Eye Boggling

Despite all the "outrageous" colors in this picture, I thought it would be easier to endure than the one in the last post. All the grammas were clamoring for some shots of the Q, so I hope this satisfies.

Do Not Try This At Home

Rangelife suggests the following game: plunk any random letters into Google Image search, and wacky hi-jinx ensue. Beware, however, as mkjd yields this:

Overheard

"I try to make all my Powerpoints tongue-in-cheek."

Woman eating in Boudin's in Macy's at Union Square, 12:43pm, Jan. 29, 2007

Classic

I know the window for blogging about this closed long ago, like before the house was built, but Alanis Morrisette's Ironic, is due for a better-late-than-never ass-chewing. I also don't think I ever even listened to it all the way through before this morning in the car. But not one single metaphor in the whole song is ironic. Is that the ironic part? I'm amazed that this song is as galling today as it was 15 years ago, or whenever it came out. God forbid Alanis and Live Aid ever collaborate, is all I can say.

Two Examples of Twue Love

Stalled as I occasionally become for blog topics, I asked my dear husband to find something for me to blog about. He did. While I believe his courage and sacrifice in this task were great, they fall slightly behind the ass-kicking that Nell Hamm gave that mountain lion to save her husband. I am sure that Brook would do the same, if a mountain lion comes to Thomas Avenue.*

*Between this story and the story about James Kim, there is pretty much no chance I am traveling north of Sausalito ever again.

Hidden Gems of Print Advertising

For the first time in six years of living in Oakland, I opened the Wednesday mail circular called PennySaver. I never knew what a treasure I was throwing away every week. Here are a few of the things on offer:

2 Pigeons - $14/both

Collectors Plate – “Baby Raccoon” excellent condition $18

Collectors Plate – “Koala” excellent condition Hamilton collection $18

Cemetary/Funeral: Double Niche – Indoors, Chapel of the Chimes, Hayward, priced for quick sale. $7500 obo.

Health Care: Awesome Deal – Large Adult Undergarments, Liners, Pads, Diapers. $30/all

That’s a lot of good value for $7,566.

Admittedly, I don’t have a lot going on right now, so my judgment may be skewed a bit.

By the way, Undercover Black Man has the second half of his David Simon interview up.

Please Don't

The second story in SF Chronicle's Matier & Ross column today concerns the fact that downtown SF parking meters bring in, on average, less than an hour's worth of time each day. Got that?

Believe it or not, the average collection last year for a meter in San Francisco's parking-packed downtown was only $2.61 a day, according to a new report from the city's budget analyst. And that's for meters that charge $3 an hour.
In other words, on an average 9-hour business day, the city wound up collecting less than an hour's worth of coins per meter in the downtown last year.

Okay, so that isn't the biggest scandal to rock aught-seven. But here's what I am getting to:

"Heck, if we got it up to a 50 percent collection rate, we could offer free massages on the buses,'' (Supervisor Jake) McGoldrick said.

Yuck. Please. Don't. Go. There.

You Go Girl!

The other day, a friend with certain political involvements sent me an email that had the title "Why I Am Supporting Hillary Clinton for President in 2008". This email included my friend's personal thoughts on Clinton, and attached an email from a former White House staffer (high-ranking) that had the same subject and gave several reasons for this support. The final reason is "Fourth - and most personally - I like her". The writer, a woman, says:

Like so many of you who have supported me throughout my life or periods of it, she worries about me, about my family, tells me I'm working too hard, has me over to dinner, calls me just to check in, and enjoys some of the things I enjoy – from reading a great book to shopping for a great bag (like me she has a weakness for a good bag). We talk about our families and friends (okay, I'll say it – gossip about who's with whom and how's that possible among the folks we know). In short she is real. She is the girlfriend you want in your corner because she tells you when you were wrong, nd still loves you despite your frailties; she also relentlessly champions your successes like only your mother usually can do. She lights up a room with her laughter, she is incredibly warm and engaging – something some people only experience when they meet her personally (and then it's always enjoyable to listen to them say how different she is than from what they imagined or had read in the newspaper – that she really is warm and genuine and embracing).

