Matthew: Still wheezing like a Welsh coal miner.
Ava: Poor Doc. Still got that cough, hmm? Mine's not great either.
Matthew: Not so much a cough now as an eternal wheeze, like there's something crouching at the bottom of my lungs waiting to grab my face if I peer over the side to see what it is.
Friday, February 8, 2008
Thursday, February 7, 2008
A STATEMENT FROM OZYMANDIAS’ PRESS REPRESENTATIVE
The recent report of a nameless traveler from an antique land is in error.
The “vast and trunkless legs of stone” he saw knee-deep in desert sand were originally part of the so-called People’s Temple, a gigantic complex which was being relocated to higher ground as part of the Great King’s Water-For-All Initiative. This comprehensive collection of public works would have resulted in flooding what is now a “boundless and bare” stretch of “lone level sands” and creating a fertile crop-bearing garden, if the Great King’s plan had not been opposed by short-sighted Ministers and Representatives more interested in lining their own pockets than serving the people.
The half-sunken head with its “sneer of cold command” is actually part of a separate statue from the temple complex, and, to anyone familiar with the myriad surviving representations of the Great King, is not Ozymandias at all but his half-brother Sesostris. As evidenced by several surviving chronicles, including that of Psuedo-Herodotus, the sneering figure of Sesostris, who three times tried to usurp the throne, stands to the left of the Great King, who confronts him with a sword while offering a dove of peace in his right hand to his people.
As for the surviving inscription, because certain diacritical marks over several key consonants have been worn away by time and decay, the current translation is in error. When the marks are restored to their original positions, the inscription reads as it did originally: “My name is Ozymandias, the people’s ruler subject to the rule of the people. May the Gods look with favor upon all my works, and my people never despair.”
This is, of course, an honest error, and reflects neither on the endless history of British imperialism, which is a monument to mistranslation in all its forms, nor on the anti-royalist sentiments of the “unnamed traveler” who might possibly be just as much of an outright atheist as his friend Shelley, to whom he told this “tale.”
As for the claim that “nothing beside remains,” one need only point out the Zuggurat of El, the Pearls of Allah (a string of man-made oases specifically created as way-stations across the Sahara, and the House of Commons, which owes its very existence to the Great King’s so-called Temple of Commoners, as is mentioned in several unpublished diary entries of Simon DeMontfort, who called the first Commons as part of the Great Parliament in 1265.
In summary, we maintain that all references which equate Ozymandias with failure, futility, tyranny, and the deleterious effects of Time are demonstrably in error –- and that a great and far-seeing ruler, who has yet to be given his rightful due as a pioneer in the field of public works and the originator of representative democracy as we know it, has been repeatedly insulted by those who should know better.
If he was alive today, the Great King’s magnanimity would be sorely tested by these misconceptions. A magnanimity, we might add, which is not shared in the least by his lawyers.
The “vast and trunkless legs of stone” he saw knee-deep in desert sand were originally part of the so-called People’s Temple, a gigantic complex which was being relocated to higher ground as part of the Great King’s Water-For-All Initiative. This comprehensive collection of public works would have resulted in flooding what is now a “boundless and bare” stretch of “lone level sands” and creating a fertile crop-bearing garden, if the Great King’s plan had not been opposed by short-sighted Ministers and Representatives more interested in lining their own pockets than serving the people.
The half-sunken head with its “sneer of cold command” is actually part of a separate statue from the temple complex, and, to anyone familiar with the myriad surviving representations of the Great King, is not Ozymandias at all but his half-brother Sesostris. As evidenced by several surviving chronicles, including that of Psuedo-Herodotus, the sneering figure of Sesostris, who three times tried to usurp the throne, stands to the left of the Great King, who confronts him with a sword while offering a dove of peace in his right hand to his people.
As for the surviving inscription, because certain diacritical marks over several key consonants have been worn away by time and decay, the current translation is in error. When the marks are restored to their original positions, the inscription reads as it did originally: “My name is Ozymandias, the people’s ruler subject to the rule of the people. May the Gods look with favor upon all my works, and my people never despair.”
This is, of course, an honest error, and reflects neither on the endless history of British imperialism, which is a monument to mistranslation in all its forms, nor on the anti-royalist sentiments of the “unnamed traveler” who might possibly be just as much of an outright atheist as his friend Shelley, to whom he told this “tale.”
