Phew

Last night I drank margaritas with my coworkers and then saw Beirut, and it was a very very good show. There were trumpets and something called a flugle horn (that is phonetic spelling right there) and mandolins and ukeleles and violins and a cello and of course Zach Condon like a gypsy lounge singer. He's actually cute and round faced and very ordinary looking, though I'm pretty sure every chick in there thought he was the hottest thing ever. So yes, the show was excellent, with the exception of:

1. The super drunk teenagers behind us who did not understand personal space and hit my friend in the back of the head every time they did a "Beirut is number one!" fist pump.
2. It was middle-school-gym-in-June hot, and smelled about as bad.
3. Standing-room only = ouch my lower back.
   
4. My friend had to go barf for a little while.

Still, I enjoyed myself and would like to see them in an air conditioned venue with seats sometime, except they're reconfiguring the band or something.

On the way home I made a left on red onto Gough (like "cough"), which is a one way street so I thought it was fair game, but NO! I got pulled over by a cop with a gray Yosemite Sam moustache, who then told me that my MA license isn't valid because I should have a CA one by now. This made me indignant because even though I kind of knew that (just like I knew I shouldn't really turn left on red), they could have at least mentioned that when I registered my car. I expressed this thought to the cop, who gave me neither a ticket nor too much shit about the license. Score!

Recurring adventures in non-traditional body hair

I passed my diseased lungs onto Mike, so our Memorial Day weekend was significantly less than ambitious. We still got to see lots of people we love, though, including those who have come to have a defining part in how we view the world: Josh, Toby, CJ, President Bartlet, and the rest of the cast of the West Wing. We also watched a lot of Weeds, but Mary Louise-Parker's character is kind of a twat, so I am avoiding learning life lessons there.

We did manage to rally for a rousing game of wiffleball, where I met a guy with an American flag shaved into his chest. I am just that lucky. He really liked my sweatshirt and offered to buy it off me, but since I don't wear it nearly as often as he made it clear that he will, I let him have it. He took down my address, promising to send me a surprise in the mail one day - I am not holding my breath. We memorialized the moment in this photo:One thing I should note about this dude: he showed up with his wife, another topless guy in neon shorts, and a comparatively mild-mannered man who is Meg's friend from their hometown of (no joking) Normal, Illinois. They rolled up in a stretch limo and had the driver wait while we played, a fact that made a little more sense when we found out they were visiting from LA.

Now Mike is on a plane to DC, and I leave later in the week for over a month of almost straight travel. I am pretty sure I will not meet too many more people with alternative body hair styles, though my fingers are crossed.

More book stuff

The US and UK publishing industries, despite some key differences, work very closely together, and I think this article by The Observer's former literary editor is pretty darn good. I wish Zadie Smith wasn't on his top 10 list (Truth and Beauty SUCKED), and that Amazon wasn't on there twice, but I think it's interesting that he writes that the whininess of publishing today represents "the birth pangs of a golden age."

"The market for the printed book is now global; the opportunities for the digital book are almost unimaginable. To be a writer in the English language today is to be one of the luckiest people alive."

Whether publishers or booksellers are as lucky is up for debate, but the reason I took this job is that more and more books are being printed - people just need to find them!

My jobber

Well, sort of - I'm on the partner side of things (i.e. books from publishers) and this is mostly about the library project (books from libraries), but here's a New Yorker cartoon on what we're doing. Better resolution available here.

Ooooh

Who wants to do some trail runs with me? The 9k in Pacific sounds fun (6/21), and so does the Angel Island 8 or 16k (7/5). I'm going to be a goddam runner if it kills me.

Boo hiss farm bill

Sorry for the crappy resolution - think of it as an embodiment of the opacity of the bill (700+ pages, yes!). P.O.S.: we're going to keep subsidizing corn syrup and beef, because obviously Americans need more of both of those.

Seriously?

My friend's dad is a defense attorney for capital punishment cases. He almost never wins because he takes on the toughest cases, but he's a great guy. I'm not a fan of, you know, murderers and such, but capital punishment is so ridiculously inefficient at achieving any of its aims (except for maybe satisfying the victim's family, but after 20 years they've gone through the heartache of the capital process as well) that it's difficult to comprehend why it's still around.

Tina's dad was interviewed a couple of years ago on a network news station - so forgive the clumsy transcript - about one of his clients, a 75 year old deaf and blind guy in a wheelchair who has had a stroke and a heart attack in his many decades of incarceration.

A quote from the reporter: "I don't know how to say this, you know, but in September he had a bad heart attack and the state of California spent an awful lot of money and time trying to save his life and now in January they're going to spend money trying to end his life. I mean it's bizarre."

UM YES IT IS asd;klfjas;lfkj!

And a very happy Friday to you, too.

Did you know that Indonesia is the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases? Mike's coworker is interviewed in the article.

