti-smolking message would best be served by generic Valentine's Day artwork and weird juvenile slogans about love and bunnies?"



"Bunnies never lie?" What is that supposed to mean?



One sense that smoking doesn't affect is your hearing. I also don't see what great advantage there is to hearing the birds sing again. If I was a smoker and it was a choice between my addiction and hearing the birds sing, well you can guess what i'd choose.



"Love needs honesty. Look into my eyes." I'm not sure what honesty has to do with any of this, unless it's aimed at those who say they're not smoking but secretly are. The "look into my eyes" line is just creepy even without the cutesy imagery. It brings the unsettling notion of trying to reach people with juvenile imagery to the fore. Who thought treating adults like they were children and trying to convince them to overcome a powerful addiction was a good idea?

40 Days of Lent: Day Thirteen

I spent much of yesterday with tarot cards spread across my living room floor in various patterns as I read along in The Way of Tarot by Alexjandro Jodorowsky and Marianne Costa. The authors are quite good at putting the cards into various grids and patterns which makes it easier for the beginner (the fool) to get a grasp of the cards, getting all the way through to the end and thus understanding The World of tarot without getting bogged down in esoteric symbology and obscure references. One problem however, is that the book is written using the Marseilles tarot, a very different deck than what I have (a modified Rider Waite).

The card on the left is from the Marseilles deck while the one on the right is from the Rider Waite.


It's the difference between medieval woodcuts and the Pre-Raphaelites. The Rider Waite deck features characters and scenes for it's minor arcana. For example, the II of Swords shows a blindfolded woman holding two swords, pointing them in different directions. The Marseilles deck shows two swords and some flowers, more geometric than illustrative. So some of the interpretations of the cards don't quite mesh with the images.

I've had the deck of cards since 2004. I bought it in New Orleans (of course!) when I decided to get the Hanged Man tattooed on my arm. So why am I finally devoting time to it now? Not sure, really. As I write more and more I feel a need to exercise the visual and intuitive parts of my brain. Sometimes you can surprise yourself. As Pee Wee Herman puts it, "your mind plays tricks on you. You play tricks back." Speaking of Pee Wee, here's a good example. On Day Ten of the 40 Days of Lent, I posted four pictures because, quite frankly, I was pressed for time and wanted to post something before the day's end (just like today). I chose four photographs with the only thing they had in common being that I liked them and hadn't posted them before.

Yesterday, after spending the afternoon looking at images and seeing different interpretations, I looked at the four photographs again and realized I had posted visions of Hell, Purgatory and Heaven, along with an otherworldly gatekeeper. He could be St. Peter in Christianity, Papa Legba in Voodoo, even Charon the ferryman on the river Styx. There's something in the way that Jambi peers out of the door, surveying those who'd want to get past. The graffiti mural of Hell is most obvious; I even mentioned it in the description. The next picture could be Purgatory. It's gated to keep souls in and certainly better than Hell though still dominated by a looming dark shape, the negative energy that keeps you there. The final picture could be of Heaven, a silver city in the clouds surrounding a beautiful colorful peaceful garden.

Apart from the graffiti mural, you probably wouldn't make such associations with the individual pictures. As a group I can't see them any other way now, which makes their random selection that much more entertaining or intriguing.

40 Days of Lent: Day Twelve

Last night I had dinner while sitting at the bar at Muggs. I didn't feel like making dinner so I made the bargain with myself. I would walk past Muggs and if there was a seat open at the bar, I would eat there. If not, I would get something to go from somewhere else. I brought a book with me just in case. Muggs usually has sports on tv. I'd rather read.

There were no seats at the bar, so I cheated, or rather negotiated with myself and took a standing room only spot at the large picture window. It wasn't long (less than a pint, which is how I tell time at Muggs) before a seat became available at the bar and I was on it like an Italian ship captain on a rescue boat.

While I was there, I got into a conversation with a kid who was a senior, pre-med, at Wisconsin. He was from New Jersey, home for spring break, waiting to meet friends at the bar before going to a show in the neighborhood. I explained the difference between cask ale and beer on tap. (I should point out that he asked, that's why I told him. I didn't just start pontificating.) I asked what branch of medicine was he interested in. He didn't know yet. "Well, I have a friend who's a cardiologist, and he says business is booming. Because of Americans and their bad diet, no exercise, it will probably be a growth industry for years to come, sad to say."

