Electric Ladyland

are we walking or are we talking?

got my hair cut yesterday.  i hadn't realized how long it had gotten until all of a sudden, one day, it was in the way.  i got it cut short and love how it feels.  free and easy.  no more tying it up to get it out of my face. 

mom couldn't stop raving about how good hustle & flow was, so i went to see it today.  now i get it -- anyone who's grown up around music and the business of music understands how it is.  i was struck by something anthony anderson's character said which was:  "i've learned something in my job.  there are two types of people in this world.  there are people that talk the talk and people that walk the walk.  and you don't think the people who walk are actually walking but they are -- they're just not talking.  and when the time comes to walk, the people who talk ask people like me to walk the walk for them."  i've seen more of that attitude in music than i could even begin to tell about.  that attitude is so pervasive.  sometimes i just want to shake people out of their reveries and say walk already!  but you can't walk the walk for anybody else.  you've got your own walk to walk.

good movie.  good weekend so far too.

落ち着いた

friday, and not a moment too soon.  i woke up this morning feeling luxuriant and happy as if it had been a saturday, but i still had to get up and go to work.  went to the office, got a bunch of things done but somehow ended up with a headache which was most perturbing.  i wasn't under any exceptional amount of stress -- it was just a normal day -- but i wasn't feeling so great.  then again, considering what kind of week it's been i shouldn't have been surprised.

headed to my local starbucks before going home today.  had a green tea frappucino.  i had thought it was a stupid gimmick but it's actually rather tasty.  it's just another example of american japanamania these days.  i see kimono shirts, kanji tattoos everywhere (yesterday it was a thug with the kanji for "bad" -- 悪  -- on the back of his neck), and of course green tea this and that.  my guess is that if the japanese knew how fascinated americans were with their culture they'd be pretty psyched.  of course it is an appropriation of the culture without the values behind it, which seems superficial at best, but the same could be said of japanese fascination with the trappings of american culture.  to go deeper and really understand the way of thinking underlying such things is another matter altogether.

anyhow, more important than the green tea frappucino was the opportunity to sit in a cafe and stare out the window.  i had nothing to do, nowhere to be, and damn was i happy about that.  i leafed through a paper, wrote in my journal a little, and checked out the travel guide to japan that i bought last week.  it was quiet, i was quiet, and i really had nothing on my mind.  it was bliss.  as i said, i tried writing in my journal but i only ended up writing about how i had nothing to write about, so i stopped and just smiled, staring out the window.  then i ambled slowly home with the remnants of my green tea frappucino, feeling at ease.  that feeling i had reminds me of the french expression "etre bien dans sa peau," which i kind of think as meaning to feel at ease in your own skin. 

it's nice to feel that way after having felt just tension in my skin all week.  time for some relaxation.

easy does it

last night i had electricity in my house again so i caught up on some home computer time.  watched nasa tv and heard them playing "what a wonderful world" as they woke up the astronauts for day 2 of their mission.  it was kind of neat imagining them sleeping as they zoomed in orbit over us.  and as they were getting ready to work, i conked out.

but this morning i tuned in again, just in time to see the discovery astronauts enter the international space station.  it's really cool to watch that live.

today went pretty well overall.  the heat wave broke.  i felt back on track at work.  overall, much better than yesterday, but that isn't saying much.  yesterday was the pits.

i was thoroughly exhausted when i left the office but i returned my latest DVD rental at blockbuster.  this time i rented audition, a 1999 takashi miike film i'd been hearing about for a long time.  everybody said it was shocking, just shocking.  considering all the hype it got i don't actually think it was so shocking.  i actually laughed at one point, albeit not at the very end when it got out of hand.  even then, though, i was like "well, yeah... they said it would be really gross and it is, so that's that." 

the weekend is almost here.  they say the weather will be nice.  i'm thinking:  beach.

here are some shots from the week:

yankee stadium, tuesday night.  a bunch of coworkers and i sat at the very top of the stadium, sweltering in the heat along with a sellout crowd, and watched randy johnson hurl a gem.  2 hits and 11 strikeouts over 8 innings.  he is the big unit.  but the yankees are going to need more pitchers than just him to make it to the postseason.

