Punk'd, geek edition

At 10:50 this past Monday morning, I was sitting on a concrete bench just inside Sather Gate on the campus of UC Berkeley. The sun was out, the weather cool, and crowds of fresh-faced students filed past me on this, the first day of classes of the 06-07 school year and the last day of a weekend trip I'd made out to San Francisco to visit friends. Most of my friends were at work, the exception being RMK, a grad student at Berkeley who, like myself, could afford to dally over a long breakfast. After breakfast, as we rode the bus into Berkeley, he asked, What are you going to do today? I replied, I'm thinking of attending a class, just for the hell of it. I considered the chances of getting caught and added, Probably a large lecture class.

And then something bizarre happened. The wheels started turning, and a prank, not at all something I would normally do, breached the fog in my head.

I turned to Ryan and said, I think I should sit there and say, "[Sigh] Looks like this class is just going to be review for me!"

Ryan picked up on the idea immediately and took it one step further: I think you should say, "I hope they don't grade on a curve, because I think we should all get As!"

Yes! and I shot back: How about, "I'm glad I read the textbook over the summer"?

By then I was convinced we had gold on our hands: crash a freshman class, make a series of obnoxious comments while posing as students, and mess with the impressionable young minds. Maybe it'd even be good for them, the naive little buggers, but at the least, it'd be funny for us, the old jaded been-arounds.

By the time the bus pulled up to Sather Gate, we'd worked out all the details. RMK informed me classes started at ten after the hour. He wasn't sure where the freshman lecture rooms were, but he was sure there was at least one in the Life Sciences building if I could find it. I was convinced I could pass as a student as long as no one took attendance. (People routinely remark I don't look thirty.) It'd be important to find a large lecture room where I could blend in, though. I asked RMK if he wanted to come along, but he said he had to get to his office. I promised to update him at the first opportunity.

As I sat there inside Sather Gate at ten till eleven, I looked for a good mark. A girl came by and asked some students seated next to me on the bench, Do you guys know where the Life Sciences building is? A boy held up his arm and said, Straight that way. That was good -- he just did a double-check for me on where to go. I considered following that girl, but she looked a bit too street smart for me, her navigational cluelessness aside. I'd wait for another mark. It wasn't long until I saw her: a short demure Asian girl in a slightly not-this-year dress clutching a tote bag with a flower on it. Perfect, I thought.

I got up to follow her, and as luck would have it, she walked in the direction of the Life Sciences building. When we got there, students were streaming out of the building. I looked at my watch: 11:00 a.m. Maybe I was too early? I thought. On second thought, couldn't hurt. When the stream became a trickle, I mounted the stairs to doors which opened to a short hallway and behind another set of doors, a large lecture room. It easily sat hundreds, downward sloping rows kowtowing to the rostrum in the middle. Perfect, I thought again.

I looked for my mark. She'd taken a seat three-in from the aisle, about halfway to the front of the room. I went down and sat in the aisle seat in her row, one seat away from her. What the hell class was this, anyway? I looked at the board. Genetics terms were written on the sliding chalkboards, but that no doubt belonged to the last class. Anxious students chattered around me, and I stopped to listen. One of them asked his neighbor, What classes are you taking? His neighbor answered, Well, this one and... [indecipherable]. I thought, Dammit. Useless!

But now was no time to sweat the ignorance. I had to exude confidence. I am the alpha. I am the alpha. I repeated this mantra to myself and sat up straight. Suddenly a tall Asian boy poked into my view from the aisle and asked, Is this Sociology 1? I looked up at the board -- something besides genetics was now written there -- and answered, That's what the board says. Okay thanks, he said and sprinted off.

Sociology? Merde! I can't show off in sociology! I cursed myself that I hadn't gotten here an hour earlier when the subject had been genetics, something I actually knew something about and a class that would have no doubt been full of freshmen premeds, marks extraodinaire.

