The Ryan Disney Pics

Not just a medical researcher -- a true photographic whiz. Thanks, Ryan!

Sun On Christmas Break

I could get used to this.

Sun and Fun -- Florida, Baby!

Some more Orlando pics.

The Florida Sun Times

We spent Christmas in Florida. Sun, hot temps, fun times and a pool in our backyard! Can we stay one more week, please?

My video glory

What does a special projects editor do exactly? Glad you asked. Waters is starting a series of video roundtables, just like Slate, The New York Times and every other magazine or news source on the planet. Our inaugural effort was on complex event processing, a hot topic they tell me. All in all, not bad. And that moderator! Lock up your women folk. He on fire.

The Night Gardener

After a hard boiled diet of recent Elmore Leonard works -- Pagan Babies, Up in Honey's Room and The Hot Kid -- I've started a flat-out binge of crime novels. I devoured Michael Connelly's Echo Park and The Lincoln Lawyer in short order. Great pacing, solid research, good locales but the dialogue falls flat. Just doesn't have the snap of Leonard at his best. And after the gun play in The Hot Kid and Honey's Room, I wanted more action. I can see these 30s and 40s stories in my head and now I want to write one myself. Something about a bar in the northern suburbs that operates outside the law in the early 1950s. Smoke, whiskey, dames in lingerie and pistols at the ready.

Wanting more noir, I checked out George Pelecanos' The Night Gardener. Despite being centered around a hackneyed serial killer plot -- all the murder victims' names are palindromes, as in Eve, Asa and so on -- this one is officially under my skin. The sentences are heavier than most thrillers, the characters are fuller and sadder and the book's feel is damned realistic. I am hooked, and I want to finish it tonight but I also want to savor it. No higher praise for a book.

On deck: The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta, Soul Circus by Pelecanos, and a collection of early Dutch Leonard crime novels. Life is good.

Cleaning out the camera

My kids, in pumpkin form.



Matthew looks at the camera! Sadly, his brother and sister do not. One day...



A cool stream, straight from the LL Bean catalog.

Mmmmmm, unexplained bacn...

Conversation overheard at a local bar restaurant...

Dot com hipster dude: There's this new term. Have you heard, it's called bacon? It's just like Spam but it's Spam that you sign up for but don't read.

Oh, so that's all the e-mails I send to my Yahoo! account when I sign up to read a first chapter of a book I have no intention of buying. Need to view a hot video clip? Send them to Yahoo! and watch the clip in peace. Then just delete the e-mails.

But according to Google, it's called bacn.

One other great gem from the hipster conversation soon followed. The two guys were talking to a very attractive lady with one of those short spiky hair cuts from the late 70s and early 80s. Very New Wave. She was quite striking and I realize that the only way that haircut works is if you have very small facial features. Anyway, someone was talking about editorial content, like how working women can balance motherhood and a professional life.

Dot com hipster chick: Tell them to read Good Housekeeping.

Meow!

Into the woods

The summer temps made a disorienting return and since the country club -- another martini, Jeeves! -- is long closed, we took the kids for walks in the Rockefeller Preserve along the Hudson. Matthew couldn't take his eyes off the streams, Tim wanted to be carried and Nora wanted to get back to the TV. We loved the fresh air and we're heading back this weekend. What ho!

Fall book season, what?

No book dilemma here, move along. I've been on a tear reading some terrific novels and I'm almost scared to say anything out loud because it might spoil the good run. I've read a pair of Elmore Leonard books -- Pagan Babies and Up In Honey's Room and they rocked. Babies is a streamlined crime novel that Leonard could and sometimes has done in his sleep. Honey's Room is a sort of sequel to The Hot Kid and it's terrific. If Hollywood needs a great source for a film, look no further. A hero US Marshall is looking for escaped Nazi POWs while the war winds down. Intrigue, sex, and adults behaving like adults all make for a sordid tale. You can smell the gun powder and see the 40s lingerie on Honey and one seriously devious Ukranian refugee who is looking for some payback. Dennis Quad, call your agent.

I still have Fellow Traveler on my mind, even after reading the book that was supposed to be the literary event of the season. Philip Roth delivers his last Nathan Zuckerman novel and in the wake of bad reviews, it was okay. No fireworks, which is what critics expect after The Human Stain, American Pastoral and Sabbath's Theater. A so-so novel disappoints after a spree of seminal novels, I guess.

Fellow Traveler is the tale of closeted gays in Washington DC during the Army-McCarthy hearings. Once again, Mallon turns back the clock and immerses us in a world where people behave in ways that we would find contemporary. terrific characters, wonderful historical detail and pure heartbreak in the way people live their lives with the decisions they made.

I'm now hypnotized by PG Wodehouse: A Life by Robert McCrum. I knew the man was prolific but he makes Joyce Carol Oates and Stephen King look indifferent to the written word. Pure joy, especially since I am reading this alongside What Ho, Jeeves. Heaven.

Not a bad run of good books, even if Joh Updike missed the Nobel yet again. There's always next year, I guess.

Icn Bein Ein Frankfurter

Still feels like a dream. I spent 48 hours in Frankfurt to moderate a breakfast briefing. I left JFK on a Saturday, landed on Sunday, did the briefing on Monday morning and left for home on Tuesday. I was in the house by 12:30 Tuesday afternoon. Throw in a beautiful blur of Singapore Airlines stews and it's a pleasantly jarring buzz.

Frankfurt was nice. It's sleek and modern and you have to hand it to German efficiency. The city works. There was a major thoroghfare outside my hotel and you couldn't tell. No horns honking, no brakes screeching. People drove in their small, sleek cars and seemed to conspire to move along together as a collective unit -- the opposite of New York, where it's everyman for himself. I loved watching SpongeBob Squarepants in the original German, along with an episode of the OC. Since it was late September, there was plenty of Oktoberfest footage and oompa bands and girls in drindl dresses. Lots of beer and good cheer.

I wished that I had the time and guts to explore the city more but the jet lag kicked in. I hit the main train station and bought Nora a souvenir and walked past the Burger King. I loved the sign for the Angry Whopper.

Spies like us

Finished Journey Into Fear after putting it down for a few weeks. This tight little thriller truly gathered steam in the second half and I should have stuck with it. Eric Ambler has a high rep as an espionage writer but he should be taught as a prose stylist. There is no flab to his writing whatsoever. Instead of assigning some navel-gazing novel to writing students, they should read one of his between war noirs and learn what can be coneyed in as few sentences as possible. No wonder modern day Alan Furst reveres the man, even mre than the more-respected and mainstream John Le Carre. By all means, read Journey and then pick up Epitaph for a Spy and A Coffin for Dimitrios.

Surge protector

Despite a so-so performance from Gen. David Petraeus, you have to wonder if he even had to testify. He didn't exactly sell the war to Congress this week but the Democrats do not have the votes to bring the troops home. The best they can do is to vote cut funding and there is no way they will ever do that, even if the mouth-breathers from The Daily KOS and MoveOn.org are screaming for a complete retreat. A vote to cut the funding would damage the Democratic party for a generation.

Bush's midweek address was muted and bluster-free. He is clearly talking about success and not victory these days and that may be the best we can hope for. His speechwiters have clearly wised up. Even with Petreaus' inability to convince Congress that the surge is working and America is safer, the preseident started the week with a gift. MoveOn.org paid for a full-page ad in The New York Times with a headline accusing the general of betraying the nation. Ah, red meat for the pro-war right, right on time. Nicely done, MoveOn-ers. Well played. Even John Kerry couldn't endorse this tripe.

