Showing posts with label Observations Mild and Otherwise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Observations Mild and Otherwise. Show all posts
Daily Inspiration
As I sped over the Williamsburg Bridge in a mad dash to get to work on time this morning I passed by an extremely fit-looking woman without legs below the knees running in perfectly composed stride on what looked like two large, black, plastic spatulas that bounced her forward with uncanny ease and grace.
Statler and Waldorf
". . . the word 'idiot' comes from a Greek root meaning private person. Idiocy is the female defect: intent on their private lives, women follow their fate through a darkness deep as that cast by malformed cells in the brain. It is no worse than the male defect, which is lunacy: they are so obsessed by public affairs that they see the world as by moonlight, which shows the outlines of every object but no the details indicative of their nature. . ."
- Rebecca West
What is more appealing than a good, stubborn, grumpy old misanthrope? Ms. West really was not a misanthrope at all, but this passage smells of it, and there is a great deal to be gained by quoting things out of context. Just look at what the great religions do at a centurial, decadal and journal clip. I mean, who doesn't prefer Oscar the Grouch over Elmo (besides legions of retarded children, among whom my boy will surely be absent.)
My oldest brother was perpetually referred to as "The Grump" by my family during holidays.
I always envied him that rather unassailable perch up there.
- Rebecca West
What is more appealing than a good, stubborn, grumpy old misanthrope? Ms. West really was not a misanthrope at all, but this passage smells of it, and there is a great deal to be gained by quoting things out of context. Just look at what the great religions do at a centurial, decadal and journal clip. I mean, who doesn't prefer Oscar the Grouch over Elmo (besides legions of retarded children, among whom my boy will surely be absent.)
My oldest brother was perpetually referred to as "The Grump" by my family during holidays.
I always envied him that rather unassailable perch up there.
The Island In My Kitchen
Sometimes when I am walking around I imagine myself a NASA space ship without much fuel left like in that movie with Tom Hanks where he has to use the gravitational pull of the moon to sling shot his ship back to Earth. I imagine some of the objects that surround me are like the moon and I let their gravitational pull sling shoot me around as I walk.
Morning Coffee and the New York Post
All that was left of the scene when I stepped out to get my wife a capuccino this morning was a pair of flat, beige women's shoes, a few discarded royal blue heavy latex gloves, a contractor's dump truck parked in the middle of the street and bits of human fleshy detritus lingering about a good-sized pool of bright red blood which had seeped out a bit like strands of a web into the surrounding cracks in the pavement. The shoes were a sort of mule, flat soled with a kind of fake braid in the front and heel straps in the back, the heel strap on the right shoe broken near the side buckle. The sort of shoe I would imagine an older Puerto Rican or Polish woman with heavy ankles and a broad skirt might have bought at a Payless. The Hasids huddled in little groups mumbling, the Puerto Ricans in looser packs, speaking in loud, slurred Spanish making Gareth-like hand gesticulations, Police detectives inspecting the axles.
There are so many obvious things to question at a moment like that. Perhaps the most obvious being the most obvious: why did they leave her shoes?
There are so many obvious things to question at a moment like that. Perhaps the most obvious being the most obvious: why did they leave her shoes?
It Is My Sister-In-Law's Birthday Tomorrow
If you know my sister-in-law, you know she is a woman of considerable opinion. Once she believes in something, well, that's the way it is. At least this has been much of my experience with her. My brother, I am sure, has a much more nuanced portrait. But when I first got to college, a college my brother had just graduated from and where my future sister-in-law (we will call her "Elaine") was only a grade higher than me, "Elaine" introduced me to the orange colored, particularly scented goop called Dial Anti-Bacterial liquid soap. To her, this was the only soap to use. Being somewhat easy going and having absolutely no theretofore held opinions about soap (save perhaps that I had used Lever 2000 bars the previous final two years of high school, switching from bars of Irish Spring that had dominated my first two years) I readily signed on to the Dial bandwagon. It did not hurt Dial's cause that it seemed to be the soap of choice of many of my fellow co-eds as well, resulting in a homogeneous smell throughout the dorm showers that holds primal place in my olfactory memory of the era perhaps second only to the sweet smell of eucylyptus.
I can't remember when it was I discovered other soaps (I do remember coming to the opinion that Ivory didn't properly wash off well enough) before settling on kind of a hodge podge of bathing techniques mostly founded on opportunism regarding various roommate's supply. I am told by those who were around me regularly towards the end of my college career that I smelled distinctly of unwashed bedding, neoprene and salt water.
On my picturesque bike ride to work this morning some men were hosing down the sidewalk on Crosby Street using a brand of soap that smelled to me just like that Dial Anti-Bacterial.
