Susan Sontag on self

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The NYTimes excerpted Susan Sontag's journals in Sunday's Magazine. She's always fascinating and instructive.


Tim Harford offers some economic advice: in most cases, it only makes sense to insure ourselves against risks we cannot afford, not ones we can. Tornado? Qualifies. Losing a cell phone? No.


Links

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New David Sedaris piece in The New Yorker this week. Also an interesting article on neuroeconomics.


Harold McGee answers some common questions about kitchen science on Chow.com, like what's the difference between pressed and chopped garlic and is it safe to heat food in plastic in the microwave.


50 Years of Janus Films - a 50 DVD box set. Pre-order before October 24 for $650, actually a bargain at $13 a disc. Drool.


Zyb - a site to back up your cell phone contact info. The service is free and works with over 200 mobile phones. Useful.


BP's Statistical Review of World Energy 2006.


One of my questions to Gothamist was posted to Ask Gothamist, though unfortunately the response didn't go live until I'd already left NYC. Before I left, I did find this useful list of places in NYC to donate goods of all types.


Trailer for Johnny To's next movie, a spaghetti Western transplanted to macau, Fong Juk or Exiled as it's known in English. Oh, I wish I were at the Toronto International Film Festival. Exiled opened there to strong reviews.


Trailer for the next animated feature from Satoshi Kon, Paprika. If I knew how to read Japanese, I could actually tell you something about the movie. Early buzz, though sparse, is good.



I wasn't a huge fan of Tony Jaa's Tom Yum Goong, but it sounds like the condensed version from the Weinsteins, retitled The Protector, is even worse. Oh well, we can shift our hopes onto Ong Bak 2, which Jaa will direct himself.


Two plugs

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These two are not sites of sponsors but of people far more dear to me, my friends.


Mojiti is in beta and is the creation of Eric and his company in Beijing. It's a set of tools that allows people to add annotations (or Spots, as Mojiti calls them) to online video. The best way to understand Mojiti is to watch a Mojiti-enhanced video in action, like this annotated version of "Evolution of Dance" from YouTube. An easy way to create your own pseudo pop-up videos.


Fomato is a line of greeting cards. Here's a list of retail stores that carry the line. Hopefully they'll be taking orders online in the near future. The greeting cards merge artwork with Japanese genes with messages of a quirky nature. Many of my favorites aren't online, but I recommend them as an alternative to the usual greeting cards on the drugstore rack.


Sole survivor

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Instead of heading straight for LA after leaving NY last week, I stopped over in San Francisco for Mark's wedding. The slower transition from my old home to my new one was much welcome.


For one thing, my friend Cindy's apartment, where I stayed for the weekend, was so large that it helped to ease my sadness over leaving Manhattan. You could fit my entire NY kitchen inside her shower, and her apartment could house two entire families if a tornado picked it up and dropped it in Manhattan. These are things you learn to live with after an adjustment period in NYC, but being able to lie down in a shower to do snow angels helps to ease the pain of leaving NYC the way the patch helps a smoker trying to kick the habit.


California is also a state that makes a strong first impression. She's a looker. As soon as you step out of the airport, she greets you with sunshine and blue skies. The day before the wedding, I went for a jog in the afternoon from the Bay Bridge to Fisherman's Wharf, and though the headwind beat me up, the views of the ocean, sky, and bridges couldn't have been more gorgeous.


The point of this post, though, is to plug my old college classmate Yul who will be one of the contestants on this season's Survivor: Cook Islands. I've never really watched the show, but finally, I am one degree of separation from a reality show contestant. This season's show has already courted lots of controversy by dividing the contestants into four teams by race: Asian American, Caucasian, African American, and Hispanic. Various sponsors have dropped out and community leaders have protested. In other words, this transparent tactic for boosting ratings appears to be working as planned, though the test will come Thursday when the season premier airs.


