June 8, 2009
The Yard Is DONE. Look, Elysse, that peony bush is thriving! Thanks for getting me started & I wish you were still nearby.

The Yard Is DONE.
Look, Elysse, that peony bush is thriving! Thanks for getting me started & I wish you were still nearby.

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June 6, 2009
Happy Birthday to Me! I have to say that the past year was unusually…eventful. In a good way. I feel like I achieved some important goals that I hadn’t exactly set for myself at all. Double-surprise there! My birthday actually arrived a bit early this year, I’ve been saying. So I’m still thrillin’ on all of that.

Happy Birthday to Me!
I have to say that the past year was unusually…eventful. In a good way. I feel like I achieved some important goals that I hadn’t exactly set for myself at all. Double-surprise there!
My birthday actually arrived a bit early this year, I’ve been saying. So I’m still thrillin’ on all of that.

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May 30, 2009
This post has absolutely nothing to do with GM. Click through for saga of crazy surfing family (not pictured). Seven people living in a Chevy, wtf?! AnswerGirl has deduced that the band two of the sons were in in the early 1990s was The Flys, and the hit was the ultrasexy “Got You (Where I Want You)”. And yeah, that’s Mrs. Tom Cruise in the video.

This post has absolutely nothing to do with GM. Click through for saga of crazy surfing family (not pictured). Seven people living in a Chevy, wtf?!
AnswerGirl has deduced that the band two of the sons were in in the early 1990s was The Flys, and the hit was the ultrasexy “Got You (Where I Want You)”. And yeah, that’s Mrs. Tom Cruise in the video.

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May 14, 2009
My Desk, 14 May 2009. Most of the time when others ask what I do for a living and I reply “freelance writer,” they immediately assume journalism. I thank god every day I never pursued that line of work; sometimes I think I have like zero ambition, but the truth is I love what I do and it doesn’t really feel like a job. If I was a journo, of course, I’d want to be writing for the New Yorker. Here’s a riveting tale, in Twitter form, of why that gig could kind of suck. Loved all of his work before this. (BTW that Aesop face stuff on the right—from Australia, hard to find here, it’s the sh*t! I bought a stash of it at a garage sale two years ago for $10 and was appalled when I found out what it retails for.)

My Desk, 14 May 2009.
Most of the time when others ask what I do for a living and I reply “freelance writer,” they immediately assume journalism. I thank god every day I never pursued that line of work; sometimes I think I have like zero ambition, but the truth is I love what I do and it doesn’t really feel like a job.
If I was a journo, of course, I’d want to be writing for the New Yorker. Here’s a riveting tale, in Twitter form, of why that gig could kind of suck. Loved all of his work before this.
(BTW that Aesop face stuff on the right—from Australia, hard to find here, it’s the sh*t! I bought a stash of it at a garage sale two years ago for $10 and was appalled when I found out what it retails for.)

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May 11, 2009
I guarantee several WTF moments in this article. (Photo credit: Life Magazine, June 1947)

I guarantee several WTF moments in this article.
(Photo credit: Life Magazine, June 1947)

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April 30, 2009
I’d love to get into a deep, footnoted essay here about my thoughts on the UAW and this morning’s news about Chrysler, but I have 160 pages to galley-proof today. Instead, I’ll post a link to the most amazing book about Detroit—not just the city, but the auto plants, the labor union movement, and race relations all interwined as they should be because that’s the reality of the story here—the classic Detroit: I Do Mind Dying: A Study in Urban Revolution. The passages about Detroit police misconduct and events leading up to Coleman Young’s election are particularly brutal and fascinating, but Dan Georgakas’s and Marvin Surkin’s book mostly focuses on the fabulously Pantherish-sounding League of Revolutionary Black Workers as well as a renegade UAW unit at Dodge Main known as the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement, or DRUM, whose mission is summarized here in some delightfully ardent prose by a writer for the South End. My personal opinion on organized labor? I owe everything I am today to my father’s UAW card (GM Tech Center, Skilled Trades UAW Local 160!) and the AFSCME/Teamsters that my mom belonged to as a state employee for 34 years. And by everything I mean the roof over my head when I was growing up, the top-notch health care I enjoyed until age 24, and the chance to go to college. Let the unions get a stake in the Big Three—they can’t do any worse a job than the past generation of executive leadership.

I’d love to get into a deep, footnoted essay here about my thoughts on the UAW and this morning’s news about Chrysler, but I have 160 pages to galley-proof today. Instead, I’ll post a link to the most amazing book about Detroit—not just the city, but the auto plants, the labor union movement, and race relations all interwined as they should be because that’s the reality of the story here—the classic Detroit: I Do Mind Dying: A Study in Urban Revolution. The passages about Detroit police misconduct and events leading up to Coleman Young’s election are particularly brutal and fascinating, but Dan Georgakas’s and Marvin Surkin’s book mostly focuses on the fabulously Pantherish-sounding League of Revolutionary Black Workers as well as a renegade UAW unit at Dodge Main known as the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement, or DRUM, whose mission is summarized here in some delightfully ardent prose by a writer for the South End.

My personal opinion on organized labor? I owe everything I am today to my father’s UAW card (GM Tech Center, Skilled Trades UAW Local 160!) and the AFSCME/Teamsters that my mom belonged to as a state employee for 34 years. And by everything I mean the roof over my head when I was growing up, the top-notch health care I enjoyed until age 24, and the chance to go to college. Let the unions get a stake in the Big Three—they can’t do any worse a job than the past generation of executive leadership.

