Some days, still, this city seems like something to love. When no matter how bad the day is, it is still good, and when you happen upon handsome Danish men playing funk folk underground at Union Square, and when the push-broom-mustached accordion player nods at you like he understands everything. Some days only.
The tone of this harks back to that favorite New Yorker op-ed of mine ("He is dead, due to I shot him."). It's not as brilliant, but clearly has its own standalone moments. I present to you, "The Shoe Heard Round the World" by John Kenney, New York Times, December 16, 2008.
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Hitting someone with a shoe is considered the supreme insult in Iraq. It means that the target is even lower than the shoe, which is always on the ground and dirty.
— The Times, Dec. 15
IN France, of course, it’s a waffle. Throw a waffle at someone and you have said, in essence: “I loathe you. You are scum. Your people are donkey traders.” It suggests that the target is even lower than a waffle, which is sometimes on the ground if it happens to fall off a plate, and the ground could be dirty, depending upon the ground.
Who’s to say why, exactly? Some say the waffle’s association with Belgium is enough to disgust any Frenchman. Others suggest it is its annoyingly spongy consistency. Still others say it’s the derivation of the word — “le waffle” in French, from the Flemish “wafflintis” and originally the Latin “wafflibus,” all of which translate, loosely, to “waffle.”
For scholars of insults, what comes to mind almost immediately after a high-profile insulting incident is the central African nation of Chad, where hitting someone with a pair of pants is the highest form of insult. It means that the target is lower than pants, the hem of which, while not on the ground, is often near the ground and, again, unclean. The only problem with this form of insult is that the thrower then has to retrieve the pants, as he or she had been wearing them.
For many years people threw shorts, but almost no one was offended, as the hem of shorts is a great distance from the ground. “We’re working on new forms of insult, as well as changing our country’s name, which, strangely, is a common first name in California,” said a Chadian cultural attaché. “We need to be taken more seriously.”
In the former Soviet Union it is not uncommon, especially among the savage Russian mafia, to throw a 68-ton American-made Abrams M1A1 tank. It means that the target is even lower than a tank, whose treads are always on the ground, unless they’re not for some reason — say, repairs or what-have-you. In fairness, though, the throwing of tanks appears to be happening with less frequency, due to the near impossibility of surprise, especially at indoor events.
In Peru, meanwhile, people throw their voices as a form of insult. While not technically near the ground, a voice suggests “sound” and “sound” rhymes with “ground,” the ground being low and possibly unclean, depending upon where, exactly, you’re standing.
Peruvians say that throwing your voice is the ultimate insult because the intended victim doesn’t know where it came from. It is not uncommon to hear someone say, “Who said that?!” on the streets of Lima after a particularly cutting remark. The danger, of course, is insulting someone by trying to throw your voice, but doing it poorly and instead moving your lips. The intended victim knows immediately where it came from.
And what of tiny Bhutan, snug between Tibet in the north and India to the south? In this mysterious Buddhist country, perhaps the only one in the world that measures its Gross National Happiness, people throw brightly colored tissue paper, so as not to hurt anyone. The paper falls harmlessly to the ground — a symbol of both lowness and dirt — and the thrower quickly picks it up, disposes of it, and then apologizes profusely.
If you’ve only ever lived in one city, you don’t know what about it you’re going to find in every city, and what is particular to that one place.
Moving to New York City made me realize what parts of urban living are important to me, and, somehow, in this the biggest most beautiful of all metropolises in the world, I cannot find the city life I long for. New York is the great organizer, but I'm tired of being organized. I long for the desegregation of thoughts and lifestyles and people and desires.
My father said New York wasn’t worth my time and Lex said I would love it and I thought it would served a functional purpose, but we were all wrong.
I've not written anything serious in a long time now. Not since moving to Brooklyn, at the very least. And where has it gone? All the thoughts of broken buttercreams and bone soups. All the ideas that I could understand the world better if I could get it down in verse. There's an old skeleton that reaches me often when I'm sitting at my kitchen table, and what an odd place for it to haunt me. I want to say, "Look. How can we make this better?" Because I don't want to figure it out myself. But the skeleton never knows; it can only remind you of the past.
Frank Bruni wrote to Josh just to say:
That Black Label burger shot makes me BEYOND hungry. I mean: crazy hungry. That is a beautiful burger photo.
Me and Frank are practically best buds now. Except that I'm over David Chang and he's not. Except that he gave Ssam Bar three stars and I gave it none. But even the best of compadres have their disagreements. Hey, Frank, you hiring?
Generally vommed. A lot of fur. A lot of socialites. Me in my bunny t-shirt.
Hello, friends.
I have nothing to report but feel that I ought to be reporting something. Here's a quick recap on the week's events:
I cooked a full Thanksgiving dinner (including a 20-pound bird) for 19 people. It was probably more traditional than your mom's Thanksgiving, so there's no need to ask if we had a turkey or stuffed the thing with white rice or whatever questions people to like to ask. The two tables were separated by "English-speaking" and "Chinese-speaking" and we calculated the amount of alcohol to buy for the party by separating guests into the categories of "Asian" and "not Asian." In some kind of non-progressive / non-race-sensitive /non-open-mindedness / something, I counted myself as not Asian. But I reconnected with my Asian self only two years ago, I know, I know. I just wanted to be sure there was going to be enough wine to go around.
Wow, is this incredibly boring yet?
I've stopped reading fiction (except for the occasional Infinite Jest excerpt) and started digesting only New York-based journalism (the Times, the New Yorker, New York Magazine). Which actually means that friends and foes such as Max Rampage can no longer think of Anchor Age as one of his few remaining literate cohorts. A sad day, indeed.
The theologian boyfriend has become the LSAT boyfriend, and my father wonders out loud whether he is planning to be the Pope's lawyer. In trying to avoid having to move to the Vatican, I sent out 27 cover letters and resumes in a window of two hours, while said boyfriend was studying for said LSAT (I should get paid for that shit). I am proud/wary to report a total of one interview secured after 22 hours, and counting. Fuck the job market.
I will sign off from this post with an apology for my boring life. I have not taken any exciting food photos, or gone to any glammy parties in the past week. I have not designed any "homo"-leaning flyers or anything of that ilk. I did recently buy a whole skinned rabbit for stewing, decapitate it, pull its tongue from its mouth, hack at the back of its throat with a paring knife in order to removed said tongue, fry the tongue up and eat it, and, in the meantime, take a photo of the severed head with its tongue hanging out as it perched upon a pile of its former body parts, but if I posted that here I would fear the retribution from such friends and foes as This Is Dumb (Too), I Know.
Alas,
AAA
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