As for the claim that “nothing beside remains,” one need only point out the Zuggurat of El, the Pearls of Allah (a string of man-made oases specifically created as way-stations across the Sahara, and the House of Commons, which owes its very existence to the Great King’s so-called Temple of Commoners, as is mentioned in several unpublished diary entries of Simon DeMontfort, who called the first Commons as part of the Great Parliament in 1265.
In summary, we maintain that all references which equate Ozymandias with failure, futility, tyranny, and the deleterious effects of Time are demonstrably in error –- and that a great and far-seeing ruler, who has yet to be given his rightful due as a pioneer in the field of public works and the originator of representative democracy as we know it, has been repeatedly insulted by those who should know better.
If he was alive today, the Great King’s magnanimity would be sorely tested by these misconceptions. A magnanimity, we might add, which is not shared in the least by his lawyers.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
The Februaries
Ten signs that you're suffering from an attack of The Februaries:
It's February. Just like Tuesday is the longest day of the week (Monday was ages ago and Friday is years away), the 4 weeks of February last longer than a giant sea turtle's lifetime and go by twice. As. Slowly. It's like February is the toll booth at the end of January's downhill slalom from Christmas--and not just any toll booth--we're talking Lincoln Tunnel here, folks, where there's no radio reception, the air is filled with soporific fumes, and it takes a week just to go a mile underground.
Self-indulgence masquerading as self-reflection. "Let's take this time to reflect," you say to yourself, which in any other month of the year would result in some kind of spiritual clarity, but in February it's like sliding down Hell's longest firepole face first into a mirror that shows you every zit and blackhead on your nose at ten times its normal size.
Why bother? Is what you're feeling despair? No--despair takes energy. What you're feeling is what Despair rubs off its shoes onto your doormat before it sprawls on your coach and turns on the History Channel.
Massive social hibernation. According to Sartre, Hell is other people. According to me, February is other people covering you with itching powder. If there's fun, it's never where you are or where you're going, but almost always wherever you just were, with someone other than anyone you're with now.
Mister Roboto. Everything is mechanical: responses, activities, and especially what passes for enjoyment, but is only really the flaring of an occasional circuit connection, which flashes with all the warmth of a Christmas Tree light flickering three streets over. Nothing warms or inspires. Creative projects become plodding, workmanlike hulks of dreck which no one will ever want to see, read, or do. February is the artistic equivalent of trying to find a pure rhyme for the word "month."
I'm wrong, the world is right. Your critics are correct, your enemies have God on their side, your supporters are naive and misinformed, and on your happiest February day ever, you are a useless sack of weight-gaining flesh with a January sell-by date stamped on your forehead. The Februaries are to low self-esteem what the Marianas Trench is to a pothole. Especially when it comes to --
Rejection Slip Hell. Every November and December, I send out cleverly-written scripts to a dozen or more contests, workshops, etc. Because they are cleverly written, contain ideas, and actually attempt to build towards a conflict between equals, they do not resemble modern plays at all, and therefore inspire form rejection letters which hit my mailbox on the afternoon of any day in which I leave work feeling halfway decent about myself.
Valentine's Day. I don't know what's worse--having someone, or not having someone, with whom to fall short of this particular day's romantic expectations. On the one hand, feeling alone with someone else is far worse than being alone, period, but since the Februaries rob you of all perspective, the operative words here are "lonely" and "alone," so you get to feel sorry for yourself either way.
Blah blah blah. You want to read something but every book you touch leaves you cold. You want to see a movie but everything playing in theatres makes you say "Meh." Food is tasteless, candy lacks a kick, and drinking incredible amounts of alcohol gives you gas instead of a buzz. If you had a social life, sex would probably feel like parallel parking.
There are actually only nine signs. Because it's February, I'm too why-bother to think of a tenth one.
It's February. Just like Tuesday is the longest day of the week (Monday was ages ago and Friday is years away), the 4 weeks of February last longer than a giant sea turtle's lifetime and go by twice. As. Slowly. It's like February is the toll booth at the end of January's downhill slalom from Christmas--and not just any toll booth--we're talking Lincoln Tunnel here, folks, where there's no radio reception, the air is filled with soporific fumes, and it takes a week just to go a mile underground.
Self-indulgence masquerading as self-reflection. "Let's take this time to reflect," you say to yourself, which in any other month of the year would result in some kind of spiritual clarity, but in February it's like sliding down Hell's longest firepole face first into a mirror that shows you every zit and blackhead on your nose at ten times its normal size.
Why bother? Is what you're feeling despair? No--despair takes energy. What you're feeling is what Despair rubs off its shoes onto your doormat before it sprawls on your coach and turns on the History Channel.
