Castro's dying, Tropical Storm Chris is brewing, Miami Vice is in the theaters...I just spent three hours at Cafe Versailles drinking cortaditos with former political prisoners amid a chorus of honking horns and waving flags. It's a little crazy here right now.

O jogo bonito

There's a scummy British pub in Miami incongruously placed in the heart of Little Haiti that features wall-sized screens and bangers and mash in a dark cave that would probably strike fear into the hearts of even cave-dwelling cockroach eaters. It's called Churchill's. I watched the World Cup there with an audience pretty evenly split along national lines (although the people nearest to me were the ones screeching "ALLEZ!") I was rooting for Italy, mostly because I have a crush on Pirlo.



Yes, I'm aware of his feathered hair. Anyway: the best moment of the game was obviously the head-butt, when the bar erupted in wonder. My friend, standing next to me in the glow of many screens replaying the incident, could only gaze forward and whisper, "That head-butt's going to be famous."




But while Zidane displayed remarkably unsportsmanlike behavior, (will we ever learn the words that provoked the rage of a charging bull?) his dramatic exit was probably the most street thing that's ever happened in soccer. With the head-butt, Zidane puts the most thuggish rapper to shame. His Count Von Count hairline is now justified by his actions. The mystical vision in the night that compelled him to return to the sport takes on another meaning: did perhaps the voice mean him harm? Is it improbable that Zidane was motivated to return not by a force of good, but by a force of evil? Did he sign a Faustian pact to propel his team onward that he suddenly rejected, only to be punished by Mephistophelian demons who took his head in their claws and used it as a battering ram against a fragile Italian solar plexus?

Whatever the answer, I'm glad his team lost. But in his fall from grace the former model of all things good, the family man, the elder statesman of French soccer, made his point in a way that had he used his hands or his legs or his elbows wouldn't have been nearly as impressive, nor as honorable. For one moment, Zidane showed us what the game is truly about. And he may have lost his head, but all athletes must be driven by a certain savagery that mere mortals lack (I, for one, get bored after about five minutes of playing any sport). It must be a struggle to maintain the facade of normalcy. You can't be angry with Mike Tyson for what he did, and you can't be angry with Zidane. And when Materazzi said, ''You make mistakes in life, but then you have to purify yourself, without seeking revenge. Everyone has their destiny,'' you sort of want to punch him in the face for being such a pious motherfucker.



I am really, really sad that the World Cup is over. Today is like the day after Christmas. Even the Italians honking their horns outside my window all night knew that morning would dawn bleakly.

Tour depants

"But the Jan does not do the transfusions of blood, or the micro-injections of EPO, or the eating of the horse testicles for strength.

The Jan is being a simple man. The Jan takes in schnitzel and beer, and outputs death and pain. It is being that simple."

No more Il Basso. No more Kaiser Jan. A sad day in sports.

MIAMI HEAT

I haven't lived in a city that's won a championship since the Twins in 1991. Yesterday was so fun.

I got quoted in the L.A. Times. Pretty embarrassing, actually.

Guantanamo article. [Update: They also put it on the Village Voice site. Yay!] I am in Little Rock. It's nice. Deciduous trees.

Ele esta de saco cheio

Adam's well-argued tirade on Brazil, Anderson Varejao, and the NBA on McSweeney's.

"Varejao's Brazilian lineage appears to be one of the main reasons he receives such special treatment. Just as Brazil—as a monolith—has been fetishized by American consumers of culture for its unattainably exotic (e.g., "Portuguese, not Spanish") and uncontrived (see, "primitive") "cool," Varejao, in the same manner, is fetishized for his exotic and uncontrived "uncool." Varejao's admirers, rather than noting any specific Brazilian aspect of his identity, see merely "Brazil," which translates to him possessing a quality both alien and special: as if he were unlike anything we had seen before...

Perhaps most irksome is that, were the fetishizing of a Brazilian player to be performed in congruence with the obsession over Seu Jorge's Bowie covers, Favela Funk (not really sure what that is), City of God, Snoop and Pharrell's "Beautiful" video, and the explosion of blue-green-yellow flip-flops and T-shirts that emerged following Brazil's 2002 World Cup victory, the logical candidate to become Brazil's most beloved would be the Suns' Leandro Barbosa. Would Rick Ross be so keen to observe that Anderson Varejao is merely the more commercially viable Sergio Mendes to Barbosa's slicker Jorge Ben? There is no doubt of it."

Epilogue

The day I left Gitmo was the day of suicides and uprising. This is the best article on the whole thing. It was odd: I tried to extend my stay until Friday, because there was a press session on Thursday I wanted to attend, but all the flights were full and I had to take an early Thursday flight. Nonetheless we were in Camp 4 two days prior. I can only wonder if any of the detainees that I saw walking around took part, which cell block it was, and what really happened. It changes the nature of the story I'm writing somewhat, but I'm not sure how. A fairly dramatic development nonetheless, especially coinciding with the UN's call to close the facility.

That is actually something I don't quite understand. The explicit reasons for each detainee's detention should be made clear to them and to the world -- if these men are as horrible as the DOD would have us believe, it shouldn't be a problem to justify holding them through habeas corpus -- but closing the facility? Transferring people to other countries, particularly those with less than glowing human rights records, would not be a solution. It may be hypocritical of the U.S. to say they worry about people getting tortured upon transfer, but that doesn't make it less of a legitimate concern.

Whew. I was propellered back into Fort Lauderdale a few hours ago, safe and sound. Now to write everything up. In the meantime, I would like to wholeheartedly endorse the accuracy of this survey.

Tactical strategy

I am quite tired. If only I had a nickel for every response I got during an interview that began with, "That's an excellent question." For anyone who has never dealt with public affairs officers, said response is euphemism for either "I don't know" or "I can't answer that." The German public radio correspondent with us said she would keep a tally when reviewing her tapes. My guess is that her total will top fifty times in two days.

Tomorrow I go to my less cushy digs. (The ones I'm in right now are very very nice. Much nicer than my little beach studio in Miami, although the lizards appear to have followed me here. Where I am moving is more like a college dorm.) According to everyone here I won't have internet on the Leeward side, so this is the end of my newly-minted Gitmo blog. I'm sorry I've done such a poor job of describing the scenery. It merits a great deal of effort: enormous windmills slowly turning along mountainous ridges, spindly guard towers perched on cliffs overlooking the sea, the massive labyrinth of concertina wire known as Camp Delta. I have also failed to write about any of the people I've talked to and the things I've seen. I need a couple of days to mull over some things.

I almost bought a child-sized t-shirt today that said "Future behaviour modification instructor" in the NEX gift shop. Even viewed ironically, it was simply way too obnoxious.

Expect phone calls. That, it turns out, is much more easily accomplished here.

We substituted good grammar for intellect

The flight was in an 8-seat Air Sunshine plane, equipped with none of the usual buffers that serve to suspend the sensation of hurtling through the sky at hundreds of miles an hour. Sitting in the front seat, I was practically flying the plane, or at least close enough to see that the sun-cracked dashboard with its analogue buttons looked very, very old -- except for the pilot's small prayer plaque, which was in Arabic. He had nicely covered his seat in a large swath of gray fake fur. It went well with the overall ambience of protruding foam, cracked pleather, toxic fumes and deafening machinery. There was an Igloo mini-cooler with drinks on the floor. Due to the demands of bathroom scheduling, these were left untouched. When we landed they told us to look out for the propellers on the way down the ladder.

Then Gitmo: cacti, woodpeckers, and iguanas lounging in the shade. Much prettier than I thought it would be -- everything brown and pink and light blue.

Lots of new vocabulary words to learn and cages to visit. In one large cage: "The detainess co-recreate two at a time." Or in an old Camp X-Ray interrogation shack: "They are not interrogated Pavlovianly."

We look at lots of sample cells with little piles arranged on the beds. "Non-compliant detainee" pile includes orange jumpsuit and flip flops. "Very compliant detainee" gets prayer oils and backgammon. I have lots of pictures of small cots with boxes of soap, checkers, chess, and backgammon neatly laid out. These are called "comfort items." In some places, the detainees themselves sat in the shade, looking fairly bored, in spite of the basketball hoops and elliptical machines where they can co-recreate.

