i spy - vol. 2: a sunday in prospect park, and the walk back.

this poor bird. grotesque, but i found something oddly beautiful about it. circle of life, and all.

saw these watermelon rinds soon after the bird; the images did not strike me as dissimilar. how these shards ended up next to a lamp post, however, is a mystery.

the side of a motorcycle, parked on vanderbilt.

as i neared my house, in a two-block span on dekalb, i got two 'go blue!'s from strangers/fellow alums. it never ceases to amaze me how many shout-outs i get every time i wear a michigan shirt.

plinkosophy.

A coupla days ago, i got a letter from children international updating me on the south american teen ive been sponsoring for a few years (it costs $22 a month, in case you're interested), and i immediately thought of the most delicious ham and swiss sandwiches ive ever had.

let me explain. (as if youre going anywhere.)

ive copied the letter below. click on the image to enlarge it - itll pop up in a new window! - and take note of the highlighted lines.

see, i had known the girl was poor, but these statistics - which i assume i had seen before but not paid much attention to - really crystallized how dire her situation is. it made me think of my plinkosophy of life.

when i was a kid, and i got sick and had to stay home from school, my parents would bring me to my grandparents' house, so the retirees could watch/tend to me for the day. man, those were some of the best days of childhood. essentially, they consisted of me spending the whole day watching game shows and hanging with my grandmother, whom i called toto - dont ask me why.

anyway, my favorite game show was - and i know im not alone here - the price is right. for one thing, it had the best prizes and the most fun games, and for another, it was an hour long. it was like game show heaven.

it came on at 11 am, and when the noon hour drew near, id always grow a little sad, b/c the afternoon meant the end of the game shows i so loved, and the beginning of the soap operas i was so bored by. (ie, afternoon was intermittent nap time.)

but around the 11.50 am mark, toto would always come in with my favorite lunch (old people do everything a little early, right?) - ham and swiss, with lettuce and tomato, on perfectly toasted rye bread with mustard, and a root beer. shed prepare the same for herself, and shed sit down with me in front of the tv she didnt much care for, and wed watch the end of the show together. just one of those golden memories you never forget. (as opposed to the memories you do forget.) and so i always associate the price is right with those sandwiches.

anyhoo - so why did that children's international update make me think of the ham and swiss?

b/c here's the thing. perhaps the best game on the price is right was/is plinko. im just gonna copy wikipedia's explanation of the game:

the contestant takes chips they have earned up a set of stairs to the top of the Plinko board. The board is made up of a field of pegs, with each row offset from the previous row. At the bottom of the board are nine slots marked symmetrically with the values (from outside to the single centre slot) $100, $500, $1,000, $0, $10,000.

One at a time, the contestant lays each Plinko chip against the top of the board and releases it to drop down the board. The chips bounce randomly off the pegs, making it virtually impossible to predict where the chips will land. In addition, the sides of the board are in a zig-zag pattern which also allows the chips to ricochet back to the center more quickly. The contestant wins whatever money corresponds with the slot the chip lands in, with a running total kept on a scoreboard next to the Plinko board.

it seemed like the chips tended to land in the lower-money slots much more than the higher-money ones (this was obv. by design). so it was always thrilling when a chip found purchase with some big numbers.

later on in my life, when i began to start thinking metaphysically and existentially and philisophically and whatnot, i came to see plinko as a metaphor for babies being born into the world.

it's like all the life forces that are about to be born into the world are plinko chips. everyday, there are thousands of them - and so this plinko board is huge. but not only is this board bigger than the one on the game show; it is built to give the chips way worse odds. there are thousands of slots for 'born into a poor family in africa,' thousands for 'born with some sort of chronic illness,' thousands for 'born in new jersey' - you get the picture. there are only a handful of slots for 'born healthy and relatively taken care of financially in a country like the u.s.'

ill never forget something the rabbi said at nick's funeral. he said 'we dont choose when we come into this world, and we dont choose when we leave.'

well, we dont choose where we come into this world, either. it's up to the great plinko board. that's my plinkosophy.

that teen i sponsor - she fell into one of the thousands of disadvantaged slots - through no fault of her own. and that's what i thought of when i read those stats two days ago. and that's why i thought of ham and swiss sandwiches, on perfectly toasted rye bread.

anyone reading this blog fell into one of the handful of jackpot slots. personally, my chip struck it really really big. the older i get, the more i appreciate how lucky i truly am.

ps - this post is dedicated to j.go, with whom i had a heart-to-heart last night, in which she explained to me how i sometimes act too much like a lucky plinko chip as an adult. this was very elucidating, and i thank her - and love her - for it.

overheard in ft. greene park this morning.

now, everyone's having babies at 42, but back then, it was like...