Bush in Iraq and failure on the left

Okay, I like it when President Bush visits the troops in Iraq. I know that everyone thinks that these visits are a publicity stunts and hollow photo-ops and this is the closest he ever got to dangerous military service, but it works for me. Sue me. When he visited the troops years back on Thanksgiving, some lefty critics said he was photographed holding a plastic turkey. Of course, of course. The entire visit was as fake as that synthetic fowl because this is a phony war. Even the smiles are staged, maaaaaaaan. Whatever.

I am awaiting Gen Petreaus's report to Congress on September 11th about the success of the Surge. I bet he'll say that it has worked in some areas that show real improvement yet Iraq remains a dangerous and unstable place. He will ask for more time for the surge and some on the Left will bellow for his head. How can there be improvements if all the news is bad? Admitting any improvements might mean that the surge is working and that they just might be wrong in the long run.

The failure of democracy in Iraq and with it the entire Bush Doctrine is their gospel now. Failure is their only goal.

Owen, Owen, Owen

It's been a summer of some spectacular celeb meltdowns from Paris in Jail, Britney Goes White Trash, Yo and Lindsay Cokes Up and Crashes Her Car. All very entertaining and so far harmless -- of the three 'ladies' only Lindsay has any talent but has she done anything interesting since Mean Girls? Paris and Britney will go on and on, I am sure, but Lohan actually has to be insurable for a movie to get financing. Robert Downey Jr is a much better bet than LaLohan these days. .

But Amy Winehouse and Owen Wilson? Talk about a pair of despair. Winehouse is the smoky popstress with the ratty beehive and her slo-mo decline just sad because she has a nice set of pipes. Despite a killer record with a nice single -- Rehab -- she seems hellbent on the coke/heroin diet that has turned her into a cadaver recently. I saw one pic of her from a year or two back when she had some weight on her frame and she looked terrific. Rocking, even. Now, she is stick-thin, covered in bruises and looking like she is trying to fit into a balso wood coffin.

Then came word last week that the Golden Guy from the new wave of funny guys tried to commit suicide because of heroin use and depression. This one is just baffling. Wilson seemed smart enough to know that this is all a game and he was the master at it. He made funny movies that made people smile and when he entered a scene onscreen, he was Mr Good Time. Now, it's going to be hard to watch The Wedding Crasher, Zoolander or even watchable dreck like Starsky and Hutch without thinking this guy wanted to off himself when he was on top.

Amy and Owen, come back. It's not that bad, dammit.

I hate when that happens

So you're driving to the local convenience store while on a camping trip and a group of Amish girls kidnap you and throw you in the back of their horse-drawn buggy. It's one damned thing after another.

History Boys

A charming little movie based on the play by Alan Bennett. A class of young men are taught by a pair of teachers thanks to schoolmaster's best attempt to get them into Oxford or Cambridge. One teacher is a beloved classics professor who recites yards of poetry, prose, lines from films and snippets of song. He is a fat letch but the kids all have his number. He is teaching something to love -- history and the English language. A new, much younger prof is hired to help the boys enter college at any cost. He urges them to think differently and to take the opposite tack in an argument. A useful skill to have but he doesn't care if the students have any passion for th topic or if their new position is wrong or even offensive. In fact, the more jarring the opinion, the better. Who cares if it's wrong to argue about the evil in the Holocaust, just make the argument to get the grade.

Despite being about 10 minutes too long, the movie still works. Although I wish that I had seen the play. I was in London last year and it would have been the highlight of my trip but sadly, the film had already been made. Maybe we can see the revival on Broadway one day.

Who knows, maybe it's playing in English in Frankfurt. I'm going for a few days at the end of the month. Yeesh.

Reminding ourselves to remember

An interesting article in today's NY Times about the upcoming anniversary of 9/11. What is the right way to remember that day, the reporter wonders and asks a few people. One person thinks the ceremonies of reading the names is overdone and says he finds the grief exhausting. A woman who lost her firefighter brother in the attacks says that six years since the event has ben a 'blink of an eye' for her and her family. I can sympathize with both people. The event has become smaller for people and the politics surrounding it has only diminished the event. Some see it as a reason for getting the country into a misguided and mismanaged war. Some even share theories that the attacks were known about in high circles if not planned from the Oval Office. (That this is the same administration that couldn't send ice or water to New Orleans two years ago escapes these eager theorists).

My company lost 16 people on that day. Last year, I was frankly surprised that there was no mention from the managers in New York whatsoever about the day and the people we had lost. We did hear about a moment of silence at the London office but nothing from the managers in New York. Odd, even a bit chilling but I can understand -- for the two senior managers at the time, the events of that day were too close.

Maybe I'll donate money to honor those who were lost. Perhaps I'll have the guts to thank the policemen and women for protecting me and my commuters in Grand Central every morning. I do know I won't forget that day. Even now, when I see a perfectly blue sky on a day of wonderful weather, I still think about that morning when three thousand Americans died in 90 minutes. That will be my tribute always.

Mumble BANG Repeat

I saw an illegal copy of the summer's hot action flick last night and while watching the serious shenanigans, I had a thought. Your TV should have a sound design feature that pumps up the urgent muttered dialog of paranoid action flicks and then lowers the volume during the chase scenes when all decibal hell breaks loose. These pair of scenes happened at least half a dozen times in two hours: A pair of beurocrats mumble about the need to kill a government trained assassin who likes to hop the globe and then, BAM it's fast music, breaking glass, pistols, motorscooters, and the brayng sirens of foreign police forces pouring out of your speakers.

Like Nigel's amp, this flick goes to 11.

I finished a book I had been meaning to re-read for more than a decade and I was glad to pick up an old paperback for fifty cents. I was late for work one rainy morning and took the book with me ona whim. Thanks to some heavy rain and slow trains, I went through 75 pages by the time I hit the desk. Rabbit Redux is one of Updike's screwier novels with weaknesses and strengths throughout. It probably reads like caricature noe but very few writers were writing about the counter-culture while it was happening. The late 60s came to the 'burbs in the pages of this novel and Rabbit Angstrom was the only man in America who supported the Vietnam war. He hates it but thinks it has to be fought. It's definitely worth a read and should make a good reconsidering essay in the pages of National Review.

Right now I am reading The Shooting Party and awaiting a phone call about a job. Hope to hear something good this week. Fingers crossed.

Mad Men -- Good Episode

Finally, the killer episode from Mad Men, the most promising show of the summer. After a terrific start, the resulting three episodes were setting the stage for something big. Oh, I thought, Don Draper has a mysterious past. His wife is a blank slate awaiting relief thanks to a future cocktail of valium and Betty Friedan. His co-workers are going to have their interesting lives that will touch us and horrify us in short order. It's been a frustrating few weeks to watch the set up, especially since the executive producer worked on The Sopranos, a show where a lot of groundwork was laid but sometimes nothing grew, but this week's episode delivered.

Don and his wife return from an awards ceremony where Don wins a coveted award, a golden horseshoe. They are dressed to the nines, more than a little wasted and too tired and content to have sex. Even with the swanky lingerie, which looks like battle armor designed by Edith Head, his wife is a knockout. No zombie here.