We are treated like babies: well-hydrated, air conditioned, transported, housed in little suites stocked with comfort items. The tour ends Thursday, when I am exiled Leeward. There are very few comfort items Leeward. Breeze, dust, cacti and sea. But there's a bar, it's quiet, I will be unescorted. And the NGOs arrive Monday for the commissions. But I keep hearing Demi Moore's voice in A Few Good Men. "Are you going to investigate at all?" she asks Tom on his visit to GTMO, "Or are you just here for the tour?"

I take it back though. Because it's different than that. We know that they messed up. They know that they messed up. But we pretend we're confident journalists, and they pretend they're proud soldiers. Not one person here has been here longer than eight months anyway, that we've met. The relationship of the journalists to the soldiers, and the soldiers to the detainees, is a lot like The Bluest Eye, the part Black Star quoted...

"We honed our egos on her, padded our characters with her frailty, and yawned in the fantasy of our strength. And fantasy it was for were not strong, only aggressive; we were not free, merely licensed; we were not compassionate, we were polite; not good, but well behaved. We courted death in order to call ourselves brave..."

etc. etc. Thieves in the night, etc. Pore old Pecola... Genius Toni Morrison. I probably can't put that in any sort of article but that's all this seems to be. Embarassment disguised with Orwellian language and trumped up ceremony.

Upcoming travels

Yes, it's been a while. Last Sunday I had a big birthday barbecue on Key Biscayne with Krishna and another friend. We set up under a small stand of palm trees on the beach in Crandon Park, placed a portable table and a hibachi grill in the sand, put some Smokey Robinson on the jukebox, mixed some mango juice and rum, and stayed there for seven hours. I think I like it here, suddenly.

But Monday marks a descent into banana rats and iguanas, as I travel down to Gitmo to witness legal limbo and eat Jamaican food at the Jerk House. The original plan was the four-day media tour, where the public affairs office shows you the former Camp X-ray and the kitchens where prisoners' halal meals are prepared (the ones that aren't being force-fed.) At the suggestion of another reporter, I asked if I could stay over the weekend and attend the military commissions the following week (the "pre-trial hearings" for a couple of the 10 prisoners -- out of some 490 -- that are actually being charged with something.)

They agreed to let me stay, although I'm told I'll be alone on the Leeward side for the weekend. I'll be there ten days total. We fly down in a charter plane with no bathroom that one lawyer described as "a minivan with wings." It's a three hour flight because they take the long way around Cuba and back north. For reasons I can't quite explain, I'm a little frightened.

In addition, I worry that there is no real news to break on the subject.

For anyone who cares, I'll be in Little Rock in early June.

Three Weeks

In 2002 I spent the summer in New York and obsessively collected a little broadsheet newsletter called Three Weeks. I mailed copies of it to everyone I knew. I was devastated when I returned to the city that fall and picked up the issue that announced their demise.

Last year I e-mailed the editor (all four contributors wrote under pseudonyms) to see where they had disappeared to. He told me they were writing for the Philadelphia Independent. That has also now disbanded, so their whereabouts are unknown. But it was pretty exciting to discover this. All the old newsletters are on the site. I wonder who they are. I love them.

Stories stories

I get conflicted about posting these, because reading over them causes a sort of ringing in my ears and acute head pain. I mean to write better articles, someday. Let's leave it at that. In the meantime:

Kids with Down syndrome.
Telenovelas.
The American Princes.

Funny funny

Even though it's been months since I saw it, there are days when this movie rears its ugly head. Especially the part when Marnie is on a date and says, "I'm the opposite of parched." And her date says, "You mean saturated?"

From the medical journal Pediatrics:, one of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Network Neurobehavioral Scale Procedures.

H. Pick up Infant (States 4 and 5)
Cuddliness
This item is a summary measure of the infant’s response to being held in alert states. There are several components that are scored in response to the infant being held in a cuddled position both horizontally against your chest and vertically on your shoulder. The infant’s resistance to cuddling should be assessed as well as the ability to relax or mold, nestle, and cling to you. Give the infant a chance to initiate cuddling (~10 seconds). Facilitate cuddling only if there is no active participation on the part of the infant or if the infant is unable to relax or mold. If the infant initiates cuddling, score 5 and above. Cuddliness should not be administered with the infant swaddled. Also, refrain from talking to the infant during the administration of this maneuver. Assign separate scores for Cuddle in Arm (horizontal) and Cuddle on Shoulder (vertical).

The M3 Summit was fun, the little I could enjoy of it. (I have a nasty deadline tomorrow and couldn't get out much.) I saw Peaches though, and Hot Chip and the Juan Maclean. I might try to see Prefuse 73 and The Rub tonight, although this article just won't be done, or become what I want it to be. The sudden invasion by an army of German boys and San Franciscans in stylish glasses and windbreakers was a welcome change from the Spring Break crowd on South Beach I have to say.

I've updated my links. If you read this and you have a blog tell me.

Holler

Did anybody else notice the Lucero t-shirt Shelby wears at the end of Hustle & Flow? That made me happy, for Little Rock, for Memphis, for the greater good.

National Magazine Awards

The Oxford American is nominated for two. Best single topic issue for the summer music issue and best feature for "Love and Death in the Cape Fear Serpentarium," by Wendy Brenner. I fact-checked that! Dubious claim to fame I suppose, but still, I'm proud.
The other finalists are here.

Moving Up

My friends are so smart!

The very clever and funny basketball blog my friend Adam W. works on with some friends, Free Darko, is the recipient of a weekly spot on McSweeney's. The blog mostly follows the varied careers of imported European players but it is also amusing to the basketball illiterate.

Volkswagen's new mascot designed and manufactured by Tim.

And Jamie E. was in my play first!

R.I.P.

Saturday on South Beach

My friend Mariah was dropping me off. She pulled the car over by my house when we both caught sight of a well-figured female in a spectacular white tennis outfit. We were both gushing over the tennis outfit, how cute it was, how we could never pull it off, when the woman and her boyfriend saw us staring at them. Embarrassed, we looked away, but the boyfriend came over to the car as I was getting out.
“How are you?” he asked, with a British accent. He had gelled hair and wore one of those shirts of light cotton embroidered with flowers, a popular item with a certain kind of man on the Beach.
I was confused.
“I haven’t seen you in such a great while!” he proclaimed, like, starry-eyed.
“I don’t think I know you,” I ventured carefully.
“Ah…” he replied, suddenly straight-faced. “I don’t know you either, but you were looking at me like we should know each other.”
“No,” I said. “We just like your girlfriend’s shorts.”
“Oh never mind,” he huffed, and walked away.

No internet in my apartment makes this project much less enjoyable. In the absence of any postings from me, please enjoy this instead. The weather in Miami right now is too lovely to even be called weather. Palms and sun during the day, a slight chill at night. It's perfect.

I went up to NYC last weekend and did very little worth reporting (although it was very nice seeing folks.) The Rauschenberg exhibit at the Met was excellent, and not even worth linking to because his work is of the sort that must only be viewed in person. Each combine is a little kit of perfect things.

What else: I have been rigorously studying every telenovela filmed in Miami and spending lots of time on sets with leading ladies in various shades of spray tan. I love novelas, and think they are underrated by English-speaking U.S. of Americans.

My editor wants to send me to Gitmo. What I can accomplish there seems almost pointless, (a complex process of signing away the right to free speech must be undertaken before visiting,) but I hope it works out.

Job

MNT is hiring a music editor. Look here. It's kind of a difficult job.

I was sitting in the part of a nightclub that's supposed to look like the interior of an airplane, drinking to Depeche Mode, when a drag queen asked me to ghostwrite his/her memoirs. I gave him/her a business card.

Yesterday I went on a little hike in the Everglades. There were piles of alligators everywhere, and ibis, great blue herons, cormorants, egrets, cranes... teeming is an understatement. My favorite bird is the anhinga. When it dives, its tail fans out under the water. Very pretty.

My boot camp story.

Learn Portuguese with Arnold

Carnival in Rio with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Rebecca sent me this. The best words to describe this are Arnold's own: "I can totally understand why Brazil is devoted to my favorite body part: the ass."

So

New Year's Eve was a surfeit of surf and turf (claws, fire-roasted animals, roe, tails, shells.) Snoop Dogg and Ludacris performed. Billy Joel stood in a corner and smoked cigarettes. The go-go dancers wore wings and the waiters dressed like tennis pros, but carried Dom Perignon instead of rackets.