my hot dog.  it was tasty!  i would have had a beer but we accidentally ended up in an alcohol-free section.  "yeah, i know it's bullshit" said the usher, "but that's the rule."  during the game they played the national anthem and "god bless america", as is the custom post-9/11, and i thought "why don't they just play the theme to team america world police?"  sometimes the bombastic patriotism is a little much.  i know it's america's game and i love it for all its americanness.  i just want to watch the game, that's all.

this is not from the baseball game.  now you might not think so based on the photo of the hot dog and this photo of mac n cheese, but i'm not usually much of a junk food eater.  this week, however, i had a bizarre craving for macaroni and cheese and i actually did a survey of different deluxe brands of macaroni & cheese:  annie's, kraft, and velveeta.  annie's won the competition and kraft placed second.  velveeta was a distant, plasticky-tasting third.  hooray to annie's for making a tasty, healthy organic deluxe macaroni and cheese product. 

yeah, you know things have been slow when i'm writing macaroni and cheese reviews.  but slow is fine by me.

oh man...

eeyore looks like i feel.  man has it been one of those days.  the power went out on our block last night.  this may be because new york city set another record for electricity usage yesterday.  in conversations with people i heard phrases like transformer blew out, manhole cover fire, electrical fire ... who knows.  there was smoke in the air and we lost power for the whole hot, steamy, oppressive night.  until around 1 in the morning we weren't even sure it was safe to try and go pass out sweaty in our beds because the firefighters were going from door to door to find the source of the fire(s).  there was no power this morning but apparently they got it working again around 11 while i was at work (thank you con ed!).  i got very little sleep and am cranky, cranky, cranky.  tomorrow's another day.

speaking of eeyore, mike myers of the boston red sox looks a lot like him.  every time i see him come out to pitch i feel depressed.  he's like a human expression of a sigh.  i was going to say he just looks that way and it may have no bearing on his actual pitching, but he walked the first batter he saw tonight and left the game under those circumstances.  schilling came in to relieve him but walked the first batter he saw too.  sigh.  we managed to win it but only just nearly.  the red sox pitching worries me.  officially.  paging theo epstein.

oh yeah, and randy johnson pitched some sick baseball for the yankees last night.  2 hits and 11 strikeouts over 8 innings.  it was insane.

pollsters are entitled to my opinion

there were  a lot of hours in the day today.  i shouldn't have had so many but i cheated;  i stayed up till about 4 reading because i was in one of those information-hoover modes i get in, then i only ended up crashing till about 9:30.  i should not have had two cups of coffee to start the day because i was twitchy and hyperactive for most of it.  i cleaned my room and watched some of the red sox game (they lost -- bah).

then i ambled over to blockbuster.  tried to rent nausicaa but it had actually already been sold (so why'd they have the box?), so i  got  margaret cho: revolution instead.  it wasn't as funny as notorious c.h.o. or i'm the one that i want ("hi my name is gwen i'm here to warrrrsh yer vagina"), but it was still pretty hilarous.  i think i like margaret cho so much precisely because there's a dearth of women really speaking their mind -- unedited -- on tv or in the movies.

i think one of the last times i did that in truly unedited fashion in front of complete strangers was at the tower records in philadelphia.  mom and i were leaving the store and this psychotic-looking woman railroaded us at the door, very forcefully herding us towards a "5 minute" (try 20, lady!  it was 20 minutes!) movie trailer opinion poll.  turns out they didn't want mom's opinion because she's too old.  guess hollywood doesn't care about baby boomer moms.  that right there offended me.  they wanted a piece of my mind, though, and they got it. 

they showed me clips of both hitchiker's guide to the galaxy (pass) and xxx: state of the union (fail).  god did they want to get into the nitty gritty of why i didn't like the xxx sequel.  well, apart from the obvious fact that xxx (the main character from the original movie) wasn't even in the sequel named after him, i said "frankly, i'm not interested in this movie because all the women portrayed in it are sex objects."  boy did psychotic lady get pissed off!  she was not having that but too bad -- you asked for my opinion, you got it.  (c'mon psychotic lady, you're a woman too -- don't tell me you've never actually looked at the representation of women in hollywood films and been pissed off?  you wanna pick something to be psychotic about, be psychotic about that for crying out loud.)  the young woman actually taking down my responses, however, smiled and said that was refreshing.  thank you.  it's a free country (in theory) after all.

