apparently the glastonbury festival is planning on a silent rave for this year’s event, using wireless headphones:
The quietest party in town is a response to the problem of noise pollution at the festival, which has traditionally led the district council to issue a licence on the condition that the festival’s main stages and tents shut down on the stroke of midnight.
This year, the council is to grant a late licence for the new dance area on the condition that thumping beats and pounding basslines are put to bed at 12. But, thanks to Glastonbury technicians, clubbers won’t have to. For one night only, they will be given wireless headphones, so they don’t trip up when dancing to whatever record the DJ plays.
“I like the idea of people dancing in total silence,” said Emily Eavis, one of the festival organisers and daughter of the founder Michael Eavis. “Imagine if you were feeling a bit worse for wear and thought, ‘This would be a nice quiet place to sit down’.
“You would be completely freaked out to see 3000 people dancing in silence. It’s certainly quirky, but our big push this year is keeping the noise down because that’s what the council is keen on.”
Organisers have not yet decided which DJ will play to thousands of quiet clubbers. The silent disco is part of a new dance area in which boutique tents replace the cavernous old venue. Ms Eavis said if the experiment was a success, she would consider silent gigs on larger stages in the future.
i’m in training this week. yes, again. once more, i only drink coffee when i’m forced to do things that put me to sleep. like go to meetings. or attend training. or watch steven spielberg movies.
here’s my recipe for class coffee:
ingredients:
directions:
this may be the sanest quote i’ve read regarding fans lining up to buy sony’s new psp at midnight:
“It’d be something to be first at voter registration, or to push civil rights,” Mr. Sanders said as a light rain began to fall, noting that he was trying to raise $30 to stay at a hotel. “They have a head-in-the-sand syndrome.”
i picked up my replacement rei one jacket today.
they had it in copper, which seems to be a slightly brighter shade of red than my old jacket. and it’s now got grey zippers and lining instead of black, as well as a since thing on the top of the collar.
different. maybe improved? maybe.
but i’m happy again.
look for it soon on an ed near you.
hmc and i both agree, from seeing terrible crimes committed by people on tv: if you’re losing your hair, the correct thing to do is to actually cut it short. no, shorter. shorter!
whatever you do, don’t grow it longer and then brush it all back like a receeding mane. it’s possible that if you’re losing your hair, you feel like you have to grow each remaining follicle as long as possible, otherwise it may not grow back!
this is not the case. one is not related to another.
you have male pattern baldness.
you do not have a doll’s head.
according to recent articles in the economist:
“IT IS always better to buy a house; paying rent is like pouring money down the drain.” For years, such advice has encouraged people to borrow heavily to get on the property ladder as soon as possible. But is it still sound advice? House prices are currently at record levels in relation to rents in many parts of the world and it now often makes more financial sense—especially for first-time buyers—to rent instead.
Homebuyers tend to underestimate their costs. Once maintenance costs, insurance and property taxes are added to mortgage payments, total annual outgoings now easily exceed the cost of renting an equivalent property, even after taking account of tax breaks. Ah, but capital gains will more than make up for that, it is popularly argued. Over the past seven years, average house prices in America have risen by 65%, those in Britain, Spain, Australia and Ireland have more than doubled. But it is unrealistic to expect such gains to continue. Making the (optimistic) assumption that house prices instead rise in line with inflation, and including buying and selling costs, then over a period of seven years—the average time American owners stay in one house—our calculations show that you would generally be better off renting.
“I want to have a place to call home,” is a popular retort. Renting provides less long-term security and you cannot paint all the walls orange if you want to. Home ownership is an excellent personal goal, but it may not always make financial sense. The pride of “owning” your own home may quickly fade if you are saddled with a mortgage that costs much more than renting. Also, renting does have some advantages. Renters find it easier to move for job or family reasons.