Jaime Foxx shook my hand. He was covered in distracting surfaces (mirrored sunglasses, diamond earrings, polka-dotted shirt.) He tilted his head in a way that made him look like an Oscar-winning blind man for real. He said, "2006 is going to be a very good year. An excellent year."

I said: "Yeah, man." Then he was gone.

2005 Recap

There was only one new year's resolution, a tripartite goal between Lindsey, Davey, and I: read 52 books this year.

I'm afraid the finale was not a trifecta finish. One stipulation was that books over 400 pages should count as two (or was it 200 pages?), but I read so much children's literature that I don't think that's fair.

In conclusion: I definitely did not read 52 books this year. In the spirit of the Polysyllabic Spree, here's what I did read. Boys? E-mail me your final tallies and I'll post 'em. The escapist tendencies of my literary taste are a little embarassing; judge not, my friends.

By order read, re-reads annotated with an (R)

1. The Outlaw Sea, by William Langewiesche
2. I Am Charlotte Simmons, by Tom Wolfe
3. Delta Wedding, by Eudora Welty
4. Pnin, by Vladimir Nabokov
5. Edisto, by Padgett Powell
6. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, by Carson McCullers
7. Cuba Diaries, by Isadora Tattlin
8. Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson
9. Naked, by David Sedaris
10. The Magus, by John Fowles
11. Edisto Revisited, by Padgett Powell
12. They Marched Into Sunlight, by David Maraniss
13. Housekeeping, by Marilynne Robinson
14. Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh
15. Dog of the South, by Charles Portis
16. Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
17. Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens
18. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, by J.K. Rowling
19. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, ibid.
20. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, ibid.
21. Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain (R)
22. Glamorama, by Bret Easton Ellis
23. Miami, by Joan Didion
24. Up For Grabs: A trip through time and space in the sunshine state, by John Rothchild
25. Norwood, by Charles Portis
26. A Place to Come To, by Robert Penn Warren
27. Oblivion, by David Foster Wallace
28. Lunar Park, by Bret Easton Ellis
29. A Long Way Down, by Nick Hornby
30.The Elementary Particles, by Michel Houllebecq
31. The Silver Chair, by C.S. Lewis (R)
32. Bright Lights Big City, by Jay Macinerny
33. Me Talk Pretty One Day, by David Sedaris
34. Pastoralia, by George Saunders (R)
35. The Brief and Terrifying Reign of Phil, by George Saunders
36. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, by David Sedaris
37. Prince Caspian, C.S. Lewis (R)
38. Scoop, by Evelyn Waugh
39. Jarhead, by Anthony Swofford
40. A Room With a View, by E.M. Forster
41. Howard's End, by E.M. Forster
42. The Black Dahlia, by James Ellroy
43. Persuasion, by Jane Austin

If you wanted to count the Wolfe, Dickens, Fowles (3?), Ellis, etc. as two each then I almost made it. But then the C.S. Lewis shit would have to count as like half a book. One must keep up, if only slightly, with current events, at the sufferance of a simple resolve.

Also:
Favorite 2005 release goes to Nick Hornby for A Long Way Down, which made no critic's list but was so good.
Favorite old book: E.M. Forster ties with himself.
Favorite not-so-literary book: Snow Crash.
Genius, as usual: Oblivion.

If Penguin wasn't stupid they would sell these separately. I saw these at Paul Smith and tried to buy just one. ("On Forgetting," Freud.) If I could I would buy the whole thing.

Christmas recap

We went to New Hampshire. There we ate mucho chocolate, cookies, ham, brussel sprouts, turnips, homemade bread, biscuits, cabbage, wine, coffee, borscht, pirogies, latkes, homemade applesauce, oysters, nog, and geese. Not goose, but geese. I returned to Miami laden with chocolate and cookies, and will maintain a steady diet of chocolate and cookies until the next family gathering where my mom/aunts spend eight hours a day in the kitchen producing obscene amounts of food.

The award for best present goes to Stephen, with the Minipops book. When not engaged in a ridiculously complicated German board game called Puerto Rico we were all hunched around this book, making a list of the ones we could get. We did okay on everything but the obscure British bands, and the BBC sitcom characters, which were impossible.

The illustrator, Craig Johnson, has a very nice site featuring his account of the MTV VMAs mostly at the Setai. Don't be a jerk like me: it loads fine, it just scrolls horizontally.

Today I got a call from People's Miami correspondent. Do I want to go to Jaime Foxx's New Year's party at the Delano? Well yes, sir. I would. Quite. If I'm going to welcome 2006 with strangers, I might as well get a free dinner at the Blue Door out of it. This probably won't work out, which is why I'm writing about it now.

Philip Pullman! Kitties!

Christmas cheer from Christopher Hitchens.

A revealing mark of their insecurity is their rage when public places are not annually given over to religious symbolism, and now, their fresh rage when palaces of private consumption do not follow suit...But there are millions of well-appointed buildings all across the United States, most of them tax-exempt and some of them receiving state subventions, where anyone can go at any time and celebrate miraculous births and pregnant virgins all day and all night if they so desire. These places are known as "churches," and they can also force passersby to look at the displays and billboards they erect and to give ear to the bells that they ring. In addition, they can count on numberless radio and TV stations to beam their stuff all through the ether. If this is not sufficient, then god damn them. God damn them everyone.

This article from the Guardian about Art Basel summed it up best, I think.

If Venice is about the artists, and discreet Basel about dealers and collectors, brash Miami is about money. It is money that you can not only taste in the air; you can hear it discussed, and see it being spent all day long. The effect is strangely distorting. Twenty-four hours in, and you feel a touch under-dressed. Forty-eight hours in, and you wonder WHY you don't own any Chanel couture. Thirty-six hours in, and you no longer turn clammy when you're told the price of things. "It's $68,000," the bald guy in the Prada suit will tell you. "Hmm, not bad," you think, aware that the woman with the stretched face to your left has just written a cheque for six times as much.

Uh-Oh

Police raid on the apartment next to me. Everybody arrested. I'm up late working on a story and all of a sudden it's cop city on my stoop. Of my neighbor's eighteen-year-old girlfriend one little piggie says to me: "Too bad. That girl was cute. She had a nice waist." Ugh.

The drugs! They don't pay! Poor neighbors. They're broke and never have jobs and listen to bad house music, but they're my friends.

FINALLY

I can't believe I've been in Miami nearly six months and I only just now saw Gloria Estefan. She was in an Italian restaurant where I had dinner, with a long, long table full of guests that burst into Happy Birthday for a pleasantly nerdy preteen with big glasses. Miami Sound Machine, go!

Back in Miami

Post-prandial malaise, having exchanged liberty bells for palm trees and homemade oatmeal scones for an ant-infested computer. Home sweet nothing.

The Localist is finally online. Hooray!

I'm going to Parris Island, SC for three days next week to observe Marine recruits. The schedule mentions box lunches and target practice.

And my first feature is online here. It's a mess, I'm afraid.

Gawd

Today, on CNN, the correspondent described the female suicide bomber in Amman as failing in her attempt "to be part of the first husband-wife suicide bombing team in history."

"As far as we know," the anchor continued, "nobody has ever accomplished that before." Like it was a Tahitian's bid in Olympic freestyle skiing.

This was followed by an ad for a drug treating Restless Leg Syndrome, or RLS, "a medical condition."

It's time to write a new play, I think.

New York mag article about New Times-Village Voice merger. Favorite Mike Lacey (owner of New Times) quote:

This didn’t stop Lacey from explicating what he would have told the Voice staff should they have brought up any number of topics, like, say, that New Times papers are conservative. “Look,” Lacey said, “just because I don’t have eight reporters kneecapping George Bush doesn’t make me conservative. One is enough; the other seven can be looking for dirt on local politicians. The idea is not to let politicians get away with shit. Our papers have butt-violated every goddamn politician who ever came down the pike! The ones who deserved it. As a journalist, if you don’t get up in the morning and say ‘fuck you’ to someone, why even do it?

I found this oddly inspirational.

So Proud

My cousin, Clemson homecoming queen. For those of you unfamiliar with college football in the South this is sort of a huge deal.

Since I haven't posted any photos of baby birds for a while

A blog about baby animals. Via Louis.

Hmmm... shortly after that post the sky collapsed, every tree in the neighborhood fell down, and three days later the power came back on.

