Joshua Malbin

Thomas Mann, via The New Inquiry:

And his favorite word, his ultimate emotional eloquence, the great bell with which he summoned others to the loftiest feasts of the soul—it lured many people…Freedom…He truly understood more and less by freedom than they did when cheering. Freedom—what did that mean? Certainly not a touch of civic dignity in front of princes and thrones. Do you people even dream just what a mind dares to mean with that word? Freedom from what? Ultimately from what else? Perhaps even from happiness, from human happiness, that silken fetter, that soft sweet bond…

Daniel Davies of dsquareddigest:

In the film Braveheart, the Mel Gibson character hardly ever stops talking about “freedom” and, of course, iconically inspires his brave clansmen to charge into battle screaming “FREEDOM!” at the top of their lungs. But in the context of the film, he’s clearly being totally hypocritical. He doesn’t actually propose anything of the sort – the system of government he’s in favour of is another autocratic monarchy, just with him in charge.

Isn’t it interesting a) that nobody seems to spot this (just as in A Few Good Men, surprisingly few critics noticed that despite the contention of the Jack Nicholson character in his big speech, it’s very obviously that you do not “save lives” or “guard people while they sleep” by beating your own recruits to death for minor disciplinary infractions). And b), that as proved by the film’s ticket sales and continuing popularity, the concept of “freedom” embodied in this film (ie, xenophobic authoritarian power-worship) seemed to resonate so deeply across the English-speaking world, which when thinking with its brain rather than its blood, is quite clear that “freedom” means something very different indeed.

Share on Facebook

Dan Meyer’s 2009 Annual Report from Dan Meyer on Vimeo. Via Boing Boing.

Why do I love this so much? It’s as much an erotic tendency as a neurotic one, or perhaps shades in the space where the circles overlap (or perhaps there is very little outside that overlap.) Assume as a guiding feature of the techno-professional middle classes a certain belief in perfectibility, then subdivide between a belief in the perfectibility of self-knowledge and a perfectibility of self. I have very little energy for the perfection or even the very great improvement of myself (all right, a nagging urge, but a lazy one. I do still read magazines.) I like the hundred pushups challenge but I prefer the pushups logger. (Week 3, Day 1, had to repeat it.) I tinker endlessly on Mint.com although I don’t spend any more sensibly. I just like to see my household in pie charts.

Come on, you Wendell Berrys, you hippies and one-hand clappers, come and tell me how this digital mapmaking threshes out the romance from the world. You think I’m not chasing the ineffable down to the last quantum? Everything is charted, nothing is known, but the chase is easily as good as the kill.

A friend of the blog has been known to track his consumption of various goods (eggs, vitamins of a sort, movies) in excel sheets. Game on, boy. Here’s how it’s done.

Share on Facebook

For one of my early Valentine’s Days in Los Angeles, my now-ex and I went to Campanile, one of Los Angeles’s best and fanciest restaurants, located in a vaulted home where Charlie Chaplin’s production company once resided. The waiter was efficient but exhausted, and towards the end of his shift, as we struggled down the rest of our second-cheapest-bottle, he saw sympathy in us and unloaded a little.

“Valentine’s Day,” he said, passing us a secret of the trade. “A lot of amateurs come out to eat.”

We weren’t any different, of course — kicking it up one notch in honor of Mandatory Romance — but we appreciated that we were young and somehow assured enough to attract his confidence.

The following year found us exhausted and filthy on the night of February 14th. I’d been sanding the floors in our apartment, and she had been late at work, preparing a gallery show. Unshowered and dusty in our workshirts, we headed out to Palermo, a neighborhood red-check Italian default, and plopped ourselves down at the first available table.

And then we looked around, and saw that Palermo was like every other restaurant on Valentine’s Day, a place where people go one step further than usual. It was mostly teenagers, dressed up better than the restaurant’s usual casual-dining customers in blowy suits and shiny, short dresses, sporting single red roses or buying them from a girl on the floor. A good number of working-class adults were there, not as spiffy as the teens but wearing the ease of having found a babysitter and made it out to the first restaurant in a long time.

We felt a bit out of place in our stains and flannels, but no one was there to notice us. It was a fine dinner, with amateurs everywhere.

Share on Facebook

My favorite sentence in a sports story in some time:

Of course, if propriety and taste were required in ice dancing, it would have been tossed from the Olympics years ago.

Hee.

Share on Facebook

I suppose there are some readers of this blog who haven’t met one or the other Joshes in person. Here’s a little taste of what we look (and of course, sound) like.

I am everyone in this video. (Another reason to choose Yale.) That is, everyone except for the one who is Josh Malbin. He can be seen wearing the Chinese dragon costume in the “8 Cultural Centers” bit.

Share on Facebook

Or at least moves too fast for irony. Or something.

Jesus.

UPDATE: This is apparently really a case of life imitating someone else’s art.

The irony mark or irony point (؟) (French: point d’ironie; also called a snark or zing) is a proposed punctuation mark that was suggested to be used to indicate that a sentence should be understood at a second level (e.g. irony, sarcasm, etc.)….This mark ؟ was proposed by the French poet Alcanter de Brahm (alias Marcel Bernhardt) at the end of the 19th century.

Someone French, no less.

Share on Facebook

The video in Josh K-sky’s post below has the Carpenters’ “Superstar” as its soundtrack. That’s not only my favorite Carpenters song, it’s one of my favorite karaoke standbys. Others include:

David Bowie, “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide” or “Life on Mars,” usually not both on the same night

Bruce Springsteen, “Thunder Road”

Dr. Dre, “Forgot About Dre”

LL Cool J, “Momma Said Knock You Out”

Merle Haggard, “Carolyn”

Digital Underground, “The Humpty Dance”

Eminem, “The Real Slim Shady” (Admittedly I haven’t yet sung this one in public. I’m itching to, though.)

The list reflects the implicit karaoke philosophy of the group I usually sing with: pick songs that are actually fun to perform rather than the usual 80s hair-band anthems with high kitsch value. That usually means songs that are in some way challenging to pull off. Also, always spring for the private room.

I’ll probably add more titles as I remember them. Yours?

Share on Facebook

Badly exhausted and jetlagged to the point of nausea. Amazing trip, though, saw 250 new species of birds in just over three weeks of travel. All those who are interested let me know and I’ll send you a link to the Snapfish album.

More when I’m saner.

Share on Facebook

Won’t be back until the new year. Josh K-sky will just have to keep you entertained with movie stuff and links from his Google Reader (see new feature in right-hand column).

Share on Facebook

If one wanted to be uncharitable to me, one might suggest that I made up an extreme version of a type who annoys me, and then made him suffer. Enjoy.

Share on Facebook