Hey, do you know where the other Life Sciences building is? a voice asked from behind and to the right. It was my tall Asian friend again. He'd stepped inside the room, two degrees more flustered than before. I said, Sorry, I don't know. And it was the truth. He sprinted off again.

Now I was a bit satisfied with myself. I knew I looked at least confident enough to ask for directions. I looked like I knew where things were, like I was Berkeley student. But despite my outer confidence, I was still nervous inside. What if the professor took attendance? What if there were GSAs checking the roster?

I looked behind me, saw there were open seats yet still left, and got up. I said goodbye to my first mark and ascended the steps, spying a aisle seat second row from the back. Right next to the exit, I thought. This way I could sprint if I needed to. Always have an exit vector, a voice inside me warned. Clearly I'd seen too many spy movies.

As I sat there, I lamented the loss of my first mark, even I was felt good about being able to escape if I came close to being exposed. But, as it happened, Providence came through for me. Three minutes before class was to start, another voice came from the aisle: Is that seat taken? I looked, and it was another Asian girl, this one pointing to the seat next to me. Nope, I said. She stepped over me and sat down, got out a notebook, and started fidgeting with the desk attached to her chair as if she'd never worked one before. Perfect.

[More to come....]

TSA annoyances

While packing for an upcoming weekend trip, I was trying to decide what toiletries to risk bringing to the airport and decided to check the TSA website. I was glad to see that I could bring contact lens solution, or as the TSA puts it,

"Up to 4 oz. of essential non-prescription liquid medications including saline solution, eye care products and KY jelly."

But I find it odd that "KY jelly" is considered "essential". Who decided to include this on the list? And how many bureaucrats had to give their approval before the list made the website? While I'm at it, isn't KY -- which should more accurately be written "K-Y" -- a brand requiring an encircled R to follow it? And what about other brands of personal lubricants? I imagine the Astroglide people weren't happy.

Another thing about this list that gets me is the distinction between liquids and solids:

"You are permitted to bring solid cosmetics and personal hygiene items as such lipstick, lip balm and similar solids. Please remember these items must be solid and not liquid, gel or aerosol."

Quite frankly, it's got me looking for the nearest general chemistry textbook. Here's my dilemma: considering myself something between Old World Asian and New World Asian, I spike my hair up, but just a little bit. Some time ago, I decided I liked the consistency of a product that labels itself a "gel wax". (Huh?) More of a marketing term than a scientific one, I conclude, and one that doesn't help me distinguish it as solid or liquid. Heat it up a bit and it turns liquidy. Cool it down and you can leave fingerprint impressions on its surface. But then again, as I remember from general chemistry lab, you can heat almost anything up (okay, it has to be crystalline solid, but for the sake of argument I'll call this "anything") and have it melt at the so-called melting point. Whatever the case, I feel I'm losing out to the pomade people who clearly have a solid on their hands.

Fiction stub

You leaned in and whispered, there will never be another day like this. And looking back on that day so many years ago, when we sat in a diner off US-67 and split a piece of pecan pie over coffee, I think you were right.

I remember the way our coffee cups left copper stains on the plastic countertop and the way 18-wheelers passing outside kicked up dust so thick it blocked the sun. If I'd known that was the last time I'd see you, I'd have paid more attention.

Eerie Erie

These past few weekends I've been hankering to go to the beach, something I haven't done all summer. Sadly, the closest I usually come is Googling "Michigan beach" on a Sunday afternoon and then letting laziness or indecision get the better of me. But with the reappearance of medical students outside my lab window at work, I've started having visions of the harvester readying his scythe to fell summer. The days don't seem to last as long now, and on some nights, you'd swear there was a nip in the air.