Ten minutes ago, maybe. I was standing outside when whooping and clapping came through open windows. Then I saw the street light on. We did a hurricane round-up at the paper, thanks to about three generators and some warm beer. I wrote the parts about Ted's Hideaway (neighborhood bar, not to be confused with Ted the homeless man) and the pile-up/photo op on Alton Road. And the closing bit. It's still hard to get gasoline, and there's a boil-water order, but all in all the hurricane experience was not bad at all. I quite enjoyed the candle light, and once the storm passed the weather was gorgeous.

Obligatory hurricane post

First, look at this! The New Times becomes a media empire. My first feature is due tomorrow, but it's very not done. Wilma has made this slightly less of the tragedy it could have been. I can't sleep. It hasn't started raining yet, just gusty and wonderful. I took a stroll around, but everything was rustling and whipping, and South Beach alone feels creepy, so I went home and swept, looked at the swath of red at the NOAA web site, finished re-reading more young adult literature.

Did receiving an e-mail about this event make anyone else feel like D for D has turned into a couture t-shirt parlour? Not that I wasn't pleased to see John Arceci in the NY Times Magazine.

Bad week

It started when I drove into a raccoon, which writhed in pain in the street for a minute before righting itself and limping away, in not dying leaving me with a profound sadness, waking up the next morning thinking of it waking up, with its wounds that much more swollen, its ability to feed itself and go about its normal business of trashcan investigation dreadfully thwarted... I felt like garbage. Then, as if in retaliation, the next evening some crackhead emerged from the cemetery at NE 18th Street, broke into my car, and stole my dirty underwear and a pair of five year-old running shoes. Just the little vent window but still. Then, today, already a bad day, a day when I was brimming with tears for no reason from morning on, I got fucking rear-ended at a stoplight by some British matron, whose husband informed me that they would rather not pay through their insurance company, leaving me with a bit of a dilemma. Be kind and let them? But they're rich, given their address, so why not make them pay and probably get a fucking rental car in the process, since I was just trying to go home and change a skirt I spilled on before an interview, and didn't ask to get rear-ended by a Silver Jeep Cherokee, womanned by Brit who lives on the most exclusive private island in Biscayne Bay and calls me "darling." The problem is I can't deal with any of this without bursting into tears, and you can imagine how my car looks right now. Fucking hell. Seeking a well-appointed cave.

Sunday

The problem with Florida is that various of its most recently-inebriated inhabitants must awake each morning to celestial blue skies and swaying palm trees and tender breezes that gently ply the curls of one's hair, an environment whose beguiling charms taunt the recent drunk who chooses to spend her day in an airless cave watching Deadwood on a laptop, who feels like she must apologize to the weather as to why she simply cannot exert herself to attend the beach that day, and who feels pangs of both guilt and despondency until the skies open and the rains pour and her activities are acknowledged as acceptable by nature's whims, which kindly render her street impassable and puddled.

Wind wind more wind

The sea animals are probably getting buffeted by waves, but in slow motion, more an annoyance to flipper around in than truly scary. I think especially of the two animals I saw when I was in Key West: a nurse shark and a sea turtle. I hope they are well.

The rain bands come marching in. Alone in one's room at the very outer reaches of tropical storm Rita is not a bad place to be, particularly if one isn't truly alone, because one is accompanied by tortilla chips. Alone + tortilla chips at the edge of Rita is the experience of a very small moon orbiting a large but invisible planet, whose physical forces manage to exert themselves in a number of Newtonian equations without revealing their progenitor's looming presence. Like: the little trees trying to protect their hairdos in the wind.

It is a busy time to think about animals underwater, and have a funeral for the baby lizard that you apparently rolled over on in your sleep last night, which in spite of being fully intact and having little, perfectly-formed feet had very much ended its time on Earth.

USPS

I haven't gotten my mail properly since I moved into my latest apartment, no New Yorker, no phone bill; but today, I received a book called "National Sunday Law: A Shocking Glimpse Behind the Scenes, Forces Unite for a Stupendous Crisis..." There are lots of line drawings of animals with fangs inside. A whole herd of them in fact, lions and snakes and whatnot, baring their fangs. And an illustration open to the book of Revelations with a telescope lying on it. And one of a mushroom cloud billowing into an enormous, light-reflecting eyeball. That one's the best. And the first sentence: "The nation trembles..."

Bah. I'm going to go see Seu Jorge in a minute.

Punch somebody in the face

That Bush has the gall to pretend like nobody knew the levees would break (when that was the media refrain prior to the actual hurricane) is an obscene and despicable attitude, as if the whole affair hasn't already proven a severe impairment in how America treats its less fortunate. How vile, how telling of our lack of goodwill, how self-centered... to pretend it was a surprise. Here's my dad's opinion in the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

I've been mulling over all this with respect to historical context and linear tradition and dialectic materialism, and talking to my neighbors who have lived here a while, and wondering if it means anything that Suge Knight got shot here and not in L.A. or something, and like if it means that the latest installment in the fine Miami Beach tradition of gangsterism from Meyer Lansky onward is now manifesting itself in the train of moving billboards featuring gold fronts and and bling that has been traveling down Collins Ave. all weekend, at one point crashing into a black Escalade with tinted windows resulting in sort of the ideal visual spectacle of nine million cop cars with flashing lights surrounding a larger than life blow-up of the East Side Boyz running into an Escalade.

I have to go to a lot of community meetings for my job, where people talk a lot about the "thug element" that's "taking over South Beach" and where Memorial Day Weekend is often referred to as "Pimp and Ho weekend" and a lot of that is racially motivated but also just that hip hop culture and gay/artsy culture aren't always operating in harmony with one another, even if your average gay man on Miami Beach is like huge and ripped and sort of scary-looking and has a Brooklyn accent, and who you'd be as likely to call a fairy as you would an armored humvee.

There's really nothing to tie all this mulling together I guess, except that *I think* I'd rather get a free Trick Daddy frisbee from the trunk of a dunk with Gucci interior upholstery on Ocean Drive than just have South Beach be Jewish nursing homes and Marielitos addicted to crack like it was back in the good old days, even if it means I get handcuffed on the I-395 causeway once in a while. Like as long as Gaby the Jesus freak still teaches yoga on the beach every morning for $5 (and she's a good yoga teacher even if she is working with a bunch of Kabbalah red-string-bracelet-wearing converts and telling them to "channel Jesus" in downward facing dog. She is also rather new to English and will sometimes confuse "elbow" and "belly button" resulting in very amusing and innovative yoga positions)... as long as that's still around, I think things will be okay here.

The plot sickens

As an addendum to the drama on Friday night, apparently Suge Knight got shot in the same V.I.P. room at The Shore Club that we were in the night before. Miami Beach is so ghetto.

Can I get a witness that Sweet Sixteen on MTV is the most fascinating and horrible television event in at least a year or two? Watching these small vessels of lard, ironed hair, and accesories from Claire's sort of makes one wish for a drastic end to civilization, for all the oil on the planet to suddenly dry up, or for a large dinosaur to suddenly emerge from Yellowstone National Park and culminate his national rampage of carnage in a suburb in Palm Beach, his mouth full of party planners, can-can dancers and the new audi homegirl gets for her birthday. Television is so good sometimes.

I went to a party last night that felt very Miami, in a mansion on Hibiscus Island, and a yacht. They had two roast suckling pigs and girls carrying around trays of cigarettes. Not in packages or anything, just piles of cigarettes, on silver platters. It was pretty, with the lights and the palm trees and the views of South Beach, and a little rain that would fall for a minute and then stop.

Miami is for real

The hurricane has come and gone, and unfortunately it didn't sweep away all the MTV people with it. So far this weekend has only confirmed my suspicion that celebrity-dom seems to be a well-organized plot by a cabal of very good looking midgets to get free drinks. They are all so short. Last night I was at a bar that got shut down when "Taboo" from the Black Eyed Peas got in a fight. Someone I was out with got himself peripherally involved, in a drunk inept way, but at least he didn't take off his shirt. Somebody definitely took his shirt off, at which point Jessica Simpson was whisked away by what looked like a body guard detail dressed up as county sheriffs. Anyway, we left.

We were on the Beach but my car was back in Miami, and as we drove back across the causeway we suddenly got pulled over by no less than six cop cars with lights flashing, more cars arriving, it seemed, with every minute. With their guns drawn, speaking into a bullhorn, they made each of us, one by one, exit the car with our hands up, walk backwards away from the car and then kneel in the middle of the highway. Then we were handcuffed, given a pat down (mine by a lady cop in shorts), and put in the back of a squad car.

