Held in contempt

The last bastion of snoot and of snark must be the Midwest.

Merely the name for a black person has undergone upheaval in the past decades; stoop to condescension, and you could have a fight — or worse, a lawsuit — on your hands ... very possibly from a white person. The nation finally seems to be coming around on the LGBTQ community and, in some instances, perhaps even overcompensating. (Does anyone actually find Ellen DeGeneres funny?) For a people with such a rich history of humor, the Jews have a remarkable lack of the ability to take a joke. (It must be our neuroticism.) Fat jokes seem to be going out of vogue, though I can't tell whether it's because there are too many targets to take offense or because, when they become so ubiquitous, the jokes lose their edge and appeal. The tide also seems to be turning on hurtful remarks directed toward Mexicans and Latinos more generally, with the most disparaging reserved, apparently, for Mexican comedians. (Has self loathing ever been more profitable?)

It remains the norm, however, to regard the landlocked states as having nothing to offer — culturally, intellectually, whatever.

Size matters

Let's play a quick game.

Metropolitan Area A had 2,710,489 people as of 2010; Metropolitan Area B had 2,149,127.

What's the difference between the two cities? Well, aside from 561,362 residents, it's hard to tell from those numbers (by design) — so I'll elaborate.

Metro Area A is the 20th largest metropolitan area in the U.S. and the largest one entirely in its state. It has experienced a modest population growth of 6.17 percent since 2000. It supports two professional teams in the four major sports; it was also the subject of a popular television show portraying the drug trade.

Metro Area B is the 24th largest metropolitan area in the U.S. and the core of the fourth largest census statistical area in its state. It has experienced a population growth of 19.60 percent since 2000. It supports one team in the four major sports; it was also the subject of a recent Bill Simmons column.

Still unimpressed? Let's start getting to the point.

Metro Area A is Baltimore, B Sacramento. The latter is a "small market." The former isn't.

Writing exercise and fiction dump

Same deal as with the poetry dump. Eat your hearts out.


Response to a found photo
Billy was the cutest boy in town. Everybody knew it, and the people who claimed otherwise knew it as well as anyone; they just kept it to themselves. There was no denying it — that head like an oversized marshmallow, the perfectly formed toes dangling off his feet like just ripe niblets of corn. His parents had just bought him a sailor outfit for his big day, and now Billy walked among the assembled friends and family members — their hands outstretched and their eyes aglow — like a miniature Moses. One half-expected some middle-aged housewife, shamed by the progeny she could have, should have birthed, to fall to her knees, weeping, as Billy passed by. Each teetering step brought a new round of applause as Billy made his way to his spot at the front of the parade. By the time he had reached the corner of Elm Street and Market, dozens more had arrived and begun screaming his name. "Billy! Billy!" they yelled, little droplets of spittle flying off their lips and sizzling on the hot sidewalk before Billy's feet. "Billy! Billy! We want Billy!" they cheered. One girl, her hair in pigtails and her dress fashionably short, hiked up her skirt even further as Billy approached her. "Billy! Billy, have my babies!" she shrieked to him, surely awash in the adolescent glow of a new supply of hormones.
5 March 2010

Poetry dump

With the realization that an old site I used to write on could eventually disappear, I am collecting a number of old poems here, in a central location. I can't seem to get the formatting to work quite right (as soon as one thing is fixed, another busts), so I'm afraid this is about the best I can do for now in that regard.

the id and my ego

There are times when I am
struck by the grace with
which I am able to write.

Words come pouring out of
me, with a force that is like
an exhortation of life.

My grasp of meter rivals
that of the world’s most skilled
musician. My line breaks would
make Dickinson blush, and my
command of rhyme is reserved such
that I may let Keats and his cronies
maintain their dignity.

If I had but world enough, and time,
I would think to erase Nietzsche’s
name from the annals of
history; such is the quality of my
prose. My talent is no mere craft, but
the attainment of the hand of
God almighty in my
own. My works are idiomatic
ingenuities, alms temporarily
bestowed upon the
idiocy of this world, comedy and
tragedy united in a circuitous
dance, humanity circumscribed in
scribbled doggerel.

In the time that Eliot has measured
out, I have composed volumes of verse
in my head, with the mere intent of
expelling Milton from the most private
of libraries. I almost hesitate to
write them, for I pale at the thought
of unleashing my leviathan
upon the Earth.

Dark rooms in the dead of night are
my storehouses, dust gathering on the
windowsill my muse. My bookshelf
is empty, for I will stack it myself with
the hefty tomes I am cursed to complete.

Universes await the touch
of the tip of my pen, and
all is true
because I write it.

22 November 2007

Drafted in

I was struck, when reading scouting reports last week on the Rams' receiver selections in the draft (Austin Pettis in Round 3, Greg Salas in Round 4), that the two shared a strength, one of the only tangible strengths on either of their reports: height.

This is not an analysis of either player, though I happen to like Pettis. I do question, however, the tendency for teams to try to leg out singles late in the draft — rather than swing for the fences.