FLU? CHICKEN SOUP.
Late night emergency room trip due to an ulcer and flu at the same time. Remedy? Six quarts of home made organic shredded-chicken soup with plenty of tarragon and garlic, long grain brown rice, thickly sliced mushrooms, and the usual greens.
( And of course, a heating pad. 🙂
Source date (UTC): 2012-01-26 12:34:00 UTC
Jan 01, 1997Place: Bellevue, Washington (47.6172, -122.199)Address: Bellevue, Washington 98004
Source date (UTC): 2012-01-23 14:04:00 UTC
FUTURE NOIR
The world is a beautiful place. The essence of Conservatism is joy at present happiness over future utopian perfection. The minute and subtle improvement of the existing art and artifice over the crass flatulence of dramatic public assaults on our senses. The self knowledge of contribution, over the attention seeking of public recognition. It is the politics of the private. The harmony of uncoordinated achievement, made possible by uncoordinated plans.
NYC is a declining, decaying memory of it’s Anglo Dutch past. It has become the mirror of the extended slum of Los Angeles, separated only by the architecture and order of it’s anglo heritage, and the interdependence between it’s financial sector and the war machine that is washington DC. The city’s gothic legacy is obscured by the implicit praise of temporal consumption and the consequential irrelevance of a mandate for production. It is a society only in that it is so perversely anti-social.
There is nothing beautiful about it. Nothing to be learned from it. It is the expression of consumer sedition. The brightly burning flurry of consumption by locusts. It’s a dead carcass being feasted upon by every passing scavenger, and attracting vermin by the scent of its decay.
The world has moved on. No civilization in history has survived urbanization.
Although we did not know why until recently. The formal institutions of economic calculation we call ‘property’ which require that we act, and the informal institutions of manners, ethics, morals which constrain us from acting, can no longer operate in concert. We have made significant progress in the development of our formal institutions, by implementing credit ratings – the equivalent of ‘reputation’. Credit is an institutional memory of our formal and informal adherence to the social contract.
But it is not enough. When combined with easy credit, consumption increases without corresponding increases in productivity. And from that one act, men become locusts, and the fecundity of the upper classes is consumed by the malthusian fertility of the lower classes.
And over time, only the most durable monuments of stone leave a record of our having existed at all.
Source date (UTC): 2012-01-23 10:24:00 UTC
HAPPINESS
Having seen a couple of plays, walked the entire theater and shopping district, and cohabited with my felling north easterners for a few days, I’m decidedly relaxed and happy. And that in itself is remarkable.
Despite having an inner clock that’s naturally happy I haven’t felt so in a very long time – due to illness, undiagnosed allergies, extraordinary responsibilities, divorce, and the resulting stresses from each – any one of which is enough to shorten one’s life.
Unfortunately, the puritan ethic in both my genes, memory, class and culture, forbids me from even acknowledging happiness, and the iconically robed ascetic angel of consience on my shoulder warns me to ignore it and soldier onward.
So I hope I don’t tempt the vengeance of puritan christian fate, or the humor of the pagan gods of my ancestors by being thankful for a bit of happiness.
Perhaps I’ll leave a votive offering in the park so that they forgive my indulgence. 🙂
Source date (UTC): 2012-01-23 10:08:00 UTC
Linguini with porcini mushrooms in a buttery truffle cream sauce, bordering but not crossing into too salty. Flawless. Inspiring.
An accidental and surprising excellence in a random restaurant.
Source date (UTC): 2012-01-22 19:27:00 UTC
NYC COFFEE SHOPS – Think Coffee
Hit two of the top ten shops so far. Currently at Think Coffee near NYU. The shops so far don’t compare to Seattle or Moscow, although the ceremony here at Think Coffee is appropriate and the coffee tastes perfect – roasted dark but short of the burned flavor preferred by Pete’s and Starbucks fans. And it’s brewed carefully – one cup at a time in some cases. The baked goods are authentic and fresh. The help is the usually anti-conformist middle proletarian, but it suits the environment. Wireless, and lots of plugs for laptops.
Source date (UTC): 2012-01-22 11:07:00 UTC
SILLY
I need a little set of printed person humor cards, that say:
1) “We are business people. We sell ideas for a living. That means that we are a bit clueless by our very nature. So if we are loud, tell us. It’s OK. It’s also perfectly OK to throw us out of the restaurant at closing time. Because we aren’t going to notice that you want to go home on our own. We won’t feel bad. We’ll even tip you better. –Thanks in advance.”
2) “A martini is a ritual. It’s like the Japanese Tea Ceremony. It’s heretical and unpatriotic to make it incorrectly. This is how you make a proper martini: a) a very cold glass b) a cocktail shaker c) place three ounces of gin d) four or five drops of vermouth e) four or five ice cubes: holding each cube in the palm of your hand, bash it a good one with the back of a heavy tablespoon, to crack it into chunks. Drop the ice chunks into the cocktail shaker. e) Shake HARD back and forth for 15 or 20 seconds – this will make it very cold. Pour into the glass. Add either lemon peel or olive, and serve immediately. –Thank you for your diligence in this matter.”
3) “No, I don’t think you’re attractive, I’m just an extrovert and a nerd. Being nice to random people, regardless of gender, is like physical exercise: it makes me feel good. And like smiling, it costs nothing, requires little effort and makes the world a better place for all of us. –Noblesse Oblige.”
I’d use the first one all the time. I’d use the second one some of the time. I’d never use the third one. But it would make me feel better to know that I could use it if I wanted to. 🙂
Source date (UTC): 2012-01-12 11:54:00 UTC
NERD STATUS: I’ve written like 10k words today, in six hours, on tangerines, peanut butter cookies, and a cup of coffee.
(Thank you God for the time and freedom to write. There is no greater luxury I could ask for.) 🙂
Source date (UTC): 2012-01-05 17:10:00 UTC
(Amanda has gone temporarily nuts. She will be on her horse tomorrow.)
Source date (UTC): 2012-01-04 18:36:00 UTC
Like most men, I get lots of hits from scammers from the Asian and Eastern Block countries. But this is the first time I’ve been solicited in Arabic over Facebook chat. I read on one of the blogs that the solicitation industry had moved off the web and onto Facebook. But I tend to think of Facebook as family friendly safe zone. So I was a little surprised at this.
HER: ممكن نتعرف Is an introduction possible?
ME: كل شيء ممكن Sure, anything’s possible.
HER: فتحي من جيجل . و أنت با حلوة [?I think?] you’re sweet and attractive
ME: لدي العديد من النساء بالفعل. لا أستطيع أن تبقي أكثر من ذلك. إنما أنا رجل واحد. I have many women already. 🙂 I can’t take any more. I am only one man.
HER: باي باي Bye
(And before someone teases me, I talk to people about libertarianism in just about every language on earth (thanks to google translate). So, how am I to know from the name “Fethi Mazi”, a profile thumbnail of a sunset, and a request for introduction that it’s a solicitation?) It’s probably some guy in a room running fifty chat sessions at once.
Source date (UTC): 2012-01-04 11:44:00 UTC