Fugu
This caught my eye: "When is a Cocktail Worth $1,000?" For some
reason, that reminds me of the time in Tokyo when a friend took me to a special
bar that served sake with puffer fish (fugu) scales floating in it. They
brought out the bottle with a flourish and rounded up some special glasses.
I had had enough biology to know that eating puffer fish was a dicey
proposition, and that sushi chefs had to be certified to serve it. Mainly
because it can kill you with neurotoxins in a couple of minutes if something
goes wrong. The glasses got poured and down the hatch it went. My
lips didn't actually get actually numb for at least a couple of minutes. I
remarked on the phenomena and Furusho-san looked at me like "duh". Pretty
expensive drink, as I remember, but everything was expensive in Tokyo. A
good Kobe beef steak was $90 and this was 1984.
~~~
I hopped over to Julian Sanchez's blog
on a link from Andrew Sullivan. Pretty interesting guy, but why do I keep
running into Libertarians? I always thought the Cato Institute and
everybody at Reason were only slightly less
crazy than the nutcase at, say, RedState.
I'm probably getting link-cycled because I grow tired of listening to the same
old liberal whining and I'm hopping off from the thoughtful moderates (like
Andrew Sullivan) to their quasi-conservative sources. While these guys
often make a lot of sense, their commenters range from sentient articulators to
downright knuckle-draggers. Anyway.
McArdle and Sanchez have some
interesting ideas, and I'm so inextricably connected to the "free market" (being
an entrepreneur and all) that I like listening to their ideas. Not that I
tend to agree with them much, but that's another matter. For example,
Julian had a blog
post
about trying to walk a mile in another ideologue's shoes, which I thought was an
interesting take on fairness, enlightenment, and game theory. The only
problem with Julian (my opinion, of course) is that his education has run to
philosophy and poli-sci, and whereas I think Wittgenstein is hopelessly
over-rated, he gets invoked in every 10 posts. But, I digress.
The biggest problem that I have with the Megans and Julians of this world (other
than the fact that they are both young and very attractive, and you have to
wonder how that factors into things) is that, for all their high-minded,
even-handed discourse, they contribute a patina of respectability to a) the
truly evil organizations and individuals who fund the right-wing noise machine,
and b) the legions of right-wingers who can use their few rational voices to
legitimize their outrageous notions (guns, gays, God, . . .). If you think
I'm overstating the problem, read the comments on any of their blog posts.
It's like throwing artificial pearls before real swine.
~~~
Seth was kind enough to send me a signed copy of his first book,
The Suburban Ecstasies. What I find amazing, more so than the
excellent poetry within, is that I've read a large number of these poems in some
of the nations finest journals (Antioch Review, Colorado Review,
Gettysburg Review, Denver Quarterly, Pleiades, . . . ), as
individual pieces and they have been weaved artfully into a Poetry Book With A
Narrative Arc. In fact, one reviewer said he read the book at one sitting
and likened it to a book-length poem with sections. Here's a
very small sample from "Gideon At An End":
For instance, what Gray's has to say
about your anatomy. . .
and the selfless acrobatics of sex
‒
how afterwards
everything is mere negotiation,
an exit strategy lapsing to speech: someone
will refuse to move a hand from somewhere
to somewhere else,
someone will announce the changing times.
If you want a copy, gratis, drop me an
email and I'll mail one to
you (well, Amazon will, but I am an Amazon Premium guy and won't have to pay for
shipping).
~~~
I can't remember if I commented on the latest APR (yes, senility is a
terrible thing), but I liked Tony Hoagland's article on The Dean Young Effect
and the interview with the almost always hilarious Kay Ryan. Hoagland
cites poems from many of Young's imitators, but none has the wild-eyed élan of a
true DY poem. Ryan intrigues me because she is one of the poets that I
admire greatly as a person, but can never get that excited about her poetry.
Mainly, the rest of the poetry sucks in a way that only the elevator music
nature of APR poetry can achieve. I always want to post some of the most
completely horrific poetry therein, but then I think "these are probably really
nice young people with $80K in student loans and can barely find a job with
their newly-minted MFA, so why add to their problems?" There's no excuse
for the oldsters, of course, like Gary Snyder's mini-riffs, but every industry
has its heroes. Try dissing Jack Welch among a bunch of businessmen, for
example.
~~~
As much as I have kvetched about the medical community over the years (apologies
to CDY and Peter), the persistence of 19th century technology, the lack of true
access, the inexplicable difference between an experience at the average
doctor's office and almost anything, including trying to explain a flight
reservation problem to a resident of Bangalore, I have good news. A couple
of month's ago, I switch from the despicable Blue Cross/Blue Shield coverage I
had (and I use the term loosely), to Kaiser Permanente. My first
appointment was with a 30-something physician who seemed to have answers to
questions that I had not yet fully articulated. Their pharmacy seemed
efficient and well-organized, well, kind of like Walmart on a good day. A
couple of days ago, I started having this really annoying pinched nerve that
starts in the muscle of my left shoulder blade and radiates into tingles in my
left hand. Just peachy for someone who sits in front of a computer 60-80
hours a week, but then, that's probably part of the problem. I logged into
kp.org and there was a link that said "Make An Appointment". Amazing.
Next up was a Travelocity-like menu of times and docs, and I picked one.
30 seconds later I received an email confirming the appointment for the next
day at 9 AM. There was also a page for emailing the doc to state in
under 1000 characters, anything you wanted, so I outlined the problem which
gives him a chance to think about it and not waste time with chit-chat in the
examining room. I'm pretty much gobsmacked. This is what everybody
in the country should have, assuming their problems aren't really serious (a
situation I haven't encountered yet, and yes, you can pray for me all you want).
~~~
Paris: Junie got us a taxi reservation between JFK and Newark on the
departing leg, check. Junie will make sure that we have adjoining seats,
hopefully in an exit row at a cost of $25 or so, acquired online the day before
the flight, check. Junie is checking out the pros and cons of buying Metro
passes and such in advance or waiting until we get there, check. Junie is
researching the various shops, restaurants and grocery stores in our apartment's
neighborhood, check. Junie is making a list of things we really need to
pack, clothing we need, things we can do without, check. Watching her do
all of this is really exhausting.