Present Imperfect

Naval Lint | April 30, 2004

I just saw an online recruiting ad for the U.S. Navy that says "Kicking butt is mandatory. Taking names is optional."

Sounds a bit like "shoot first, ask questions later," doesn't it? Did the Bush Administration's PR team do a little pro bono work for the Navy? After all, they did come up with the classic "Mission Accomplished."

Fire Walk with Me | April 27, 2004

Today, a few things happened.

1. I foolishly left the office and walked into the (HAD to be) 100-degree heat to get myself a yummy salad.
2. On the way, I heard a woman pushing a stroller bellow to her oldest child "Messiah!" to slow down and wait for her. Doesn't a name like that put a lot of pressure on a kid?
3. On the way back, I found out that my entire building had been evacuated because an air conditioner on the third floor caught fire. My yummy salad wilted while I waited to be let back in to retrieve my keys and go home.
4. Most importantly, I learned a very valuable lesson: Fire Days are not nearly as fun as Snow Days.

T to the M to the I | April 21, 2004

According to my employee handbook, our "Dress Standard" consists of clothing that "must be neat, clean and in good condition." Fair enough. But I know that there is a Secret Dress Code that stipulates (among other secret things) we may not wear off- or one-shoulder tops or dresses, strapless tops or dresses, clothing that reveals bits of our underwear (bra straps, specifically), thong sandals (presumably because, even if they are of the dressy variety, they call to mind flip-flops), blue jeans (except on Fridays) or sneakers (ditto).

The hypocrisy of not allowing employees who sell provocative clothing to wear it notwithstanding, only the last two things affect me, since, left to my own devices, I would wear jeans and sneakers every single day. In order to comply with the Secret Dress Code, I wear lots of non-blue corduroys, khaki trousers and Rocket Dog slip-ons with a Velcro strap. Technically, I believe the standard attire for my workplace is meant to be "business casual." But unless your business is selling corduroys, khakis or Rocket Dog shoes, I'm really just "casual."

That said, I am not altogether without personal style. I simply do not like to "waste" a good outfit on work. There are no windows in my building. Outside stretches beautiful Hollywood Boulevard, which is filled with crazy homeless guys shitting in public. I am not eager to impress my coworkers with my amazing taste if it means I have to wake up even 15 minutes earlier on a weekday.

Lately, however, I have been obsessed with replacing every single mediocre item in my wardrobe with something I would normally "save" for an occasion. Every item in my closet and in my dresser should be as welcoming to me as, say, my red Ben Sherman trench coat and striped turtleneck or my slowly growing collection of Fred Perry track jackets. All crappy tee shirts are making way for Charlotte-brand blends or whimsical, locally designed shirts. Jeans must no longer be purchased for fit only (which is difficult enough). Oh no! They must possess the perfect (not necessarily trendy) wash AND not make my lower half look lumpy. A challenge? Indubitably. Yet I willingly take up the gauntlet of effortless-looking casual style! Behold my understated Adina necklace! Cower before my polka-dot NYLA ballet flats! Witness my retro-print LeSportsac bag! Help me decide if this pair of argyle sneakers is pointless, even though I am deeply in love with them!

I know all this just makes me a big consumer whore. But you must understand that my struggle will eventually pay off when I can blindly choose any item of clothing from my wardrobe and wear it impunity. You must also understand that this will never, ever happen, no matter how hard I try. Yet try I shall!

In news that does not make me look like a horrible, shallow person (or does it?), here is a message that was sent to the reply address of one of our promotional e-mails (names have been changed to protect the weird):

To: offers@emails.fredericks.com
Subject: Re: Get up to $50 Off Your Order at Fredericks.com

Dear Fred,

I like the clothes you are selling. They look great, but not on me, of
course. :) About Bush, I see him as doing things that are and have
destroyed America. So many things. I don't trust politicians to begin
with, but the more I learn about Bush and his group, the more I dislike him.
I am sure the personally he is a nice man, but not for our country.

The weather her is beautiful this time of year, but that will change very
soon. I do have my a/c going now and most likely won't shut it off till the
Fall.

CVS bought Eckerds, so Karen is in limbo until July 1st when they take
over. Who knows what they will do. More jobs lost.