“If I don’t buy now, I’ll never get on the property ladder” is a common cry from first-time buyers. If house prices continue to outpace wages, that is true. But it now looks unlikely. When prices get out of line with what first-timers can afford, as they are today, they always eventually fall in real terms. The myth that buying is always better than renting grew out of the high inflation era of the 1970s and 1980s. First-time buyers then always ended up better off than renters, because inflation eroded the real value of mortgages even while it pushed up rents. Mortgage-interest tax relief was also worth more when inflation, and hence nominal interest rates, was high. With inflation now tamed, home ownership is far less attractive.
The divergence between rents and house prices is, of course, evidence of a housing bubble. Someday prices will fall relative to rents and wages. After they do, it will make sense to buy a home. Until they do, the smart money is on renting.
finally caught up. it’s real time! we’re back in the present, are we not?
quick, check your watch. what time is it? are we synchronized? if not, wind that sucker up!
back from paris and finally awake, i try to ease myself back into the stream of things, only to check my work email on sunday night and find out that my boss has turned in his resignation.
holy shit.
i’ll tell you right now. despite what industry pundits tell you, change is not good. you don’t want change. you can manage change, you can adapt to change, you can try and prepare for change, but change is not good in itself. the new situation can end up being better, but until you’re there, you don’t know. the change itself isn’t good.
to wit: i love my boss. ok, not in a personal creepy sort of way, but in a “he helps me out when i need it but otherwise leaves me the hell alone” sort of way. which is an excellent way for a boss to be. much better than the “send me status reports every day so i know what you’re doing” or “you can do whatever you want, but i’ll never recognize any of your efforts so let’s just leave you at the same level as you’ve been for the last umpteen years” sort of ways.
what does the future bring? who knows? his boss is now my boss for the forseeable future. again, not bad, but not immediately good. they’re interviewing for the position (which, again, i don’t want so don’t ask me), and i heard a rumor that one of the people they’re interviewing is the old boss of the new guy on my account. which isn’t bad. but could be trouble. if that happens, how long am i still viewed as the go-to guy on the account? i’m not losing sleep over it, but something to be wary of, at least.
i remember that my stylist carolyn warned me about all of this. she said that since it’s now the year of the rooster, i, being of the taurus-dog persuasion, would have a difficult work year. something about the rooster liking hard work. and as i don’t seem to really like very hard work, you immediately see the problem right there.
beware of the rooster. and let the ‘pecking order’ jokes begin.
seems like while video games are maybe good for you, dungeons and dragons might limit your career in the israel defense forces:
However the IDF does not approve of this unusual hobby and prevents D&D players from being considered for sensitive army positions by labeling them with low security clearance.
“We have discovered that some of them are simply detached from reality,” a security source told Ynet.
…
A security official tells Ynet there are specific criteria for deciding the level of a soldier’s security clearance.
“One of the tests we do, either by asking soldiers directly or through information provided us, is to ask whether they take part in the game,” he says. “If a soldier answers in the affirmative, he is sent to a professional for an evaluation, usually a psychologist.”
More than half of the soldiers sent for evaluation receive low security clearances, thus preventing them from serving in sensitive IDF positions, he says.
Igor says exposing soldiers who play the game could result in the soldiers being sent to a military psychologist or even being kicked out of the army.
“Exposing them could also harm their chances at being accepted to other military courses,” he says.
Matan says he has personally met soldiers whose military career was harmed due to their connection to the game. Most soldiers who play Dungeons and Dragons simply do not admit to it while they are in the army, he says.
afterwards, sleeping for 18 of the next 25 hours.
late last night out + late night packing + early rising for airport + limited sleeping on plane + coming home the afternoon of an andc + all night dance celebration + staying up and dancing = staying up for 45 of 51 hours in a row.
wake up in paris, and go to bed in san francisco. two+ days later.
this is insanity.
or the international rock star lifestyle.
for our last night in paris, we decided to splurge and go out for a big fancy dinner. the end result was a place that specialized in french caviar, which the guidebook claims is much more affordable than russian or iranian (who knew?) caviar, but just as tasty.
for over a week now, we (or more specifically, mostly me) had been carefully going around paris trying not to offend people and to make sure that we followed all the local customs and the proper protocols.