oh yeah.  candles.  peace and harmony.  i forgot i was going to mention what this picture of a teardrop-shaped candle is all about.  after dealing with the paper pile on my desk today i unearthed a birthday present one of my former students from japan got me -- aromatic candles from thailand.  was it that obvious that i needed stress relief these past few months?  ha ha... but seriously, these candles are very relaxing and a thoughtful gesture.  thank you kou-chan.

i heart astoria

this is how i needed to start my saturday. 

my roomie and i got a slow start to the day and then went up to freeze peach on ditmars (a whole other area of astoria that i really never get around to as much as i should).  i had a homemade iced mocha and she had a homemade iced chai latte, thank you very much.  insert your favorite derogatory grumble about mocha-and-latte-drinking liberals here.  the folks who run the place also run astorians.net, an idea whose time has come.  i actually got a neighborhoody vibe chatting with the barista about what it's like living in astoria. 

and the place is very chill, very down-home.

and they run linux on their laptops.  ubuntu linux to be exact.  i was impressed.

after the visit to freeze peach we strolled down ditmars past 718, which i ogled indiscreetly.  it's just a matter of time before i make it there for a french repast.  i also saw a new japanese place named watawa ( ワタワって何だろう?) nearby.  looked nice.  astoria is definitely diversifying.

we got cannolis at an italian pastry shop near the ditmars stop.  fresh and delicious.  i don't think i've had a better cannoli since boston's little italy.

then we took the train into manhattan to see what was up there... not much.  a street fair on lafayette, luxuriant sunlight and light breezes.  i got a guidebook to japan at the book store, finally.  it's about time to start planning my trip to japan in earnest. 

we had dinner at the neptune diner before sharing a pitcher of spaten at the beer garden.  the cat's definitely out of the bag -- every year since i moved to astoria there have been more and more people coming to the beer garden in droves.  today's weather pretty much guaranteed a record turnout.  we got carded at the front door.  there were more than a few cops around.  i guess it makes sense.  that many people drinking that much beer and you've got to make sure things don't go haywire.  in years past i have actually seen drunk people dancing on picnic tables at the beer garden.

but who can resist the perfect formula of the beer garden?  happy people + rare new york city greenery + good beer = fun times.  even if the people working the bar are a little gruff.  whatever.

yup, it was definitely a wonderful day to be out and about in the city.  i finally felt back to normal today having slept 12 hours the night before and succesfully beaten back the threat of a cold.  tomorrow i may actually have to do laundry, but today it was all about the summer fun.

i fought the sql server and the sql server won

damn you, sql server! 

actually, no, i did actually prevail in my struggle against the sql server but not after investing several hours in a pitched battle for database dominance.  it was a day of registry edits, batch files and lots of frustration.

i've been feeling drained this week and this morning, to top it all off, i woke up with a sore throat.  "you've got a virus," the career mentor who works on our floor told me point blank.  i sure hope not.  i threw everything i could at it -- vitamin c, zinc, lots of water, and now (the least popular but most effective method in my experience) garlic.  only the garlic is making any difference.  my energy is coming back.  a nutritionist once told me it had ... antimicrobials?  sounds a bit like midichlorians.  anyhow, the force is coming back strong now thanks to a little stamina power.

tonight we watched kinsey and that was indeed a good movie.  actually not as troubling as i thought it was going to be based on the previews i'd seen.  given how many mixed and twisted messages we all get about something that's so natural to us it's nice to hear the straight story every once in a while.  i didn't know that much about kinsey the man before and it was amazing to think of someone so frank about something so taboo at such a time in our country's history.  i already knew he'd published two major volumes, one on the sexuality of the human male and the other on the sexuality of the human female.  in the movie it seemed the book on female sexuality was what freaked everyone out.  figures.  but it was touching to see the moments when his research made a positive impact on people's lives. 

