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NARROWLY AVERTED DISASTER OF THE DAY:
Don't know if you noticed, but as Rags to Riches ran down the home stretch of th Belmont Stakes, her normally reserved trainer Todd Pletcher pumped his fist dramatically...missing his young daughter's head by a fraction of an inch as he did so. It would have been pretty ironic (and, of course awkward) if he ended up celebrating this historic breakthrough for female kind by knocking out his 5 year old daughter with a vicious right cross.
CONCEPTUAL ART IDEA OF THE DAY:
Wrapping the White House with the yellow tape used to indicate where a crime has taken place.
PROMISORY NOTE OF THE DAY:
I promise to overcome my general inertia and my Photoshop-challengedness in order to execute and post the above outlined piece of political/conceptual art in the near future.
SOPRANO'S COMMENT OF THE DAY:
Hadn't seen the last few episodes, but watched the grand finale tonight--since I knew the media and the workplace would function as one big collective spoiler the next day. I liked the way they handled the whole ending business. Satisfyingly anti-climactic. Tony seeing the vanity of all things--reflected back at him through senile Uncle Junior's uncomprehending eyes. ("You and dad used to run North Jersey."/ "We did? That's nice.") Then one last gathering with the family. Both pedestrian and penultimate. And finally, the sudden, disruptive "say whaaa?" cut to black. The finality of no finality. The resolution of no resolution. The permanence of impermanence. Life goes on. Pass the onion rings etc. I never had the religious reverence for the show that a lot of people did, but it was certainly an excellent and groundbreaking series and perhaps the most realistic portrait of the modern Amercian suburban family ever to appear on any kind of a screen. That said, when Tony visits Silvio Dante (Little Stevie Van Zandt) in the hospital just prior to the penultimate scene with Uncle Junior in the nursing home, I sort of wanted Little Stevie to pop out of the coma and say to Tony, "You know, I always preferred working for the other Boss." And then just expire.
The "Six Feet Under" ending was more soul-stirringly satisfying, but the Soprano's ending was arguably more profound and mature in its embrace of the prosaic and rejection of closure. In any event, both finales were really appropriate to the spirits of the respective shows.
(A more cynical interpretation of course would be that the inconclusive ending without an ending leaves the door open for a future movie. But since I find cynicism to be an unattractive trait, I find this to be an unattractive interpretation.)
RELUCTANTLY OFFERED FOOTNOTE OF THE DAY:
For the pop musically challenged and anyone else mystified by the above comment about "the other boss": Little Stevie Van Zandt (The actor who played Silvio Dante) is a founding member of "The E Street Band"--the Band headed up by Bruce Springsteen aka "The Boss."
PERVERSE CONSUMER ACT OF THE DAY:
Going to Barnes and Noble each day at lunch to read from my designated freebie book (in this case, "Falling Man" by Don Delillo) and then, once I've finished it, buying it as a gesture of retroactive gratitude for their having let me read it for free.
WEIRD 9/11 THOUGHT OF THE DAY:
One of the remarkable and unremarked upon realities concerning the 9/11 attacks is the fact that, in the aftermath of the event, the hijackers and victims became co-mingled at the molecular level, blended --along with the pulverized concrete, asbestos, fiberglass, plastic and god knows what else--in the acrid, particulate-filled air that we all, for a time, breathed.
WEIRD ONLINE EXPERIENCE OF THE DAY:
I recently received a forwarded Power Point presentation from a friend. I opened it and it was a series of gorgeously composed babies-in-nature photos--presented in a meditatively paced slide show with spirtually minded copy: "We possess more, but have less...We can travel to the moon and back, but we can't cross the street to visit our neighbors...We have more information but less knowledge...More money buy less values...We have managed to add years to our lives but not life to our years...etc. " As the slide show played out before me, I alternated between sincerely reflecting upon these deep thoughts and feeling slightly oppressed by their sententious serenity. Anyhow, finally the time-released profundity ended with another startling visual and a carpe diem reminder. That life is precious. Live every moment as it it might be your last. I thought about it for a moment, reflected on my ambivalence towards this whole mid-day presentation (how much of the ambivalence was a function of having opened it in mid-task at the workplace and feeling a bit hijacked by its long, slowly paced, unsolicited spirituality and how much of was a function of my essential and irredeemable dark heartedness? ) and then tried to exit the program. To my chagrin, I discovered that there was no exit. I could not even effect a "force quit." I began to think: Is this some virus sent out by spiritually minded cyber terrorists to free us from the prison of technology? Or is it some mind reading litmus test that can detect your degree of cynicism, ambivalence and impatience and punishes you accordingly? Anyhow, I had some anxious moments there as I tried to reboot the computer and half-expected to see a cracked Apple icon and a message saying "For your own spiritual salvation, this computer has been destroyed." Of course, this did not happen, and I immediately resumed by soulless, spirit-deadening activities.
