Cutter and Bone

From "Cutter and Bone," an early passage which helps introduce us to Bone and, in passing, a theme of the book.

"As he crossed the street and entered the parking lot, he could almost feel the woman's eyes on his back, their cloying outrage following him every step of the way. He halfway expected her to call out his name again, but gratefully all he heard was the surf breaking lightly on the beach, that and a kind of chant rising from a group of hippies sitting in lotus position around a driftwood fire. Why couldn't they be singing? he wondered. Why couldn't it be laughter and hot dogs instead of prayer beads and theological posturing, weird amalgams of fire worship and Zen? Christ, he hated California, or at least this coastal strip of it, this crowded stage where America kept trying out the future and promptly closing it, never letting it open for long on Main Street. And yet Bone could not bring himself to leave. It was like loving the meanest, gaudiest whore in the house. You got what you deserved."

The passage illustrates somewhat less subtly than usual the social judgments at work in the book, and the compromised position from which the judgments are made. It also states the subject of the story: just desserts.

A Father's Advice On How His Children Can Distinguish Themselves From Terrorists

Good children take showers. Terrorists shake towers.

Hollywood

Sunset in Beverly Hills

Third dream in a row

I was driving down a major street when I saw someone I hadn't seen in years waiting at a bus stop. Sam. I called out to him and he recognized me. I quickly pulled over and jumped out of the car and ran over to talk with him.

He looked good. He was wearing scrubs under a coat, but that was only slightly strange. I asked him how he had, what he had been doing. He said "I've made a lot of good choices lately." He wouldn't get anymore specific than that.

I told him he didn't need to get on the bus, that I'd give him a ride. But I looked down the street and couldn't see my car. I looked up and down both sides, checked my pocket -- I had my keys so I hadn't left them in the ignition for someone to take. There was no obvious empty space for the acar to have been taken from, but I couldn't see the car anyway, even as I went a bit up and down the street.

Sam seemed like he really wanted to get on the bus.

The Next Night's Dream

At a large house at which I was staying, but in which I did not normally live. Situation vague. But the house was in a normal American urban/suburban setting.

As I was looking around the backyard, a young tiger came prowling through the yard and started stalking me. As I inched away, unsure of how to handle the situation she attacked me. I got bloodied up a bit.

Then -- it was later -- driving back to the house down sort of an alleyway to the garage, there were maybe 20 tigers, about 7 or so of them adult tigers, some very young ones (cubs) and some adolescent tigers, like the one that attacked me. Back in the house looking out the large second story window, we could see the tigers walking around the back yard as well as beyond. People remarked that it was an unusual feature of the house.

Later in the backyard there was a gigantic sea turtle in the swimming pool, maybe 12 feet long. It suddenly surged up and leapt out of the pool and landed with a thud in the yard, casting a shadow over the yard and almost landing on me, which would have been fatal. Apparently though this was standard behavior and not dangerous to the turtle.

That was the end of the dream.

Yes. NO. [ ]

My dream just before waking this morning:

I had a number of e-mails in my in-box. Actually, three e-mails in the inbox of one account, and maybe a couple more in the inbox of a different account. But in the dream I didn't get to the point of looking at the e-mails in the second account.

All of these e-mails were in response to e-mails I had sent the night before, all from the same person. This was a dream that lingered as I awoke, and I was confused as to what was real. I believed that I had in real life sent e-mails the night before. Both in the dream and then into the real morning I felt the dread of having made a terrible mistake, and that the person to whom I'd sent the emails would be angry or offended, with unhappy consequences for the future.

I couldn't remember what I'd said in the emails. I tried.

I could see a part of the text of each of the three e-mails without opening the full e-mail. None of the emails had a subject heading.

The first said: Yes.

The second said: NO.

The third was blank.

PIcture of Two Pictures in a bathroom

Another View of Disney Hall

Bar Talk

22 year old female bartender on why seeing her ex-boyfriend when back in Pittsburgh is creepy:

"He's super chill. Which is cool. But beyond chill. He comes across as gay.

What was I thinking?"


Male Hollywood agent of indeterminate age describing the phenomenon of waking up with someone asleep on your arm, about whom you think "What was I thinking?":

"They call it coyote ugly. You just want to chew your own arm off so you can sneak out without waking her."


Different bar:

Woman of about 40 who has just that minute finished taking her optician exam:

I know a joke. Do you want a Hertz donut?

She is met with silence. She punches the guy next to her.

Woman [to guy]: Hertz, donut?

Me: Ow.

Woman: I got that from Family Guy.

The War of Northern Aggression

The two halves of Beverly Park, the exclusive gated community tucked between Beverly Hills and Mulholland Drive, have gone to court against each other over blocked access and unpaid fees. The tensions escalated last year when residents of North Beverly Park — the part that includes Sumner Redstone and Haim Saban — stopped allowing the nannies, gardeners and other visitors to South BP — the side where Magic Johnson and Richard Zanuck live — from entering off Mulholland.


(From L.A. Observed)
http://www.laobserved.com/

Facebook is scary.

2008 Bulwer-Lytton Contest Winners

http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/scott.rice/blfc2008.htm

The Occupational Hazard of the Fictional P.I.

"[Holmes does not even consider that a death narrated in The Hound of the Baskervilles could be an accident] because [that theory] does not jibe with his vision of the world and his desire to find murderers. It is just too commonplace for a man who dreams of grandiose crimes committed on deep, dark night under tragic circumstances."

-- from the chapter "Murder By Literature" in Sherlock Holmes Was Wrong.

Song of the Day

Hank Williams, singing a surprising, serious version of "On Top Of Old Smoky" in, he says, the way his grandmother used to.

Heroic Fact Checking

John Hodgman, about his books of made-up facts, answering the question about fact-checking his book:

In book publishing, we have no fact checkers, so this rarely comes into play. They are happy to let the author lie and withstand the consequences. But the proofreader can be tricky. On my first book, my poor proofreader had no idea that my book was all made up, and she heroically attempted to correct the record on, say, U.S. Presidents who had hooks for hands, until about page 100, when she got it. By the second book, she had become an invaluable resource and aid in helping me fabricate a world. Her name is Rachelle Mandik, and I am grateful.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2008/11/the-exchange-jo.html#entry-more

Pogo

http://www.pogopossum.com/index.htm

Current chapter: http://www.pogopossum.com/gofizzicklepogo/go15.htm

"A novelist is always born atop the demolished homestead of his own lyricism." -- Milan Kundera, cited in "Agnes's Final Afternoon," as a way into the contrast Ricard finds in Kundera's work between the young man's lyricism and that way of life of the libertine.

Impressive 13 year old

Scene: middle school debate. Summation has just been delivered by the daughter of a man in the stands. Daughter gives a mighty impressive summation in favor of the proposition Resolved: That John McCain Is The Best Choice For Commander In Chief. Man overhears a(n adult) man behind him.

Man in back row: Glad I'm not married to her.

Favorite photo of gay rights protestor's sign

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4hfeiYr3Zq4/SRaVZbI1rhI/AAAAAAAAEWg/xontu_v4pgg/s1600-h/g.jpg

John Leonard

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/arts/AP-Obit-Leonard.html?hp

http://www.slate.com/id/2204095/

http://www.edrants.com/john-leonard-dead/

California Election Report

There goes my plan to move to San Francisco and legally marry a male prostitute.

Black voter

A black male voter, interviewed on NPR:

"My friends and I used to say, 'A black man in American can be anything he wants except a white man or President.' But Michael Jackson has proved the first one wrong and now it seems Obama is about to disprove the second one too."