Big Audio Department

It was easy enough to goof on rock-DJ Scott Muni over the years, with his deep voice and slow delivery, but he was a legend in NY rock-&-roll radio. He died a few days ago. Condolences to his family.

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posted by Gil at 8:29 PM

For those who love

One light rail, two underground lines, one national rail, one plane, a monorail, and then a 35-mile drive in my Element, and I am home, safe and sound, from London. It hasn't been a great day, but I probably don't feel as bad as the executives at Merck do.

It wasn't a good trip, to put it mildly. The conference was fruitful enough, but the convention center, ExCeL, was located in a pretty empty section of town so far from what we think of as London that I was stuck in my hotel room every night. I guess I could've gone out to the city for some fun/sightseeing in the evenings, but it would've involved the aforementioned two underground lines and that light rail, and I was a bit worried about how safe that would be after dark.

So I got to England for my first time since I was 5, and I spent 4 hours sightseeing on Monday. Oh, well.

Here are a bunch of pix from that little sightseeing meander:

A monument outside Buckingham Palace. Another view of it. A gate, and another at the same. The front gate.

The monument at a distance.

A WWI artillery memorial near the corner of Hyde Park.

The Princess Di memorial fountain in Hyde Park. This was REALLY disappointing. I was hoping for something more visually stimulating than a circular fountain with granite tiles that somehow represented the ups-and-downs of her life.

Reformer's Tree, or where it used to stand, in Hyde's Park. From what I gather, this was a big place of assembly, back in The Day, but got burned down in 1882.

The Marble Arch, which has its share of history. Everything there does, in a way that I simply don't feel here in America. As I read that Stephenson book during the trip (only 200 pages so far), I marveled over the idea of being somewhere so steeped in history. I guess part of it is that I'm used to New York, where so much of the city is geared around skyscrapers. It doesn't breathe quite the same way as the foreign cities I've visited these past few years (Budapest, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Auckland, Paris).

The Dwight Eisenhower memorial in Grosvenor Square.

The FDR memorial in the square. Looks like "Count FDRula" or something, but that's how they want to remember him.

I went to the square to see the FDR memorial, since it was on my city map, and I thought it'd be nice to check out. When I saw it, I noticed a weird monument off on the east side of the square, so I went to take a look at it. The inscription read, "GRIEF IS THE PRICE WE PAY FOR LOVE". I was still puzzled at what it was there for. Then I looked down. It's the Sept. 11 memorial garden. Evidently, part of one of the girders from the WTC is buried under the stone. The inscription is a poem I'd never read before, by Henry Jackson Van Dyke: "Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is not."

I'm home now.

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posted by Gil at 8:05 PM

Darfur

Skip ahead if you're sick of reading about the genocide in Darfur.

Samantha Power wrote a great piece in The New Yorker a few weeks ago about Darfur. Here it is. I didn't link to it earlier because I couldn't find any sort of searchable archives at the magazine's site. Good job, Conde Nast!

Prof. Power also wrote a piece on Darfur in the new issue of Time. Read it.

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posted by Gil at 3:24 PM

Yes, I think it can be easily done

I meant to ramble about this last week, when Drudge had an en fuego afternoon, posting links to the Cybill Shepard bad-hair day, the Iranian woman who asked a judge to make her husband only beat her once a week, and the guy who was clocked at 205 mph on his motorcycle.

Now CNN has followed up the story, replete with doubts that a motorcycle can reach 205. My favorite detail--even more than the "going a quarter-mile in 4.39 seconds" part--is that it all took place out on Highway 61.

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posted by Gil at 1:17 PM

False-hearted judges, dying in the webs that they spin

"The country where I came from—it's pretty bleak. And it's cold. And there's a lot of water. So you could dream a lot."

So sez Bob Dylan. Occasional VM reader David Gates interviews him in Newsweek. Give it a read.

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posted by Gil at 2:44 PM

"What were the skies like when you were young?"

My hotel's on the Thames, in Dockland (east London). Not a gorgeous area, by any means. But here's the view from the terrace outside the restaurant this evening:



Here's that Millennium Dome. More beautiful views here, here, and here. I'm awfully glad to have the life that I do.

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posted by Gil at 2:15 PM

Purple?

The Sunday NYTimes has picked up the story: the presidential candidates are tied in NJ polls. Money quote?

"As the 9/11 message of the Republicans recedes, New Jersey voters will come back home to Democrats," said State Senator John Adler, co-chairman of Mr. Kerry's campaign in New Jersey.

"Recedes." Right.

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posted by Gil at 1:37 PM

In-flight "entertainment"

None of you may have been thinking to yourselves, "Could that Stepford Wives remake really have been that bad? I wish Gil Roth would give that a viewing during a transatlantic flight and let me know."

