It's hard to talk about it. You know what I think of extremists and religious fanatics. They are the lowest scum because they attribute to and justify their criminal insanity by God. And because they are religious they think they have some kind of exemption. These are people who love the power that blood letting confers to them. They are lower than animals. They are obviously incapable and resentful of living in a civilized world. And those who fan their fires and fund their activities don't deserve to live.
It's not surprising they were Islamic extremists. These people seem to have a very high tolerance for utter depravity and sheer hatred, like burning women with acid, or killing a child in front of his parents or opening fire on innocent citizens. What is mainstream Islam doing to counter this madness? What are the zillionaire Islamic princes doing with their money that perhaps could help turn the tide against these crazed young idiots?
I think now would be a good time for the government of Pakistan, in concert with other injured parties in Mumbai, to get these people where it hurts. To find them and arrest them and, if that is the law of the land, execute them.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Sunday, November 23, 2008
My only consolation
... in this unholy financial mess is that I hope that the rich, greedy bastards who got us here (Republicans, motor company executives, Citibank assholes) are losing a lot of money.
My mantra these days is: hang 'em by their balls.
My mantra these days is: hang 'em by their balls.
Friday, November 14, 2008
American Buffalo
I'm very happy that there are two David Mamet plays now running on Broadway. If it was up to me, there would be Mamet plays running on a loop forever, I love him so much.
Quaint is not an adjective that should even come up when talking about a Mamet play, but that was the feeling I got yesterday from the new production of American Buffalo, directed, without the slightest edge, by Robert Falls.
There is the interesting multiculti casting, which, like many plays on Broadway today, brings movie or TV stars to buoy ticket sales. I have no problem with any of the gifted performers in American Buffalo. Cedric the Entertainer, the fabulous John Leguizamo, and I See Dead People, (Haley Joel Osment). Hey, we have a Black president, and yes, this is America, where corruption and greed and venality are everyone's God given right, regardless of skin tone (isn't America great?).
It's cool to mix it up. But it has to work.
What I love about Mamet is that he just cuts right through the American bullshit. What is American free enterprise if not permission to scam someone else? We are all pool sharks, con men, small time robbers. In Hollywood, in real estate, in antiques, doesn't matter. To see these three not upstanding Chicago citizens scheme is to think of people like Henry Paulson and whoever is still at large for the subprime mortgage catastrophe, no difference. This is the land of the massive con and the absolute genius at paying lip service to empty words like freedom and justice, and shit. I love Mamet for calling it out.
The play should and does resonate in these times where money, or its precipitous vanishing, is on everyone's mind. But something about the show feels strangely muted, and lacking sharpness. Not the text itself, with its gorgeously salty language and great humor. There is something off in the performances. It's like the actors are holding back. Like a paint by numbers show. Mamet plays should feel like someone is twisting a knife in your gut, not like a Hallmark movie of the week. The end violence felt contrived to me and I'm hoping it is not the fault of the play, but of how the production gets there.
Dennis Frantz, in the movie, gave a definitive performance of Donny, the junk shop owner. You could tell from his droopy eyelids he had been around the block and then some. Cedric, who has an amazing presence, is avuncular and wise but he is totally lacking edge. He could be running the cub scouts, yet he is supposed to be some sort of a shark and the disparity between his heartfelt concern for the kid and his ruthlessness is not as clear and horribly ironic as it should be. He is the center of the play and the unleasher of the action. He uses people. Being a nice little crook does not cut the mustard. Donny's calculating turns need to hurt, and they don't, so the play falls flat.
One nice thing about Cedric, however, is that the rhythms of the speech feel natural in his African American inflection. The actors all do a great job of getting the musicality of the speech right. In fact, in my experience, the only time when this hasn't happened is when Mamet directs his plays himself and the actors all sound like robots. I surmise that actors must love to wrap their tongues and voices around the sound of Mamet's cursing. It is delicious, and vicious and gorgeous.
