Grocery Store Filibuster

Outside the grocery store, there is a man reading aloud from a phonebook. He doesn't look up as people pass. Half an hour later, he is still outside, in the rain, still reading from the phonebook. The checkout lady watches me watch him through the glass pane.

"He been doin' that for the past two hours. He always read from that phonebook when it rains."

"Is he...filibustering?" I ask, and then immediately realize how absurd that question sounds.

"Fili-what?" she asks.

"You know, how they read phonebooks aloud in congress to stop the passage of a bi..I don't think that's what he's doing, though," I add.

She dismisses the idea as swiftly as she puts a grapefuit into my bag.

"Naw...he just readin' that phonebook like it some sort of story. And it ain't no story," she says shaking her head.

Why is mental illness so closely associated with creativity? Andreasen argues that depression is intertwined with a “cognitive style” that makes people more likely to produce successful works of art. In the creative process, Andreasen says, “one of the most important qualities is persistence.” Based on the Iowa sample, Andreasen found that “successful writers are like prizefighters who keep on getting hit but won’t go down. They’ll stick with it until it’s right.” While Andreasen acknowledges the burden of mental illness — she quotes Robert Lowell on depression not being a “gift of the Muse” and describes his reliance on lithium to escape the pain — she argues that many forms of creativity benefit from the relentless focus it makes possible. “Unfortunately, this type of thinking is often inseparable from the suffering,” she says. “If you’re at the cutting edge, then you’re going to bleed.”

Someone who clearly cares about my cold war-era entertainment media consumption sent this to me this morning citing its "awesomeness." I think it was intended to make me laugh, but I am certain it will induce nightmares. Also, I can't get over how much this happy Russian man looks like if Harvey Keitel and Rod Blagojevich had a baby.

This Word Ought to be Used More Often

Ad´ja´cence

	1.	The state or attribute of being adjacent or contiguous; contiguity; the attribute of being so near as to be touching; as, the adjacency of lands or buildings.
	2.	That which is adjacent.

Indus Valley

Someone asked me a few weeks ago why so many Indian women talk like Valley girls. I don't know, but I've noticed the phenomenon. Okay, I am a part of the aforementioned phenomenon. Also Mindy Kaling and like, ten other people I know.

"Maybe it's because we learned English from like, 80s surfer movies?" I offered weakly. This is not true though. I learned English from a mix of Sesame Street, Alfred Hitchcock Presents and V.

"Do you think certain Indian dialects have the same cadence as Valley girl-speak?"

It's a legitimate question.

No, I don't. But I've been thinking about it for a few weeks, so I thought I'd throw it out there.

Maybe we need to go talk to a linguist about this.

A New Health Care Strategy for America

If you are a woman, and find yourself needing to pee in a public restroom, you know to hover. Why, you ask? For a variety of reasons. For the same reason you don't use a towel that fell on a hair-covered bathroom floor at a Motel 6, or eat things off the shag carpet in the student lounge of your dorm or share a straw with someone who has a visible herpe sore on her lip. We hover because our mothers taught us to, as early as four or five.

Okay, but here is the real reason for the toilet seat thing: (particularly if you are a child of the 80s) because if your ass touches a public toilet seat, even for a second, you will get AIDS. Or something else that is more than merely unpleasant.

You could use one of those paper toilet-guards, but they are unreliable and flimsy, and moreover, doing this signals (only to yourself, since no one else knows) slovenliness, laziness and/or moral turpitude.

The hover is the most reliable gesture of bathroom self-containment in a vulnerable moment. The hover signals immunization from ill-health and disease, self-reliance and upper thigh strength.

So imagine my dismay when my knees started wobbling post-27-flight-stair-walk during my pee-hover just now? I felt like an old lady.

But I soldiered on. Without a paper toilet guard, at that.

It made me realize that I need to start doing something else (aside from yoga) to keep in good health. Otherwise, one day, I will be an old lady, and given the direction of Obama's health care plan, as well as my spindly, weakling legs, I will get bathroom-AIDS.

