June 2008
oh jack
In Which You Geniunely Respect Her Character And Intelligence
A little later on, both our composures regained, Jack lights up a cigarette, and through an occluding haze I ask him, “Do you think you’re a good guy?”
He doesn’t hesitate. “Yeah, I do. I’m pretty consistently well-intended. It’d be hard for me to recall where I’ve been underhanded.”
“Don’t you think cheating on your girls is kind of – ”
“I didn’t. I didn’t think so, no.”
“You didn’t think what?”
“That it was underhanded. I knew, for instance, when I got married, because of my libido – I was silently emanating to the above, ‘This does not mean there’s not going to be other women in my life. I’m taking certain vows here. [But] between you and me, let me be at least clear.’ There have been many times I’ve been totally sure, not having been put to the test, that it would be no problem for me to be, uh, what do you call it?”
“Monogamous?”
“Monogamous. Yeah. But many times I’ve thought, ‘This is impossible for me.’ Someone once said, ‘It’s not loving that you miss. It’s being loved.’ I don’t have that primary sense. I haven’t given up hope, but most of my friends think I’m a little goofy in that area, which is why I knew I would be singular at this point in my life.”
Awwww….Oh, Jack. Look if you’re serious about romance and ready to grow up for the last few years of your life, maybe you ought to call your great friend Diane Keaton. Your scenes in Reds together are so hot that you manage to easily outsex Warren F’ing Beatty and Something’s Gotta Give was clearly made just as a ploy to set you up with her again.
You genuinely respect Diane’s character and intelligence. That’s probably more than you can say about any of the other women in your life including your sister/mother and grand(mom). Chances are good she’d probably tolerate (and might very well be way into) your fantasies about Eleanor Roosevelt. Give it a shot. Stranger love stories have happened in Hollywood.
- Molly Lambert
NBA mock draft
please ignore this if michael beasley’s every youtube is not of pressing concern to you, I have nowhere else to post it
1. Derrick Rose, PG, Chicago Bulls
The best guard in the 2008 draft thrived in college and has the size, skill and brains to be the best point guard in the NBA in a couple years. In 1999 the Bucks faced a similar decision and opted for Glenn Robinson over Jason Kidd. How’d that work out?
2. Michael Beasley, PF, Miami Heat
Michael Beasley is the best prospect in this draft, but he’s by all accounts a nutty guy who is guaranteed to get a DUI and more once he comes of age. In a party paradise like South Beach, that’s a huge problem:
One of his close friends is lottery prospect and UCLA forward Kevin Love. They had a funny exchange as Beasley left his media session and Love entered. Beasley inquired about hanging out and asked, “What are you doing tomorrow?” Love responded: “Getting drafted.” Beasley also mentioned that he had lost his room key.
The Heat love the third-best prospect in the draft, USC shooting guard O.J. Mayo, who is a geat guy and totally used to the pressure of being under the limelight. The Heat will not saddle their first year coach (who Mayo didn’t even recognize) with Michael Beasley, so expect a trade with Minnesota.
3. O.J. Mayo, SG, Minnesota Timberwolves.
After leading the Boston Celtics to the most recent championship in their history, Timberwolves GM Kevin McHale got shut out of the first two spots in a great draft. No matter - he’s now guaranteed to get one of the three best players. If he has to take O.J. Mayo he won’t hesitate even if Mayo’s not a great fit. When you’re this young and dumb, you figure it out later.
4. Brook Lopez, C, Seattle Sonics
With their pathetic excuse for an arena and a dumb fanbase trying to ruin their chance of getting another franchise, is there any worse city in the country for sports than Seattle? They’ll be tempted by UCLA guard Russell Westbrook, but in the end they go big.
5. Kevin Love, PF, Memphis Grizzlies
As I e-mailed to my sad Lakers fan friend, “Maybe you can get Javaris Crittenden, Marc Gasol and two number one picks back for Pau Gasol if you ask Chris Wallace nicely?” John Hollinger has Love rated as the second best prospect in the draft, and for good reason.
6. Russell Westbrook, SG, New York Knicks
The Knicks may move out of this pick to shed salary, but if they keep it they’ll have their choice between offensive-minded PG Jerryd Bayless of Arizona or defensive first guard Westbrook. With plenty of offense and no defense on the roster, they’ll opt for Westbrook.
