In the raw

A short piece I wrote for CNN’s Asian city website, about some of the less run-of-the-mill eateries in Bangkok.

I'm about to throw up down your back.

Aw, I'm sad the Olympics are over. They were sort of nice to have on the TV. Tonight I was (sort of) studying and Twitter just exploded as USA tied the gold medal hockey game with Canada, so I admit I had to tune in. Wil Wheaton's tweets were bordering on frantic, the others were slightly calmer...Sadly, though, halfway through the 20-minute OT, Canada scored...it was an impossibly good shot at least.

It was also kinda neat to see The Colbert Report in Vancouver...doing Vancouverage, as they called it. But he interviewed all the scary-sport people, like those guys who do, what are they called? Ski aerialists? That is some scary shit. I think it was probably on that show that someone said the Winter Games are less like real sports and more like drunken dares. Shame Colbert didn't have any figure skaters on...



And seriously, is Lysacek eating a bowl of Fruity Pebbles? I like to think so. The important thing is that cocktail shaker there in the background. Good boy. Because of course this is totally his kitchen, right?

Back to the grind now, with nothing major going on anytime soon. Boston's Restaurant Week starts March 14--26, so I'm a little excited about that even though I have no money. NOM.

And I did regular yoga today in a class, which was slightly heated. It was a beginner's class, but all week they only offer regular power yoga, so guess I'll be trying that! I didn't have a hard time today, it's just a matter of not having to look around to make sure you're doing stuff right. And I could have done without the happy baby pose, thanks. I'm sure there's worse.

And I also get to start French classes on Wednesday, yay! There are fewer than ten people in my class, so hopefully that's a good thing. And hopefully I keep up with it and won't be that student. I'm also hoping no one in there is obnoxiously above their level. Kill.

Academic

As I understand it, the reason that Avatar is a hot favourite for the Best Picture Oscar is that despite the pedestrian acting, the moronic script, the half-assed liberal gesture politics and the fact that it’s simply far too long, it looks really nice.

Fair enough. Big blue meerkat monsters clearly float many boats. But does Avatar have a sequence in which the River Styx suddenly morphs into an enormous black cobra with the head of Tom Waits? No. Well then. It’s not really the Best Picture, is it?

I’m old enough to remember Buster Mottram

I’m worried by Robert Dee’s attempt to sue the Daily Telegraph for identifying him as the world’s worst tennis professional. His argument seems to be based on three key points: that there is a Guatemalan player who is just as crap; that he couldn’t have been crap in 2008, because he didn’t have a world ranking then; and that what with all these people saying he’s crap, he might have trouble getting coaching work.

The last bit is the most irritating, because it suggests that nobody is allowed to say anything that might cause any inconvenience to anybody else, with the logical end point that all objective criticism is now potentially libellous. I don’t know enough about tennis to judge how crap or not Robert Dee is; but if he wins, I might just have to sue him, for depriving me of the right to make money from saying that anything is crap, whether or not it is.

PS: A parallel conversation on Facebook reminds me that this is the only way to play tennis:

What do you play, the leather jacket?

Well it's true my favorite skater is still Evan Lysacek, but I've always enjoyed his "rival" Johnny Weir, too...and bonus points to Johnny here for the Lady Gaga track...



And I loved getting to see Moir and Virtue win last night--the scores weren't even close and neither were the performances, however good everyone else was.



Tonight starts the ladies' finals, so I'll be watching! I also need to sneak out to see Shutter Island, though, so we'll see how much studying I get done...

So on a completely different note, I was referred to a doctor for my neck which has given me trouble for the past two years. She did a lot of little tests on me, including one using a tiny needle to prick me everywhere...fun. And we went through that whole boring conversation about using a computer, posture, getting up every twenty minutes (HAHAHAHAHA) while at the computer, exercising, etc. and I wanted to be like, "Yeah, that shit ain't cutting it."

So she did ask me if I wanted to try a shot of something right in my shoulder. At my age, I've learned to say, "Yes!" when the good doctor asks you if you want the drugs. Honestly, I was still skeptical. And sure enough, for an hour or two my shoulder was just sort of weirdly numb and my upper neck is still awkward. And even better, it's sort of sore from the shot. Awesome.

But I get to start physical therapy next week, I'm just sort of hoping the insurance pays for most or all of it, ignorance is bliss. They also took X-rays which made me think of my torts class and the doctor who negligently forgot to ask if the woman might be pregnant. (It didn't matter because even if he had asked, she would have said no, not realizing she was.) Anyhoo, yay for them, they did ask me. (Although, great side note, the doctor who did the main exam on my neck was a little judgy both at not only my not wanting kids--"I bet your mother doesn't like that answer!"--but also at my not having my husband's last name. Listen, wench, you fix my neck and you can judge the shit out of me, deal?)

And now I'm going to move to study because Bourdain is having his bath and when he does that the air sort of hangs with the stench of feet caked in rotten tuna on a hot sunny day.

But he's awful cute.

