Kurt Vonnegut

I can't claim to be the biggest acolyte, but I am a minor fan. Today I'm another proud fellow Hoosier. Don't tell me Indiana never did anything for American culture. The middle isn't for flying over. It's for the quiet cultivation of crops and minds to be shipped away to the East and West.

Quote of the Day

This is probably quote of the month seeing as how regularly I come back here, but this amused me. Anyone who's been to this Mecca of Flight Delays will attest to this statement from a United worker. It concerns a UFO sighting at my second favorite Chicago airport:

"To fly 7 million light years to O'Hare and then have to turn around and go home because your gate was occupied is simply unacceptable."

I once waited over an hour on an airplane for a gate to open up so that we could deplane.

In other news, I'm bored.

Worst Ever?

This is bigger than it seems. Eric Foner is a truly brilliant historian and quite possibly my favorite. His book on Reconstruction has almost single-handedly shifted the way people think about America in the past and in the present. I studied under some of his acolytes at the big H. For him to write this is huge.

Although somewhat to the left, he's respected by people across the spectrum. This is a major statement coming from a man of his seriousness. The Michael Moore comparisons will not stand.

I'm not sure I disagree. I've mentioned this to friends in the last couple of weeks. I've always thought that people who thought he was the worst ever were blowhards and stupid. Now, I'm scared to say that I've come to the same conclusion. I think the failure in Iraq the last couple of months has really hit home, as has the way in which he exploited a great nation in its time of weakness and vulnerability to call upon our darker angels to hold on to political power and demonize the opposition, dividing us when we should have been united.

And then today comes this. Read it. Look at the pictures. And ask yourself how we came to this point.

Benedict the Fabulous Lives!

The piece I wrote for the Advocate nearly a year ago has been brought back from the grave. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that I provided the blogger of record with my piece as response to one of his posts on the pope's fashion. But anyway, here it is:


http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2006/11/papal_fashion.html

In other news

We have a leak. I woke up this morning, and we have a leak. Water was pouring into our living room on top of our vcr. We have a big lobster pot collecting water, and we expect it to fill up by the time we get back from work. Never trust a man in a toupee. That's a mistake I'll never make again. Although I must say that they seem to be on top of it.

I'm going home on Friday. The Lush and I are going to the IU/Purdue game with a bunch of Region Rats. Should be one for the highlight reel.

I love Thanksgiving, but I'm not too enthused this year. I've been feeling a little smothered, and family holidays do little to relieve that feeling. Really excited to see family despite this. Mom's been driving me absolutely bonkos. Maybe I'll just spend most of my time with Grandma.

I'm reading Menand's The Metaphysical Club at home and Don Quixote during my lunch breaks. I can't say enough good things about both of them. Quixote's just incredible. Another book that can best be described as a miracle. Reading it is like nailing jello to a wall. (Little Russ would say I've never tried his sister's jello. WAAHAHAHAHA! Man is Tim Russert unfunny. Not like my main man Chris Matthews who drives me crazy, but will sometimes surprise me.) Actually, it's like trying to catch a cloud and pin it down. Nope, that doesn't work either. The truth is that not much compares to the experience of reading about Our Man in La Mancha. My perspective and interpretation of Quixote is constantly changing. In some ways it is a mirror on the reader's soul. The Metaphysical Club is just eternally frustrating as Menand distills big ideas in elegant sentences that twist my brain in knots. But it pushes forward with a narrative that is heartbreaking and inspiring and all those things. Who knew scholarship could be so vital?

My friend Rusk and I spent all of Saturday outside because it was beautiful, so we just strolled all through Boston. A truly great day in my life.

The last couple of days have been all too typical of this city. Cloudy, dark, and rainy. The sun's light has barely filtered through the clouds, so it always looks like dusk around here. And I always get home with soaked cuffs. Also, they're doing construction all along my route home, so I'm walking in the street, off the sidewalk, stepping in puddles, getting mud everywhere, dodging cars. It sucks. Why can't they do the sidewalks one side of the street at a time. Why? Because it's Slummerville and they do what they want. Municipal Freedom Gives National Strength. My ass. Municipal Freedom Gives Wet Clothing and a Shitty Disposition.

I loved the election. It restored my faith in this great country and reminded me why I'm an Americanist. That's a term I know Schnocone despises, but it's what I had been in Hist & Lit, and it still occupies my extracurricular mind. That doesn't mean I don't love packing a suitcase and lighting out. That's a proposition that's looking more and more appealing as time goes on. There's something so refreshing about getting along in a country where your language skills are clipped.