-one thirties-ish woman on a bench talking to another

pops up in the sauce again.

it's a long column. search for 'doug.'

the best sopranos take yet.

im on board with this. it's genius.

brow, do you do?

You know it's hot when the sweat you (i) accumulated on the q train platform simply waiting for the subway trickles from your (my) forehead onto your (my) glasses, midway through the air-conditioned train ride.

man, once you get a bead of sweat on your glasses, youre not gonna see totally clearly through that lens until you have a chance to break out that special glasses wipe and the cleaning solution. (ie, you're gonna see that streak for a while.) even when your head is angled such that the light does not reveal the streak, you just know it's there, waiting for you like the cat vomit you heard but have not yet located.

my beef is not with sweat, however. i like a good sweat.

i file my complaint with my eyebrows. i mean, look at the first sentence in that wikipedentry: "The main function of the eyebrows is to prevent moisture, mostly salty sweat and rain, from flowing into the eye, an organ critical to sight."

what the hell went wrong here? why did left brow fail me?

i take care of them brows. i tweeze them to give them each their independence. once in a while i lather them with a little shampoo because hey - they're hair too, right? i've been known to do that run-your (my)-thumb-and-pointer-finger
-up-the-length-of-the-brows thing to keep them classily shaped.

but when i play basketball, i still get sweat in my eyes. and this morning, sweat on my glasses.

they're the goofiest body part in the world. if they're not 100 percent accurate, what's the pt?

speaking of pointless, thus ends my most meaningless post to date.

bob herbert on bloomberg - we agree.

Im just copying his op-ed from saturday's times and pasting it below. this is not legal, but it's for the greater good. besides, i know the law; you cant arrest a bean. that would violate habeanus corpus.

Mr. Mayor, the Nader of '08?

By BOB HERBERT

A huge ego and a few billion dollars can cause an awful lot of mischief.

Michael Bloomberg is weighing a possible run for the White House. This is frightening for a couple of reasons. First, consider the prospect of a half-billion-dollars worth of 30-second Bloomberg-for-president ads running all day and all night on television screens in every part of the country.

Americans of every persuasion will have images of the mayor of New York all but burned into their retinas.

For Democrats, the other reason is much more frightening. If Mr. Bloomberg actually decides to run, he risks becoming the Ralph Nader of 2008, drawing votes away from the Democratic nominee and helping to install yet another Republican in the White House.

(Mr. Nader is also making noises about running next year, but it’s generally agreed that Mr. Bloomberg has a much more credible shot at being a spoiler.)

The main thing to keep in mind about Mr. Bloomberg is that he is a Democrat. He changed parties and registered as a Republican for tactical reasons when he ran for mayor in 2001. But he was a Republican in name only. He did not change his political philosophy, and he has continued to pursue the kind of policies you would expect from a Democrat.

As Chris Lehane, a Democratic political consultant, said this week in a reference to Mr. Bloomberg: “If you closed your eyes and you were told that someone was pro-public education, pro-choice, pro-immigration rights, pro-gun control, pro-civil rights, pro-gay rights and pro-women’s rights — you would be pretty happy if you were a Democrat.”

So whatever political banner he may be waving at any given time (he’s now calling himself an independent), Mr. Bloomberg is a Democrat. If he runs for president, he is far more likely to take votes from the Democratic nominee than the Republican one.

That’s why, for all the talk about the feuding between the Bloomberg and Giuliani camps, it’s the leading Democratic candidates who are the most unhappy about the possibility of a Bloomberg candidacy. A number of individuals close to Bill and Hillary Clinton said this week that a Bloomberg presidential run would have an especially harmful effect on Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, which, if anything, has been strengthening of late.

“He definitely hurts us,” said one dismayed Clinton supporter, who added: “You know, sometimes politicians have such big egos they can’t see reality. But Bloomberg is known for seeing reality. So he must know that if he runs he puts a Republican in the White House, which I don’t think he wants.”

The mayor would draw votes from people who want change, who are interested in something different, a new direction. Right now, almost by definition, such voters are Democrats, or independents and Republicans who are inclined to vote for a Democrat. These are voters upset not just by the war in Iraq and the demonstrated incompetence of the Bush administration, but by a variety of other major issues.

“They’re very anxious about a perceived decline in America’s fortunes,” said Mr. Lehane, “about the loss of the American dream for the middle class, the rise of China, global warming, the effect of technology on people’s lives, nuclear proliferation. I think these anxiety voters, who don’t feel that politics is working for them, are going to be the swing voters next year.”

