Went to Sendai. Now back in Tokyo. Off tomorrow to Hiroshima, then Kyoto/Osaka/Nara. "Charlie`s Angles 2: Full Throttle" is playing here, so I`ve been forced to capitulate before its awful marketing machine twice now. I did see the Tokyo Giants play the Hiroshima Carp though, which was insane.
Wired finally picked up on Friendster, mentioning that they will hit 1 million users this week. I'm a very small, petty man, and would like to point out that I'm number 2,078 (sign up if you need to), which makes me one of the first 0.2% (that's two tenths of one percent) to sign up. Suck it.
Despite having everyone bail on me, I went to Mob Project #4, which involved packing the Otto Tootsi Plohound store on Lafayette to the gills for five minutes, then dispersing.
On Friday, I'll be leaving on a 2.5 week vacation in Japan, a trip which demands that I not be tardy for several necessary events. In preparation, I sought out my old wristwatch which I happened upon sandwiched between the mattress and box spring of my bed - the nefarious result I'm inclined to believe, of a lapse of judgment a while back in which I lent my apartment to some allegedly dear friends for a few hours only to return to find my shoes hidden, my alarm clock set several hours ahead of the correct time, and certain unmentionables splayed out across my sheets. There's no denying the initial humor value of this, but I never suspected the repercussions would last quite so long as they did. But I digress.
I've had this particular watch for quite some time (hovering in the neighborhood of 7 years now), but haven't used it since the battery expired in April of 2002. I'm uncomfortably obsessive about temporal awareness, and in some cases equally as neurotic about punctuality, so why did I neglect to restore the device to proper working order? Indeed, when previously the battery had worn out I, on account of feeling naked and bereft of the chronological acumen on which I often (mostly in secret) prided myself, had rushed to replace it with a new one as quickly as circumstances allowed. To wit: what had changed? Why was I so insouciant towards a device I had before considered of critical import?
In March of 2002, I had procured a mobile phone. I continued wearing the watch for about a month out of habit but, having been rendered redundant due to the phone's time-keeping abilities (which were in some ways superior - as it updated its clock from the wireless network, it obviated the need, infrequent but still requiring some effort, to adjust the time manually for daylight savings or time-zone changes), when the watch's battery went, so did the watch.
Clocks worn around the wrist are the curious 20th-century bastard children of fashion and convenience. They are functional personal accessories made possible only when technology advanced to permit myriad miniature gears and springs (and later, electrical impulses delivered through quartz crystals) to surmount the high bar of accuracy required for constant dependable use. This move, from the pocket to the forearm, served the dual purpose of allowing for increased functionality (a simple twist of the wrist now served the same purpose that had required before a laborious process of retrieving, opening, closing and replacing) as well as a more overt method of stylistic expression (with all its trappings - the cachet of a Rolex for example - soon to follow).
Timekeeping has now come full-circle, moving back from the wrist to the pocket or bag, a move which, as a student of geek-chic I can tell you, serves the twin masters once again. Merging this ability with the mobile phone, a tool fast becoming far more indispensable, increases convenience considerably, and people shell out far more money than actually required for their purposes to have color screens, sleek silver casings, and a bevy of other niceties.
So I sat on my bed, acutely aware that wristwatches will one day be relegated, along with sealing wax, the typewriter, and gas lamps, to that unique bin of antique anachronism which carves out a healthy niche on the periphery of our societal consciousness - of interest not only to archeologists and historians - an impractical but cherished reminder of a time when they were the primary means of keeping it.
Anyone know where to get a watch battery replaced?
I needed a reminder, so I wrote myself a message on a post-it note. Then, I tore the note from the pad and pressed the sticky side against the frame of my monitor. It stayed put for a moment, then fell.
I tried again, to no avail.
The third time, I pressed very firmly - so hard that my hand quivered. "Adhere," I said, and I meant it.
The note stuck. As of this writing (several hours later), it's still there.
If you enjoyed Mob Project #3 viacariously, why not come to #4? Wed, 7/16, around 7pm, downtown (around Houston + Broadway). Email me if you're interested.