Yul, though he couldn't share details of what had transpired on the show, invited us to a viewing party for a TV Guide Channel preview of the upcoming season. He was the last contestant profiled and was introduced thus: "...with a Yale doctorate, a compassionate nature, and a whole batch of imposing muscle." The voiceover was paired with an image of Yul sans t-shirt, looking like a video game Bruce Lee. Oddly, Yul never appeared with a shirt on in any of the clips, and you can imagine the ribbing we all gave him.


I won't be rooting for any particular team but for Yul. Early odds have him as one of 6 contestants with 8 to 1 odds, the favorite at this point being Adam Gregory at 7 to 1. If you're watching but have no rooting interest, I offer my endorsement of Yul as a really decent guy, a far cry from the cutthroat reality contestants you love to hate.


You've had your six(th)...man to play Bond

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After watching the new trailer for the new Casino Royale Bond flick, I'm fairly certain it won't be anything like the 1967 Casino Royale with Peter Fleming, Woody Allen, Urusula Andress, Orson Welles, David Niven, John Huston, William Holden, Deborah Kerr, Jean-Paul Belmondo, and many many more.


No, the latest in this, perhaps the longest running franchise in English movie history(?), features a high stakes poker game ($10 million buy-in), Eva (yum yum) Green, an Aston Martin DBS, a villain with one of those vertical scars across an eye, Montenegro, and a grim-faced Bond. I'm not sure Daniel Craig cracks a smile that entire trailer, and he delivers the trademark Bond "quip after the kill" like he's tossing an Ace of spades on a body in Vietnam. The move from Aston Martin to BMW was perhaps an odd move downstream, but switching from Baccarat to Texas Hold'em is probably a sound marketing decision ("In. All In.").


Otherwise, the longevity can be explained by the elements of Bond that never go out of style: exotic locales, smoking hot women, sexy cars, spycraft, gadgets, and the rush that comes from taking down megalomaniacs intent on bringing down the free world. Bond is every boy's testosterone, distilled into pure cinematic form. The movies also conjure an appealing work environment. 007 is given a wide latitude by his superiors. If he can get the job done, no one really cares if he destroys a bit of public property or fails to answer a few phone calls because he's busy introducing a stone cold fox to his Walter PPK.


Some of my earliest movie memories involve watching early Connery 007 with my dad, whose favorite remains From Russia With Love. I was always sad when ABC would feature a Bond movie on a school night because I couldn't stay up to watch the end.




A night of surprises

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About a minute before I was due to enter the tent with the sister of the bride on my arm, one of the other groomsmen asked if any of us thought Mark would cry. I had seen him just a short while earlier, and he seemed calm. This is a guy I'd lined up with many times in college to play "no pads" tackle football, and I'd seen him hit people so hard that they were found wandering around campus muttering to themselves (true story; the guy Mark hit was later diagnosed with a concussion).


"I'll lay three to one odds against Mark crying," I said. "He'll be fine."


The wedding coordinator gave me the cue, and I entered the tent. I looked down the aisle to the front of the tent.


Mark was crying, and Howie was handing him a tissue.


"What the...holy...I lost already!" I whispered. His naked emotion seemed to shrink the tent, drawing all three hundred odd people in attendance into a tight emotional circle.


Thankfully no one took me up on my odds. I had about 78 cents in my pocket.


Last Wednesday, my last afternoon in New York City, I lingered with my nephew Ryan for too long and missed my train to Newark Airport. So I hopped in a cab and told him to floor it. Upon arrival, he announced the fare: with tip, it came to $65. I started counting the cash in my wallet. $67. I was leaving NYC with pockets turned out.




Back to the wedding. I continue to underestimate the magnitude of the wedding day, how it can overwhelm the hardest of souls. When I had a moment alone with Mark later, he confessed that seeing all those people from all over the world and from all the years of his life sitting out there, looking up at him, was overwhelming. No explanation needed, buddy.


Last night, I was up late chatting with Stacey, who I'd only met a few times before. She and Mark are the ones I'll lean on most in my transition to this new place, and having them close by is a real source of comfort.


She laughed at my lousy prognostication.


"I knew Mark would cry and that I wouldn't," she said. "Mark cries when he watches Extreme Home Makeover on HGTV."




