Crystal Mess

In my e-mail box this morning, from Macy’s:

Waterford crystal NY Giants football

Sadly, the odds are that someone in my office will buy this.

What it is: 2/4/08

What I’m reading: Sophocles’ Ajax, and Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha, Vol. 5

What I’m listening to: The Last Post, by Carbon / Silicon

What I’m watching: we finished with the first season of The Wire and caught The Corpse Bride and half (okay, maybe a third) of The Return of the King

What I’m drinking: Rogue’s Dead Guy Ale (because the position of the skeleton on the side of the six-pack made it look like Pogue, and I thought that was funny)

Where I’m going: We didn’t get up to Providence this weekend. Next week, I’ve got a  trip to Belfast to visit a client. I’ll have Sunday & Monday on my own, so if you have any suggestions for sights to see in Belfast & environs (I’m thinking of day-tripping up to the coast to see Giants Causeway), mention it in the comments!

What I’m happy about: THE GIANTS WON THE SUPER BOWL!

What I’m sad about: NOTHING! SEE ABOVE!

What I’m pondering: The relationship of men and their gods. Here’s a passage from Sophocles between Athena and Odysseus, after Ajax goes insane and believes that he’s killed Odysseus and the other generals:

   ATH: Do you see, Odysseus, how great the gods’ power is?

Who was more full of foresight than this man,

Or abler, do you think, to act with judgment?

    ODY: None that I know of. Yet I pity

His wretchedness, though he is my enemy,

For the terrible yoke of blindness that is on him.

I think of him, yet also of myself;

For I see the true state of all us that live —

We are dim shapes, no more, and weightless shadow.

    ATH: Look well at this, and speak no towering word

Yourself against the gods, nor walk too grandly

Because your hand is weightier than another’s,

Or your great wealth deeper founded. One short day

Inclines the balance of all human things

To sink or rise again. Know that the gods

Love men of steady sense and hate the proud.

Scenes from a weekend

Sorry for the lack of a post on Sunday; I did resolve to post something every day, although I didn’t make any resolutions about the quality of those posts.

Anyway, it was a pretty relaxed weekend. Amy & I drove down to Manalapan on Sunday for her friend Naomi’s wedding. It was a traditional Jewish wedding, with various celebrations that I sorta figure were traditional to Russian Jews. I’m sure Amy’ll write about it this week.

Me, I’m gonna send you over to a small set of pix from the weekend, including Santa In Chains:

Santa in Chains

And, for your edification — or your imagination — the secret and partially fictive history of the revolving door.

Show some resolve!

Whoops! I was so busy getting the Jan/Feb issue of my mag together that I almost missed my New Year’s Resolution of making sure I post at least one item every day!

Fortunately, I came across this neat writeup about companies that worked for/with Nazi Germany. “Enjoy”!
(And, yes, I do own a Hugo Boss suit, but it was in clearance, so I got to exert my Jewish stereotype on that one.)

My other resolution is to get back to only drinking water, black coffee or gin. I slipped up and had a Dr. Pepper a few days ago, and Amy broke out a bottle of wine Saturday night, but I’m sticking with it pretty well!

Treadmilling

I tellya, dear readers: I’ve been in overdrive at the office for about 5 months now, and it’s been burning me out something fierce. I’ve been facing one big issue of the magazine after another, plus a ton of responsibilities for our annual conference. I think it reached a point where I didn’t know how to slow down. But I figure that’s a lot better than being unemployed.

On the plus side, it means I actually hammered the crap out of our November/December issue, wrapping it up today even though it’s not due at the printer till Tuesday. Our issues have been running late all year for a variety of reasons, so I was just hoping to get this one ish out by deadline. Even though I was early, I still sprinted to the finish line, working on news pages last night and spending the early morning gathering photos for the features.

The upshot? I got the last few files to my production manager by noon, which meant I could take a half-day and chill the heck out.

In my world, that means driving down to Montclair, picking up some coffee over at Bean’s, walking around town a little (cold and drizzly today, but hey), and hitting the Book Center for a little stochastic research!

Within a minute, I opened a book to a page that provided all sorts of grist for the imagination-mill. You can expect my novel sometime around 2020.

After that score, I browsed for books on my wishlist, and ended up finding a bunch of little treasures on the cheap —

Waiting for the Weekend – Witold Rybczynski

Elvis Costello’s Armed Forces – Frank Bruno (from the 33 1/3 series of books-about-albums)

Prince’s Sign O’ the Times – Michelangelos Matos (ditto)

Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Vol. 3 – Robert Caro

The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia – Peter Hopkirk

— for a grand total of $35!

Now it’s on to a nice, relaxing weekend of wrapping up the annual NBA preview, reading Middlemarch, and, um, sleeping.

So don’t call, is what I’m saying.

More cold war relics

In keeping with the previous post on Norman Mailer’s gnostic wackiness, I should probably also relegate Ben Stein to “relic of the cold war” status, but he seems to have adjusted pretty well to the modern age, and offers some pretty good life & investment advice in his most recent column in the NYTimes:

GET A BIG DOG And have that dog sleep in your bed with you. Dogs know nothing of mortality, and they share that peace with you.

INVEST FOR THE LONG HAUL If you are a smart long-term investor, do not pay any attention to short-term developments. They are often reported by people whose motivation may be to scare you (screaming about the subprime “crisis”) or to make you giddily greedy (screaming about that one certain stock you should buy to retire rich).

On the other hand, Terry Eagleton comes off as a Marxist douchebag.