I happened to be wearing cowboy boots and sat next to a pizza box. The squad car smelled like pizza. The lady cop asked me where I was coming from, I answered "The Shore Club." She said "The Shore Club?" and then asked if anyone had gotten into a fight. I said that yes, somebody with us had gotten in a little argument. She asked where the weapons were. I said, "The weapons?" And from there, I guess, it was determined that no, we weren't the same white SUV whose passengers had apparently shot at some cops earlier that evening. Someone told the cops I worked for the New Times and they were like, "At least you can't say it was racial profiling."

They unhandcuffed us and we went and ate some empanadas at La Carreta. Fortunately nobody was asked to take a breathalyzer test. It was 4:45 in the morning and they closed the highway down to one lane in the process of taking us down. I've never had a gun aimed at me, let alone like ten.

Every time I read something like this I wish Florida was still an uninhabited swamp. It's so sad.

Funny

I just read some Charles Portis and then looked on Friendster and Andrew M. posted how a crackhead stole his phone while he was playing kickball, then the crackhead called TJ and said he would return the phone to him for $20. It made me miss Arkansas. Like a lot.

I think this blog is finally going to die for real. There's so much to say about Miami, but it's finding other, more worthy outlets. This weekend was just barbecues and beach. I met some great people. I learned that Rawkus, in addition to being funded by Murdoch, was started by Brown grads, one of whom I met. I read the first book about South Florida that really seems to nail it: called Up For Grabs, by John Rothchild. I saw Broken Flowers. But the most awesome part was meeting cool people.

"In Florida and EEUU No Obstruction in the Legal Process the Information Respect the Tourist," read the banner that he unfurled around 2 p.m." Funny.

Does this mean I have to stop wearing my cowboy boots when they go out of style? I don't want my boots to go the way of the Ugg. I love them.

Chaos

"A lengthy cover story that consumes much of tomorrow's edition of Miami New Times accuses Teele of being involved with drug traffic, bribery, extortion and sex with multiple mistresses and male prostitutes."

I look forward to the day when I can vote for Elliot Spitzer for president. Sometimes it feels like he picks the good fights.

The new Harry Potter was devastating. I was sort of shook up by the end. I like that they make out with each other though. I'm at a Starbucks on Ocean Drive, which sounds awful I guess but it's so nice. Palm trees, ocean breeze, boats going out to sea, the pink light of sunset. I'm wearing my Lazy Fair t-shirt and my flip flops, drinking an ice tea, nourished on plantains and grapefruits. What else is there to report? Spa opening at the Hotel Victor featured naked men getting "hydrotherapy" and drag queens in bathrobes and faux diamonds. I got a gift bag with an effervescent bath cube. Scent: Ylang ylang. I miss folks, but there are events to do every night so it hasn't been lonely. Willy Wonka's teeth on IMAX made me feel a little seasick.

Hmmm... yes, thanks all of you Drudge readers for sending me e-mails about my job. Thankfully it all happened before my time. Note to self: Never mention job on weblog.

Ever valiant, she falters

This just in from the National Weather Service:

TENACIOUS EMILY HAS BEEN DOWNGRADED TO A
TROPICAL STORM...EMILY SHOULD CONTINUE TO RAPIDLY WEAKEN OVERNIGHT AS THE CYCLONE
MOVES OVER INCREASINGLY HIGHER TERRAIN AND COULD BECOME A
DEPRESSION LATER THIS EVENING. COMPLETE DISSIPATION SHOULD OCCUR BY
24-30 HOURS WHEN EMILY IS OVER THE MOUNTAINS OF NORTHERN MEXICO.

At least I hit Texas. I was planning on becoming a depression this evening anyway. I like that they use words like "tenacious" in National Weather Service discussions.

I just hope Daslu makes it into the next Bret Easton Ellis novel. Just having finished Glamorama, I've decided that's the true measure of a contemporary celebrity or brand name's worth. I kind of got shivers walking by the Versace Mansion yesterday though. The asshole who made Rules of Attraction is going to butcher this one. I don't think I can even watch it.

Things you should do

My good friend Rett is playing in NYC, Philly, and Providence with his band, which puts on a really good live show that everyone around should go see. They're called Tel Aviv, although they are niether Jewish or Israeli, just cute boys from Arkansas in a band. And everyone living in any of these cities from Arkansas will be there, which will mean good times, I promise. Schedule is here. I think they're probably one of my favorite bands from AR.

The National Weather Service has announced a tropical depression moving west.
According to them:

VISIBLE IMAGERY REVEALS THAT THE DEPRESSION IS NOT WELL ORGANIZED...

I think this one sounds like me.

My name is up for a hurricane this year.

The Leopard Room?

Wish I could afford to live here. Look at his link for more photos. Good lord.

Sufjan Stevens Meet Arkansas

This is going to be the best thing ever.

New Development

Someone name-dropped John Stamos to me yesterday. I laughed, asked if his hair was still teased, and got a blank stare in return. The second time it happened, ("I was talking to John Stamos last night about traffic on I-95...") I managed to maintain a straight face, and by the third time I was even able, I think, to affect a what-an-interesting-person-you-are-to-talk-casually-with-John-Stamos smile of admiration.

I am now deciding between three places to live: an affordable dump in an OK location, a not-so-affordable/very small room in a house in an amazing location, and a luxury high rise apartment for the same price on an island in Biscayne Bay, which would just be sort of awful but wouldn't smell weird and or be infested with lizards.

Miami, briefly

I'm saving my most potent observations for the yet-to-be-really-named Florida Letter Writing Club, which I am way more excited about than this stupid web log right now. I got here on Monday and I'm staying at my editor's very fancy house on Miami Beach while he is out of town. It's quite nice. I wake up and play piano and lie around on white couches. Sometimes I go outside to sit on the deck where little lizards change color and mangos periodically fall from the sky. I've been going out a bit with acquaintences and new friends, but it's been very lonely. When my dad got stuck in the city for the night en route to Ecuador I almost cried with gratitude I was so happy to have someone to talk to. Finding an apartment has been really hard. Miami is much more of a car-centric city than I thought, and I want to live on the beach to be able to escape my car. It's expensive though, and parking is a hassle, and I have met some VERY weird people in the course of my search. Staunch Republican Zionists, Venezuelan political refugees, French expats who appear to be on a tour of every sun destination in the world... One demographic that is noticeably lacking is any sort of hipster indy rock sorts. "Cool nerd" is thus far not a moniker that I can apply to the population of any particular Miami neighborhood or scene in the way that you can apply such a label freely in New York. And the DIY culture of Little Rock is definitely not something I hope to find here, although I think there are very few places in the world where such a thing exists and most of them are probably small cities in the South. No, there are no thrift-store clad bicycle kids who play in bands and loot dumpsters as far as I can tell. There's no drinking whiskey on porches or going fishing or self-published magazines about local bands. I dropped in a dive bar last night and it was inhabited with the sorts of folks you expect to inhabit dive bars: not good-looking kids but watery-eyed and sodden loners. They did play Ring of Fire on the jukebox though. I've never been so happy to hear mariachi horns. I may be geographically southern, but I've left The South, and I've been pretty down about that.

Now, in Miami's favor: this is the most stylish place I think I've ever been. People are better looking than in New York, better dressed than in Rio or NY, more international than L.A. and in better shape than anywhere I've ever been. People are so gorgeous, and from all over the world, and they ride around South Beach on their glossy beach cruiser bicycles and I fall in love with each and every one of them. As for my friends here, I've been hanging out with Maya and Krishna, with Lily (see!), and with a couple of writers from the New Times. Everybody there, by the way, is at least ten years older than me, but that's OK. Everybody here works in real estate or is getting their real estate license or is thinking about getting it (even the Ashram-raised Krishna!). There seems to be a city-wide obsession with sofa design, such that in the course of a given day one is probably exposed to many thousands of images of boxy looking couches that represent sleek, urban lifestyles. There is also an obsession with lifestyle condominiums with names like Nirvana and Cité-on-the-Bay that all tie back to the real estate thing. I visited one luxury building, which was a terrifying experience. All the amenities, the in-house tailor and the swimming pools and the personal trainer and the valet parking seem to just exist to give the average douchebag a sense of nobility and importance. It's pretty gross, but the way it goes here. In sum, if Rio and L.A. had a baby, I think its name would be Miami.

