What's the Point?

I’ve read 26 Shakespeare plays, Moby-Dick and Middlemarch. What does that mean other than I was an English major in college?

When I was younger, I felt a responsibility to read everything. I thought I couldn’t be an adult if I hadn’t read Chaucer.

This isn’t so: I know plenty of adults who haven’t heard of the Canterbury Tales. It doesn’t mean anything that I’ve read all those books. I’m not a better person or any smarter for it. It’s just something I’ve done. At best, literature is good for small talk; at worst, it’s a distraction. But it’s something I do every day with unwavering interest. Why?

Well, firstly, I commute by train and I prefer reading to waiting for twenty minutes to pass while I stare at ugly New Yorkers. But there’s more to it than that.

When I was 16, I flew to Wyoming by myself to go on a month long hiking trip. It was the first time I ever flew alone and the first time I ever went hiking. My month in the wilderness would be miserable in a life affirming kind of way. Along with the bug bites and iodine water, one of the things I remember most about trip was reading George Orwell’s Collection of Essays in Salt Lake City International airport on a stopover on my way to Jackson Hole. It was 1999—George Orwell had been dead for 49 years—but I felt like we were having the best conversation of my life at Dick Clark’s American Bandstand Restaurant. I didn’t know it then, but George Orwell would be the best friend I made that summer.

Everyone feels alone and awkward sometimes, but like the latest Jhumpha Lahiri short story, that doesn’t make for great conversation. Some authors just get what it’s like to be a person. With age, that sense of absolute connection I used to feel with writers has diminished. But the chance of finding someone who articulates something true about life keeps me reading. And failing that, it makes the subway ride go faster.

Te Quiero

Every morning is the same. “Bzzz, Bzzz.” My alarm clock/cell phone wakes me up at 8:05. The day’s first hope is to make it to the bathroom without having to talk to anyone. After that, it’s back to bed and the Internet, where I check my email, the news and facebook for updates.

I usually give myself time for one article before leaving for work, and today it was

You Must Read This

“You Must Read This”–NPR’s series about writers describing their favorite books–proves that copy editors at NPR aren’t one-hed wonders: “Driveway Moments” was no accident.

Recently, Curtis Sittenfeld inspired me to read Oh, the Glory of It All, along with her book, Prep. (For CS fans out there, she has some great stuff of TAL. I especially liked her segment about her obese dad on the “Give the People What They Want” episode.) But after OTGOA, Prep and Everyman (a gift from my mom), I’m out of books. If you have a book I must read, send me an email. If you’re embarrassed that you read my blog despite not knowing me, post anonymously. And if such a person exists, we should talk. We have a lot in common.

Naka Nathaniel, I am the Only One Who Cares



If you’ve been following media gossip lately, you know that there’s been some major changes at gawker. Jesse Oxfeld was canned and replaced by my favorite blogger, Alex Balk of tmftml. The page was also redesigned and given a more MSM look.

But in all the excitement, gawker, my go-to site for the objectification of hottie male journalists, missed out on Naka Nathaniel. The Paris based multi-media journalist has been covering the World Cup for the Times for the past month. There’s a reason the Times put him in front of the digital camera: He’s good looking. For those not actually interested in soccer, but interested in appearing to be interested in soccer, Naka’s dispatches are indispensable.

Along with being attractive, Naka is also strangely charming. He’s usually joined by two journalists who clearly made it to the multi-media platform based on their merits as writers, George Vescey of the Times and Roger Cohen of the International Herald Tribune. Vescey and Cohen are curmudgeons who spend most of their online time criticizing fat Brazilians and the ever-disappointing British. But Naka either laughs at their old man-ness or uses it to make a ridiculous segue to promote the Times’s multi-media site. One of my favorite examples of this is when Cohen criticized the boring style of play at the World Cup, Naka genially replied, “One place where the action isn’t boring is at the Times online.” So true! This guy’s a keeper.

Alex and Jessica, you disappoint me.

Well, Duh


I get the idea of this image. Instead of just observing the president, we’re going to observe people observing the president. It was a cool concept back in 2004, but now I’ve seen some variation of this picture about a dozen times. Can we go back to pre-meta photojournalism?