I'm still working a couple of days a week at the courier office. It all
helps. I hope to go swimming soon, and this time not burn my feet.
(like last year). Karen is planning on going to Indonesia later this
Summer, not sure when. We have to wait and see what happens with CVS. She
is excited about that. Wish I could go on some vacation.

Well, that's about all for now. I saw this definition of POLTICS.
"Polly" comes from the Latin word for "many" and "ticks" comes from the word
meaning blood sucking bugs. :)

Hope all is well with you.

Take care,
Love,
Josh

"Forge" Sounds Funny When You Say It Over and Over Again | April 12, 2004

Another New Yorker article, another digression...

This week's has a piece about the James ossuary, the alleged coffin of Jesus's brother James, and the likelihood that its inscription is not genuine. The archeologist who believes the ossuary is a forgery explains the technical expertise you must have to produce a passable fake:

You need to read about the style of script in the ninth century B.C.E, you need to be acquainted with all the linguistic aspects of it, you need to know some geology and read some scientific reports...You have to be an expert in many unrelated fields. This is a big thing to do. Unless you are a true genius, you can't be professional in so many unrelated fields.

This idea of forger as genius reminded me of Chatterton, so I pulled my recently returned copy of Peter Ackroyd's Chatterton off the shelf and found this conversation between Joynson and Chatterton:

'...You wish me to forge the work of these men?' 'I did not say Forge. Is the work of Rowley a forgery?' He hesitated, collecting his Words. 'Is it not, as the Platonists tell us, an imitation in a world of Imitations?'

'But why should I stoop to imitate--' I emphasised that Word--'the Verses of Poets much inferior to me?'

He looked at me steadily. 'You cannot eat or drink Pride,' he said at last. Then he took my Arm and added heartily, 'And when at last you admit these Works to be your own, the Confession will bring you Fame.'

'The Fame of a great Plagiarist?'

'No, the Fame of a great Poet. You prove your Strength by doing their Work better than they ever could, and then by also doing your own.'

It's a fictional conversation, but the outcome was exactly as Joynson says: Chatterton did become famous for his forgeries. Of course, he still downed a bottle of laudanum and offed himself at 17, but boy did Wordsworth, Keats and Coleridge dig him.

And all this called to my mind the works of Glenn Brown, who, according to his Turner Prize bio (he was shortlisted in 2000)

deftly mixes fine art and popular culture to create paintings and sculptures of baffling complexity. His lengthy process of working from reproductions reflects how often we experience art at second-hand, though photographs. He adds further twists by choosing reproductions that aren't always faithful to the original in colour or tone, and then cropping or otherwise manipulating the images. 'I re-enliven it into something completely different. Something that makes personal allusions to my own life.'

What does it all mean?

I don't know. It's past my bedtime.

Where's Bombur? | April 06, 2004

Well, I guess I'm not done for the day just yet.

Take a look at this article about Britons who believe Robin Hood existed. I shudder to think what a similar survey of Americans would uncover. That would make for a doozy of an article, I'll wager. But don't you think that maybe the 1% who said the events of Battlestar Galactica really took place were maybe, as they say, taking the piss?

Or not. It's difficult to say.

In the tradition of caring more about fictional characters than actual world events, I have been thinking a lot about The Hobbit lately. Right now, the kind folks at TheOneRing.net are conducting a letter-writing campaign in an effort to "Let The Hobbit Happen."

Now, before I am bludgeoned to death by a plethora of plastic Sting reproductions, please let me say that I will be among the first in line to see Peter Jackson's The Hobbit should New Line get the rights sorted out. But is it just me or do other people also believe that adapting this particular novel for the screen might pose a serious logistical problem, namely concerning the presence of too many friggin' dwarves? On the page, it's easy to tell Fili from Kili and Bifur from Bofur and Ori from Dori and Nori, but how do you do that onscreen? I think the whole enterprise might disintegrate into comedy (see the Rakin/Bass adaptation), and that would be bad. Granted, The Hobbit is much more lighthearted than The Lord of the Rings. But in the LOTR trilogy, at least there was only one dwarf making cheesy, if occasionally welcome, cracks in the service of comic relief. How do you deal with 13?!

Sure, WETA's Smaug would kick ass. Plus, there are lots more spiders.

Seriously though, 13 dwarves?