I'm going to cut to the chase here and say it: This annoys the shit out of me. If Hillary wins the primary, or Obama implodes or Edwards explodes before then, then I am all for Hillary. Woo-hoo, Hillary. 'Til then, I am not looking for a new best girlfriend or even a new man to swoon over. I want a leader, not someone who can win just by calling in years of favors or by making promises of bipartisanship or local corn subsidies. I think Hillary is a great senator. She seems to be doing a good job, working on hard issues, understanding the nightmarish procedural mechanics of our second-least democratic institution. But she doesn't motivate me. And saying she'll be a great Girlfriend-in-Chief doesn't do anything for me. Oprah already has a strangehold on that position. I want a great President.

And who is going to buy this marketing pitch? I just don't want to be so cynical as to think that women are going to support Hillary just because she likes a good bag and cried during Steel Magnolias. Maybe I need to be that cynical. Maybe those women will go for Hillary because they can't decide if Edwards is cuter than Obama or vice versa, and know Hillary would totally understand how hard it is to choose between two cute guys.

Or is this the first pitch of Soft Hillary? Now that its okay to be anti-war, she can put on those beat-up slippers and sip General Foods International Coffee Viennese Chocolate Cafe' and talk about the spat between Rosie and The Donald like she doesn't have a care in the world.

I was even ready to not blame Hillary for this email. But the fact is, "her people" know it went out and the author is no doubt inner-inner circle. I can't blame them for trying, I just wish that it didn't pander so mercilessly to the idea of What Women Want. And I am very scared that this is indeed What Women Want.

Ignore This Post

This is for the two or three of you fellow Wire fans. The rest of you should check in later for a rant on a different topic.

First of all, David Mills has this interview with David Simon on his blog Undercover Black Man. I haven't read it yet but I will update after I read it.

Second, I've started watching season 1 again.

Third, here's my list of the five most annoying characters on the show.

1. Orlando
2. Ziggy Sobotka
3. Mrs. (Jenny?) Carcetti
4. The Johns Hopkins Professor, tied with the School District lady who hates on the season 4 corner kid project.
5. Officer Walker

I will now waste my whole day revisiting this list.

Not Inexplicable Enough

There is lipstick on the cold water spigot on the water cooler in my office. The thing is low enough to the ground that you’d actually have to lie on your back to drink that way, but to each her, and let’s hope it’s a her, own.

Ok, I Can't Not Comment

The whole thing about Yale having 15 a capella groups suggests they might be sliipping in the World Domination department. And no, I'm not one of those University of Chicago people who didn't get into Yale.

Aside: I just saw a van with "Maui Mike's Lip Balm" painted on the side. What niche does this company fill? Isn't there lip balm brand saturation at this point?

Years of Good PR Work Undone By A Single Leprechaun

Every since I moved to Alabama in August 2003, I have tried to be an ambassador for the state, particularly since moving back to California a year later. I tell everyone: "The people are so nice, and the food was SO good, and I really loved it there, except for the fart smell from the paper factories. They do have Democrats, and liberals, too, if only people would get to know them!" How often have I said that? A hundred times? A thousand?

Now all my hard work is undone by a single leprechaun.



Damn you, Leprechaun of Mobile, damn you. Or is that you don't want to share the beautiful Heart of Dixie, so you bring shame to its residents?

Aren't We All Guilty? Part Deux

I reprint from the SF Chronicle, without comment:

As Yale University students went back to school Tuesday after winter break, the usual conversations were overshadowed by reaction to an extraordinary event that happened 3,000 miles away: the beating in San Francisco of members of the Baker's Dozen, the school's renowned all-male a cappella singing group.
"People are shocked," said Wookie Kim, 20, a sophomore, outside the Yale Bookstore, where portraits of the university's famous alumnae look out over the floor. "I couldn't believe that anyone could do that to a Yale student."
…
[M]any Yale students said the beating was more than an act of violence against a student singing group. It was an assault on an essential element of the campus culture of this Ivy League school, whose 15 a cappella groups are often likened to Greek societies on other college campuses.