It Was All a Lie

Mavis Beacon was just a logotype persona Broderbund used to move typing programs.

I wonder why marketers chose an innocuous black woman for a personal touch. Wouldn’t a sassy gay man do just as well?

Talk About Getting Raronauer’ed

My first memory of social awkwardness was in 3rd grade. I was in a single file line, and Lee M. was joining the back. He had his hand out as if to slap someone five. At the time, I knew that five wasn’t for me, but I put my hand out anyway. Ben A. was a few feet behind me, and Lee passed my outreached hand to say hi to his friend.

But I wasn’t a total 8 year-old loser. I had a best friend: Emma S., who lived a few blocks away from me. At the time, she had transferred to a private school. A year later she would move to Pittsburgh. But back then, we were best friends in the kind of way where our identity was almost tied to our friendship. Her mother recently claimed that my first word was a mispronunciation of her name, which I doubt but isn’t entirely impossible.

I’m thinking about Emma now because I saw her mother at my mom’s gallery opening last night. Pretty soon upon re-introduction, Mrs. S.—who doesn’t actually go by that name: She’s a psychiatrist and uses her maiden name—told me that before Emma moved to Pittsburgh, I said to her that if she went away, I would never talk to her again. Then she informed me that I followed through on that promise.

In all the wisdom I’ve gained in the past fifteen years, I know doing that is about as shitty as it gets for an 8 year-old. I also realize that for a psychiatrist to remind an adult about crimes she committed as a child isn’t so great either. Still, I feel incredibly guilty. It’s guilt separate from what I feel toward friends whose secrets I’ve revealed or the region of

Multithoughts on Multimedia

If you have ever gone to NYTimes.com—either out of your own interest or because of the helpful links provided here at raronauer’ed—you might have noticed that the heading reads, “The New York Times – Breaking News, World News

Ven Diagram Leads to Blindness

In an article about vision correction in the Navy in the New York Times, David S. Clout wrote that convenience and vanity were the main reason civilians get laser eye surgery. For those who have attended my recent birthday party (or viewed the album on facebook) or have seen me (or seen pictures of me on facebook), I don’t seem motivated by either convenience or vanity. In fact, I seek out inconvenience and unattractive clothing. So you might wonder why today I’ve opted to get laser eye surgery. Well, my disregard for convenience and vanity is not absolute. And in the ven diagram of my apathy and shallowness, eyewear occupies the small overlapping area. I hate putting in and taking out contacts, but I feel like a nerd in glasses. And with no middle ground other than an expensive and possibly dangerous surgery, I chose surgery. See you tomorrow, I hope.

But I do Believe

Tomorrow I’m going to have laser eye surgery to correct my vision. Today my eyes are dilated so I can’t see much. Despite my limited capacity, I’d like to direct your attention to this article from the NYT on Friday. Do you think this guy still believes in Santa Claus?

Can You Summarize That?

Are you bored by current events, uninterested in literature and would be happy to spend all of your free time going through facebook pics of hot strangers? Regrettably, in-depth analysis of that rower from Baylor U. won’t pass for small talk at a dinner party. Fortunately, there’s the Internet. A million sites summarize the day’s paper, the week’s magazines and the latest book reviews. And if you want to appear to have specific interests, there’s always Romenesko and A

Cultural Synergy

The Hills, the Laguna Beach spin-off that maintains all the charm and inanity of the original, featured my favorite love song of 2005 “Secret Heart” last night. For those 90 seconds, my simultaneous interest in highbrow and lowbrow cultural was fulfilled as never before. The song came at a pivotal moment as Jason was trying to reconcile with Lauren, who he had cheated on with his ex-gf on the last season of Laguna Beach. Many think the “characters” on Laguna Beach and the Hills are dumb, and that both shows glamorize the lifestyle of the nouveau riche. These many are right, even if that judgment smacks of old-money prejudice. But fundamentally, the show is very real to me. On most reality and non-reality tv shows, the dialogue moves the plot forward and exactly reflects what each character feels. In life, not so much. How many times have we all had trouble, as Leslie Feist sings, admitting that we just can’t get through it alone? On Laguna Beach and the Hills, language fails. Jason can’t explain why he kissed Jessica in front of Lauren (at a charity fashion show no less!) and Lauren can’t explain why she wants to forgive him. The show’s uncomfortable moments prove the rich and beautiful are just like us, awkward.