So far, my health strategy has been some combination of yoga and keeping a jar of almond butter in my purse as a meal-replacement strategy for when I am too busy to grab something to eat. Clearly this is not going to work forever.

God, I don't want to be old.

Unpreparedness

Fire alarm. 27 floors in 3-inch heels, with a nine-paged report due in four hours. After a bowl of kumquats that I probably shouldn't have eaten. Also, I am wearing a belt that is cinched at the waist. I considered taking the shoes off, but was particularly grossed out by all the corporate foot-traffic down the gummy stairwell. Gummy stairwell+dress shoe soles=impending foot fungus. Last week, N asked me to translate "mal a l'aise."

C'est mal a l'aise.

Words That Could Mean What They do But Should Mean Something Else

I know what the word "churlish" means but it always makes me think of a question my college roommate used to ask. Namely: "If you eat yogurt and then drink beer, will the yogurt curdle in your stomach?" It's too active yet sinister a word to describe surliness. This is more appropriate:

Churlish

1. Noun - yogurt curdling in one's intestine

2. Verb - the act of yogurt curdling in one's intestine.

Same with fibrous. It sounds like a British 70s Herringbone design.

Like this (say it with a British accent): "I bought a fibrous jacket yesterday at Harrods , then wore it to my interview at Sothebys."

Behold: The Kumquat

Low in calorie, high in vitamin C, the perfect variety of pucker-sour, pretty, good for muddling in cocktails, boiling into a marmalade, heating gently into a dessert sauce or eating raw. Also, I like saying the word. I would like a kumquat tree for my birthday.

10 Worst Movies of all Time

1. Crash
2. Towelhead
3. 21 Grams
4. New Best Friend
5. Lady in the Water
6. The Celestine Prophecy
7. Gigli
8. Showgirls
9. I Know Who Killed Me (So bad it's kind of good; Lindsay Lohan, contorted bloody limbs)
10. Inland Empire (Sorry, D. Lynch. Someone should have snatched that digital camera out of your hand before it was too late)

How to Spot a New Yorker in LA or Elevator Dialogues, Part 4

The elevator is stopping on every floor. 26, 25, 24, 23.

"Looks like we got on the 5:50 local today," says a man in 40s. He says it without cheer. A mere observation, not even intended for an audience.

Everyone else looks patently confused. I am maybe the only one who smiles.

Back in the Day When We Had Math-Doing Machines. With Buttons.

Last night, at a focus group, I heard an 11-year old girl refer to a "radio" as a "musical box," probably because she had never seen one before. At first I thought this was hysterical and couldn't stop laughing. Very quickly though, this sentiment faded, and for the first time, I felt probably the way John McCain has felt every day of his life since 1983.

Three Things I Learned on KCRW Yesterday

1. The Dalai Lama has a Twitter account. I fear this will render him an online fortune cookie.

2. Only 50% of Americans have internet access in their homes according to a new FCC study. Who are these people who are not intravenously reliant on the interwebs, you ask? You don't know them, they're mostly really old.

3. Dick Cheney will outlive us all (insert Energizer bunny metaphor here. Or whatever, I'm too tired to come up with anything that hasn't already been said before on this issue). Perhaps he lives off of spite, perhaps he is one of those vampire-freemasons who will have their own movie soon according to the guy who was eating sushi next to me in Beverly Hills a month ago.

Maybe the Dalai Lama should use his new Twitter account to challenge Dick Cheney to a duel. OR MAYBE the Dalai Lama's Twitter account has the magical ability to shut down the vampire-freemason industrial complex and one unspiteful tweet from the Dalai Lama is all it takes to make Dick Cheney disappear in a poof of air.

I hope this theory is tested soon.

Time Lapse

At Dusty's this weekend, the woman on the table to the left of me was a fast-forwarded future version of the woman on the table to the right of me. They both seemed to notice this because they kept looking at each other. I noticed it because I was sitting between them and because it was noticeable.