His friends arrived. A couple, in both senses, in that there were two of them and they were dating, stayed behind to have a drink and watch the basketball game. The girl took the kid's seat as he went to his show. I chatted with the two left behind. She was an English major and he was a philosophy major.

"That's why you smell like pot" I observed.

He laughed and began explaining that Western philosophy is basically divided into metaphysics and epistemology, going on to define the terms. I didn't have the heart to tell him that I already knew this and on top of that, he forgot ethics.

Discussing literature with his girlfriend, she mentioned she liked Hemingway and asked me who I liked. Italo Calvino and Nabokov were the first names that came to mind. "I've read Lolita" she offered. A girl that likes Hemingway and has read Lolita? She is built for guys to love her.

I should point out that he was wearing a UNC sweatshirt. UNC was winning the basketball game against Duke, but their lead was eroding. He began saying "I hate Duke. I hate them. I wouldn't care if UNC lost to anyone else, but not to Duke. I hate them." There wasn't any anger in it, so much as it was stated as a matter of fact. Both major premise and conclusion.

"Maybe you should study Buddhism at school" I offered.

I bought them each a drink, sub-rosa, by asking the bartender to add a round to my bill. I said my goodbyes and headed out the door, then realized I hadn't said goodbye to one of the bartenders I had chatted with who has not working but just hanging out. I walked back in to say goodnight, and apparently in the less than 60 seconds after I left, the other bartender had told the kids I bought them a drink. They were so thankful and seemed touched that I would do such a thing. I felt like an ass, as if I had walked back in the bar just to get my "thank you's." I really didn't expect the bartender to tell them that fast.

"My pleasure" I told them. "I remember what it was like to be a student."

English and philosophy? They're going to need someone to buy them drinks. They should go into medicine, maybe cardiology. The future belongs to those who can fix people's hearts.

40 Days of Lent: Day Eleven

Fair Play
Tove Jansson

The first novel I read by Tove Jansson, The Summer Book, concerned the relationship between a woman and her granddaughter as they spent the season on a small island off the coast of Finland. Fair Play is also the story of two women, this time a couple, Mari and Jonna, who maintain separate apartments in the same building. As with the pair in The Summer Book, the relationship is primary but never supercedes who they are as individuals. What united Summer’s pair was a common loss, all but unspoken: the death of the woman who was daughter to one and mother to the other. Fair Play’s couple are bound by what they have: a life-long relationship, a history together with an often prickly insight into each other’s personalities. They sometimes bicker and argue and each one can be obstinate and obtuse as well as supportive and patient with the other. It’s a realistic rather than romanticized look at relationships and getting older.

As Mari is a writer and Jonna is an artist, there is an underlying theme about the decisions made in creative work being metaphoric for decisions made in life: what to edit out, what to build on and what to rearrange. The language of the book is spare, direct and fairly unadorned but as with an effective understatement, it hints at a great deal without spelling it out. It also evokes the nature of Mari and Jonna’s relationship. At this point in their lives some things don’t need to be said.

"Mari," said Jonna, "sometimes you're really a little too obvious."

"Do you think? But once in a while a person just needs to say what doesn't need to be said. Don't you think?"

And they went back to their reading.

Each chapter is self-contained so that it’s more like reading a collection of short stories than a novel. There is a pattern: introduce a third element, such as a person, act of nature, or unexpected event and then detail how Mari and Jonna react. Jansson is able to deftly sketch the various characters who try, with mixed results, to latch on to the old ladies. During a trip to the American southwest, a hotel maid decides to be their unrequested tour guide. One of Jonna’s students is seen as a threat by Mari. A visiting Russian poet manages to be both bewildering and overbearing, as does a woman who visits with a scrapbook dedicated to Mari’s mother. Sections vary from those dedicated to life’s little pleasures, like videotaping movies off of tv -- making sure to edit out the commercials -- and watching together later, to larger events, like their vacation in America, which inspires the book’s funniest line when a bartender in dive bar tells the locals “Give these ladies some room. They’re from Finland.”

In addition to novels, Jansson also wrote and drew comic strips and children’s books. Her ability to entertain in few words is evident here. While flipping through Fair Play to check one or two of my facts, I was surprised at how short the chapters are. Many are no more than six pages long. My eyes would fall on a sentence and the entirety of the story would return, along with a desire to reread itimmediately.

