Follow Your Dreams

Last night, I had a dream starring Spencer Pratt, the villain of The Hills. He and I were kicking at my Aunt’s house for Passover—who knew Spencer was Jewish in my subconscious? In reality life, Spencer allegedly spread a rumor that Lauren, another character/ person on The Hills, made a sex tape with her boyfriend. While I had Spencer’s attention in my dream, I asked him the question that’s always bugged me in my waking life: What’s so bad about creating a sex tape? I understand that if the tape were actually released, it would be humiliating and possibly career ending. But just the act of creating one—surely there are more offensive sexual acts. This is a digital age. People film everything. If I were going to start a rumor about Lauren’s sex life, making a sex tape seems a little tame.

While I’m on the gossip sex beat, ABC News

Adventures In Nomenclature

The omni-tattooted Travis Barker once said, “I tattooed my body so I couldn’t fall back on anything. I purposely did that so I couldn’t get a normal job and live a normal life. I did it so I had to play music.”

Along with the aging process, there’s a problem with this plan: What if Travis Barker couldn’t play music? (I’m not going to debate the merits of Barker’s percussion skills; the fact is Barker has made a career out of drumming.)

When people ask me what I do for a living, I have to say I’m a writer. I don’t do anything else. But I feel like I have all of the tattoos and none of the gold records. That noun implies something I’m not ready to back up. I’m a terrible copy editor and according to standardized testing, in the bottom 11 percent of the spelling population. And I want to define myself by the same noun as the Greats? Please.

There’s a ton of people who have no business following their dreams and would do better to call themselves by the second occupation after the slash. These people may be frauds, but at least they’re courageous ones. In a way, half of being an artist is calling yourself one. Unfortunately, the other half is even harder.

Pyramid Schemes

The other day, I bought mayonnaise to make tuna salad. Turns out, I don’t like tuna salad. But what am I going to do with all this mayonnaise? The only solution is to buy more food that goes with mayonnaise. But what am I going to do with the extra eggs?

Down The Well

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_bMhNI_TY8] The video above is of Nicholas White, a former BusinessWeek production manager, trapped in an elevator for 41 hours sped up to 190 seconds. The clip is fascinating and disturbing. Over the course of three minutes, you see him, understandably, lose his mind. I don’t have a time machine, so I couldn’t go back to 1999 to save him. But his mental torment has become just another YouTube clip, and it’s hard not to feel a bit complacent. Those 41 hours changed White’s life forever. He lost his job, his friends and his sanity. The whole thing reminded me a lot of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, where a character is also trapped, this time in a well, for a few days:

But of course, before anything could happen, the light was gone. I was still there, in the bottom of that miserable well. Darkness and cold reasserted their grip on me, as if to declare that the light had never existed at all. For a long time, I simply remained huddled where I was, my face bathed in tears. As if beaten down by some huge power, I was unable to do—or even to think—anything at all, unable to feel even my own physical existence. I was a dried-up carcass, the cast off shell of an insect. But then, once again, into the empty room of my mind, returned the prophecy of Corporal Honda: I would not die on the continent. Now, after the light had come and gone, I found myself able to believe his prophecy. I could believe it now because, in a place where I should have died, and at a time when I should have died, I had been unable to die. It was not that I would not die: I could not die. Do you understand what I am saying, Mr. Okada? Whatever heavenly grace I may have enjoyed until that moment was lost forever.
It’s hard to get at exactly what Murakami does in just a paragraph, but from other paragraphs, you see that this guy “survived” being caught in a well, but still lost a part of himself there. Before I went to Israel, a friend jokingly asked me if I thought the trip would change my life. I answered that I was too old for life changing experiences. And that’s a lucky thing: Who would we be if a chance encounter, a magical summer or some other movie trope could change us forever? Shouldn’t there be some part of us immune from that? Unfortunately, you’re never too old to be trapped in an elevator for 41 hours. Here’s to taking the stairs. Additional Reading: “The Big City; Aftermath Of 40 Hours In an Elevator,” The New York Times Up And Then Down,” The New YorkerTrapped In An Elevator For Two Days The Video,” Gawker The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami

Who Hasn't?

