Friday, 9/2/05: In the Shadows of In the Shadows of History Week: We Never Bite (That’s Not Polite)

Remember how yesterday’s story was the best? Today’s is the one I repeat most often, due to its unlikely combination of virtues: it is

1. vaguely prurient; and
2. about a famous economist.

Enjoy!

One person who would have been entitled to an opinion on [Indian geography] was former Harvard professor, and then Ambassador to India, John Kenneth Galbraith. Prior to leaving for his embassy in New Delhi in early 1961, he was briefed at CIA by an eager young newly minted PhD specialist. Despite Galbraith's impressive reputation and my own seniority, the briefing was pedestrian, pedantic, and condescending. I was becoming increasingly embarrassed and Galbraith increasingly restless. When the analyst unveiled a map of northeast India and, in painful detail, began to describe the area of conflict, Galbraith's patience snapped.

"Don't bother any further, young man. I know the area well. It's where I was trekking when I was bitten in the testicles by a mad dog. Thank you. I have another appointment."

Many months later during the Laos Conference, Galbraith passed through Geneva on his way to Washington. In a taxi on our way to dinner I asked him if his dog story was true. He unzipped his trousers and asked, "Do you want to see?"

Oh, you’d better believe I’m not telling you how this ends, although you probably have an idea. Buy the book anyway.

Well, I hope this week has been as fun for you as it was for me. If it's not, I promise to refund you all the money you spent reading it. Next: Non-book content!

Thursday, 9/1/05: In the Shadows of In the Shadows of History Week: Lost in Translation

This story combines hilarious hijinks, an illustration of diplomatic protocols and pitfalls, and madcap suspense to be the overall best story in the book (although the dashing around during and crushing disappointment after Foreign Minister Kosygin’s visit to Prime Minister George Brown takes a close second. No, that’s not going on the Internet).

In the final week of the Laos conference, several delegations hosted receptions. (The American delegation did not.) Although the Americans and the Chinese had avoided contact throughout the conference, we, together with the other delegations, were invited to the villa where the senior Chinese representatives had been staying. Secretary [of State Dean] Rusk (who had come to Geneva for the closing sessions) and Ambassador [Averell] Harriman decided it would be courteous if one or two Americans (but not they) accepted the invitation. The assignment fell to the State Department's Bill Sullivan (who was to become the American ambassador to Laos) and to me.

When Sullivan and I entered the Chinese villa's crowded reception room, there was an audible gasp of surprise. Most of the guests could not believe we were invited; probably all could not believe we had accepted. The Chinese Foreign Minister, Chen Yi, who, too, had come for the final ceremonies, immediately elbowed his way towards us. He was accompanied by an interpreter. After shaking hands, Chen Yi ushered us to a quiet corner. We toasted peace over drinks, and the Foreign Minister, Sullivan, and I exchanged a few pleasantries. Meanwhile, Chinese houseboys were serving hors d'oeuvres. Without thinking, I declined some, accepted some, and thanked them—all in my best Chinese-restaurant Mandarin.

"Do you speak Chinese?" Chen Yi suddenly asked—in Chinese.

"Yes, but not well," I replied in Chinese, dredging up, from the bowels of my long-ago elementary Chinese, an idiom, "mah-mah hoo-hoo," Horse-Horse, Tiger-Tiger; or comme-ci, comme-ça; or so-so.

Chen Yi was clearly impressed with my use of the idiomatic expression. He mistook virtual ignorance for becoming modesty. To my horror and to Sullivan's astonishment, the Foreign Minister dismissed his interpreter and launched into a monologue that went on for several minutes. I caught one word in ten, but nodded and murmured an occasional "yes."

Sullivan and I escaped from the villa soon after. As we entered the hotel dining room for coffee, Rusk and Harriman were having dinner and beckoned us to their table.

"How did it go?" Rush asked.

"Okay," I replied.

"Okay?" Sullivan exclaimed. "It was fantastic! Chet had a ten-minute private conversation with Chen Yi!"

"My God," Harriman looked at me with sudden avuncular affection. "Why didn't you tell me you spoke Chinese? What did he say? What did he want?"

"Well, you know, the same old stuff." I gave what I like to think was a modest shrug.

"I want to send a telegram about your session to Washington," Rusk said. "Let me have a two-page summary in the morning."

How does Chet get out of this one? Buy the book to find out! (Yeah, like I’m giving away all the good stuff for free.)

•

As it happens, I had something published today. The review pretty much says what happened — no need for marginalia or whatever I'm calling it lately. I would note, though, that a big old room in the Convention Center made a surprisingly good hall. I've sat through concerts in far worse venues.

Wednesday, 8/31/05: In the Shadows of In the Shadows of History Week: Oh, Brother

The context for this extra-funny story is that National Security Council director Allen Dulles likes to keep his staffers Chet and William Bundy really late with five o’clock briefings.

One Wednesday evening in late January 1961, our session was moving along nicely until Dulles' secretary announced that Professor Walt Rostow was in the outer office. Rostow wished to "pay his respects" to the Director. My heart sank. I had known the bright, articulate, voluble Rostow for several years, and was sure that this would be a ten-o'clocker once Walt entered the room and embarked on his "respects." With relief, I heard Dulles say, "I'm busy. Could Mister Rostow come back another time?"

The secretary tiptoed out and then back. Professor Rostow would be only a minute or two, she said. He was on his way home, and since he had just come to Washington as part of President Kennedy's White House team, he wanted to make a courtesy call. Dulles shrugged and mumbled, "Okay."

