KNICKS, AVOCADOS, SCAM ARTISTS, GIMP BALLS...IN OTHER WORDS, THE USUAL.

OBSERVATIONS OF THE DAY:

Design Within Reach is having a 10% Off Sale. So it’s now Design Ever So Slightly More Tauntingly Just Out Of Reach.

PHENOMENON OF THE DAY THAT SHOULD HAVE A NAME:

The experience of encountering a person who's made an appearance in your dream the night before. The momentarily disorienting double exposure of the person in the dream and the person in the flesh. The difficulty of reconciling the two.

WEIRD OBSERVATION OF THE DAY:

An avocado pit is the perfect size for a gimp ball. Don't ask me how I realized that. I think I was trying to put the whole thing in my mouth to suck the remnant avocado traces off of it, when I made the strange connection. And NO! I have never had a gimp ball in my mouth or the remotest desire to have a gimp ball in my mouth. I only really know the image from that scene in Pulp Fiction where Bruce Willis and Vingt Rayhmes are subjected to that particular perverse form of degradation.

REFLECTION TRIGGERED BY WEIRD OBSERVATION OF THE DAY:

Speaking of which, I have always wanted to write a brief analysis of that movie revolving around the narrative logic of that scene. If you recall, the WIllis character and the Rayhmes character are mortal enemies at that juncture--the latter is hell bent on killing the former for failing to throw a fight that he'd paid him off handsomely to throw and for having screwed him royally by so not doing. Anyhow, in the middle of this macho fight to the death, they end up stumbling into this twisted episode of basement debasement in some gay sado-psycho's store. Somehow, Bruce Willis manages to escape and is about to leave the store and get away free and clear from his mortal nemesis Rayhmes when he pauses and decides to return. It is as if he is honoring a deeper law or logic. A code of honor that trumps the imperatives of sheer survival. Indeed, in the eccentricaly macho world of Tarantino's movies (and pretty much everywhere else) the only thing that would make you risk your own life in behalf of your mortal enemy is the spectre of him having his rectum violated against his will by another man. Indeed, the entire macho logic, of kill or be killed phallic combat depends on the sanctity of the anal sphincter. The need to preserve and safeguard that physical and symbolic limit transcends every other need. Even the need to survive. It is as if nothing in the game is as important as the framework within which the game is played. And a threat to the playing field itself is more important thana threat to any player on the field. The paper if I were to ever write it would be called something like "The logic of homophobia in the films of Quentin Tarantino (and in pretty much every other guy film not called "Brokeback Mountain") or some such." Homosexual violation is the one thing that makes mortal enemies unite.

REFLECTION TRIGGERED BY REFLECTION UPON WEIRD OBSERVATION OF THE DAY:

Oh, another, far more innocent and sentimental association with the avocado pit. One of my earliest memories is as a little boy, eating two avocados with my dear sweet grandmother. We took the two pits and planted them in two separate pots. Her pit never really amounted to much. But my avocado plant thrived and lived for many many years in her apartment in brooklyn--a touching symbol of continuity, growht and life. I remember my grandmother --who used to say as she watered her plants "eveerything wants to live, everything wants to grow"--marvelling at its longevity. The complete innocence and sweetness of this story (and of all my previous associations with Avocados), makes the incidental association with a gimp ball all the more jarring. A Lynchian migration from the realm of darkness into the realm of light.

RECONFIGURED TRUISM OF THE DAY:

One in the bush is worth two in the hand.

HONESTLY MISREAD HEADLINE OF THE DAY:

I read “Bush Claims Rumsfeld Crucial to Terror War.” As “Bush Claims Rumsfeld Crucual to Error War.”

SOCIAL EXPERIMENT OF THE DAY: The brutally honest phishing letter.