One of the cool activities from their wedding was one of those old school photo booths, rented from Red Cheese. The line for that thing never dwindled, and even passive observers enjoyed watching the screen outside the booth to see what wacky poses were being struck inside the curtain. Everyone left with one or more of their four photos as a favor, leaving behind the others in a photo album for the bride and groom.








During the slideshow, we all witnessed something that was more surprising than the tears during the ceremony. Mixed in with some video footage of Mark playing safety in high school football, covering a wideout and running up to put a hit on a running back, a young, skinny guy appeared on screen. The footage was so desaturated as to be almost black and white.


Was that...no...it couldn't be...could it? Yes, it was a young, willowy Mark, twirling across the ice on skates, executing a spin, then releasing into a glide, arms floating up at his side. At some point in his youth, Mark was a figure skater? What the?


He's never going to hear the end of that.




Happy Labor Day

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A thorough explanation of why Chinese is so difficult to learn. I grew up hearing Chinese in the house and even attended some Chinese school, and I found it to be a bear. I never did really learn to write or read cursive Chinese handwriting very well (yes, Chinese has both print and cursive, like English), another item I'd add to this writer's litany of complaints. Just when you think you've memorized a character, someone scrawls it in their own cursive style and it's as if someone took a print character's brush strokes and tied them in butterfly knots. Of course, without cursive, writing Chinese, with its numerous strokes, is like writing English in neat block capital letters...sloooooooooow).


Curse of the Golden Flower, a movie by Zhang Yimou, starring Gong Li and Chow Yun Fat, releases this Christmas season (trailer). Yeah, I hate dandelions, too, but I wouldn't go so far as to call them a curse.


Crocodile hunter, felled by a stingray. Stung through the heart by a stingray...brutal. I guess it should be obvious from their names, but I didn't realize stingrays were that dangerous. Earlier this year, on a dive trip down in the Turks and Caicos islands, Dave and I fed stingrays just off the beach with some fish our guides had brought along for that purpose. We were soon overrun with stingrays, and one ran up my back and bit me. I popped out of the water, and Dave said the ray had drawn blood. Shortly thereafter, two lemon sharks wandered over, and I hustled out of the ocean.


Get your bootleg Van Goghs and Da Vincis: a city in China is the world's leading producer of reproductions of famous paintings. It doesn't surprise me one bit.




A computer program named WebCrow defeated dozens of human competitors in a crossword puzzle competition. Humans managed to defeat the program in two Italian crosswords featuring lots of puns and political clues.


That green lump that resembles playdough, the one they dump on your platter of sushi? That's not wasabi. Real, fresh wasabi is rarely served at sushi restaurants, but whenever a sushi restaurant offers it I'll request it. Real wasabi is not as hot as the faux stuff, but it's better for you. Unfortunately, the real deal costs a fortune.


Michael Apted's next in his Up documentary series is about to release. He interviewed many children at age 7 about their lives and dreams for 7 Up, and since then, he's gone back to check up on them every 7 years (each doc in the series is named after the age of the characters, so 14 Up, 21 Up, and so on). This next installment will be 49 Up. All the previous installments are on DVD.


The new Sunday Night Football theme (MP3) is by none other than John Williams.


Four words no man wants to hear: bleeding in the scrotum. It's been that kind of year for the Cubs.


HiveLive is a site that allows you to post and share files and information among public or private hives, or groups of people.


The Statistical Review of World Energy 2006, by British Petroleum, including historical data series in Excel format.


You got the touch! Feel, feel, feel, feel, feel...feel my heat!


The Agent

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New Yorker issues have a tendency of piling up around my place when I travel or when I'm busy as I can never bring myself to toss them out. Sometimes that can seem like a tactical error, as in times like these when I'm moving and have to lug about 275 pounds of unread back issues to the recycling bins in the basement.


But lying on my bare mattress now (all the sheets, pillows, just about everything is packed in boxes), I'm glad I saved the July 10/17 issue from last month. In it was an article titled "The Agent," (PDF) an excerpt adapted from Lawrence Wright's new nonfiction book The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11.