They wake up, cough up their smoker's lungs and start their day. Don is in his sharp late '50s suits, the type that only he and his boss seem to have a tailor who knows how to make a suit fit. A mysterious young man dressed like an upstate farm hand shows up. It's Don's half brother with the last name Witcombe. Don is scared and disgusted to see someone from his guarded past. The kid clearly adores him and Don doesn't want anything to do with him. He has created this life and there is no room for someone from his early days. We see a picture of Don in Army khakis with his arm around a young boy. Some talk of family members long gone, an uncle who thought he was soft. Don looks like he about to be sick. His head -- and ours -- are spinning.

Meanwhile, Don is pushing a client to create a bank account for the new man. Statements sent to the office, nothing that the little wife has to know about. This is another bracing fact tht the show delivers -- what wife doesn't know the flow of every dollar in her house? What secretary would cover for a boss' afternoon affair? Who has time to sleep with someone outside the home?

Don's life is a contradiction, and it is the photo opposite of Tony Soprano. The gangster was a dangerous man who dealt with killers, drug dealers and whores. On the inside, he was a family man who loved his family even as they were driving him nuts. Here, Don Draper is all external perfection, a true leader, a creative type and a family man. Inside, he beds women, crushes his competition, drinks to escape problems and has a secret past that cannot see the day of light.

Mad Men is slowly becoming excellent television.

Escape to Bear Mountain

The humidity skedaddled after two days of rain and that meant one thing: get the kids out of the house and now! We hit Bear Mountain where, fourteen years ago, Regina and I had our wedding reception. The weather then was a lot like today, light blue skies, warm yet manageable temps and a slight hint of fall. Just perfect.

Romney and Guiliani's bad week

So Rudy Guiliani's daughter is an Obama supporter. Slate discovered her Obama button on her FaceBook page and wrote a squib that shot around the blogosphere. Too delicious to ignore. The blurb mysteriously disappeared but the story was out. I wonder who contacted the young lady and what was said? "Miss, just name the make and model of the car you would like at college in the fall. It's yours."

Rudy's bump smoothed out when Mitt Robot Romney told a crowd in Iowa that his sons are serving their country not in iraq but by helping him get elected president. Yes, driving in an AC-filled SUV now qualifies as military service in a Romney White House. If you share the same last name, of course.

Chris Matthews blew a gasket and let his mouth outpace his brain. "Why don't these necons, these chickenhawks, take their kids down to the recruitment ofices and sign them up for the army or marines?!"

Easy, Chris. It's the same reason you don't take your kids down to the mosque to volunteer them to be a suicide bomber. Parents don't control their kids that way. The US military is made up of volunteers and parents do not send their kids to war. The soldiers are legal adults -- granted they cannot drink in every state -- who volunteer to serve. Besides, the military brass doesn't want a draft or sldiers who were drafted by their parents. The jihadists, on the other hand, might want a gullible son of an MSNBC commentator for its next attack. Play some Hardball, Chris.

Mad Men of the Summer

I thought the show of the summer was going to be re-runs of The Office or 30 Rock, a pair of shows I discovered and started loving after Christmas. Instead, the show to watch is Mad Men, the tale of an ad exec in the late 50s. After four episodes -- some good, some stale -- it clearly has potential. It feels like they are laing the groundwork for some great stories down the road and it occasionally has that Sopranos vibe, where the Mad Men creator wrote and directed a few episodes. What is normal life like for a gangster or a highly successful and secretive mid-level executive? Both drink too much and sleep around and they must kep an eye on their crew for any ambitious back-stabbers. Of course, Don Draper can't whack any rivals and his family is always safe from retribution, but it doesn't mean that the stakes are not high.

The best thing about the show are the production values -- the women clean the dishes while they re dressed for cocktail party. who look like they ar ready for a cocktail party. Don stands out in his sharp suits while his co-horts are in sad black garb like anonymous company men. And I'm not the first one to mention the smoking or the afternoon ofice drinking -- it's the highpoint of the cocktail culture. Instead of mid-afternoon Starbucks, it's amber liquids and steely martinis.

The creator of the show has definitely read his John Cheever. Draper lives in the leafy suburb that the New Yorker short story writer moved to when he wrote his tales of love and lost romantics. This is out 10th summer in Ossining and I keep straining to see of any of the outdoor shots were indeed done here. The only movie or TV crew here was the Bill Murray yawner Broken Flowers a few years back. Hard going watching that flick but the opening scene of a house not far from here did highlight one point of Ossining: a millionaire can live quite close to a family that looks like it has a tough time paying the bills.

I wonder what's going to be revealed with Don and his past. He doesn't talk about the Army, his Purple Heart or his childhood. Even his wife -- an airhead who is destined for a mid-life of Valiums -- doesn't know anything about the man she married. We did have one clue though: a commuter said hello to Don and called him Whitcomb. Why the name change for Brooding Don. Can't wait to find out.

A man, his pig and his family

We hired a sitter and took Nora to see The Simpsons Movie and had a blast. I had heard that it was a strong film and Nora and I have been watching the trailer and teasers for a few months now. One ritual when I come home is to have Timmy say 'Daddy!', Matthew search my grocery bags for snacks and Nora tell me that the Simspons are on. When we're bored and she's feling tired, she asks to watch the DVD and she is obsessed with seeing the 'Who killed R Burns?' episodes. Great, now I have to buy Season Six. No sweat there.

The film was good, the colors were vibrant and the trailers were awful. I loved the freedom for the cruder humor to come out and I would kill for a Krusty the Clown movie. A jaded tale of old Hollywood. Yes!

So, two movies in the theaters this summer. The glorious Ratatouille and this one. We are still hoping to get away from the kids to see Knocked Up. Me, I want to sneak away and see Superbad.

Rat in the kitchen

Nra and I loved Ratatouille, Pixar's latest computer animated masterpeice. After the so-so Cars, which was gorgeous but oddly not that compelling, it was nice to have a story that matched the glorious animation. And a glory it is -- there are some scenes that look just like a photograph of Paris and I bet we were 10 minutes into the film when I forgot that we were watching a cartoon. It was a tad long, however. Some fathers were taking their kids out because the ending was going to be as subtle as some of the lighting, but still, Pixar serves a terrific treat.

Old boys of summer

Older women on the prowl are cougars so older guys sleeping with younger women would be, what, tomcats? Mountain lions? Bobcats?

Try losers. The NY Times has a terrific piece on older bachelors on the prowl in the Hamptons and the rules they set for themselves about dating and sleeping with the women with whom they share a house. Often times the ladies are in their mid-twenties and thirties and should know better but hey, it's a timeshare by the beach. The men in the article are so pathetic, so clueless that they don't even mention being happy or content. One great quote:

“I’m at the upper range of being able to pull this lifestyle off,” he conceded. He has a nagging sense of overstaying the party, he said. “You’re realizing you’re out there playing beer pong with people and every reference they make is to ‘Napoleon Dynamite.’ We’d be making ‘Caddyshack’ or ‘Animal House’ references.”

One Summer Jerk says he wants to sort this lifestyle out by the time he is 40. Good luck, pal, you better get started and soon. There may be pretty young girls looking to summer in the Hamptons each year, but a great house with a wonderful view won't mask that fact that you're old enough to be their father. Grow up, already. These ladies can smell a loser.

Rabbit Reads

Yup, I was in the same room as America's Man of Letters, my favorite writer, the man whose books make my shelves groan. I went to a reading at the Union Square Barnes & Noble with a decent crowd of around 120 people in tow. No signing so I brought one of his books for naught. Just a nice reading and a short Q&A afterwards. As this was a reading of his most reccent novel Terrorist, the questions were about 9/11. Being less than one mile from Ground Zero still weighs heavily in people's minds. It's easy to think that people who may hate the war on terror also dismiss the impact of the terror attacks from five years ago. Not so. It's still on people's minds.