The problem is that the nearest beach you'd call nice is about 2.5 hours to the west, in the vicinity of idyllic but notoriously race-divisive St. Joseph. For your troubles, you get towering dunes of natural sand, brought on by Lake winds that ferry the stuff from west to east, stealing grain by precious grain from Chicagoland and beyond. But if you just want to see one of the Great Lakes, you don't have to drive so far -- you can settle for Lake Erie. Despite having bacterial counts high enough to qualify it as a chemostat, Erie still manages to give you the illusion of ocean, if you can disregard the nuclear reactors that dot its shores.

Today the weather was nice enough, and I was feeling restless enough, to make the drive to fecal, nuclear Erie. About 45 minutes southeast from Ann Arbor lies Michigan's only state-owned park on Erie, Sterling State Park. I'd driven by it once several years ago -- it'd been closed -- but never thought to try again until today.

At about 4:30 pm, I turned off I-75 onto Dixie Highway (wait, I am in the North, right?), passed two bait shops, and made a right into the park. The weather remained beautiful, but it could only do so much to sweeten the view. With a coal plant on the right and a nuclear plant on the left, it wasn't difficult to take a shot that looked like an ad for An Inconvenient Truth:


Despite my best efforts, I never was able to achieve the illusion of being on the ocean. Nearing 6 pm, I stuffed the paper I was reading into my backpack, got up from the park table where I'd been sitting, and drove out of the park. I decided to explore the city of Monroe a little bit and found its downtown not without its charms:


This place wasn't actually open, but it triggered an olfactory memory all the same. In Franklin, Louisiana (pop. 10k, give or take) where I taught high school for two years, one of the two Chinese restaurants in town was located just off the freeway, attached to a gas station. It made a passable lo mein, but passable meant you had to get past the idea of spaghetti noodles masquerading as lo mein. Here, maybe it was the slashing font, maybe the words CHOP SUEY in red (chop suey being an American invention), or maybe just the rusted-out edifice -- I don't know, but something about the scene reminded me that here (in Monroe? in Michigan? in the US?) I was "other" in a way I hadn't felt in a long, long time:


By about 8 pm, I was back on the road again, headed for Ann Arbor. As I passed the Detroit airport and airplanes streaked overhead making their landings, I lost myself in a fantasy of attaching myself to the bottom of one, like a remora to a whale, and getting away for real:

For the Jung at heart...

... and fans of Freud, I offer up my dream from last night for your analysis.

It all takes place in one of the area's main high schools, either Huron or Pioneer, I can't be sure which. I'm sitting in a classroom at a desk with my back to the window. Students of regular high school age surround me, and it dawns on me, oh damn, I'm a student again. The teacher is going on about something -- I'll say it was history -- but I have no idea what she's talking about. I taste dread paste in my mouth.

At that moment, an administrator shows up at the door and calls for me. I'm in for it, I think. I get up and follow her. We walk down the tile-floor belockered hall to the vice principal's office where the door shuts behind us. The administrator, a woman in gray, and the vice principal, a man in brown, take their seats behind a desk. I sit opposite them, my back again to the window. A hazy afternoon sun shines behind me, casting the shadows of horizontal blinds across my back and onto the floor.

The two of them open up a manila folder and look me over. I already know what they're going to ask, and my mind echoes with their questions, as if their mouths and my conscience speak in unison. Did I really think I could just play tennis for the school? Did I know I had been skipping classes nearly everyday? I begin to recall enrolling at the school -- on a whim -- but neglecting to go to any classes. Even if such a memory is false and blatantly impossible, sitting there in that office and being confronted with manila-foldered evidence now makes it seem true. How else could I have ended up here? And yet I also have some recollection of being a grad student. How did I let myself get into this mess?

A knock at the door later, the tennis coach is standing in the room, kind of a portly guy but I have some good feeling toward him. He can only attest that I attend tennis practice. Another knock at the door later, my Latin teacher from high school and one-time colleague, CEW, is standing where the tennis coach was. I can tell she's livid but luckily in my defense: How can you accuse him of this? She turns toward me: Don't worry, Stewart. It'll be okay. My mind is racing. I'm trying to piece together a rational explanation, but my thoughts are sluggish, confounded by supposed facts that don't seem mutually possible. I'm in the middle of this when I wake up. Where am I? Why am I facing this side of the room? Don't I usually sleep in the other direction? It's a confusing couple of minutes.