Maybe orange is my power color

Kitchen gear evokes very particular feelings too. About seasons, food, childhood memories. This Le Creuset Dutch oven is appropriate for use during a Vermont autumn. It invokes a mature, grown-up sort of contentment. Mine is lime green, suitable for souffles. Or savory flans. Like asparagus. If you have kids about to start school, orange is the more befitting color. Or if you live on the east coast. Lime green is for people who live in California and have starter kitchens.

I spent Sunday afternoon at the Heath store on Beverly. It is like a temple. People talk in hushed whispers, look at seconds attentively and reverently. Have you been to this place? I make monthly pilgrimages to buy a mug or a plate. It is the kind of place where you go and think about your aspirational life.

Separate but Equal

Evil pickup trucks with big wheels, Michael Bay, Foam "We're #1" mitts, the guy who tried to cross three lanes horizontally in his beat-up 50s Mustang and then gave me the finger because I wouldn't let him cut in front of me, fried Twinkie hot dogs, Bush in military gear giving his Braveheart speech, Sarah Palin asking, "How's that hopey-changie thing working out for you now?"

Bitch.

I sort of want to go to this

But I know I'm too lazy to haul ass to Pasadena on a weekend and I already have a dinner in East LA that day. Please go and tell me all about it later?

Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman

• 

Art Center College of Design says:

On behalf of One Community, Pasadena Councilman Chris Holden invites you to view the film Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman and a moderated discussion on the topic: Does Architecture Create Great Communities or Do Communities Create Great Architecture? featuring architectural historian Barbara Lamprecht and fine artist Michael Stern.

Note:

Please RSVP at onecommunitythinktank.com, onecommunitythinktank@gmail.com or 626.683.0947

Does this ever happen to you?

The checkout guy at Whole Foods the other day reminded me of my high school crush. He looked exactly like him and I kept looking right at him as though I expected him to recognize me too, but of course he didn't, because he wasn't my high school crush, just his doppelganger.

And I walked out, bag of groceries in hand, feeling sort of offended, like he had slighted me by not recognizing me. It's so strange when someone looks/feels entirely familiar to you and yet this sentiment isn't reciprocated.

Musical Orientalism

Why is everyone naming their band after some random South Asian icon or entity these days: Goldspot, All India Radio? Actually that's all I can think of at the moment. Also, there was that 90s band, something-wala? Dishwala, that's it.

It's like the western obsession with Orientalism has been distilled and possibly relegated to the activity of naming.

Also, Indians are good at naming things, I think.

God of No Small Craft

Arundhati Roy's writing is like vintage jewelry. There's something hardy and powerful about it, it's fundamentally quality material. But it's also aesthetically pleasing and you can see the workmanship to it. You want to keep it around forever, hand it down to the next generation, because you know just how unique it is; you won't find a piece like that again.

Higher Resolution

I've been reading a lot of blogs lately and you can totally tell a person's personality from their writing. This one's quirky and childlike, this one's the worst brand of vain + insecure, this one's thoughts come out so fast that he can't take the time to organize them in writing because he'll lose them. Then I reread some of my posts and fretted because I realized how neurotic and agro I sound.

There must be something easier than language. I would like to transport my thoughts into someone else's brain through a gesture. An appropriate gesture for this would be ET's "phone home" gesture, finger to finger, your fingertips light up red like a Christmas bulb to indicate full transmission. That's it.

On Aging

People always tell you that your 30s are distinguishable by the discernible presence of sag, but this isn't true, really. It's more like your 30s are punctuated by the involuntary clicking sounds that your body resorts to.

My knee has been making strange clicking sounds for a while now, but there was a morning last month when I woke up to a click in my jaw.

And then yesterday my breastbone, that space that usually does nothing more than frame a locket or a pendant, made a particularly rude click. It was alarming to even those around me.