That said, Beulah and I are going to go see Volver once we get back from Thanksgiving. I've been waiting far too long to see this movie. Last week I watched Todo sobre mi madre with Bobeena. Loved it all over again.

I'm rambling.

An Oldie but a Goodie

So I was talking with the Lush about how boring life is. I think that's pretty much the main reason why this blog thing hasn't been working out so well. In that spirit, I'm reposting an entry that I wrote last year, when I was in Istanbul. I can't believe my life used to be this exciting:

The Hostal of the Damned

For other people, the hostal I'm staying in may be considered hell, but for me, I just like to call it home. In the hostal are many colorful characters, although they have basically all fallen on hard times. There's a ton of Peruvians who are staying there for a few months to make money because 1) It's hard to make money in Peru and 2) Their Peruvian passport won't get them into any other country. It's somewhat sad if you start to think about it and develop the horribly condescending emotion of pity, but they're all amazingly friendly people who love that we get to use our broken Spanish with them. Last night, they tried to give us free hot water for our tea, but the grumbling night manager made sure that we payed for the use of gas since gas and electricity are very costly in Turkey.

Also living in our hostal is a long-haired Syran political refugee who I've come to believe is a nihilist, based on the fact that he likes to use "fucking" when describing power structures, the media, government, and especially the "fucking garbage" that is television. Also adding to his cv of the damned is his long, straggly hair and evidently useless, bluish/cataractic right eye. Quite the card.

Adding to the atmosphere of the inferno is that there are numerous passing souls who are extremely friendly, but abruptly leave. The first night in the hostal we spent chatting with a Kiwi, a Brit-Kiwi, and an Aussie, Oh My. They were great fun--primary school teachers on vacation, bemoaning their inner city students, especially the seven year old with a buxom rack, and another kid who likes to imitate sexual moans when they're learning vowels and is sure to impregnate every girl around him once he reaches puberty. Of course, these figures were too good to be true and vanished quickly. Another purgatory-like figures were the Germans who bought a bus ticket and were just waiting in our living room for the bus, before they were kicked out by the crotchety night guy who charged us for gas. The exception to the rule is this supremely awesome Spanish couple who we've spent a lot of time talking to, but are never around when we just want to hang out. They're like the Vergils of our Inferno, guides who can wander into the inner circles of hell, but really are confined to the upper realms and don't much socialize with the people below them. Oh, right, and there's no heating and it's freezing in Istanbul at night, so we've got that going for us. The Peruvians told us they'd smuggle us in a space heater. God, I love the hispanohablantes.

V-O-T-E

Throw the mother-grabbing bastards out!

Housewarming

Last weekend we had a housewarming party. Wubulu,the Lush, and Schnocone came in. It was a blast. Words fail. I know I'm not Jewish, but I refuse to think that this bars me from speaking what little Yiddish I know or from making Jewish cultural references.

It's in this spirit that at the end of the weekend, I remarked on the thought that crosses my mind whenever the hometown crew comes together. I love the little line in the Seder "Next year in Jerusalem!" One of my favorite moments. Well, at the end of these weekend get-togethers, I often feel impelled to shout "Next Year in Chicago!" This region diaspora will not stand. This too shall pass.

But I'm not done with my wanderings. I feel as though I may be done with Boston after this year, but we'll see. I've never lived on the West Coast, so I think that may be next. Although I may save that for grad school. That unhappy proposition poked its head today as I was talking with a lecturer who edited my thesis. I told her that I wasn't quite fit for the office life. Her response: "Have you considered grad school?" Why does everyone want me to drink the Kool-Aid? Right now, I'm pretty sure I'm waiting until 25 before I commit.

I'm not going to Harvard-Yale. This is upsetting some people. Oh well. I'm going Big Ten style and hitting up the Breakfast Club for the Purdue/IU game.

The Sox ended up eating it in the home stretch. Completely and utterly disappointing. I'll console myself with last year's championship and hopes of next year. They've still got a pretty good team, they just underperformed.

Most people are comforting themselves with the terrific success of the Bears. I don't much like football, though. In the words of Don Fanucci, "Too violent." I got my fill in high school. I suppose I'll watch the Bears whenever they show up on Boston television, though. It's just difficult for me to support a sport in which all the players condition themselves in the offseason by beating their wives. On that note, I'm out.

Funny Men

I wrote this post two weeks ago. Whatever. I think the deathwish truck driver deserves a mention.

Horatio Sanz fired. I call bullshit.

Hugo Chavez. Ridiculous.

Deathwish truck driver. If you're driving for deathwish, you might as well act like it. Also, it's a piano moving company, so it offered the hilarious death of getting run over by a truck and have a piano fall on you.