The reading was pleasant. Updike read in his light, almost wheezy voice, and he was straining a bit to hear the questions from the audience. He still has an impish smile and he seems tickled at times that he has made a life of writing novels, short stories, reviews and poems. The B&N representative who introduced Updike mentioned a forthcoming novel in October and I believe she called it Due Consideration. I think I read that he called it a multiple-character book, much like the cast of dozens from the film Gosford Park. I wonder if it will be a small New Engand town teeming with affairs and troubled marriages. Can't wait.

I also finished Money by Martin Amis. A mad, howling and hysterical book. It's pure Brit Bellow, a crazy hero behaving poorly, showing no grace, will power, or reflection. Just pure, raw id. Imagine Herzog or Herderson the Rain King high on coke and whiskey in 1980s Manhattan. Absolutely terrific.

I am reading Very Good, Jeeves, my first venture into the land of Wodehouse. I am glad to discover Wodehouse later in life -- if I had picked up this book shortly after college, I doubt I would have relished it the way I am now.

On order from Amazon: Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis and Suite Francaise. Should be here in a few weeks.

The New Cellphone Class

While we drove back from Petsmart with Nora's birthday present -- a new hamster named Popcorn -- Regina told me about two memos that Nora brought home last week. First, an Ossining school bus driver was arrested for drug possession and fired from his job. The note assured us that he was not a dealer and the amount found was for his own personal use. Also, he had not applied any of the narcotics to the unruly passengers.

Second, the principal of Nora's school asked that parents refrain from providing cell phones to their children. If you need to contact your child, the memo read, you can simply contact the principal's office and they will contact your child. Apparently some cutting edge parents have been callling their kids during the school day for a little family chat.

Incredible. I can only imagine what a conversation would be like with my daughter, who likes an exchange that wanders.

Me: Hi, Nora. How's school going?

Nora: Fine.

Me: Are you having a good day?

Nora: Yes.

Me: What are you learning?

Nora: Nothing.

Me: Well what are you working on now?

Nora: I dunno. Social Studies?

Me: Well, does it have numbers or presidents?

Nora. Presidents. Hey, Dad. Can we see Nacho Libre again tnight? It's so funny!

(She pronounces this 'faw-nee.' My Long Island DNA is beating out over her Lower Hudson upbringing.)

Me: We'll see. So, you're having a good day then?

Nora: Well, actually, I ...

Me: Mmm-hmmm

Nora: I was crying during snack time because Clyde said I couldn't be her friend anymore.

Me: You were crying?

Nora. Yeah, I was. She said I couldn't look at her anymore.

Me: Couldn't look at you anymore?! Well, you tell Clyde she is a little bitch.

Nora (Hand over phone): My Dad says you're a little bitch.

Me: Nora, is she right there next to you?!

Nora: Yeah, we are making a Teddy Roosevelt Panama Canal poster. He is digging the canal with a teddy bear.

Me: Wait, so your friends now?

Nora: No, she says we can work together but I cannot look at her or sit next to her during lunch.

Me: Jesus. What kind of freaks name their daughter Clyde?

Nora (Hand over phone): My Dad wants to know what --

Me: Nora!

Nora: -- kind of freaks --

Me: NORA!

Nora: -- would name their daughter Clyde?

Me: You're mother will call at 1:15. Keep the ringer on.

Click.

An Arts and Leisure Update

It's been a busy month so blogging has been light. The weather finally turned sping-like after a stubborn late winter. My magazine is thisclose to putting its June issue to bed -- all 92 pages, which is huge for us. (I edited half of it -- all grid and high performance computing panel sessions!) The kids can smell their summer vacation and camp-vacation and frankly so can I. I even polished the cobwebs off my bike. It's time to tackle the spare tire -- the one hovering over my jeans.

So, what have I been reading, viewing and thinking? Let's take a look:

Children of Men: No more babies means plenty of chaos for England of the near future. The not so green and unpleasant land is tearing itself apart because the planet is infertile and human life has become truly cheap. I haven't read the novel but the dystopia film version is riveting. I usually avoid movies with a strong political agenda but the horror here feels real. The production designer includes stacked nude bodies and a hooded figure on a crate -- Abu Ghraib chic. It's thoroughly depressing but envigorating. And it has one of the best chase scenes ever -- James Cameron and Steven Speilberg couldn't have done better.

Definitely check out the 'bonus' feature -- a documentary against globalization that would make the editorials of The Nation read like The National Review. All I wanted was a featurette on the making of the film, not an interview with Naomi Klein. Ugh.

Little Children: I meant to sneak off to the movies to see the film version of the novel I rather liked but I never got around to it. The movie is a smart and faithful adaptation of Tom Perotta's book about two parents who have an affair after meeting on the playground. I love the story because it shows adults who seem to have found themselves in lives that are quite different from what they expected. How did I end up here, they seem to ask themselves. The suburban setting is at the height of summer with deep green grass, lush trees and air that holds the hint of a major cleansing thunderstorm. Kate Winslet is luminous as the outsider mother trying to connect with her lover, a failed law student and night-time athelete. The fact that he is maried to the gorgeous Jennifer Connelly makes his afair all the more poignent. He is tired of his perfect wife.

Then We Came To the End. It's so odd that the shelf of serious novels about Americans at work is so bare. Really, can you name any serious fiction where a person is shown working for an extended persiod? Maybe American Pastoral, where the hero shows a young woman through his glove factory and makes her a fresh pair of women's gloves. Updike's Rabbit selling Toyotas to a young girl who just might be is daughter? This debut novel covers a year of layoffs at a Chicago advertising firm where people bet who will be the next to get the ax, whose chair and stapler can be stolen, and the petty tricks and seething animosity workers share with one another. A novel about work -- why bother? Definitely check it out.

Live from Austin TX: A Guided By Voices concert disk -- and it's good. Considering how drunk singer Robert Pollard is at the beginning of the show and his steady trek to out and out soused-ness at the end, this is a very sober record. The musicians are at the top of their form especially guitarist Doug Gillard and drummer Kevin March. Adding to the sobriety is the CD design -- no cut out collage work from Pollard -- just a tsraght forward triptych of concert stills. Peter Frampton or Rush would be proud. Bonus points: If you can listen to Glad Girls without laughing, you're a better GBV fan than me.

A Season of Student Victims

It's been an amazing two weeks for campus life and the new definitions of victim-hood.

First, the Rutgers women's basketball team were called 'nappy-headed hos' by Don Imus, talk radio's fragile and unfunny dinosaur. He said something stupid -- actually agreed to a statement made by an on-air colleague -- and paid the price. The coach and the basketball team could have lashed back and said he was a racist old coot -- which he is -- but there was a mantle of victimhood to embrace. Instead of saying Imus's words were pathetic and did him more harm than to themselves, the coach and her team failed to display any of the strength and resiliance that got them to the finals.

Second, the Duke lacrosse team were declared innocent when the charges were dropped from their rape case last week. The happy faces of the accused were filled with relief from the false accusations, but their names are ruined. There are plenty of those who were so sure that the rich white athletes were guilty that I am sure they still believe the charges from the alleged victim, whose story has changed at least three times, are still true. Unlike the Rutgers team, the athletes declared their innocence and didn't play the race card when clearly many wanted to belive the story of a black victim at the hands of several white men.

