my problem with the internet

I think Alain de Botton has made me see it. you're longing to noticed
and read in all you write. the problem is your writing has no
privacy; therefore you censor yourself with the imagined impressions
of others. nothing can be more damaging to maintaining the live vivid
connection. your darkest ugliest thoughts, your most giddy exuberant
observations of beauty--all get shorn off in this process. I think
it's a kind of strangulation of art and insight. There has to be a
way to write, easily and from anywhere, that will collect and protect
the work while not simultaneously purveying it to the world. God but
this observations rings true, as does his insights into Proust's
attitude toward friendships, toward speaking of onesself to others, to
revising one's thoughts--the compression of time and revision in the
creation of the author's voice, to the fidelity toward books, writing,
expression. how proust can change your life indeed; how this book can.

good vibe people

some people make it their m.o. to work at making others feel good. it's just what they do. they tend to have a lot of friends.

You Complete Me

I always thought this was an original phrase when I saw Jerry Maguire
when it came out years ago, but actually, no, it's from Joni
Mitchell's "Court & Spark"... still a good movie, but kind of insipid
around the edges in retrospect like a lot of Cameron Crowe. Kind of
like somethign sweet you gobble up and regret. Vanilla Sky was the
same way. In Jerry M I always think about how the jazz enthusiast is
labelled as a nerd in the movie, presumably because he doesn't
understand rock n roll. funny, because jazz has indisputably more of
a claim to authenticity than pop rock--it betrays a chip on the
shoulder of rock (or this filmmaker) a weird insecurity. maybe that
character was in his groupie film, can't remember.

Leonard Lopate and NAC Screening

After recording VO at Quentin's with Mora McClean from AAI and a woman
named Celia from Mozambique (the voice), got to hear all of Rebecca's
Lopate appearance on podcast. Smashing success. She really did well,
even though Lopate himself wasn't really on the ball. Then we came
back and headed out to the screening at the National Arts Club--a real
NY couple. Screening was very satisfying. First time I'd seen the
film in many a moon, and thought it moved well. Also today we heard,
gulp, that One Mile Road may be back on the market. Need to find out
more tomorrow from Alison. It seems that just as things are
normalizing, big upheavals like this occur. We'll see! Irena
babysat the kids, a first for us to ever have a babysitter, if you can
believe it, in 8 years! Of course the kids loved it and Irena loved
them. & She was surprised to be paid!

Weybridge

losing that property still gives me the worst pangs... I feel as
though we raised the bar so high nothing will satisfy that doesn't
beat its charm and possibilities.

At the Carrousel

Took the kids to the Coop this morning to shop. Got there 8am, really
too late to enjoy the early morning calm. Sevi likes going these days
because she brings along her wallet and wants to get snacks. She
ended up with Pirate's Booty. We took the new used pink stroller,
which she feels awkward on, and Hart raced ahead kicking methodically
on his little scooter. Still only 85% convinced he'll stop at a
street corner. After the Coop and returning home, went to work,
picked up Hart from Rebecca at John Jay after swim class, brought him
back, fed him a croissant sandwich with turkey avocado and mayo, after
half of which he announced he wanted to nap. Reb and Sevi came home,
I went back to work. Returned from work at 4:30, made everyone a
green smoothie from kale, apple, some grapes, a banana and some
squeezed lemon. Intriguing how something about this combination
evokes the taste of cinnamon. Sevi and Hart mostly blew bubbles in,
then we all went across the park to the Carrousel for the bday party
of Isabella, a little friend of Hart's from last year at Brooklyn Free
Space. After some slight alienation not really knowing many people--
and being told by the soft grey haired Italian guy who runs it that we
weren't part of the private party - for which he later apologized sort
of - we rode the Caroussel, found some noisemakers, kicked a ball, and
walked home just as night was falling. Before leaving, struck up
conversation with Isabella's dad, who started a failed nightclub in
Red Hook, called the Hook, now in real estate. I thought he might
help us locate a defunct gas station somewhere on the outskirts
suitable for the PSEC (Park Slope Ethanol Coop) fuel station. He
seemed interested. (Richard T. Burke - Ideal Properties Group rburke@idealpropertiesgroup.com
718-840-2757)

Also, interesting moment of tension when some kids (outside the
enclosure around this "private" bday party) accidentally broke a beer
bottle, and a little kid nervously tried to make light of it by
picking up the dangling broken glass stuck together by the label. A
parent leapt up and cautioned him not to do it. The kid's own parent sauntered
over and barked at the kid. Something about the barrier was awful and
added to the tension. I was thinking to myself how appalling the
whole idea of the "ownership society" was in light of the misery and
tension exemplified here. We will all sooner or later be dead, and
this unpleasantness was a stain on the day.

