Muskets of Lilliputia
I can't read most popular nonfiction. I get pissed off. And snarky. And I can't even pretend that someone's just making all this up - no, they actually believe in these shit-ink printed words (or as a Kindle user might say; R=102,G=51,B=5 text). I get snarky because this book is written like its trying to teach paraplegic male lions how to hunt. And then I get pissed off because the book is just plain stupid. And then I'm simultaneously pissed off and snarky (and angry! a slight twinge of angry!) because the book is offensive and propagates offensive idiocies.
I am page 35 of Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat (yeah I know, what is this, 1995? Forgive me, I'm from New Zealand), and I am about to projectile vomit out my balcony, and if Mr. Friedman's hypothesis that the world is "Flat", then I should be able to hit Mt. Everest if I aim correctly.
It started with his Eureka moment; "I wanted to drop everything and write a book that would enable me to understand how this flattening process happened and what its implications might be for countries, companies, and individuals. So I picked up the phone and called my wife, Ann, and told her, "I am going to write a book called The World is Flat." She was both amused and curious - well, maybe more amused than curious!" And then he took her to Sbarro's and showed her that Italian food exists in the US! The world must be flat! Hallelujah, nobody thought about this till you came along and wrote a book about globalization! We just figured that call center jobs didn't exist anymore! Lalala!
But that's fine. You can talk about figuring out this marvelous redundant thing you figured out. But, this tidbit regarding Japanese outsourcing to a Chinese city that had a high level of Japanese literacy... "Chinese doing computer drawings for Japanese homes, nearly seventy years after a rapacious Japanese army occupied China, razing many homes in the process. Maybe there is hope for this flat world..." You mean there's a world where people will undertake distasteful and even repugnant activities to *feed themselves and their family*? That kind of the world? Oh wait, the world that has existed since DNA thought it'd be a great idea to replicate?
But that's fine. I'm still on page 33. There's 473 pages of text in here and surely a few words aren't garbage. This was a New York Times bestseller after all... never mind that the current top nonfiction slot is occupied by Michelle Malkin of all people organisms walking bags of wind.
Then I get to page 34. In parentheses, "For a Communist authoritarian system, China does a pretty good job of promoting people on merit. The Mandarin meritocratic culture here still runs very deep."
....
You sir, wouldn't know an apple from a giraffe if it bit you in the face.
Hallo World!
Hallo Blog! How are you? Have you been doing well? How's Mrs. Blog? And the tyke? Oh good, good - yes, life's been good. Y'know, the same old; still in grad school. How much longer? Ah, haha, well, that's an uncomfortable question to ask a PhD student! Another couple years I figure - but things are good, things are chugging in lab, can't complain too much. Ah, sorry, I have to run - I'm meeting a friend crosstown in half an hour you see - and you know how the M66 runs . But it was good seeing you -- next year, same time, yeah? Just kidding, haha! Take care, ciao!
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Yay green things!
I started an herb garden last week -- initially because I wanted to start saving money on buying $3 stacks of herbs that I inevitably use one sprig of for a recipe and then throw away the rest. $50 later, spent on buying plants, containers, fertilizer, vegetable spray, potting soil, I'm actually kind of enjoying it for the sake of seeing something grow (and I don't think I even spend $50/year on herbs). I started with just a basil and a mint, my basil just totally ate it within two days. Aphids everywhere, despite my semi-ok efforts, and my careful watering and temperature/sun moderating, and what was a healthy blooming plant at a farmer's market a week ago is now literally one upright brown twig. Meanwhile, the mint has pretty much taken over the world. I've made bourbon juleps and mint tea already, and the bugger is still growing like no tomorrow. I feel like it must have doubled in volume already and it's literally been a week.
I'm probably going to hop down to home depot later today and pick up some chive seeds.... and I'm actually considering geraniums though I can't even eat them. And I want to try a parsley/oregano/basil combination this weekend... oh dear.
Harder than it seems
I killed babies with my own two hands today. Pigeon babies. Pigeon eggs. And my head's foggy with guilt. I walked outside onto my balcony, noticing that a pigeon had been flying towards my balcony with a twig in its mouth. A twig! Alarm bells go off. I shoo it off, and it simply refuses, hopping away, twig in beak, and I practically have to physically hurl it off my balcony before it defiantly fades off. Apprehensively, I poked around the balcony, and sure enough, only halfway covered by my rusting bike and the bike cover I had purchased and then thrown off when I realized there were pigeons starting to take shelter underneath it during winter, was the humble beginnings of a nest. Only 10 twigs had been carefully laid around 2 eggs. The eggs were small, not tiny, but definitely smaller than chicken eggs, and strikingly translucent. You could imagine the yolk swirling inside, like DDT eggs or something. It just didn't seem possible that these precariously positioned delicate eggs would make it.
I'm not the first resident in this building to have pigeons roost on their balcony; I'm probably not even the 1000th. I've had a couple friends with the same problem in the past couple years alone. But I'm not one to get "aww babies" over this; pigeons are pigeons which have pigeons which have more pigeons which become menaces of pigeons which poop on you and me and then procreate more. I'm also not squeamish about this; no need to call the haz-mat exterminators to take care of this. I go back inside, grab a couple plastics bags to do this hygienically, shoo off the anxious expecting pigeon parents and go for the half-made nest.