Nice timing.
I can't remember when it was I discovered other soaps (I do remember coming to the opinion that Ivory didn't properly wash off well enough) before settling on kind of a hodge podge of bathing techniques mostly founded on opportunism regarding various roommate's supply. I am told by those who were around me regularly towards the end of my college career that I smelled distinctly of unwashed bedding, neoprene and salt water.
On my picturesque bike ride to work this morning some men were hosing down the sidewalk on Crosby Street using a brand of soap that smelled to me just like that Dial Anti-Bacterial.
Nice timing.
Blogs I'm Glad I Haven't Written
My Baby Doesn't Have Jaundice
What's So Great About Prince?
The States I Am Missing From My Quarter Collection
I Don't Like Lime In My Mexican Beer
Magic Powers I Wish I Had
Reggae Is Great
Matte Vs. Semi-Gloss
Sigourney Weaver
Sadducees Are Better Than Pharisees
My Printer/ Scanner Combo Sucks
What's So Great About Prince?
The States I Am Missing From My Quarter Collection
I Don't Like Lime In My Mexican Beer
Magic Powers I Wish I Had
Reggae Is Great
Matte Vs. Semi-Gloss
Sigourney Weaver
Sadducees Are Better Than Pharisees
My Printer/ Scanner Combo Sucks
Worried That This Blog Will Turn Into A Baby Blog
The other day Jack asked me if I wanted to go surfing. I nearly didn't go because I wanted to be with my boy.
She Smells Him And To Her He Curiously Smells Like Us.
My dog likes my little boy. That is a relief.
Knee & Neck
Turning the corner on Crosby this morning, off in the distance there was a sound. From afar it sounded like the unified chanting of some group of religious zealots, akin perhaps to the Buddhist throat chanting I have heard an old neighbor practicing across the hall. There were high registers and low registers all harmonizing in one magnificent drone. As I came nearer it became louder and less beautiful and I realized it was from some construction tool, grinding away on the high top of a building on the corner. But for a moment it sounded like a massive devotional.
I used to be some sort of believer. I am proud in some way of my old believing. To have gone through that and come out the other side is for me a kind of feat. I know some who say this means I never really believed and others who say I have never really stopped. Neither statement is correct nor incorrect, just assumptions made by someone else.
I used to be some sort of believer. I am proud in some way of my old believing. To have gone through that and come out the other side is for me a kind of feat. I know some who say this means I never really believed and others who say I have never really stopped. Neither statement is correct nor incorrect, just assumptions made by someone else.
Posting Other People's Stories Is Not A Habit Here. This Is Not That Sort Of Blog. This Is An Exception. With Good Reason.
Chief engineer Ake (pronounced OK) got really drunk before our taxi ride to the airport. Flights are delayed. Hours have passed. Now he is passed out on a couch in the airport. He calls me Steve. He tells me 'Steve, the movie is so pretty. How do you make the music like that?'
Ake told me a joke. All the jokes he tells contextual to our conversations. He uses them to explain engineering. This one goes: A farmer wants to show his new son-in-law his land. So they get in a car and drive around the property. It takes about an hour. The son-in-law says 'that's all your land?'
"Yes, all of that," the farmer replies, motioning widely with his arms. The son in law says, " it would take the whole day to drive around my farm."
The farmer replies, "I too have such a car"
Ake tells this joke and repeats the punchline. He explains it halfway. "You know these cars? You say to them, check the gas and fill the oil. You know, the smoke."
Ake calls me Steve. Perhaps when he awakes I will tell him my name is Kevin. He will like that. Like one of his jokes.
Ake loves to drink.
Chief mate Martin is a German. He goes on and on. I was told by barman Anders to "have a plan" if he starts telling a story. Last night my plan was foiled. It was just martin and me in the officer's mess last night. We both ordered beef tenderloin. We finished at the same time. He'd begun a story about hooking up with a young woman onboard in Antarctica. It was a dull story. He was tooting his own horn as slyly as a German can. I left the officer's mess and went to the bar. HE followed me, talking all the way. I then told him I'm going up to the dive locker. And he nodded, still talking. I left abruptly as if I'd suddenly remembered something. I arrived at the dive locker and he was there moments later. Same story. Now just a series of adjectives and modified adjectives, adverbs and participles (verbs used as adjectives--clever but often annoyingly unnecessary). Luckily Dennis Cornejo--who basically lives in the dive locker with his Mac laptop and endless bottles of wine--came out, looked at martin and told him to stop talking. Martin laughed. Dennis was drunk. Dennis kept telling him to stop talking and Martin eventually quieted. Dennis looked at me and smiled. Then he turned around and went back to his laptop.