I think aging is separate from the slow movement of time, it's not like all of a sudden you're 40 as much as it is punctuated by small shocks like finding your first gray hair.

In other words, aging isn't a slow drip south as much as it is (what feel like) sharply inappropriate reminders from your body that it has decided to move in a particular direction - forward, I suppose, the only real option it has.

Like this: it isn't a frog in a pot and you keep turning the temperature up ten degrees every five minutes.

It's more like this: the water boils, the frog jumps in, then jumps out scalded.

Party Star Vegetable

Radishes are like the friend who is always up for anything. Suggest a play, he's down, tell him you want to go to the flea market and he'll be your date. Mention you just want to stay in and make collages and he'll join you. He'll even sit quietly with you and read if you ask him to.

Last night was a spring salad with radishes, feta, avocado, belgian endive and scallion with a creme fraiche and lemon dressing and that was quite perfect. Three nights ago, there were radishes with truffle butter and sea salt, and that worked too. Two weeks ago, radishes were sliced and eaten with guac because I was too lazy to brave the Prius-parking-lot-wars at the Silverlake TJ's, and they worked great.

Radishes are also good because they make friends with other ingredients. They're like the party star - the person who you dump in a room with a few cocktails and a motley crew of friends - co-workers, college roommates, and neighbors, and they just sort of get along with everyone. And then after the party, everyone's calling up and like, asking for their number.

Mean Cars

Normally it's the autumn to winter transition that's the difficult one, full of malaise; the reduction in daylight hours corresponding inversely with the onset of seasonal angst. And even though it doesn't get much colder in LA, my sense memory remembers the gray and the cold of my youth and braces for it. It's my Copenhagen PTSD.

This year, winter to spring feels like the downtown 110/101 transition, where those huge pickup trucks with monster wheels are whizzing by at 80 miles an hour and you have to cross over five lanes to get where you're going. It's exhausting just thinking about it. I need a pause and I'm not going to get one. It's one of those things where I just have to like breathe through it and hope I land on the other side intact.

Back to those pickup trucks though - I don't see Hummers on the road as much as I used to when I first came to LA, but I still see the trucks with the big wheels that look like evil Transformers. I don't understand the benefit/payoff of being that high up in your car. It feels rude just to be driving one of those things, some sort of brazen display of urban hauteur.

What is it about the visual depiction of evil or our association with it (think evil cartoon characters) that requires one specific element to be grotesquely out of proportion? Like big or obscenely arched eyebrows, or bug-eyes?

Those giant wheels, they're all you need to turn a mere freight vehicle into an evil conveyance.

Musty Bouquet

When I go out, I wear Bulgari Green Tea perfume, which actually smells nothing like green tea. It smells fresh and lemony, like spring, with the trail of a 40s gin drink, like a Tom Collins. Actual green tea, if you ever drink it in that meditative way of inhaling it before you actually drink it, smells like old people.

Saveur's LA Issue

A must-read if you live in LA and like to eat things.

Word of the Day

Henid:

An unclarified, sub-conscious "feeling". A vague, unformed, foggy or confused idea. A disorganized, undifferentiated thought. A proto-thought.

The idea of the "henid" was first postulated by Otto Weininger, in his work Sex and Character.

As an example of a henid, Weininger says,

"A common example from what has happened to all of us may serve to illustrate what a henid is. I may have a definite wish to say something particular, and then something distracts me, and the �it� I wanted to say or think has gone. Later on, by some process of association, the �it� is quite suddenly reproduced, and I know at once that it was what was on my tongue, but, so to speak, in a more perfect stage of development." - Sex and Character

True or False

The world can be divided into stiff upper lip sorts of people and trembly lower lip sorts of people.

Some Viable/Legitimate Fairy Tale Professions

Cobbler
Miller
Tailor
Beggar
Goblin*
Gnome*
Evil Stepsister
Shepherd
Peasant
Thief
Seamstress
Peasant Seamstress

*Addendum: T has just informed me that Goblin and Gnome are not actual professions but something else, perhaps species. This is why I am not a fairy tale taxonomist.