Though I'm exhausted from days of packing, the article, which I just finished reading at three in the morning, stunned me, introducing two characters and a story that will break your heart with how close we came to anticipating and perhaps stopping 9/11. We had all the puzzle pieces to assemble a picture of Al-Qaeda terrorists in our midst, but they were held by different U.S. intelligence agencies, and we couldn't assemble them into a picture of looming terror because of self-imposed bureaucratic walls that kept the CIA and FBI from sharing information. Our intelligence agencies, with their silly infighting, failed us.


Two charismatic characters are at the center of this story. Ali Soufan is the Agent, a Lebanese-American Muslim FBI agent whose Arabic language skills and tenacity made him one of our nation's leading assets in the fight against Al Qaeda. John O'Neill was the head of the F.B.I.'s National Security Division, figures more prominently in The Looming Tower, but also appears in "The Agent."


Soufan is the hero of "The Agent." O'Neill put in charge of investigating the bombing of the U.S.S.. cole in Aden, Yemen, in October, 2000. Soufan's investigation unearthed tracks that led back to Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. The CIA, in the meantime, learned of an Al-Qaeda meeting in Malaysia and learned of two Al-Qaeda operatives, Khaled al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi. Mihdhar had a U.S. Visa. The CIA did not inform the FBI about the two of them, and so they slipped into the U.S. unnoticed. The CIA does not have authority to operate within the U.S., so once Mihdhar and Hazmi were on U.S. soil, they were the province of the FBI, or would have been, had the CIA alerted the FBI to their presence.


In June of 2001, Ali Soufan sat in a meeting with CIA colleagues and was shown photos from the secret meeting in Malaysia. Among those in the pictures were Mihdhar and Hazmi, but Soufan did not know of them yet, and the CIA shared little except to see if the FBI knew of them. Another photo of the Malaysia meeting, displaying an Al Qaeda jihadi named Khallad, was not shown. Soufan and his team had a huge file on Khallad, who they suspected of being one of the masterminds of the U.S.S. Cole bombing. Had the CIA shown Soufan that photo, he could have connected the dots.


On August 27th, 2001, Nawaf al-Hazmi and his brother Salem purchased airplane tickets for American Flight 77 on Travelocity.com. Mihdhar also purchased a ticket for that flight online. They did not bother disguising their names, as they were not on the FBI terrorist watchlist.


Twenty months after their arrival in Los Angeles, on September 11, 2001, Mihdhar and Hazmi went to Washington Dulles International Airport. Hazmi set off the metal detector at the airport and was hand-screened, and Hazmi and Mihdhar were both flagged for an additional security screening at the gate, but both passed and boarded American Flight 77. One hour into the flight, the hijacked Boeing 757 crashed into the Pentagon, killing all 64 on the flight and 125 people in the building.


Immediately after 9/11, Soufan was told to find out who had perpetrated the hijackings. On September 12, 2001, he was handed an envelope with full details of the meeting in Malaysia. When Soufan realized that the CIA had known that Mihdhar and Hazmi, two of the hijackers, had been living in the United States for 20 months, "he ran into the bathroom and threw up." Wright notes: "Soufan's disillusionment with the government was so profound that he eventually quite the bureau; in 2005, he became director of international operations for Giuliani Security and Safety, a company founded by Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York."


John O'Neill is an even greater tragic figure in the story of 9/11. His story is almost too unbelievable to be true. Perhaps no one in the FBI was more obsessed with the rising threat of Al Qaeda, but on August 22, 2001, O'Neill left the FBI after it was reported that his briefcase containing sensitive documents was stolen during an FBI conference in Florida. Though it was later found and though it was determined that none of the confidential material had been compromised, his career at the FBI was ruined.


O'Neill left to take a job as the head of security at The World Trade Center. On September 11, 2001, just after American Airlines flight 11 flew into the north tower, John O'Neill received a call from his son who could see the smoke through a train window. O'Neill told his son he was fine and that he was going to assess the damage. After United Flight 175 hit the south tower, O'Neill called his girlfriend Valerie james, distraught. Yet later, at 9:25am, O'Neill called another woman he had been close to, Anne DiBattista, saying he was okay.