May Cause Internal Bleeding

Lately, I’ve been suffering stomach problems. The specifics of the aches aren’t interesting, even to me. But because of this problem, I’ve taken special interest in Dannon’s ad campaign for their new yogurt line, if yogurts can have lines, Activia. It’s pretty clear that Dannon is selling its yogurt as if it were a pharmaceutical. And as most people who have ever watched tv know, pharmaceutical ads are generally creepy. If you’ve ever had trouble falling asleep, one non-tivo’ed viewing of 60 Minutes will convince you that you need to take a drug that may or may not cause kidney stones. The whole time I was watching the ad, I kept waiting for the voiceover woman to inform me that this new yogurt had crazy side effects. Since it’s just yogurt, not medicine, it doesn’t. Dannon, or the people who market Dannon, are quite smart. Because even though the association with pharmaceuticals is weird, it made me, a white woman between 18-25, think that their yogurt had health benefits. In fact, I plan on buying some today for lunch. I hate that understanding I’m being manipulated isn’t the same as not being manipulated.

PS My friend Youngna has put her photo portfolio online. If you’re in the market for a new desktop background, any of her photos would do.

I bet raronauer'ed is the only blog to notice this...

My ex-bf Matt C. once said that the basic premise of any Slate article is “here’s the conventional wisdom, and here’s why it’s wrong.”

Matt was right about this, and Slate acknowledges as much today. Surprisingly, Matt isn’t cited directly.

Although I enjoyed all of the anti-Slate writing published today (click here and here for more of it), the whole thing is a little self-serving. Slate isn’t any better for having owned up to its formula. Just like the new Mac ads that Seth Stevenson wrote “[parody] its own image while also cementing it,” What I Hate About Slate day just reinforces what people already do hate about Slate.

But as you can see from the links, I don’t hate Slate. I kinda like it. But all online magazines can’t be read every day. The respective tones of Salon, Slate and TNR Online become tiresome after a while and their articles become predictable. But I guess this happens in all opinion journalism.

Anyway, the point is, if you’re a nerd, check out Slate’s coverage of itself. And if you’re an aspiring nerd, check out online news sites, but don’t read boring articles that appear on an interesting web site.

kicking squealing gucci little piggy

My second favorite music critic, Sasha Frere-Jones, weighs in on Radiohead in this week’s New Yorker. SFJ, never a Radiohead fan, tries to understand their place in the music scene. The article is interesting, if jealousy-enducing—SFJ saw Radiohead three times on the their last tour, and he doesn’t even really like them. I couldn’t get tickets at all. SFJ’s case against Radiohead is not as persuasive as Jon Pareles’s case against Coldplay, nor is it meant to be. I still get what he means: their lyrics are a bit ridiculous and their music has gotten more obtuse over time. But as someone who did all her Pre-Cal homework listening to OK Computer, I’ll always like Radiohead, whether or not ambition makes you look pretty ugly or their new stuff is any good.

Anyway, the most interesting part of SFJ’s article comes at the end, here:

Radiohead has much in common with the Grateful Dead, including passionate fans who follow the band from city to city, trade bootleg recordings of shows, puzzle out the meanings of the band’s cryptic lyrics, and (in Boston, at least) dance badly while smoking expensive-smelling weed.

Ipso facto, I’m a deadhead and someone at the New Yorker smokes the ill chronic. The New Yorker is mad edgy, yo.

Conjunction Junction

Americans love twins. Nothing could make us happier than two kids in the same outfit in opposite colors.

But Brandi and Andi, Sarah and Sally, and James and John take a double-back car seat when it comes to conjoined twins. I don’t know what it is, but there’s nothing like a good conjoined twin. Actually, I do know what it is. Conjoined twins conjoin two plots Americans love: complex surgery and the undying human spirit. Amazingly, we never root for one conjoined twin. We think both should have access to that single liver, weakening by the day.

To be honest, I haven’t followed the latest conjunction that closely. But I’m happy to

Failure

None of the links I posted work. So I suck at HTML. You know what I don’t suck at? Life.

That’s not entirely true.