Mr. Bloomberg, a self-made billionaire with a reputation for speaking his mind and a carefully crafted message of political independence, could be very appealing to some of those voters. But not to enough of them to win. And that is the flaw in the enormous trial balloon sent up by Mr. Bloomberg this week when he let it be known that he had abandoned his marriage-of-convenience to the Republican Party and would henceforth officially be independent.

You will find very few people who honestly believe that Mr. Bloomberg can win the presidency. So the crucial issue if he were to run would be the impact he has on the race.

He may not run. He may be enjoying the burst of attention his trial balloon has attracted. He may see this heightened attention as a way to amplify his voice nationally.

There are myriad ways this thing could play out. But the weirdest would be if Michael Bloomberg, who sees himself as such a serious person, plunged headlong into this race with little or no chance to win, and ended up spending $500 million to $1 billion on a venture that undermined the core issues and values he claims to believe in.

quote 14.

Finally there would be a thingamajig that would bring everyone together, even if it kept them apart spatially.

-amy archer (jennifer jason leigh), speaking of the hula hoop, in the hudsucker proxy

ps - that movie is vastly underrated.

i spy - vol. 1.

bloomp there it is.

First of all, dad, ive been telling you this was gonna happen for months. (and maybe he wont end up running, but that seems hard to believe now; bloomy's been doing more telegraphing than sammy morse.)

i think bloomberg would make a great president, but can he actually win the presidency? b/c if he cant, and he ends up taking more votes away from the dem than the repubnicant nominee, thereby paving the latter's entrance into the office, that will be epically tragic.

palm l.o. hedcatt (via text this morning): Today is a great day for america.

bean: i have mixed feelings about this.

have a nice gay.

thank you lina:

the adorable devil's in the details.

Every summer, a different iteration of this sign appears down the block from me, on adelphi and dekalb. it is always adorable, but it's also always hilarious. this person purports to be a 'detailer,' but without fail, most of the details of the sign are always off-kilter. (i have now filled my 'always' quotient for the day.) n.b.:

◦ the arbitrary mixing of capital and lower-case letters.
◦ the apostrophe placement in car's, implying that there is only one car which can be detailed. you better hope it's yours!
◦ the truncated phone number.

maybe the fact that i would critique this sign speaks more about me than it does the detailer, and it prolly does, but i pass this thing all the time, and i love it, so i had to blog about it.

like i said, it is adorable.

in the name of the father.

brin v. 1912

brin v. 1947

brin v. 1979

happy father's day, daddy. i love you.

quotes 14 & 15. (no relation.)

She believed ideas should come from experience as opposed to the other way around.
-usa today obit of jane jacobs

~

I woke you up and I slit the throat of your confidence.
-third eye blind

arise and walk, my son.

the downtown n/q train platform at union square; 6.12, 10.04 pm.
(the sign is pointing towards an elevator)

lucky quote 13.

The game doesnt build character; it reveals it.

-oscar acosta, former pitching coach in the chicago cubs organization

thank you and goodnight.

So i was wrong about the sopranos. but you know what? i loved the last episode - particularly the ending.

it seems like many people were disappointed with the way it went out - with some promises of a bang, but in the end, a whimper. and maybe david chase did do it that way to leave open the possibility of a movie, and if that comes to pass, i'll be disappointed. but until then, bravissimo.

i think the ending - or non-ending, as some might say - was very much intentionally left up to multiple interpretations, and im gonna present three of the better interpretations ive heard below. but first, my own take.

life is prosaic, more than it is poetic or episodic. and the best thing about the sopranos was that the lives the characters all led seemed so viscerally real.

(somewhat ironic that i should say this, b/c a tv show, by definition, is literally episodic. on the other hand, not so ironic. a movie is more episodic; a tv show, which can stretch on for years, and gradually grow and change in the process, is more prosaic.)

fitting then that we should leave tony sitting in a diner, listening to journey, waiting for his family to coalesce, rather than meeting some ignominious, 'poetic' fate. (even if it's possible we left tony the nanosecond before he got whacked - as it happened, we didnt see that.)

the fittingness of going out with a whimper is best illustrated in one of my favorite short stories, from - as it were - ray bradbury's the illustrated man. the story is called the last night of the world. i read it in sixth grade, and i'll never forget it. you should read it too. it'll take all of three minutes.

now, for the other sopranos interpretations i mentioned:

∞ the meta.

∞ the maybe.

∞ the tiger or the lady? (go here to get the background on this one.)

thank you david chase.

behind the dugout.

quotes 11 & 12.