Walt entered cheerily, greeted Dulles, Bundy and myself and, to my horror, sat down—a sign of a long visit. I was wrong. The discussion was brief.

"Walt," said Dulles, "I've often wondered how you got along with your brother Gene. Gene, after all, is dean of Yale law school, a very prestigious position."

"Well…" Walt hesitated. Then he nodded to Bundy. "Bill, how do you and your brother Mac get along? He's younger than you and already has had a brilliant career as Dean of Harvard. Now he's the President's Assistant for National Security Affairs."

Bill, somewhat startled at how the conversation was developing, thought for a minute. "Allen," he said, turning to Dulles, "Chet and I have often wondered about you and John Foster. What was your relationship with him?"

Allen looked at Rostow with something less than affection. "Thanks for coming by, Walt. but you can see I'm getting ready for tomorrow's NSC meeting." He stood up, extended a limp hand, and looked in the direction of the door. The afternoon ended well.

Make your next few days more fascinating than they otherwise might be by buying Chet's book.

Tuesday, 8/30/05: In the Shadows of In the Shadows of History Week: A Passage About India

Because I enjoy humor, most of this week (like, all the rest of the days) will feature anecdotes that are amusing in some way. Today, though, I am going to present two serious paragraphs from Chet’s description of his rail journey across India as an Army grunt, the first of which I think has a bit of captivating magic about it:

I have returned to India on many occasions since then, but that first journey across the subcontinent was the most memorable of my trips. Staring out at the villages and towns when we were in motion, or wandering through them during the long periods of waiting for a change of locomotive or for higher-priority traffic to pass (which meant all other traffic, passenger or freight) was a fascinating experience for someone who had barely traveled beyond America's northeast coast. I especially remember an evening when it had just gotten dark. The train was on a siding, as usual, waiting for an express to pass. Since we had no lights, and thus couldn't read or write, I had stretched out on my bench neither asleep nor awake when I heard the tinkling of what must have been hundreds of bells. In the dim light of a half moon I could make out a single file of ox-drawn carts, several scores of them, laden with farm produce (rice, probably). They were following a narrow path which threaded its way along the railway tracks. The only noises to be heard were creaking wagon wheels, the music of the bells around the necks of the oxen, the whack of a club on the back of a lagging team, and unintelligible snatches of quiet conversation. Like the scene on the Bombay dock, this episode comes to mind whenever I think of my first days in India.

The frequent pauses in each day's journey promised to provide a chance to eat our rations comfortably, free from the shake and rattle of the moving train. But, during the first day, no sooner would I break open a K ration package than dozens of sorrowful-looking children and adults reaching out for food would appear at the open carriage windows or door. I found myself hungry that first night, having given away a large share of my day's allotment. From then on, I traded the noisy jostling of the moving train for a meal of sorts in relative peace.

Want more of that? Buy the book.

Monday, 8/29/05: In the Shadows of In the Shadows of History Week: Introduction

In the Shadows of History: 50 Years Behind the Scenes of Cold War Diplomacy is a book that was handwritten by Chester L. Cooper and typed by me. I came by this gig back in the summer of 2001, when I had just spent a month having fun in NYC and came back to no job. My mom, always eager to help find me work so that I would not ask her for money, passed my name to Chet; when Chet figured out that I could read his handwriting, which for some reason has acquired a reputation of legendary impenetrability among his friends and family, I was in. Besides typing the manuscript, I tidied up the prose a bit, including enforcing Chicago style when we finally sent the whole caboodle to Prometheus Books, which eventually published it. Last month.

So I was involved with the book for a long while, and yet instead of sighing in relief that it is off my docket forever, I am going to spend the next week telling you how cool it is. First, what it’s not: It’s entirely pomposity-free, and it does not purport to teach grand lessons on the possibilities of bilateral negotiations or the feasibility of containment strategies. It’s not a screed against the current administration’s demonstrated diplomatic incompetence (well, except for a few pages at the end). It touches Big Themes, but shows them to the reader via accumulation of interesting incidents rather than laboriously explicating them.

What it does have is a narrative of an extremely varied career, concentrating on the time Chet spent supporting headline-grabbers of the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations. He was in China and Korea with OSS during World War II. He was in London with CIA when Abdul Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal and the Brits and French took it upon themselves to denationalize it. He attended the Geneva Conference in ’54 and was with the NSC’s Asia desk during the buildup of the Vietnam War. He was the man dispatched to Britain to win support for the blockade during the Cuban Missile Crisis. And he worked with Averell Harriman when Johnson realized that a negotiated solution to Vietnam might not be such a bad idea. Apparently not having become completely sick of hopeless causes, he then spent the next thirty years of his work life as an advocate for the environment, including raising the alarm about global warming before it was cool.

Chet’s writing vividly evokes all of these travails. Specifically, for the interest of this blog, it provides plenty of amusing anecdotes that formed part of these Great Diplomatic Happenings. Because I could go on and on about Chet’s analytical abilities, but I’m not exactly an authority on that subject, whereas with the presenting-anecdotes strategy I can just let Chet talk. Like here, in which he describes part of the quest for housing he and his wife Orah had to undertake when they arrived in wartime Washington:

Each day I rose at dawn to read the classified ads. One day, after a dozen fruitless telephone calls, I succeeded in finding a furnished room downtown that had not yet been snatched up. Instead of going to my office, I dashed to the advertised address. An ample woman with a pronounced Italian accent showed me a comfortable and clean room. The rent was outrageous, but that was par for the course. Finally, I thought, we would have a decent place to stay until an apartment became available.