heard the news today that they're going to start random bag searches on the new york city subway tomorrow.  does that make me feel safer?  no.  but then again, i don't know what will.  just got to enjoy every day we have here and live without fear.

grounded

oh, woe.  i take my eyes off the wheel and the yankees are in first place.  being the superstitious sox fan that i am, i think it all has to do with the fact that the only other strong sox fan at work left yesterday and i am fending for myself now.  that's why my supervisor came looking for me this morning with that bemused expression on his face.  "how d'ya like us now?"  well, i still like the sound of 2004 world series champions and the season ain't over yet.  how d'ya like them apples?

i've been feeling noticeably less energized than last week, for what reasons i'm not sure yet.  just taking it easy.  after work it's a slow program of cooking followed by whatever's good on bittorrent.  today i got my copy of the elegant universe and started reading it on the ride home.  it actually made sense from the get-go because i'd already seen the NOVA series on tv.  i want to make those near and dear to me watch that series but i know some of them (who shall remain nameless) would consider it an obscene form of torture and run away shrieking.  others (yeah, you mom!) would be totally into it.  i should hook them up.

along the lines of space, being the ecumenical geek that i am, i found a history channel documentary based on another book i'm reading, failure is not an option by NASA's gene kranz.  great special.  i learned the fundamentals about the history of american space flight in just about two hours.  now all i have to do is finish the book.  my inside source in orlando tells me that despite the news reports saying NASA's going to try for a shuttle launch sometime next week, there's basically no way they're going to fix the problem with discovery's fuel tank sensors in time.  looks like we won't be cheering on a launch until september.

meh.  my get up and go definitely hit the highway.  not sure where it meandered off to.  it occurred to me as i hunkered down yet again tonight, feeling that energy drain, that i'm hibernating in my air-conditioned room as if it were winter.  not sure what that's all about.  someone did say that our heat wave should break tomorrow, though.  that would be a welcome development.  i'm still getting things done, just at a much slower pace than i'm used to.  this would be what other people call normal. 

yawn

monday arrived and with it motivation-neutralizing humidity.  we all seemed like wilting flowers at the office.  even an afternoon java jolt couldn't wake me up.  i felt like slapping myself to consciousness but knew that wouldn't make a difference.  got a few things done, schlepped home and have only the mildest of ambitions for this evening:  (1) make as uncomplicated a dinner as possible and (2) watch hell's kitchen.  after that i'll be counting sheep.  i hope somewhere along the way a cosmic reset button will get pressed and i can wake up tomorrow with more get up and go.

liberte, egalite... et les crepes partout

my day started out french enough with a croque monsieur at brick cafe.  i think that was the only french thing about today even though i stopped by the bastille day event on 60th street this afternoon.  the verdict?  as before:  you better like crepes.  and not that i don't -- i do -- but i had already eaten something actually delicious and the air was swimming with moisture, so i wasn't in the mood for anything of a dubious flavor quotient.  i didn't see a whole lot going on besides the ubiquitous crepe stands and a few tables by the likes of d'artagnan.  not much of interest to a franco-american from my point of view.  if it's the culture you come from you expect a little more variety and a little more authenticity.  (kind of like the d.c. sakura-matsuri struck me too -- it was also an american amalgam of japanesque but not strictly japanese things in most cases.)  i didn't find it very imaginative at all.  there's so much more french food out there to enjoy -- even street fair-compatible food -- than what i saw!  come on people!  allez allez! 

maybe i got turned off by the singers crooning "oh what a night" in french.  i didn't even really like that song in english.  the only thing that mildly piqued my interest was the fact that l'union alsacienne had a presence there.  alsace is not lorraine (that's where my family originally hails from) but their group is composed of both alsatians and alsatian-americans.  promising.  maybe one day the lorrains will set up shop in the city too.  so far, though, i haven't found my niche.  after seeing all there was to see of the bastille day event i quickly hopped on a downtown train to do a little shopping in soho and discovered that sur la table is about to open a store there.  that was about it, though.  meh.