So I did. I'm of two minds on this one: it either is that bad, or it's somehow worse. But at least Nicole Kidman's good to look at.

I'll give Van Helsing a shot during the flight back, and answer the same question.

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posted by Gil at 11:01 AM

Travelin' Man redux

Off to London in a few hours for the PABord conference, continuing the oddball travel schedule which will see me board 27 flights in 2004 (up from 25 in 2003).

Fortunately, I have the 40 gb iPod, a laptop, some DVDs, and a paperback of Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver to keep me company. Last year, I read his Cryptonomicon and The Diamond Age during a few of these trips. We'll see if I can read his Baroque Cycle between this trip and the Brussels/Amsterdam tilt in December.

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posted by Gil at 1:57 PM

Those are my options?

Andrew Sullivan on Kerry:

Kerry also suffers from the fact that he's been a senator for twenty years. If you're not a logorrheic, indecisive ponderer after two decades in the U.S. Senate, then you're probably a cocaine addict.

Read on.

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posted by Gil at 8:38 AM

Bicycle Thief, My Ass!

I watch a lot of professional basketball. During the years, I've followed the careers of some pretty, um, quirky (read: troubled) players:

Take Gary Trent, who reportedly would destroy all competition in practice (demoralizing Brian Grant, at one point), couldn't function on court, and once beat on a friend with a cue-stick for accidentally setting off his burglar alarm;

Ruben Patterson, who would shut down Kobe Bryant on a regular basis in practice when he was on the Lakers, went 8-0 vs. LA when he went to Seattle as a free agent, and opened the sports world to the "modified Alford plea," when he was on trial for the rape of the nanny of his kids (the plea evidently is a "no contest, but I admit that I'd likely be found guilty if this thing went to trial");

and now, Keon Clark. I first saw Keon when he was a rookie with the Nuggets. My friend invited me to a Knicks game one Sunday night, and I saw this impossibly skinny pogo-stick of a man (who bears a strong resemblance to Delroy Lindo) throw down a putback dunk of unbelievable ferocity. I thought he had a serious future in the league.

Unfortunately, Keon got injured a bunch, showed no work ethic, and liked to get baked a lot, so he's fallen off the radar in the league.

Except in Cleveland, where they'd like to bring him in as a backup center/power forward for next season, according to the Akron Beacon Journal. Problem is, it looks like they're having trouble finding Keon. Sez the article: "The team is trying to locate free agent Keon Clark -- a well-known free spirit and wanderer -- who apparently is beyond the bounds of modern communication devices."

Oh, but that's not all the article sez. Seems Keon has other issues weighing on him, including this biggie:

"He's also experienced some personal problems. His father was sentenced to 65 years in prison for murdering a friend in a fight over a bicycle in February."

Just read that again.

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posted by Gil at 8:59 AM

AU report from Darfur

It's a poor choice of words, but here's a harrowing report from the commander of the South African contingent of the African Union's monitors in Darfur:

Colonel Barry Steyn [...] says he counts bodies of Sudan army and Janjaweed victims each week and sends classified reports to Addis Ababa. Describing maggot-infested decomposing skulls, he says: "You believe there’s an inherent goodness in people, but you see some of these villages and it shakes that belief. You look at this stuff and it makes you turn dead white."

There's more (like the Russian explanation of why they not only abstained from the UN Security Council resolution last night, but also how they hope to sell more weapons to the Sudan government) at Passion of the Present.

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posted by Gil at 8:06 AM

New site

Stupid Bull looks funny, so it gets a spot on the blogroll. Enjoy.

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posted by Gil at 7:47 PM

Hot, Furry Death

So I'm entering hour 5 of NFL viewing (well, 5 hours of sports viewing, as I watched a bunch of the Yankees' 11-1 victory against the Red Sox), when I see an ad for the Star Wars Battlefronts game (you can see the same ad by clicking "navigate," "downloads" then "trailer").

Evidently, this videogame consists of most of the combat scenes from the original three Star Wars movies. According to the trailer, "For years, you've watched the greatest Star Wars battles. What if you could actually live them?"

Sounds cool, right? Evidently, you can play from either side--Empire or rebels--which isn't quite tantamount to guys who always play the Nazis in WWII simulations.

The trailer commenced with a series of quick cuts, including a few moments that I found REALLY perplexing. Fortunately, I have TiVo, so I was able to freeze the ad and go back to see what it was:





That's right. In this game, you can actually blow away Ewoks. I picked up these captures from the internet version, but the TV version also includes the on-screen phrase, "Jim killed Ewok."

All we need now is Jar Jar Binks: Shooting Gallery, and George Lucas can buy that private island he's always wanted.

