Month: February 2004

. . . I probably shouldn’t read this magazine.

(I swear: sometimes, this blog just writes itself . . .)

Alexandra Wolfe on the deleterious effects of TMPR (Too Much Positive Reinforcement):

We’ve become so inured to the idea that a person’s self-assessment need not be changed by a little thing like repeated and utter failure that no one was the least surprised when Joe Lieberman took so long to throw in the towel. Before New Hampshire, he said, “The people of New Hampshire put me in the ring, and that’s where we’re going to stay.” Jon Stewart on The Daily Show put it best: “When did our elections become the Special Olympics? You’re not all winners. Not everybody gets a hug. You guys got crushed.”

Sorry I haven’t posted anything in 10 days. I’ve been busy at work, traveling for a conference, and doing a lot of formulating for longer essayistic VM entries (pop music, foreign policy, translations of love, and the white whale I call Gold/Stopwatch).

Also, I’ve been battling a mini-depression, but I like to pretend I’ve overcome it (of course, if I had, I wouldn’t be writing this sort of thing at 12:30am on Sunday/Monday, but hey).

I want to write about writing today. Today marks the one-year anniversary of Virtual Memories, a mark I’m proud of. The very first entry was just a silly note to see how this whole Blogger-setup worked. Since then, I’ve written about a ton of subjects, and sometimes I’ve done written pretty well.

I want to thank everyone who’s read my entries, even those of you who only ended up here because of the vagaries of search engines. (Who knew that there are only nine pages in the Internet that Google will refer you to if you enter “Michael Imperioli goatee,” and that VM is one of them?)

Neat article at BusinessWeek about how Dean’s collapse mirrors the dot-com bubble. Compare and contrast with this Washington Post article about how Dean’s campaign sidestepped the traditional organizational structure of the Democratic party. I guess you could substitute “sidestepped the traditional bricks-and-mortar retail structure” for that part, if you want to feel like it’s 1999 all over again.

Here’s a transcript of a GREAT interview with Mo’Nique.

However, to get to it, you’ll have to read a conversation with Christopher Hitchens about the invasion of Iraq, faulty intelligence, Mel Gibson’s historical anti-semitism, Bloomberg’s attempt at Disney-fying NYC, and more. Here’s a piece from Hitchens:

My allegiances have changed in the sense that I now find the noises made on the left–which are basically to the effect that we shouldn’t have intervened in Serbia, we shouldn’t have intervened in Afghanistan, we shouldn’t have intervened in Iraq–would have left us with Slobodan Milosevic in power, Bosnia ethnically cleansed, Kosovo part of Greater Serbia, Afghanistan under the Taliban, and Iraq the property of a psychopathic crime family. Now, I’m sorry to say, I’ve no patience with that leftist mentality anymore.

And here’s a piece from Mo’Nique:

And I love people. Yeah. You know why, though? Because for so long, we’ve been taught that big girls can’t be. We can’t be sexy, and we can’t be glamorous and gorgeous. We’ve been trained that we can’t do that. So, when Mo’Nique came and God said, “I need you to change it. I need to use you as a vessel and change it…” I know that I’m beautiful. So because I know it, you can’t help but to think it. When I walk in a room, I know you go, “Damn.” There it is. Right. Oh, Tavis, don’t do it, ’cause you know. Mm-hmm. In a minute. But I know that. So when people say, “How did you do that?” I don’t take any of the credit. You know, I just say thank God for using me for the vessel.

I keep meaning to write about the panel/debate on “Iraq & Beyond” that I attended last Friday evening, which featured Hitchens, Susan Powers, David Frum and Mark Danner. But I’ve been too lazy/tired during the evenings. Oh, well. Maybe I’ll find some time this weekend.

From the NY Observer‘s new article on Chris Rock:

A lot of Mr. Rock�s show is dedicated to the U.S. as he knows it in 2004. Saying that he loves rap but has grown tired of defending it, Mr. Rock said that “even the United States government hates rap. You know why I say that? Because they won’t arrest anybody that kills rappers.” After contending that more people saw Tupac Shakur’s killing — which took place on the Las Vegas Strip after a Mike Tyson fight — “than the last episode of Seinfeld,” he said: “You mean to tell me they can find Saddam Hussein in a fucking hole, but you can’t tell me who shot Tupac?”

So I was at Home Despot this evening, looking for a timer for my hall lamp and a spud bar. Because I lead an interesting life, alright?

Anyway, while looking for the timer, I noticed a display of carbon monoxide detectors. I thought, “Well, since I have that wood-burning stove in the new house, I should really get one of these detectors.”

I picked one up and saw it was $49.97. Immediately, I started looking at the other ones on display, to see if there was a cheaper model. Blame instinct, blame my parents, blame my cheap ethnic stereotype, etc.

And I thought, “Yeah, when it comes to an invisible, odorless gas that’ll kill you within minutes, it’s always smart to cut corners . . .”