After almost falling for the first highly professional looking electronic personal information update request from my bank (an e-mail which I received about 6 months ago and which introduced me to the dank and devious world of online “phishing.”), I have noticed a marked decline in the standards of the illicit craft. (mimicry). Indeed, I have seen e-mails with tilted or pixelated bank logos, egregious and multiple misspellings (“to garantee you’re security”, “at you’re convienance.” Etc.) and with a complete lack of correspondence between the signature and the name typed beneath it. It seems like the practitioners of this scam have been so spoiled by the ease of their success, that they have abandoned even the most minimal efforts at simulated authenticity. It’s the online equivalent of phoning it in. I mean, as a mark or target of the scam, it’s almost insulting that they deem it unnecessary to press Spell Check. And even more insulting that they seem not to need to. Anyhow, this made me think it would be quite interesting to send a mock brutally honest, totally candid transparent “Phishing letter”…which would say something like this:

Dear____

This is in no way a legitimate communication but rather a shameless attempt at identity theft. Despite the presence of your bank logo above ((copied and pasted from the internet), we are in no way affiliated with your bank or any other legitimate financial institution. No, there is nothing legitimate about this request, except a legitimate desire to scam you out of your money. If you have any sense whatsoever, you will immediately delete and then report this e-mail. But if you are a complete idiot, or are not reading this explicit piece of full disclosure, PLEASE PRESS THE LINK BELOW AND RE-SUBMIT YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION. Again, this is not IN THE INTERESTS OF UPDATING OR RECONFIRMING YOUR ACCOUNT INFORMATION, but rather merely in the interests of robbing you blind. Thank you so much for being a pathetically laughable idiot or for not reading this or for both.

We look forward to stealing your money and your identity and making your life a living hell.

Yours Sincerely,
Scam Artist

I am willing to bet that there would still be a reasonable percentage of respondants who follow the bold type and give up the digits of their demise.

But in a culture where popsicles need to have warnings that say "To preserve firmness, keep in freezer below 32 degrees Fahrenheit", I guess that’s no surprise.

RELIGIO-ETHNIC CATEGORY OF THE DAY:

Spewish. (Spanish speaking Jew. Reported to me in reference to a Columbian woman of Hebraic persuasion.) Until hearing this definition of the tern, I would have assumed it had some more pornographic significance.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

(From a student to his 7th grade non-caucasian English teacher, as reported to me by said non-caucasian English teacher).

Are you Republican or Dominican?

TELEVISION COMMENTARY OF THE DAY:

Been watching the first season of “Lost” on DVD. Quite enjoyable—a few patches of horrendous dialogue and a few bits of terrible acting notwithstanding. I’m always amused when we suddenly see some of the plane crash survivors who have presumably been marooned on the island all along but have never made it into the central narrative. They appeared, for example, as if ex -nihilo to wave goodbye to the folks setting off on their self-made boat in the final episode of the first season. Positioned in the background, in the cracks and spaces between the show's principles, they wave their big “hey we’ve been here all along and haven’t gotten any face time” waves of farewell and resentment. Sort of funny. Plus, for some reason, I always want to punch the impossibly kind and understanding curly haired former National Guard Iraqi with the terrible Arab accent. Don’t know why. Just do.

NEW YORKER OBSERVATIONS OF THE DAY:

Did you read either the article about the Donner party or the Martin Amis short story about Mohammad Atta's Last Day in the New Yorker? What was it, the Special Spring American History Downer Issue or something?

A knock on Anthony Lane in re my friend’s movie. As you know, from a previous posting, I always feel that, while he's an obviously gifted writer, Anthony Lane tends to subordinate his role as an accurate describer of the movie in question to his role as a clever entertainer. Anyhow, I revisited this feeling this week when I read his somewhat favorable review of my friend Caveh’s “I am a Sex Addict.” I was aware of how my friend had been working for about 15 years to get this thing on the public radar. And when it finally arrives at Mount New Yorker and Anthony Lane is asked to say a few words about it, he doesn’t even deign to describe the movie in any detail, but rather allows his review to hinge on something as extraneous to the story as the guy’s alleged visual ressemblance to Harpo Marx. It feels not only a bit gratuitous but verging on the critically irresponsible. But that said, the review did make me laugh. So, I won't get all fuddy duddy about the moral and cultural responsibility of the critic.

NEW CONCEPT OF THE DAY:

The Stuporstar. (I can think of a few people who fit that bill. Both in public life and in obscurity.)