As Teach, John Leguizamo is vibrant and funny and suitably sociopathic. He is a perfect small time hood, full of comic idiotic bluster, yet menacing enough. A live wire. I thought his was the best performance, though the audience (who doesn't know dick and gives standing ovations to the post) showed much more love for Cedric. If Leguizamo is trying to affect a Chicago accent, he should abandon the effort and just be himself. I think he can grow this into a great performance, but last night it felt as if he was holding back. The violence needs to be more convincing. When he goes on a rampage he needs to let it tear. I'm sure Dead People can stand a couple of good slaps in the face for the sake of thespian immortality (then again, if the play is a hit, I wouldn't blame him if he didn't). It should not feel like the actors are dicking around at acting. This is a Mamet play, for crying out loud. The guys in the Hollywood office a couple of blocks away display more ruthless, savage instinct than these street guys from Chicago. Now bring back the guys in the real estate office, and I'm in heaven.
Quaint is not an adjective that should even come up when talking about a Mamet play, but that was the feeling I got yesterday from the new production of American Buffalo, directed, without the slightest edge, by Robert Falls.
There is the interesting multiculti casting, which, like many plays on Broadway today, brings movie or TV stars to buoy ticket sales. I have no problem with any of the gifted performers in American Buffalo. Cedric the Entertainer, the fabulous John Leguizamo, and I See Dead People, (Haley Joel Osment). Hey, we have a Black president, and yes, this is America, where corruption and greed and venality are everyone's God given right, regardless of skin tone (isn't America great?).
It's cool to mix it up. But it has to work.
What I love about Mamet is that he just cuts right through the American bullshit. What is American free enterprise if not permission to scam someone else? We are all pool sharks, con men, small time robbers. In Hollywood, in real estate, in antiques, doesn't matter. To see these three not upstanding Chicago citizens scheme is to think of people like Henry Paulson and whoever is still at large for the subprime mortgage catastrophe, no difference. This is the land of the massive con and the absolute genius at paying lip service to empty words like freedom and justice, and shit. I love Mamet for calling it out.
The play should and does resonate in these times where money, or its precipitous vanishing, is on everyone's mind. But something about the show feels strangely muted, and lacking sharpness. Not the text itself, with its gorgeously salty language and great humor. There is something off in the performances. It's like the actors are holding back. Like a paint by numbers show. Mamet plays should feel like someone is twisting a knife in your gut, not like a Hallmark movie of the week. The end violence felt contrived to me and I'm hoping it is not the fault of the play, but of how the production gets there.
Dennis Frantz, in the movie, gave a definitive performance of Donny, the junk shop owner. You could tell from his droopy eyelids he had been around the block and then some. Cedric, who has an amazing presence, is avuncular and wise but he is totally lacking edge. He could be running the cub scouts, yet he is supposed to be some sort of a shark and the disparity between his heartfelt concern for the kid and his ruthlessness is not as clear and horribly ironic as it should be. He is the center of the play and the unleasher of the action. He uses people. Being a nice little crook does not cut the mustard. Donny's calculating turns need to hurt, and they don't, so the play falls flat.
One nice thing about Cedric, however, is that the rhythms of the speech feel natural in his African American inflection. The actors all do a great job of getting the musicality of the speech right. In fact, in my experience, the only time when this hasn't happened is when Mamet directs his plays himself and the actors all sound like robots. I surmise that actors must love to wrap their tongues and voices around the sound of Mamet's cursing. It is delicious, and vicious and gorgeous.
As Teach, John Leguizamo is vibrant and funny and suitably sociopathic. He is a perfect small time hood, full of comic idiotic bluster, yet menacing enough. A live wire. I thought his was the best performance, though the audience (who doesn't know dick and gives standing ovations to the post) showed much more love for Cedric. If Leguizamo is trying to affect a Chicago accent, he should abandon the effort and just be himself. I think he can grow this into a great performance, but last night it felt as if he was holding back. The violence needs to be more convincing. When he goes on a rampage he needs to let it tear. I'm sure Dead People can stand a couple of good slaps in the face for the sake of thespian immortality (then again, if the play is a hit, I wouldn't blame him if he didn't). It should not feel like the actors are dicking around at acting. This is a Mamet play, for crying out loud. The guys in the Hollywood office a couple of blocks away display more ruthless, savage instinct than these street guys from Chicago. Now bring back the guys in the real estate office, and I'm in heaven.