The Making of a Ski Champ - Year One

Clearly, we need to regard as a victory getting Li into skis at all this year. And getting a smile, weird as that smile may be, as well.

He got on the skis on actual snow once. It was hellacute. Winter 2008 is the Year the Champ Ventures Forth, especially now that he knows ski school kids get lollipops.

Aren't We All Guilty?

The story of the Baker's Dozen beatdown is so obviously bloggable, I didn't bother. You could write it yourself. Specifically, Mr. Scobie could write it himself. I even offered to let him guestblog the damn story. But no. Instead, I have succumbed to intense lobbying to speak about this issue.

First, a recap. A second-string Yale a capella group got jumped by a group of "sons of prominent San Franciscans" after singing the national anthem at a party in SF. The word "homo" may have been used. Pretty girls may have been flirted with. What's not in dispute is that one guy got his jaw broke, and no assailants were identified to the SF police, and thus, no arrests were made.

Now the "Yale network" are beating the drum against the SFPD for failing to make any arrests. They claim that the assailants are too powerful and important in SF to be arrested. These are ELIS claiming that they are the powerless underdog here. Maybe they feel that way because they are in Baker's Dozen and not Whiffenpoofs. Maybe that makes them oppressed - I'm not sure. Anyway, Gavin Newsom and Heather Fong are scurrying like chipmunks to seem on top of the situation, even though it seems the Baker's Dozens guys couldn't ID their assailants. But its just the old "All St. Ignatius/Sacred Heart graduates look the same to me, officer" problem.

In our heart of hearts, we all know one thing: "It could have been me." And in this case, "It" is "I could have yelled derogatory comments and thrown a punch at an a capella rendition of the Ol' Stars and Bars after downing a few Pelositinis and groping the girl from my high school trig class who then flirted with a dude in a bowtie who THEN GOT UP TO SING WITH NO GUITAR." And by "me", I mean, "you and me and all of us."

God Spam

This is not my new band name or anything. It's a new trend that I've noticed. A lot of the spam I get is Christian or religious or something. I got one today, subject heading: "Have you been saved?" Often they are just rambling End Times garble. I don't open them so I don't know if they are actually religious or whether they are supposed to appeal to my inner-sinner-in-need-of-redemption/conspiracy theorist, and then when I open them, its just another V1a6ra pitch.

I (heart) Art!

I just want to pimp my girl's show over here:

Kate has this piece (now I've gone and ruined it for you) in the Obscene Soft Sounds show at Wallspace Gallery, 619 W. 27th Street, NYNY.

It opens Saturday, I think. Go. Act like you want to buy it, and then scoff that it isn't priced high enough. Promise to come back later with more money. If there's a little sign that says, "Sold," ask: "Are there more? This is lovely. Who is this ingenue?"

OR, act like you cannot believe that the reclusive Kate Costello has finally agreed to put another piece on the market. Compare her loudly to Salinger. Say, "Well, it certainly was worth the wait!"

Fres-Yes! Correction

It has been graciously pointed out to me that the correct term is Tule fog, not Tulare fog. This helps explain why I had the nagging feeling that the fog had something to do with elk. I had attributed the association to the road weariness but it turns out, I'm not crazy. Thanks, Dee-Dub.

A Very Dangerous Innovation

I have figured out how to post to my blog via email. This is probably going to result in many random, no-so-funny postings sent from my blackberry. Lucky you. It’s a good thing for me (and probably you too) that I don’t drink heavily, so there won’t be too many/any drunk-blogging episodes.

 

I don’t have much to say today; I just wanted to bring you current on my technological righteousness, or whatever this is.

