The Long Road Out

My high school girlfriend is texting and phoning me pretty much non-stop.  She says she's getting messages from my mom from the beyond...Mom's been dead since 2004 so it seems she's on the AT&T network or something...I'm guessing there are delays. The ex believes that my mom is sending her telegraph messages outlining the concept that my current partner is trying to steal everything I have.   She wants me to hire a private investigator to out my partner before it's too late.   "Take the offensive.   It's your only chance." Tonight I went to a performance of the Gotham Chamber Opera.   Things started poorly--our subway stop was surrounded by 20+ emergency vehicles and trains were stopped because some one was dead on the tracks.   Pushed?   Jumped?   Failed to pay appropriate attention to local conditions? Gotham Chamber Opera has generally been one of the true North Stars in the NY cultural sky (there's a full moon tonight; hence the astr...

So the Academy Awards are done, and the results can be summarized in one word:   Boosterism. Winners included the following pep-talks for America: Best picture for a movie that shows how Alan Arkin outsmarted those violent Iranians! Lots of discussion about a movie that takes as a given America's right to summarily assassinate any one else's political leaders (the discussion about the NYTimes facts on hostage abuse plagarized in 5 0 Shades of Zero Dark 30  are another example of using bright shiny objects to deflect our ADD-burdened intellects from the essential truth: that the goal of all this covert bullshit is murder .  Without rule of law, trial, or anything.   Murder.  Guys!   Pay attention!) The most egregious example of "the Academy loves America" is, of course, Lincoln .   Daniel Day-Lewis is always fun to watch, even when he's sleepwalking, but how could you stay in your Coke-and-butter-stained chair when the movie proposes the c...

It's a powerful draw, those Disney vacations...seems like there's a developmental gene, possessed by every child in the land,  that responds to anything with a mouse with large ears.  Because of this genetic connection, m y experience is the Disney trips are actually fun when you go with kids...the excitement is palpable and even contagious.    Sadly, though, I've ended up at DisneyWorld twice with adult groups and OMG (one trip was with younger friends who like the place, and the other was a private tour with a professional group). As I said, OMG!  The veneer is SOOO thin, and without the childish energy, you see through it everywhere.  The adult-only view, in my experience, is dominated by:   atrocious parenting--starting with corporal punishment and going downhill from there sugar-only calories (who knew that the Israelis and the Turks share a taste for white flour waffles with synthetic whipped cream!  The U.N. should capita...