So, Freudians and Jungians, what do you think? I'll give you some help or at least some possibilities. First of all, movies. I recently saw Brick on DVD which features that kid from Third Rock from the Sun, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, speaking in hard-boiled gum-shoe slang. (For example, he utters "Keep your specs peeled" more than once to his bespectacled friend Brain.) The movie is kids speaking as adults, and none of it happens in a classroom.

I also remember reading some reviews for another movie out this summer, Strangers with Candy. The synopsis on IMDB goes: "A 46 year-old ex-junkie ex-con returns to high school in a bid to start her life over." Yikes, I know I've made some mistakes in my life and I'm sure some can be traced back to high school, but I've never wanted to yell "Do over!".

How about this, too? Music. I've been listening to a Shoutcast station called the Drone Zone at work: a bunch of melody-less ambient noise that often sounds like water passing through the baleen of a whale. Or at least what I imagine that sounds like. On the one hand, it's great because I can really listen to my thoughts. On the other hand, it sucks because my thoughts are not some place I like to spend a lot of time. I leave the lab at night feeling like I've been floating in amniotic fluid for several hours, and I wouldn't be surprised if my psyche passes through the other stages of my life, a la the closing sequence of 2001: A Space Odyssey, to get me back to age 30 by morning.

Any other interpretations? Send them my way.

Stay a while

Oh, halcyon days of summer. That you could tarry a little longer and hold back our thoughts of winter months ahead. (Photo of the Huron River near Gallup Park, looking out east maybe an hour before sunset, taken last Sunday at the end of a long bike ride)

This << tragedy

In what must pass for the smallest of all tragedies, the "1" button on my microwave has stopped working. While I can compensate to some extent by converting minutes to seconds, there is now no way for me to zap anything for between 1 min. 40 sec. and 2 min.

A long night in the D, part 3

The basement of Oslo seems to have been designed with maximum disorientation in mind. Your first steps down there take you to a squarish seating area perhaps six feet to a side. Hallways branch off of this area in three directions, each headed toward some darkened space, and all you know is that a vague pulsating beat is coming from in front of you. Yet all the people around you seem perfectly at ease. By their own estimations, they have been here "hundreds of times". You haven't stepped into a lounge or a club. You've stepped into a church for techno.

I eenie-minie-moed my way in one direction -- forward rather than to the left or right -- and entered a vaguely wedged-shaped cavern. In the distance, perahps twenty feet ahead, a dimly lit figure in headphones hovered over a turntable. Suspended just above me, a box; to my right, a giant pillar. Both revealed themselves to be leviathan speakers. I made my way to the front of the pillar. Beside me stood a tall guy with longish hair. He made no movements, and his eyes were closed.

"Doesn't look very busy yet," I observed. No response.

"Are you a regular here?" I asked. Again, nothing. Clearly I was applying the paddles to someone who didn't want to be resuscitated.

The rest of my efforts to initiate conversation this night would meet varying degrees of success. On the whole, the denizens of this place either wanted to talk about techno or not talk at all. One guy in a white shirt and baseball cap turned out to be an encyclopedia of techno knowledge -- I had only to nod every once in a while to maintain his streaming discourse. But, as I'd found at the Flaming Lips concert, this kind of temporary companionship was dependable and much preferable to being alone.

By the time headliner Motor showed up, maybe around 1 am, the room was packed. True to the Metro Times write-up, their catchiest song turned out to be "Black Powder" and features a strong nihilistic beat. All was a sweaty mess down there, and squeezed between couples, I tried to alpha myself some space. But as quickly as the room had filled for Motor, the room emptied when the duo was finished, coincident with the time the bar stopped serving alcohol. Ghostly DJ and host of this monthly event Ryan Elliott started a bit after 2 am, but perhaps only a dozen or so people remained. The church had swelled to meet the Christmas crowd and was now back to its regular faithfuls.