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April 28, 2009
Roger Hiorns, Seizure. 2008. 151-189 Harper Rd, Southwark, London SE1. Do you know what copper sulfate is? Neither did I. However, if you spray an entire room with it, blue crystals will eventually sprout. Hiorns is part of the artists’ collective Artangel and one of this year’s Turner Prize nominees. Bunch of cool crazy stuff on both of those links.

Roger Hiorns, Seizure. 2008. 151-189 Harper Rd, Southwark, London SE1.
Do you know what copper sulfate is? Neither did I. However, if you spray an entire room with it, blue crystals will eventually sprout.
Hiorns is part of the artists’ collective Artangel and one of this year’s Turner Prize nominees. Bunch of cool crazy stuff on both of those links.

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April 26, 2009
Occasionally, I feel the need to post a PSA. I’d like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that we share our roads with motorcyclists though sometimes it takes a little extra work to notice them. Please pay attention! Thank you and that’s all. (My 18-year-old nephew and his first major purchase. Yeah, the same one I’ve been paying cash for the past few years to do all the crap around here I hate to do, like landscaping/reading directions and putting stuff together, etc. He has two REAL jobs now and goes to school. I’m semi-horrified by this but kind of impressed too.)

Occasionally, I feel the need to post a PSA.
I’d like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that we share our roads with motorcyclists though sometimes it takes a little extra work to notice them. Please pay attention! Thank you and that’s all.
(My 18-year-old nephew and his first major purchase. Yeah, the same one I’ve been paying cash for the past few years to do all the crap around here I hate to do, like landscaping/reading directions and putting stuff together, etc. He has two REAL jobs now and goes to school. I’m semi-horrified by this but kind of impressed too.)

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April 23, 2009
USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map Look how pretty this is! But then again I’m just a sucker for maps. I’m 5B. I’m writing this here so I won’t forget.

USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map
Look how pretty this is! But then again I’m just a sucker for maps.
I’m 5B. I’m writing this here so I won’t forget.

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April 22, 2009
Socialism is coming!

I’m pretty excited about the prospect of this. If you’ve ever spent any time in Western Europe, it’s easy to get the impression that people don’t actually work very hard over there. Or, more importantly, they fail to constantly complain about how demanding and stressful their jobs are and the long hours they feel compelled to put in. The general topic of conversations among adults runs along the lines of: Where we went last on vacation, and where we’re going next.
Yeah, the free university education for everyone? And health care? Who’s not for that?!

May 6, 2009: I stand corrected. I’m amending this post with the help of the NYT’s most-emailed article for the last few days, “Going Dutch: How I Learned to Love the European Welfare State” by Russell Shorto.
In his closing paragraphs, Shorto writes:
“I used to think the commodious, built-in, paid vacations that Europeans enjoy translated into societies where nobody wants to work and everyone is waiting for the next holiday. That is not the case here. I’ve found that Dutch people take both their work and their time off seriously. Indeed, the two go together. I almost never get a work-related e-mail message from a Dutch person on the weekend, while e-mail from American editors, publicists and the like trickle in at any time. The fact that the Dutch work only during work hours does not seem to make them less productive, but more. I’m constantly struck by how calm and fresh the people I work with regularly seem to be.”

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April 18, 2009
1947 Bentley, Right-Side Drive I spent yesterday afternoon hanging out at my cousin’s friend’s house, which not only was on the water but also chock-full of the craziest-*ss imaginable loot EVER. There was a sweet ’60s silver-blue Benz in the driveway I tried to buy, then in the garage there was this. The doors shut like bank vaults, and the interior still smelled like expensive wood + leather.

1947 Bentley, Right-Side Drive
I spent yesterday afternoon hanging out at my cousin’s friend’s house, which not only was on the water but also chock-full of the craziest-*ss imaginable loot EVER. There was a sweet ’60s silver-blue Benz in the driveway I tried to buy, then in the garage there was this. The doors shut like bank vaults, and the interior still smelled like expensive wood + leather.

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April 10, 2009
This weekend, in honor of bunnies and pirates alike. From Venice Biennale 2007.

This weekend, in honor of bunnies and pirates alike.
From Venice Biennale 2007.

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April 8, 2009
This is the one time of the year I fantasize about taking a vacation.

This is the one time of the year I fantasize about taking a vacation.

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April 2, 2009
At Cranbrook. The mastodon’s coat was almost as fabulous as Bridget’s except that it was not turquoise.

At Cranbrook. The mastodon’s coat was almost as fabulous as Bridget’s except that it was not turquoise.

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March 27, 2009

Things to Come
1936
One night, in the summer of 1981 I caught the latter half of this adapation of the H.G. Wells novel on WGPR when they used to show all of those amazing movies all night long. Thus I only saw the part set in 2036, which tripped me out so much I always remembered the title and what a complete mindblow this movie is. Last night I finally saw the first half, the first ten minutes of which you can watch here but I suggest skipping past the opening credits to the 2:15 mark. It shows a London-like city on the verge of war, then being carpet-bombed, a full three years before World War II actually started. In the story, much of the modern world has essentially been bombed back to medieval times after 20 years of war, but then a group of scientists who guarded all the important technological secrets emerges from their hideout. Which is in Basra, Iraq!

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