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posted by Gil at 6:00 PM

Fight Night

Watched the Hopkins/De La Hoya match last night at the home of a boxing family: two brothers of former light heavyweight champ Bobby Czyz were in attendance, and we watched a couple of Bobby's old matches while the undercards were duking it out in Vegas.

It was pretty informative, watching boxing with people who've been in the ring, and who've watched so much of the sport. As with every other subject, the layman can learn a ton from listening to the vocabulary of people who are initiates. So, primed by listening to their commentary over a few other matches, I was able to see the main event last night with a different set of eyes.

It helped that, early in the night, one of the brothers made a comment about hitting a body shot right in the liver, and how it caused an opponent to crumple to the ground. When De La Hoya fell to the canvas, the whole sequence made sense, given that he didn't appear to be that beaten up before he dropped.

Anyway, it was an interesting match to watch, from a chess-match standpoint. It didn't have the exctiement and absolutely destructive slugfest-itude of, say, Gotti/Ward I, but De La Hoya's change of strategy (coming out boxing, instead of moving back and dancing) and Hopkins' ability to adapt to it, while enforcing his will in the later rounds, was pretty cool to watch.

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posted by Gil at 10:55 AM

"Cocaine's a hell of a drug . . ."

According to the coroner, Rick James had nine different drugs in his system at the time of his death, inclduing coke, speed, valium and vicodin:

"None of the drugs or drug combinations were found to be at levels that were life-threatening in and of themselves," the report said. It gave the cause of death as a heart attack and ruled the death accidental.

When it came to drug use, I don't think anything Rick James did was that accidental.

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posted by Gil at 6:00 AM

"Gestalt-ifying"?

Over at Slate, Jack Shafer critiques Harper's editor Lewis Lapham's new 7,700-word editorial about the Republican propaganda machine. It's not as exciting as Bernard Hopkins and the beans-and-rice incident, but it still makes for good reading.

Meanwhile, the bigger media scandal involves CBS's use of likely-forged documents to attack the president's National Guard record. It's interesting to me because -- in addition to the ideological bias involved, and the fact that Dan Rather and a CBS news exec are now contending that the contents of the memos are accurate, even if false (which is tantamount to the police saying, "Sure, we faked the evidence, but he's guilty of something") -- it illustrates the power of the internet.

A bunch of venues have picked up the story that certain bloggers were the first people to publicize the possibility (now high probability) that these documents were incredibly crude forgeries that couldn't have been generated using available technology of the time. Sidestepping the politics of the case (the standard "Does Dan Rather have a grudge against Bush's family?"), it's this aspect of it that I find fascinating. In short order, a new form of media has emerged, bypassing traditional gatekeepers, making tons of mistakes, but also offering perspectives and expertise that Big Media simply can't match.

It's like emergent architecture, where a bazillion little units start gestalt-ifying into a mosaic that represents reality far better than the top-down model of Big Media.

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posted by Gil at 7:36 AM

The Executioner's Song

As far as I know, boxing's the only sport that can generate leads like this one:

In his last major title fight, middleweight champion Bernard Hopkins disparaged Felix Trinidad by twice throwing a Puerto Rican flag to the ground and tossing a bag of beans and rice in the direction of his opponent. But as Hopkins prepares to fight Oscar De La Hoya on Saturday night at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, he has had nothing but kind words for his more popular opponent.

I'd guess that 'Nard's going to wreck De La Hoya, but I still have memories of the whomping Oscar laid down on Fernando Vargas a couple of years ago . . .

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posted by Gil at 7:29 AM

Doubts

According to a magazine called Expatica (for American expatriots living in Europe), German intel denies Die Welt's story about Syria testing chemical weapons in Darfur:

German intelligence sources said Wednesday they had no information which could confirm a report claiming Syria had tested chemical weapons in cooperation with the government of Sudan on black Africans in Sudan's troubled Darfur region.

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posted by Gil at 5:49 AM

Agonistes

As a favor to a buddy of mine, I'm filling in as the online Agony Aunt at an Australian university. I'm not putting the URL up here, because I know that you maniacs will flood it with all sorts of dumb questions, as opposed to the dumb questions that I'm already fielding. To wit:

hi im 15, and have fallen for this guy who's 20, but he doesnt know yet. Do you think the age gap is a bit OTT? Im really into him but the last thing i want is him turning me down because of my age! please help!!!

Your fill-in Agony Aunt (Uncle Joe) sez that, yes, you ARE too young at 15. It's a fine line, but there's a certain level of maturity (by which I mean, the ability to manipulate others) that this guy has probably reached, and that you just wouldn't be aware of. So, I advise finding a crush a little closer to your age, so you don't get hurt.