Sometime after 3 am, I began to feel the night winding down or at least my body winding down. You could count the number of people left on one hand, my friend white-shirt-and-baseball-cap among them. I bade him goodnight and made my way to the stairs again. On the way out I stopped to examine where the other hallways led -- one went to the restroom, the other to the bar which wrapped around to meet the dance floor.

I walked outside to empty Detroit streets. A few people who had been inside sat in a circle on the sidewalk smoking. As I made my way back to my car, feeling the night air fill my lungs once more, I looked up and thought of Dante: "Thence we came forth to re-behold the stars." It was 3:30 when I called my friend SHB in California, 4 am by the time I arrived at my apartment. I stripped off my clothes and collapsed into bed.

A long night in the D, part 2

From their first notes that night, Sonic Youth proved to be as excellent as their 90's indie cred suggested. Some people might not like a band apt to lay down their guitars and let the sounds reverberate -- the drummer providing the only hint of structure -- but I did. In retrospect, though, I can recall only one song specifically: the dreamy "Turquoise Boy" accompanied by the projection of a giant purple Prozac pill rotating on the screen behind the band. I dipped my head down and let it sway to the music.

After Sonic Youth finished their set, I was feeling thirsty enough to pony up the $5 for a Bud Light. My companions of convenience nodded in approval. "There, that wasn't so hard, was it?" one of them asked. If I'd done the math correctly I was still stevens on the night. Stagehands set to work arranging boxes of electrical equipment into a semicircle onstage. Then a hoary figure in white shirt and matching gray pants and vest walked out, and the crowd erupted in cheering. It was Wayne Coyne, lead singer of the band. He bowed then shined a handheld spotlight on the crowd. More cheering. He threw handfuls of confetti into the front rows and then walked off.

A few minutes later, the lights dimmed again. If I was only a fairweather fan of the Flaming Lips walking into the State Theater that night -- the memory of 2002's Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots having faded -- I quickly snapped back to fandom as soon as the band took the stage. The three original members emerged from behind the stage curtain flanked by six girls in Santa outfits on their left and six girls in alien outfits on their right. Cannons shot streamers into the air, and giant white balloons descended over the crowd on the floor. Rows of colored lights pulsated behind the band, and they started playing what I'd later learn was the first track off their new CD.

Throughout the show, what I most admired was the earnestness that the band projected. Wayne Coyne took frequent bows and thanked the audience repeatedly. He praised the boys in front of the floor crowd who, he said, had waited for four hours. Musical highlights for me included the song "Free Radical" -- a protest against the Bush administration with its chorus "Fanatical!" which the audience was instructed to answer by shouting "F**k!" -- and "Do You Realize?". The latter -- which includes the line "Do you realize, that everyone you know, someday, will die?" -- still manages to bring a little lump to my throat whenever I hear it.

The concert ended around 11 after a two-song encore. I thanked my two temporary companions and walked out of the theater, suddenly forced to think where I headed next. Oh right, my car. Following the stream of people back to the distant lots across I-75 made the walk seem somewhat less scary, but I could now see that the lots themselves were nearly empty. Infrequent street lamps threw down stark lighting and casted stark shadows on the dilapidated buildings around me. I turned right, left, then right again -- all these damned lots looked the same! And how does grass grow this tall out of concrete?! After a short eternity, the familiar contours of my car finally came into my view. I breathed one sigh of relief and another when I got in my car and locked the door. I was relieved to find nothing was missing.