Strangely, just as my hands are closing around the twigs, I'm awash with self-consciousness and intense guilt. I miss the eggs, and end up picking up a handful of twigs. I do crack the shell of one of the eggs, and now I'm looking around frantically, certain that I'm about to get attacked by the rage-mad mum and pop and all their friends. No adult pigeons on the perimeter. God, I better work fast. But I'm spellbound, staring at those tiny little globes and there's a guilt rock lodged in my throat. Hallo! I'm a scientist! And Chinese! And a heartless bitch! I take fish and clobber them on the head before de-scaling and steaming with ginger! I see potbellied pigs and think "nom nom"! I've infected mice with malaria and plotted their medical profile over the course of weeks! I hate pigeons! Gwar!
"Oh, just do it for god's sake," and I pick up the two eggs, hurry inside, and throw the lot into my garbage bin. Freaking baby things. I keep imagining discombobulated bird fetuses emerging out of my garbage bin, chirping, "why did you do that? Why??"
Gah. I didn't realize I was going to physically feel guilty over it. No wonder everyone else I know call up professionals to take care of pigeon nests.
Anyways. I'm going to throw the eggs down the trash chute. Then take a jog. Hope the pigeons don't have me marked.
Five hours later
and at least 10 cups of tea, used teabags making a little mountain in my garbage, I'm still staring at the same completely unfinished shit manuscript. I get physically nauseous just looking at it. Same reaction as my qualifying exam.
This does not portend well for a life meant to be full with scientific manuscripts.
I was supposed to have this finished 2 months ago.
An exercise in (slam?) poetry
after watching Sylvia (2003 movie of Sylvia Plath's life... forgive me, I am on a Daniel Craig kick); good acting but a rather depressing and not particularly dramatic plot-line (gee, one wonders why) with fairly wonky pacing makes for a poor movie. But one scene stood out; young poets sitting around a kitchen table with several bottles of somethin' somethin' on the table, each standing in turn, weaving poems on the spot, swaying to a beat only one word ahead of the one being uttered, and their companions in the background yelling, "FAASTER!!" with each verse.
Try it. It's fun. Put some music on; something fast, something you've heard a million times. Pick a topic, first topic in your head. Start folding your laundry, put your arms to some busy-task, and GO.
Since I was trying to make layered jello for no reason whatsoever, condensed milk, sylvia plath and cherry jello were the first thoughts on my mind.
I will die of condensed milk.
Let the viscosity subside my heartbeat
Let the glucose raise the living standards
Of the worms and bed bugs and cockroaches
underneath me.
I am not obsessed with death.
It is a matter that has never held much interest for me
Nor, I suspect, will after the matter.
But all good poets play with death
Especially female poets
Especially female poets named Sylvia Plath
Perhaps instead, I will, in my analytical way
Poke at death with my pinching tweezers
And hypothesize even
The relevant signal transduction pathway
and then
Wordsmith, lexologist, maestro of morphemes;
I have apprenticed for years
At different esteemed temples of lingual arts
And have sharpened my arsenal
Of scimitars and morningstars and hurlbats.
I used one yesterday; sunk a small knife deep into your chest, drawing out, twisting counterclockwise so that the burrs would drag out vital organs.
I was writing a poem about Death. And your Mother. In reverse order.
Today I cudgel your head, take a club smoothened by eons of sanding, and take it again and again and seeing the concave dent, once more, harder.
I am proving a point.
and lastly
i have a mormon friend
who taught me about jello
yes, that jello, the jello of your childhood past
with colors that never existed before a chemist
calculated the perfect intersection of emission spectra between orange and purple
a chemist who preferred not the dull red of iron bound heart bound blood
or the glorious red of one ripe strawberry overlooked by squirrels
but numerical red, red 2, red 4, a mix of yellow 5 and green 3
yes, jello was synthesized
by a colorblind chemist,
or merely a sadistic one
Strange but true; I have an uncomfortably encyclopedic knowledge of medieval weapons due to Diablo II.
In the words of Ian Fleming
"The bitch is dead"
Or, in the words of I when I'm pretending to be Ian Fleming,
"The goddamn TV that's been sitting in the corner of my bedroom, unused and gathering previous Manhattan dust, is gone."
An entire Spanish speaking family came and retrieved it in a blue personal grocery cart to wheel it two blocks North. The little 8 year old girl helped by looking extraordinarily happy.
In other news, the Vesper Martini is just genius. Two measures gin, a measure of vodka, half a measure of lillet (none here unfortunately, so i substituted martini & rossi dry vermouth), with just a few drops of lemon juice (since i have no fresh lemons) and shook until it wouldn't recognize it's own mother. Best martini I've *ever* had.
late night intercontinental reminiscing
me: yeah, i thought about that today; my first year of grad school, i really went out there and took initiative in hunting down guys
i think, damn. i totally wouldn't do that now
ccc: and its not even an understatement for using hunting as a word
libraries were your safari
me: hahaha, its true, and the english language is my rifle
ccc: HAHA yes
me: god i love european fobs
ccc: yes please
Ah, me
I made a few promises to myself over the sink 10 minutes ago, washing dishes. Thou shall get the goddamn ()#*)(*@#$ paper done this week. Thou shall sell that TV that has been a worthless space-sucking life-draining soul-pulverizing heap of electronics for the past 2 years. Thou shall finish those "official" emails backlog from 2 weeks ago. Thou shall take life off bare survival mode. Thou shalt not check weblogs for a week.
But then I come back to my laptop, and my rss happens to be open. and xkcd just happened to have posted a new comic.
Ah, vie.
How are you feeling?
Better today.
Still nothing. Accomplished. Done. Started. Middle.
But better
Today.