I've been going out with this guy for 3 weeks now. I met him a month ago in the internet. And the 2nd time we hang out, he holded my hand and from that moment on we became gf-bf. I told my parents about my boyfriend but they seem not to like this relationship. This is because Im an Asian girl and my bf is an Aussie. But I love my bf very much. He's my first bf ever and he treats me very nice. I want to keep this relationship but I wanted my parents to be happy about us. What do you think I should do?

Uncle Joe sez: During my first trip to the Antipodes, I discovered that Australian men drink harder than any other human beings I have ever met. He probably seems cool now, but he'll eventually begin piledriving Bundies-&-Cokes with a careerist determination that will absolutely horrify you.

You should probably play the field a little.

I want to die

What kind of an attitude is that? Uncle Joe sez you should face every day with joy, and live a life of blessings (even if yer an atheist).
If you can't do that, let me know if you have any cool CDs.

A couple of weeks ago i was going out with this guy, we got on really well and we realyliked each other. Then i wenton holiday for a week and when i came back, one of my mates told me that he;d seen him getting off with another girl!i didnt know what to do! so in the end we sjust split up! After we'd split up i asked him about it and he said that he had'nt now i still really like him but he says he just wants to friends wasi right ti dump him just because one of my m8's said he saw him? Who should i have trusted?

Trust yer mates. BUT make sure that one of THEM doesn't start dating him. In that case, you got played out. Uncle Joe has spoken!

Hi. I have been friends with this boy for 5 yeasr now and at first he was the one guy that i could always talk to and just 5 months ago he told me he was gay which i was fine because the more i got to know him the more i thought me might be gay even thou for years he said he wasn't but since he told me he was gay i have seen a big change in him and the way he acts towards me and my other friends many people have told him and i have sat down and talked to him about it i even wrote him a letter cause i was even finding it hard to talk to him but he didn't even want to talk to me about it and just put the letter in his desk and didn't say anything about it but also he is not caring about anybody anymore like he was no fellings and i no this some mad but he is one of my best friends and i dont want to lose but i dont know what to do anymore other people have tryed to talk to him but he wont talk to anybody please do you any way i could maybe talk to him so he will listen to me or anyway i could help him though this change.

Even though being gay is a lot more accepted now than in the old days, it's still gotta be REALLY tough to come to terms with that. What you need to keep in mind is that yer friend is feeling his way around in a completely different world than the one that he was "prepared for" by our culture. So he's probably going to adopt some different personae in hopes of finding himself as a sexual and social person. As part of that process, he's probably going to be a real dick about things (and deny that that's what he's doing). If you're a good friend, you're going to need to be really patient with him, but also let him know that You Knew Him When, and that you'll be there for him. But don't phrase this in a Friends-like "I'll be there for you" sorta way. Just try to talk to him to understand the world that he's moving into (It's a LOT different than yours). So sez Uncle Joe.

I'm dumb and useless

Yeah, but your spelling's better than anyone else's on this page, and Uncle Joe sez you should be commended for that.

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posted by Gil at 10:06 PM

Happy New Year!

Rosh Hashanah starts tonight: Happy new year to my family, and Jewish friends and readers!

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posted by Gil at 7:57 PM

Vice Fund

I like the way this "sin-based" mutual fund buys shares in "alcohol, tobacco, gam[bl]ing, and defense."

Of course, I always thought that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should add Bowling and NASCAR to its purview, but hey.

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posted by Gil at 9:10 AM

Wow

It's bad enough that the Sudanese government is denying the results of its own WHO study on death rates in Darfur. Now we have a story that, if true, somehow manages to raise the stakes:

Syria tested chemical weapons on civilians in Sudan's troubled western Darfur region in June and killed dozens of people, the German daily Die Welt claimed in an advance release of its Wednesday edition.

Here's the original story, in the Die Welt. If any of you guys can read German, let me know if the story equivocates more than the AFP version linked above, wouldja?

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posted by Gil at 5:57 AM

Fire Ants?!

New Orleans is my second-favorite city in America (New York is #1, and Vegas is my favorite unreal city), and the official VM girlfriend's family lives in a small town near it, so I'm really hoping that hurricane Ivan passes it by:

The worst-case scenario for New Orleans [. . . ] could submerge much of this historic city treetop-deep in a stew of sewage, industrial chemicals and fire ants, and the inundation could last for weeks.

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posted by Gil at 5:45 AM

Why can't I bring my gun into the General Assembly?

Lee Smith on the myth of multilateralism:

If we're still looking for root causes of Sept. 11, Arafat's coming-out party in the inner sanctum of multilateralism [his address to the UN] is one of them. The Western caretakers of the international community signaled then that since they could not comprehend the actions and read the intentions of men like Arafat, neither could they protect us from them. For his part, Arafat knew that if 11 members of the Israeli Olympics delegation could be executed on television and he was allowed to walk away, then the guardians of world order were weakest when they let the coalition determine the mission. After three decades of consensus-building that has rationalized terrorist violence as legitimate resistance, the butchering of hundreds of children at Beslan is not beyond reason. It is the logical result of accepting our enemy's description of the world as legitimate.