Dennis edits the underwater footage from his dives. His final product usually has a doors song playing over the shots of fish and coral and other divers. He gives them away. Doors music does not fit with underwater footage. It is perhaps one of the more hilarious mismatches I've seen. Dennis wears the same red shirt everyday. Other naturalists give him shirts to wear. He wears them once then puts on his red shirt. The shirt he always wears says "nitrogen narcosis" on the front. On the back it says "mad for it." Dennis may have a permanent form of nitrogen narcosis. It suits him.
Aug 12 for me is gonna be super long, and among the many things I will not be doing is a proper end to this email.
Barman Anders and Ake and Dennis went fishing for wahoo at Beveridge Reef and when they came back empty handed hotel manager Willy was a little pissy. But that is Willy for you. Biting tits one day, cranky the next. Willy is a German in exile. He lives in Ecuador and Miami. He is as queer as a three dollar bill. And his dance moves are record breaking.
-Kevin
Nadi, Fiji
Aug 12, 2006 2:36 AM
Ake told me a joke. All the jokes he tells contextual to our conversations. He uses them to explain engineering. This one goes: A farmer wants to show his new son-in-law his land. So they get in a car and drive around the property. It takes about an hour. The son-in-law says 'that's all your land?'
"Yes, all of that," the farmer replies, motioning widely with his arms. The son in law says, " it would take the whole day to drive around my farm."
The farmer replies, "I too have such a car"
Ake tells this joke and repeats the punchline. He explains it halfway. "You know these cars? You say to them, check the gas and fill the oil. You know, the smoke."
Ake calls me Steve. Perhaps when he awakes I will tell him my name is Kevin. He will like that. Like one of his jokes.
Ake loves to drink.
Chief mate Martin is a German. He goes on and on. I was told by barman Anders to "have a plan" if he starts telling a story. Last night my plan was foiled. It was just martin and me in the officer's mess last night. We both ordered beef tenderloin. We finished at the same time. He'd begun a story about hooking up with a young woman onboard in Antarctica. It was a dull story. He was tooting his own horn as slyly as a German can. I left the officer's mess and went to the bar. HE followed me, talking all the way. I then told him I'm going up to the dive locker. And he nodded, still talking. I left abruptly as if I'd suddenly remembered something. I arrived at the dive locker and he was there moments later. Same story. Now just a series of adjectives and modified adjectives, adverbs and participles (verbs used as adjectives--clever but often annoyingly unnecessary). Luckily Dennis Cornejo--who basically lives in the dive locker with his Mac laptop and endless bottles of wine--came out, looked at martin and told him to stop talking. Martin laughed. Dennis was drunk. Dennis kept telling him to stop talking and Martin eventually quieted. Dennis looked at me and smiled. Then he turned around and went back to his laptop.
Dennis edits the underwater footage from his dives. His final product usually has a doors song playing over the shots of fish and coral and other divers. He gives them away. Doors music does not fit with underwater footage. It is perhaps one of the more hilarious mismatches I've seen. Dennis wears the same red shirt everyday. Other naturalists give him shirts to wear. He wears them once then puts on his red shirt. The shirt he always wears says "nitrogen narcosis" on the front. On the back it says "mad for it." Dennis may have a permanent form of nitrogen narcosis. It suits him.
Aug 12 for me is gonna be super long, and among the many things I will not be doing is a proper end to this email.
Barman Anders and Ake and Dennis went fishing for wahoo at Beveridge Reef and when they came back empty handed hotel manager Willy was a little pissy. But that is Willy for you. Biting tits one day, cranky the next. Willy is a German in exile. He lives in Ecuador and Miami. He is as queer as a three dollar bill. And his dance moves are record breaking.
-Kevin
Nadi, Fiji
Aug 12, 2006 2:36 AM
Four More Things To Do Today To Make Yourself More Aware
1. Look up. It may feel like you are a tourist gawking at the tops of them thar high buildins but really, you kind of are. Looking up, I mean way up, is really a treat. Once a day, on some mundane corner or route, take a look up. It feels great. Stretch first.
2. Buy a piece of fruit from a fruit vendor. Try to have exact change. In fact, if you don't have exact change, find out how much that piece of fruit is that you want and go get some exact change. When the vendor sells you the fruit, drop the change into the palm of his hand. Eat the piece of fruit.
3. Find a stick and bang on every bit of metal you pass. Just bang once, not too violently, so you can hear what it sounds like. There are a lot of different sounding bits of metal in the city: lamp posts, subway stair handrails, trash can lids, fences.