Between the discussions, a recording of an interview with Mr. Roth played, in which he remembered being concerned about how his parents would react to the bitter controversy that he knew was going to envelop “Portnoy’s Complaint.” “I felt I had to prepare them,” he said. So he met with them at a restaurant, where he told them that it “appears it’s going to cause a sensation,” and that they would be besieged by journalists. Only after his mother’s death did his father reveal that after leaving the restaurant, his mother burst into tears and said, “He has delusions of grandeur.”
-“Philip Roth, Provacateur, Is Celebrated at 75,”

I Read It First

Here’s the thing about geeks: we exist everywhere, in every medium and genre. Whatever we’re into, be it music, technology or film, there’s a competitive drive to have heard, owned or seen everything before everyone else has. Even foodies are aggressive with where they’ve eaten, and that only requires money and an interest in pleasure. I say this because I’m no better. I started The Unaccustomed Earth, the new Jhumpa Lahiri book, earlier this week and I’ve been waving it around as if it were a next generation iPhone. But actually reading it, the book offers no surprises, which is to say, it’s beautiful and moving in Lahiri’s characteristic simplistic way. More: The Unaccustomed Earth is number one this week, and Jhumpa Lahiri is afraid to read reviews of her work:

Actually, my husband gets the paper on Saturday morning and tosses out the book-review section so I don’t see it. He’s been doing that for a few weeks now. It’s hard to live in New York City sometimes.

The Future Will Be Tanned And Toned

At the last two jobs I’ve had, I was super busy. I barely had time to read the news, even though I was writing about it. Now that I’m on my own schedule and not under fluorescent lights, I still read the internet, but with less devotion than when I was waiting for my lunch break back in 2006.

The guy who ousted Lee Siegel as “sprezzatura,” the Lee Siegel enthusiast on TNR.com, was a commenter. Jhschwartz was really “reluctant lawyer” and “frustrated” writer Joseph H. Schwartz. The fact that this lawyer had enough time to destroy the career of Siegel speaks to the leisure of the computer age. The internet has made tasks easier to accomplish, but most companies hiring policies reflect the typewriter age. As the guy who did TMFTML once put it, “I’m actually curious as to what people did in offices before the Internet. My theory is that every job only requires about thirty minutes of hard work a day and the rest is bullshit.” The internet is full of information, information which is only interesting to people who are bored at work.

Right now, most office rats are living off the fat of the land and enjoying the internet in their spare work time. But media moguls and bloggers are engaged with their work, too engaged to relate to their audience. Most people reading their sites and inflating the value of other Web 2.0 creations are just killing time.

But now the economy sucks. Subprime mortages! Bear Sterns! More buzz words! So soon there will be layoffs, which is fair in an Adam Smith sense and unfair in a “Wild Pack Of Family Dogs” sense. (Come on, you know that Modest Mouse song.) Most people don’t do much at their job. At least that’s what my friends tell me over gchat as they keep themselves occupied.

But with layoffs, the remaining employees will have to do more, which shouldn’t be a problem with computers and the internet making everything faster. But these people will have less time to click on articles, watch YouTube clips or enjoy in depth blog posts about the weather. And that’s how Web 2.0 will crash.

I wouldn’t care except that the internet has become the last refuge for writers. And when that bubble bursts, our best option will be tanning salons, where we’ll be allowed to read all day and tan at a discount.

Obvious Dreams, Easy Choices

The obvious works in literature because sometimes life is obvious, too. Occasionally, I’m presented with options that are so symbolic of my larger lot that I have to take the “right” one, even if I’d prefer the wrong one. I hate when choices become so indicative that you can’t even do what you want.

People You May Be Interested In Stalking

The “People You May Know” feature on Facebook has reached trend story heights today, with an exposé in the Observer.