My plan had been to leave my car in the lot and walk back to Oslo, past the State Theater, but I now wanted nothing more than to keep my car as close by as possible. I pulled out of the lot and drove toward the city center. To my surprise, the streets grew brighter -- leftovers of Super Bowl preparations, I thought. I soon spied Oslo out the left side of my car, overshot it, and turned to my right. The street seemed safe enough, and I pulled up next to the curb.

After downing some water and a granola bar and changing into my Ghostly shirt, I got out of my car, touched a kiss to the hood, and started walking. Some minutes later I realized I was walking in the wrong direction, and though two semi-drunk white girls didn't know where Oslo was either, they were more than happy to ask three Arab-looking gentlemen for directions on my behalf. These guys had no idea either but told us to "be careful for black guys". What a nice Benetton commercial this was turning into.

I finally found the elusive sushi restaurant / club on my own and penetrated the dark slender space. Happy coincidences! The guy taking money at the door was the same one who had sold me the Ghostly shirt I was wearing! Big thanks to Ryan for letting me in for the usual $5 cover instead of the specially upped $10 cover that night. What I didn't realize at the time, but what I found out the next day, was that I was attending a special event, one covered by the Metro Times:

Friday • 4
Motor
MUSIC

Few electronic groups of late have pushed the pedal as hard and fast as Motor, a duo made up of Bryan Black and Olivier Grasset. Since 2003, the London-based pair has released original material, done blue-chip remixes — including tracks by Depeche Mode, Throbbing Gristle, Marilyn Manson and T. Raumschmiere — and launched such side projects as XLover, Drugbeat and the Sick. Their newly released full-length, Klunk, is being hailed as a high-speed industrial techno vs. acid electro-house masterpiece. Some of the world's darkest and loudest club spaces have been playing the single, "Black Powder," for months. (An aside to Prince fans: When back home in Minneapolis, Bryan Black did sound design for the tiny dancer at Paisley Park studios.) Motor roars into the Motor City this Friday. Also appearing: Austrian-cum-Texan Brian Aneurysm. The show is a special combo edition of Vault and Sex & Sedition, and features DJ support from Ghostly's Ryan Elliott and Dethlab DJs. At Oslo, 1456 Woodward Ave., Detroit; 313-963-0300; $10.

After exchanging a few friendly words with Ryan at the door, I headed down the hall and turned the corner to head downstairs. I patted Cerberus on the head and held my breath. [More to come...]

A long night in the D

This morning, erm, afternoon, I mean, I look back on the ten-hour mini-odyssey just completed that took me to the heart of darkness I've come to know as downtown Detroit and back. It all started when I saw a craigslist posting on Thursday for two tickets to the Flaming Lips concert in Detroit on Friday. With the dare of "make me an offer" made in the posting, I e-mailed the lister who agreed to sell me one or both tickets. I'd wanted to see this show, but the face of $35 seemed a tad high. But with the serpentine temptation of a deeply discounted ticket, the stage was set for me to see the Lips and Detroit up close.

I met the lister at his place of work midday Friday, and despite my protestations he wanted me to take both tickets so that neither would go to waste. I reluctantly agreed. That afternoon I sent out a fusillade of e-mails and phone calls, but most who might attend were already in Chicago for Lollapalooza. The quality of the show could not be doubted -- the Flaming Lips were renowned for their high-energy, audience-involving live shows, and the openers Go! Team and Sonic Youth were of a quality too high to be considered by the typical euphemism "special guests". But such is Ann Arbor in August -- like Rome, vacated. I was having trouble giving the extra ticket away, and I began picturing myself holding a ticket above my head outside of the theater.

Sweetening the pot for me was the coincident scheduling of a regularly scheduled event in Detroit I'd wanted to see for a long time: the once-monthly Ghostly DJ sessions at sushi restaurant cum techno lounge Oslo. Only a start time was listed on the Ghostly website, but I'd gathered from the Detroit techno message boards that these sessions regularly went until 4 am. When I finally had the tickets in hand Friday afternoon, I began to piece together the schedule for the coming night: the Lips concert between 7:30 and perhaps 11 followed by a quick refuelling in my car (and perhaps a change of clothes) and then the Ghostly session from 11:30 until God-knows.