Philippa Boyens, should you stumble across this page during a drunken Google rampage, I welcome any reassurances.

Didn't Lois Lane Win One, Too? | April 06, 2004

Okay, so The Los Angeles Times just won five Pulitzers. Here's the thing though: With the exception of the occasional Steve Lopez column, I never read the L.A. Times. It's not because I am an anti-L.A. snob (I do live here). It's not because I think the Times sucks (though, boy howdy did it ever used to). It's because I don't read any actual paper newspapers and the Los Angeles Times on the Web is just plain awful. It's hard to navigate, it looks terrible, the login cookie doesn't last very long and you have to pay to play for way more stuff after way less time than at the single Pulitzer-winning NYT.

Now, if umpteen million eyeballs (note my careful research of this exact figure) read newspapers online every day, where is the Pulitzer Prize for Web reporting? How can a newspaper that wins five Pulitzers have such a crap Web site?

We're Short and Everyone Hates Us | April 02, 2004

Good, little, lazyass, middle-class, bleeding-heart liberal that I am, I subscribe to The New Yorker in order to pretend that I am doing something to fight social injustice instead of just reading about it. Anyway, there's always something juicy in there, but two articles in particular caught my eye recently.

In the April 5 issue, there's "The Height Gap," about how Americans are getting shorter while Europeans (particularly Scandinavians) are getting taller. Why? Because America is starving her poor and feeding her rich disgusting fast food, and the gap between the two groups grows wider every day. Check it out:

As America's rich and poor drift further apart, its growth curve may be headed in the opposite direction, Komlos and others say. The eight million Americans without a job, the forty million without health insurance, the thirty-five million who live below the poverty line are surely having trouble measuring up. And they're not alone. As more and more Americans turn to a fast-food diet, its effects may be creeping up the social ladder, so that even the wealthy are growing wider rather than taller.

Yay, America! Keep it up! Just when I think there are plenty of indicators that this country is completely fucked up, up crops another one. This time, the Man is making us shorter. And isn't it interesting that Scandinavian countries are having a growth spurt when their wealth is more evenly distributed? Hmmm...

In the March 22 issue, there was an article about Martha Stewart, which I very nearly skipped entirely because, come on, it's about Martha Stewart. However, this piece is about how her defense team was so sloppy in and out of court that Stewart's travails will end "with a judge deciding how long--not whether--she will go to prison." Anyway, the article turned out to be pretty interesting, until the final paragraphs dealing with a few public figures' views of the trial and its outcome. Then it got infuriating...at least for me.

See, there was a quote from Naomi Wolf, who I believe has gone off the deep end of late (see her accusations concerning Harold Bloom, who almost certainly did put a hand on her thigh at Yale, but why did she wait 20 years to tell anyone, and why did she vomit in response? I mean, wouldn't you just laugh at the drunk old fucker? It's not like he'd remember when it came time to write you a letter of recommendation.), that says Stewart's fall was attributable to "a social taboo against women being too powerful, too wealthy, too successful without being attached to a man." Um, what? I do feel that Stewart was made an example of when there are far bigger fish breaking far bigger laws all the time, but what did being a woman have to do with lying to the Feds? The bottom line is, she lied and she got caught. Bummer when you're a multimillionaire and the kafuffle is over a measly $50,000 (roughly my annual salary, just for a dash of perspective), but too bad, so sad.

Maybe I'm being too hard on Naomi, and I agree that there is and has always been bad sexual harassment mojo going on in universities across the country, but waiting 20 years to report an incident only makes you look like either a liar or a drama queen, and that's exactly the pickle Wolf is finding herself in now.

Only I Didn't Say "Fudge" | April 01, 2004

Happy National F-Word Day!
Here I fucking am, in compliance with National F-Word Day, peppering this fucking post with plenty of four-fucking-letter-words in an effort to demonstrate to the FC-fucking-C what the fuck freedom is all about.

Don't know what the fuck I'm talking about? Ask Rico, for fuck's sake.

I'd also like to raise a big frosty mug of "fuck you" to the fucknuckle who ran the red light at Beverly and Vermont last night. This "fuck"'s for you! You almost killed us, you fuckass. ("Did you just call me a 'fuckass?!'" It's my small tribute to Donnie fucking Darko.)