New pet peeves
What is it with all the people dragging their wheeled luggage on the streets of New York? Is this an airport? Are we a Greyhound depot? Can somebody explain to me, if you are not actually traveling to a far-flung destination, why you need to drag luggage around like a homeless person of means?
Whatever the explanation is, I don't like it, so cease and desist.
Adult men over the age of 25 who wear baseball caps outside of a park on a Sunday or of a baseball field, should have their headgear confiscated, I don't care if they are Paul Simon or Ron Howard.
Yesterday at the theater I saw middle aged gentlemen wearing baseball caps. What are you, a child?
Wear a fedora. And take it off if you are inside.
By the way, I'm so glad Summer is over so I don't have to see a flip flop again for 6 months.
Flip flops outside the context of a beach or a pool should be banned. People who wear business clothes and flip flops (you are only temporarily excused if you just had a pedicure) should be castigated with expulsion from NY. (Half the population of the city would have to leave).
I've also had it with bands of teenagers who scream in the subway. Your hormonal mutations are not an excuse.
My friends*, it is not rocket science to learn how to use the Automatic Postage Centers, those magnificent wonders of human engineering, at the Post Office. Please do not stand there with your index finger hovering in the air like you are lost in the forest or stuck in slow motion for eternity. Ask for help from your fellow impatient shippers. A man cut in line to check a zip code. Apparently, his zip code existed only in planet Zardoz. So the machine asks him to type the address, and the guy starts typing the name of the people who live there. "Davey Johnson..." Three times, until I had to tell him to just type the address. Geez.
It's so nice to wake up in a peevish mood!
*My friend Katya says that we will never be able to say the phrase "my friends" without recoiling in horror. It's like in A Clockwork Orange. You can never hear the song "Singing in the Rain" innocently ever again.
Whatever the explanation is, I don't like it, so cease and desist.
Adult men over the age of 25 who wear baseball caps outside of a park on a Sunday or of a baseball field, should have their headgear confiscated, I don't care if they are Paul Simon or Ron Howard.
Yesterday at the theater I saw middle aged gentlemen wearing baseball caps. What are you, a child?
Wear a fedora. And take it off if you are inside.
By the way, I'm so glad Summer is over so I don't have to see a flip flop again for 6 months.
Flip flops outside the context of a beach or a pool should be banned. People who wear business clothes and flip flops (you are only temporarily excused if you just had a pedicure) should be castigated with expulsion from NY. (Half the population of the city would have to leave).
I've also had it with bands of teenagers who scream in the subway. Your hormonal mutations are not an excuse.
My friends*, it is not rocket science to learn how to use the Automatic Postage Centers, those magnificent wonders of human engineering, at the Post Office. Please do not stand there with your index finger hovering in the air like you are lost in the forest or stuck in slow motion for eternity. Ask for help from your fellow impatient shippers. A man cut in line to check a zip code. Apparently, his zip code existed only in planet Zardoz. So the machine asks him to type the address, and the guy starts typing the name of the people who live there. "Davey Johnson..." Three times, until I had to tell him to just type the address. Geez.
It's so nice to wake up in a peevish mood!
*My friend Katya says that we will never be able to say the phrase "my friends" without recoiling in horror. It's like in A Clockwork Orange. You can never hear the song "Singing in the Rain" innocently ever again.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
The Death of Manners
I got a kick out of this article by Henry Alford on the decline of manners in NY (some people think there never were any manners to begin with). Alford has a tactic by which he apologizes to the people who were rude to him in the hopes that they will realize the error of their ways. It is very funny because they don't.
Alas, I do not have Mr. Alford's patient, pedagogical disposition. My tactic is to counter with a murderous stare and a sharp EXCUSE ME? or even a WHAT THE FUCK?
I once got an entire glass of ice water spilled on me by my next table neighbor at Blue Ribbon Bakery. I was totally soaked. The guy didn't say moo. He blithely continued chatting with his friend as if I did not exist. In instances like this, what I feel like doing, instead of didactically turning the other cheek as Mr. Alford counsels, is to harpoon the offender on the spot. To bash his brains out with a baseball bat, a la Al Capone in the Untouchables. That's how.
