Loose Cans

Ireland seems to me as real now as America seems to me when I'm in Ireland. An idea. Something to project onto. I don't know how happy I am to be back. It seems to me I get restless wherever I am. I'm thrilled to be back in New York, yes--this is my city, it belongs to me, and it's my job to notice every little change, every new shopfront, every new tile job in a subway station (they've renovated at 103rd), this is how I remind myself of where I come from, and try to reinsert myself into an old new situation. But this is not happening, the reinsertion. There is constant, constant observation, and yet I seem to myself stripped of agency, unable to provoke the surroundings. It's the sense that once, I mattered here. I was an element, an integral element--or at least it seemed so--of this city. It depended on me. But then I left. I pulled out. And New York soldiered on unperturbed. There isn't a place here for me: I vacated and someone filled my cubbyhole. I'm a tourist now, one who comes for a month or a week or a day and wants to do everything, see everything, Oh look Ethel, the Dead Poet, I used to go for a pint there, let's see if Todd is still tending bar, and furthermore I'm a tourist who is continually conscious that I AM IN NEW YORK because how often do I get to come here? When I lived here, I never thought, this is New York. I didn't even think This is home. It WAS home, and I lived here. Because I don't live here any more. I just don't live here anymore.

Not that this is bad or good. It's neither. It's curious and important. It gives you that essential twinge of alienation. It's fascinating; I can't stop thinking about it. The one thing I counted on absolutely in moving to a new country was precisely that sense of alienation, that sense of never belonging anymore. Because it keeps you on your toes. I am more self-conscious than I ever was before because I keep thinking about my place relative to everyone else--relative to natives, mostly. This is all to say that uncomfortable and difficult as it may be sometimes, it's worth it. It's all worth it.

So I'm sitting in the atrium. The young miss Katrandjian is by my side. I am looking at the bulletin board where the College Office pin up all their ads for colleges, and staring me in the face is a poster for this University of Dublin, Trinity College. And this is me freaking out. It's a big photo of the front square. I am pointing out to the long-suffering Miss Katrandjian all the little things, And this is the Buttery, a cantine and one of the three campus pubs, above it is the 1592 restaurant, which I can't afford, and those statues are Messrs. Lecky and Salmon, old revered provosts, and oh oh look see that big cupola-looking thing in the middle, that's the Campanile, and there's a story about that, which is that if a girl comes to TCD a virgin, stand under it, and looks up, she'll lose that status by the end of the year, but if she's not a virgin and she looks up, she'll just get knocked up, so make sure if you come you watch yourself, trust me, none of the men on campus will let their girlfriends go anywhere near it, including myself and oh look there's the GMB I spend a lot of time there and over there see...

To find myself at my old high school--to which you've by now gathered I returned today--looking at an ad for my college, which I recall seeing last year, was, well, freakish, to say the least. The whole day was like that, personally. It was this uneasy contrast between the feeling that I could really just slip Horace Mann back on like an old glove and the feeling that I no longer had any business being there. Everything was the same--except for that theater, that magnificent goddamn theater--and yet, everything was slightly out-of-focus. I can't really say; you who've been back probably know what I'm on about.

Saw a host of people: Drs. LaFarge (who is a newly baptized Blogonaut, everyone welcome him to outer space), Levenstein, Schiller, Wallach, Tischler, Delanty, Weiss, as well as Mr. Jones, Ms. DeRunk, and some others. Tomorrow top on my list are Messrs. DeVito and Yates, for whom I looked but wasn't so much able to find. Did a little press night (looked awful lackadaisical, I must say. Mikey P-utz is still up there; when I left him, he was putting labels on Records to be sent out to the alums. How the mighty have fallen), did a little crew (holy SHIT it's unbelievable. The scene shop and scene dock, the dance studio, the black box--and of course that fucking theatre), and finally headed home.

Tonight Rebecca and I are watching the video of Carousel. Mr. Bushmills and I are going to go prepare for that right now, if you don't mind. Excuse us.

Just saw Lord of the Rings: Return of the King with Jared and Nick, freshly freed, and good lord. Okay, so it's officially the longest I've ever had to sit still in a theater; three and a half hours, no intermission. Mike and I watched Spartacus the other night; that's only 3:15, and even it gives you an interval. Lawrence of Arabia gives you a good 15 minutes. This was--and there's no way to pretend it wasn't--an absurdly long fucking movie. By the end--an 11:30pm showing, it ended at 3am--philistines in the balcony were announcing loudly that they HADDA PEE!

But damn if it wasn't the best 3:30 I'd ever spent in a theatre. Because that was a hell of a movie. Pitch-perfect, flawless balance of entirely appropriate schmaltz (occasionally perfectly justified, as in this case) and genuine grit. This is to say nothing of Peter jackson's brilliant wit, which illuminates the entire film. I sound so trite, I love it. Do indulge me another few sentences, please.

Thanks: It is pulse-pounding when it wants to be, and tender when the situation calls for it. It's not only, as Nick said, "majestic," but it's also an extremely high-quality picture. It's just flatly very well-made.

Solemn promise: If it doesn't win the Best Picture Oscar, I'm leaving the country.

'Twas the night before Hanukkah
and all over the place
There was noise, there was kvetching
Soch ah disgrace!

The Kinderlach, sleeping,
uneasily felt
The chocolate rush
from the Hanukkah gelt 

And me in the easyboy,
So stuffed with latkes,
I stretched the elastic
which held up my gatchkes. 

When up on the roof
(And it has a steep pitch)
A fat alte kakker
was making a kvitsch.        

I jumped up real quick
and I ran to the door,
Was it a bandeet,
or only a schnorrer? 