7. Eric Gordon, SG, Los Angeles Clippers
The Clippers are in love with Westbrook, but the position of the bridesmaid should be familiar to this franchise. Gordon’s undersized, but he can shoot and should be able to play in the league for many years.
8. Joe Alexander, SF, Milwaukee Bucks
Alexander is a WVU grad who spent formative years in Beijing and speaks Mandarin. With Yi Jianlian already on their roster and Alexander an explosive scorer and defender, this one’s a no-brainer.
9. D.J. Augustin, PG, Charlotte Bobcats
Augustin is the second best point guard available, and his stock has been rising. The Blazers are trying to move up to 10 to take him, but that won’t be far enough. LSU PF Anthony Randolph could be a sleeper here, but in the end they’ll opt for someone who can play for Larry Brown right away, and that’s Augustin.
10. Danillo Gallinari, SF, New Jersey Nets
The Italian Gallinari is a steal at 10, and the Nets have had heavy interest in him. This selection allows them to move Richard Jefferson and clear the space to bring Lebron to the tri-state area.
11. Jerryd Bayless, PG, Indiana Pacers
With yesterday’s acquisition of T.J. Ford to solidify the point guard position, they’re free to take the best player available. That’s Bayless.
12. Donte Greene, SF, Sacramento Kings
13. Anthony Randolph, SF, Portland Trailblazers
14. Mario Chalmers, PG, Golden State Warriors
15. Brandon Rush, SG, Phoenix Suns
16. Darrell Arthur, PF, Philadelphia 76ers
17. Robin Lopez, C, Toronto Raptors
18. DeAndre Jordan, C, Washington Wizards
19. Kosta Koufus, PF, Cleveland Cavaliers
20. Roy Hibbert, C, Charlotte Bobcats
21. Courtney Lee, SG, New Jersey Nets
22. Mareese Speights, PF, Orlando Magic
23. Alexis Ajinca, C, Utah Jazz
24. JaVale McGee, PF, Seattle Supersonics
25. J.J. Hickson, PF, Houston Rockets
26. Nicholas Batum, SF, Spurs
27. Ante Tomic, C, Portland Trailblazers
28. Jason Thompson, PF, Memphis Grizzlies
29. Chris Douglas-Roberts, SG, Detroit Pistons
30. Omer Asik, C, Boston Celtics
“If I were to name the poets who have been of decisive importance to me—Charles Reznikoff and Zukofsky as a person, his conversation, not his poetry—although again as with Pound while I can make an awful lot of objections to part of A, the opening words , “A/Round fiddles playing Bach,’ have rung in my ears for a long time and always will, I imagine. Reznikoff has been the more important to me, consciously at least. And otherwise is what I have to explain – really Blake is more important to me than Williams, and several philosophers may be more important to me than Pound. The contemporary poets aren’t the most important thing in life, with the exception of those few that really matter to me.”
—
George Oppen
- Danish: what did you "wtf"
- me: what didn't i 'wtf'?
- Danish: lolz, claire says that. i hate it
- me: she says out loud "WTF"?
- Danish: no she says the "what didn't I..."
from the research for my forthcoming two-part essay on michelle obama
Barack and Michelle’s romance:
Michelle introduced him to her family. They liked him, but didn’t expect him to last long. Michelle was a demanding girlfriend, always breaking up with one suitor or another, and it was something of a family joke that sooner or later she would toss him overboard, too.
Marian Robinson told me that she did not know that Barack’s mother was white until long after she met him. “He never talked about himself,” she said.
“The first thing I was worried about was, is this poor guy going to make the cut?” says her brother, Craig. “How long is it going to be until he gets fired?” Her mother remembers Obama as quiet and respectful. “He didn’t talk about himself,” she says. “He didn’t tell us that he was running for president of the Harvard Law Review. We never realized that he was as bright as he is.”
Barack had a more bohemian attitude toward romance. “We would have this running debate throughout our relationship about whether marriage was necessary,” Michelle says. “It was sort of a bone of contention, because I was, like, ‘Look, buddy, I’m not one of these who’ll just hang out forever.’ You know, that’s just not who I am. He was, like”—she broke into a wishy-washy voice—“ ‘Marriage, it doesn’t mean anything, it’s really how you feel.’ And I was, like, ‘Yeah, right.’ ”
Eventually, he proposed to her over dinner at Gordon, a restaurant in Chicago. “He took me out to a nice dinner under the guise of celebrating the fact that he had finished the bar,” Obama recalled. “And he got me into one of these discussions again, where, you know, he sort of just led me down there and got fired up and it’s like you’ve got blah blah blah blah, and then dessert comes out, the tray comes out, and there’s a ring!”
