Il principe di Bel Air…

Now that I’m on MIT’s listservs, I get announcements about crazy events like this one (btw, all typos are sic; I am leaving it untouched for your grammatical discomfort):

Parade for the Future
Sun, June 15th, 4:00-5:30 PM
Meet outside Park Street Station under the giant blue wave

See you in the future,
Platform2

Every third trip to NYC reminds me why I wanted to live there in the first place — but I think that’s because every third trip happens in either May or October, which are the two most beautiful months to be in New York. In the summer months, forget it. Way too hot and dirty. In the winter months, forget it. You just can’t move. But May is perfect: hot enough for a sunburn, breezy enough for a scarf. We spent a lot of time playing Scrabble and eating — fresh pasta, cake, spicy Thai, Israeli brunch — and walking around the East Village, watching hipsters.

The fashions boggle my mind: everything is neon and tights right now, wispy or dramatic hair, polished kids tripping over themselves down 1st Ave. I cut my hair at least three times over the weekend, leaning over M.’s bathroom sink, her grey cat teetering on the edge of the tub a foot away, fascinated. At dawn, hours after I gave up on the hair, she’d clawwww-claw-claw-claw-claw the bottom of her plastic litter box as a bugle call to the morning — only a poop-smelling bugle with a piercing sound. We couldn’t sleep anyway; Crown Heights has seen some tension lately between the Orthodox Jewish and Black communities. Cops lined every corner, so rowdy teenagers preferred to hang out and taunt one another in the lobby of the apartment building, instead of outside. The result was a terrible echo of adolescence, which stung my ears until well after 4 a.m. and made me remember the summer I spent in Philadelphia in 1995, kickin’ it with neighborhood punks.

My grandfather died that summer, so my mom shipped me off to stay with her best friend and her two daughters. Those of us who were black spent the daytime under an umbrella; those of us who were white spent the daytime in the scorching sun, trying to eliminate some of that uncool whiteness. It didn’t work for me; I’m pretty sure I got third degree burns that summer. All I really remember was a Seal song playing on repeat, a tie-dyed blue bathing suit, and an ambivalent yet distinct crush I relinquished on a short boy named Sam.

N. raised a good question about this new Weezer video: “Is this video desperation to reconnect with a fan base or legitimate remixing of the nerd oeuvre weezer (used to) occupy?”

The larger question I’m asking myself is, have I gotten this old and disconnected that I don’t even get 70% of the internet “nerd oeuvre” references Weezer put in the video? And if so, shouldn’t I actually be proud of that? Oy.

Just downloaded Maná’s album Amar Es Combartir, which I highly recommend, if cheesy Latin rock is your thing.

In other news, I got hooked on PBS’s documentary series “American Presidents” which airs every Monday night. So far I’ve only seen the 3-hour episode on FDR, but my my, how fascinating! What an intriguing man and groundbreaking presidency. Without him, there’d never have been a New Deal, social security, the NLRB, the United Nations, or (sadly) the A-bomb. I urge you to find the documentary, watch it, and watch it again, if you haven’t already.

In related news, let’s send some good thoughts over to Sen. Kennedy this week — the media have all but aired his Obituary Tribute Special, under the guise of fond concern. How anxious they are to stir up negativity and drama where none exists! I swear, if martians landed in Southie tomorrow or disintegrated Western Europe, we would hear nothing about it. But we WOULD hear graphic descriptions of brain anatomy for hours on end. What a crazy world.

Four-year-old J-bug was just visiting from California with his mom, HH. I knew him in the womb, as well as in infancy, which he allegedly remembers. For posterity’s sake, I had him record some songs while I was at work this week. Apparently he really likes to freestyle the Power Rangers tune. I won’t tell you how long it took me (ok, several evenings) but here’s my preschool remix:

Click to play

I just reposted an update from the U.S. Campaign for Burma about the current situation on the ground, but then I had an e-conversation with my pal TS, a Burmese guy in Bangkok. He says only the UN, Red Cross and UNICEF are allowed to come in to the country with donated money and supplies for Burmese cyclone survivors. All other orgs are barred from getting in right now, and government-sanctioned agencies are filtering aid money directly into the junta’s pocket.

However, some Burmese pals of mine have launched a plan to go into Burma next week with some money and will buy lots of supplies once they get in. They will try to get me some photos or video, if they can get an internet connection somewhere, and then I’ll post it all over the place.

If you’d like to donate, you can give to UNICEF, or you can give directly to GHRE (sorry, GHRE has no credit card capacity yet; but you can send a check to P.O. Box 13, Takuapa Post Office, Phang Nga 82110, Thailand.

(more…)

Cinco de Mayo always reminds me of Eric Klingelhofer, a brilliant guy with a fabulous attitude problem who used to sit behind me in pre-calculus and throw things at my head. Today’s his birthday, if I remember correctly. I hope he’s somewhere wonderful, influencing public policy or facilitating urban renewal projects.

Meanwhile, last night I had a dream that my brother landed in a tiny spaceship that looked like one of those tiny M&M-esque European cars, and we flew over a not-quite-real world en route to some sporting event. This might be partially explained by a documentary I watched the night before, which included an aerial helicopter flight over central London, and partly by my longing to play sports.

Meanwhile, Burma is completely without water or electricity and I’m hoping my former colleagues returned from their Burma trip already, and are not in fact stuck in Rangoon. I get so mad when I read how the military claims the cyclone wrecked internet connections, when in fact the regime cut all internet access months ago as a means of media control. You can’t get online in Burma without a satellite connection, and right now you can’t get on at all. I’ll post updates if I get any.

My pal Kate Williamson has written and beautifully illustrated several books, and new ones have just been published. Buy one of these!

A YEAR IN JAPAN (30 POSTCARDS)

A YEAR IN JAPAN (DATE BOOK)

AT A CROSSROADS: BETWEEN A ROCK AND MY PARENTS’ HOUSE

She has also published multiple Hello Kitty books. Support the cause, people!