Ben Recommends...

...parking your boat at the end of the runway in Boston Harbor. Boooyah!

(iPhone photo, no zoom)

Quote of the Day

Visiting the former President’s home in Independence, Missouri, Obama marveled at Truman’s 1972 Chrysler Newport.

“I wonder what kind of mileage this gets,” the Senator ruminated.

A man after my own heart.

You've got something on your lapel, Senator

I don't know how I feel about Obama's capitulation to the flag lapel pin. Probably you heard about the pin brouhaha. I have nothing against wearing a flag pin, but the idea that if you don't wear one, you're not sufficiently patriotic, is bullshit. I liked that Obama (in not so many words) called it bullshit. But then, a couple months later, a pin showed up on his lapel.

It helps that apparently it was given to him by an old veteran; so in that sense, it's a gift, like all the other trinkets and good-luck charms people have given him that he carries around in his pockets, as much as it is saying "Fine, here's my freaking flag pin. Happy now?"

I guess Obama knows how to pick his battles. He is a politician, after all.

American Gods

I'm two episodes into the HBO miniseries JOHN ADAMS, starring Paul Giamatti as Adams, and so far it's a tour de force. The second episode focuses on the Continental Congress and the drafting of the Declaration of Independence. The production seems so faithfully and carefully done that it has the same effect as something like Lord of the Rings, where you want to pause every frame and just look at it.

My favorite scene involves Benjamin Franklin and John Adams critiquing Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, while Jefferson sits in a corner looking on, a bit nervous and a bit annoyed -- two feelings well known to anyone who's ever had their writing workshopped. When Franklin suggests changing "We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable" to "We hold these truths to be self-evident," Jefferson examines his fingernails and quietly asserts that he chose every word for a reason, harumph.

The movie resists treating the men as American gods -- their flaws and foibles are on full display -- with the exception, so far, of George Washington. Even before he has any lines, when he's just glimpsed in the background, you know it's him and you feel like maybe you should stand up or something.

Anyway, it makes the hair on my neck stand up when I think that these men in their powdered wigs continue to have such an impact on my life and on the entire world.

Boston: City of Champions

I don't care about popular sports, but it is pretty cool that Boston is home to the current football, baseball and now basketball champions. That doesn't happen often.

Ben Recommends

The new Coldplay album is good.

The new version of Firefox is better.

26 Things To Do Before Turning 27

I turned 26 last week, and today I was inspired to make a list of what I want to accomplish before I turn 27:

1. Try a new recipe once a month

2. Make cupcakes from something other than cake mix and decorate them in unique ways

3. Join a gym and go at least once a week for yoga class

4. Take in another litter of newborns or another pregnant mom cat

5. I taught myself a few key traveling phrases in Italian and Greek. Learn similar phrases in French, Hindi, and Japanese (maybe brush up on my Spanish while I'm at it).

6. Send more letters in the mail to friends and family

7. Paintball

8. Go to a concert or two

9. Wear sunscreen every day

10. Travel to at least one other country

11. Make a new friend (this one is hard for me)

12. Attend another Book Club meeting at library

13. Turn my cat blog into a book of short stories

14. Conquer my shoulder pain

15. Go to Cape Cod

16. Start using my video camera again

17. Get promoted at work (not necessarily up to me, but I'll push for it)

18. Buy a house

19. Go to Niagara Falls

20. Make the mermaid sculpture I've been planning for a year

21. Plant pumpkins

22. Save money/Buy less crap

23. Get all of my high school friends together

24. Be more honest about how I feel

25. Plan a bachelorette party for Kelly

26. Learn a new craft (making soap? sewing with a machine? knitting? blowing glass?)


Update: See how I did.

Olde Tyme

One of the many old ladies in my building is listening to olde tyme piano music, of the type you'd hear in a saloon. I can hear it drifting up through my open window. Gives me a craving for some sarsaparilla!

Hand Soap

When Mike's sister moved into a new apartment with her boyfriend, I wanted to send her a little gift. When I saw this soap, I bought it immediately - I couldn't get to the checkout fast enough. It was perfect for her.

It's creepy, funny in such an obvious way that it's lame, which makes it even funnier. I showed the hand-shaped pieces of soap to Mike's parents before mailing them. They laughed and confirmed that Mike's sister would adore the gift.

She told me that when she got it in the mail, she plucked the bag from the box, and dangled it in front of her boyfriend, saying, "Maggie sent us... a bag of... hands..."

When she read the tag and saw that it was soap, she set the pieces up in her bathroom and waited gleefully for visitors to be horrified and disturbed.

Cool

Huh. Now we know why Governor Patrick pushed so hard to preserve same-sex marriage in Massachusetts.

Blood Roses

I first read Francesca Lia Block when I was 14 years old. I fell in love.

More than a decade later, I'm still excited when I see a new book from her, but for the last five years, I've been disappointed more often than not.


I nailed down what's pissing me off about the flowery language that used to make me feel so dreamy. She breaks the rule that was hammered into me in my college writing classes: Show, Don't Tell.

All she does is tell, using a quote here or there from the characters to back her up. I used to love it but now it bothers me because it feels lazy. Each story in Blood Roses feels like an outline for what could have been a short novel. I feel like she's just cranking out this fragments of superficially-told stories because she has such a cult following.



Am I expecting too much? She's a young-adult author and I take that into consideration, but I don't think it's an excuse. I've read dozens of very well-written stories for teens.

Next time, I'm not springing for the hardcover. I'll get it from the library or wait for the paperback.

Sex and the City: Movie

I was ashamed walking into the theater, but I was more ashamed walking out. It was trash (not trashy, though you could argue that too).

Lame storyline.
No character development (if anything, they devolved).
Not that funny.
Not that sexy.

Fans of the show should be insulted and angry.

When You Are Engulfed in Flames

It goes without saying that the latest collection of David Sedaris stories, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, is funny.

His family and boyfriend are not the center of most of the stories, which is unfortunate because those are the stories I laugh at the hardest and reread the most. Most of the stories are about him and random people - someone beside him on a flight, his pot dealer's wife, a limo driver in New York, a random neighbor in France, an obnoxious neighbor in New York.

Don't get me wrong: I'm still sitting on the train, shaking with silent laughter, as I read.

I don't know if I can name a favorite yet, but one that's in the running includes a paragraph where he explains that his washing machine makes him feel good about himself. It says to him, "You've made it, no more laundromat for you," while his stove reminds him every day that he can't cook. To which the bathroom scale says, "Well he must be doing something. My numbers are off the charts!"

More than anything, the stories remind me of the conversations I have with Ben, since many of the stories are about random encounters with fellow travellers who you decide you hate within seconds of them parking their ass next to you on the train.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Many of my friends hated this movie because of how unrealistic it is.

One said, "Okay, maybe they'd live through that first part, but catching up to racing trucks by swinging on vines? Come on."

Another said, "It felt like an amusement park ride, like they had the ride in mind when making the movie."

Maybe I'm foolish for being able to suspend my disbelief, or maybe I'm just nostalgic or lucky. Because I thought it was a fun movie.

15 Feet for 10 Years

Is this love? Is it Buddhism as this couple claims?

Either way, it's interesting.