Vote for My Photo!

Kelly Cowan submitted this photo and wants your support! It's up for a vote (from people like you) as a part of the Capture Cincinnati book project from The Enquirer & C-Change. So click on the thumbnail to view the full-size photo and vote for their photo if you think it should be in the book. Don't worry, if you don't like it we won't tell.

David Sedaris Live and the Crappy Place that Hosted Him

So much for mobile blogging. I logged in expecting to see the picture I took on Friday of David Sedaris at Copley Symphony Hall and have since tried three times, but nope. No love. All the more disappointing because just as I was making the final adjustments on the big camera for the perfect close-up picture, they scolded me. Point being, my only photo of the evening, with which I could spite Copley Symphony Hall, is on my cell phone.

It doesn't matter much for you because the cell picture would have been a speck of David Sedaris on stage with a burst of orange behind him versus the nice book signing photo I was setting up (where I could have pointed out that his nostrils were bigger and hair grayer than I thought). The ban on photography especially chapped me because the entire event was sponsored by UCSD's Art Pwr. Some "art power" if you can't even take a picture! David Sedaris wasn't going to fade if I took a picture! Neither was the theater! I never even use a flash! I wasn't in the way or holding up a line! And nevermind the free, *good* publicity I was going to give you. Ergh. Bastards. I see time devoted to a fake press badge in my future.

It wasn't the best way to start the event--because you have to understand that as I was taking the picture, an usher walked up, said there was no photography but that he'd let it go, and right as I was about to snap, another eagle-eyed usher (the irony was her eyes were wonky) practically swung down out of nowhere on a rope and landed in front of me, and went nuts. Permission granted, permission taken away. Arguments worth nobody's time.

I'll stop because I thought the majority of this post would be devoted to David Sedaris and his awesome reading. Whenever I read him, there's a certain circularity to his stories that seem incomplete. I don't have a specific example at the moment, but I've had the distinct feeling several time of "that was really funny but how does it all connect?" I guess because the funny is often a tangent from where the story starts. BUT whenever I hear him on This American Life or in person, the same story does feel complete. Maybe he's more of a comedian than a writer because his stories are written to be read aloud. I had read "The Understudy" in the New Yorker a couple of months ago and thought it was okay, but when he read it in person? Hilarious. Why is that?

For the Halloween spirit he also read a piece from his time spent at a morgue. This was hysterical. Somewhat reminiscent of Mary Roach's Stiff for me, yet the jokes about morgue life were still pretty fresh.

And the guy is just as funny off-the-cuff. He talked about a recent trip to Tokyo and his newfound obsession with the place and how he can't wait to go back. Particularly great, to him, were the signs because every last one of them was "cute." He said there was this one sign that warned "Cigarettes are held at a child's eye level" and that it had the cutest picture of a cigarette stuck in a little girl's eye.

I had never paid for a reading before, but David Sedaris is worth it. Go see him.

Release of Thom Yorke's Solo Debut

Seven days out of the gate and I haven't heard much about Thom Yorke's solo debut album, The Eraser. I've read good reviews on iTunes and Amazon, but am still waiting for the buzz in the blogosphere. Instead of listening to the snippets ("Analyse" catches my attention) on iTunes I suppose I could just buy the album, but I like Radiohead; so the idea of erasing the band leaves me feeling skeptical because I'm not sure that Yorke's voice, alone, will keep me reaching for the repeat button.

Also I just read Eats Shoots & Leaves on vacation and am not sure my use of the semi-colon above is correct. I feel like Lynn Truss wound up confusing me on the semi-colon whereas there was never much confusion before reading her book.

The Great Escape

It's asinine, asinine! I tell you that it's taken six or seven visits to Strasbourg to write about it. Since our arrival, Strasbourg has been the great escape. Within the first few weeks of feeling like asses for our inability to speak German, Strasbourg was there. When we couldn't find a "German" meal of sauerkraut and wurst, Strasbourg was there. When there wasn't a decent croissant or baguette to be found (we're only an hour away!), Strasbourg was there! When we endlessly searched for shoes, Strasbourg was there!! When we didn't know what else to do with our families, Strasbourg was there!!! And Strasbourg always delivers.