BTW, the Lazy Fair EP was finished before I left Little Rock, but I don't know how to post it on here and even if I did I'm sort of shy about it. I'll send Mp3s or whatever though, if anybody wants. It turned out pretty good.

Hurrah

Dave on public radio talking about chicken.

overcompensation

I'm back in Arkansas for a few days more. Our friends Leigh and Tony were married in Fayetteville this weekend. It was a pretty amazing time. There were about forty people naked in a swimming pool by the end of the night, and then around midnight one of those crazy summer thunderstorms that only happen in the middle of the country rolled in, and there was a general scrambling of people to find their underwear, and a whipping around of trees, and lightning. The next day the defeated and hungover gathered in the park to play frisbee and bocce and soccer, supplied with about five cases of beer. The sun was hot, the cops didn't come, and it was essentially a perfect day. If I were a painter I would want to do a series of paintings about lawn games. I particularly enjoy the visual spectacle of watching people play bocce, all looking alertly in the same direction with their beers and cigarettes, moving around the field like a small herd of deer. There was always something about summer in Minnesota that I missed a lot on the East Coast that seems to exist here -- a certain shimmery quality to the air, most evident when one is on a soccer field looking at a line of trees against the sky. The heat smells a certain way and feels different somehow, the light has a richer quality to it, particularly at the end of the day. The bugs are loud, and there is Old Style to drink.

What else has happened? The Lazy Fair recorded in a barn in Benton. I should have mp3s by the end of next week. Davey's essay on hot chicken in the Oxford American made Best American Food Writing. I'm writing an article for the Localist on the American Princes that involved visiting the singer's grandmother on her sod farm in Scott yesterday. She made us bloody marys.

If anybody knows anyone in Miami now is the time to let me know. I'm leaving on the 17th, stopping in Atlanta, getting there on the 20th. Whew. It's going to be a sad departure, the end of a very nice chapter in Arkansas.

Okay, so the moving to New York thing was sort of pre-emptive I guess, as circumstances have altered the course of things. I got a writing job at the Miami New Times. I'm in New York until June 1st. In Little Rock from June 1st - June 14th or so. Then I move so far from everything and everybody. Make sure you get your farewells in. It's going to be sad. But also, hopefully, very good. It's so fucking great to finally have a career-ish thing happening.

There was karaoke at the Gaffney Country Club following my cousin's wedding. The bride sang "Strawberry Wine"; the groom sang "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy." Her cousins on the other side of the family knew the words. We danced.

Other highlights of the day included the bridal luncheon hostess remarking that my aunt, who has lived in the South for thirty years, still has "a lot of North in her". I proudly displayed an arsenal of flowry print dresses that were no match for fake tans, pedicures, and maybeline foundation (shade: very tan) but I had fun, tried to add a dipthong or two, swam at the Hampton Inn's pool (with its spectacular vista of I-85) and was pleased to hear that my cousin has joined the local bridge club, preserving an important family tradition.

Yes indeed, it was a time for family. A time for processed foods we normally avoid and pimento cheese, for Coor's Light and my favorite nuptial item, a culinary event that occurs only at weddings and never in society at large: the genius of the stuffed mushroom.

Nobody caught the bouquet. With family friends muttering that it was a bad omen under their breaths it soared, descended, brushed someone's shoulder and fell into a forest of high heeled flip-flops and pedicures. Then someone picked it up. She was blonde and tan. There were only a handful of us anyway, with most of the girls complaining that "this ree-yung means ah shouldn't be in hee-ah." So.

Also (how could I forget?) mid-way through the reception a tiger mascot entered the dance floor pumping fists as the d.j. played the Clemson alma mater, a chorus joined by 300 of the guests, also pumping fists. And we envisioned football, and victory, and men and pigskins and glory, and there was much rejoicing. I'll be in New York City tomorrow, y'all.

ch ch ch changes

I'm coming back to New York. I have a temp job at GQ. I feel a little rotten about the whole thing though; or at least conflicted. But anyway... I start on Monday. If anyone wants to open up their home I could use a couch.

Playing with the Lazy Fair on Tuesday was, by the way, maybe one of the funnest things I've ever done in my life. We silkscreened up a bunch of old t-shirts the day of and handed them all out, so all our friends were there, dancing, wearing our t-shirts, making us feel so nice... Fuck I wish I was in Little Rock now. My cousin's getting married on Saturday in Gaffney, SC so I'm in Atlanta with the family, wishing the suburbs didn't suck so much.

I just read Housekeeping, by Marilynne Robinson, which lives up to its reputation of near-perfection. Like Jane of Lantern Hill meets Terrence Malick. I mean I always really hated Anne of Green Gables (as soon as I read the words "the lake of shining waters" I decided it was garbage) but as far as L.M. Montgomery goes I always liked Jane. And something in this story reminded me of it. But it's dark and sad and very beautiful.

Last night I stayed out real late hanging and today Kat and Corey took me to the airport and I felt pretty sad about having to go again. Oh well. Except that I really do feel sad.

Debut

The Lazy Fair
Tonight! Whitewater Tavern, following Lightning Bolt.

We went and hiked up Pinnacle Mountain yesterday, and when we got to the top the youth group from The Church of the Nazarene of Searcy, Arkansas was sitting there singing "Our God is an Awesome God."

Since it came up in conversation

Photos of Something For Rockets in my living room (the pea green scenario, with the bullfighting rug on the wall), at Whitewater, and a lifetime's worth of photos of a drunken Davey (as if anyone who knows him doesn't have too many of these already.) Can you see the simulacra of Rock & Roll? Ugh.

NYC and Chicago were good times. Adam, guess who I ran into the night after I saw you? I give you one guess.

Spring gets heavy

On Sunday we drove to Memphis, donned our dancing shoes, saw Out Hud and Hella and drove back to Little Rock. Memphis, only two hours from Little Rock, is so completely different, so ornate and dilapidated. We hung out on a friend's porch and had beers before walking to the bar. My friend Rett said the weather was like being in a pot of soup that was about to be reheated. It's true. Walking around at night these days is perfect; the air is heavy with flowers and all the cars had coats of pollen on them. But there is this thickness, like something is brewing underneath, and I'm starting to take people's warnings about the summer here seriously.

The show was really fun. Watching Hella's drummer was like porn. Like he had muscles in his arms that just don't exist in normal people, and a huge hole in the crotch of his pants. We were all just staring. I can't say much for the rest of the band. Seeing Out Hud was like if Peter Gabriel had just left all his prog rock instruments on the stage (electric cello, etc.) and all these attractive young people sauntered in and started playing dance music. We danced a lot. I sort of wish every band I saw live was a dancing band.

In other news, I will be in Chicago for about fifteen hours, from Saturday night to Sunday morning, and New York for a little longer, from Sunday afternoon to Tuesday morning. I expect birthday celebrations at each stop. (I turn 24 on Friday...)

I'm applying for newspaper jobs and I actually get calls back now. It's weird. Would I actually want to live in Roanoke, Virginia? I don't know. It's pretty...

The weather was gorgeous this weekend. We had a huge party on Saturday. I have no idea how many people were there, but they filled our enormous backyard and consumed two kegs. We made dinner beforehand in honor of my roommate's birthday and ate out in the back under the trees, which were all decorated with christmas lights. We had a big bonfire and our friends d.j.ed in the living room until the wee hours and nobody called the cops. Kat said it was the most fun she had in 2005 so far, and I feel the same way.

Of course yesterday involved lots of mopping and trash bags—and I had to get up in the morning and work which was super shitty. But we still had the hi-fi set up, so we could play music really loud with the doors open. And then last night, like the party's dessert, our friends came over and we listened to records and sat on our porch real late.

Springtime in Little Rock, before the bugs come out and it gets hot, is a swell event. Today is rainy though, and I am vowing to live a clean life for the next five days.