I'm not sure how I feel about the whole thing or why I'm even bothering to recount it. But there it is.
PARENTAL ASSURANCE OF THE DAY:
Mom, dad: In case either one of you is reading this: I am not really dark-hearted. The above referenced dark-heartedness was exaggerated for the purposes of narrative interest--and in all likelihood exaggerated in vain, as narrative interest may very well not have been achieved.
CURIOUS PHENOMENON OF THE DAY:
The conflict between the faculty of reason and the evidence of the senses. For example, I am in the shower and the water is ridiculously hot. I turn the cold water knob to allow more cold water into the mix. I detect absolutely no change in the temperature and yet some part of me says "Well, it must be less hot, because I've tuned the knob." The dialogue within my head continues. Scalding and hijinx ensue.
SHOCKING REVELATION OF THE DAY:
From an Article in the New York Times about how online pornography has actually hurt Pornogaphers' profits.
"And unlike consumers looking for music and other media, viewers of pornography do not seem to mind giving up brand-name producers and performers for anonymous ones, or a well-lighted movie set for a ratty couch at an amateur videographer’s house."
Shameless consumers! What ever happend to brand loyalty?!?!?! What am I going to learn next, that crack users aren't brand loyal either???
LFAQs of THE DAY: (For newcomers to the site: LFAQs are Less Frequently Asked Questions.)
A filly becomes a mare becomes a nag. A colt becomes a stallion becomes a what???
a) gluer
b) geezer
c) dogfooder
d) moo shu "chicken"
e) I have no freaking idea.
Which is preferable: To be witless and to know it or to be witless and not know it? (obviously, the former is preferable for those who have to be in the witless person's company.)
Did Paris Hilton get mints on her pillow in prison?
What was the unspecified medical problem that led to Paris's sudden and premature release from prison? Claustrophobia?
Which is preferable: Extraordinary suffering or ordinary misery?
Is the "Thirteen" in "Ocean's Thirteen" the biggest number ever to appear in a Hollywood movie series (which is to say a movie in which the number is used in an ordinal fashion)?
If it does indeed constitute an all-time record, should it have an asterisk beside it--owing to the face that, in a strange inversion of Nils Tufnel's famous claim about Spinal Tap's amp, the series of sequels started at eleven?
Which have steroids enlarged more, Barry Bonds' head or Bud Selig' wallet?
Was the filly's victory in the Belmont Stakes a triumph for all of female kind or only for four-legged female kind?
Is your confidence in elementary mathematical education sufficient to make you feel comfortable asking a cabbie to drop you off "two-thirds" of the way down the block? Or would you adjust that request to something like "a little more than half way down the block?"
What's with Paris Hilton's prison being called Twin Towers Correctional Facility? Is she even aware of the tragic fate of the Twin Towers or is her ignorance so dazzling and narcissism so complete that if she hears someone talking about the Twin Towers tragedy in the future she'll think they're referring to her prison stint?
Who is less brand loyal: The average crack addict or the average porn afficionado?
Is there really such a thing as an average crack addict or an average porn afficionado? Aren't they all really special in their own way?
Do you like the way "porn afficionado" is an extension of the elevating absurdity behind the term "gentlemen's club?"
What would be next: "Snuff film connoisseur?"
Was Bush's calling for a big environmental summit a cynical PR stunt to keep pressure off him before the G8 conference or does it reflect a sudden sincere change of heart? (NOTE: This is a less frequently asked question only because the answer is so patently obvious that no one would even bother asking it.)
OFFICE E-MAIL OF THE DAY:
I will be taking next Friday (6/15) as a personal day/Summer Friday. In an effort to harness my very limited cleverness resources towards exclusively work-related pursuits, I will refrain from attempting to say anything funny here. How did I do?
BOOK I WILL NEVER WRITE OF THE DAY:
Poems for Assisted Living.
First entry:
The eyes are the window of the soul.
