Short Takes
September 20, 2013
Ludwig Wittgenstein: ‘About what one can not speak, one must remain silent.’
Posted on 9/12/2013. Filmed on the 57th-floor terrace of Four World Trade Center. Principal dancers Maria Kowroski and Ask la Cour of the New York City Ballet.
September 6, 2013
The Droid ‘Opera’ commercial: Color me obsessed
The child mocks me for talking back to the television (“You’re sooo critical”) but how can you not react to this?
The setup: two attractive people at the opera. He’s hot, in the Jon Hamm way (black tie but unshaven). She’s hot, in the Mika Brzezinski way (blonde and chilly). He’s seated in the middle of the theater, she’s in a box above him and on the side. They text photos back and forth, then leave together.
The commercial is called “Have We Met?” The clear suggestion: they haven’t. In that case, he doesn’t have her phone number and she doesn’t have his — so how can they text photos back and forth? And it’s the theater. Surely there was an announcement before the performance to turn off all electronic devices — why didn’t they? (Small point: they leave at 8:20; the performance had just started. And already he was napping?) Final question: Whose apartment do they go to — or do you think that’s not the point of the commercial?
I’m a huge fan of exchanging glances at a dull cultural event and leaving early — in my lost youth, I had some memorable nights doing just this — but that was pre-technology and required modest skills in hand and facial gestures. In this version, the phone must be magic: just point it at someone and the device makes the introduction for you. Really? If so… get a Droid.
September 6, 2013
‘Love is an angel disguised as lust.’
That line is the quote at the start of my book. It’s not casually chosen — it’s pretty much what the novel is about. The source: ‘Because the Night,’ written by — here’s a trivia tidbit — Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteen. A stunning performance, don’t you think?
September 1, 2013
Krishna Das Kickstarter: ‘Down to Earth, Up to Heaven’
Butler veterans know that while I have no spiritual practice, I never miss a chance to chant with Krishna Das. And I often listen to his CDs as I write; I find them calming as Mozart. He’s financing his next CD on Kickstarter; in essence, you’re buying it early. (Noted: at a price beyond retail.)
August 27, 2013
A Week Away
You get to North Captiva Island, Florida by flying to Ft. Myers, taking a half-hour cab, then making a fifteen-minute crossing by boat. On the island, it’s golf carts. No cars. And… nothing. No shopping. No people. Think: the Hamptons, if a neutron bomb hit. Seriously, at night we saw lights in only two houses. At one of the three restaurants on the island, the cook also served dinner. No waitress? "If you’d reserved, I would have called her." I read 2.5 books and wrote a lot, but mostly I played games in the pool with the child, floated in the bathtub-warm gulf, had monosyllabic chats in the hot tub with my wife. And then we returned to our new apartment, cranked up the new CDs and moved a gazillion books from boxes to bookshelves. Glorious, all of it.