And finally, a campus saw some true victims. A deranged shooter shot something more powerful than mean words or bogus accusations. Unlike the grinding, week-long Rutgers/Imus trainwreck, there was true physical pain and loss of life. We saw bravery and grace among people who fought back at the shooter or protected the students around them -- a lesson for us all. Mickey Kaus is right when he says that the Imus incident is diminished after the masacre at Virginia Tech. Of course, racially insensitive remarks shouldn't be tolerated and Imus' two-week suspension was just. But unlike the Duke accuser and the shooter in Blacksburgh, Imus apologized several times. Sadly, apologies are not enough in Victimville.

Abstinence classes -- failure or too early to tell?

It's not working and the abstinence critics will be happy to tell you all about it. In a new congressional report, students who took abstinence lasses were just as likely to engage in sex as those students who hadn't taken the course. And those who attended 25 percent of the classes had the same number of sex partners as those who did not attend.

I would hope even the critics of these classes would agree that this is depressing news. Not just the futility of the classes themselves but the stubbornness of today's teens. I went to high school during the days of raunchy teen comedies like Porky's and various slasher flicks when some girls throat was cut when she lost her virginity in a car, but being a teen today has to be head-spinning. Girls Gone Wild, lowcut jeans, rap videos, Internet smut, and celebrities who are more famous for falling out of their dresses than for the possession of any real talent all have a collateral effect. Trust me, I don't want to turn the calendar back to 1952 but my days in 1983 seem almost wholesome.

My daughter is eight and she has a classmates who have boyfriends. What that means in today's third grade, I have no clue but it doesn't bode well for the fifth grade.

Rain, rain, go away

Okay, I have had it. I want sun. I want mild temps. I want the smell of warming Earth. I saw some buds on a few shrubs yesterday but they have probably froze or drowned thanks to today's nor'easter.

Enough.

Garbage can blogging --- Advertisers welcome

We bought an $89 brushed steel garbage can for the kitchen. Yep, nearly ninety bucks for a place to store the dirty diapers, soda cans we are too lazy to recycle, and dead Chinese food. It's very cool -- the lid actually closes and we doubt that Rex will be able to open it for stray scraps. It looks so futuristic that you want to start looking for the USB port.

Now, we have to get a smaller model for Rex's dog food. I'm thinking a $60 unit for kibble. What have I become?

Mergers & Acquisitions -- a review exclusive

You know that you've read a terrific novel if you're searching for a new book to read and nothing excites except the memory of the last book you've just put down. I haven't felt this floaty since I closed The Emperor's Children but Mergers & Acquisitions is the main cause of my current book blues.

And it kills me that M&A is so well done, so smart and funny and with a strong voice -- and the guy who wrote it is barely 26. Ugh, that age! Hemingway and Updike were that old when they wrote their first books. I think it's the same for a bunch of other writers -- Salinger? Joyce? Fitzgerald? -- and this kid has talent. He has a sharp ear for dialogue and a keen eye for detail. I haven't devoured a book this fast in ages.

I loved the scene where the hero is an utter failure at his job but he keeps surviving by the seat of his chinos. His brother is making a small fortune reselling his ritalin and his father joins country clubs like I add on chins. Tommy Quinn is a smart guy who regrets that the only medical school that accepted him is in central America and this realization makes him enter high finance at JS Spencer. That firm is based on JPMorgan where the author, Dana Vachon, worked and barely suceeded. Thank God, he failed because we're all winners with the winning book.

Mergers & Acquisitions. Read it. Hate the author. Hate yourself for not being as talented. Read the book again. Repeat.

Oh, and I love the JS Spencer web site. 'You're going to need a bigger wallet.'

Gun, Apology and the Lash

While we can be grateful that the British sailors and marines were released safe and sound for the most part, one has to admit that Iranian President Amhadinejad is a master of propaganda and taking the lead in a potential crisis. Mickey Kaus is arguing -- counter to conventional wisdom, of course -- that the Iranians blinked when they released the 15 servicemen thanks to the USS Nimitz making its way to the Gulf. That would have meant three US aircraft carriers in the waters, including the supporting heavy cruisers and submarines carrying cruise missiles.

But what happens next? Surely this incident will repeat itself in the coming weeks and months. In fact, as the National Review recommends, the British Navy should continue patrolling Iraqi waters right away but with extra fire power. Next time, perhaps the Iranian Coast Guard won't be so eager to swoop in and kidnap sailors.

What is Dick Cheney thinking now? Imaging what he would have recommended if the detainees had been Americans brings a chill to the spine.

And the fact that we are guilty of torturing detainees ourselves gives us no opportunity to take the moral high ground when others torture our allies' servicemen. We had clearly and sadly forfeited the moral high ground.

Read this passage from the Times and ask if we have any right to be outraged:

"We had a blindfold and plastic cuffs, hands behind our backs, heads against the wall," Royal Marine Tindell said in an interview with the BBC. "Someone, I'm not sure who, someone said, I quote, 'Lads, lads, I think we're going to get executed.'

"After that comment someone was sick, and as far as I was concerned he had just had his throat cut..."

Re-entering the tube

I've become a Web zombie to the point that I stopped watching televsiion. But I've been won back. This time last year, I only watched The Sopranos, Entourage and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Still terrific shows even if The Sopranos is a shadow of itself. Maybe, they should have stopped after Nancy Marchand died.

But I've been pulled back into network television. I am loving NBC again. Thanks to NetFlix, I have been sucked into the US version of The Office. I am also catching back episodes of 30 Rock online. Sometimes the connection is slow and I have to wait for the Interweb to catch up, but it's ben fun. I cannot seem to make the time to watch the episodes as they air, but viewing them when I want is what TV is all about.

Has Alec Baldwin won an Emmy for 30 Rock? He def should.

In passing ...

We lost a neat woman the other day, just a special person. My wife's second cousin Marie O'Neill passed away at the age of 85. Her health had been failing lately and she passed on earlier this month. We couldn't attend the funeral service in Connecticut because of the bad weather. We will make time for a memorial service later on, however.

She was a great lady and I loved her laugh and her smile. She never married and I knew that she taught English in New Canaan, a leafy, well to do suburb in Connecticut. One of her students was Rick Moody, the short tory writer and novelist who wrote The Ice Storm. At the premiere of the movie, he was asked about his influences. Instead of saying the usual suspects like John Cheever or Updike, he mentioned his eighth grade English teacher and how she made an impact on him.

Here is Mari'e obituary. I knew she was a WAV in WWII but not that she was a Lieutenant Commander or that she had taught in Europe. I did know tht she loved to ride around the country to visit family and friends. She hated Republicans with a passion and once wanted to know what the hell a refrigerator magnet of Richard Nixon was doing on my fridge. (It was a gift from a friend -- a close-up of Dick at his sweatiest).

I loved how she once brought her Carolla into a Toyota dealership for an oil change and walked into the showroom. After talking to the salesman, she decided it was time to buy a new car. She had more miles to travel.


Here is her obit. We miss you, Marie.

Marie Helen O'Neill, age 85, passed away Friday, March 9, 2007, at the Villas of St. Therese, in Columbus , Oh. She was born in New Haven , Conn. on July 14, 1921. Marie received her B.A. Degree in English from Albertus Magnus College in 1942, and earned her M.A. Degree in Education from Columbia University in 1955.