Emporium of Prosthetic Noses

Do you think Nancy Pelosi and Courtney Love meant to get the same nose? Was it on sale?

Courtney Love is such a mess here, with her face sliding all over the place, that it may be hard for you to see that the tip of her nose is notched in the same exact way as Cryptkeeper-I-mean-Speaker Pelosi's. Just trust me.

If we can put a rover on Mars, and create babies in a test tube, how come we cannot invent a realistic-looking fake nose? This shows there's a market out there for them.

Fresno? Fres-Yes!

What was the best part of today? It was a day just bursting with candidates for the part:

Was it:

• That moment in the shower at 5:40 am when I thought Am I a Supermom. . . or a fucking idiot?
• The terrifying Tulare fog* that engulfed the highway between Los Banos and Chowchilla at 7 a.m.?
• The dog on the road stripe on Kamm Ave in Kingsburg, just lickin' his butt and making it seem all the more Children of the Corn than it already felt. Although Children of the Raisin would probably be more appropriate.**
• The mouth-watering, buttery sweet donut I ate while waiting to settle this arbitration I had today? . . . Oh, wait, that actually was the best part.
• One-handed pumping at 70 m.p.h?
• Taking Q to the doctor again for some other ailment-that-has-no-treatment (aka A Cold) while I also breathe in short wispy half-breaths that sound like Arthur Digby Sellers*** in The Big Lebowski?

What the hell am I talking about? It should be obvious now that my brain is totally addled from driving to Fresburg at ass-o-clock this morning, only to settle a case in literally 20 minutes, hang out for another hour and then driving back. I can't even think straight but I've got many things to say.

Do you know how many "homes for hip-hip and R&B" there are between Oakland and Fresno? Many. But not as many as there are Spanish language/Christian/Spanish Christian radio stations. If you set your radio on AutoScan, you can hear Jesus' name once every 4 seconds. It would make a great drinking game, if one weren't driving in the car. Drink once for Jesus, drink twice for "the Low-erd".

I wonder whether we bombed any actual Al Qaeda terrorists in Somalia or whether they were just the "Islamists" blamed with destroying Somalia's government, that Somalia's government shrewdly sold out to the U.S.? What role did the U.S. play in helping Ethiopia roll into Somalia to oust the aforementioned Islamists? Ethiopia is in the Coalition of the Willing.

Glenn Loury: smart person. I listened to News & Notes this afternoon, and the discussion was very interesting and news-based, and then the topic turned to questions about the suicide of "Wash" Washington, the popular black mayor of a predominantly white town in Louisiana. One of the other panelists was willing to go off about racism and a culture of fear about bad investigations (based on CSI or something), but Loury was just so annoyed that this news was being played as scintillating and gossipy. On one hand, Loury seemed genuinely upset that this man's death was being chewed over like celebrity gristle; on the other hand, he was swift to point out that racism exists at a deeper level than just this one Lake Charles coroner, and wanted to know why this story was "the racism story" as opposed to a thoughtful discussion about prisons or welfare or other arenas where real news happens but NPR (or other media) isn't particularly interested in highlighting. Anyway. My recap here is taking longer than the segment lasted but I just wanted to give Loury credit for his analysis and for the actual emotion he invested in it.

If I had any other thoughts, they are gone now. I'll leave you with three footnotes. Sorry if you already read them. Go ahead and re-read them; they will help you feel nostalgic about the original post.

* This link does tulare fog no justice. "Tulare fog" is a NoCal term of art, and I am not sure of the origin. It's a dense, very low fog where visibility is limited to probably under 500 feet. On winter mornings, they settle onto the highway and make driving very difficult. It eclipses the sun. It's very End Times, just like the rest of the Central Valley. This doesn't stop the locals from going 70 miles an hour.
** Selma, CA, or possibly Fresno, is the Raisin Capital of The World. The Whole World. All seven continents. That includes every US territory, protectorate and the ENTIRE former U.S.S.R. Also, New Zealand. That's the Sheep Capital. And it's a good thing they are far apart, because, can you imagine the damage all those sheep could do to all those grapevines?
***The guy in the Iron Lung, folks. Larry's dad.

