A BIRTHDAY MISCELLANY

GESTURE OF THE DAY:

When you answer a question right or do anything remotely successful, give the basketball shot motion with the hand hanging overhead on the follow through as the imaginary shot goes through the imaginary hoop...and just leave it hanging up there indefinitely. Until it becomes really awkward (or your arm falls asleep--whichever comes first.)

PROMISE OF THE DAY:

Once I find the cable cord for my digital camera, I'll post a photo of the aforementioned gesture of the day--in case my verbal description does not evoke a sufficiently vivid image.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

"I hate to give the Gibb boys credit, but God DAMN could they sing like girls!"

(Upon overhearing a song from "Saturday Night Fever.")

BIRTHDAY REFLECTION OF THE DAY:

Life is arguably a perpetual orbit around the mystery of our birth (and --by implication--our death). On our birthday, we take a day to reflect on these twinned mysteries, on the space that stretches out betweeen them and on the pleasure of having other people pay for our drinks.

On our birthday we sit back and accept the congratulations of others. We rest on our laurels. And our laurel in this case is having been born.

CONCEPTUAL ART IDEA OF THE DAY:

Prompted by seeing a sign that said "Lost. 3 legged black cat. If found, please call _________" on my way to work and after asking myself "How in the world do you lose a 3 legged cat? How in the world can it get far enough away to be lost?" and not finding any satisfactory answer. Anyhow, without further ado, the idea: Plaster the neighborhood with "Lost. My innocence. Last seen in 1983. If found, please call---." and "Lost. My youth. Not quite sure when it slipped away. But if you find it, please call." "Lost. My hair." "Lost. My Mojo. If found, please call." Etc. I think it could be cool to post these things and photo document them--and perhaps the response people have to them.

TEDDY VEGAS BRANDED INTERACTIVE FEATURE OF THE DAY:

Should I actually execute the above idea or leave it mercifully in the realm of things conceived and not acted upon?

OBSERVATION OF THE DAY:

I am a little concerned about this whole resurgence of all things German. There's the teutonic Dr. Z exclaiming the virtues of German Engineering in that Daimler Chrysler campaign. There's the whole "V Dub in da House" German guy rapping Ali G. style for VW. There's the whole World Cup in Germany thing--taking place in the stadium where Hitler opened the 1936 Olympic games. There's Chancelor Angie Merkel looking aghast at non-V W's attempt to give her a back rub at the G-8 Conference. And, most disconcertingly, an ad campaign along an entire corridor of Grand Central station, with the slightly menacing (at least for me) tagline: Germany: Land of Ideas. Yeah, yeah. We know ALL about those ideas. The sequence of ads ends with a poster that reads: See you in Germany. Hmmm. I think I'm gonna pass.

QUANDARY OF THE DAY:

As a hardcore, long-suffering Knicks fan and confirmed Dolan and Isaiah hater, do I root for or against the Blue and Orange this season? Part of me really wants to see Isaiah fall on his face. But there's less enduring pleasure in rooting against your team than their is in rooting for it. What to do? What to do? One has to weigh the pleasure of seeing the guys you like winning (Frye, Lee, Crawford) versus the pleasure you'd feel seeing the guys you hate (Isaiah, Marbury etc.) losing. A tricky emotional calculus, this one. Of course, the worst thing that could happen for all parties concerned is to have this rag tag futureless, untenable group play .500 ball, make the playoffs as like a 7th or 8th seed and allow this illusion of competitiveness to prevent the house cleaning that's needed for actual progress. It'll be interesting to see how my old heart responds when the season is actually underway. I suspect I'll be rooting against them--as there are enough surrogate teams and players whom I actually like rooting for (Phoenix, Dallas, etc.) to sustain me.

DESCRIPTION OF THE DAY:

After the break-up, while the possibility of friendship or even reconciliation was still alive, her voice--upon answering the phone when he'd call--would modulate exquisitely from icy distance to loving warmth to guarded neutrality in the space of a single sentence. She betrayed almost a tonal attitude per phoneme--the conversation eloquently encapsulating, in its brief entirety, the emotional uncertainty of the space they, for a time, inhabited.