She served in the U.S. Navy as a Lt. Commander in the Communications Office of the Eastern Sea Frontier during WWII, which included the mapping of ship movements in the Atlantic during the war. After retiring from active service, she began and enjoyed a long fulfilling career as an elementary school teacher in Europe, and New Canaan, Conn., where she helped to shape the lives of countless children.

Marie's many travels throughout the world helped to enrich her love of nature, and the protection of the environment, which led to long associations with the National Audubon Society, and other Preservation groups. Her other favorite hobbies included attending museums, musical concerts, and other cultural and social events of all kinds. As an avid reader, she was versed in a variety of subjects, and loved to discuss and debate the current issues across the Political landscape. She was also an active volunteer to causes that helped the less fortunate. Marie will always be remembered for her unique sense of humor, and her adventuresome spirit will be greatly missed by her immediate family, and all who knew her and loved her.

Marie was preceded in death by her parents John and Mary O'Neill of New Haven , Conn. , her brother John J. O'Neill, Jr. and her brother-in-law John S. Bird. Marie is survived by her sister, Eileen Bird of Ohio (John); sister-in-law, Jessie O'Neill of Washington , D.C. (John). Marie is also survived by nieces and nephews, Mary Diamond (Bruce), John O'Neill Jr. (Martha), John Bird Jr., David Bird (Jeanette), Barbara Douglas (Brad), Kathy Cox (Michael) and Stephen O'Neill (Karen). She is also survived by great-nieces and nephews, Martha, Jessie and John Diamond, Carleigh, Madeline and John Douglas, Jack and Sam O'Neill, Benjamin O'Neill, Morgan Vickers, David Bird, Michael, Katie, Rachel, Matthew and Sean Cox and Anna Bird. Funeral from SISK BROTHERS FUNERAL HOME, 3105 Whitney Ave., Hamden, Conn., Saturday at 9 a.m. Mass of Christian Burial at 9:30 a.m. in St. Aedan Church, Fountain St., New Haven. Burial will follow in St. Lawrence Cemetery. Visitation will be Saturday from 8:15-9 a.m.
In lieu of flowers, contributions to the National Audubon Society or the Villas at St. Therese, 25 Noe-Bixby Dr., Columbus, Oh. 43213.

The Shame of London vs New York

Talk about your coincidences. Next month's cover story of Waters is about the chance that New York might be losing its financial crown to London. I pitched the story to my reporter Emily and I liked the neat irony that she is a Brit and will be looking at the local/global story as a US reporter.

Then last week New York magazine has a cover story theme issue that just reeks of a huge staff tackling a juicy subject. The same subject you can all read in my magazine next week. It was an entire issue dedicated to NYC and London. Who is the leader in the arts, entertainment, dining, living and global finance? It was very well done and you should def check it out. The magazine was a tad defensive -- hell, it is New York magazine afterall, but they did capture the notion that London is very much on the rise. It is the global city to watch.

I have some mixed thoughts on London. I love the history of the city and it's very neat to see the old architecture and the street names that bring back some novels I haven't read since college. It certainly has a pulse and there is a ton of money floating around there. The people are generally nice and seemed not interested in blaming me for the American-made woes in the world. But then again, they have no problem describing how much they detest President Bush. Not disagree with his policies but truly loathe the man. Oh, and Israel isn't popular either.

But what is it about London that I don't like? It's simple: it has a thuggish air about it. I feel like I could get jumped by a group of drunken teenage girls. I feel like a soccer hooligan can throw a drink in my face and steal my cell phone. The drinking is outrageous over there and I attended a SUNY school not far from the Canadian border.

A friend has relocated to London with her banker husband and two sons. She is adjusting well but she is having trouble matching the prim accents and smart clothes with the loutish behavior. She has seen drunks screaming at one another in broad daylight, mothers behaving badly with their children and her mind reels at the conversations around security systems and the rash of break-ins. I can relate - on my last trip to London someone was apparently stabbed outside the hotel where I was staying. When I checked out, a maid was furiously scrubbing the sidewalk.

So, what is causing this bad behavior? The excessive drinking is a cue and key ingrediant, to be sure. But maybe it's because the UK doesn't have a shaming culture the way the US does. If you misbehave here, scolds on the right and the left will gladly tell you where you screwed up and how you are a bad person. Having sex outside of marriage? The Christian Conservatives will tell you all about hell and loose morals. Have uncharitable thoughts about gays or minorities? The PC patrol on the left will tell you you are intolerant and need to change your thinking.

I don't think this exists in the UK. Do they have evangelicals, pentecostals and fundamentalists keeping one and all in God's line? Do they have liberal academics and columnists telling us that some thoughts are racist, sexist and homophobic and will not be tolerated? I don't think that exists in England.

Add in a lack of church attendence, and it's a wonder any laws are followed.

In through the window

What a week. Last Saturday, there was 10 inches of ice-covered snow outside with two foot drifts at the front and back doors. I couldn't let the dog out to do his business. I also couldn't get out to start the shovelling. Wunnerful. So, being the Man of Action that everyone secretly knows me to be, I donned my shovelling gear and opened the window of the TV room. I handed my wife the shovel, parted the curtains and slipped out into the white frontier. And then sank up to my knees in snow.

Yup, I had to exit through the window.

Fast forward: The neighbors joined us to help clear the driveway we all share. Once we realized that the driveway was more icy snow than powder, I suggested that one of the teens hail any truck with a plow. After one stopped and agreed to clear our driveway, I ran to the house for cash. We hadn't gone to an ATM in ages but we scrounged togther 38 bucks. The guy in the truck asked for only $10 or $15 so I gave him the top amount and asked for his phone number. His wife/girlfriend was happy to oblige. You could tell that the mild winter had taken a hit on their personal economy and they were grateful for this late snowfall. I was happy not to break my back chipping the hard stuff and hauling it over the fence.

I saw The Departed, the film that won Martin Scorsese his Oscar for Goodfellas and Taxi Driver. Not a great film but a terrific cat and mouse flick. I had a ball and I actually liked watching two actors I have never thought much about -- Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon. I'd like to rent this again from NetFlix just to count how many people get shot in the head. I think it's at least six or eight but it might be more.

I am reading A Coffin For Dimitrios, a thriller by Eric Ambler, the master of this genre. (Man, how I hate that word). You can see why Alan Furst adores his writing and uses him as a guide every single time he writes a WWII thriller of his own. Definitely check it out.

Some picture blogging -- on a mild Daylight Sunday

A boy and his orange paint.


The hands tell the tale.


Some flowers outsidde in the backyard.


Two angels and a green pillow.


An angel outdoors.

Thomas The Bitch Engine

The boys are watching Toy Story 2 and basking in the Buzz Lightyear introductory scene. It's a welcome relief from the Thomas the Tank Engine DVDs they have been devouring for more than a year. An actual story -- where things happen. Characters are revealed and developed. The surfaces have actual textures. In the endless Thomas videos, the different trains and engines moan and bitch at one another in their simpering British accents.

It's the video equivalent of working in an office of women.

Oh, dear. Was that my outside voice?

Chief comments

A few days ago I posted that when I saw the F-105 Thunderchief at the New England Air Museum, I was amazed that the thing was so huge. I still am -- it's ginormous for a fighter. I saw an F-14 Tomcat inside the same wing of the museum and I would have been certain that the Tomcat would be larger than the Thunderchief. I also remarked that the USAF probably couldn't wait to get rid of this pig. I remember one documentary that said the Thunderchief needed plenty of maintenance after each flight. I got the impression that the F-4 Phantom was therefore more reliable as a fighter bomber. Besides, the Navy and Marine Corp clearly didn't see it as a viable option or they would have asked for versions of their own, much like the Phantom and one of my fave jets, the A-7 Corsair.