no elbows on the table. eat with the fork in the left hand, knife in the right. when finished eating, knife and fork crossed on the plate, face down. when not yet finished, knife and fork place on each side, tips on plate, ends on table. if whole place setting is there, leave each course’s utensils on plate to be taken away, otherwise carefully remove designated whole meal’s fork and knife for reuse during next course.
so on and so forth. if parisians say there is a bon vivant, then by hell’s bells, we’re going to try and vivons bien accordingly.
unfortunately, it pretty much came to a crashing halt with this meal. however good we were during the rest of our stay in all the other restaurants, we probably made more than enough faux pas during this one meal to make up for them.
this is what happens when you don’t go to finishing school. or when you forget your copy of haute cuisine dining for dummies.
to their credit, the wait staff were incredibly kind about everything we did wrong.
“madame, perhaps you may want to eat the caviar not with the silver fork, but with the caviar spoon, to prevent the metal from ruining the caviar taste?”
who knew? and when you’re eating caviar-topped baked potatoes, do you eat just the caviar first, or the caviar and potato together, and do you eat the skins, or is that just an american hick thing to do?
the restaurant also specialized in “smoked salmon of the tsars,” featuring four different kinds of smoked salmon that were time honored favorites of royalty gone by. of course i had to try it. who doesn’t want to try the favorite foods of the tsars? however, when you realize how much smoked salmon that really is, you think, “maybe that’s why those tsars aren’t around anymore?”
i think i ate maybe two pounds of smoked salmon. and i didn’t even finish it all.
i may never want to eat salmon again.
we went to the musee d’orsay yesterday, where they have an incredible collection of impressionist art. lots of stuff by monet, manet, cezanne, van gogh, it goes on and on… lots of lovely stuff by degas, including a room of beautiful pastels.
masterpieces that i’d only dreamt of being able to see in person, like manet’s le dejeuner sur l’herbe, monet’s rouen series, and renoir’s le bal au moulin de la galette, are there for you to gaze at. right there. on the wall. it makes you a little teary, to be honest.
today we took a day trip to chartres to see the cathedral there. listed as “one of the greatest architectural achievements in western civilization,” how can you not go see it?
if you ever go, i’d recommend the audiotour. it’s a good history of the cathedral and explains the architecture, as well as what all the different stained glass windows and the sculptures and iconography around the entrances stand for. on the other hand, i’d skip the choir curtain audiotour, and save the extra time and money, which wasn’t really worth it. do you really need to hear things like: “this section depicts christ’s circumcision, in dubious realism”? if nothing else, you could probably bug one of the many british nuns making pilgrimages and ask them, “so, which one of these is the passion of the christ?”
after getting back to paris, we headed back to the louvre to hit the wednesday late night opening. this time we were ready: audiotour, louvre guide to french painting, and the entire sully wing full of treasures to be both enjoyed and analyzed.
sitting in front of ingres’ painting of louis-françois bertin, you’re just amazed at the power of painting. it’s not just the fact that someone can make a photorealistic depiction of a person. but it’s the fact that they can make something that’s more than just a photographic depiction, somehow they’re able to convey a warmth, a power, a sense of spirit, a magnificent essence above and beyond just a pictorial representation. all this with some oils and a few light tricks. incredible.
alas, it’s just too much. there’s too much stuff in there. we learned a lot and that’s certainly the way to do it, if you have the time. but to have the time to really see everything and appreciate it would take at least nine months. or maybe nine years..
plus, there’s stuff that you can’t even see now. the whole large-scale french paintings room in the denon wing is closed for the entire year, meaning such masterpieces like gericault’s the raft of the medusa or delacroix’s liberty leading the people are just hopelessly out of reach, no matter how many days we come back.
i guess we’ll just have to come back again next year.
overheard in the van gogh room in the musee d’orsay:
so, he really liked to paint pictures of himself, huh?
quick summaries:
1. notre dame is really huge. i mean REALLY HUGE. you could fit three grey whales inside that thing. and throw in a couple of giant squid, to boot.