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posted by Gil at 6:29 AM

Mo' Money

Google's convinced me to put box ads here on VM. Click on some of 'em, so I can say that this blog pays for itself!

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posted by Gil at 9:08 PM

You, Too

I spent the first anniversary of Sept. 11 walking around NYC with my girlfriend at the time, taking pictures, listening to the wind, and helping her get an "I Love NYC" tattoo on the back of her neck. Here's a link to the editorials I wrote for my magazine on the attacks and the first anniversary.

Last year, I spent the day at home, waiting for a truck to bring me 2,000 copies of the 9.11 novel I was publishing, The Immensity of the Here and Now, by Paul West (still available!).

This year, I drove into NYC to pick up my girlfriend, headed out to a Mac store to pick up an Airport Extreme base station, walked around the town of Nyack for a bit, and had a pleasant afternoon. She told me how, during the ceremony where the names of the dead were read, some elderly couple read a few names, and the wife kept hectoring the husband because he skipped some of them. Here's the whole list.

During the drive in this morning, I ruminated on the anniversary. Heading out of my town, there's a wonderful view of the NYC skyline (not so far south as to see the WTC area, unfortunately), and it put me in mind of the day of the attacks, seeing that same skyline from the highway near my office. The weather was absolutely gorgeous here on 9.11.01, and a plume of dark smoke stretched north across the island of Manhattan. On one hill, people were setting up tripods and taking photos of the city. Memento mori.

I don't feel like going into it too much nowadays. We all responded (and continue to respond) in our own ways, and I try not to begrudge anyone else's ways of approaching it.

About a week after the attacks, I was able to start listening to music radio again (I'd been unable to take anything but news radio at first). One of the rock stations played "New York," by U2, from its most recent album. I'd never heard the song before.

New York, by U2

In New York, freedom looks like too many choices
In New York, I found a friend to drown out the other voices
Voices on a cell phone
Voices from home
Voices of the hard sell
Voices down a stairwell
In New York
Just got a place in New York

In New York, summers get hot, well into the hundreds
You can't walk around the block without a change of clothing
Hot as a hair dryer in your face
Hot as handbag and a can of mace
New York
I just got a place in New York
New York

In New York, you can forget, forget how to sit still
Tell yourself you will stay in, but it's down to Alphaville

New York, New York

The Irish been coming here for years
Feel like they own the place
They got the airport, city hall
Dance hall, dance floor, they even got the police
Irish, Italians, Jews and Hispanics
Religious nuts, political fanatics in the stew
Happily, not like me and you
That's where I lost you
New York

In New York, I lost it all to you and your vices
Still I'm staying on to figure out my mid-life crisis
I hit an iceberg in my life
You know I'm still afloat
You lose your balance, lose your wife
In the queue for the lifeboat

You better put the women and children first
But you've got an unquenchable thirst for New York

New York, New York

In the stillness of the evening
When the sun has had its day
I heard your voice whispering
Come away now to New York

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posted by Gil at 6:27 PM

9/11 Voters?

Gore won NJ by 16 points in 2000, but according to the Newark Star Ledger, I now live in a swing state.

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posted by Gil at 10:59 AM

War of Drugs

Derek Lowe puts paid to the myth that the Pharma business just takes research from the NIH to develop new drugs. Tangentially deriving my salary from the Pharma/Biopharma industry, I've had to try to justify its business practices to friends and family for a few years now. Derek's a lot better at it than I am. That's why I got him to write for my magazine.

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posted by Gil at 7:27 AM

The Kavern Klub

If I hadn't just read Foucault's Pendulum, I probably wouldn't give this story a second thought. Of course, the creepier connotation is Ted Roszak's novel Flicker, but I don't think too many of you have read that one.

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posted by Gil at 9:46 PM

Early and Often

I know Illinois is fabled for electoral corruption, but I sincerely doubt that Jesus Christ is registered to vote there in November.

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posted by Gil at 9:43 PM

Wear sunscreen

Ali G's commencement speech at Harvard.

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posted by Gil at 11:22 AM

Beslan

Good history and analysis of the wave of terrorism in Russia, by Dan Darling.

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posted by Gil at 11:16 AM

Riding Suzuki

Ichiro Suzuki, the right fielder for the Seattle Mariners, is chasing the record for most hits in a season for a major league player (257, by George Sisler, in a 154-game season in 1920).

Yesterday, Ichiro somehow went five-for-five at the plate, raising his average to .379.

