Smileys, Sadness Etc.

HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY:

Going to see a friend's improv show at the Upright Citizen's Brigade and hanging out with his funny cute young smart friends afterwards.

LOWLIGHT OF THE DAY:

Going to see a friend's improv show at the Upright Citizen's Brigade and having one of his funny cute young smart friends ask if I was his father.

ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THE DAY:

Being last or next to last in both my NCAA pools. 13th of 14 in one and dead last in the other. The truth: There is nothing worse than being in the middle of the pack. Doing the worst is every bit as impressive an achievement as doing the best--as a reliable counterindicator is of every bit as much value as an oracle. To be 2 standard deviations from the mean (if even in the wrong direction) is a point of perverse pride. Or at least grounds for a transparently pathetic attempt at convincing myself of my enduring specialness.

I guess it's a good thing I didn't go to Vegas this year. (After 7 years, we are taking a hiatus this year. Late on the last Wednesday in March (i.e. now) is when I traditionally leave for the airport for the annual reunion. It feels strange not to be going this year. But somehow right. I'll spend the next few days losing money in the stock market instead.)

THEORY OF THE DAY:

A few friends and I were wondering why Coke tastes so much better in Paris. After some conjecture about different formulas, I came upon the following hypothesis. Coke tastes better in Paris than in NY for the same reason Orangina tastes better in New York that it does in Paris. One savors the associations of the iconic brand through the prism of cultural displacement. Coke in Europe tastes of the suddenly pure and mythic American experience. Orangina in New York is endowed with the charmed and slightly exotic aura of European travel. By some fascinating perceptual alchemy, the products' brand associations (their connotative baggage) enhance the actual experience of their consumption.

Or, of course, perhaps the water is different. Or there's more sugar.

CONFESSION OF THE DAY:

For personal reasons, Smiley faces make me sad.

MUSIC VIDEO IDEA OF THE DAY:

Dual videos for the song "Afternoon Delight" to appeal to different demographics (or at least different psychographics). In one, we hear "Oooohhh afternoon delight...." as a couple has a passionately amorous mid-day encounter. In the other, we hear the same lyrics as a man (played by yours truly) drifts off to a nice afternoon nap.

BEST MUSIC VIDEO EVER OF THE DAY:

Leonard Cohen singing "Tower of Song" accompanied by the humble supplicant Bono and his U2 companions. (This performance ends the documentary about Leonard Cohen "I'm Your Man").

MUSICAL LYRIC OF THE DAY: (From the abovementioned song.)

"The bridges are burning that we might have crossed/And I feel so close to everthing that we lost/We'll never, we'll never have to lose it again."

INTRA-PSYCHIC PHENOMENON OF THE DAY:

Having to be very careful not to misdial my friend's number--as it's very similar to my ex-girlfriend's number. Only one digit separating a quippy sports chat from a fall through a hole in the fabric of the world.

REVISION OF THE DAY:

Yes, the preceding is a slight exaggeration. The experiences are actually separated by 2 digits.

SUGGESTED BAND NAME OF THE DAY:

Helmet Dress

MID-WEEK WISH OF THE DAY:

For a day of simple dignity to appreciate--in all its perfect imperfection, in all it's gloriously infinite finitude--the simple dignity of day.

ASSOCIATED FRUSTRATION OF THE DAY:

The simple dignity of day
giving way
to the indignity
of the subway.

LFAQs of THE DAY:

In all of his not so subtle attacks on Obama (including the recent slimy innuendos about his lack of patriotism), has Bill Clinton been motivated primarily by marital loyalty or political envy? By love or ego? By wanting to see his wife succeed or by not wanting to see himself superceded? Well, I guess it's a less frequently asked question, because the answer is so obvious.

Can you be a wonk about anything other than politics and policy or does being a wonk in any other area turn you into a geek?

Which is greater: America's sense of exceptionalism or Eliot Spitzer's sense of exceptionalism?

Can't you just feel the absence of funk?

SADNESS OF THE DAY:

I heard that a troubled brother of my father's wife had suddenly died. While I was not at all close with him, and, in fact, hadn't even seen him in about 15 years, I had asked after him recently during the dinner I had with my half-sister (his neice) on the occasion of what would have been my father's 80th birthday. I think I felt some slight connection with him (based on a little philosophical/emotional/mental misadventure in my early 20s that took me out of the orbit of my life for a time) as a partial outcast from the human community. Or at least as a sort of relatably interrupted narrative. He had been a normal seeming young man until a car he was driving crashed, killing his best friend. He blamed himself and never recovered from the trauma...or at least so I was told by his father when he and I spoke at my father's Memorial Service in June. In any event, for either physiological or psychological reasons, he was pretty much a strange marginal figure for the rest of his life--unable to hold down a job or enter the mainstream of human society. He had evidently been most at home in the company of canines and over the last dozen or so years, he had lived in a big house with dozens of dogs he'd adopted.

I was surprised by how shaken I was by the news of his passing. I think it was largely due to the fact that the call I received from my sister reporting the unfortunate news was hauntingly reminiscent of the call I got from her telling me that my father had died...and reawakened all the pain and disorientation of that sudden, shocking loss. I was also struck by the image of him being found face down on the floor of his house, surrounded by his dogs. It has really stuck with me.

While I have not always been that close with my father's wife, my heart goes out to her for the fact that, within the space of a year, she has lost her husband and her brother and will soon, no doubt, lose her aged (and now heartbroken) parents. Life is an amazingly brutal thing sometimes And perhaps nothing in it is so awe-inspiring as the reality of its ending. Body shots to the heart. Holes punctured in the imaginary sky.

Another death at the cusp of spring--at the threshold of the thawing season.

DESCRIPTIVE FRAGMENT OF THE DAY:

It was a glimpse of another way he might have gone through time.

RANDOM SINGLE SENTENCE PORTRAIT OF THE DAY:

He was better at describing experiences than at participating in them.

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Posted on 3/27/2008 ( Permanent Link )
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