McObit

There will always be a part of you in the nooks & crannies of my heart, much to the chagrin of my cardiologist.

My Sister is Awesome!

And I don't care who knows it!

Check out what my cool big sister Kate is working on:

Story from Bangor Daily News here. Story from Portland Press Herald here.

Plastic from potatoes? I warned her that New England has a history of burning people for witchcraft, but she soldiers on unfazed.

Just another day saving the planet by researching the latest in renewable resources and reducing our dependency on foreign oil.

Question for Tuesday: My sister. Great environmentalist or the greatest environmentalist?

Discuss.

John Muir, eat your heart out.

The King is Dead

Michael Jackson's life has become so tragicomic that it doesn't really warrant commentary. I can only say - as a child of the 80s - that I thought he was cool back then and a lot of the music (helped along by luminaries like Quincy Jones & Eddie Van Halen) holds up pretty well.

People with no attention span, who see him only for the spectacle he's become, are ignoring the most poignant story arc of his life. It is not about the depths to which he's sunk, but the heights from which he fell. There are plenty of run-of-the-mill low-lifes out there. To Catch a Predator comes to mind. But how many of them could convince us that - no matter how damning the evidence might be - Billie Jean's kid is not their son? Fifty million albums later, that would've been some serious child support.

And as for people who refuse to acknowledge his import: you are either too young or too jaded to be honest with yourselves. If you were paying attention at all back then, you couldn't help but notice The King of Pop - even if only as a foil for your hipper, new wave tastes. And if you can't remember having an opinion one way or the other, then you are probably repressing memories or else you lived in a hyperbaric chamber.

Some anecdotes:

I still remember playing with an MJ Colorforms set, in which you could put him in different outfits, including the famous glittering glove, the red leather jacket, and the fedora. A lesser blogger would make a joke here about the irony of a little kid undressing Michael Jackson, but I won't give in to the temptation.

A good friend of mine in junior high school begged his mom for a pair of Jordans. She came home with a pair of "MJ" sneakers...made by L.A. Gear. I don't care where you're from, that's still funny. Check out the graphic on the box below. Kinda hard to project street cred in the low post with moves like that. Sh'mon!

And finally, not so much anecdotes, but further proof of the enduring quality of the grooves he brought into our lives:



And the ubiquitous viral video from last year that never really gets old:



Long Live the King.

This Week in Freud

This is my rifle,
This is my gun.
This is for fighting,
This is for fun.

Interesting report on a "guns-for-vasectomies" program in India. Seems like a story tailor-made for feminist theory. I wonder what other attempts at overcompensation will get thrown onto the dustheap. How about "Castrations for Cars"? "Obstetric Exams for Obelisks," anyone? Is this blog on? I'll be here all week.

Two roads diverged in a wood...

...and I - I took the cliché.

It's that time of the year again. Fourth quarter. Valedictorians all around the country will be digging out their parents' dusty copies of Bobby Frost, preparing to recite the first poem they think they understood with all the performative flare of a fax machine. What a shame that a solid poem has been Hallmarked™ beyond relevance.

Then they'll mix things up by finding a not-so-new way to say "follow your dreams" or "you can do anything you set your mind to" or "this is not the end; this is the beginning." Just once I'd like to hear something a little more punk rock. Or at least honest.

"Your dream to be a cleavage-bearing CSI specialist is idiotic."

"You will be able to accomplish some of the things you put your mind to, but they will probably not be your first choice. What about accounting? That's a good, solid career. The world will always need accountants. Your uncle Fred is an accountant. You remember Fred."

"This is the end of carefree fun. It is the beginning of student loans. Your brow will never be that smooth again. Unless you find a cheap botox hook-up...and by the look of the unseasonably tan faces out there, you're gonna need it."

And if you can't be honest, at least make the lie original and exciting. Though not technically a valedictory address, I've always loved Hugh Gallagher's college essay.

But if you really want to read some good writing, check out McSweeney's Convergences Contest. Not only are the pictures stunning, but the analyses are (usually) profound.

Today I thought of Frost AND McSweeney's when I noticed on my mom's kitchen shelf a book called Microwave Gourmet Healthstyle Cookbook. The author? Kafka. At least that's what it said on the spine. And it made me laugh. Further investigation revealed that it had been written by Barbara Kafka, but the joke had landed. I'm still chuckling as I think about Franz describing - in painstaking detail - the metamorphosis of a Hot Pocket. How about a Divergences Contest? It will consist of finding examples of pairings so incongruent, so asynchronous as to beggar the imagination. If anyone spots a good one, email me.