40 Days of Lent: Day Ten

Jambi checks out the fans waiting by the stage door.


Graffiti vision of hell.


Spider plants.


A particularly bittersweet photo of Central Park. This was the view from our office which has since been blocked by yet another ugly glass tower skyscraper. "Why don't you take a photo? It will last longer" being sadly all too true.

40 Days of Lent: Day Nine

Two weekends ago I went with my sister and my mother to the 911 Memorial located at the former site of the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center. I"m ashamed to say it is one of those sites in New York City that I usually forget about. I never think about going there until I hear someone else has been, at which point it inspires a literal slap to the forehead and the exclamation that I've got to get there.

For those that don't know: on the site where the Twin Towers formerly stood are now two in ground fountains where water pours along the walls before disappearing into square shaped holes in the ground. These fountains are framed by metal plaques that list the names of those who died that day. It recalls and was no doubt inspired by Maya Lin's outstanding Viet Nam Vet Memorial Wall in Washington DC. The memorial is peaceful, intelligent, contemplative, and beautiful.

What it is not, however, is sad. Perhaps this is just me. My mother cried, but my mother cries at junk mail and sentimental commercials. I was so awed by the beauty of the location and so thrilled with the idea of what it will be in years to come, when the restrictive fences are taken down, when the need for timed tickets is over. when the construction is complete and it is just a park that people can walk through at their whim the way Central Park is now, that I just didn't feel sad. I'm not callous, I'm not indifferent to the suffering of those who died that day or to the sorrow of the families they left behind, but I was so awestruck by the beauty around me that sadness was the furthest thing from my mind.

Almost ten years ago, my aunt and my mother came to New York City for St. Patrick's Day. We decided to head to Ground Zero, at that point only six months after the attacks on the Twin Towers, to see what we could see. The visit was a whim. We naively thought we'd be able to just walk up to the holes in the ground and pay our respects. No, you needed to have tickets to go on the platform that overlooked the construction and the tragically slow clean up process still going on at that late date. My Aunt Juleann tried to sweet talk a beat cop into letting us on the platform, not noticing his theatrical "oh, if there were only some way I could get you tickets" speech as he surreptitiously waved three tickets in his left hand poised at his waist. Up on the platform (my mom cried then, too) it looked like any construction site but you couldn't help but understand that this was actually a destruction site and that more likely than not, there were human remains in what was being dug up within the pit.

At the World Trade Center, the memorial park is so beautiful that I'm happy I get to live in a city where it exists, no matter how sorry I am for the reason that birthed the park. I'm at a point in my life where I feel like I hear a lot of "this sucks." Yet, the 911 Memorial Park and the High Line remind me that not every new thing sucks and that sometimes city planning and corporate sponsors get it right.

Forty Days of Lent: Day Eight

What It's Like, Inside My Head, Sometimes

I'm only posting this journal entry because it's 10:37 and I want to go to bed and I don't feel like writing about Thomas Pynchon's Against The Day, visiting the 911 memorial, or my deceased friends Eric and Dan. Tonight I should have headed home but I didn't feel like making dinner for myself so I stopped at Muggs for something to eat. Oddly enough before getting there I was musing on the fact that after all these years I still feel like an outsider, only to walk in the door and be warmly greeted by one of the bartenders who was hanging out on his day off. Shortly after that, I got into a conversation with a Scottish expat I've talked with before. Some of us will never feel like part of of a group no matter what.

At Muggs, while sipping on beers, I carried on an email conversation with my sister about Cloud Atlas and chatted via instant messenger with my friend K, who was doing sound at a small club nearby. After dinner i headed there to say hello and listen to ear splitting punk rock. I am closer to 50 than I am to 40 (and not just because time only goes in one direction) but I still love going to clubs and hearing live music. However, dinner out and hanging out in a rock club offering my sad job hunting ideas to someone who is currently without work does not get Lenten obligations met. So I'm doing something I said I would never do. I'm posting an entry from my journal. It's not that interesting but I have to go to work tomorrow and don't have time to write anything else.
---------------------------------
February 15, 2012

I like a restaurant where the waiter compliments your glasses.