I agreed to her terms. As I was leaving, the woman tugged at my sleeve. "You're not Jewish, are you? I don't rent to Jews."

"No," I lied. "Are you Italian?"

"Yes, from Naples," she smiled.

"Well, I'm sorry, but I don't want to live with an Italian."

It was a difficult trade-off, but I felt I came off well…

Bam, sucker! Of course you now want to buy the book. (The theme of this week’s posts will be easy to discern and will be repeatedly hammered home by the author: Buy Chet’s book.)

Wednesday, 8/24/05: Still Nothing to Say

I regret not having updated in a while, but then I haven't thought of anything worth putting in an update. I said I was going to write all this stuff last weekend, and then I didn't, and I don't know if I'll get anything much written this weekend. I guess them's the breaks. It takes so much energy to get anything decent done at home, and I don't have it lately.

I guess I'm probably waiting with breath a bit more bated than yours to get the spark back.

(And then my server failed on me, causing me to post this on Thursday morn rather than Wednesday eve. Me : content provider :: Rob Schneider : comedy provider.)

(Well, actually, it's not letting me post this Thursday morn, either. This is an interesting existential dilemma: being unable to post nothing.)

Saturday, 8/20/05: Flap Ya Wings

Concerts like this one are the reason I keep going to concerts. We had one pretty bad performance and one decent one, but in between a world premiere — we were the first paying audience to hear anyone sounding these notes! — of Chia Patiño's "Wild Swans" blew me away. I love coming home from a concert like this and trying to put into words what got me so excited. (By contrast, writing negative reviews is really annoying — you have to keep reliving what annoyed you, so that you can explain it.)

Some notes:

• The F. Scott Fitzgerald Theatre smells like wet dog. Also, an air conditioning vent was blowing directly down onto the top of my head for the entire concert. The men's bathroom has extensive water damage. I'm trying to avoid the word "dump" but not doing so well at it.
• Chia Patiño has now played a crucial role in two concerts (the present one and this one) from which I came home really excited and ready to write, but I can't find a fan club for her on the Internet. What's up with that? Does anyone else want to join me in starting one? If so, can I be treasurer?

Tuesday, 8/16/05: The 38th Parallel

Let me preface this entry by saying: I love Korea. It's a swell country, notwithstanding the fact that half of it is ruled by a sadistic delusional megalomaniac with nuclear weapons, a situation that I dearly hope resolves itself peacefully and soon. Korea gave us an entertaining World Cup in 1998, the movies "Shiri" and "Oldboy," lots of cheap steel, and (not least) its awesomely tasty food. But this review of a Korea-commemorating concert would have been a lot more negative if there had been a lot more words in which to explain why it was negative. As it was, I mostly just said what happened, which has its own value. I mean, I'm glad we're commemorating the Korean War, since we do tend to forget about it, even if…Ah, I'm not getting out of this one.

Monday, 8/15/05: Also, Learned That It is Pronounced "Bang-ore," So Quit Giggling

What did I do in Bangor, Maine? Here are some things I did in Bangor, Maine (and its environs, as circumscribed by about a two-and-a-half-hour driving radius):

• Stayed for two weeks in a hotel with no workout room, pool, in-room refrigerator, or lobby bar. Oh, the humanity! I whined most sincerely (and with the most justification) about the lack of a refrigerator; it’s really hard to avoid going out to lunch each and every day without somewhere to store cold cuts and yogurt and such.
• Ran around the vast asphalt swamp of the Bangor Mall area. Serving as a shopping destination for everywhere north of it in Maine, the Bangor Mall is itself served by truly vast parking lots; one central mall structure is juxtaposed against a bunch of seedy-looking strip malls and big contextless boxes like Borders, Staples, Best Buy, etc. Although it is exceptionally easy to run at 5:30 am, it is also extremely depressing as landscapes go, especially when every other road in Maine seems to boast at least one picturesque view along its length.
• Registered livestock production locations for the Maine animal ID database. Talked to campers about the risks posed by moving firewood interstate. Emptied insect traps. Used digital radios. Talked to people who do the work my regulations authorize us to do. Got a different and extremely helpful perspectve on my job.
• Used digital radios inappropriately (“The shipment of cocaine has arrived at the back of the hotel”). Made “You’re a loose cannon!”, “I like fairs,” and “Cotton candy, sweet and low, let me see that Tootsie Roll” into trip catchphrases. ("You're a loose cannon!" was memorably edited into "You're ill-tethered artillery!", which is also fun to say and which eventually supplanted its inspiration.)
• Went to not one, but two Ladies’ Nights at Barnaby’s, a club located in the Bangor Ramada Inn. The skankiness was indescribable. Both times, I was the best dancer out there. (The second time, there was this guy who did this little Robot-style gyration and then would break into two seconds of breakdance before resuming his robotics. I hereby dis him and his detached dancing.) It was pretty frigging fun, especially watching the cowboy-hatted Texan in our group effortlessly pick up women.
• In fact, went out almost every night with one of the funnest groups with which I’ve ever spent two weeks.
• Ate lobster.
• Realized I do not like lobster all that much.
• Saw five whales on a whale-watching trip, including two humpbacks who lifted their heads all the way out of the water while feeding. My jaw doesn’t drop all that often, but it dropped both times that happened.
• Hung out for one of the prettiest Saturday afternoons I’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing in Acadia State Park, one of the prettiest parks I’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing.
• Met some extremely cool people who live in Maine and were not technically part of the group, but we let them become honorary members because they were cool.
• Completely exhausted myself. This was not unexpected. If it's the result of this much fun and learning, I'll take it.
• Got a couple ideas for pieces that I will hopefully post later this week…