BIRTHDAY PLAYLIST OF THE DAY:

"Mona Lisa and Mad Hatters" by Elton John
"Umbrella" by Innocence Mission
"Upon This Tidal Wave of Young Blood" by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
:Neighborhood" 1 by Arcade Fire
"This Must Be The Place" by the Talking Heads
"Wondering Aloud" by Jethro Tull
"Born In Time" by Bob Dylan
"Cutting Branches for a Temporary Shelter" by Penguin Cafe

INDIGNITY OF THE DAY:

Having two twenty somethings humorlessly complain about incipient (and indeed invisible) hairloss and on the bodlily symptoms of advancing age as I gummed down my shrimp with lobster sauce.

FELICITOUS MISPRONUNCIATION OF THE DAY:

"Plutonic." As in an assurance by someone in the Bill Bellichick adultery case, that the relationship was totally "Plutonic."

WORST SELLING VIDEO OF THE DAY:

Bad Girls Gone Good.

MUSIC OBSERVATION OF THE DAY:/ COMPARISON OF THE DAY:

The Stones versus Rufus Wainright. Whereas the Stones pick the hottest backup singers in the world to distract you from the unseemliness of 62 year old men thrusting their pelvises as they sing about sexual conquest, Rufus picks female backup singers whose physical and vocal beauty compare unfavorably with his own. The Stones want to give the impression that they can still fuck the prettiest girl in the room while Rufus simply wants to be the prettiest girl in the room.

MOVIE OF THE DAY:

"Bad Santa." Really surprisingly funny. Amazing chemistry between the chubby effeminate blank-faced kid and the unredeemably degenerate Billy Bob Thornton. A chemistry as comedically successful as any I've seen since that between Ben Stiller and Robert DeNiro in "Meet the Parents."

OXYMORON OF THE DAY:

"Wildly efficient"--a phrase actually used --with no apparent irony--in an e-mail I received yesterday.

NAME OF THE DAY::

Seattle Pitcher J.J. Putz.

BAD ADS OF THE DAY:

What's with these Snickers ads--written in that Snickers signature font? With inane addy copy like "Nugatocity" and the appetite inhibiting ""Hungerectomy." Isn't it bad enough that the Snickers bar (and Snickers packaging) already look unflatteringly fecal? Did they need to add images of sexual organs being removed to further gild the brand? How about "Stupidocity" or "Inane-o-licious?"

NEWS ITEM OF THE DAY:

http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/ap/2006/07/24/ap2900817.html

Congress (under Arlen Specter) is finally prepping a bill to oppose the Bush signing statements (and associated illegal transfer of power from the legislative to the executive branch of our government) that I've written about a few times on these electronic pages. They've finally awakened to the no-holds-barred power grab of the imperial presidency.

EMOTIONAL MOMENT OF THE DAY:

On my birthday, looking at photos of my bar mitzvah, I am dazzled by the dislocating passage of time. There are my parents, recently separated. There are their friends--coiffed in 70s dos and still in the bloom of their youth--all younger than I am myself now. There are my beloved dear departed grandparents, drinks raised in toast, smiles forever fixed on their loving faces There is my 7th grade crush Carolyn Mello, whose feline beauty-- I am shocked to discover--still makes my heart skip a beat. And there I am, amidst the family and the friends (almost all now absent--out of death or disconnection). There I am--like it was yesterday-- in my yellow shirt, my red pants, my braces and my innocence...I who have been more aged than ripened by the succession of years. I who am still in some sense staggered that it had all been as a dream--a fluxus I mistook for a locus, a river I mistook for a rock, a perpetual point of departure I mistook for a home.

RANDOM SINGLE SENTENCE PORTRAIT OF THE DAY:

Behind the distracted facade was a man who was truly and completely not there.

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Posted on 7/26/2006 ( Permanent Link )
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