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PREFACE OF THE DAY:
As noted in the penultimate posting of 2005, one of my new year's resolutions was to make the contents of my two blogs converge. Hence, this entry is largely redundant with the most recent entry on the sports blog. The only big difference between the two is that there's some extra sports-related stuff over there. OK, so, without further ado...
FAULT ON "MATCH POINT."
I can forgive Woody Allen the whole Soon Yi thing. I can forgive him the recent spate of woefully sub-standard movies. I can forgive him apparently forgetting that he made “Crimes and Misdemeanors” and essentially remaking the same film in a less compelling fashion with “Match Point” (after all he’s old and entitled to a little senility). And I can forgive him borrowing liberally from “A Place in the Sun” for this latest effort, for a master filmmaker (even one suffering from cinematic senescence) is entitled to wholesale plagiarism under the banner of interfilmic homage. But what I can’t forgive him for is this: Asking me to buy Jonathan Rhys-Meyers' limp and laughable tennis strokes as those of a former touring pro and rival of Andre Agassi’s—something requiring a suspension of disbelief (and denial of all sensory evidence) greater even than that needed for a non deaf person to buy Tom Cruise’s Irish accent in "Far and Away."
PET PEEVE OF THE DAY.
People who call you back without listening to the message. Hey, I see you called. Yeah, did you listen to the message? No, I just heard your voice and then erased it. What’s up. Well, idiot. You could have at least paid me the minimal courtesy of listening to it rather than calling me back and making me repeat the whole frigging thing. Asshole. I mean, you couldn’t spare 60 seconds of your precious time to hear what I had to tell you…so now you’re going to waste 60 more seconds of my precious time repeating it? Damn, makes me want to hang up on someone just thinking about it. Plus I take such pride in my improvised message leavings that to think they’ve been tossed to the scrap heap of oblivion without ever having been heard by human ears…unacceptable!
THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY INSPIRED DEFINITION OF THE DAY:
The strip club. Where the illusion of female availability meets the reality of male stupidity.
SUBWAY ANECDOTE OF THE DAY:
OR VEGAS’S ATTEMPT TO REDEEM AN ACOUSTICALLY PAINFUL EXPERIENCE.
My New Year's eve began with an interesting encounter with a guy who was quite possibly the worst subway singer ever. He played a New Year's themed playlist (John Lennon's"So you say this is Christmas?", U2s "New Year's Day" etc.) wondrously free of self consciousness or evidence of an ear. Most people moved away or smiled at each other uncomfortably or put on their iPods in self defense. (Idea for a cartoon). My feeling was: here was a celebration of genuine effort and human imperfection. In my mind the way his voice corresponded to the song's notes pretty much paralleled the way our lives and actions correspond to our goals and new year's resolutions: (which it to say in a minimally recognizeable manner...but in some kind of a fashion nonetheless.). I thought there was something nice about this representative embrace of human effort and imperfection on the eve of a new year and a new set of resolutions. If my life in the new year can ressemble the idealized life of my dreams as much as this vocal experience ressembles the John Lennon song, I will be doing reasonably well. And so I stepped forward as others stepped away, and dropped, to the singer's obvious surprise, a dollar into the empty guitar case.
RACIALLY INFORMED INTERACTION OF THE DAY:
A black guy politely but enthusiastically asking a corporate-looking white guy about the gadget he was using.
“Excuse me, sir: What kind of a game is that? I see people playing it a lot. Is that like a Playstation?”
The pinstriped white guy. finally realizing this black guy was talking to him, looks up from his Blackberry and gruffly responds: “It’s not a game.”
KNICKS UPDATE OF THE DAY:
I have to report experiencing ambivalence while watching the amazing Knicks-Suns game on Monday night. On the one hand, I was loving the Knicks’ remarkable effort and renewed commitment to their youth brigade and was for rooting for them to have something positive to build on. But on the other hand, it is hard to root for a team fronted by Stephon Marbury when it’s playing against a team led by Steve Nash. It’s the expansive, egolessly creative, contagiously generous spirit of a true point guard versus the sulky, slightly thuggish aura of a scorer in point guard’s clothing. But that, said, it was a truly amazing game. The bizarre FT and 3 PT disparities have been widely noted. But for me, highlights included the irrepressible David Lee creating havoc at both ends of the court. Curry, looking like he was on the verge of some kind of cardiac casualty, knocking down 2 FTs to send it into OT. Nate Robinson making a number of remarkable interior passes and stripping the usually impregnable Steve Nash in the open court near the end of regulation—but also arguing obvious foul calls and yelling “Fuck” after missing a big free throw in OT. Nash’s career high 22 assists—many of them of the aesthetically stunning variety—but also his uncharacteristic traveling violation on a key 2 on 1 break that could have put the game out of reach in the second OT. And, most shocking of all: Marbury coming up veritably Nash-esque in the 3rd OT, making all kinds of big plays to ice the victory. It was one of the most pleasurable viewing experiences of the year for me and I hope it serves as an actual turning point in the Knicks' woefully unfocused and disappointing season and not just another random tease.
PSYCHO-PHARMACOLOGICAL OBSERVATION OF THE DAY:
Friends who go on anti-depressants are tricky. It’s like they lose their interpersonal navigation system and need to have their sense of humor frequently recalibrated.
SINGLE SENTENCE PORTRAIT OF THE DAY: He thrived in an open-bar situation.
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Posted on 1/5/2006
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