By 6 pm I'd made what I considered the necessary preparations: packed a freezer bag full of snacks, filled a one-liter bottle with water, put gum, contact lens solution, and an extra shirt in my backpack, and fuelled my car (with gas) and cell phone (with charge). With directions and sunglasses in hand, I checked my apartment over once more, got in my car, and hit the road.

Five minutes into the trip came a hitch -- my friend JMW called me back, on the fence about going. I turned off the freeway and started circling aimlessly through Ypsilanti while negotiating with her on my cell phone. By a factor of ten I'd rather have given the ticket to a friend than sold it at the door. She was driving me nuts, but I wasn't about to kidnap her. I finally gave up -- assuming her wanting to do work on Friday night belied true feelings -- and got back on the freeway.

Traffic was light and everything seemed to go as planned until I reached downtown. On Woodward Avenue, the streets were clogged as the hour of 7 came. A Tigers game was scheduled to start at the same time as the concert, and the virtual abutment of the theater to Comerica Park created a massive jam. After 30 minutes of driving which included my passing up a spot on the street -- fool that I am -- I capitulated to a professional lot and gave up $10.

Selling the ticket proved to be easy -- a young couple stood near the box office, and though they didn't need an extra ticket, they pointed me to a fellow who did. I turned to him, offered my extra at face, and we turned to conceal ourselves from the security guard who had apparently given him some problems. I soon found myself with crisp $20, $10, and $5 bills in my wallet. If I did nothing else that evening, I would end up $5 over stevens, not counting the cost of gas.

Inside the theater, people milled in the lobby, waiting around in groups or buying shirts and beer. Like a ghost I floated between them. My ticket was marked "general admission balcony" and I was directed up the stairs. The balcony proved to be half-empty, as I'd somehow missed the openers Go! Team, yet aisle seats proved to be saved when I asked about their vacancy. Finally I came to one next to a tall white guy with a mustache who my gut was telling me was by himself. In fact the seat on the other side was saved, but the aisle seat was indeed open. His friend soon returned, sort of a stouter version of himself without the mustache, and I did my best to be pleasant. I soon realized I was sitting next to virtual fonts of knowledge about the Flaming Lips -- geeks, you might call them -- but as had happened so many times before, they proved to be the best of temporary companions, true to their core and without pretense. I'd already been feeling a bit the outcast anyway, and it was better to hear them talk about Lips minutiae than to hear from noone at all. As the lights dimmed, an Asian boy in the seat in front of me started the first of many text messages on the gray-on-green screen of an ancient Nokia cell phone.

Four figures took the stage -- three men and one woman -- and each picked up a variant of the guitar. Behind them a drummer sat at the ready. Sonic Youth was about to begin. [Continued in the next post...]

W goes down smooth

This picture turned up on Yahoo! News today. (Credit AP Photos and one Haraz N. Ghabari for being in the right place at the right time and having good reflexes.)

After studying it closely, I'm now convinced that it captures everything history will have to say about the current president.

In it we see the most powerful man in the world misstep and stumble, but even more than that, we see how he always emerges with the frat boy good humor that Garry Trudeau captures so well in Doonesbury (e.g. here). You can almost hear the president saying to himself: "Whoa, whoa, whoa, yeesh, heh heh, oh yeah!". Can we get this idea through our heads: that no matter how everything turns out, this president is going to say it was for the best?

On a different note, I wanted to give a plug to German electronic musician Ulrich Schnauss. I crossed his CD a while back on Amazon but forgot about it until I heard a track on Groove Salad yesterday that made me feel better about the world. Turned out to be something by him. Apparently a lot of other people feel the same way about him. Even the outtakes on his website are excellent (e.g. this one).