I saw Ichiro play in his rookie season in America (he'd previously played eight seasons with the Orix BlueWave in Japan). I had great seats for a Mariners-Indians game at Safeco field. In a late-inning, close game, Ichiro was up to bat. The M's had a runner on third, and the Indians decided to bring the infield in to try to stop the run from scoring on a grounder.

Ichiro was incredulous. He stepped back from the plate for a moment, lowering his bat and not-quite-giving a cocker spaniel tilt. He hit the first pitch perfectly over the head of Cleveland's shortstop (the wonderful-fielding but not very tall Omar Vizquel), dropping it right on the edge of the grass: run scores, Ichiro safely aboard. That moment at the plate was artistry.

(By the way: It was pretty funny seeing him stand next to Indians' first baseman Jim Thome, who is built much like Thor. Ichiro looked like his son.)

In his short time in the league, Ichiro's accomplished plenty with his bat, his incredible speed, and his monster throwing-arm, but I really didn't think he had a chance at catching Sisler when I read about his numbers a month ago. When I saw the box score this morning, I did some back-of-the-envelope calculations:

Ichiro's got 27 games left this season. He projects out to 119 more at-bats (he barely ever takes a walk). To get the 34 hits necessary to tie the record, he needs to hit .285 for the remainder of the season. He's currently at .379, as I mentioned.

So that got me wondering: Just how many hits would Ichiro need to get his average up to the holy land of .400?

If the at-bats project out (in other words, if pitchers don't start walking him intentionally), Ichirio would need 60 more hits to get up to .400. With 119 at-bats left. Meaning he'd need to hit over .500 in the last 27 games to get there.

If it were any other player, I'd say that's impossible.

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posted by Gil at 9:10 AM

Russia and Terrorism

Neither side fucks around. Scenes like this one are only going to occur more frequently:



(AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev)

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posted by Gil at 5:41 AM

Observations

I've now spent a minimum of several days in three European capitols in the past 5 weeks. Here are two things I've noticed:

Europeans only have two kinds of Coca-Cola: Coke and Coke Light (Diet Coke). A couple of places had Vanilla Coke, but it was rare. This contrasts with the U.S., where there are a bazillion different varieties of Coke, including my greatest ally/deadliest nemesis, Cherry Coke.

Europeans do not modify their cars to install those rims that keep on spinning after the wheels have stopped.

I'll post more of these as warrants. I'll be in London, Brussels and Amsterdam by the end of the year, so that oughtta provide me with plenty of fodder.

For those of you who care about what I've been reading, I finished that Irvine Welsh book and Flaubert's Parrot, and read the first 70 pages of the biography of Stan Lee, which was co-written by my pal Tom Spurgeon (with Jordan Raphael). The book just came out in paperback, and I'm finding it pretty engaging. You should buy a copy.

During the flight, my entertainment screen kept zotzing out, so I turned on the PowerBook and watched my Chinatown DVD, reaffirming my belief that it's one of the best movies in American cinema, and probably the closest our art has come to Greek tragedy.

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posted by Gil at 8:37 PM

Lame and obtuse

Romeo Dallaire is pissed at the international (lack of) response to the genocide in Darfur:

"I am just disgusted with the lame and obtuse responses coming from Canada and the Western world."

Why should you care what he thinks? Because Romeo Dallaire was the commander of UNAMIR during the Rwanda genocide, and he's seen what happens when the international community twiddles its thumbs during atrocities in Africa. I'm midway through L. Gen. Dallaire's memoirs, Shake Hands With the Devil. You need to read this book if you care about the canard called "mutlilateralism." I bought it through Amazon, but it seems that it was a Canadian edition. It looks like a U.S. one is coming out soon, with an introduction by Samantha Power, who's also unhappy with international response to Darfur. She wrote an impressive and scathing article in last week's New Yorker (which doesn't put past articles online, it seems).

I'm flying home tomorrow morning.

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posted by Gil at 4:28 PM

High Resolution
Today, I had time to go over some maps and figure out some landmarks, before setting out. I love to just go walking in cities. I must make sure to thank my publisher for turning me on to Rockport DresSports, which are the comfiest dress shoes I've ever owned.

Anyway, I looked at the tourist maps over breakfast, and re-traced some of yesterday's steps. At some points, it felt like the old days of the internet, when you'd download an image and it'd show up rough at first, then increase in resolution as more data came through. Yesterday was a rough sketch of this part of the city. It turned out I'd passed a lot of things that I simply wouldn't have found without this map (like the Jewish Museum, below).

The weather was also beautiful, which improved my mood a little. And I had a conversation with a clerk at that museum, which helped me talk out some of my impressions of the city, and how it differs from other places I've been. Conversation (and it really is two-sided, despite what you readers who've actually spoken to me might think) is important to me. "Talkin': it fixes things," as Tony Soprano once said.

