Thank you to Seth Anderson at B12 Partners Solipsism for the cover images, which are “Rookery” on the front cover and “Before the Rain Blues” on the back. Chicagoans might recognize at least one of these images.
There’s still some room left for blog essays in the first issue. Here’s more information on the whole deal. I won’t be finalizing anything until after April 18, so if you want in, send me your blog essay on or before April 17 on one of these templates:
Filed under: politics — Ginger Mayerson @ 10:10 am
“Which doesn’t, in that poll or others, mean Obama would lose—that poll shows him winning (and take all such polls with grains of salt; many things could happen between now and November). But it does suggest he would win with a different mix of votes than Clinton. In choosing a nominee, primary voters and convention delegates are choosing between different historical and future versions of the Democratic party, in which different mixes of people identify as Democrats, going forward.
And as with all Batman v. Superman matchups, the question is inevitably, which one is more powerful? Why?” Superman vs. Batman, Edge of the American West, March 21, 2008
Filed under: Uncategorized — Ginger Mayerson @ 10:10 am
“Everyone’s an art critic when it comes to a $195,000 mural for the LAPD’s new Hollenbeck station.
“The tile mural was meant to depict a quaint Sunday in Boyle Heights. Many angry residents say it makes their neighborhood out to be a crime-ridden dump filled with fat women, stray dogs, beer-swilling men and illegal street vendors. And don’t get them started about the piñata.
“‘There’s no American flag. There seems to be a rule against that,’ said Rosalie Gurrola, born and raised in Boyle Heights, to rousing cheers and applause at a recent community meeting. ‘We need an American flag!’
“The 4,000 tiles are glazed, fired and ready to be installed next month, but public outcry threatens to keep the artwork from ever going up.
“The 100-foot mural by artist Sandow Birk has unwittingly tapped a raw nerve below the surface of a seemingly homogenous community, widely considered L.A.’s mothership of Mexican culture.
“Residents complained about the unleashed dogs, about the ‘illegal’ street vendors, about a man holding a can they guessed was beer. They complained about what wasn’t shown — historical figures, children reading books, more war veterans, positive images of cops — and about what was.
“But as strange as that is, a stunning revelation came from a very senior Japanese executive, who sent these notes from a meeting with a top Japanese financial official:
The depth of the problems at Bear Stearns which led up to the buyout are not clear. Mr. X wondered why they did not try to use committed credit lines before agreeing to the JPM Chase deal. These lines were significant and included large amounts committed by Japanese banks, who are now relieved that they did not have to extend the credit.
“Maybe Bear assumed at the rate of its cash depletion that it would burn through those credit lines quickly and being more leveraged might make other solutions more difficult, but the tone of the Japanese notes is that the credit lines were large enough in aggregate to have made a difference.
“And even odder: those credit lines are still in place. Why did the Fed stump up a whole $30 billion? This seems a tremendous oversight on its behalf. Of course, those lines probably terminate upon a change in control, but the Fed probably could have leaned on the banks to keep them in place (after all, they are lending against a better balance sheet with JPM, although adding the Bear lines to whatever credit facilities they now have with JPM might put them over their limits for exposure to any one bank. But the Fed could have offered to backstop the excess, which would be a smaller commitment than the one it made).
“LOS ANGELES — If Barack Obama is elected president, his speech on race in America will be remembered as one of the greatest in the country’s history. If he loses, it will still be remembered as a terrific speech, an astonishing display of grace under pressure.
“Those who care about the American dilemma — a racial history that contradicts our stated beliefs — will filter their perceptions through their own life experience, their own political bias, their own emotional stake in this particular election. Whatever the political effect, however, the man obviously said what he really thought.
“He told the truth: We are all racists. That does not mean that we are all prejudiced, but it does mean we notice the color of the people around us, and that affects the way we think and talk and act. And he was probably right about most of us, black and white, when he asserted that our racism is generational, that old men like Pastor Wright and me have more trouble dealing with race than do our children and, I expect, than our grandchildren will.
“That’s the way it is. We are on a long trail to a post-racial society — we may never reach the end — and this election will give some indications how far along we really are.” Hearing the Obama Speech, by Richard Reeves, March 19, 2008
Yes, I bet even Bill and Hill would be proud to vote for Obama after that speech. This is not an Obama endorsement, but if America has to face it, really face it, on race, all the races, then that can only be good for us and the world.
I think Reeves is wrong about one thing here: whether Senator Obama wins or not, this is going to be remembered as one of the greatest speeches on race in America. It’s a tough subject, I thought he did a stellar job with it.
“When we do talk about the production concept (and generally we don’t) the cast talks about it in terms of movies like ‘Escape from New York’ and the ‘Die Hard’ movies. In my production concept statement that I’ve just written and posted, I talk about the production as if it were a futuristic version of ‘The Big Sleep.’ This disparity is fine by me. ‘Escape from New York’ is essentially a futuristic version of ‘The Big Sleep.’ (And if my cast wonders why I never just told them that I think we’re doing ‘The Big Sleep’ it’s because that if I did, you (and I) may have never been motivated to think about the many ways it’s like ‘Escape from New York’ and the ‘Die Hard’ because traditionally the director dictates the interpretation of the script to the cast… And we might never have thought up that cool motorcycle battle at the end.) However, these differing genre models may go far to explain why the cast didn’t really care if we cut Fyodor Chandler or not and I wake up thinking about it at 4 am.