PS. No disrespect to Chelsea. She & I both graduated in the Class of '97. PeaceI'mouttahere!

Food + Public Singing = Heaven

Amazing comedy ninja entertainment at the mall. That's one retail center that won't be dying anytime soon.

One-Month Anniversary

Hey, it's been one whole month since I began TBKF or The Daily Ex or whatever the cool kids around the water cooler are calling it.

Too soon for nicknames? Probably so. Withdrawn, your Honor.

Yeah, the blog went over 1000 page views a little while ago, too. Thanks to everyone who made it happen. I plan on sending you both Christmas cards this year.

A lot has happened in one month. And I don't mean "a lot" in the sense that "a lot of meaningless thoughts have managed to tunnel under the barbed wire in my brain to arrive on the other side, blinking in the moonlight, forged documents in hand, hoping against hope they don't hear the sound of the camp alarm or vicious German shepherds in hot pursuit." (Sorry for the extended metaphor - I watched The Great Escape recently.) I mean "a lot a lot." Roomies Matt & Judi bought a home. I moved back to my parents' house for a few months while I wait to hear about the Fulbright teacher exchange. My brother-in-law John's Fulbright for Ireland came through! And in the past two days I went for two bike rides, meaning, in effect, that my back is basically healthy again. I credit the healing power of the blog. No, seriously: embedded within its very html structure is the sacred code of St. Adalbert. Couldn't secure the rights to any relics of the flashier saints. If you want Clare or Joseph of Arimathea, you've gotta pay top dollar. They're owned by Microsoft. But Adalbert's still a good one. Throw away those reading glasses! You won't need them here, friend!

I'm off to run errands. The four-dimensional world beckons. If nothing else, in one month's time, we have learned this about the blog: if it was ever going to turn into a werewolf, it would have done so by now.

Recommended by Dr. Mom

Update to this post. Apparently, the title of the book is actually Lincoln's Doctor's Dog. One out of three ain't bad. Sorry, Abe.

"Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!" - Dr. Peter Venkman, Ghostbusters

Good News for Michigan...

...God is shaped like a mitten:

There's a homeplace under fire tonight in the heartland / and the bankers are taking my home and my land from me / There's a big achin' hole in my chest now where my heart was /and a hole in the sky where God used to be.

- from "Heartland," by Willie Nelson & Bob Dylan

Another great photo from the good folks over at APOD. Yesterday's wasn't too shabby either.

July, July!

As a lapsed Catholic, the one aspect of following the liturgical calendar that I miss most is Lent. This may be surprising to learn since Lent is not exactly the "money" season when it comes to Catholicism. It is the season of repentance, of atonement, of purification through (mild) acts of self-denial. That's what I miss. Now, don't psychoanalyze me or refer me to websites that can help me satiate my inner masochist. It's just that I've always been attracted to asceticism. You learn about yourself when you are doing without. You tend to be more mindful. This is not so in times of celebration. Exhibit A: as a lapsed Catholic I feel no compunction whatsoever about enjoying all of the secular trappings of Christmas or the Easter ham that awaits me later. These will be thoughtless pleasures and, as proof, I can give you every assurance that this will be the most I think about them all day.

But Lent is not something to be undertaken thoughtlessly. It is for reflection. So how will I meet that need? The answer, of course, is to become a spiritual plagiarist and copy the ritual in both form and essence. I have chosen July. My sacrifice? I will not use my car. This idea came to me recently because it seemed like a compelling topic to write about for the blog (hmmm, already the blog is dictating the content of my life as opposed to the other way around...). I have not yet worked out the logistics, but I do think it's important to announce my intent. Any help/advice/suggestions/hilarious nay-saying will be very welcome.

PS. For those of you who care, the title of this blog post comes from a song by The Decemberists, who are, in my opinion, the best band working in America right now. And the song very much conforms to my criteria for aesthetic excellence.

And Another Thing...

Ok, so I guess I actually have three points I want to make about the Obama speech.

(3) Could the disparity between Obama - a professor of constitutional law - and Bush, who seems to prefer his reading material be of the Sunday-morning-illustrated-and-serialized variety, be any greater? Throughout his campaign, Obama has made a conscious, concerted effort to transcend the politics of race. And, in my mind, he has succeeded. From Andrew Sullivan, last spring:

My favorite moment was a very simple one. He referred to the anniversary of the March on Selma, how he went and how he came back and someone (I don't remember who now) said to him:

"That was a great celebration of African-American history."