I'm Sick

I really don't feel well tonight, and my bloggahrea has abandoned me. Sorry about that. I might experiment with mobile blogging so I can share my innermost thoughts all the time. Note to self: Learn mobile blogging. That can be a New Year's sub-aspiration.

Isn't it interesting how quickly the good new year cheer wears off? Last week, I said Happy New Years to everyone. Today, I was taken by surprise when someone said it to me. It's like 2007 is already played out.

Isn't this a funny picture? He's actually way cuter than this; I just think this is hilarious. It's sort of how he takes the world in. Life can be so startling when you are tiny.

Not About The Wire, I Swear

Okay, it really is, but only by way of Homicide: A Year On The Killing Streets, which I finished last night. David Simon spent a year "embedded" with the Baltimore Police Homicide Department and writes it up as a noir-ish march through a year of crack war murders. If you ever watched the TV show Homicide, you recognize plots almost verbatim in the book. How does Homicide (the book) compare to The Wire? The way almost all of Don Delillo's novels presaged Underworld. I happen to think The Wire is tighter than Underworld, and better written, and more. . .

I can't find the right word here. Underworld, despite traveling to former Soviet republics and back in time, seems a little provincial in its themes, compared to The Wire.

Anyway, the reason I started this post was to extol The Wire, and David Simon, for a different reason, which is, the ways in which The Wire pays homage to real people who might otherwise be lost to history. In Homicide, near the end, one of the detectives oversees the autopsy of a two-year old boy who was beaten to death by his mother's boyfriend. It's apparent from the autopsy that there was sexual abuse as well. I won't get more graphic than that. The boy's name is Michael.

Simon's memory is so long, and his imagination is so broad, that that fact leapt off the page and smacked me. Unromantically, Simon imagines, in The Wire, who that boy might have become, if he'd lived. Similarly, there is mention, in Homicide, of a soldier/killer named Dennis Wise. In The Wire, Simon imagines who Wise might have become after his incarceration, with more hope than Simon is usually credited with having about human nature.

Homicide was the methadone for my Wire-withdrawal I had hoped it would be. I might need to go back and re-read The Night Gardener. One influence I think Pelecanos had on The Wire was to reel in the personal drama of Kima and McNulty. I think these characters were brought down to earth to reflect Pelecanos' idea that not all cops are hard-drinking, hard-fighting assholes. In The Night Gardener, Gus Ramone is a good detective with a loving home life who tries to be a good father. It's that simple. But he's still a compelling character. I don't think McNulty is going to become McNutty again next season. I think Simon realizes you can have great characters who don't have monstrous problems.

Anyway, sorry to those of you who don't care about this show. I just gotta get it off my chest every now and again. Check back later for more non-Wire frivolity.

My New Addiction

Check out Etsy. I only found it a half hour ago and I have already bought two things. I found it via The Kim Family Benefit Auction (Thanks Seamus) which also has many beautiful things for a good good cause. If you sign on to Etsy, tell them alaiacona referred you. I don't actually know what will happen if you tell them that, but I am interested in finding out. Also, I think Dan McAdam and Andy Gregg and possibly others should sell through Etsy, so, dear reader, if you talk to one of those guys soon, tell them I said so. Or you can just go to their websites and buy directly.

Brain Dump UPDATED

A few things I have been thinking about:

1. It really annoys me that Kanye West often uses the same word at the end of a "rhyme", rather than trying to actually rhyme it with something else. He does this all the time, at least on his first album, and I find it really distracting. Here are a couple of examples:

From Through the Wire
How do you console my mom or give her light support
When you telling her your sons' on life support

From Family Business
Somebody please say grace so I can save face
And have a reason to cover my face

And you don't wanna stay there cuz them your worst cousins
Got roaches at their crib like them your first cousins
Act like you ain't took a bath with your cousins

From We Don't Care
Scratchin lottery tickets Eyes on a new house
Around the same time Doe ran up in dudes house

I recognize that the second to last word is different, but then so are all the other ones. It just annoys me.