Saturday, 7/30/05: Phlegmatic

Yeah, I'm still sick. And I'm going to Maine tomorrow for two weeks of fun 'n' exhausting interdisciplinary survey action. Both of these mean that you won't be seeing any updates of this here blog for a while (unless I get real ambitious). When I am trying to use the Internet to alleviate boredom, I am fond of clicking at random links on the sidebar of both The Suburbs Are Killing Us (happy birthday!) and Kittytext. Or you can explore the vast repository of text that is this site using my very own sidebar. See ya.

Monday, 7/25/05: Still Chokin'

Well, I continued to be sick all last week, and I'm still sick this week. This is one devil of a cough. I went to work about half the time last week, which really means I must be sick — I almost never stay home, partly due to my robust constitution and partly due to my Protestant guilt at not working when I possibly could be working.

I did go to an all-day meeting on Wednesday. By around 3 pm, my main objective was to not fall asleep on the conference table. Here is the product of that meeting of which I am most proud:

Monday, 7/18/05: Open Air

Sarah Hatsuko Hicks conducted the NSO on Friday, which is documented in this Post review. What is not fully documented, because I couldn't figure out how to do it without tilting the review way too much away from the performance, is that there cannot have been more than 50 people in the audience. It was the smallest orchestral audience I have ever seen — by an order of magnitude, easily. We in the D.C. area have been having some terrible weather.

I have also been ill for the past week. My illness causes me to:

• Cough a lot
• Tire easily
• Intermittently hate everything

If you can think of a way to cheer me up, let me know. I'm going to the doctor (something I almost never do) tomorrow to see whether my throat is permanently corroded or what.

Sunday, 7/17/05: Passing the Daze

Tom Sietsma reps Silver Spring as a restaurant destination in the lede to his latest review! Eat that, suckaz!

Today I saw one of the members of the world-famous Plastic Containers in the local independent grocery store. Actually, he saw me first, and also said hi first, and provided his name when I couldn't remember it, and was polite about moving along when he found me virtually mute apart from the standard pleasantries. I was in a world-class thought stupor, as I often am, pondering exactly what move to make on Monday at work and why I care at all and other such foolishness. But of course I regretted afterward not having made a better show at small talk, as this gentleman has collaborated with his Plastic mates to give me a couple evenings of solid entertainment, and therefore I am in his debt.

Longtime readers of this site will have already noted that "I wish I wasn't in a stupor so much when I run into people" is one of the recurring themes of this blog (along with "I wish I was writing more" and "The Notorious B.I.G. was awesome"). The thought stupor pretty much defined my collegiate career, along with panic attacks and the adrenaline rush of writing a movie review that was due tomorrow. It's one reason why I try not to drive too much — I'm always worried that I'll be pondering something and not notice a rack of brakelights in front of me. I don't know what to do about it except to not think, which doesn't seem like a viable solution either. (After all, grocery shopping, when you get down to it, is pretty boring, and you have to pass the time somehow.) On the other hand, the thought stupor was pretty much the only thing that allowed me to survive the data-entering years without going nutso, as I found that I could enter data accurately without actually having to pay very much attention to it. In conclusion: I dunno. (Hey! A fourth theme!)

Saturday, 7/16/05: Just Reading the Post

From Ann Hornaday's review of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory":

And that hair [that Johnny Depp is sporting]--a lacquered pageboy with wisps of Mamie Eisenhower bangs -- that hair can bring to mind only one person these days, and that's the currently incarcerated New York Times reporter Judith Miller.

You have been in Washington too long, Ann.

On Thursday we learned all about Borf, the incredibly prolific graffito. Turns out he's a suburban art student who's been living on Mom and Dad's dime while reading French philosophy and not understanding it. (Or understanding it; it's really all the same thing.) Anyway, the article provides several hilarious Borf quotes that could only have come from a person in his, uh, situation:

"I've got plans," he said ominously, sitting out on U Street, eating a vegetarian burger from Ben's Chili Bowl. "Maybe like a manifesto."

He wiped veggie-chili-covered fingers on his jeans, which were dotted with flecks of colored paint, then pulled out a silver paint pen and wrote EL BORFISMO on the rim of a garbage can.

•

"Growing up is giving up," he said. "I think some band said it."

•

Borf often finished his graffiti early in the morning, just in time to see a spectacle he despises -- rush hour. "People all heading downtown," he said. "Like, it's ridiculous if you think about it. Like, Orwellian-ridiculous. And they do this with so-called free will."

•

He imagined himself like the Zapatistas, the Mexican rebels who cover their faces. "Who I am is not as important as what I want," he said.

You'll notice the article never describes Borf as "bright" or any such synonym. This is a self-described anarchist who says "Instead of police on every corner, we have Starbucks on every corner." Having seen the graffiti pop up all over the city and wondering occasionally what its source could possibly be, I frankly wish Borf was smarter than he apparently is. Or, at least, that his mind had been shaped by the formative experience of "actually working at a job to support yourself," which normally serves as the best prescription for any anarchic beliefs.