To which Obama said he replied:

"No, no, no, no, no. That was not a great celebration of African-American history. That was a celebration of American history."

I wrote in an email to a friend the other day:

"I've got a poster of latter-day Malcolm X in my room at school and I've had students - white & black - ask me why I would have something like that up. And I tell them that his epiphanies in Mecca, among the multicultural pilgrims he met, are inspirational, even for me, a non-Muslim of European descent. It might be a small point or a silly gesture, but I think that impressionable minds should be exposed to a white man with black heroes. A straight man who gets mad when he hears the word 'faggot.' A...uh...male...... man who periodically wonders aloud how a school with a large majority of female students still seems to so overwhelmingly support boys' sports despite the fact that the girls' basketball team won the state tourney a few years back."

This is more than mere political correctness. It is a politics that reflects reality. As such, it is a far cry from the divisiveness of Bush/Cheney/Rove. And they hate it. Just as they hate anything from the "reality-based community."

In Obama's political vision, our interests, our goals are bound up with one another's. If the sanctity of my civil rights is contingent upon the principle of exclusion, then they are not rights at all. They are - by definition - privileges. In short: my rights cease to exist when you are denied yours. That's what I'm talking about.

Years ago, I was discussing civil rights with my esteemed friend and roommate, Sean O'Brien. Now, Sean's politics are much more sophisticated than mine and he made the point that he could see no evidence for anything like "self-evident natural rights." I concede the point. One has to suspend a fair amount of disbelief to buy into the tenability of the Enlightenment project in general and the American version of it in particular. So our government, which Sean would also (rightly) consider to be more plutocracy than democracy, is based in part - if not in toto - on a lie. But I still belief that it is - or at least has the potential to be - a noble lie. And, at the end of the day, I see in Obama's candidacy a chance to realize some of that potential, to make our union - in his words - a little more perfect.

People Get Ready

So did anything happen in the news this week?

Amidst all the moving and shaking going on in my own life, I did find a little time to digest the Obama speech and a small fraction of its coverage. Fellow bloggers Conor and Derek wrote commentaries on it here and here, respectively, to which I will add only these points:

(1) Obama reiterated his commitment not only to grassroots campaigning (vis-à-vis the Ashley story), but grassroots governing. This is what many of his critics fail to grasp. Obama supporters do not - for the most part - view him as a Messianic figure. We view him as a mobilizer, tapping into the vast, untouched resources of the American people. Racism - and the other pervasive scourges of our time - can not be solved by "big government" if we view that government as something separate from ourselves. If we've learned nothing else from our failed experiments in nation-building, it's that democracy can not be given; it must be taken. In this sense, Obama's vision gathers up the best objectives of the Left and weds them - in most cases - to the libertarian impulses of the old Right. True conservatives (whoever they are) may quibble that he'll raise taxes - and he will - and so declare that by that act alone he will forfeit any claim to the mantle of "small government solutions." My only answer to them is this: with a nation of 300 MILLION and a global influence second to none, there's no such thing as a "small government solution" anymore. The best we can hope for is a government whose awesome power is diffused and tamed through collective participation, a government that is transparent and accountable to its people, a government with 300 million checks. A system that irreducibly large can only be balanced when its agents are stacked one-high. How this will be implemented is still a giant question mark. You can't legislate good citizenship. But you can incentivize it. Look for me to join the Peace Corps or teach in a high-need area at some point during an Obama presidency. Populism is the new libertarianism. And if that bothers you so much, then buy a shotgun and move to Ruby Ridge already.

(2) Racial thought was one of the areas I focused on as an undergrad and grad student. It constitutes a tremendously labyrinthine terrain. It draws from sub-disciplines and schools of thought as diverse as genetics, discourse analysis, art history, social construct theory, sociology, classical studies, and political science. In short: it's complicated. I can't tell you how unusual it is to hear a politician say anything on the subject so attentive to nuance, so resistant to soundbiting, so brave. Obama's candidacy represents a tremendous opportunity for the United States. Unfortunately, there's a catch-22 involved. If he's not elected, it'll be because we aren't - as a people - ready for a politician like him. But if we don't elect a politician like him, we may never - as a people - be able to get ready.