Today's Absurd Factoid

Sad music releases the same kind of tranquilizing hormone as human breast milk.

when the well feels awfully dry

as it does now, I return to this book. Which I love.

Last night, after a lovely dinner full of bellyaching laughter with friends, good food and wine, I returned home googly-brained and happy, and woke up in the middle of the night fearful of my own good fortune. I couldn't go back to sleep, I felt so anxious. And my dinner was like sitting like a hockey puck at the bottom of my stomach. There must be a German word or term for this feeling - both the (indigestion) hockey-puck-in-stomach as well as the (emotional) hockey-puck-in-stomach experience. I haven't found it yet but I'm sure it exists.

Also, I've been too social lately. I have been flitting about on dinners, picnics, movie dates, parties. It's been lovely but any time I am spending too much time with others and not enough time by myself, I fear my internal life is on the verge of atrophying and dying. Also, I start thinking of British colonial trophy wives who wore big hats with feathers and held garden parties with maharanis and talked about nonsense and sipped tea and ate pastries. Is it strange that my brain associates being overly social to colonial rule? And not the actual rule itself, but the fruitless activities of the bejeweled and entitled elite who flashed around their ill-gotten, ill-spent and ultimately meaningless good fortune? I think a lot of Silverlake hipsters are the current-day version of this.

I think secretly (or maybe not so secretly) I fear being someone who takes up too much Earth-space and does nothing meaningful, really. There must be a French word or term for this too.

Yet the cart is still there

-Russian proverb

Awesome/Cheesy/Horrific Made-for-TV Movie in the Making

“It’s clear we’re meant to be together,” he insisted. “But I’ve already been called to be a monk. Maybe this is God’s way of telling you that you should be a nun, after all.”

From Miles Davis' Ascenseur Pour L'Echafaud - the score for French film director Louis Malle's debut film noir, Elevator to the Gallows, starring Jeanne Moreau.

Nuit Sur Les Champs-Élysées (Take 1)

Assassinat (Take 2) Julien Dans l'Ascenseur

Final (Take 3) Chez Le Photographe Du Motel

Generique

Florence Sur Les Champs-Élysées

Diner Au Motel

Visit Du Vigile

Au Bar Du Petit Bac

Chez Le Photographe Du Motel

You're not dead until the last person who knows you dies.

-Gypsy expression

Another great blog I can't stop reading...

Have been reading this lovely, bittersweet tumblr

Someone keeps leaving comments in Chinese on the blog. I could ask V to translate, but I've felt compelled to use Google translator. This was the last comment:

好文不寂寞～支持!!!!@@a 搞錯了，這不是論壇推文

which apparently translates into:

"Good Man is not loneliness ~ supports !!!!@a mistake, this is not the forum to push the text."

Huh?

Aside from this, am not in a blogging mood, as you might have guessed from lack of posts the past week. Am on the east coast. It is cold and snowing. Mishan is missing. Don't want to return phone calls or emails which is kind of a bitch because people keep calling and emailing. Am particularly anti-social, but have been cooking up a storm and reading, which for now feels just perfect.

BIG FISH

I am much too alone in this world, yet not alone
   enough
to truly consecrate the hour.
I am much too small in this world, yet not small
   enough
to be to you just object and thing,
dark and smart.
I want my free will and want it accompanying
the path which leads to action;
and want during times that beg questions,
where something is up,
to be among those in the know,
or else be alone.

I want to mirror your image to its fullest perfection,
never be blind or too old
to uphold your weighty wavering reflection.
I want to unfold.
Nowhere I wish to stay crooked, bent;
for there I would be dishonest, untrue.
I want my conscience to be
true before you;
want to describe myself like a picture I observed
for a long time, one close up,
like a new word I learned and embraced,
like the everday jug,
like my mother's face,
like a ship that carried me along
through the deadliest storm.

-Rainer Maria Rilke