"The connection was good at the beginning," she recalled. "He was safe and outside. He said he was O.K. I said, 'Are you sure you're out of the building?' He told me he loved me. I knew he was going to go back in."


Another FBI agent, Wesley Wong, ran into O'Neill outside the north tower. She last saw him headed towards the south tower.


On September 28, 2001, O'Neill's body was found in the rubble of the World Trade Center. Wright reports:


...a thousand mourner gathered at St. Nicholas to say farewell. Many of them were agents and policemen and members of foreign intelligence services who had followed O'Neill into the war against terrorism long before it became a rallying cry for the nation. The hierarchy of the F.B.I attended, including the now retired director Louis Freeh. Richard Clarke, who says that he had not shed a tear since September 11th, suddenly broke down when the bagpipes played and the casket passed by.


For some reason, perhaps because I've come to adore New York City, I can't stop reading about 9/11. I've read the The 9/11 Commission Report in text form, and I'll probably reread it in its graphic adaptation. 9/11 and the events that led up to that day continue to haunt me, and Lawrence Wright's account The Looming Tower, which I've just begun, promises to be the best account to date. I'm not doing justice to his reporting here, so delve into "The Agent" if you want a sampling. Soufan is a fascinating character in many ways, particularly in his interrogation techniques, which demonstrate that torture is hardly the only way to extract information from suspects (torture has long been known to yield unreliable info). Soufan engages his subjects, demonstrates his knowledge and understanding of them and their cultural background, and uses his intelligence to checkmate them.


In the stories of Soufan, O'Neill, and bin Laden, there is a Syriana/Munich-style tragedy to be made. In fact, with its story of thwarted investigations and global conspiracies, it's the 9/11 movie I would have expected Oliver Stone to make, though from what I've heard his World Trade Center movie is a great departure for him.


Here is an online only interview with Lawrence Wright which came out at the same time as "The Agent." Here's a comprehensive list of Wright's articles for The New Yorker, including many on Al Qaeda. PBS Frontline came out with a documentary on O'Neill called "The Man Who Knew" and it's available online (Real Player and Windows Media).


Michel Gondry visits the SOHO Apple Store

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Tuesday night, Michel Gondry visits the SOHO Apple Store at 7pm:


indieWIRE Presents: “The Science of Sleep” Filmmaker, Michel Gondry



Join indieWIRE editor Eugene Hernandez for a special moderated discussion exploring the innovative work of filmmaker Michel Gondry. Michel will discuss his narrative, documentary, and music video work, including his upcoming film, ”The Science of Sleep,” which releases in theaters September 2006.

August 29th, 7:00 p.m.


Four movies stood out for me at Sundance in January: The Science of Sleep, Little Miss Sunshine, Half Nelson, and In Between Days. The latter isn't the type of movie that will see theatrical distribution, unfortunately, because of its challenging style, but because of that it's the type of movie I most appreciate catching at a film festival. Little Miss Sunshine is out now and has the broadest commercial potential. The studio is staggering its release across the country, and it's well worth catching when it arrives in your local movie theater. Half Nelson and The Science of Sleep aren't going to be massive mainstream hits, but they're both deserving of your time. Gondry's film is a bit unstructured and chaotic, but it's his most personal work. Half Nelson was my first real exposure to Ryan Gosling, and he's very good, as is young Shareeka Epps, his co-star.


Crossing the moat

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This Times article on the housing virgins of NYC brought back unpleasant memories of my first New York City apartment hunt, though I can laugh now that it's behind me. I've never enjoyed living anywhere as much as Manhattan, but I've also never been more stressed out and depressed by apartment hunting anywhere else. Finding a place to live in NYC is like having to cross a moat filled with crocodiles (real estate brokers) to find a towering, fortified castle wall with ornery soldiers up top (landlords) lobbing buckets of hot oil and flaming arrows at your head as you climb, peering in through the occasional castle window to see one horrific dungeon after another (the old, dilapidated pre-war apartments of NYC). It can cause you to question why you're moving to NYC in the first place, and in extreme cases, it can turn people away before they ever encounter the charms of the city.