I realize that the basilica has turned into quite the quote den, but hey - im a very verbal guy! so without further ado:

he looks like a pipe cleaner pushing a walker.
-my dad, describing my grandfather

this is not a rehearsal.
-my dad quoting my first grade teacher - his former colleague - who was prolly quoting someone else

chancellor grundle.

Please excuse the basilica while it gets a little crass.

because the photo below, from the Group of 8 meeting today in Heiligendamm, Germany, courtesy of the times, reminds me of my favorite joke from weeds.

question: what do you call the thing between the dick and the asshole?

answer: chancellor angela merkel.

spuranos.

Two quick predictions. (two prequictions?)

ravioli. i havent made any sports predictions in a while. well, here's one: spurs in five.

dont get me wrong; i hate the spurs (theyre a bunch of whiners, and whether or not they would have gotten past the suns in the conference semis anyway, they certainly didnt deserve to get past them the way they did, with the egregious suspensions of stoudemire and diaw).

and i love lebron. how can you not?

but playing one on five is not gonna work against the savvy spurs. and lebron doesnt have a mid-range game; all his baskets are either long-range bombs or dunks, and tim duncan is gonna stand in the way of the latter. so if the lebombs arent hitting, the cavs are in trouble. they might hit for one game, or even two, but that's not enough. and cleveland's supporting cast has looked better than it really is, playing against a weak eastern conference.

in my lifetime, when one team has seemed a prohibitive favorite, the nba finals have always played out pretty much as youd expect, with the lone exception of the pistons stomping the lakers in '04. that was a pleasant surprise. this series wont be.

ill root for the cavs, but id bet on the spurs. if i gambled. which i dont.

tortellini. how will the sopranos end? well, i'll tell you how it wont end.

neither aj nor meadow are taking over, in any capacity. the sopranos has formed a holy trinity of pop culture mafia opuses - with the godfather and goodfellas - and its not gonna end like either of those, for the sake of separation. aj and med, the children who were never supposed to enter the family bidness, entering the family bidness, would be too similar to michael corleone taking the reins in the godfather. so that's out.

similarly, tony isnt going into witness protection. that's how goodfellas ends - with henry hill 'flipping' - so that's out.

and i dont think tony's gonna be killed by phil leotardo, or even paulie walnuts. such endings would be too typical.

assuming tony is gonna be whacked, the only scenarios that make sense are for tony to be killed by carmela or janice. i harken back to the original ads for the show, from the first season. they said: If one family doesn't kill him.... the other one will.

the core of the show has always been the delicate balancing act tony has to maneuver between his mob family and his real family. the most fitting end would be the latter somehow being the cause of his demise. i think all the mob machinations in the last few episodes have been red herrings.

sure, tony might live, but i have no prediction for that scenario.

(and ok, these werent that quick.)

pack it up, pack it in, let me begin. (to eat popcorn)

You may recall my earlier post about office popcorn.

this is a second post about office popcorn. it's a regular series!

but this is a very special episode.

you see today, the good people at sclafani sent us two one-liter jugs of extra virgin olive oil, and they packed the box not with styrofoam peanuts, nor with sheets of plastic bubbles, but with popcorn! honest to goodness popcorn. (ok, the bottles themselves were wrapped in sheets of plastic bubbles, but whatevs.)

to the amazement and horror of my colleagues, i sampled not a small amount of the popcorn. the company's in connecticut, meaning i apparently dont have a five second rule, so much as a three-day, fifty-mile rule.

alas, the popcorn was stale.

and there was no packing salt, nor butter, to go with it.

but i love the idea!

quote 10.

Here we say that life is a cliff, and you must never turn around and look back when you're climbing. It makes you sick.' The gentle voice went on; finally she lay down again. Still she was convinced that this was the end, that it would not be long before they found her. They would stand her up before a great mirror, saying to her: 'Look!' And she would be obliged to look, and then it would all be over. The dark dream would be shattered; the light of terror would be constant; a merciless beam would be turned upon her; the pain would be unendurable and endless. She lay close against him, shuddering. Shifting his body toward her, he took her tightly in his arms. When she next opened her eyes the room was in darkness.

'You can never refuse a person money to buy light,' said Amar. He struck a match and held it up.

-paul bowles, the sheltering sky

(incidentally - or not - i think ive read that book about ten times by now.)

quote 9.

The surpluses of the Clinton years would not have been squandered like casino chips in the hands of a compulsive gambler on a monumental losing streak.

-bob herbert, in today's times, on what things would be like if gore had won the presidency in 2000

quote 8.

You should still be able to get good and lost sometimes.

mike francesca, bemoaning the omniscience of GPS systems in cars.