Me Talk Pretty One Day
Just read
this collection of essays by
David Sedaris, and it was pretty good, although two or three essays in (and having also heard him
a couple of times on NPR), I'm wondering, Jesus, does he ever talk about
anything besides the social difficulties of being a twelve-year-old homosexual boy?
Well, he does. Eventually.
Zoe Crosher
Landing in LAX I noticed a display of photographs by
Zoe Crosher. These photographs were all taken out of hotel and motel windows in the LAX area. They all show planes coming in to land at LAX. Generally, the plane is small, but in focus, while the curtains and the air conditioner and whatever else is visible of the hotel room are out of focus.
There was also some accompanying blather about Los Angeles having no center, and motion in Los Angeles being like breathing, or not being like breathing, or something.
On the one hand, I guess I'm glad that people put up artwork and photographs in places like airports to try to make them more interesting.
On the other hand, give me a break. These photos look like ones I would have taken when I was ten (and possibly might still take today), very interested in getting this little plane in the picture and too bad about the big fuzzy windowsill that gets in the way. And as for being
impressed by the indexical qualities of the photograph and the soaring plane suspended in flight, [so that] we sense the traveler's presence beyond the visible scene through a moment of revelatory self-recognition, I don't buy it. Also, I think the display said she spent three years taking these photographs, about thirty of them. What the hell.
Good Things About Japan
- Super high quality control on fruit and vegetables. An apple may cost the equivalent of $2.50, but by God it will be worth it, huge and tasty and without any blemish or imperfection whatsoever. Where can I get a $2.50 apple in America? I really want to know.
- Japanese people know how to eat crab. I could never understand the fuss about crab before, and now I know part of the issue is that Americans don't know how to eat it properly. Key points: Vinegar is tastier than butter. Shears are much more useful than those nutcracker things.
- Inexpensive sushi. This might seem a given, but my recollection from visiting Japan ten years ago is that sushi was not especially cheap then. But now it is half the price in Japan that it is in America. The effect of ten years of deflation, perhaps?
- Trains that run frequently and on time.
- A button at the restaurant table to summon the waitstaff when you want them. This is so incredibly obvious, why do we not have this in America?
- Clean streets.
- Kirin Ichiban Shibori.
- Sit-where-you-can tickets at sumo tournaments.
- A relaxed national attitude toward religion.
- Relative lack of crime.
Inventions the World Needs
- A keyring device to help you find where you parked your car. It would need to be some sort of ultrawideband beacon that could transmit through multiple floors of a concrete parking structure.
- Quiet/silent windshield wipers that don't make annoying noises
- Better in-car navigation system
- Smarter traffic lights that do more to reduce the flow of traffic into congested areas
Celebrity Sighting
Last night, as I was waiting at the airport and looking for
Maribeth in the stream of arriving passengers, I saw that one of the arriving passengers was
Glenn Close.
I was thinking, as one does, "Either that is Glenn Close, or it is someone who bears an uncanny resemblance to Glenn Close."
A few seconds after she passed by, a couple of her fellow passengers came through after her. I heard one say to the other, "She's in
The Badge with Michael Chiklis."
Dangerous Life
When the UCLA safety inspectors came by with checklists and training manuals to discuss our OSHA workspace conditions, we quietly mocked their bureaucratic questions. What dangerous chemicals do you have here? Brake fluid? Why isn't this bottle of water labeled "Water"? Where did you receive training in the use of this hammer? That training needs to be documented!
Well, don't tell anybody, but the safety squad was vindicated in the last 24 hours. First I cut myself with a utility knife and spattered more blood through the workshop, then Robb got some power steering fluid in his eyes. Better get that first aid kit after all.
I don't know why I cut myself so often. Either I have some deep-seated emotional issues leading to self-mutilation, or else I'm just really clumsy with sharp objects.
Warren's Car?
Seen today: the license plate
BRK A on a Mercedes SL500 at the corner of Wilshire and Ocean.
My New Backpack
I had been pondering whether to get a new backpack, and then
someone went ahead and bought me one. So now the decision process has been reduced to mere retroactive analysis. Let's break it down!
The GoodThe new backpack offers better protection for my laptop. This is the principal reason I was dissatisfied with the old one.
The new backpack is a bit bigger. I like to travel with just a single piece of luggage and this backpack will be superior on trips lasting more than a couple of days.
The new backpack has a ton of different pockets, and a little subcase for holding CDs, et cetera. In principle, every thing could be well-organized in its own little pocket instead of floating around in a jumble at the bottom of the pack.
The Less Than GoodThe new backpack looks sportier (bigger, more multi-colored) than the old one, so I feel incrementally more like a bobo dork taking it into work, kind of like wearing hiking boots with a blazer and slacks. Maribeth says it's okay but she has embraced her boboness.
Many of the pockets have little labels saying what they are supposed to hold. "USB Cable"? Uh, no thanks, I generally use Firewire. "Phone Cord"?? Is this backpack from the twentieth century? Who the hell plugs a phone cord into their laptop any more? I think it's been five years since I plugged a phone cord into a
phone. Granted, there is a phone cord going into the DSL modem.
UndeterminedThe new backpack allows you to thread your power adapter through the pockets somehow so you can plug the laptop in and recharge while it sits in the bag. I haven't decided yet if this is cool or counter-productive (because it would presumably make it more troublesome to take the power adapter out of the bag).
I guess when I write it down, on balance the new backpack is pretty good. Thanks sweetie!