Most recently, I sat on a flight from Mexico City to JFK. The family in the row in front of me had two very fussy kids who screamed bloody murder intermittently during the entire flight. The parents were not effective at controlling them. I was surprised that having enjoyed the company of my darling Mini-Enchiladitos nephews the entire week, I was ready to strangle these two little pests a la Lady Macbeth (except wide awake and in full possession of my faculties). But that was not the worst part, since one understands that sometimes there is no reasoning with children. I was sitting next to a couple that simply did not have a concept of personal space. The guy next to me was fidgeting and moving and falling asleep on top of me and behaving, once again, as if I wasn't there, so I moved to another seat across the aisle that was empty. The owner of the window seat gave me a nasty look, but too bad, buddy. If you want to claim the row for yourself, you need to lie across it. Otherwise, it's finders, keepers.
Then finally, when we were able to leave that freaking plane (it takes people longer and longer to remove their shit from the overhead bins), and we were standing in line for the immigration officers, the couple, who turned out to be Israelis, were still on top of my hair. Not standing behind me in line, but right next to me. Breathing down my neck. Getting. On. My. Personal. Space. The woman was wearing a nicotine patch and demanded to speak to a manager. She demanded that there be more officers attending to "the customers", as if this was a supermarket line. Take it up with George Bush, lady, I wanted to say, but we all just snorted back at her. The Delta lady told her to zip it, it's the federal government you're talking about and you can get arrested (oh, I so wish). I wish I was like Henry Alford, but that would have made my day.
Alas, I do not have Mr. Alford's patient, pedagogical disposition. My tactic is to counter with a murderous stare and a sharp EXCUSE ME? or even a WHAT THE FUCK?
I once got an entire glass of ice water spilled on me by my next table neighbor at Blue Ribbon Bakery. I was totally soaked. The guy didn't say moo. He blithely continued chatting with his friend as if I did not exist. In instances like this, what I feel like doing, instead of didactically turning the other cheek as Mr. Alford counsels, is to harpoon the offender on the spot. To bash his brains out with a baseball bat, a la Al Capone in the Untouchables. That's how.
Most recently, I sat on a flight from Mexico City to JFK. The family in the row in front of me had two very fussy kids who screamed bloody murder intermittently during the entire flight. The parents were not effective at controlling them. I was surprised that having enjoyed the company of my darling Mini-Enchiladitos nephews the entire week, I was ready to strangle these two little pests a la Lady Macbeth (except wide awake and in full possession of my faculties). But that was not the worst part, since one understands that sometimes there is no reasoning with children. I was sitting next to a couple that simply did not have a concept of personal space. The guy next to me was fidgeting and moving and falling asleep on top of me and behaving, once again, as if I wasn't there, so I moved to another seat across the aisle that was empty. The owner of the window seat gave me a nasty look, but too bad, buddy. If you want to claim the row for yourself, you need to lie across it. Otherwise, it's finders, keepers.
Then finally, when we were able to leave that freaking plane (it takes people longer and longer to remove their shit from the overhead bins), and we were standing in line for the immigration officers, the couple, who turned out to be Israelis, were still on top of my hair. Not standing behind me in line, but right next to me. Breathing down my neck. Getting. On. My. Personal. Space. The woman was wearing a nicotine patch and demanded to speak to a manager. She demanded that there be more officers attending to "the customers", as if this was a supermarket line. Take it up with George Bush, lady, I wanted to say, but we all just snorted back at her. The Delta lady told her to zip it, it's the federal government you're talking about and you can get arrested (oh, I so wish). I wish I was like Henry Alford, but that would have made my day.
Excuses, excuses
I have been asked to put this on my blog:
"I can't go to the gym because I forgot my iPod in Mexico."
It's true. So I don't go.
"I can't go to the gym because I forgot my iPod in Mexico."
It's true. So I don't go.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Friday, November 07, 2008
Day of the Dead in Photos
Death is cool.
This is pan de yema, the traditional Day of the Dead bread. Too beautiful to eat.
Spooky.
At an exhibit of alternative altars. This one illustrates how I feel about PCs.
A more classic altar.
Servants, Anyone?
In case you are in dire need of servants, you can call this number, which I saw affixed to several trees and posts in the enclaves of the wealthy in Mexico City, and your staffing problems may be solved.In Oaxaca, a much humbler place, there were many such signs advertising the services of clowns.
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