Here are a ton of pix:

Rosenborg castle, where they keep the crown jewels.

The Danish National Gallery. Unfortunately, the Turner exhibition doesn't open till tomorrow. Grr.

I love the color of these houses. Dunno what it is. I might paint my guest room in those shades this fall. Turns out that there are rows upon rows of houses like this. They're so darn old, it's tough to imagine them being right in the middle of the city. I'm not sure if the scale is conveyed through the two pictures, but there's no way on earth I could walk through any of the doors without seriously slouching, and I'm 6'1". So it sorta made me wonder about the ability to keep a city's history firmly in place, and how difficult it makes modernization. And it made me wonder if modernization is necessary for everyone. And that would be me on vacation, thanks.

Saint Paul's church. I just liked the color against the sky. It's really a beautiful day: mid-60s, nice breeze, lots of sun. I'm pretty happy.

A windmill.

The entry to a military garrison called Kastelet (might be a generic name for garrisons). It's an island base, still functioning.

A monument to the Danish soldiers who died in World War II.

Just a picture near the entrance to the base. I liked the stillness of the water, and the reflection of the grass hill above it. I was hoping it'd mirror well, but the breeze nixed that plan. I still think it's a nice photo.

Evidently, the little mermaid was not invented by Disney.

Who knew?

Amalienborg, the winter home of the royal family. It consists of four palaces surrounding a square. Here's another pic of it. It's got some history.

Frederick's church, as seen from Amalienborg, and closer up.

The fountain at the Royal Library (Bibliotek, okay?). I like the way the drops are caught in the light. Same shit, different angle.

The doorway to the Jewish Museum. The museum is designed by Daniel Liebeskind, the architect whose plan will be (mostly) followed for the new building on Ground Zero in NYC. It's a neat museum, explaining the history of Jews in Denmark. I remember hearing years ago that they helped their Jewish population out during the war, but I didn't know how extensive it was.

Evidently, more than 7,000 Jews got to safety in Sweden after the Germans decided to implement their Final Solution in Denmark, and less than 500 were sent to camps (85% of whom survived to return to Denmark). There's a little theater where they show short movies about the history of the Jews here, the museum, and Liebeskind's design. One explained the history of the immigration and acceptance of Jews in Danish culture. By the 19th century, they were pretty well assimilated into Denmark.

But then the Russian pogroms came, and thousands of Jews fled Russia. Well, a lot of them settled in Copenhagen, and were pretty resented. According to the video, the assimilated Jews were taken aback by a collection of refugees who were socialists, Zionists, or hyper-orthdox. And I have to admit, it struck me as sorta comic. I mean, here are these people whose families have spent 200+ years working out their relationship with a country, finding freedoms they really didn't have in many other European countries. So they've assimilated. I'm not sure how observant these Jews were, but they seemed pretty comfortable in the culture.

Then you've got this wave of immigrants showing up, spouting any one of three very discordant things (the aforementioned socialism, Zionism or orthodoxy), throwing the status of "normal" Jews into question. As one of the figures quoted in the video said, "Before you got here, we were Danes with a Mosaic faith. Now we're Jews."

Oy.

After the museum, I started walking home. I passed over Holmen's canal, and really liked the composition of colors.

This shot is from the bridge that you see in the last pic, and the archway leads to the Parliament building.

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posted by Gil at 1:07 PM

Of course, the Dane always knows about the fix . . .

And that's when David Byrne sings, "I'm tired of traveling / I want to be somewhere."

On Tuesday, I made a comment to my PR guide/liaison/contact that it's a pity I won't actually get to see Copenhagen during this trip, as I'd be getting in around 7pm on Wednesday night, and departing 7am Thursday morning.

I discovered that different cultures have different ideas of polite conversation. My idle musings were translated as, "Make it so!" and, on Wednesday morning, I was told that my trip had been rescheduled, and that I'll now depart Copenhagen on Saturday morning, so I have Thursday and Friday to spend here.

On the downside, I didn't pick up a guidebook for Copenhagen, so I've been meandering around without a map all day. As a result, I don't know the context of most of the buildings and sights that I've photographed (see links below).

In fact, I'm finding this city very weird. I'm trying to figure out how much of the weirdness is a result of my not knowing anything about it, and how much is intrinsic. What I mean is, the city (as I've wandered through it) doesn't resonate with me. It has plenty of "old world charm" and architecture, but there doesn't seem to be any aspect that jumps out and sez, "This is Copenhagen, bitch!" Stockholm at least had all sorts of neat design-touches, sorta evoking the future even when surrounded by the aforementioned "old world charm." But Copenhagen, at least, this part of it, is very much about the fancy retail shops.