4. Stare at pretty girls. Brazenly. I mean, really really stare. Until you feel like a real dick. This goes for women too. Actually, it works a whole lot better for women to do this. Men already know the feeling perhaps too well.
2. Buy a piece of fruit from a fruit vendor. Try to have exact change. In fact, if you don't have exact change, find out how much that piece of fruit is that you want and go get some exact change. When the vendor sells you the fruit, drop the change into the palm of his hand. Eat the piece of fruit.
3. Find a stick and bang on every bit of metal you pass. Just bang once, not too violently, so you can hear what it sounds like. There are a lot of different sounding bits of metal in the city: lamp posts, subway stair handrails, trash can lids, fences.
4. Stare at pretty girls. Brazenly. I mean, really really stare. Until you feel like a real dick. This goes for women too. Actually, it works a whole lot better for women to do this. Men already know the feeling perhaps too well.
Last Night I Dreamt My Wife Birthed a Small Spotted Puppy of Indeterminate Gender
The East River was brown this morning.
Crosby
Behind my office is a narrow cobblestone street I ride my bike down everyday on the way to work. There is usually another cyclist on a jalopy bicycle like mine riding towards me and the cobblestones and the narrowness and bicycleness reminds me of some old black and white Dutch scene. It is very romantic. I wonder if when they see me they get the same feeling.
Danny is an American
Last week Danny became a citizen of the United States. He squeezed into an auditorium with a low ceiling in a technical college in downtown Brooklyn packed with anxious immigrants. He said his very first truthful Pledge of Allegiance and took an oath to defend the country. After singing the national anthem, as everyone was slowly shuffling out, he heard Neil Diamond's "America" over the loud speaker. Right before reaching the door, as the last few notes of "America" played out, the next song on the rotation kicked in: "Born in the USA."
Sunday Post, Uninteresting Post.
The clock has read 5:03 for a week.
I unplugged it because it runs too loud when I turn the air conditioning off at night.
There is crazy klezmer polish pop music on the radio here in New York.
It is 90 degrees outside and humid and I am mopping the floor of my apartment.
There has been a rumor going around that Bausch and Lomb contact solution has a bad fungus that it carries. I went to the store this morning and got some Acuvue.
There are four Coronas in my refridgerator and they will probably be gone by 3:00.
Now the Polish station is playing some Joe Cocker song.
Go figure.
I unplugged it because it runs too loud when I turn the air conditioning off at night.
There is crazy klezmer polish pop music on the radio here in New York.
It is 90 degrees outside and humid and I am mopping the floor of my apartment.
There has been a rumor going around that Bausch and Lomb contact solution has a bad fungus that it carries. I went to the store this morning and got some Acuvue.
There are four Coronas in my refridgerator and they will probably be gone by 3:00.
Now the Polish station is playing some Joe Cocker song.
Go figure.
Romanticize Your Life
When I was a kid, growing up, I used to get beat up a lot. At least it feels like I did. I can't be too sure, really, since my memory is always playing tricks on me. I tend to romanticize my life as much as possible so memories sometimes become inflated or deflated. My wife thinks its pretty unimaginable that I used to get beat up so much. Every now and then we talk about it and she asks why anyone would want to fight me. I wasn't a jerky kid really, I don't think. I am trying to teach my wife how to romanticize her life more. She is a realist, you know, real politic. She is also kind of a worrier, but she gets her shit done. She always, always gets her shit done. I end up romanticizing getting shit done and then it never really gets done. But she doesn't do that, she just makes a list and checks things off. She has a black book she carries around. But I would get beat up all the time. Sometimes kids would just come up to me and hit me. I got suspended one time because some kid I didn't even know came up and started hitting me and I hit him back for a while then he just stopped and walked off. I still remember his jeans jacket from the back. I think he got expelled which must've been what he wanted. That's pretty funny right there. I was probably just some kid he thought he could beat up to get expelled because he didn't want to be in junior high anymore. Maybe I shouldn't say I got beat up as much as kids picked fights with me. The popular jocks figured I was an easy target. The wannabe gangsters thought I was an easy target. The misfit rocker kids thought I was an easy target. I actually wasn't that easy, as it turns out, I just didn't know I wasn't that easy. I didn't figure that out until much, much later.