And speaking of deforestation, Santa Cruz is, um, on fire - and has been since yesterday. Here in Mountain View it smells like BBQ and ash is occasionally drifting down from the sky. Eerie.

On the I'm-not-sure-if-this-is-good-or-bad-news front, Microsoft is shutting down its Books program. It was significantly smaller in scope than ours, but still a competitor - but I'm not sure that a competitor closing shop is a comforting sign. At least they're giving the files back to the publishers.

Glimmer this

I keep meaning to submit stories to Glimmer Train, but then I put it off, even though I think they're doing a great job of filling in the gap the New Yorker has left now that it has cut down on its fiction and only publishes authors that got a six-figure book deal straight out of Iowa. They and a few other magazines are finding talent and even paying them for it, which is novel nowadays.

Anyway, I thought I was procrastinating because I'm lazy, but now I realize it's because their name is just terrible. "Glimmer train" sounds like what happens when everyone forms a conga line at the Richard Simmons Convention opening reception, and I don't really want any part of that. Well, only a little part of it.
(Also, I actually went to the Richard Simmons website to get this photo, and it was glorious.)

Hi, Condi

Today Condoleeza Rice came to speak on campus, and I wound up in an overflow room with a huge HD screen that made her look giant and intimidating. She was with the British Foreign Minister, but no one paid him much attention.

It was a softball interview, and Condi answered every question in a way designed to make Googlers happy. Freedom of the Internet? Well, of course the administration supports it. Renewable Energy? We're on it, my darling nerds! I thought she came across pretty well, considering that she is working with some seriously sad material. Apparently we didn't sign Kyoto because China and India didn't either - riiiiiiiiight. There's $50 billion in US investment in alternative energy - and Bush is taking credit for it. Yikes.

Only once did things get any less than pleasant - someone asked her how she would react if an American citizen were waterboarded, and she gave a super wordy answer about always acting in line with U.S. law and international treaties. Dude re-asked his question, she said she had answered it. He said she hadn't, he said she had, and the British Foreign Minister, embracing his role as Pleasantly Accented Provider of Levity, moved on to a charming question about Madeleine Albright and shoes (everyone knows that Condi's mentor was Madeleine's dad, right?).

In leaving the building I walked into a press scrum, Condi walked right by me, and I stood there and ogled like the True Patriot that I am.

Stuff I Will Eat

Mostly for my reference - my apologies: Easy Ricotta Gnocchi

Stuff I Eat

Despite a hacking cough and more phlegm in my body than was at all fair, I made dinner last night (yum, right?). Steamed snap peas and broccoli with an agave-tamari sauce, paprika and sesame-roasted potatoes & yellow carrots with vegan aioli (don't ask), leftover Burmese naan and samosas, and, of course, some wine.

Check it:I think I'm in a roasting/steaming rut, though - I need to branch out a bit. Suggestions welcome!

Fixer-upper

I'm not ready to own property, let alone renovate anything, but I still have a yen to do what these people did. They have a yard, a garden, a tree-house type thing (look at the photos!), even bees. I want my bungalow, dammit!

Is that an offensive name?

I love Weekend Sherpa, even though I'm not sure how I feel about its name, because doesn't "Sherpa" refer to an ethnic group, not the vocation of guiding trips? In any case, this website rocks - every Thursday it emails a list of outside-y things to do over the weekend in the Bay Area.

Its suggestions this week include a hike in wine country, a kayak trip in the largest estuary in the lower 48 states, a bike ride in "Little Tuscany", campgrounds still available in Yosemite (!), and the best place to BBQ on Treasure Island. I heart weekends - and sherpas, apparently.

I am not George, Gary, Greg, Geoff, or whoever else you think I am

I guess there are a lot of G Brennans out there, because at least once a week I get an email meant for someone else. Today I got George Brennan's coupon for 20% off at Casual Male, which I am sure he will sorely miss.

I have also been getting repeated emails from a woman who thinks that I am a headstone engraver and is eager to provide me with specifications for her daughter's headstone. This would be morbid except that she is a pretty cheery lady - when I wrote back to tell her the email address she has for Gerry is incorrect and that I was sorry for her loss, her reply was downright perky. Aside from having good coping skills, I know that she lives in Dublin, her daughter was 42 and named Denise, and, oddly enough, she has two names, which she alternates signing off with. Not only that, but Denise is buried next to her father, who is named John(sean). I am pretty Irish, and I have never heard of putting your saint's name in parentheses, if that is what is going on here.

In any case, she keeps emailing me, and I'm not really sure what to do - keep correcting her? Maybe her names are her two different personalities that emerged after the tragic loss of her daughter, and they keep getting their wires crossed as to how to get in touch with Gerry. Or maybe she is just busy.

In any case, this is the burden I bear for being an early Gmail adopter.