I received an email from USAF pilot who flew several missions in the 'chief. He was insulted that I quoted my son by saying 'oink oink' about the jet he flew and clearly loved. No offense meant, sir. It is a damned impressive jet and I remain baffled that it was really that huge.

It does look like it would be fun to fly one, though. That's for sure.

Books n flicks

My first week as just Special Projects Editor is over and so far, so good. It is an almost out of body experience to watch someone else do my job of the past three and a half years. Wow, it really is a full-time job, I said as I did the second job I have been doing at the time, namely the special projects.

We had a wicked downpour on Thursday night/Friday morning and regina and I woke to find a small flood in the basement. Let's just say we had some puddles and a small hole with water streaming out. Not a trickle -- actual force and volume, like you turned on the faucet half-way. We bailed and laid out towels and fired up the wet-dry vac. The filter was so old it couldn't handle the force of the water being sucked in so we went to a pair of Home Depots for a new filter. Once afixed, the sucking commenced.

Watched more of the second Season of The Office (US). It's very well done and is getting more wonderful with each episode. They soften Pam's bofriend from a thuggish lout to sweet if thoughtless loser. Dwight Shrute is a wonder and the actor Rainn Wilson was born tomplay this overbearing psycho who will ruin everyone's life once he is promoted to any position of power.

I am reading Low Life, a survey of old New York from the 1840s until the 1930s. NYC was, in short, a magnicently dirty and dangerous place to live. This isn't your father's Henry James novel. In fact, I bought this book of of Amazon with Edith Wharton's House of Mirth. Not a gilded age in the pages of Low Life.

The other morning, I cashed in some pounds at Grand Central and I laid the book on the counter. The guy behind the counter looked at the cover and said, "Low Life, eh? Is it about George Bush?"

Everyone's a critic.

Welcome to Stringfield

After owning the minivan for less than a week, Regina and I packed the kids up and headed north to Springfield, Mass., the home of Regina's youngest nephew. He attends the New England College of Beer where he studies enginering and it was time to visit the lad and his girlfriend, the eternally-patient Theresa. We had a ball. We stayed at a Residence Inn which came with two bedrooms, a full kitchen and a pool down at the lobby. Matthew was in his glory.

We didn't do much, but play tourists. Springfield is a friendly if faded town with four nice, small museums, some shopping centers and it's the home of the Smith & Wesson shooting range. After a day at the museums -- where we saw some mangy stuffed animals and some sketches of Dr Seuss -- John, Ryan and I went to the S&W shooting range. There you can fire any weapon that the gun company manufactures. I was looking forward to shoting a 9mm, a .38 snub-nose hammerless pistol and a 1911 .45 remake. But it wasn't meant to be -- the range was hosting the final days of a shoot off and we couldn't shoot until 6PM that night.

But here is the best part: The shoot off was at the final moments so the target was pretty special. It was a piece of string suspended from the ceiling at about 20 yards. A piece of string.

Later, we went to the New England Air Museum. I was expecting a few old WWII planes and a jeep but we were surprised by a bevy of Vietnam era fighter jets, a WWII B-29 bomber, a retired F-14 Tomcat, a few huge helicopters and one old civilian airliner that looks like a Rolls Royce with wings. I was floored by the F-105 Thunderchief, which flew over the fields of Vietnam and I had always assumed that it was the size of, say, an F-16 Falcon or an F-4 Phantom. Nuh-uh. The Thunderchief is HUGE, about the size of a commuter jet that flies from New York to Boston. It was incredible to think that this was seen as a viable and nimble fighter-bomber. No wonder the Air Force couldn't wait to get rid of this pig. In the words of Tim -- oink oink.

Meet The Scarlet Avenger

This is the last day of our seven year-old beloved blue bomber. We rode our Toyota Sienna to Virginia Beach, Washington DC, North Carolina, South Carolina, Connecticut, Masachusetts, Cornell University and the Palisades Mall more times than we can count. It was clearly time for a new AlbinusMobile.



Behold ... The Scarlet Avenger. It's a new Toyota Sienna with plenty of neat features and it doesn't break the bank. It has such a strong new car smell that we thought something was burning when we turned on the heat. It handles great and is even quieter than the old minivan. Nora loves the car and Matthew, who isn't exactly Mr. New Experiences, settled right in. Tim was pleased, too.

This is a cruddy picture but we took it after sundown while the kids were snow-tubing in the back yard. The ice coveed snow is perfect for the snowtubes Santa gave the kids at Christmas. Even if Dad punctured one while driving over some sticks and twigs. Cowabunga!

Bandbox -- Reports from the 1920s magazine wars

I loved Thomas Mallon's Bandbox, his comic novel about rival magazines trying t define culture and high living during the Roaring Twenties. Mallon does the impossible: he makes a distant age immediate and recognizable while using ancent pop culture that I learned from old Bugs Bunny cartoons. He also spins his yarn with a cast of dozens or rather dozen. Most novels ahev five speaking characters or so -- Bandbox has at least 12 fleshed characters and supporting players. It was a tad tough following them but after a while it was easier going.

Bandbox is the name of the leading if strugling men's high style magazine that is underseige by rival Cutaway. The editor of Bandbox, Joe Harris has a typical magazine editor's plight: tight deadlines, a crazy, disgruntled staff, and owners fighting for more ads. He has to keep the magazine pure and yet pliant enough to make money in an age when money seems to be raining from heaven. Throw in gangsters, spies from rival mags, a botched fiction contest, and a reader kidnapping -- and you have a great tale.

With the great suits, the romance that shows our grandparents weren't the Puritans we thought they were, and the wonderful settings -- it's a shame Robert Altman couldn't have taken a stab at theis book. He can handle large casts and snappy dialogue. Just check out his respected if still under-rated Gosford Park.

With Altman dead, the movie version of Bandbox can only fall to one man. Altman's protege and filmmaker in his own right: Alan Rudolf. He did great work on The Secret Lives of Dentists and Trouble in Mind, he can definitely do this. What is he up to these days? Must check imdb.

Definitely check out Bandbox.

Surging ahead, via the NYTimes?

The NY Times reports that Iraqi President Maliki told President Bush that the initial push in Baghdad has been a success. Granted, Maliki may not be the most truthful player in the area, but it's hard to see if under-playing the truth would help him in his country. In fact, he was against the surge and a failure would help him hasten the exit of American troops. How, I am not so sure. Does he want chaos?

The Times reports:

The two spoke via video link and, according the statement, Mr. Maliki said, “The security plan has been a dazzling success during its first days.”

Across Baghdad, there were signs of the heightened troop presence, as cars were searched at new checkpoints and raids resulted in the arrest of at least 35 people, according to Iraqi officials.

I had my doubts about the surge because 21,500 additional troops didn't sound like very much in a region that may need an extra 100,000 troops. Where they would come from, I have no clue.

The Democrats in the House of Representatives have voted against the surge with 17 Republicans voting with them against the surge. Yet, many of the anti-surgers inside and outside of Congress want the US to restore order in wartorn Darfur. Perhaps the poor people there are more deserving of US intervention because they don't suffer while sitting atop a ton of oil. More purity there.

Of course, stopping the strife is important in Darfur, but restoring some semblance of order in Iraq is a greater priority for the region, The US and the rest of the World. Perhaps France and germany can send troops to wartorn Darfur. Oh, right...