Long time no

I haven't written in a long time. There isn't much to say, just more bars and smokey clothes. I drove to New Orleans last weekend, setting foot in Mississippi and Louisiana for the first time in my life. The drive was much less tedious than I would have thought, some seven hours, and much of it on old two-lane highways that pass through weird little towns. By Mississippi the leaves were out; it was green and sunny and gorgeous, and in New Orleans even more so. We ate beignets and coffee with chicory and crawfish etoufee, rode on the street car, smoked hookahs, drank... Jess and I rented bikes and took Esplanade with its curly oak trees all the way to city park, where there are ponds and swans and mossy tennis courts. The New Orleans aquarium has the most beautiful sea horse I have ever seen, the Leafy Sea Dragon, which was like a rotor-propelled piece of algae with eyes, and we watched that IMAX movie about sharks.

What else? We visited above-ground cemetaries, the oldest confederate museum, and the newly inaugurated Museum of Southern Art, which had an exhibit on Walter Anderson and a few very nice photos by Eudora Welty. We had dinner at Jacques Imo's, which I'm told is well-regarded. I ate a rabbit, and the waitress, for no apparent reason but an inspirational generosity, gave us two free bottles of wine, dessert and a round of medicinal-tasting shots for free. (Oh yeah, I started eating sweets again.)

The weather was gorgeous. I went swimming in our hotel's rooftop pool every morning. Arthur and his friends went out to Lake Pontchartran to fish for catfish (to catfish? can that be a verb?), leaving me with a trunkful of Schlitz and a new fishing rod. We went to a stripclub on Bourbon Street, which was gross, and drank a round of evil-tasting hand grenades, since for somebody, somewhere, it was spring break.

That's about it: lots of rich food, lots of drinking, lots of walking around. I think I could live in New Orleans, but it would suck being a waitress there. Also I found myself missing the smallness of Little Rock, the dankness of Pizza D's, where I know everyone and the drinks are cheap. We listened to David Sedaris on my i-pod on the way back. It was a nice homecoming; I went to sleep immediately.

Tuesday a bunch of us drove up to Fayetteville to see the Mountain Goats. I didn't watch much of the show though. It was crowded and I was in a chatty mood so I paid $8 for a concert I barely watched. There's something really cool about that town; I'm not sure what. Something about the Ozarks and the architecture, there's a Fay Jones sort of aura around it. Most of my closest friends in Little Rock lived in Fayetteville until about a year ago, so we go up there kind of a lot to visit. Going to Fayetteville generally means heavier drinking than usual at JR's Lightbulb club, seeing music of some sort, sleeping on somebody's futon and having a very hungover brunch the next day. I generally return feeling both renewed and like I'm about to die. I love it though.

Today the plan is to go see this gigantic field of daffodils somewhere. I'm not sure where. It seems like it might be a little bit late in the season though. It's been warm here.

In other news, the best books of the past few weeks have been Edisto and Edisto Revisited, by Padgett Powell. I'm in the middle of The Magus, by John Fowles, Tropic of Cancer, and a re-reading of Strunk and White's The Elements of Style. The Magus has sort of taken over my life.

I also can't stop listening to Kings of Leon. I don't know what's wrong with me. We might go see Iron & Wine in Kansas, if it coincides with my trip to Chicago to return my cousin's car. EEp! car-less. But I put wheels on this Schwinn that was rusting in the backyard. It's a one-speed, which can be painful, but it's my new baby.

Can someone explain?

A consumption tax? Isn't that sort of regressive? What the fuck is wrong with these people?

Funny

My brother sent me the link to this comic. My favorite is "The Mercy of Admiral Shlork." I wanted to get Paradise Lost and Kicking and Screaming from Netflix, only to discover niether is out on DvD. I hate that. I'm driving down to New Orleans Easter weekend. It seems like lots of folks are going to converge there. It will be fun... (Stephen? Joon? Wanna come?)

Jason sent me this link to Strindberg and Helium. I've watched it a few times, and I'm sort of in love with the last one in particular (Sulfur and Iron), even if F is not the symbol for Iron (Fe). I also like how Strindberg's pupils are all quavery. It makes me want to write a new play, and have someone animate it. Do I know anyone who does animation? I don't think so.

Jess and Corey and I decided to take a tour of the State Capitol this afternoon. We were sort of thrown in with a group of Catholic school kids. It was funny stuff. At one point one of them told Jess to shush.

Life Continues

Really everything is boring right now. No exciting news. My friendster profile continues to get more hits than my web log, which only means that I should advertise this on Friendster, except that since I don't post so much anymore there isn't much point. I've been reading quite a bit. In the last few weeks:

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, by Carson McCullers. She published this at the ripe old age of 23, but it's good but not great, so don't feel bad. I read this for the girl book club I'm in. Last time I was the only person who finished the book (Delta Wedding, by Eudora Welty). We meet again tonight.

Pnin, by Nabokov. Charming and succinct, the main character, except for the dentures, sounds like a Russian deadringer for Dr. Justin Frank (there are lots of descriptions about his very tan, bald, head.)

Snow Crash, by Neil Stephenson. Sometimes you just need sci-fi, and this sci-fi was pretty good. I got a little lost on the Sumerian shit, but I liked all the stuff about the privatization of the planet, The Raft (a floating community of third world refugees) was a pretty cool concept, as were the burbclaves (The Mews at Windsor Heights I found particularly amusing.) The Metaverse/samurai shit made me feel—as did the dot-com stuff in Cryptonomicon—like a huge nerd. That's fine I guess.

Some book about Cuba by a woman named Isadora Tattlin. I forget what it's called. It's basically this woman's diary from when she was living as a housewife in Cuba where her European husband was transferred. It makes me never want to get married and/or have children. This woman's whole life is her cocksure husband and kids, and he is super annoying at times and she's an idiot and worries a lot about stuff like what she is going to bag the kids' snack food in. It was annoying.

I just started Band of Angels by Robert Penn Warren but I don't think I'm going to finish it.

The band decided on The Lazy Fair, no "e." The other was deemed "too brainy." Go figure. How about them Oscars? I hadn't seen any of the movies. I don't go to the movies anymore, which is sad. In New York it was all I did, which was sad in another way, because I'd always go alone. Part of a recently burdgeoning problem in Little Rock is that I go out every night, and I drink heavily every night, and this week I think I'm going to put a stop to it.

Weird saudades

While listening to NPR this morning, the words "snow-covered city on the Rhine" provoked the strangest bout of nostalgia/longing for Minneapolis in midwinter, when everything is dead and ice-covered. I guess since it has been very warm here in the past few days, and all the flowers are blooming, and I've been taking lots of long walks around Little Rock with friends, swinging a cut switch and talking to dogs. Today it is pouring, which is just as well. We have finally named our band, although the spelling is still unresolved: it's either going to be The Lazy Fair or The Lazy Faire. I kind of like the last one. Any thoughts on that one? We have three songs now.

Oh the weather's been gorgeous, until today that is. Still sort of warm, but the sun is back into hiding. Hey, did everybody know I live in an earthquake-prone zone? The New Madrid Fault maybe? Apocalypse. I waitress now, serving pao de queijo to the masses. The masas. There is nothing else to say.

I have quit my job and I am now trying to make it on my own, located in study carrel #235 of the Little Rock library, where I waited with all the homeless folks at 9:01 this morning to be let in. Sigh. I don't know what I'm doing.

In other news

On Friday, my last day of work, we all went out and had some country cooking (fried catfish, greens and mashed potatoes at Trudi's), came back to the office and had some cake, went out after work and drank for many consecutive hours and I made some final farewells. On Monday I came back to work at 9 a.m. to "finish some things," as I have Tuesday, Wednesday and today. It's worth it, I think, or at least I think the OA Southern Food Issue is going to be really really good. I'm ready for my new life as an underemployed bohemian though.

Today should be my last day, but given that I am writing on this and not Quarking it up such predictions are dubious. I was asleep when Lawrence came to pick me up this morning. One of those days. We had band practice last night, where we put finishing touches on our first single, which looks like is going to be called Party Fowl, and is a pop tune about the chickens having a party before they go to slaughter the next morning. You get to think about this a lot when you commute to work on the interstate, like I do every morning, and you see truckloads of Arkansas-based Tyson chickens plump against the bars, their small feathers festooning the surrounding traffic. It's poignant, the chickens seem so fat and nice, and boneless, skinless chicken breasts seem sort of repugnant and dry anyway. Chicken has never been my favorite food, as I sometimes feel like I'm eating a fleshy insect or reptile.

I just finished The Outlaw Sea by William Langewische. The book was pretty good, but the last chapter was really much better than the other three put together. It's about the scrapping of ships, and it captures that nebulous place where first world waste and third world want form a dismal industrial economy.