2. Driving in the Safeway parking lot near our house gives me perspective on how people in other countries, particularly underdeveloped countries, manage to drive when there is lax enforcement of laws affecting motorists. You just do what you have to do to get out alive. It's actually safer than driving anywhere else in the Bay Area, where drivers don't seem to care if they get out alive. For example, in Berkeley, I have often seem people floor their car backwards out of their driveway into traffic. I hate these people.

3. Although the window for end-of-the-year giving has passed, I have been thinking about how there are very few charities that exist that can actually make social change. Because of tax laws, and other reasons, charities can only be geared towards treating symptoms of social disease, and can never address the underlying problems. Given the total clusterf*** that most charities are, I would not necessarily leave social change in their hands. But when deciding who should get a donation, I feel like I am buying Tylenol and chicken soup for a problem that needs antibiotics or even chemotherapy. On a related note, I found two interesting websites: Charity Navigator and Trent Stamp's Take, which pleasingly holds back no punches on individual charities. Becker-Posner Blog talks about this stuff today too, so I guess Judge Posner and I were both doing our end-of-the-year checks this past weekend.

Okay, now that I have all that out of my system. . .

4. New Year's Resolutions. Did you make any? I almost never do. I consider it as sign of my own honesty to myself. I am probably not going to change very much, and certainly not in a substantial enough way to satisfy something as specific as a New Year's resolution. I have some New Year's aspirations though. I would like to blog more. Here's a reach: I would like to join the Y, or at a minimum, start doing some crunches so that my baby belly bag starts to go away. I would like Quinn to start sleeping through the night. I would like Liam to stay in his own bed, quietly all night. In other words, I am going to make New Year's resolutions for other people, whom I am legally permitted to make resolutions for.

Serious Retrofit

Just before Christmas, we had a series of small-but-scaryish earthquakes, centered at the Hayward Fault, which runs probably 75-100 feet behind our house, or thereabouts. California natives might pooh-pooh our east-coast squeamishness about these 3.7 quakes, but I just want you to see what it did to our gingerbread house: major cracks in two walls, and liquifaction in the stucco near the front door. Luckily we had lots of icing and mini-marshmallows to shore up the foundation, plus Liam ate the whole thing the next day, but still, it was serious.

This Just About Sums It All Up

From today's New York Times' Science Times article on free will:

A bevy of experiments in recent years suggest that the conscious mind is like a monkey riding a tiger of subconscious decisions and actions in progress, frantically making up stories about being in control.

Put aside the illogic of that metaphor and just bask in its Truth.

Berkeley CA - Taint of the East Bay

Sometimes I go out looking for reasons to hate Berkeley - reading the Parents Network Advice newsletters, actually going to Berkeley - and sometimes the reasons just come to me.

The other day I read Rats, by Robert Sullivan, an enjoyable read by a writer I like. So good, I breezed through it.* Anyway, in the Afterword to the paperback, Sullivan talks about his book tour, and how he repeatedly had to reassure folks that his focus is wild rats, not "fancy" rats, i.e. pet rats, and that he doesn't hate fancy rats, in fact, he just isn't concerned with them. But you know that Berkeley people need to take this to a whole different level. He's too polite to say it, but it's clear that when he came to do a reading in Berkeley, nine people actually showed up to protest his book, believing (without reading even the subtitle of the book) that Sullivan hates fancy rats and wants them all eliminated. It's just so embarrassing what they'll protest over there.

* Full disclosure: Robert's mom was my high school English teacher. She was pretty much my favorite teacher, and I have been a big fan of Robert's books, starting with Meadowlands, which I think is his best, but that's possibly for sentimental, New Jersey reasons.