Most commentary on Facebook ignores the inherent voyeuristic nature of the site. Maybe for some users, “People You May Know” is a genuine service to connect with long lost friends. But I don’t know any people like that. For me, the feature is more like, “Hey, you might be interested in seeing that guy’s pictures from Cancun.” And given my current job situation, I might indeed.

Why Do White People Like This Stuff?

2355707123_a7514c099e.jpgStuff White People Like has peaked as a website that a specific kind of person, who often is white, likes. Sadly, this realization came after the book deal. And while I would like to criticize the site more, I am part of the demographic Stuff White People Like is mocking, and I don’t want to inspire post #95: Making Fun Of A Website Targeted At Them.

Number 83 on that list is Bad Memories From High School. A friend once said that in college, people wear awkward experiences from high school like a badge of honor. But it isn’t so much a badge of honor as a war wound.

My BFF in life was also my BFF in high school. And in those days, we had fun: We ditched school to go to New Haven once and other times, we’d skip out on art to get Chinese food. And even when we were actually in class, we managed to amuse ourselves. I had every reason to feel good in the late nineties and early aughts, but of course I didn’t. My roommate, one of the most secure people I know, also makes claims of being supremely uncool in her teen years. And I recently found out that an acquaintance from that era who I had assumed was happy wasn’t either.

There’s so much in theory about high school that’s appealing. You have no responsibility, you’re surrounded by peers and there’s opportunity everywhere. The drawback: There’s no freedom. Yes, your parents are paying for the food, but that means you can’t have oatmeal and ice cream for dinner.

Before high school, you’re trapped too, but it’s not until ninth grade that you begin to realize it. You also realize that you have no means to escape and worst of all, you’re not ready to anyway. And once you know that, it’s impossible to be happy.

The image above is my high school burning down during the 60s.

On Bathing

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Greeting cards routinely tell us everybody deserves love. No. Everybody deserves clean water. Not everybody deserves love all the time.
When I read that passage in White Teeth, I thought two things: This is cheesy and this works. Sometimes that happens. There’s a general sentiment, in greeting cards, but also from nice parents and nurturing elementary schools, that there is an equality to love, and that in the end, all people love and are loved equally. And what Zadie Smith is saying, and said to greater effect in On Beauty, is that’s false. Some people are loved more than others. Smith is English, but the economy of love is very American. We believe things are equal, but only the elite benefit from that equality. I think everyone remembers the first time their parents told them life isn’t fair. As I recall, it had something to do with my bath and I said to my mom, “That’s not fair.” Even as a person incapable of bathing herself, I was struck by how true and unfair her response was. In fact, it was true and unfair in that very moment. My objections were valid, but ultimately irrelevant. I was given a bath. Life isn’t fair. A lot of people don’t have potable water while others are forced to bathe in it.

Oh, You Still Got It

Seven preachers, seven sermons: that’s either a celebration or an endurance test. Inevitably, it’s a competition.
-The best moment of Kelefa Sanneh’s first New Yorker article. Speaking of writers I’m obsessed with, Jhumpa Lahiri’s new book is coming out soon. Her promo puff piece in New York Magazine was effective, at least for me:
“ ‘Is that all you’ve got in there?’ I get asked the question all the time,” says Lahiri. “It baffles me. Does John Updike get asked this question? Does Alice Munro? It’s the ethnic thing, that’s what it is. And my answer is always, yes, I will continue to write about this world, because it inspires me to write, and there’s nothing more important than that.“
Jhumpa Lahiri succeeds because she doesn’t turn her narrative into a white male story. Her writing is unabashedly about her and her family’s experience. But she is still able to make those experiences universal. My dad, for examples, relates to the The Third And Final Continent because for him, Westchester is the Third And Final Metropolitan Area. I probably won’t be able to wait for the soft cover edition and I hate hardbacks; not just because they’re more expensive, but because they’re unwieldy. But whatever, Lahiri is worth it.

People You May Know

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“They should rename that feature ‘People you know but don’t want to be Facebook friends with.’”-Facebook friend of mine.