And the cataracts are its gauzy curtains.
ART IDEA I WILL NEVER BOTHER TO EXECUTE OF THE DAY:
Photo-realist painting of an inverted fried egg...with the outside yellow and the yolk white.
OPTIMISTIC THOUGHT OF THE DAY:
Maybe the Pope will talk some sense into Bush. Maybe he's saying "Um...don't know how to break it to you George, but God told me that he didn't tell you to go to war with Iraq. So it's your word against his. And who am I going to believe?"
PESSIMISTIC THOUGHT OF THE DAY:
Pettiness. The lasting human legacy.
SPORTS-RELATED COMEDY OF THE DAY:
Ah the delicious irony of NY Post readers in an uproar over the Stray-Rod coverage. My favorite letter to the Editor, written entirely without irony:
"Since when did The Post drop itself down to a cheap tabloid Level?"
-Rob Carpentier Clifton, NJ.
Yes, from the venerable (or is it veneral?) publication that brought us "Headless man in Topless bar" and Page Six. I guess supporting the Yankees is the only value the Post Readers hold more sacred than the right to be cheaply titillated.
HONEST TO GOD OVERHEARD INTERACTION OF THE DAY:
Overheard in the aisle of Blockbuster .
-"Deja Vu." Hmm. Did we see that?
-I don't know.
-I'm not sure, but I have this feeling that we saw it.
OBSERVATION OF THE DAY:
I don't in any way want to be disrespectful to our troops. Lord knows, I support them. Whatever I may think of the Iraq war, I certainly and obviously have regard for the people who put their lives on the line in the military. But for goodness sakes: What is with the helicopter crashes! Don't they train anyone how to pilot a helicopter over there? Every single day it seems I am reading about another helicopter crashing and more troops dying. And it always seems that they are not being shot down by the enemy but are rather crashing into each other or into some other stationary obstacle. Like a tree. Or a cliff. Or they're just crashing because of mechanical failure. It really seems like maybe we should just do more stuff on the ground instead of the air. Like maybe build more schools or whatever. Anyhow, I'm no military genius, but it's just a thought.
It's funny: I actually attended a Memorial Day parade in Rowayton Ct and a few Black Hawk helicopters flew by as part of the proceedings. And as these magnificent machines of death and destruction flew by, all I was thinking was "God, no. PLEASE don't crash. Please don't let anyone be embarrassed here. Or killed." In some weird way, I felt sort of like I was a parent watching his child perform on stage. I felt protective of the freaking military. That is not a good sign.
MEDIA OBSERVATION OF THE DAY:
At the dentist’s office, I picked up People magazine for the first time in over a decade. As I recall, it used to be about celebs to some extent but largely a celebration ordinary people with extraordinary stories. Not any more! It seems that the fascination with famous people is so great in our culture right now that the only context in which we show any interest in so called ordinary people is when they are in the process of trying to become famous. Hence, the allure of American Idol, the Bachelor and all those other reality TV shows that opiate our great nation. It seems they should change the magazine's name from People to Famous People. Or People With High Q Ratings. Or People who like to read about More Famous People. Or something.
CURIOUS MEDIA MOMENT OF THE DAY:
The president of Bard College getting hissed on The Colbert Report for saying that man invented god. What was striking was that Colbert's usually simulated chagrin seemed, for a moment, truly genuine--the South Carolina Catholic peaking through the unflappably blowhardy character creation. But even more striking was that the academic's comment elicited hisses and boos from the presumably secular humanist crowd. Interesting and disorienting moment. It made me realize just how pervasive the religiousity in our culture has become--even in a presumed redoubt of secular humanistic sanity. Made me realize just how inadmissable it has become to declare yourself an atheist.
Which somehow brings to mind a fascinating headline I read just minutes ago:
Poll: Many Americans Believe in Both Evolution, Creationism.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070608/lf_afp/usevolutionreligion
ILLUSIONS OF THE DAY:
The Illusion of Inclusion.
The Illusion of Progress.
The Illusion of Protection.
The Illusion of Control.
The Illusion on Concern.
The Illusion of Competence.
TEDDY VEGAS INTERACTIVE FEATURE OF THE DAY:
Rank the above illusions in terms of a) their prevalence and b) their importance.
RANDOM SINGLE SENTENCE PORTRAIT OF THE DAY:
While his stocks had a good quarter, he had a rough quarter...century.
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Posted on 6/11/2007
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