For those that don't know anything about it, Strasbourg is in the Alsace-Lorraine region (where the quiche comes from) and has been passed back and forth between Germany and France. France lovers might not like Strasbourg for its being too "German" but for France lovers stranded in Germany, it's French...hence my love of it. It's not a big city with a lot to do, but the charm of the tudor-style houses and flower boxes EVERYWHERE (when in season) suck people in and drive home that feeling of, ahhhh...I'm in Europe. If you're going to do a museum, do the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. It's a brand-spanking new (opened in 1998) and cool building with an equally cool collection and not to mention great views of the city inside the river that encircles it. Of course many times the coolness will hinge on the exhibition that happens to be there, but we've been there three different times and each accompanying visitor approved.

Strasbourg's centerpiece, the cathedral, has great views as well if you're willing to tackle the endless spiral staircase. The giant astrological clock in the transept is a unique feature because nothing says religion like...astrology.

I just went back two weeks ago with my cousin and if I were to write a children's book about the trip, the story would closely resemble that of The Very Hungry Catepillar. We ate our way from Place de la Cathédrale through Place Broglie, to Place Kléber over to La Pétite France. I highly recommend this tour of Strasbourg as the general rule of thumb is: if it looks good, it is good and there's no shortage of boulangeries, pâtisseries, chocolateries, and cafés.

No Excuse

I figured I should post something before I'm not posting again when a slew of visitors will be coming in town.

I wish I could say that I had some fantastic reason for not writing, like we bought a house or went to Madagascar or I found a job, but really I've mostly just been going through a reading phase and neglecting the blog. I just read Jeffrey Euginides' Middlesex and loved it, though I've found others who didn't...mostly males, which is interesting because I wondered to myself if this was the kind of book that won the Pulitzer because people were like, Wow, that man sure can write like a woman! and it's, in turn, proven because a mostly female audience likes it, designating it as something more of a "chick book," which will also turn most male readers away *despite* the fact that it turns out that Cal, the main character, errs more on the male side of hermaphrodite. I've found it to be an interesting, mindless read and an interesting counter to my recent thoughts about America possessing its own culture identity, without much influence anymore from Americans' ancestry.

And I know I'm coming late in the Frey/Million Pieces debate, and I haven't even been in the vicinity of a copy, but people...come on. Real or not you're reading it because it's, at minimum, a story. People don't watch "reality" television because it's true. Well...hopefully a good chunk of reality show audiences realizes this by now. After all of The Real World reunion specials, we've seen enough times that heavy editing portrays people in ways they don't feel are true to themselves but that producers and editors insist it helps advance the "plot" of the show. Photographs tend to show a buttload of smiling, happy real people, but are they a good measure of a person's happiness in life?

If I can find it, I'll post a bit Tim O'Brien wrote in The Things They Carried about emotional truth. It basically addresses the idea that we can either write what literally happened or we can write what the experience felt like. I wrote a story in grad school that I always felt matched up with this idea. Very briefly I wrote about the dizzying experience of the first couple sent to live in outerspace and the absurdity of NASA's treatment of them and the conception of their baby. Now I've never been to space, wasn't married at the time, ever given birth to a star-shaped baby and subsequently died from it (which also happens in the story), but that story feels more autobiographical to me in terms of dealing with my dad's death than having written about a man who had a heart attack.

If Frey never went to jail or whatever the detail is, who cares. Why isn't an addiction its own sort of imprisonment? I guess I'm just annoyed that society is more emotional and betrayed by a person undertaking an artistic endeavor than by lies our government tells about weapons of mass destruction or people like Bill O'Reilly who edit "reality" all the time.

The Vögel and the Bienen

Here you see a baby. Do you know how it came into the world?

Mother and Father would really like that Father's Schwänzchen [Glied] come in Mother's Schlitz [Scheide]. That is indeed beautiful.

Sometimes you take what you can get, when it comes to learning another language...

Implicit Association Test

Per Malcom Gladwell's recommendation in his book, Blink, visit Project Implicit.

Here you will have the opportunity to assess your conscious and unconscious preferences for over 90 different topics ranging from pets to political issues, ethnic groups to sports teams, and entertainers to styles of music. At the same time, you will be assisting in a large-scale study of preferences.