With Budapest, there was the tension between the old buildings and the ugly-ass Communist-era stuff, as well as that overwhelming weight of history. Here, it's more about the human culture (not the static aspects of the cityscape), the fashion, the beautiful women (the guys make me feel pretty inadequate, by the way), the ubiquity of bicycles, the everyday mysteries of people walking down the street. I guess the problem is that I'm here on my own, and English-speaking tourists aren't as much a rarity as they were in Budapest. With no opportunity to talk this strangeness out with anyone, I'm left with you, dear reader.

If I was a different man, I guess I'd be scoping out the club scene, or sitting outside in a bar/café, getting schnookered and starting conversations with people, in my broad American accent. Instead, I have some virtual memories: girls bicycling in 3-inch heels; black birds with white wingtips; Swedes saying, "Hey!" to greet each other on the phone; a teenager with a "Kurdistan national soccer team" T-shirt; echoes of church-bells; tamper-seals on the bottled drinks not breaking off, the way they do in America, but remaining partly attached to the cap; a kiosk with stacks of Belgian waffles; the thin power-lines strung overhead, streetlights suspended from them. There are a million more of these, of course, but there's never enough time to write them all down.

Shwarma Police
One more thing: Any idea why there are so many kebab places in Europe? I've seen a ton of them in both cities, and my hotel room in Paris (Oct. 2002) was on a street (Rue De La Harpe) which included seventeen kebab joints! I know there are a lot of mid-eastern and Turkish immigrants, but it's pretty weird, I have to say. And I wanted to use the pun in the header above . . .

Other Stuff
I'm sorta glad that, between this trip and July's vacation in Budapest, I'll manage to miss both parties' political conventions. However, I'm still keeping in touch with the news at home, and this item scares me shitless.

This column in WSJ Europe about the Islamic Arab world's inaction at the atrocities in Darfur is pretty good. I'm convinced the writer's using a pen name (Leon de Winter? That's almost as good as Norm D. Plume), but he makes some good observations about the compulsive need to scapegoat in absolutely cosmic ways.

Cope Dip
Here are some pix:

People sitting at a fountain.

I wish I'd picked up a guidebook. This square's a nice meeting place, it seems.

Contrary to their jerseys, these people are not Brazilian. I have no idea what they were doing. Earlier, I saw a bunch of other people in a circle, singing some rousing thing in French. It's not World Cup time, so this is completely flummoxing me.

Some pictures are better left captionless.

I liked the color of the buildings, here by the water.

"You look like the piss boy!" Okay, I've got an infantile sense of humor.

Some boats, some water.

Sure wish I had that guide book. Sigh . . .

See what I mean?

The spires are strange to me. A lot of them have those squashed, oval toroids, rather than the long vertical lines I'm used to seeing. I'm not sure what influence that's supposed to demonstrate.

I mean, this spire's a corkscrew, and I can't remember noticing anything like that (not that I pay TOO much attention to this stuff).

Lots of copper roofs, as you've probably noticed.

That corkscrew spire again. Hmm.

I think this is some parliamentary building, but it's probably a royal palace, so I hope I don't make any royalty mad. This country and Sweden both kept their monarchies, and it seems they take it all pretty seriously. Did I mention how glad I am to be missing both political parties' conventions?

Around the corner from the last pic. It's something related to King Christian VI, according to the inscription over the door. Given that the second statue from the left is Athena/Minerva, maybe it's a defense ministry or justice hall.

The Thorvaldsen Museum, which houses sculptures (according to the website) by the eponymous sculptor. He evidently raked in enough dosh from this occupation to finance building the museum, back in 1838-1848

I thought it was a nice shot. However, you may be able to tell that I took the picture from the middle of the street, which is not a smart idea. Danes (I could call them Danishes, but that wouldn't be nice) seem very uptight about crossing the street against the light, even if there are no cars in sight. The Swedes, on the other hand, were more prone to barging through intersections, at least in Stockholm.

"Let's go (oh-oh-oh) Glyptotek (uh-huh)!" Okay, so it's a reference from a bad U2 record. Here's the Glyptotek, a sculpture museum (under renovation) built by the guy who started Carlsberg beer, "probably the best beer in the world." Seeing the logo everywhere around here reminds me of a guy on the New Zealand trip I took last year, Stuart. He wore a Liverpool football jersey (I mean, "soccer jersey"), which features the Carlsberg logo. I goofed on Stuart somewhat severely, but that sonofabitch had much bigger balls than I did, making a bungee-jump about 3 times higher than the one I made. And he did it for charity.

An entrance to Tivoli , a pretty famous amusement park / garden / etc.

Another entrance to Tivoli. I figure I'll go in tomorrow and see what it's like (no point doing EVERYTHING today).

Additional joke: What? No pearl necklace?

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posted by Gil at 3:52 PM