I ate tonight at Allswell, a restaurant in my neighborhood opened by the people who own The Spotted Pig. Spotted Pig had sentimental value for me, despite the fact that I think I’ve only eaten there twice. But it was a place that Karl dragged me to because a friend of his worked in the kitchen. While we were there, we got the royal treatment of nifty little foods the kitchen staff felt like trying out: tell us what you think of them? It was an added thrill after the fact when I began seeing the restaurant listed as one of New York’s best, soon to be followed by one of New York’s most difficult to get into.

Allswell is an off shoot that has opened across the street from Muggs, my favorite beer snob bar. (I admit when I began writing this entry, I blanked out on the name. For some reason, all I could think is that I had had dinner at Walgreens.) For some reason I was ravenously hungry when I left work tonight. It happens sometimes but unfortunately it has a way of completely throwing off my evening plans, which in this case included "do some yoga." I made my usual bargain with myself, ie “if there’s a seat at the bar at Muggs, then I’ll go there for dinner and a drink or two. If not I’ll go home.” A bargain, I should point out, that inevitably ends up with me buzzed.

However, I didn’t see any seats at the bar at Muggs and almost simultaneously with noticing this, I remembered a half serious resolution I had made, though obviously a touch more serioius than my resolution to do yoga more often. I had vowed to not eat at the same places all the time. I keep reading about all the great new restaurants, many of them in my neighborhood, yet I never go to them. This wouldn’t be much of a problem personally, I’m content at the same old scenes, but when people come to visit, it’s a little embarrassing to suggest going to a place that they’ve been to with me a number of times. This was particularly obvious this past weekend when S., J., C. and C. were visiting. Despite the fact that I knew what was coming I still wasn’t adequately prepared for it: the unavoidable questions of “what should we do? What’s cool in the city? Where should we go?” Questions that always make my mind go blank, an almost zen like state, and this is without even considering the fact that I was dealing with four rather different people, each with varying ideas of what is cool and what they wanted to see and do.

Happily it all turned out for the best. We ended up at Arthur’s, a little jazz dive bar in the West Village (this is not an insult at all. I liked Arthur's quite a bit). We were strategically placed close enough to the stage so that we could hear the music but far enough away so that we could talk to each other without disturbing those who only wanted to hear music. C. and C. danced, everyone talked and drank, S. interrupted the called for moment of silence in memory of Whitney Houston by saying “What? Did she die?” An enjoyable night out, unless you were a fan of Whitney Houston.

So tonight, in the spirit of finding and at least trying some new places to eat, I went to Allswell. Nice vibe about the place, which is code for “the staff was cool and friendly, not snotty and pretentious.” Perhaps it says something about my attitude right now that I think this is actually more important than the flavor of the food. Similarly, last Friday night, S. et al and I ate at Babbo. While the food was great, the main memory I take from the evening was how likeable the staff was, from the maitre d’ to the bartender to the waiters and sommeliers. It was the same tonight at Allswell, including the aforementioned compliment on my reading glasses from the lad who brought my food.

It was a good meal considering I ate stuff that I don’t normally like, or more accurately, is the opposite of stuff that I do like. I had a pan friend encrusted pork slices, and a crouton of what I thought was cheese because it spurted when I cut into it with my fork but actually turned out to be a wee potato. Good and a nice change but it’s hard for me to be wildly enthusiastic about it. I miss the hominess of my regular haunt.

----------------------------------
From now on, I've got to make sure to schedule time to work on this blog each night, because I am not posting from my journal again.

40 Days of Lent: Day Seven

Ella Minnow Pea
Mark Dunn

On New Year’s Day 2011, I was celebrating the holiday as I usually do, with a dinner with friends. I was expressing my fondness for George Perec’s A Void, as I’ll only discuss literature at the table after I’ve had a few drinks. Perec’s novel has much to recommend it but it is best known because no words containing the letter E appear in the book. As A Void might put it, it’s a book minus a most common part of our lingua franca, using synonyms and substitutions with a smooth skill to portray a story of haunting loss.

Our cute waitress chimed in that A Void sounded similar to Ella Minnow Pea and that I might like it, too. She gave a quick overview that sounded intriguing: the novel is a series of letters written by people who live in Nollop, a sovereign island nation not far off the coast of South Carolina. Nollop is named after Nevin Nollop, creator of the sentence “the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” which is impressive in that it utilizes every letter of the alphabet with few repetitions. There is a statue of Nollop along with the alphabet and his phrase on the island. The respect for him is so strong that, when the letter Z falls off the statue pedestal, it is ruled as a sign and stricken from the language, with escalating punishments for its use. The edict is treated as a joke. How useful is Z, anyway? Who will miss it? But as other letters begin to fall off and are similarly ruled illegal to use, more and more people are punished for their slips of tongue and others try to find a way out of their predicament even as language becomes more and more restricted.