You don't know it yet - hell, you've never met, seen, or even heard of him before, and right now he's beyond even your peripheral field of vision, so there's no chance to see the mordant glare or other myriad body language cues that scream out h-a-t-e like one of those ol'skool Speak n' Spells, even to the most oblivious of social creatures - but you're private enemy #1 in his book, and he's going to stop at very little (which luckily includes but is not limited to: murder, arson, and kidnapping - he loathes you, but he's got a family to think about and that's some pretty heinous stuff) to ruin your reputation. He wants to put the hurt on bad, and right now, by lounging around, slamming back mai-tais and cuddling with that boy-who-is-most-definately-not-your-wife-and-looks-suspiciously-like-your-housekeeper's-underage-son-and-whoops-he's-completely-nude you're giving him all the ammunition he needs to mount a devastating smear campaign. All he needs to do is sweet-talk the clerk at the resort's front desk out of a little 411 (what room? under what name is he registered? does he like movies with gladiators in them?), snap a few photos of you and your cherubic little companion in some compromising position (of which, as you well know, there has been no shortage - you came here to party hard and that's just what you've done) and your career as Scranton's premier nü-German minimalist techno DJ is permanently kaput.
What options do you have? The following is a simple, 7-step plan I've outlined to extricate you from this mess. Don't thank me, I still owe you big from back in Uruguay, just hop to it.
1) Bribe like you've never bribed before. Remember that $12,000 you hid away from Mrs. Scranton's-premier-nü-German-minimalist-techno-DJ so you could hit the tables hard when you went to Vegas for Rutger's bachelor party? It's history. You made the riskiest bet of your life in bringing Julio down here and you lost big. Time to pay up. The devaluation of the bhat over the past few months has been astounding; some of the great economic thinkers of our generation are currently debating as to the precise confluence of factors that precipitated what's amounted to nothing less than a full-fledged fiscal crisis for Shinawatra and his administration. That this monetary debacle will likely unhinge the region's already precarious financial straits, destabilizing this erstwhile "Asian Tiger" (a xenophobically-colored euphemism if there ever was one), as well as the fact that the subsequent IMF bailout could make or break the careers of countless bureaucrats and politicians worldwide are of no consequence to you. All you need be concerned about is that, given the extremely favorable exchange rate, the 12 grand you have saved up you could almost buy you this hotel outright (but it's kind of hard to deny ever visiting a resort when you own it, so forget that idea). Drop every cent buying the staff's silence. Tell them you're coming back in six months, and if they keep quiet you'll give them the same sum when you return. Don't worry about reneging on the deal - every bit of information you gave them is fake, from the forged passport to the hilariously phony pseudonym (Lionel McWigginson, IV). You just need to keep them quiet until Mr. Wears-his-vendetta-on-his-sleeve skips town.
2) 86 Julio. Don't insult me, or yourself for that matter, by pulling that true love shtick. You go through a sexual conquest fortnightly; they're like cheap Bic razor blades (another subject on which you're an expert, eh?) to you: dull and disposable. Most of the time, you keep it (relatively) clean: the meter maid, the pharmacist, and the John Stamos affairs would end your marriage, but you'd bounce back. This fling with J-love is suicide. Even if you manage to get back to the states without being seen together, this kid is a ticking time bomb. He's already proven about as tight-lipped as a drunk gossip columnist: on the outbound flight he was spilling his guts, unprompted, about his mom's drinking and kleptomania (no wonder you've noticed missing bullion from the smelting plant lately - she's fired). If you let him live, he's going to be found by you-know-who, he's going to be questioned, and he's going to tell everything. So it's settled. I don't care how you do it, just do it. I can attest that you're experienced in this regard so I'll leave it in your hands. The less I know the better.
3) Cement your alibi. You told her you were in Guangzhou, you even went so far as to book a hotel there and have your calls forwarded. That was a smart move, but while it may fool your wife (let's be honest, she's a warm, caring spouse and one of the best amateur skeet shooters in the country, but she's no Columbo) it's not going to hold water with the feds if they come knocking on your door looking for a certain missing person last seen with you at the county fair. You need something airtight. When you've taken care of the first two steps, make sure you aren't being followed, charter a plane and high-tail it out of there. I've arranged a gig at "Yin" tomorrow night - don't thank me, it was easy: it seems your fame precedes you. Make sure to give a few interviews and sign some autographs. The more publicity the better.
4) Erase the remaining evidence. Suffice it to say this is where it gets a bit tricky. You only got those "Julio 4ever" tattoos to get him in the sack, all the while thinking you'd have them removed during the layover in Guam, but now that's not an option. You are a fully trained and licensed cosmetic surgeon, right? Good - one less person to get involved. I've arranged for a makeshift...
Oh, sorry, got a little carried away there. What I meant to say was, "Monday nights are boring".
One thing I like/fear about my neighborhood is that one can shuffle home at 3:30 in the morning, nod hello to one's neighbor on the stoop two doors down the street, and not only be offered coke, but - despite shaking one's head in declination - be extended a "try it before you buy it" policy. Who knew drug dealers had such a sense of community?