Conservatives of different stripes

It's the calendar, people. I haven't read Dinesh D'Souza's The Enemy at Home, the conservative's argument that the American Left was partly responsible for the attacks on 9/11 and the general animosity from radical Muslims across the globe. I have the reviews, though -- mostly negative and many of them from the Right. Even a few National Review columnists have come out and said that this book is a bit much. Good for them.

One thought does come up when you read the first fiery chapter on the author's web site. He claims that although he would rather go to a baseball game with Michael Moore than a radical Muslim cleric, he probably has more in common with the radical imam. What bunk. The radical Muslim wing that attacked us five years ago and that we drove out of Afghanistan and loathes us on the web today are not cultural conservatives like D'Souza. They may both hate bikinis, Britney Spears and MTV, but there is a big diffeences. Cultural conservatives like D'Souza want to turn the calendar back to 1950. Bin Laden and his crew want the calendar back to 950.

One must admit that a thousand years will make a difference in the way the two groups interact.

This almost echoes a thought I had in the days after 9/11 when American Talib John Walker Lindh was captured at al Al Queda training camp. Most conservative pundits claimed that Lindh was a product of his Marin County upbringing. Actually, he was resonding to his parents' divorce and the fact that his father reportedly left his wife for another man. The poor sap -- a confused teenager who drifted from hip hop to radical Islam -- clearly wanted a 1950s America where mother and father build a home to raise a family. Unfortunately, with that dream shattered, Lindh turned to a radicalism that offered destructive absolutes.

And those came from an even more fare away time than the time of Father Knows Best.

The Week In Review - Sex and Death Edition

Let's see: a case of food poisoning, one day home with the kids because of school district meetings, a farewell drink for a co-worker, my daughter's first concert, my autistic son locks himself in the bathroom, I push up the window while on a ladder and help my daughter throught the window, freezing cold temps, gliding my way through a wonderfully funny novel that I don't want to end, added a string to my acoustic guitar after a few months of putting it off, watched a few episodes of The Office (US) and it'snot even Saturday night.

This week's news: Anna Nicle Smith collapsed and died in a Hard Rock Hotel in Florida. I guess we'd be lying if we said this came as a surprise, and I almost admire that the choice of hotel showed her glittery leanings. It was fascinating to watch the news try to cover the story and to make this a serious story. You could almost hear the relief in the producer's heads as they cut to footage of her body being brought to the hospital and interviewed her close friends. Finally-- some ratings, the newsies were telling themselves. Iraq is over as a compelling story even as the war and the deathtoll grinds on. The coverage of the presidential race is premature and sadly uninspiring except for Barak Obama. Do Rudy and Hillary think America wants them as president?

But The death of ANS has sex, drugs, fame, death, some mystery and just sheer car-wreck horror. The NY Post slammed Rosie O'Donell for making comments about ANS and her drugged curent state on the morning that she died. The Post slammed her for her bad timing. I would say ROD is pitch perfect. She is now the crazy truth telling aunt America needs. I am no fan but between her and Donald Trump, I'll take the no-hit lesbian anyday. Her mission is to speak her mind and for all of her dust-ups, I thought she made some sense.

Quite a week.

More chins than a -- do I have to finish this sentence

Behold the ravages of time!

Taken by Amy Fletcher...

A whole new you

Look, a new Blogger design. Still can't decide if I like it. The font is a bit blotchy for my taste. Maybe it will grow on me.

Gotta find a pic I like that doesn't give me three chins. (Like that's going to happen!)

The day before that day

Last night while eating chicken quesedillas and enjoying a margarita, I took control of the remote and freed the TV from another round of cartoons. I landed on the Sundance Channel (I think) and found a documentary on They Might Be Giants, the eccentric pop duo who came to the scene in the mid-80s.

It was pretty charming, and for a bunch of guys who were on the cutting edge of college radio, they seemed smart without being pretenisous. Even their wordy, opaque lyrics and stacatto rhythms seemed friendly and warm and even inviting although their songs usually came at you at a breakneck speed. I haven't heard Anna Ng or Birdcage In Your Heart in two decades and they still sound fresh.

In the doc, they came across as really normal guys, granted that they record phone greetings for extra dough. One John, the accordian player, is a quiet and thoughtful father of an adorable little boy while the other John, the guitar player, seems to be the kind of boss everyone would want to work for.

One thing stuck out during the documentary. The band was about to launch a new album and some scenes showed their appearances they taped for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Late Night with Conan O'Brien. The date was September 10, 2001. Jesus, it was so odd to see that time on a five year-old tape. It was September but people were still in a summer frame of mind: the weather was mild and th people in all of the clips just seemed lighter. They appeared to be floating with not a care in the world. Silly pop songs seemed like the perfect thing to record, listen to and promote. You get no sense that a horrific act was about to happen 15 hours later that would change the world. (Yes, I am one of those people who have a 9/10 and 9/12 mindset).

It reminds me of that day, the days before the attacks. I remember the MTV Music Video awards, which seemed over the top and pointless. I remember Jack Black promoting the new Tenacious D record -- it might have been their first and it felt like they were going to just explode. Bob Dylan had just released Time Out of Mind, or was it his follow-up, Love and Theft? I am too tired to check.

We were obsessed with Britney (was she growing up too fast), Jennifer Lopez (will Hollywood destroy her music career), Gary Condit (did he kill that poor intern?), and Bush's stem cell speech from his beloved -- and isolating -- ranch in Crawford, Texas. It seems so long ago, when the day finally arrived and the skies were clear but they would soon be overcast for a very long time.

Old Man, look at my life

I turned 42 last week. It's not a momentous age but one of those subtle signposts on the way to 50. Sweet Jesus, fifty! For some reason I think 45 might be one of those birthdays you notice and do a mild double-take. Halfway to 90. I don't think anyone in my family has made it to that age and I guess I'll have to wait to find out.

Waters hired a new editor. I came up wih the idea for the new role I am taking, special prpjects editor, but I was a bit sad at the news. I am no longer the editor of a magazine I love and I am glad that the company has finally realized that they need to add to the staff in order to grow the damned magazine. It's been a true burnout year and I have some decisions to make. The economy is good and there are jobs out there. Also, have I written every financial IT story I ever want to write? Do I even care about this topic?

It's time to get cracking. Must write a novel and get it published. Must start exercising. Get creative with MacBok and parts of my brain that are killed by my job. More fresh air. More time with kids. Less scotch.

Do I have the guts for this change? That, my friend, is the question of the day.

A Big Tim Week

The two year-old is now speaking more than the six year-old. Timmy is chatting away these days and is actually conversing. And it all happened this week, it seems. Tim walks around the house, picks up boks and toys and asks, "What is this?" Yesterday he said "Give me cracker." Nice.

Matthew is making nice progress and we see more and more from him each week. Matthew will still do anything not to speak one word so that he may get what he wants. Getting him to say "cookie, please" and "I want snack/milk/movie" is an uphill battle with a stubborn boy who has figured out his world and where he fits inside it. He is still a wonder to watch. The autistic mind is something to behold. Matthew gets things and yet in other ways it's almost as if he is refusing to engage with the world. It's not a mean-spirited refusal -- his brain simply works a touch differently than yours and mine.

Nora is having a good year and is coming into her own. She is doing nicely with her math and her script is better than her plain block letters. Unlike last year, she has a good teacher and we are seing results for the chattiest and sweetest thing in our lives. Go, Nora!