Alright, enough of my speechifyin' and prognosticatin'.

I'll leave by giving out an award. Sean Hannity gets the prize (what should I call them? The Fashies?) this week for his comments on Obama. My fellow Irishman has earned notoriety for his portrayal as a scandalized, compassionate observer who was sincerely dismayed by the shocking hate speech of Jeremy Wright. I think I'll call it "Worst Impression of Someone with a Soul":



I'm paraphrasing, but he essentially says the following:

"Let's just imagine for a minute that Barack Obama does share the politics of his pastor - I'm not saying he does, but let's just play 'what if' - what if he does? Can you imagine what it would be like to have a president who was a racist and an anti-Semite?"

Yes, imagine the tragic dystopia in which a president - an American president, mind you - harbors hatred in his heart. Envision the Bizarro World in which our Head of State represents only the majority of Americans. Contemplate a parallel timeline of the United States in which our Chief Executive bestows his blessings upon the basis of race.

I really hope nobody ever shows that doofus a reputable history book or hands him a twenty-dollar bill. Imagine a president who's racist? I'm harder-pressed to imagine one who isn't.

Anyway, I won't make a habit on this blog of bashing right-wing pundits. That's why we have Al Franken and Keith Olbermann and Jon Stewart. Also, I prefer my sports to be competitive.

Rainn Man

He's into numbers, y'all:



This video comes from The Tim & Eric Awesome Show, another weird & wonderful offering from Adult Swim.

I Miss the Cold War

The video below is a fake - even the 80's weren't this...80's - but I don't care. It's enough to make you nostalgic for Gorby's birthmark.

Also, it kinda looks like it was made by the guy from Saul of the Mole Men. Could be. His beloved Fallopia was Russian.

Low Flow

Attention, loyal reader: this might be a light week, posting-wise.

Grades are due & I'm moving house, after four years in the same locaysh. See that abbrev.? I don't even have time for full words.

Anyway, don't worry. I feel fine. My back is on the mend. And I certainly haven't exhausted my known reserves of muse-worthy material.

At the risk of channeling the Governator: I'll be back.

Lincoln's Mother's Pussy

To the more demure members of my readership, I apologize for the title of this post. It is calculated to catch your eye, not to provoke your ire.

I remember hearing some years ago about a study that had revealed the three most common words featured in bestsellers' titles were "Lincoln," "Mother," and "Cat." Predictably, some bright-eyed entrepreneur took what he saw as a surefire route to publishing success and penned a book entitled Lincoln's Mother's Cat.*

I was reminded of this anecdote today when my humble little blog racked up several comments on this post in an unprecedented amount of time. Apparently, the pressing demand for Colbert tickets ratcheted up the relative importance of what was - in retrospect - one of my less self-aware posts.

So this got me thinking about self-awareness (or "meta-blogging") and also about marketing.

For some, the "meta" trend in books & movies has already overstayed its welcome. You could make the case that books like Dave Eggers' A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius & movies like Spike Jonze's Adaptation, though cool, ultimately demonstrate that strip-mining one's own work in progress, for the sake of a few inside jokes, adds up to much less than the sum of its parts.

Personally, I'm on the fence. There were moments in the book and the movie that I felt were a bit too cute, a bit too forced, a bit too manufactured. Of course, that feeling could be the effect their creators were going for, but I think this gives them too much credit. Why not pull back a bit on those reigns and craft something clever AND genuine? That strikes me as a far more worthy challenge for artists so clearly gifted and creative. On the other hand, there's something satisfying about being in the know. Getting it. Winking back. Maybe that's shallow intellectual vanity. And worse: shallow intellectual vanity with the illusion of depth. I don't know. But it is fun.

Charlie Kauffman, the screenwriter for Adaptation (and Being John Malkovich & Eternal Sunshine), wrote the upcoming Synechdoche, NY. Read the synopsis. It could very well be the last word on meta-cinema. My esteemed friend Brendan observed that he always wants to see Charlie Kauffman movies, but they never SOUND like anything you'd want to sit through. I agree. The descriptions of Kauffman's vision always appear overwrought. He packs a decade's worth of ideas into each script and so each plot summary can't help but sound like a hot mess. The disjointed movies - disorienting even for those putting in the requisite two hours - must be a nightmare for the promoters and marketers tasked with condensing them into two minutes. Does anyone remember the preview for Adaptation? Yeah, well, thankfully after over five years of intensive therapy, neither do its editors.