Tuesday, 7/12/05: Suburban Coda

It seems appropriate to follow yesterday's reminiscence of high school with a product of my high school years. Not to make too much of this (like I did yesterday), but most of my high school hijinks involved going to way farther-out suburbs than those I inhabited, and I always found them somewhat strange lands. Thus Suburban Helper, another MacDraw II creation. (How I loved MacDraw!) Credit goes to Spam-O-Maticker John Henderson for actually remembering this somehow, which convinced me to put it up.

By the way, I am coughing like a mug today. When you think of me, think unphlegmmy thoughts.

Monday, 7/11/05: The Old School

Nope, it's not Data Entering Week — instead, it's a tracklist for a mix I made to recall the radio highlights of my high school years, heavily annotated. (4800 words! Never let it be said that I don't help you waste time!) Besides descriptions of a bunch of cool hip-hop songs, the annotation also discusses why I got into hip-hop, why I eventually came to depend on hip-hop, certain facts of mental illness in high school, and various places where I used to pilot the parents' station wagon. Unmissibale personnal incites, as Wizznutzz would say.

Sunday, 7/10/05: Carrots

I'm not real happy with most of the big things in my life (job, residence, etc.) right now, and I'm not sure what to do about any of it, so I decided to try to stay positive and list 10 things that make me real happy. As diverse as possible.

1. Frank Robinson's managership of the Nats.
2. Two Amy's pizza.
3. The finale to Mozart's Jupiter Symphony.
4. The part of J-Live's "Bragging Writes" where he says "I displays my credentials over instrumentals/And my potential increases at a rate that's exponential/It's detrimental [messing] with my thesis/My penetration's exact, like amniocentesis."
5. The burst of light when the Red Line train to Glenmont emerges from the tunnel after Union Station.
6. Joel Achenbach's column in the Washington Post Magazine.
7. Crisp, flavorful apples.
8. The fact that I was able to see "Raiders of the Lost Ark" on the big screen.
9. The beers available at the Brickskeller.
10. The horn hits on Chicago's "Only the Beginning." Really!

Friday, 7/8/05: Eat That

"Silver Spring Independent Restaurants vs. Soulless Corporate Invaders: The Rematch" updates the original article, since now I've been to most of the restaurants cited in that earlier article. Surprise: The chains still take it on the chin! Plus we have some factual corrections and such.

Thursday, 7/705: Marveling

Jonatham Lethem's Men and Cartoons gets the The Book I Just Read treatment.

I am currently taking a vacation at home. Accordingly, I have been doing the most fun possible thing: a lot of writing. Tomorrow I hope to clean some of it up and post it.

Tuesday, 7/5/05: Cleanup

With reference to last Monday’s entry, I should note that the word “darn” is actually not in that review; it was in an earlier draft, which I feared I had sent to the Post. So that’s good, because saying “darn” is lame. Also, I feel compelled to make a Gang Starr reference with regard to my momentary crush on the (cute, blonde) Elizabeth Baber and say that it was mostly the voice that had me bucked.

In other Post news, erstwhile sportswriter and continuing New York resident Sally Jenkins has written a piece for the Magazine about Howard “EEEEEEEEYYYYYAAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHH” Dean. Perhaps this marks the beginning of a welcome transition for her into politics, where any cockamamie argument is taken seriously, as opposed to sports, where her frequent arguments that watching women’s basketball is entertaining can be easily disproven by watching women’s basketball. (“Wow! Did you see that layup!”)

There is a curious quote in the article that sounds incoherent for reasons I could only fully discern when I used the amazing techniques of metaphorical analysis on it (as I did so memorably in my Internet porn paper). Here it is:

"Dean may think he's got the world on a string," says one political strategist, "but what he's really got is a yo-yo with the initials DNC on it."

Well, first of all, there's no reason that quote should be anonymous. (Man, someone could really get in trouble for saying the Democratic Party has some problems! That's not an obvious analysis!) But secondly, this quote invokes two metaphors: CONTROL IS HAVING THE WORLD ON A STRING and THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE IS A YO-YO. (Sorry for the caps, but that's the convention.) The first one is pretty common and straightforward; the second one is evidently meant to contrast with the first. There's just one problem: The yo-yo metaphor does not necessarily imply loss of control. It simply implies something that cannot easily be controlled. The metaphor as it's used here, though, implies that Dean owns the yo-yo, and as we've seen earlier he at least thinks he can control things on strings.

So then we get into what is at least for me a secondary possible interpretation: that Dean thinks the DNC is actually the world. But doesn't he? He just took the DNC chairman job. And the news that the DNC is a bit wacky must come as no surprise to him.

I think the speaker was going for the first interpretation. But it's not like we can ask him or her!

Monday, 7/4/05: It's the Anthem, Get Your Patriotic Hands Up

A rerun of the song from last year, which I still sing 'cause it's still true:

I'm proud to be an American

Where at least I know I'm free

Because I'm white and I have balls

I've got that guarantee

And I'll proudly stand up (duh-duh-dumm) for the rest of us

As we try to make our way

For what it is and what it could be

God bless the U.S.A.!

Sunday, 7/3/05: A Phone Conversation I Just Had

“Good afternoon.”

“Is this Andrew?” (Female.)

“Yes.”

“Hey, it’s me.”

Pause.

“I’m sorry, I don’t recognize your voice.”

“Oh yes, you do.”

Pause.

“I’m not sure I have the right one. This is Andrew?”