It’s a clever conceit and the book is consistently inventive. When the letter D is outlawed, all days of the week have to be renamed (“Sunshine” for “Sunday”) and people are forced to say things like “birth-anniversary” and completely give up the past tense. Still the language flows and the little jokes you catch don’t detract from the pull of the story. It’s as a depiction of totalitarianism that Ella Minnow Pea works best. I would say "satire" but I think it's a bit beyond that. It shares a the sense of dread found in Orwell’s Animal Farm. Characters are forced to live under what they know to be arbitrary and ridiculous rules but have little hope to change them. As letters continue to drop from the pedestal and from usage you start to realize that this can’t possibly end well.

Perec’s A Void was also about loss, but there the characters didn’t know what was missing, they could only sense something was gone. Everyone in Ella Minnow Pea is all too aware of what is being taken away from them. It’s profoundly unsettling to read these literate characters ultimately reduced to writing sentences like “no got to rummage” and “we eat together tonight, yes?” to avoid punishment.

I can’t imagine an American writing a better satire of what it’s like to live under totalitarianism. It’s an amusing, entertaining, and disturbing little book.


I’ve been back to the restaurant but haven’t seen the cute waitress again.

40 Days of Lent: Day Six

This past weekend I went to PS1, a contemporary art space operated by the Museum of Modern Art and located in a former school in Queens. Even if I don't find any of the art particularly interesting I always enjoy walking the all but empty halls of the school. This past Sunday there was an exhibit that consisted of two burritos lying on the floor. I have less and less patience for this kind of "work" as I get older. However, the views of the neighborhood outside the window of this gallery were particularly edifying.

One of the long term exhibits is James Turrell's Meeting, a room with stylish tall benches along the walls and dominated by hole in the ceiling through which, weather permitting, you can sit and watch the color of the sky slowly change. I've been to PS1 many times before but have never seen Meeting.



From one side of the room, the opening revealed the intense blue of the sky. But from the other side you could make out the moon, a white sliver noticeable even in the middle of the afternoon. If you click on the above picture you may be able to see it. It's almost in the center of the frame.

As I was getting ready to leave, an older asian woman and a young couple that were with her came into the room. The woman looked around, confused and seemed to be say "is this it?" (I'm guessing, as she did not speak English). I waved her over to my side of the room and pointed up. When she saw the moon, she smiled and laughed and said (I assuming) "Ah the moon!" in her native tongue. When I left they were still there, staring into the sky.

40 Days of Lent: Day Five

Graffiti Murals At 5Pointz in Queens

40 Days of Lent: Day Four

I've written before of my affection for the movie version of Godspell though I know it's certainly not great art or even good religion. Part of my affection is because of the setting which combines two things of interest: an empty modern city and New York in the early 1970's. It's hard not to play "I know where they are" while watching Christ and His disciples cavort around certain landmarks. Sometimes, I'd rather not know.

One of the songs, "All For The Best," starts out with a message of "don't worry about your troubles no matter how big they seem, you'll get your reward in Heaven." Fine. The second verse goes on to detail those who seem to have everything, "richer than the bees are in honey." But don't worry about them, cause it's all for the best. The staging for the song moves from a fountain in a plaza to the roofs of Manhattan's skyscrapers, landing for the big finale on one of the Twin Towers.


While it's nice to see this view, a view we can't ever see again...



there's something ironic and chilling about hearing people sing, as the camera pulls away...





"Yes, it's all for the best!"

40 Days of Lent: Day Three

Nittany Lying

The scandal concerning Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky raping a ten year old* (the thought alone boggles the mind) has some personal resonance. I grew up in Pennsylvania where you either loved the Penn State football team or hated them. I did not love them. Fans of Penn State football seemed to exhibit a special obnoxiousness particularly when the team was doing well that made detractors and the apathetic alike wish for their ruination. In my college speech class, the most controversial entry during our "Topical Speech" assignment by far concerned the idea of IUP joining the same league as Penn State so they could play them in football. The pro-incest and "let the starving children in Africa starve" speeches didn't come close to inspiring the arguments and resentment that "let's play Penn State in football" did.