The release of Kauffman's latest nonetheless affords me an amazing opportunity for meta-blogging. I could see Synechdoche, NY in Schenectady, NY. I could smuggle my laptop in and live-blog my reaction to the movie. I could write a stream-of-consciousness narrative about my fixation on meta-blogging and the act of blogging the movie while I blogged the movie. I could post a hyperlink on the final post that led to the final post. Somewhere, Doc Brown's head is swirling with the possibilities and their ramifications for the space-time continuum. This is heavy.

Anyway, this all began as a meditation on the unexpected feedback I received regarding a post that reached a larger audience than I intended. Now I'm going to fish for some more. Here are the top ten keyword searches on Google, according to this blog:

1. pussy
2. porn
3. google
4. boobs
5. hentai
6. paris hilton
7. ebay
8. yahoo
9. sex
10. milf

I wonder who will be leaving comments on this post. No doubt they will be disappointed by what they find. Hmmm, maybe I should be careful what I wish for...

In closing, a question to ponder: based on the terms in the top ten, would you say that internet users are overwhelmingly perverts or are perverts overwhelmingly online? The world may never know.

* - Amusingly, after all this talk, I can't find the book in question. Several Google search permutations yielded nothing. Nothing! Nothing for a book that presumably could outdistance the Bible in total sales someday. I guess print is dead. Or at least, in this case, it's M.I.A.

COLBERT TICKETS!!!

I've reserved four tickets to see him film the show in Philadelphia on April 17th. Who wants in? Like all the young American eagles suckling at Stephen's ample, truthy teat* these tickets are FREE!

Need some persuasion? Check out this interview from last month. One of his best, in my opinion. "I TEACH Sunday School, Motherf&*%er!"


* - Curious behavior for non-mammals.

Kids Say the Darndest Things (2008 Edition)

Bill Cosby never filmed an episode like this.

The setting: my AP U.S. History class.

The set-up: two female students, presenting on "modern social issues," chose the topic of "abstinence-only sex education."

The gist: the girls used a PowerPoint demonstration & a video to argue that abstinence-only education results in woefully ignorant adolescents and undesirable effects (like higher rates of teen pregnancy). The PowerPoint detailed some of the statistics they used to back up their claims, as well as pictures of high-profile cases like that of Jamie-Lynn Spears. The video featured two nearly-identical vignettes contrasting how teenagers might deal with a specific situation if they'd had (a) abstinence-only sex ed or (b) comprehensive sex ed.

The "specific situation": their reaction to a pop-up advertising banner for a pornography site, which the girls "tastefully" sanitized by displaying a screen that simply said "Va-Jay-Jay Porn."

I am not kidding.

The following things were done & said:

One male student admired - under his breath, but still audible - the short skirt donned by Ms. Spears.

"You know, it's that kind of thinking that contributes to teen pregnancy in the first place."

The video, which had been filmed on a recycled tape, began accidentally with a clip from a local church's staging of the Nativity.

"Ah, yes, Mary - the original pregnant teen."

The second vignette of the video - looking unappreciably different from the first - confused the class, thinking they were seeing the same skit again.

"I think I'm having Déjà-Va-Jay-Jay."

Did I mention that I teach at a Catholic school?

I love my job.

"Mona said, 'I wanna leave Bennigan's.'"

Misheard lyrics have always been a fascination of mine. In tenth grade, I was positive that in the song "Betterman" by Pearl Jam, Eddie Vedder was singing, "She dreams in color, she dreams in real" - and I thought that was really cool. Turns out he was saying "She dreams in color, she dreams in red." Not bad, but not as good either. Here's a famously bewildering song (with attendant visual interpretation) from those incorrigible grunge stylists:





Who gets credit for misheard lyrics or misremembered poetry, especially in cases where the line in question is superior to the original? Is there some invisible sleight-of-hand, some pranking muse, some holy ghost-writer out there, inspiring us to accidental greatness?





Or is all greatness accidental? I know I like to think so. At least, that is, when I reflect on Christina Aguilera's billboard success.

Honesty is the Best Policy. Seriously.

"If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything." - Mark Twain

I think McGreevey comes off best in this video. What does it say about public figures (and us) when a simple, straightforward admission of guilt is "refreshing"? For my own part, I haven't been honest in every situation of my life. Based on that, I can tell you - between the two - the truth, when spoken, feels a lot better.