I’m going slightly Vlad

In his BookForum review of Vladimir Nabokov’s (presumably) final novel, The Origin of Laura, John Banville discusses the convoluted, controversial circumstances of the book’s appearance in the public domain, 33 years after the author’s death, and against his express wishes:

His directive was disobeyed, as such directives frequently are—one thinks of Virgil and the Aeneid and, of course, of Kafka and Max Brod.

It’s interesting to see how Banville pitches these little asides. It is assumed that we know that Virgil wrote the Aeneid, and also who Kafka and Brod were. But there’s a subtle distinction between the two, in the shape of that crucial “of course”. While Virgil comes to mind, Kafka is almost too obvious to mention.

Now, this distinction happens to fit in with the ones and zeroes of my own knowledge and ignorance. As soon as I read about Nabokov’s posthumous desires, I immediately thought of Brod, who disobeyed Kafka’s wish to have his manuscripts burned. I didn’t know about Virgil, however. (According to Wikipedia – well, why not? – he died of a fever in 19 BC, having told his executors to destroy the unfinished text.) So I think Banville gets it right, because his assumptions of understanding fit my own. But surely there are plenty of people who know the Virgil story but not the Kafka story, or know both stories, or know neither. How, in a postmodern, polycultural universe, does a writer tread the line between patronising the audience, and going over its head? And when I recently sat down to watch Tom Cruise’s prequel to Inglourious Basterds, and the caption informed me that we were in “Tunisia, North Africa”, was I right in thinking that this was a film for people who don’t know geography, and ejecting after 10 minutes?

But back to Nabokov, or more precisely to Banville. The book itself contains both reproductions of the file cards on which Nabokov wrote, and typeset versions of his text; the cards can be removed and juggled around by the reader. Banville is not convinced:

This seems dubious, for the reason that most of the cards have run-over text, and to take them out of the pages and shuffle them would make nonsense of the plot, slight and elusive though it is. And what reader would be so wanton as to remove the very vitals of the book and leave a rectangular hole running through from page 1 to page 275?

Well, there are plenty of precedents, I reckon; not least the works of BS Johnson, such as The Unfortunates (in which the reader can shuffle the chapters into a preferred or random order) and Albert Angelo (which has holes in the pages to enable the reader to see what comes next). Indeed, I can’t help but think that Nabokov’s swansongs, as well as Johnson’s experiments, Perec’s Life: A User’s Manual, The Waste Land and a few more would be excellent candidates for e-book status. Above and beyond than the banal convenience of being able to take 100 books on holiday, digital status would give such transgressive texts a new lease of life, taking the dear old codex into the realm of DVDs or even video games. Chapter access, extras, cheats... why just stick to the old once upon a time > happily ever after norm? I’m sure Nabokov would have been amused. And even if he weren’t, we can ignore his objections, because he’s dead.

Which leads inevitably to Geoff Dyer’s advice to writers in yesterday’s Guardian:

Don’t be one of those writers who sentence themselves to a lifetime of sucking up to Nabokov.

(Does this mean I’m back in the blogosphere?)

You're an aquired taste, babe.

I'm gonna come right out and say it: I think Evgeny Plushenko is a whiny little bitch.

And it's not because an American finally won the first Gold (for men's figure skating) since 1988 or that Evan Lysacek is, quite frankly, pretty easy on the eyes.



I genuinely thought it was a better performance. (And apparently, it's not on youtube so you'll just hafta take my word.) I mean, why the hell would you do the quad if it wasn't going to get you any more points and you were pretty sure it and a previously-broken ankle would take your ass down?

Regardless, during the medal ceremony, Plushenko just looked so bored and pissy. Running off and bitching that, "It's supposed to be men's figure skating, not ice dancing," really makes you look...well, like a total asshole. Way to go, dude.

Stainless steal

Still not really sure whether I’m meant to be here or not. So I’ll just test the waters with an appropriately stolen (from Everett, via others) quotation by Jim Jarmusch:

Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and your theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable: originality is non-existent. And don't bother concealing your thievery - celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It's not where you take things from - it's where you take them to.”

Yesterday I ate nine cans of aerosol whipped cream.

Oh, today's Valentine's Day? Whatever.



First of all, I am so unimpressed with Boston winters. Seriously? This is all you got? I will openly mock winter because frankly, I dare it to shock me. Denton has seen more snow than this city.

I embraced my three-day-weekend by studying. It. Is. So. Exciting.

I'm also still figuring out wtf to do this summer. The best part is the financial aid. I have to apply for it (obviously), but I don't know what I'm doing so I don't know how to budget for what I don't know and a budget is something I have to submit for fellowships and grants. Gah.

So I started watching Glee. It's really awful. I rented it since it won some Golden Globes, not knowing what it was about. It's like Gossip Girl mated with an after-school special and some mutation made it into a musical.

But you know...it sort of has its moments, namely Jane Lynch...



...and Stephen Tobolowsky (aka Werner from Sneakers..."Passport?" hee hee).



But hey, I'm totally needing some stupid right now. Sold.