ARTICLE OF THE DAY:

Bill Mckibben’s article in the New York Review of Books about the web as a truly revolutionary force in the reshaping of democratic politics…via aggregating, open sites like Dailykos.com. Worth checking out. Evidently there are people out there who use the internet for purposes other than checking stock prices, checking sports scores, losing money in poker and watching porn. I don’t know too many of them. But evidently, they are out there.

Quipping aside: It is cool to see that one of the progressive applications of the internet is the collective shaping of coherent position papers for the Democratic party--on such matters as the enviroment. healthcare etc. It seems to be clearly presenting an important challenge to the inveterate cronyism and entrenched ineffectiveness of party politics as usual.

MOTTO OF THE DAY:

I hate to whine, but they say you shouldn’t hide your talents.

SENTENCE OF THE DAY:

In his dream he couldn't tell if the character was a cyborg imitating a human or a human less convincingly imitating a cyborg.

POLL QUESTION OF THE DAY:

(Although I don’t dare dream of having as many person respond as I did with the Photo caption contest!)

Who do we feel worse for, Brittney’s Baby or Tomkat’s baby? Who has the tougher row to hoe? Who is more desperately in need of a benevolent kidnapping or state intervention?

KNICKS' SHAME OF THE DAY: (NAY, SEASON)

It's not just that they flat out sucked. It's not just that they ridiculously underachieved. It's not just that they lost more games than almost any Knicks team in history with the highest payroll in basketball. It's that they made no discernable progress in the attitude department; developed no collective sense of what it takes to succeed as a team. Blame Brownie. Blame Marbury. Blame whomever you want. But from the constant Marbury-Brown public bickering to the obsene team celebration after a 20 point loss in Indaina (?) a few weeks ago to the fact that virtually no one on the team except the rookies and Jamal Crawford (See Mo Taylor's quote about where he'll be next season "I don't care. It doesn't matter.") seems to care if they come back next year or not--the evidence is incontrovertible.

RANDOM CHARACTER PROFILE OF THE DAY:

He liked to come up with pithy distillations of complex phenomena but he also liked to elaborate variations and permutations of these concise formulations—thus achieving the perverse status of being simultaneously succinct and verbose.

POIGNANT EXPERIENCE OF THE DAY

For the last year and a half, my friend Derrick and I have been giving free advice in Central Park on Sunday afternoons. We brings out a bridge chair and put up a sign (“Free Advice: Photos $1”) and invite passers by to talk to us about the pressing issues they’re trying to resolve in their lives. Essentially, we just listen with some compassion and a little bit of insight and help our advice victims take their own best counsel—occasionally arming them with some specific practical suggestions for moving forward. One of the reasons it has worked so well, is that people are more inclined to unburden themselves to two complete strangers whom in all likelihood they’ll never see again, than to a close friend who may have a vested interest in the outcome of their decision. Indeed, the anonymity and sense of impermanence is somehow essential to the experience. Anyhow, this week’s advice giving session was particularly poignant. Not only was it our first outing of the year (and as such rich with the promise of new beginnings) but it was also one of our last ever (and hence evocative of endings)—as my partner in crime Derrick has decided to relocate to the southwest to begin the next chapter of his life. Much as the consultations are intensified by the knowledge of their impermanence so too the whole outing was suffused with the knowledge of the imminent departure of my friend and partner and, as such, was bathed in a kind of bittersweet nostalgia for the present. After the last advisee left and before we folded up shop, I looked at the empty white chair sitting before us. The chair struck me as a material reminder of impermanence; of the primacy of the here and now. I was feeling how in some metaphysical sense we all occupy the chair in each other’s lives. We all appear from out of nowhere. Sit down. Face each other. Engage—directly or not-- some matter of the heart. And then move on. The Sunday in the park advice encounters are some way is a distillation of all encounter. Acuter perhaps for being briefer. Less obscured by habit. Less distanced by familiarity. Anyhow, it was moving. I guess I have to decide whether I will find a new bench partner (auditioning them would make one hell of a reality show) or whether I'll let it fade into the distance, like an advisee whose consultation had come to an end.

ENDING OF THE DAY:

The end.

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Posted on 4/20/2006 ( Permanent Link )
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