Liz Phair and the Guys of Guyville →
thisrecording.wordpress.com
My last word on the subject.
i will find a way to get my hands on these
Everyone knows Obama wrote a memoir, Dreams from My Father, covering his time in Chicago. What fewer know is that during his years as an organizer Obama was also working hard on fiction-writing. “He wrote stories about the people he was working with,” Mike Kruglik told me, “fiction that was beautiful, beautifully crafted, fantastically evocative about what it was like to be in that community, including how bleak the landscape was, how threadbare some of the institutions were, what it looked like and felt like.” I asked Kruglik if he had read the stories. “Yeah,” he answered. “[Obama] gave them to me. They were about what a pastor was doing with his church.” Kruglik says he can’t remember much beyond that — this was years ago — but given the prominent role that Obama’s pastors and his church have played in the campaign, there would probably be a great deal of interest in the stories today. But you won’t get them from Kruglik, who says he gave the stories back to Obama without making any copies.
One of the weirdest parts of the Judis bio of WFB is describing just how much he enjoyed the sixties. I don’t think it was their intrinsic character, more just how different from the world and special it made him feel.
Here’s my review of the past century-plus, complete with predictions for the future. starting with 1900…
00s - boring
10s - blah, lot of fires (they didn’t have water?)
20s - poverty and fake poverty
30s - racist decade of the asshole
40s - concern for the jews and fake concern for the jews
50s - “what’s civil rights”
60s - “ohhhhhh ic”
70s - decade of realizing this decade will be way more enjoyable in retrospect
80s - “reagan may have ended communism, but he can kiss my ass and it
would have ended anyway probably and so what if it didn’t”
90s - rise of the douchebag
00s - internet swallows us whole
10s - chinese build colony on mars, collective “so?” from U.S., mao tells chinese to blow up mars but it’s actually bill clinton on a drunk dial
20s - europe is now majority non-white, mark steyn takes his own life
30s - we run out of oil
40s - slow death of industry, wi-fi
50s - comet hits earth and destroys us all
60s - boring
70s - decade of realizing this decade will be way shittier in retrospect
80s - at long last a two state solution! Hallelujah.
Chris Russo is the co-host of WFAN’s mike and the mad dog sports talk radio program.
He was just telling this story today about taking his kids to Syosset, incidentally the town in which I work and where he used to live. He took them to the beach and also to Billy Joel’s famous Italian restaurant.
His kids are like 5-10 in range, very young, one girl and two boys I think. Chris had a hard time at the beach because he can’t swim. One of his boys was going around the beach telling everyone, “Did you know my daddy’s afraid of the water?”
best albums so far this year
10. Ratatat, LP3
9. Portishead, Third
8. Frightened Rabbit, Midnight Organ Fight
7. Why? Alopecia
6. Thao Nguyen, We Brave Bee Stings and All
5. Islands, Arm’s Way
4. Hot Chip, Made in the Dark
3. Sigur Ros, Med Sud
2. Deerhunter, Microcastle
1. These United States, A Picture of Us At the Gates
De Tocqueville describing how the American people react to radical plans put forth by a revolutionary leader:
“They do not combat him energetically, they sometimes even applaud him. To his impetuosity they secretly oppose their inertia; to his revolutionary instincts, their conservative instincts; their homebody tastes to his adventurous passions; their good sense to the leaps of his genius; to his poetry, their prose. He arouses them for a moment with a thousand efforts, but soon after they get away from him, and, as if dragged down by their own weight, they fall back.”
from Jim Manzi, here
But oil and gas companies report that they have invested heavily in alternative energy. Out of the $46 billion spent researching alternative energy in North America from 2000 to 2005, $12 billion came from oil and gas companies, making the industry one of the nation’s largest backers of wind and solar power, biofuels, lithium-ion batteries and fuel-cell technology.
Such investments, however, are not as important as money spent on technologies that help find and extract more oil. Because oil companies invested in innovation and technology, they are now tapping reserves that were formerly thought to be unrecoverable. Maybe we are all better off when oil companies invest in what they know, not what they don’t.
And do we really want the government deciding how profits should be invested? If so, should Microsoft be forced to invest in Linux-based software or McDonald’s in weight-loss research?
