crapture

Foretelling - earthquake; seconds, tsunami; one hour, hurricane; days, greenhouse effect; fifty years, rapture centuries.See you tomorrow. The physical world is not coming to an end. The rapture tomorrow is only about  our souls. Don't they sell an insurance for 'just in case'. The popes used to sell indulgences.
Buy  one and move on.

marx brothers' room service

 This is what my wife figured out (or read someplace and now pretends it is hers). Strauss-Khan was expecting a call girl. Why else would he take a bath in the middle of the day?  Did not realize it was a different woman. The headdress was an added excitement. Even  running out to the door was part of the scene. Running after the maid  he felt gratitude to the  Madame who had planned....

ma(i)d sex

Clearly I know nothing about cultural differences (see my previous post). It seems that honneur oblige to have sex with the maid. Note that in french it is femme de chambre. As the French cannot  imagine that someone who cleans a room could be a maid. More than a day.  Schwarzenegger kept his maid in his house for safer sex. DSK's unwilling maid used to live in an AIDS housing.  Bet that Osama's sex tapes were about chamber maids. .

DSK in galère (maudite galère)

Exercising power is surely an aphrodisiac for many. DSK having an erection. No holds barred. But with an unwilling chamber maid? Where is the limit of honneur oblige.?

5 21 2011

Was checking out this site about the Judgement day and the screen was overtaken by an ad on how to flatten your stomach. Sincerely, I don't think there is enough time left for this....on 5 21 2011 will walk the catwalk with a sagging stomach.

Dark people and the blonde

At first glance, these pictures and the trial smelled of racism. They went after the Indians on Wall Street. The perfect markets were spoiled by these guy! And a blonde. Just these guys? And then this article about income and religion (or education or culture).
We had this game in business school, where we had to negotiate with a colleague the price of I don't remember what. I set a moderately low price and did not budge for one hour as my colleague was offering half that price and so on. At the end there was no deal. In the post-analysis this Sri Lanka colleague explained that in his culture a deal involves a long process of negotiation with exaggerated demands and miser offers. Could ot imagine I was firm.
 So what am I saying? What is the moral of the recollection? Markets have their own culture (or religion), As about education.... Later on our top professors left the school and its "games" to meet the true markets. They went bankrupt.

osama watching porn on tv

In this garrison town, closeted with three wives fussing around, he had to watch porn. Understandable. What was the man going to do?
This guy asked a barber to babysit his son for the evening. When he returned home the guy founds his son playing with the barber's dong. "What is this?". The barber retorted: "Would you have preferred I let your boy play with my knife?"

always ready

I carry a nice silk tie in my pocket. Just in case. Prepared for any disaster.

veintiuno de mayo

Not again!  Another judgement day?

osama watching tv

some kind of Kropotkin with a dyed beard. In his memoir Kropotkin discusses if anarchists can go into retirement. But it seems bin laden was still planning terror in his dark room.

What the doctor recommended

I buy groceries at this fancy new large  two levels store. Everything organic. Could not find salt on their shelves today. Don't carry.  They just cannot turn a profit from salt.

uno de mayo

This young lady, a student of urban problems, was showing concern about the gentrification of an area of Brooklyn. I confused her with the following... Since late 1800s tenements have been considered unsanitary. Still in existence, they are rented to poor people? What's the problem if poor people are displaced by  some rich people who  think fashionable to live in bad conditions?

high noon drama

 Is eye for eye equivalent with justice is done? Osama killed with a shot in the eye. Vendetta - like in a Verdi opera.

Columbus Circle

A young black woman was handing out the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal. A passerby inquired "Why do they give this for free?"  The young woman moved her shoulders in an uncertain way but said:    "Probably they want to give back to the community."

Exhausting Verdi

When I watch an opera and I know the aria, I sing - lip-sync. Some Verdi operas exhaust me completely as I mouth  all the parts.....it is not the singing that is difficult, but the acting.... con anima.

how many bridges?

Burning

a flame kept alive will break the stone

Spring ...

Was shocked when I saw the garden in flower; had completely forgotten about its existence. And now it seemed burning in the flames of spring. Poor Andy, does anyone remember you?

RO

Feli was supposed to come at ten to help her arrange the French books that had fallen off the shelves, but Ro fell and died at around eight. She was almost 102. These last years she was furiously defending her culture and her way of thinking. Her dignity. When I told her about iPads and the upcoming death of books, she was incredulous. But then I described the feature that could make the letter size very large. I could tell that secretely she hoped one day to read this enlarged print.

gary goldberg

He was Mr. Mental, or maybe we were ...he - the creator, the architect, me - the engineer...Always looked at him with disbelief. Found out yesterday he died in 2003. And look in disbelief.

not a baboon

Drs. Seyfarth and Cheney believe that one reason may be that they lack a “theory of mind”; the recognition that others have thoughts. Since a baboon does not know or worry about what another baboon knows, it has no urge to share its knowledge. Dr. Zuberbühler stresses an intention to communicate as the missing factor.

This blog is a proof that I am not a chimp, nor a champ.

Union Rules

From wake-up till 8 when I leave for work my dog is very playful and friendly. Follows. Barks. Leaks. When I come back at 6 he barks very happy and won't stop till I pet him. But if I show up home earlier, he barely moves his head to acknowledge. Tries to look happy but it is clear that he is annoyed.

tunnel vision

The other day just before my station arrived noticed “Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.” Can one be more darker in the underground?

hubris

Went to buy bookshelves at Ikea. Looked nice. But then I thought - for my books, the best. Or at least I should do better than IKEA. So I went to a midtown store and ordered a nice unit. Paid and after six weeks inquired about my purchase. The midtown fancy store was out of business.

like him

All alone. His causes forgotten by all, long ago, still carries on his fights talking to empty walls. Never changed his extremist opinions. Half paralyzed since 1991, carries on. Saw him several weeks ago, my far away cousin, and realized I have same readiness to fight to the end.

Mother tongue

Afternoon from the opera. In the break Angela Gheorghiu gives an interview. The interviewer asks her if she wants to say something in Romanian. Why? It is New Year time...your Romanian audience...So Angela says in Romanian "I have a cold today." How else would one use one's mother tongue but to complain about the life's little miseries...

me too warm

Like the Cheney guy. I'm lovable too and have no friends on Facebook. Unexplainable. I haven't shot any.

tired wit at high noon

if you look around the blogosphere, everything has been said. HATE it. There was a time i could be original..... To friends and family. Seemed original. Now, not really a plagiarist, but late with the bon mot. A reuser, a slow with the repartee. A copycat. Someone else's retort.