“Yep, I’m Andrew Malone.”

“And you live in Silver Spring?”

“Yep.”

“And your wife is Patricia?”

“I don’t have a wife.”

“Sorry.”

Click. Dial tone.

Wednesday, 6/29/05: The Most Important Inauguration of 2005

I went to the Nationals' home opener two and a half months ago, and all you get is a 4200-word description of how awesome it was. (Seriously, 4200 words. It was pretty awesome.) You can read it here.

Monday, 6/27/05: I Know You Seen Me At the Festival (True)/I Know You Peeped Me In the Vestibule (True)

Here's a review (last on the page) of a fine concert. So fine, in fact, that I developed a raging crush on (cute, blonde) soprano Elizabeth Baber during the concert, to the point that if she had ended the concert by urging the attendees to help her rob a liquor store, I would have said, "Just keep singing!" There was an earlier draft of this review in which I did everything but ask for her number. I am glad to have had a little time to let that boil off.

In addition, the word "darn" in the first sentence was originally conceived as a two-syllable gerund expletive. Nevertheless, I am glad I took leave. All those months of not taking a vacation have finally paid off, that's for sure.

Saturday, 6/25/05: Hi, Technology!

I bought a scanner so I could put stuff like this on the Internet:

This is how I kill time at intermission, sometimes.

Friday, 6/24/05: The Exciting Conclusion of College Week: A Never-Given Graduation Speech

I wrote this speech about why English majors are better than economics majors in the hope that I would be able to give it at the English graduation ceremony. (I certainly didn't hope I would be able to give it at the econ graduation ceremony.) Nevertheless, the departmental arbiters went with a fine, but conventional, option rather than my parade of backhanded compliments.

So my collegiate career ended in disappointment? Not really. I can't say I enjoyed college as such, but it looks like a lot more fun that it actually was when I look back on it, as I did this week. And I did write a bunch of cool-ish stuff.

Next up: Some fresh content for once!

Thursday, 6/23/05: College Week: Barely Legal Internet Porn

"Is Surfing the Internet Like Buying a Magazine or Tuning in a Channel?: Reasoning From Precedent and Metaphor in Reno v. ACLU (1997)" is a paper I wrote in college that I still enjoy, making for a nice change from the previous three College Week days. It is also about a legal decision, meaning that its Internet existence allows me to show my legions of law-school friends that I have at least the capability to write about legal issues (if not the skill at putting up flurries of footnotes). It contains diagrams that were made in MacDraw II, a program that dates to about 1991, which fills me with some kind of weird pride. And the fact that the legal decision concerns one of Congress' many attempts to outlaw Internet porn means that this site will suddenly be visited by a lot more Google searchers. So it's a win all around.

Wednesday, 6/22/05: College Week: Indiversable

As promised directly below, today's entry in College Week, "Indiversable," combines all sorts of sources of college-era Malonian bitterness to create a kind of farrago of deeply cynical jokemaking. It so happens that I could abuse this theme some more, if I felt like it. I actually have on my hard drive something called the "Offensiveness Bomb," which was my attempt to write something that would drive all the prim 'n' proper liberals into a tongue-clucking tizzy of disapproval. (Please note that this is from someone who voted against our current president twice.) Looking at it now, it seems pretty tame given its overweening mission; I was never too good at roughness for roughness' sake. On the other hand, it's pretty funny, but I'm pretty sure it's still offensive, so to the Internet it does not go.

To those who have actually read this far, I make a solemn pledge: The pieces that will be posted during the rest of the week do not mention whether or not I had a girlfriend.

Tuesday, 6/21/05: College Week: Augmenting My Experience

Today's entry in College Week is "Augmenting My Experience," which is a straightforward dis of a weirdly platitudinous letter sent to me by the dean of the College of Arts and Humanities (or someone in his office, anyway).

Yesterday, we introduced the humoric theme of "discontent with facile liberalism"; today, we introduce (in one section) the humoric theme of "I wish I had a girlfriend." These themes will combine with one other theme ("I am unbearably lonely in general") to produce tomorrow's exciting entry. Also, while this was originally published in the Maryland Cow Nipple, tomorrow's entry was deemed too bleak and resentful even for that august organ (sample headline: "Al Qaeda to release blooper reels, outtakes"). Don't miss it!

In other news from yesterday, I forgot to link to what I thought was the coolest thing I did in college. This was the Method Man and Redman interview, which (I will quote from this interview forever) featured such sidesplitting quotes as: "Spallll-ding Grey. He's dope. I got to kick it with him. He's quoting from the book of 2Pac, 'money over bitches.' You had to hear him say it, though. It was crazy." What's really crazy is that is about the fifth-funniest quote in that interview. But now I've linked to it twice, so all is good.

In other news about me being bleak and resentful, I am officially disavowing "Life is Inconsiderate" as a philosophical piece (though if anyone found it funny, that's fine). Click on the link to read why.

Monday, 6/20/05: College Week: Stop Death Now!

I decided to have a College Week, in which I post one artifact of my college experience each workday, mostly because I want an excuse to post all this stuff. Later I'll have a High School Week and a Data Entering Years Week. Right now, though, it's College Week.

Today, I've posted the Stop Death Now! poster, which is the second-coolest thing I did in college next to this. It's all downhill from here, folks! I had to provide some explanation of why it was so cool, though, which I did here.

