POS

joel says it at least forty times a day. piece of shit. an initialism because the object of contempt isn't even worth a whole phrase. babel=POS. we were counting on it being a benetton version of crash. we were counting on it being slick, trite, contrived. we were nevertheless not counting on it to suck as bad as it did. a self-congratulatory uniworld wank. toothless. why? because it patly ties the world together, false unity betraying, in both form and content, this one unassailable truth: "poor nations are hungry, and rich nations are proud; and pride and hunger will ever be at variance."

i know that an academy nod is nearly a guarantee of mawkishness, but what i can't understand is this: aren't critics ashamed to be taken in by such rampant sentimentality? are they stupid or cynical? are they so eager to have their guilt assuaged that they're actually willing to believe that someone with a 1500 square foot apartment in tokyo* is fundamentally the same as a goatherd in morocco**? that the grupsters and the nanny illegals they employ are, at the end of the day, in the same boat? or, are critics, as the culture industry's functionary usherettes, in on the scam? praising only the most insipid artifacts as worthy of consumption in order to dope the populace? confederacy or conspiracy of dunces?

i can't tell anymore.

more swift: "i never wonder to see men wicked, but i often wonder to see them not ashamed. "

* real estate averages $50,000 per square foot.
** by world bank's 2001 figures, the average rural worker in morocco earns 57 cents a day.

the millionaires' club

net worth of various senators listed here. further proof that campaign finance reform is needed now: those best able to afford a campaign are probably the least likely to be able to represent us for the same reason. what do i have in common with someone who is worth $171,000,000? nothing. a million is a serious buffer against reality. 171 million even more so, and not just 171 times the buffer. i figure that every million after the first affords an exponential measure of distance, although you'd ever think so talking to the rich, not as if i'll ever know. that's the thing, isn't it? where all the trouble comes from. one can sympathize with the plight of another, talk about it, but there's no knowing the plight of another unless one's been in it himself. this is pure conjecture here --actually, it isn't; i married into a family with money once, so i know how wide the gap between an actual problem and a perceived one can be for the rich -- but i'm hardpressed to think of anything other than death that money can't help buy a way out of. scandal. imprisonment. even illness is much easier with money. everything is easier with money. which begs the question, what frame of reference can a millionaire use when confronted with a constituent who says she cannot afford groceries? what can that possibly mean?

i have a little cousin in portugal. she was four when last i saw her. she heard me speaking english and wanted to know what language it was. "inglês," angelo said. this was a wholly unsatisfying reply to her. she walked away annoyed, waving us english speakers off with a flutter of her hand that fell very promptly to her hip. "might as well be chinese to me," she said, in portuguese.

our senators might as well be speaking chinese. seems like a hell of a gamble to me. so why is this acceptable to anyone?

it's the same logic that got lucky louie got cancelled and that makes people take a pressing interest in britney spears: people don't like reality, not really. they don't want to see it represented. people like the meltdowns and spectacle of reality shows, but that's doctored reality, and nobody likes reality straight. it is ugly, unflattering. i remember doing a project in AP american history juxtaposing busby berkeley stills with pictures by dorothea lange. they were contemporaries, after all. busby berkely won. why? reality is depressing. so why on earth would we want it in our politics?

the naming of parts

i rather doubt that there's a significant difference between men and women, but if there is one, it is this: men are not ashamed to discourse freely on subjects they know nothing about; women are. men speak grandly about nothing, perfectly careless as to whether they're right or wrong, and women confine themselves to the feeblest nothings about which they seem to care a great deal, namely feelings, which can never be either right or wrong, and the result is the same in both cases: idle chatter.

i was mean

i presented him with a false choice, knowing it was a false choice, which he knew, too, and he called me on it, and i made him pay for it. which is just rotten. i should never have pretended i was magnanimous in the first place. better to have been the sort of rotten where i freely admitted i didn't give a fuck what he thought, since i didn't, than be the sort of rotten i was.

i'm sorry.

my affection for colour, explained

the book of notecards i bought on mommy's dime that i'm all in a dither about.

the view from my writing room window.

Il ragazzo è sotto il tavolo.

we are going to sardinia. we are going into debt to do it. that's what credit cards are for.

the beautiful breakfast lady.

our house for the week.

our bed for the week.

our beach for the week.

i'm so excited about the food. i'm already slavering for mutton stew and bread soup and sebadas, cheese filled pastries soused with honey and speckled with slivered almond. i'm going to be in a bikini and i'm going to get wretchedly fat and i don't care. i'm thrilled about it.