Well, after 18 months of dragging it around almost every day during subway commutes, 3-mile walks home, picnics in the park, and bunny-exterminations, my trusty laptop finally decided to up and semi-break* on me. I can't really express dissatisfaction as I've treated it like a basketball, and I doubt, despite those lousy Dell ads informing us that each model undergoes a one-on-one cage match with the Hulk to prove its durability, that it was designed to take the amount of abuse I doled out to it. Anyway, my presence in all forms digital might atrophy over nights & weekends, especially during long stretches of "relaxation" like the patriotic celebration which now looms large. Other than that, it should not impede much blogging, other than precluding me from uploading pictures. I shudder to think what this is going to cost me.
* It seems like there's a loose connection somewhere affecting the video card. The machine will run fine for a few minutes before freezing with streaks on the display. After a reboot (i.e. removing both batteries and disconnecting the power supply), Windows kindly tells me the nVida driver is at fault, but since I haven't had a single problem with the driver since buying the computer (and since I've changed nothing software-related in a while) I suspect hardware is the culprit.
As a follow up to my 2/14/03 post about camera phones, the Korean government is considering legislation that would require all camera phones to emit a loud noise when taking a picture. It seems to be an effort to assuage privacy concerns, but I think they just want a more festive atmosphere.
Alex, Rob, and myself made it to MOB #3. We were instructed to loiter at the Grand Hyatt until precisely 7:07, when we were to encircle the lobby on the mezzanine railing. At 7:12, the crowd applauded and cheered for precisely 15 seconds, as was the plan. Then the mob dispersed. All in all, it was a fun, satisfying time for everyone, with the possible exception of the legitimate guests of the hotel, who were most likely baffled.
Feast your eyes on: Mets game with Matty (they lost badly, I shrugged), ersatz Wilco concert (chronicled in the test moblog here, followed by weekend toping), low-light shot of Ben's leg (um... protracted interplay of light, shadow, and the human form).
Zoe Williams writes an excellent review of irony (and I mean that sincerely).
We have a grave problem with this word (well, in fact, it's not really grave - but I'm not being ironic when I call it that, I'm being hyperbolic. Though often the two amount to the same thing. But not always). Just looking at the definitions, the confusion is understandable - in the first instance, rhetorical irony expands to cover any disjunction at all between language and meaning, with a couple of key exceptions (allegory also entails a disconnection between sign and meaning, but obviously isn't synonymous with irony; and lying, clearly, leaves that gap, but relies for its efficacy on an ignorant audience, where irony relies on a knowing one). Still, even with the riders, it's quite an umbrella, no?
. . . . .
But other strands of media use irony to assert their right to have no position whatsoever. So, you take a cover of FHM, with tits on the front - and it's ironic because it appears to be saying "women are objects", yet of course it isn't saying that, because we're in a postfeminist age. But nor is it saying "women aren't objects", because that would be dated, over-sincere, mawkish even. So, it's effectively saying "women are neither objects, nor non-objects - and here are some tits!" Scary Movie 2, Dumb And Dumberer, posh women who go to pole-dancing classes, people who set the video for Big Brother Live, people who have Eurovision Song Contest evenings, Char lie's Angels (the film, not the TV series) and about a million other things besides, are all using this ludic trope - "I'm not saying what you think I'm saying, but I'm not saying its opposite, either. In fact, I'm not saying anything at all. But I get to keep the tits." As Paul de Man pointed out, some time before FHM, "This does not, however, make it into an authentic language, for to know inauthenticity is not the same as being authentic."(4). So, we're not the first age to use irony (as some insist), but we are the first to use it in this vacuous, agenda-free and often highly amusing way.
Every now and again, I have one of those water-cooler conversations that reminds me why most of the time I opt to forgo them and instead politely nod, lower my head, and high-tail it out of there: because I suck at small-talk. Badly. I come off somewhere between Stephen Hawking and 'Sloth' from The Goonies, which is unfortunate, because making oatmeal takes a little while, and the odds of someone using the kitchen concurrently are high.
So we have another unfortunate case of accident-spurred ad hoc amputation. Do not confuse this with apotemnophilia (here and here - ignore the self-righteous abortion polemic with the second link).
I can sometimes feel the ghost pain of my vestigial tail. I long for the day when I may have it reattached, so I may once again swing through the treetops of the Amazon to my perch just beneath the canopy, arms confidently akimbo, my tail ensuring perfect balance. I will once again wait for the soy farmers, muttering my incantation over and over.
No, soy farmers,
No soy farmacia,
Ergo, I will not heal you,
Now go away.