The housing market may be softening across the U.S. as a whole, but in the micromarket of Manhattan, vacancy rates are as low as ever, and so property owners can foist broker fees onto applicants. It's as unpleasant a real estate environment as you'll encounter anywhere, but to those who are going through it for the first time, I urge a healthy dose of perseverance. Once you're inside the city gates, it's a beautiful thing.


Corddry leaves TDS, I leave NYC

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I spent the entire weekend packing. I want to shoot myself. Before I go dark for my cross-country move, a few links from my final bit of housecleaning here.


I complained just the other week about the quality of YouTube videos. Stage6 is a YouTube knockoff, but using DivX encoding, so the video quality is much much better (for example, or another). Its selection is so miniscule it's laughable when compared to that of YouTube, but I look forward to the day when we surfers can have both selection and quality in online video aggregators. There's no reason we can't right now.


Speaking of YouTube, I'm Really, Really, Really Excited! Every hot new online community crowns its stars, and Bree (lonelygirl15) is YouTube's. I'm reminded of the mystery video footage which generated a cult-like following in William Gibson's Pattern Recognition.


Rob Corddry's has spread his wings and flown the Daily Show coop. Last Thursday was his last episode, and he follows in the footsteps of Colbert and Carell as Daily Show stars who sought greener pastures. The Daily Show is the Oakland A's of comedic television, launching talented funnymen but unable to retain their services once they achieve stardom. Except for Jon Stewart, of course. He's The Daily Show's Billy Beane, I guess.


I always wondered if the movie Sideways sank sales of merlot, and a brief scan of some older articles on the web seems to indicate only a mild effect, if any. But pinot noir sales got a boost. I'd been a fan of pinot noir for a few years before the movie came out, but the movie spurred a boost in production that has flooded the market with pinots that lack the earthy taste of the terroir that I loved. Many pinots now taste like syrahs, and it seems as if you have to spend upwards of $25 to $30 a bottle before you find a decent pinot.


Two researchers claim to have solved the "cocktail party problem," or how to separate one recorded voice from a group of other voices and sounds.


Tony Jaa's The Protector (I guess The Weinsteins weren't too impressed by its original title, Tom Yum Goong) is a huge letdown, especially after Ong Bak, but you wouldn't know it from the trailer, which features Jaa depositing his elbow and knees in a variety of unfortunate stuntmen.


Majority of "To Cross Street Push Button" buttons in NYC are placebos. I've long suspected that most "Close Door" buttons in elevators are also dummies, also.


Show me the money

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Talk about a horse: just one day after throwing 178 pitches in a 15 inning tie, Japanese high school pitcher Yuki Saito came back to throw a 118 pitch complete game victory to lead his team to its first National high School Baseball Championship title. It was Saito's fourth complete game in four days, and in the tournament he threw 948 pitches in seven games. My shoulder exploded just reading that.


Tim Harford uses game theory to explain why engagement rings came about. So that's why women want a huge rock! It's a security deposit on the marriage, so the larger the better.


Frank Bruni's first impression of L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon: very pricey, with slightly scattered service, but quietly thrilling. It's still in its soft opening (no reservations taken yet) so I've been thinking of stopping in for one last decadent meal before leaving NYC. But with prices like those...perhaps I'll just stop in, order Robuchon's famous potato puree (which happens to be my favorite potato dish ever; here is one online recipe, here is another), surrender my Amex, clap and spread my hands palms up like a blackjack dealer leaving a table, and walk out.


Underwater wonders of the world

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The seven underwater wonders of the world:

  • Palau

  • The Belize Barrier Reef

  • The Galapagos Islands

  • The Northern Red Sea

  • Lake Baikal

  • The Great Barrier Reef

  • The Deep Sea Vents

I don't know who declared these to be so, but I first heard about them at dinner tonight, and I looked them up online when I returned home. Sure enough, the same list showed up again and again. I've gone diving at the Galapagos and the Great Barrier Reef. Now I'm intrigued by the idea of diving the remaining five.