2. saint chapelle, while being much smaller (maybe one whale, if you curled it up), has gorgeous stained glass windows.
3. went back to louvre for another half day today, hitting the german, flemish, and dutch paintings, as well as spending a lot of time in my favorite room, the gallery de medici. while we both had the audioguides this time, we still had some trouble piecing together exactly how things fit together and why or what some of the stuff in the rooms was important. we ended up quickly looking at the mesopotamian artifacts, including the winged beared bulls.
as it turns out, in the gift shop, which we had been responsibly avoiding, there’s a louvre guide to german, flemish, and dutch paintings. why didn’t they tell us this before we went up there? it could have been so simple…
went to the musee picasso.
it seems like it wouldn’t take that long, but 1. that fucker lived a long time and 2. that fucker painted a lot of shit. and then made a lot of stuff. out of bicycles and other crap.
it’s pretty great, as you’d expect. when you’ve got a guy who’s a notorious cheapskate and who tries to but everything with little sketches he’d draw on napkins which later end up being sold on costco.com, then you end up with a lot of art in his museum.
which is fabulous, but you end up spending much more time in the museum. instead of one or two hours, it took us four hours to wind through the whole thing, which is quite labrynthine and winds its way up and down three floors (and a basement).
lots of wives, lots of women, and lots of pictures. i particularly liked the one with the little girl leading the blind minotaur by the beach. if the little girl represents the feminine while picasso identified with the masculine aspect of the minotaur and the spanish bullfights, what does that mean, exactly? how does it read next to all his depictions of the death of the torreo, the female bullfighter, her dead body being lifted by the bull (masculine) and the gored horse (feminine)?
later that night, hmc couldn’t sleep. “let’s go out!” she says.
ok, we go out.
around 3am, we hit le batofar, which is a little club inside a tugboat on the seine. they’re playing minimal electro and techno. it’s pretty sweet in there, a tiny little place to rock out. some guy keeps yelling out, “allez!” enthusiastically.
the best part is when some girl asks us, “you smoke the joint? i smell the joint. i don’t have, but i want the joint!”
i can’t tell you how cool it is to be dancing to some music and to be able to look through the porthole and see the seine at night.
the worst part of the night is at the end, when almost everyone clears out at about five in the morning. suddenly, i realize that my coat is gone.
it was just there five minutes ago.
my leather coat, rolled up in a bundle, seemed to be pretty safe where it was. in plain view. safer than everyone else who just left it in the other room, or piled up anonymously with other coats in a booth. just as safe as the other coats around the room.
but somehow, not quite. you do an assessment of the place you’re in, the people you’re with, to figure out how much you have to worry. everything seems no sketchier than other places i’ve been, other clubs i’ve been to.
unlucky, i guess.
the awkward part is that they nicked my phrase book at the same time, so we couldn’t figure out how to say, “someone stole my jacket” to the staff. all we could remember was “he lost his jacket,” which doesn’t quite have the same punch.
on m’a volé mon veste.
not only my leather jacket, but my stripey kangol hat, and my recently re-found wool diesel gloves, both of which were presents from hmc. and also worst of all, my red rei one jacket. the one that i love and that’s perfect for everything. for going out, for snowboarding, for going to paris. for on m’a volé.
i don’t even think they make it in red anymore.
merde.
we went to the louvre today.
it’s always been a dream of mine to go there and see all the fantastic art works.
they’re all there. art works. fantastic. all.
it’s really huge. they say it’s huge, but they’re not kidding. like five city blocks huge. like spend ten hours walking around and not even cover a third of it huge. because i spent ten hours walking around and didn’t even cover a third of it.
so many incredible things that you’ve seen pictures of, read about in books, and discussed in class, and they’re here. just sitting there. for you to see.
so close you could reach out and touch them. but you don’t. because you would get tossed in jail. but you could.
the venus de milo. works by rembrandt. works by van dyck. classical sculptures by michelangelo!
they’ve got the code of hammurabi. are you kidding? the honest to god code of hammurabi. we’re talking about one of the first ever written laws of jurisprudence. on a huge black obelisk. from 1750BC. right there. you could touch it. you could lick it.