The boys are having a party this weekend. They haven't had a big one since I moved here. I'm excited. After New Year's and Art Amiss in Fayetteville, January was a recurring stream of slow weekends. February, I think, will be fun.

The Fort

Last night my friend Jessica and I took a trip up to Fort Smith, which is two hours from Little Rock on the border with Oklahoma, kind of near Fayetteville. It's Arkansas' second-largest city, and both my roommates are from there, so I was curious. Jessica prepped me on the way, saying it wasn't going to be like Little Rock, or like Fayetteville. Back in Louisiana purchase days, Fort Smith was the last outpost before Indian Territory, and it was where all the fugitive outlaws would gather trying to get out of the country. As a result, hangings were frequent -- the gallows are still there -- and there were something like 200 saloons on the main strip downtown.

Today the downtown is strange and sort of deserted. She described it as a working-class city, but I would have just said tough. It actually reminded me a bit of Allentown, where I was born. I think it's one of the tougher places I've ever been. Like punk is definitely not dead, or at least it wasn't at the bar we went to. We got out of my car and watched as a truck in a nearby lot spun its wheels until all was burnt rubber and smoke. Within five minutes of entering the bar there was a fight, and a mosh pit was definitely in full swing, and this was at a charity event for a girl who had gotten in a car accident and needed to raise money to learn how to walk again. She was there in a wheelchair, along with her mom and other older-women caretaker sorts. The crowd was a diverse mix of age groups, predominantly young. In genre the folks ranged from a Davey Crockett-type (he had a beard, ponytail and leather fringe jacket), to gutter punk sorts and people in country-western shirts with roses embroidered on them. We stayed on someone's couch, in a big old pioneer-looking house that was surrounded by vacant lots. We tried to have breakfast at a locally famous Vietnamese deli, but it was closed, so we went to a greasy spoon, thick with cigarette smoke and hash browns. The fry cook wore the stars and bars on his hat and a large hickey on his neck. I think I understand my roommates better now, or at least why one opted to drop out of high school.

But Fort Smith has bars that stay open until five and lots of pool tables. Oklahoma is only a river away, and you can visit both the old gallows and the fort that started the whole thing. You see a lot of license plates from the Cherokee Nation, and some funny bumper stickers, like "Work is the curse of the drinking class." I liked it. Or at least it was a change from the usual weekend drinking routine.

How To

This from Lindsey, who says, "From the Mexican government’s web site. Awesome how they so accurately showed that big-haired-and-tittied women in purple jumpsuits and gold bracelets will always be at hand for immigrants when trying to fill out complicated forms." The drawing in question is on page 18, "Tus Derechos." Guía del Migrante Mexicano. At least they're approaching the subject with candor.

When she's walking through the field of hearts, it's cool

When I was little kid, I used to say I wanted to marry my cat, who was real nice. I didn't mean it though. Bjork actually did it though. The new video, by Spike Jonze (via stereogum) is so amazing. At the end, when the cat becomes life-sized. What?

Even before this there was something Godard-ian

Louis has an op-ed in The International Herald Tribune about his experience in the Congo. I think this is a first for any of my friends (An article, in a major paper, that's not in the Style section?) May it be the first of many.

The gumby videos especially

My new favorite thing in the world. I hadn't looked at this site for a while (it's all Providence kids). We were watching it at work today for a minute, and it made the morning better for sure.

On to grander things

I finish my job at the OA in two weeks, a voluntary termination date to focus more on my own writing. This will involve discipline. Lots of it. And a part-time job. Thus far I have applied to the Brazilian restaurant all my friends work at and at the "living history" department of the Historic Arkansas Museum. The latter could potentially involve churning butter and wearing bonnets. My friendster profile gets more hits than my web log does. I just read Delta Wedding, by Eudora Welty, for a book club I'm in. Very nice, like a Southern Virginia Woolfe. I'm also halfway through I Am Charlotte Simmons which was tolerable at first but in the last hundred pages has started to get tedious, odious, and actually totally vile. In fact, I hate it, but unless I'm too late I was going to review it for the Localist. Supposedly we now have a drummer for our band. I haven't met him yet. Before we were using a drum machine and a synthesizer that when you press certain keys actually hollers at you. It's like, "Whoop!"

Recent endeavors

Lawrence and I have started a band. I play keyboards and he plays guitar. Our friend Dustin plays bass. I've never been in a band before, but was surprised to find that if you're playing keyboards with people who are good at the other things, you only have to know your chords. Our second rehearsal is tonight. We are as yet unnamed, although sometimes go casually by the name Exchange Student.

A good day

I got a letter today at the magazine from a woman in Beebe, AR saying my elephant story was "so touching." She wrote all about the Thai elephants who helped clear debris after the tsunami and sensed the danger long before it came. I was so touched. I sort of teared up.

Sad things

My mom's best friend, from whom I receive my middle name of Elizabeth, has a son who is a Marine stationed in Iraq. On New Years Day he was shot and has since had his arm amputated. He gets to return home to his wife and 4 year-old son alive though, and as he is a mechanical engineer he is apparently already designing his own prosthesis. His pop was a Marine in Vietnam, his Grandfather in the CIA... It was interesting though, as I was reading his company's web log about the incident, I learned that Joe Sacco happened to be the journalist imbedded with them. Apparently his experience will be in Guardian sometime forthcoming.

New Year's Resolution

During my recent trip back to New York, a couple people actually expressed annoyance that I don't write so much anymore. It's quite a problematic arrangement: first, this has been an embarrassing endeavor from the beginning, started when I was working as a copywriter at a shit advertising agency in Manhattan, where the quantity of work was vastly inferior to the quantity of workday. And, lets all be very frank with ourselves, it had a little to do with forming alternative communicative arrangements, since the metaphorical river had been dammed. Either way, it's such a fucking nerdjob arrangement, I'm embarassed of the poor quality of writing on here, and I can't seem to call it quits.

But people want to know more about Arkansas, I will attempt to do a better job at conveying Arkansas to them. As I've mentioned before, Arkansas is difficult to explain, and even more difficult to explain is myself in the context of Arkansas, and the two are rather inseparable. Particularly when we consider what I now feel fairly sure of, based on my last trip back, that living in Providence and New York made a crazy person out of me, as most of my readers (and dearest friends) have a fairly nuanced awareness of. See, the realization that I thought had been made by going to Chile in high school was that cultural geography matters very little and own's own attitude towards things matters very greatly but what has confused me a little about Arkansas is that it appears that where one is, and not just where one's mind is, does actually make a large difference.

Arkansas has proven to me two very important things: 1)The whole depression thing was not necessarily ontological, but potentially conditional. This makes me bitter and I feel like I got cheated, although in the end one only has oneself to blame. 2) In the Ivy league success stories are narrowly defined. Leslie Thornton told me, before graduation, that if I moved to New York I would wake up one morning and be thirty and, she said dismissively, "working on my screenplay." I think that she meant "working on my screenplay" as euphemism for "being a loser." So. She was my favorite professor. Some of you probably knew that already, that New York City is not necessarily the best place to get artistic things done, but I've always been a bit slow to the punch. I continue to be a little pissed at anyone who might make the whole smaller pond bigger fish analogy. It's not like that. That's what's hardest to explain to people, that it's not like you move somewhere smaller and the world's standards are lower. Absolutely not. Unfortunately, living in New York does not make one smarter, a better writer, musician or anything else. It's pretty fucking stupid to think that might be the case. Realization (2) might seem an oxymoron to realization (1) but really mediocrity is rampant in metropolises both large and small. And this is the Marshall Frady quote I kept spouting to people last week, if you were curious:

I've never been too sure that it is benign for a writer to spend any great length of time in the company of New York's estate of appraisers from afar and traffickers in reactions and responses. Because maybe you start after awhile writing from those secondary vibrations, instead of from the primary pulses and shocks you can't afford to lose. Perhaps writers ought to be scattered out over the land...that way you're writing out of what you're living in, there can be that energy and immediacy and very flash of life in your work. All the while, covertly, you're actually a kind of undercover agent, stranded out in the cold and sending dispatches from those far brawlings of life to Dickens, Twain, Gogol, Balzac, Cervantes, telling them what's going on now -- Let me tell you what these people did. Let me tell you what this character is like and what he did and what happened to him...

Why don't any of you whiners ever post comments?