But that was over 20 years ago. IUP never did play Penn State, which is just as well, as they would have been crushed. My dislike for the Penn State program has remained, though I certainly can't find any schadenfreude in the current situation as it rests upon a number of kids being raped.* As I've gotten older, I've lost most of my taste for the grotesque, both fictitious and real. I've stockpiled enough stories of what human beings can and will do to each other. I'm full. I don't want any more. This may account for why I don't like crime novels. In striving for some ultimate crime the authors strain credibility. "Really? The entire town, from the homeless man on the corner to the minister to the chief of police was in on the conspiracy to corrupt orphans and then sell them as food? That doesn't happen."

Or so I thought. Among those who knew of the crimes at Penn State and did nothing include head coach Joe Paterno and university president Graham Spanier. Paterno's "punishment" was making Sandusky hand over his locker room key, in essence telling him to take that somewhere else. It was revealed that the judge who set Sandusky's lenient bail had volunteered for his charity organization. On and on it goes. Writing this...strike that...just thinking about this, exhausts and depresses me (as evidenced by the fact that the first draft of this post was written back in November, but I just didn't feel like re-reading it, let alone revising it).

When I was in high school, a teacher once mentioned to me how much he had enjoyed his time as an assistant coach for the football team but he knew that those days were, sadly, over for him. The head coach had been sued by a player's parents for beating up their son above and beyond a coach slapping a player around for doing wrong. My teacher had testified in court against the head coach.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because I saw him do it" was the matter of fact answer.

This teacher was one I never warmed to, and I don't think he liked me, either. But I've always respected him for is ability to recognize right from wrong and to chose the truth over any personal gain or tribal unity. He not only recognized what was right but acted upon it. He was never successful at teaching me how to structure a sentence, but he taught me something I'd like to think I've used more often.

*allegedly

40 Days of Lent: Day Two

Old iPhone Photos

Because I was trying to finish Mutants and Mystics by Jeffrey Kripal and didn't have time to write anything.

40 Days of Lent: Day One

Ash Wednesday!

I have several friends, good nonbelievers all, who love Christmas. They decorate, listen to Christmas music and buy generous gifts for friends and wrap them so as to resemble little works of art. They truly have the spirit of the day within them. But not only do they not believe in the divinity of Christ or the existence of God but they seem offended by such concepts. I myself don't have quite the same enthusiasm for Christmas. I feel I should. I reflexively think of it as my favorite holiday of the year, yet in actuality, it just seems to bring a lot of additional obligations on my time and attention. I have a friend whose family threw some of the best Christmas parties I've had the luck to attend but now she, after a bitter divorce, flat out says she hates Christmas.

I think of my festive faithless friends every year around this time because I love Ash Wednesday. I love getting dirt smeared on my forehead. Today it looked less like a cross than a running man. I love seeing who else has ashes on their forehead, the other marked. I enjoy talking about the logistics of getting ashes with other people. "St. Pat's is giving out ashes all day. You can be in and out like that, unless you go at lunchtime." I believe I gave this advice to four different people today, including someone at work I overheard mumbling "Ashes. Everyone's got ashes today. Gotta go get ashes..."

It's almost 10:00 at night and I still have the dark smear on my forehead. It almost seems a shame to wash it off. This evening I walked past a church and thought about going in and getting more ashes. I could see the priest's moment of confusion. "You already have ashes, my son." "I know. But I'd like some more." Perhaps you could spend the entire day going from church to church getting more and more holy soot smeared on your head. At what point would they stop? Would it before you looked like you were part of a minstrel show? Would you be taken aside and lectured on the deadly sin of gluttony? I imagine a priest would refuse those who went back for seconds on communion, but are ashes one to a customer?

2011: The Year In Facebook Status Updates

I thought my friend Jason's status was so funny, I'm reposting it here:

"I'm so pretentious. I made a quick run to Movie Stop to check their used Blu-Ray discs. Clerk: "Be sure to bring in any used movies you have for store credit." Me: "Sorry, I don't buy crap. Everything I own is crucial." :)"
· January 29, 2011 at 12:09pm


Next month I turn 46. Last night I was carded.
· May 20, 2011 at 8:37am


Just overheard in the bar: "It's crawfish, so it's a good time...it's family night, so you gotta watch what you do."
· June 2, 2011 at 7:18pm


I missed the whole thing. I was out on my lunch break, looking for cards to wish my niece and nephew "good luck" this year at college. Then, when I saw our office building was evacuated, I went to a bar for a beer rather than stand around on the sidewalk.