Massive social hibernation. According to Sartre, Hell is other people. According to me, February is other people covering you with itching powder. If there's fun, it's never where you are or where you're going, but almost always wherever you just were, with someone other than anyone you're with now.
Mister Roboto. Everything is mechanical: responses, activities, and especially what passes for enjoyment, but is only really the flaring of an occasional circuit connection, which flashes with all the warmth of a Christmas Tree light flickering three streets over. Nothing warms or inspires. Creative projects become plodding, workmanlike hulks of dreck which no one will ever want to see, read, or do. February is the artistic equivalent of trying to find a pure rhyme for the word "month."
I'm wrong, the world is right. Your critics are correct, your enemies have God on their side, your supporters are naive and misinformed, and on your happiest February day ever, you are a useless sack of weight-gaining flesh with a January sell-by date stamped on your forehead. The Februaries are to low self-esteem what the Marianas Trench is to a pothole. Especially when it comes to --
Rejection Slip Hell. Every November and December, I send out cleverly-written scripts to a dozen or more contests, workshops, etc. Because they are cleverly written, contain ideas, and actually attempt to build towards a conflict between equals, they do not resemble modern plays at all, and therefore inspire form rejection letters which hit my mailbox on the afternoon of any day in which I leave work feeling halfway decent about myself.
Valentine's Day. I don't know what's worse--having someone, or not having someone, with whom to fall short of this particular day's romantic expectations. On the one hand, feeling alone with someone else is far worse than being alone, period, but since the Februaries rob you of all perspective, the operative words here are "lonely" and "alone," so you get to feel sorry for yourself either way.
Blah blah blah. You want to read something but every book you touch leaves you cold. You want to see a movie but everything playing in theatres makes you say "Meh." Food is tasteless, candy lacks a kick, and drinking incredible amounts of alcohol gives you gas instead of a buzz. If you had a social life, sex would probably feel like parallel parking.
There are actually only nine signs. Because it's February, I'm too why-bother to think of a tenth one.
As if Drew Barrymore in '04 wasn't bad enough
Thank you, Topps Baseball Card company, for (as my Cleveland brother would say) chitting in my Cheerios this morning.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
The Perfect Valentine's Day Gift
For the man who has everything (and gets everyone):
You too can romance aliennes, turn enemies into lovers, and canoodle with Joan Collins, all while favoring your right profile. Yes, women with Sixties hair the universe over will take one look at your really weird sideburns and become full-fledged sluts for the Federation. Talk about boldly going where no man has gone before.
(I figure this either going to be Skidoo bad or give-yourself-a-headache-laughing funny. Or, in Star Trek terms, this could be first-season gold or third-season ap-cray. I'll let you know. Because you really do need me to read this, so you don't have to.)
Goodbye Girls
Ester's back in London; Ava's off to Oz. I am now in the market for new excuses to spend my nights doing anything but writing.
Monday, February 4, 2008
Weekend Update
A bunch of whining losers.
If traders are the toddlers, investment bankers—and the CEOs they report to—are the tweens of the system, plagued by attention-deficit disorder. As we speak, your typical Wall Street managing director is glancing at CNBC in his office, intermittently checking six computer screens, thumbing out e-mails on his BlackBerry, barking out orders to a personal assistant, all the while furiously working out on the elliptical machine. Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, and Bear Stearns take great pains to distinguish themselves from each other. But they all lurch together from hot financial trend to hot financial trend the way tweens ditch yesterday's pop stars for today's (goodbye, Britney; hello, Hannah Montana). Like proto-teens, bankers are incapable of exercising independent judgment. Which is why every bank—from the staid Swiss to the sharpest trading houses on Wall Street—got caught up in the subprime debacle.
From the best article you'll ever read about investment bankers.
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Party Like It's 1929."Well, since you're going to be 29," I said to Ava a few weeks ago, "why don't we do a 1929 party -- dress up like Scott and Zelda and hit a speakeasy?" This was before I got The Bungee Cold and spent the day fever-dreaming about Linda Darnell. (Yes, I know--there are worse ways to spend a Friday.) So, like John Henry Holliday suiting up to join the Earps at the OK Corral, I suited up and joined the Babes at BFlat on Church Street, where I nursed a couple of beers and tried not to sound like a broken air conditioner whenever I breathed.Oh yeah--there was some stupid sports thing this weekend too.
Shades of the Aaron Boone game. Jeebus. Sunday, February 3, 2008
Another Thought for the New Year
(Thanks, Ally.)
Be careful with your thoughts
They become your words.
Be careful with your words.