“The scene with Fyodor Chandler provides a moment where Nellie at least momentarily finds her moral compass. It makes what she does afterwards make more sense. In the modern action-adventure film, actions don’t necessarily have to have moral motivation… or even make sense, for that matter.
“I still worry that I’ve just become the studio hack who cut the scene from ‘The Big Sleep’ that explained who committed the murder Phillip Marlowe was supposed to be investigating. I think my cast knows everyone will be too busy listening to Bogart and looking at Bacall to care.” Darkness at Sunset and Vine Director’s Log, The Ides of March, 2008
Oh, man, dystopian linguists don’t get no respect. But this Director log thingy is way cool. And there’s video, too!
Click here for a better idea of what the hell I’m on about. Some of you might remember the enraged anti-bush novellas from 2003-2005 that are the Darkness at Sunset and Vine trilogy. Many cool bloggers of those years ended up in those stories, or at least plays on their names did. The first novella is being produced as a theater piece in Denton Texas, and performed there, Savannah, Georgia and somewhere in Arkansas in March and April. Hey, if Hillary can win Texas and 9 inches of snow can fall in the Metroplex, then Darkness at Sunset and Vine can be performed in the Southland. Oy.
By the way, Fyodor Chandler came out of a conversation I had with Jane Seaton about how I felt like the story was a cross between Dostoyevsky and The Long Goodbye. So of course the next logical thing was to name a character Fyodor Chandler. Isn’t that what anyone would do?
“Finally, there are the “Tier 3″ sex workers, who can charge in excess of $10,000 per rendezvous. They may have only four or five clients, and they typically charge their clients an additional monthly surcharge for their various needs—rent, clothing, medicine.
“Both Tier 2 and Tier 3 workers can typically do more to safeguard a client’s privacy. There are no guarantees, of course, but they tend to shun contractual relationships with agencies that advertise their services. There is less of a paper trail. They typically will only take a john via a referral, and even then, they may require that the john ‘date’ them for weeks before deciding to offer up sex. I have heard of Tier 2 and 3 sex workers who vet prospective clients for months, sometimes hiring a private detective to see if the john is stable—psychologically and financially. As a former attorney general, Spitzer must have known all this.
“What high-end clients pay for may surprise you. For example, according to my ongoing interviews of several hundred sex workers, approximately 40 percent of trades in New York’s sex economy fail to include a physical act beyond light petting or kissing. No intercourse, no oral stimulation, etc. That’s one helluva conversation. But it’s what many clients want. Flush with cash, these elite men routinely turn their prostitute into a second partner or spouse. Over the course of a year, they will sometimes persuade the woman to take on a new identity, replete with a fake name, a fake job, a fake life history, and so on. They may want to have sex or they may simply want to be treated like King for a Day.” Skinflint, by Sudhir Venkatesh, Slate, March 12, 2008
I mean, wtf? guys? I hate to tell you this but there’s more to life than your dick and you ego.
And Spitzer, you threw away your chance to make the world a better place. You, your dick and your ego can rot in hell as far as I’m concerned.
And, sisters, $10K a month to prop up some guy’s ego and maybe blow him? Advantage capitalism. Christ. I know women who work two jobs for the luxury of doing that. Oh, but they’re in love, so that’s different.
“2 Sex—what is it good for? Scientists are not sure, since asexual reproduction is a better evolutionary strategy in some important ways.
“6 Barbary macaques have a distinctive way to get their mates to make a sperm donation: yelling. If the female does not shout, the male almost never climaxes.
“7 How do we know this? German primatologist Dana Pfefferle watched a group of macaques, counting the females’ yells and the males’ pelvic thrusts. She says this work is ‘quite weird, but it’s science.’
“11 The tiny male paper nautilus, an octopus, impregnates the much larger female by shooting his penis (a modified tentacle) into her—and leaving it there.
“12 Homosexual behavior is found in at least 1,500 species of mammal, fish, reptile, bird, and even invertebrate.” 20 Things You Didn’t Know About Sex, Discover, March 19, 2008
I like Senator Obama as much as I like Senator Clinton and I will gladly vote for either of them.
Either will be a fine president, and certainly far better than what we have now, which ain’t saying much, but there you have it. And as soon as we have a candidate, by God or whatever, I will be behind that person 110% 25/8.
Is it November yet? I don’t enjoy election years, but I might enjoy a few more speeches like this one embedded above. Full text off the Obama’08 website behind the jump if you’d rather read it.
“Using the wayback machine, I was able to compare Livejournal popular interests from May, 2007, with those of today. In order of size, these are the interests 6A/SUP has disappeared from the daily popular interests report:
“On February 27th, one of Lori Earley’s drawings was swiped right off the walls of Jonathan LeVine in NYC.”
“‘All reports confirm that the suspect in question is a white male, approximately 6’2″ tall, in his mid-to-late thirties. He was seen wearing a blue baseball hat with a navy blue backpack, and he spoke with a very heavy New York accent.’ If you or anyone you know has information as to who might have committed this theft or leads on possible location of the stolen drawing, please contact the gallery immediately at (212) 243-3822 or info@jonathanlevinegallery. They are offering a reward for its return.” Special Circle of Hell, i feel it too, March 1, 2008
Going to hell is optional, just return the drawing, whoever you are. There’s enough suffering in the world already.
Update 031708: Could whoever return this one, too? Reward offered.