A perfect 99

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With videogames having shot to the forefront of pop culture, the annual release of the Madden NFL Player Ratings is almost as momentous an occasion as their actual performance on the field. Players check their virtual ratings with as or more critical an eye as they do the fine print on their contracts. This year, seven players achieved the perfect overall rating of 99:


  • Champ Bailey

  • Antonio Gates

  • Walter Jones

  • Shane Lechler

  • Peyton Manning

  • Lorenzo Neal

  • Ed Reed


Whoooa Nellie, can't wait to line up to punt with Shane Lechler, I will bring the rain.


A postmodern prank

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Live rattlesnakes released in theater during screening of Snakes on a Plane.


"That to me is very scary," herpetological association representative Tom Whiting said. "I would hate to be watching a movie about snakes and have a rattlesnake bite me."


I'll go out on a limb here and say that the reporter didn't need to call a herpetologist (zoologist specializing in reptiles) to invest that quote with credibility.


Bottom of the 9th

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Okay, I'm back from a busy but enjoyable wedding weekend in Seattle (mostly Whidbey Island) and entering my final week in NYC. I do need a post at some point on just the weddings I've attended this year. By the end of October, I will have attended 8 out of 11 weddings, a record for me (I'm not the only one who climbed a wedding peak this summer). I had hoped to see many people in Seattle, but too much of travel is consumed by long security lines at airports these days (I'd been told to get to the airport three hours early for domestic flights, but the security lines turned out to be about the same as they were prior to the whole elemental profiling campaign against liquids). I will have to return to Seattle again soon, though. The summer weather there is perfectly neutral, such that you don't feel hot or cold, just an equilibrium between skin and air.


I made one concession to my culinary memory and stopped at Salumi for a sandwich. Salumi, an Italian Salumeria exported to the Pacific Northwest, is the creation of Armandino Batali, Mario Batali's father. It's my favorite Seattle restaurant, and they've begun shipping meats online through their website.


Things may go dark here for a bit as I'm canceling cable and Internet service in the next day or two, though I will try to siphon an hour or so of Internet oxygen through my neighbor's Linksys wireless router from time to time. But most of my time will be spent packing and walking the streets of New York, trying to swallow the anguish of leaving this, the city of my heart.


One of the things that will serve as a weekly rebuke of my departure for the West coast will be the weekly arrival of The New Yorker and the NY Times. So many sections of The New Yorker come to life when you actually live in the city, from Tables for Two and every other section of Goings on About Town to Hilton Als's and Anthony Lane's reviews of local theater and cinema. Before I lived in NYC, I just ignored Goings on About Town. Now that I've lived here, I will peruse it each week from afar and weep at the cultural riches just out of reach. Why would I torture myself thus? I don't know, but I believe Odysseus would empathize. Odysseus had his men stuff their ears with beeswax and tie him to the mast of his ship when sailing past the Sirens so he could hear their irresistible song but not chase after it.


Speaking of The New Yorker, this week's issue is a good one, including Malcolm Gladwell again on the silliness of having companies supply health insurance and pensions, a system that cripples companies when their dependency ratios soar; George Saunders helping Iran to find some alternatives to popular English phrases that have infected its language; and James Surowiecki on the dubious ethics of management buyouts.


Okay, back to boxing and taping.


Pretty and beautiful

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Maria Sharapova feels pretty. I feel she's pretty pretty, too.




David Foster Wallace pens a love letter to Roger Federer in NYTimes Play Magazine (yes, there are DFW's trademark footnotes, in this case displayed in pop-up windows, and footnotes to the footnotes, displayed below the respective footnotes in the pop-up window).


Also in Play Magazine, an interview with Martina Hingis. Most players are not very astute analysts of their sport (or rather, they can't eloquently express themselves when dissecting other players and the sport), but Hingis is an exception.