mmmmm history.
so many works by reubens! i had no idea i liked reubens so much. the shining figures, illuminated from within, with beautiful creamy milky skin. and the bold bright brush strokes. wonderful.
everything in the louvre is a dream come true.
except for seeing the mona lisa.
not that anything’s wrong with the mona lisa. the mona lisa is incredible. it’s just sublime.
you see it in pictures, you read about it, and you say, “ok, i understand what they’re saying”, but to some extent, you look at the picture and think, “what’s the big deal?”
but when you see it, you understand. it’s not just the crazy fantastical landscape behind or the light effects he used to make it work. but it’s that little smile, that somehow, in person, really does flicker at you. it’s so subtle. but beautiful. and wonderful.
why is that sad?
it’s sad because every single tourist makes a beeline for the mona lisa. and when they get there, all they do is take pictures of it. with flashes. even though it clearly says, no flash photography anywhere. and no pictures of the mona lisa. EVER.
but what do they do? they take pictures of it. and then they take pictures of themselves in front of it. and then they take pictures of their friends in front of it. and then they go away to the next thing on their hit list.
no one’s looking at the mona lisa.
it’s right there! look at it! enjoy it! appreciate it! it’s something to be savored, not just checked off on your “to do in paris” list. take pictures of yourself in front of the eiffel tower. or the seine. or i.m. pei’s pyramid.
but for god’s sake, LOOK AT THE MONA LISA.
there was even someone at the front, videotaping the mona lisa. zooming in and out while using the different video filters. the mona lisa in sepia tone. the mona lisa solarized.
are you fucking kidding me?
the mona lisa. solarized.
if this is the result of art for the public, i’d almost rather have it stolen and sold to some private collector, like someone did recently to one of munsch’s the scream. sell it to someone who will hide it in a little room away from everyone, but who will go there every day, and look at it, and love it.
and not look at it through a videocamera, solarized.
seriously.
how does one say “i’m freezing my ass off” in french? i need to know this because this is the phrase i’m going to use for the next nine days.
it’s so cold that it took two hours for the lava lamp in the apartment to even think about starting to move again.
thank goodness i packed that superthin wool undershirt. and more than anything else, thank goodness i also packed those thermal pants.
perhaps what i’m really annoyed about is how soft i’ve evidently become.
if i recall correctly, i was born in michigan. i grew up in michigan. i walked through the snow to school, i waited for buses in freezing cold, and even went out to play in snow until we had thrown several snowmen’s worth at each other and were frostbitten from one extremity to the other.
even in college, i remember spending my four years there wearing nothing but a single pair of jeans. thermal pants? we didn’t have any sissy-ass thermal pants! hell, i didn’t even wear socks those days, so it was just me, a pair of jeans, and some converse classic chucks. not to mention that unfortunate fashion trend of cuffing your pants, thus ensuring that i always had about an inch of exposed ankle flesh open to the wind, rain, snow, and slush that i encountered every day in my travails.
alas, now a few minutes walking around in freezing temperatures sends me whimpering like a baby back into the bathroom, cowering next to the towel warmer rack, which remains the only reliable source of heat in all of paris.
that’s what california does. it makes you soft. that’s why new yorkers scoff at us, and parisians sneer. because of our squishy center.
we’re here in paris.
the flight was pretty terrible. the good news was that we checked in and got one of the coveted window seat-aisle seat pairs. alas, it turned out to be 48A/B, which is the very last seat in the plane.
no reclining.
no reclining for ten and a half hours.
which, of course, doesn’t prevent the two high school french girls from reclining into you.
hmc asks, how do you say “my ass hurts” in french? according to those language tranlations tools, it’s “mes maux d’âne.” but then if you translate it back, you end up with “my evils of ass.”
and even then, i think that’s actually referring to hmc’s donkey, not her badonkadonk. perhaps “mon bout est en douleur?”
sassybout doesn’t quite have the same ring, does it?