They become your actions.
Be careful with your actions.
They become your habits.
Be careful with your habits.
They become your character.
Be careful with your character.
It becomes your DESTINY.
Be careful with your thoughts
They become your words.
Be careful with your words.
They become your actions.
Be careful with your actions.
They become your habits.
Be careful with your habits.
They become your character.
Be careful with your character.
It becomes your DESTINY.
Saturday, February 2, 2008
The Seafarer, or, How To Write A So-Called "Play" For Broadway
Step 1. Take a ten-minute ghost story.
Step 2. People it with a Main Character who sits there and takes everyone's crap for two hours, his incredibly annoying older brother, two slightly-less-annoying inconsequential friends, and Lucifer.
Step 3. Have the Main Character, his brother and one friend talk for 45 minutes about anything at all. This is what passes on the modern stage for "drama".
Step 4. Bring Lucifer onstage at the 45-minute mark.
Step 5. Figure out an awkward way to get everyone offstage for ten minutes so Lucifer can reveal himself to Main Character.
Step 6. Have Lucifer reveal himself to Main Character. Because audiences are really stupid, make Lucifer cause the onstage lights to flicker and have him give Main Character stomach cramps.
Step 7. Do not--repeat--DO NOT--have Main Character stand up to Lucifer. This would cause dramatic conflict.
Step 8. At end of Act One, set up a poker game for Main Character's soul in Act Two.
Step 9: At beginning of Act Two, repeat Step 3, with the addition of Lucifer and second inconsequential friend.
Step 10. Have Lucifer not like music. This is what passes on the modern stage for "depth of character."
Step 11. Repeat Step 5.
Step 12. Have Lucifer deliver a pedestrian monologue about Hell to Main Character. This is what passes on the modern stage for "a stunning tour de force."
Step 13. Make sure ending is an act of God.
Step 14. Cast great actors because otherwise people will fall asleep.
Step 15. Wait for standing ovation at end as audience applauds their own recognition that the play is just deep enough for their shallow idea of drama.
Step 16. Wait for glowing reviews from critics using words like "dazzling," "enthralling," and "intelligent," all of which are character revelations about their authors.
Step 17. Close March 30th.
Step 2. People it with a Main Character who sits there and takes everyone's crap for two hours, his incredibly annoying older brother, two slightly-less-annoying inconsequential friends, and Lucifer.
Step 3. Have the Main Character, his brother and one friend talk for 45 minutes about anything at all. This is what passes on the modern stage for "drama".
Step 4. Bring Lucifer onstage at the 45-minute mark.
Step 5. Figure out an awkward way to get everyone offstage for ten minutes so Lucifer can reveal himself to Main Character.
Step 6. Have Lucifer reveal himself to Main Character. Because audiences are really stupid, make Lucifer cause the onstage lights to flicker and have him give Main Character stomach cramps.
Step 7. Do not--repeat--DO NOT--have Main Character stand up to Lucifer. This would cause dramatic conflict.
Step 8. At end of Act One, set up a poker game for Main Character's soul in Act Two.
Step 9: At beginning of Act Two, repeat Step 3, with the addition of Lucifer and second inconsequential friend.
Step 10. Have Lucifer not like music. This is what passes on the modern stage for "depth of character."
Step 11. Repeat Step 5.
Step 12. Have Lucifer deliver a pedestrian monologue about Hell to Main Character. This is what passes on the modern stage for "a stunning tour de force."
Step 13. Make sure ending is an act of God.
Step 14. Cast great actors because otherwise people will fall asleep.
Step 15. Wait for standing ovation at end as audience applauds their own recognition that the play is just deep enough for their shallow idea of drama.
Step 16. Wait for glowing reviews from critics using words like "dazzling," "enthralling," and "intelligent," all of which are character revelations about their authors.
Step 17. Close March 30th.
Friday, February 1, 2008
I've Got The Bungee Cold
The Bungee Cold is that endless double-barrelled congestion that bounces back and forth between your lungs and your sinuses. When your chest is clear, then your eyes are watering, your cheeks ache, and your brain is sodden with backed-up snot. And when your sinuses are clear and your brain is back to normal, you're wheezing like a Stanley Steamer and coughing up a lung like Doc Holliday.
-- of a Bungee Cold, probably.
On the flip suide, the one good thing about being Doc Holliday is you get to have Linda Darnell chase you.
-- of a Bungee Cold, probably.
On the flip suide, the one good thing about being Doc Holliday is you get to have Linda Darnell chase you.
For you? I'd cough up three lungs.
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