Month: July 2004

FMA

For some reason, the wingnuts at the AFA seem to think that only one state representative actually opposed the Federal Marriage Amendment. I love being on that mailing list: it’s the political version of reading a trade journal from someone else’s industry.

Now, many liberals, or “progressives” as we now prefer to be called, oppose the FMA because it’s bigoted and stupid. Many conservatives, however, also oppose it, because it’s stupid and because they regard it as overreaching. There’s that weird collaboration between the religious right and the Republican party. Oh, sure, it’s all there in the political history. But look at the Log Cabin Republicans: they want government out of the boardroom and the bedroom, making them perhaps the only philosophically consistent group in Washington. And everybody thinks they’re the crazy ones.

Mean, mean, mean

Vicious, clever, and accurate characterizations of critics and writers… although I really did like “My Life in Heavy Metal.” I thought it was well-written and well-characterized, even if it was self-indulgent. Maybe it’s because, (here comes the annoying syntax of the liberal-arts student), as a self-involved twenty-something, his work speaks to me in a particular way.

Ugh, excuse me while I go wash my hands. I feel disgusting for saying that. I liked the book because it was about the confused search for happiness and the miserable results of desire. Probably The Torturer’s Apprentice and Drown treat those themes a lot better, but I liked Steve Almond too.

Self-involved, yeah, sure. They’re young writers. They’re people. We’re all self-involved. I mean, I hate David Foster Wallace as much as … well, not as much as I dislike Ben Stiller.

But the thing is: when I see these narrators coming to grief because they’re unable to empathize and unable to understand the perspective of others, I understand their perspective and I understand that mine is fundamentally skewed. Maybe just a little, but a little is enough.

In Other Blogs

In a fit of brilliance, Slate Magazine has chosen Henry Blodget to write a column about how to be a savvy financial services consumer.

Also, Ad Report Card has a good note on the Dodge Hemi campaign with good links to information about what a Hemi is (big engine with hemispherical combustion chambers) and why hemispherical combustion chambers are good, but not as good as other types of combustion chambers.

I myself am drowning in email.

Makeover

Behold the power of a macro lens at the beach in Maine: kelp and slime.

Rejiggered the colors a bit. I’m sure you care deeply. It should still be legible in most browsers; I’m sure the colors are not what you’d call websafe, but they’re still shades of grey. I played with green for a bit but it was too bilious even for me.

Webheads note that when setting a background-image property on a div, there is no “size=100%.” In other words, you just have to use an image as large as you feasibly can, so it won’t end early even for people reading fullscreen on big monitors. Note to those of you who open my page more than fourteen hundred pixels wide: can I have your monitor?

I thought of editing the links list a little more but for now I’ll leave it as is. It’s always touchy. I try to just keep the ones I really do read a lot, because I can’t fit everyone I know in there and I don’t want to be rude about it. Still, it hurts to be excluded or delisted, even if it’s because your page doesn’t fit into the list of “comics” or “economics” or “worth reading.”

Crazy Hat Night

We started at the Enormous Room, then went to The Good Life, The Cellar, The People’s Republik, Hong Kong, and Charlie’s. Anna was wearing a stunning pink cowboy hat. Cynthia wore a variety of hats. Che appeared at People’s, and Dana said I should buy him a drink. This proved awkward because he arrived and started drunkenly hanging on to Cynthia. She tolerated his revolutionary rhetoric and broken English a few minutes, and then we were off to the next destination. Duncan just turned 21 recently, and it was fun having him out at the debauched proceedings.

Avoiding the obvious line about foul language

Are you a leg person, or a breast person, when it comes to chicken? Southerners, of course, know that the way to avoid saying words that sound dirty like that is to talk about a meat preference in terms of white or dark, or perhaps Darko, seeing as how the director’s cut is coming out. I think if chicken has a director’s cut, it probably comes cut from heirloom or rare varieties of birds like the ones Would You Like A Cup of Tea? is trying to raise in Detroit.

I am tempted to mail her some chickens, just because it seems so delightful to get chickens in the mail. I want some of my own, but the cats would eat them and besides I can’t imagine that Somerville zoning allows livestock. Apparently there’s plenty of farming space in the burned-out husk of Motor City.

High School Reunion

Last night I was in a bar with some friends and there was this sort of familiar looking woman there who mentioned in a roundabout way that she was a friend of Nat’s from high school. I said, I know Nat from high school. She looked at me closely and I didn’t know who the hell she was, and it took her a second to recognize me. Only after being prompted did I realize it was the girl I held hands with for three days in fifth grade, who of course looks nothing like she did at the age of ten, or for that matter seventeen.

Na-na-na-na Leader! Leader!

Disjointed notes on the theme of superheroes:

Awhile ago, Fafblog noted disappointment in the Kerry/Edwards ticket, wishing instead for Kerry/Batman. I told my father about it, and he responded that he actually met someone named Batman while he was in Australia. You know, Jeff Batman.

You know, if my last name were “Mann” I would totally name my kid “Super” and not “Bat.”

Earlier this week I woke up in the middle of the night mumbling about how Batman had been impersonating me and going on a murderous rampage. I don’t remember this dream or telling Bookdwarf about it, but I think it means either a) I am worried that my subconsious will force me to do something I’ll regret later, or b) I am afraid of someone else doing horrible things that will affect me. Can it be both?

Regardless, if I had a superpower, it would totally be x-ray vision or invisibility or the power to stop time– anything that would let me know things I couldn’t normally know. I would use it to spy on naked ladies, and also for securities fraud. The delivery of next week’s Wall Street Journal would work, too.