He wasn't alone;
He had eight ferdelach,
And called them by name
As he gave a gebrach: 

"On Moishe, on Yankel, on Itzik, on Sam,
On Mendel, on Shmendrik, on Feivush, on Ham;
My kidneys are kvelling;
do you give a damn?" 

He had a white beard
and payyes to boot,
And to keep out the cold,
he had such a nice suit!        

A second from Peerless,
I could tell at a glance,
But the cut was okay,
and so were the pants. 

He was triple XL,
a real groisser goof,
So I yelled out,
"Meshuggener! Get off from Mein roof!" 

He jumped down and said
as he shook hands with me,
"Max Klaus is the name.
You have maybe some tea?" 

So I gave him a gleisel,
while he shook his white mop,
Mutt'ring, "Always the same thing,
They're dreying my kopp!"        

From Vancouver to Glacer Bay,
Outremont to Reginek,
Every shmo in the world
hakks meir a cheinik! 

They're screaming for presents,
and challah with schmaltz,
And from Brooklyn alone,
the back pain, gevaltz!" 

So we sat and yentehed,
and we spun the old dreydels,
(He took all of my money,
and one of my kanidels) 

He said, "Business is not bad,
a living I make,
But I'm getting too old
for this Hanukkah fake;        

And the cell phones, you see
how my pacemaker dings?
For two cents I'd quit,
and move to Palm Springs?" 

And he gave a geshrei
as he fled mit a lacht,
"Gut Yontiff to All,
Vey is Mir, Such a Nacht!"

...but my upper lip's still gone all bloof.

When you get so nonchalant about oral surgery that, even while the dentist is slicing and dicing and pricking and pulling, and blood is spurting, you hear, from over the tinny speakers, the faint strains of the Four Seasons, and you find yourself emphatically CONDUCTING, maybe--just maybe--you've had too many. Surgeries, that is. Or possibly hits of Nitrous Oxide. Because ladies and gentlemen, the good anaesthesiologist, bless him--even if he did gore me with his goddamn needle--got me specfuckingtacularly stoned. But seriously, that was the most fun surgery EVER. There were these two residents who were there to watch and were getting a big kick out of the patient's antics, and I was telling the dentist how very good he was (Dennis Tarnow. If you ever need an implant, or, for that matter, a checkup, go see him. He's fantastic). The only low points were when the classical switched over to Enya. That made me want to kill something, preferably Enya.

I love the surgeries--really I do--it's just the post-op I hate. I'm a little loopy and numb still--plus it's starting to hurt like hell--so I'm going have a little lie-down. Back later. Eat something solid for me.

Fucking fornicators!

You have to wonder whether or not the police officer, who probably would rather have been purchasing one of Webb's wares for him/herself, acted profoundly embarrassed at the arrest, just because of the pure unmitigated absurdity of the law. I've always wondered about police officers. If they know a complaint is ridiculous, are they at least apologetic about it? They should be. It would make us civvies a lot more amenable to encounters with them.

Gonna try something here. This is where anyone gets to post whatever they damn well please. Whatever tickles yer fancy. If you never comment, pop your head in and say Hi. Enjoy.

UPDATE: Come now. Which of you super-ninjas out there will be the first to leap into the breach? Come on, don't be scared.

Props to Nick.

So after brunching, we went a-walking through the snow, 'Winter Wonderland" thrumming mercilessly in my head the entire goddamn time, and I HATE that song, but anyway, we threw the frisbee around for a while, and then set about making a snowman. But this wasn't just a snowman, oho no. This was a life-size (counting the snowhat, she was taller than me) snow woman, who barring two dreadfully misshapen breasts (sorry, Karen, but they were) looked precisely like the woman from Sunday on the Island of La Grand Jatte. She had everything but the umbrella. It was the mother's genius idea to give her a full bustle, and a bustle we gave her. She had a butt you could eat dinner off of. She had detailed drapery (though full pointillism, when using a somewhat monochromatic medium--duochromatic if it's a popular canine thoroughfare--is a little much to ask) and a regal hat. Senor Yates will be pleased to hear that we were entirely faithful to the convex motif of the original painting. She was convex everywhere. She was well-corseted, too: one could almost see her ribs being crushed. She was absolutely magnificent and of course I didn't bring the fucking camera. But at least it was handy ten minutes ago when the cat was in the violin box, looking serene and musical.

It's snowing big flakes and it's purty but they say it will rain. So it goes.

Finished You Shall Know Our Velocity! the other night. Was not hugely impressed, and certainly didn't like it nearly as much as A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (sorry, Jonah and Geraci and all the other McSweeney's readers). I thought it was brilliant and relevant enough conceptually--the intent and purpose were sound and worthwhile--but that dramatically, it sort of was crushed by its own internal pressure, that Eggers's abilities as a novelist/dramatist weren't up to the task of successfully bringing off his massively heavy concepts--a common weakness; I hate it when that happens. Some sparks here and there ("The pig symbolizes nothing"), but largely, it was just like, Why, Dave, why? So what?

If anyone feels otherwise, let me know. I was sort of disappointed and am moving on to John Gardner's Grendel. Also, Anna? Can I please please please have Underworld back? I hadn't finished.

Kudos. Good job, fellas. Now surely peace security and McDonald's will follow of their own accord. And every Iraqi will smile as he or she looks into a shining Saddam/Agent-Smith-free Matrix-Revulsions-style watercolor sunrise, softly breathing the word, "Peace." As Niall Ferguson said, "So, can we, like, go home now?"

He presumably intended the "like" to telegraph satire. If not, then he's wrong. I just figured I'd post this because it's not on the front page of the times today; it came in sometime this morning.

Christ, he looks like Rip van Winkle.