Apples gone

While Rebecca prepared for her Leonard Lopate interview, I took the
kids over to David & Francesca's on this pleasant fairly cool and
sunny Saturday. With Sarah, David, Sevi Hart and I lashed a ladder to
the Jeep and drove to the tree on 18th Street and 8th ave. Not one
apple to be seen. So we drove over to the tree on Eastern Parkway.
Barely any, not worth getting out of the car. So we drove to Prospect
Place right down the street from 121, where we picked a half bushel of
the tree bearing lumpy mutants, many with rotten spots. Pretty
pathetic. Over by 14th street we went out to a Spanish-American
restaurant, then we brought Sarah back with us for the balance of the
day while David and Francesca drove out of the city to a party. At a
block party on 2nd Street I ran into Kris Sandine and spouse, who sold
me a pink scooter for $3 which is appropriate for Sevi. Not as simpe
as Hart's yet not as tippy as standard-issue Razor model. Ran into
Bob Axelrod who was setting up tempura painting for kids, and his
spouse Eva Zelig, who was selling tchotchkes. We all went to the Pi
playground, where Sevi and Sarah amused themselves stealing my brown
fishing hat and Hart rode the scooter. Came back here for a dinner of
leftovers. David Simpson came over to pick up some kefir grains I had
split off for him, and to give me the tapes of the Ethanol Coop he
shot earlier in the week. Went over to my cluttered office at work and
finished the film on Romare Bearden's "Southern Sensibility". Will
try to get in the habit of describing days.

Milton on being called a "feminine" writer

keep recalling this from John Guillory's class on Milton:

"Would that their assininity were as easily shed as my femininity."

the economy has come a cropper

Movie: Tropic Thunder

Just as Apocalypse Now mimicked the chaos and waste and
wrongheadedness of the Vietnam War in a way that charmed America by
making it feel that it was being searching and introspective about
itself in a way that could still redound to its greatness, Tropic
Thunder mimicks the waste and extravagance of the Vietnam war movie
genre in a way that's supposed to make us laugh and appreciate how
much better we are to recognize the tragic destructive waste of energy
in a product catering only to fools. The problem with both Apocalypse
Now and Tropic Thunder is that they each get sucked into their own
conceit, the former at the expense of dramatic meaning, the latter at
the expense of satiric meaning. Apocalypse Now becomes a war and a
waste. Tropic Thunder becomes a film catering to fools. Much as I
liked Robert Downey Jr. and even Ben Stiller as fun to watch, (Tom
Cruise was not particularly fun to watch. Pathetic how you can dress
him up but he still can't act any other way than his high octane Tom
Cruise persona), the film was like a forced 2 hour laugh track with
explosions. Funny to me about 5% of the time. Which may be a
measure of how far out of the grip of mainstream film concerns I have
drifted. I still get the in-jokes (most of them I think anyway) but
the pleasures of recognition are hollow and depressing.

Movie: Vicky Christina Barcelona

Loved it. Was much more engaging than the last several of Woody's that
I've seen. One constant in his work all the way back through the
comedies, with the possible exception of the standouts Annie Hall and
Manhattan, is that people are conceived of as types. In this, very
much like Match Point, there are the bifurcated yuppy success story
types squirrelled away in their wealth and smugness, and there are the
self destructive artist types. While this was such a send-up,
unapologetically milking the cliches for all they're worth, and played
with true panache, it worked great as a human comedy. But no one ever
really breaks out of the "type" mold, so while it was wonderfully
unpredictable for me, the second it was over you could see how it was
basically written backwards from the ending that had to follow from
all the natures of the characters so simplistically described. Again,
no problem here in comedy, but to me it's the tendency that prevents
Woody Allen from ever succeeding, as in totally succeeding, in drama,
meaning pushing it to new artistic heights rather than fulfilling
expectations. It's what doomed the promise of Little Children for me
too. It can never be Shakespeare, it can never be Tolstoy because
there is no spark of true individuality in the characters that makes
them outlive the story, transcend the world.

Kevin's Palin-Drome

All I saw's Sarah harass Wasilla...

Palin-drome

live evil