I believe pretty much everything you might need to know about me can be found in this summation of the last hour or so of my life.
· August 23, 2011 at 3:04pm
(This was after an earthquake hit NYC.)


For once, the only people in my neighborhood actually live here. It's kinda nice.
· August 28, 2011 at 2:58pm
(This was after a hurricane bad enough to merit shutting down the entire subway system hit NYC.)


I'm at a bar (surprise!) and I can't escape the shrill argument raging behind me amongst a group of drunk teachers. It's a political argument that's at the level of just calling people "whores" by those who, I'm trying not to judge, don't know a thing about how the world really works.
I miss the days of teachers like my friend Amy or my Dad who just feel asleep when they got drunk.
I miss my dad.
· September 9, 2011 at 7:15pm


Most creative, effective spam mail subject line, which cause me to click on it even though I knew it was most likely spam:
"Mum killed after garlic bread row"
· September 15, 2011 at 10:52am


Quote of the day: "Do I have ink on my face again?"

It's the "again" that makes me laugh.
· September 23, 2011 at 8:38am

Recent iPhone Pictures

October 14th

I posted the below on Facebook on October 14th of last year. I meant to expand on it here but don't really have anything else to say. Facebook is too ephemeral and this I want to remember.

I found out tonight that my favorite old man bartender from my favorite dive bar retired this past July. He was someone who didn't like anyone so when you gained his trust or at least diminished his contempt, you felt like you had achieved something. He had great stories of what it was like growing up in the midwest in the early / mid-20th century and he made me feel better about getting old. He had a sense of gravitas and dignity that younger bartenders (hell, people for that matter) just don't have.

I'll never see him again, but worst yet, I never got a chance to tell him "thank you."

Things To Do Around The House

Two nights ago I was, like the subject of a first year art student's attempt at surrealism or a housewife finally succumbing to the DTs, standing on a chair and vacuuming the ceiling and walls. I was doing this because I was coming down with a cold, obviously. My apartment is in an old building, dating back to the beginning of the 20th century. The ceilings have cracked with some of the plaster has begun snowing down.

This doesn't bother me. It's one of those things that needs to be repaired every two or three years but I'm not in the mood to have repairmen schlepping through my apartment and the damage isn't bad enough yet to force the issue. The building settles, cracks appear in the brick facade, water gets in and saturates my ceiling, voila. It is, however, happening in my bedroom and once I felt a cold coming on I thought it best to remove as much potential irritant as possible. So that's why I was standing on a chair, vacuuming plaster from the room's open sores.

Last night I wanted to use a neti pot to clean out my sinuses. A neti pot is basically a small teapot. Short and stout. Handle. Spout. Unlike a teapot, you put the spout in one nostril, then tilt your head so that the water runs through both sinuses and out your other nostril. It is gross, but it does help when you have a cold. I didn't have a neti pot, but rather than brave the chilly temps and go out and buy one, I decided to make my own. I boiled water in my electric kettle, poured it into a bowl to cool, then transferred it to a measuring cup that has a spout, and was proud of my ingenuity.

Unfortunately, the spout on the measure cup was not designed to be inserted into a nostril (perhaps this is a safety feature). I stopped trying when I realized all I was going to do was end up looking like Jack Nicholson in Chinatown. So I poured the water sort of at my nostril, getting a surprising amount in my nose with much of that making the journey out the other side.

All this and I still found time tonight to break a favorite mug. It's amazing I get anything done.

How To

A list of links found while websurfing at work. Didn't have the nerve to click on any of them. I'm hoping that the removal method is not the same for every one.

How to Get Rid of Wasps

How To Get Rid of Genital Warts

How To Get Rid of Diarrhea

How To Get Rid of Spiders

How to Get Rid of Skunks

How to Get Rid of Back Fat

How to Get Rid of Hemorrhoids

How to Get Rid of Moles (Skin Moles)

How To Get Rid of Cellulite

How to Get Rid of Warts