Ignorance isn't Bliss, its Kinda Claustrophobic
On Saturday I was riding down off the bridge turning the corner on Driggs passing by the old stinky sleeping homeless man stuffed between the parallel parked cars when I saw the guys from the messy mechanic's shop had set up a makeshift cricket pitch in the middle of South 5th. They had a makeshift wicket set up and had a homemade cricket bat and they were using a tennis ball or something like that. This was a surprise since I thought those guys were Puerto Rican and Puerto Ricans don't usually set up makeshift cricket pitches and how the heck could I get a Puerto Rican mixed up with an Indian or a Pakistani? That's a pretty big ethnic jump there. Its not like "oh you're Guatemalan and your Honduran" or "you're Swiss and you're French." This is PUERTO RICAN and SUBCONTINENTAL. That's ridiculous.
Anyhow, these guys were teaching some of their black friends how to bowl in cricket and it was pretty funny to watch because these black guys just wanted to throw fastballs.
Anyhow, these guys were teaching some of their black friends how to bowl in cricket and it was pretty funny to watch because these black guys just wanted to throw fastballs.
Words Weather Forecasters Ought to Use More
Gastrointestinal
Blight
Pistol-whip
Bigot
Poncey
Bland
The list could go on.
But I'll stop there.
Blight
Pistol-whip
Bigot
Poncey
Bland
The list could go on.
But I'll stop there.
Nothing Doing
This morning, this hot, hot morning, I put on the same shirt I wore yesterday.
Hot, hot yesterday. I didn't think much of it. I just put it on.
Yesterday was really hot. So hot my wife just had to nap the afternoon away.
I went over to Mathieu Lusk's place and he made me a hot dog and fed me a beer and we listened to music and talked about some projects.
This morning I got up and put on another shirt. A faded green button up number that is great for hot days. Unfortunately it has a couple of recurring rips in the shoulder that just don't seem to go away. I get them fixed and a week later those seams split again.
So I put that shirt on the back of a chair and reached for the shirt I wore yesterday.
Yesterday was hot, and this shirt I reached for is currently my favorite shirt.
Its faded greyish white and has some sort of cryptic super faded silk screen on the front.
I usually don't go in for shirts with stuff on them, I like the plain shirts, maybe that's why I like this shirt so much, it has something on it, its cryptic, you can't really see it, and I like that.
It was super really hot yesterday.
I wore this shirt yesterday and I put it on this morning and didn't give it a second thought.
I rode my bike into work and it is already scorching out there.
I mean, its really scorching. Its supposed to get up to 105 degrees or something like that.
Yesterday was hot, but today, today is going to be a scorcher.
I ride a pretty easy going bike, so I didn't get too worked up on my ride in.
My dog was in my bag since I don't want to leave her in a hot apartment on such a stinking scorching day.
My office is really well air-conditioned.
Most of the time too well, as it gets pretty chilly in here. But today it feels like an Antarctic oasis and that's nice.
I sit down at my computer to start working on something that I need to get done pretty soon.
I wore this shirt yesterday.
Hot, hot yesterday. I didn't think much of it. I just put it on.
Yesterday was really hot. So hot my wife just had to nap the afternoon away.
I went over to Mathieu Lusk's place and he made me a hot dog and fed me a beer and we listened to music and talked about some projects.
This morning I got up and put on another shirt. A faded green button up number that is great for hot days. Unfortunately it has a couple of recurring rips in the shoulder that just don't seem to go away. I get them fixed and a week later those seams split again.
So I put that shirt on the back of a chair and reached for the shirt I wore yesterday.
Yesterday was hot, and this shirt I reached for is currently my favorite shirt.
Its faded greyish white and has some sort of cryptic super faded silk screen on the front.
I usually don't go in for shirts with stuff on them, I like the plain shirts, maybe that's why I like this shirt so much, it has something on it, its cryptic, you can't really see it, and I like that.
It was super really hot yesterday.
I wore this shirt yesterday and I put it on this morning and didn't give it a second thought.
I rode my bike into work and it is already scorching out there.
I mean, its really scorching. Its supposed to get up to 105 degrees or something like that.
Yesterday was hot, but today, today is going to be a scorcher.
I ride a pretty easy going bike, so I didn't get too worked up on my ride in.
My dog was in my bag since I don't want to leave her in a hot apartment on such a stinking scorching day.
My office is really well air-conditioned.
Most of the time too well, as it gets pretty chilly in here. But today it feels like an Antarctic oasis and that's nice.
I sit down at my computer to start working on something that I need to get done pretty soon.
I wore this shirt yesterday.
I Mean, What Really Merits Disgrace? Really.
I'm like, fuck you.
And they're like, what? No! Fuck you!
And I'm like, TAKE IT MOTHER FUCKER!
Geez, alright take it the fuck easy.
YOU TAKE IT EASY!
And they're like, what? No! Fuck you!
And I'm like, TAKE IT MOTHER FUCKER!
Geez, alright take it the fuck easy.
YOU TAKE IT EASY!
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