Tuesday, 6/14/05: No Movie Tickets

I wrote a review of an all-Boccherini concert that you can read here (first one). When I sent it in, it had a few more words than it does there. I realize they had to delete a few to fit my joint in the little hole they had available for it, but I don't think the lead is as punchy without the examples of the extract (the Minuet in A) and the heavily altered (the Grützmacher "arrangement" of Bocchy's ninth cello concerto). So now they're here.

The post title refers to the badass fandango that concluded the concert. I continue to be impressed by how many period ensembles are willing to play as if they're jamming. That's how to do it, kids.

Yesterday, reading random files on my site looking for errors as I sometimes do, I noticed a big one on the acknowledgments page: in the list of editors I had at the Diamondback, I left off Tom LoBianco. Tom did as good a job at editing me as any of the opinion people did, and I regret his omission. So Tom, if you Google yourself, this one's for you.

Saturday, 6/11/05: Conditional

I read another book — Mark Costello's Big If. You can read what I thought of it here.

Friday, 6/10/05: Red Line Train to Glenmont

First, I saw the following graffiti on a passing freight train:

RASTUS DOLE KEMP

1996 forever! I think! (This is why living on the eastern part of the Red Line is fun — you get to watch the freight trains. All those rich folks in Northwest don't know what they're missing.)

Then, the following series of conversations, conducted by a mom-looking person on a cell phone:

(while entering the train) Tell him I’m proud of him. Even if it freaks me out. Don’t tell him that last part. Bye! (picking up phone after about twenty seconds) I just got off the phone with him! That’s so exciting! (while exiting the train) I’m so proud of you!

I don't know whether or not I wish I knew what "it" was.

Thursday, 6/9/05: Misguided Rhetorical Gesture Department

The lead of May Berenbaum's Sunday Post piece about DDT:

In the pantheon of poisons, DDT occupies a special place. It's the only pesticide celebrated with a Nobel Prize: Swiss chemist Paul Mueller won in 1948 for having discovered its insecticidal properties. But it's also the only pesticide condemned in pop song lyrics — Joni Mitchell's famous "Hey, farmer, farmer put away your DDT now" — for damaging the environment. Banned in the United States more than 30 years ago, it remains America's best known toxic substance. Like some sort of rap star, it's known just by its initials; it's the Notorious B.I.G. of pesticides.

Huh? "B.I.G." didn't stand for anything other than the word "big"; the punctuation was a classic example of rap grandiosity. See "Unbelievable" for proof: "B-I-G-G-I-E, aka B.I.G./Get it? Biggie." As it happens, I can't think of any rappers who are known primarily by their initials except DMC (of Run-DMC, whose government name is Darryl McDaniels). I actually put down the article and quit reading it after that last sentence.

As it turns out, eleven paragraphs into the article she starts making a point I haven't seen elsewhere — DDT isn't a magic bullet against malaria because pests that transmit malaria become resistant to it over time. Maybe what they need instead of one magic bullet is seven Mac 11s, about eight .38s, nine 9s, ten Mac 10s. In the meantime, editorialists should avoid making hip-hop references unless they're sure they're not about to play themselves. (And where were the copy editors on this one? Hee hee.)

Wednesday, 6/8/05: A Bunch of Stuff

Wow! That was a long time between updates! Sorry. Here's a review (second item down)! The last word of the first paragraph was originally "ladies," rather than "women." I confess I used "ladies" just to see whether I could get it in the paper. I was really worried about the lecture at this one, as is dramatized by the following Clover Man dialogue from the program (I would scan it except I'm way tardy on buying a scanner):

"I suddenly have grave reservations about this."

"Oh, come on — it might not be Communist."

"Might."

"Just try not to cause an international incident."

"I'm not in a mood to try very hard."

But the word "patriarchy" was not uttered once. And Sigrid Trummer is a really, really good pianist, who knew just how to get the most out of that lovely Bosendorfer piano the Austrian Embassy has. I hope I get to see her again sometime.

We also have a new feature: The Book I Just Read. It provides my thoughts on the tome I have most recently perused. Truth in advertising, that's my motto. To make sure the section didn't look lonely, I put four books in there.

UPDATE, 6/22/05: Here's the Clover Man conversation:

Yeah, I paid $100 for a scanner so this could be on the Internet.

Thursday, 5/26/05: The Eternal Question, Poorly Answered

Some musings on the purpose of our existence in "Life is Inconsiderate." This is in Humor because I couldn't think of where else to put it. I'm not sure it's all that good, either, but this is my playpen.

Monday, 5/23/05: First-Timer

Here's a review of a world premiere from my new buddy composer Fred Lerdahl at the Library of Congress on Friday night. I say "my new buddy" because it was a cool piece. Also, I got art! And a two-line headline! I am special today.

Here is the "Benefactor" section of the list of donors to the Lib o' C concert season, verbatim:

Doris Celarier (in memory of James Celarier)

E. Lee Fairley (in memory of his wife, Gisela)

Howard Gofreed

Drs. Prudence Kline and Paul Kimmel

Rainald and Claudia Löhner

Sidney Wolfe and Suzanne Goldberg

Rhymin' Buffalo Yo' Dee

Takes a while to get there, but it's worth it, isn't it, kids? I'm thinking about contributing some money so I can have the following entry:

Andrew L. Malone (in memory of the Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur)

This is assuming I can't send in a check signed by Andrew L. Malone but tell them to print "Large Promulgator" or something.

Wednesday, 5/18/05: Cold Off the Presses

I was out of town from the 10th through the 13th, and otherwise was just lazy about updating this blog. In between the 6th and now, among other things, I wrote this review, which appeared in the paper yesterday. There's not too much to say about it beyond what I wrote, except that it was exactly what I wanted to see when I took the concert.

Other things:

• You should be checking Wizznutzz for the latest on the Wizards season (now over) and the greatest of Wizards history (vast and storied).
• You can check BloggersMarket for classified ads posted by other people who read blogs listed on the DCBloggers web site. The site also allows you to designate a "favorite blog" in order to see all classifieds posted by people who also read that blog. If a whole bunch of you post ads and designate Spam-O-Matic as your favorite blog, you all can end up exchanging your surplus possessions, giving each other jobs, and generally engaging in the thrilling act of commerce without me ever knowing. That's probably good.
• I hope to get some actual writing done soon.

Friday, 5/6/05: You the Schumann

I have a review of pianist Elena Bashkirova in the Post today (top of the pile!). A couple notes:

• Bashkirova had finger flubs all night, all mis-hit notes. I noticed them when they came up, but I didn't really care at the end of the performance, so I didn't mention them. No need to waste words when you only have 250 to burn.
• The men's bathroom on the fifth floor of the National Museum of Women in the Arts has no urinals, just three stalls. This is obviously a crypto-feminist conspiracy to help women forget that urinals are cleaner, quicker to use, and less wasteful of both water and space than stalls, and that it is only men's unique and hilarious equipment that makes urinals possible.
• I probably should have tried to talk to the girl who shared a smile with me at intermission. I was tired. Or I have no game. One of the two.
• Whenever I start talking to people at the concerts (and whether or not I tell them I review for the Post), they ask if I play something, or study music. My formal musical education has been haphazard, and I haven't played anything in years, either (though I kind of want to try playing accordion). I just like listening to music and thinking about what it means. This never seems to be an adequate response, from the point of view of my questioners.

Thursday, 5/5/05: More Walking-Back-From-the-Supermarket Thoughts!

In the continuing series (begun directly below): Today I was walking home from Fresh Fields and saw a poster in the window of Hollywood Video for the film "Meet the Fockers." A phrase popped into my head from an unwritten movie review: "In the implacable logic of Hollywood, 'Meet the Parents' had to spawn a sequel." The word "logic" caught on some bramble in my mind, and I started wondering whether you could represent the sequel-making logic of Hollywood symbolically.

Here's how far I got before getting the milk into the refrigerator. (Excuse the crappy attempts at symbols. HTML is underpowered for this kind of work.)

Consider a genre film G1 with an incremental amount of quality beyond the normal amount Q. Consider further that G + Q -> a box office gross B(G + Q) = nB(G), where n is the ratio of the box office gross of (G + Q) to the normal box office gross of a genre film G. (Another way to think of n is as the multiplier by which the typical box office gross was increased due to the additional increment of quality.) In Hollywood logic, it is an axiom that:

When n > 2, a film G2 must be produced, with additional increment of quality Q(1 - p), where p is determined by multiplying a randomly selected value from a normal distribution over 0 to 1 by the square root of n.

I think that about covers it.

This kind of thing, where my brain gets interested in something just because it's difficult and won't quit working until it figures out a solution, gets me into trouble at work a lot. As one of my co-workers told me today, "Because you expressed interest, you have volunteered to become the expert." I need to grasp the Zen of strategic apathy. But my brain is a frisky lil' sucker, if not always productively so. (Or accurately so. I have a feeling there are gigantic holes in the above working-out of this particular problem. However, it was dinnertime and I was home, so instead of working it out further I made dinner.)

In non-symbolic-logic-related news, I asked the Internet to ask me whether going to the Gidon Kremer concert was worth it in a week, a week ago. I can now state that it definitely was worth it. The unpleasantness of the day afterward has receded in my memory, and all that remains is the ecstatic state to which Kremer and the BSO transported me. This is as it should be.

Tuesday, 5/3/05: I'm Warning You

The reason I haven't been posting lately is that I haven't thought of anything interesting to say to the Internet, not because I don't love you, my readers. (My lack of love is my reason for doing some other stuff, but not that.) Here is an example of an idea that I initially thought was interesting but turned out to be flawed:

While walking home from Giant, I was thinking about how certain people presume that everyone either has had or should have the exact same life experiences that they have had, and I was wondering whether this had anything to do with the fact that most people I know who do this are white. It seemed to me that since white people are the people in this country with the echo chamber on in the media, they might conceivably (a) adapt more readily to the media's message on how to live their lives and (b) thus presume that everyone would do the same.

Then I realized that that was probably wrong, because many people I know who presume that everyone is or should be like them have led fairly unconventional lives, and it is their very certainty in themselves more than anything else that leads them to presume. I remembered that such a presumption requires a distinct lack of empathy as well. Then I realized that there were in fact many nonwhite people of my acquaintance who made these presumptions, as well as (of course) plenty of white people with the humility and empathy to at least try to understand different paths. It was a spark of an idea that still seems to have some validity to me, but it's at best a contributing factor to a pattern that really depends mostly on traits that are common across the races. And thus it is not worthy of airing on the Internet.

By reading that, you can also get an idea of my recent jokemaking capacity (read: very small). I did think of a new word today: When I told my supervisor that I would get a huge document to him for his review, he asked, "Is that a threat or a promise?" I responded, "It's a thromise." I think I'll be keeping that word.

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