NEW APARTMENT

We're MOVING ON UP. My roommate and I are now fully moved in to our east village palazzo. We have an insane amount of space for Manhattan, including our own back yard and a first floor rec room. The building is chock full of a spicy blend of trust funders, armani exchange aficionados, and young professionals. The neighborhood rocks, and its unbelievable to be able to comfortably have 50 plus people over. So, in case you were wondering...I'm the guy who manages to live beyond his plush summer associate salary. At least I didn't jump in the river.

Book Meme

Book Meme

Thanks to Deathintheafternoon for passing me this meme. P.S. I have no idea what a meme is.

1. Total number of books I've owned: At some point in her pre-me history, my mom actually bought a stamp (non ink, just pressed the paper) that read "from the library of X and Y Sanjana." Of course, my parents names are not "x" and "y;" but, I'm sure as hell not about to get them involved up in this piece..although, the recent google searches for "road from Mumbai to Sanjan" and/or "sanjana zoroastrian" are highly troubling on that front. God damn you google. OK, focus, back to the stamp, the point is that I've always associated quantities of books with knowledge, hence my anglophilia. I'm serious, I pulled some great fucking books off of my mom's shelf. The only one I keep for purely sentimental value is Sidartha, which my mom had sporadically and inexplicably underlined. (Imagine how horrible it would be if I actually knew why she was underlining stuff as a 22 year old...how depressing). My mom is one of the smartest people I know. I've bought a lot of books I've never read. I feel bad about it because every one of my mom's books were read and creased. Of non-school-related books, I have probably bought about 300, keeping 200 in one place or another and giving away about 50 that I really cared about but am happy I gave away.

2. Last book I bought: Waiting for Barbarians, by J.M. Coetzee....I'm not sure why. Even though I really have no rational reason to trust the Noble committee's opinion, I still hold it out there as some sort of valid validation.

3. Last book I read: Strong Motion, by Jonathan Franzen. Funny. Great ending. Reaks of first novelness.

4. Five books that mean a lot to me: Tao Te Ching, translated by Stephen Mitchell....just when I thought I knew more than anybody else a book that was written 2500 years ago kicked my ass. Confederacy of Dunces, or how I learned to laugh out loud while reading. For Whom the Bell Tolls, which is Hemmingway's greatest and least appreciated work (axed from high school curriculums nation-wide out of genuflection to Toni Morrison, but I'm digging my own grave now). Rios Profundas by Jose Maria Arguedas, which is the only book I've ever read that completely resonated with me where I as reading it. Armies of the Night, by Norman Mailer for teaching me that there are two sides to everything (i learned this in the scene that almost seamlessly slips between the hippie narrative and the narrative of the poor grunts who are having flowers shoved in their guns). Honorable mention: The Twins by Tessa de Loo, for being the first chick-book that i actually enjoyed. Take that flowers in the attic! I forgot Underworld, by Don Delillo (I remembered it when I went to work yesterday with all the buildings shrouded in fog...the cover of the paperback version of Underworld has the twin towers in fog). Underworld means a lot to me because after reading it I realized that books were being written today that are at least as much literature as the stuff they made us read in high school.

I for one blame Nancy Grace and drug testing at prosecution offices.

Hello Again

Here are some quick notes:

1) Congratulations to the Pittsburgh Pirates on reaching .500!! For those of you used to proper ownership and big media markets, this may not seem like much of an accomplishment. But, rest assured, it is indeed big news in for the Bucs. The future is not bright--the fate of the pirates post trade-deadline remains uncertain, and the road trip to Yankee Stadium and Fenway will be tough (speaking of which, I've yet to run the numbers but it seems like the NL Central has totally dominated the AL East in this year's interleague play....quite a surprise....and further proof that only morons bet on baseball)--but at least the present isn't totally abysmal.

2) A long plane ride today gave me a chance to read most of the Sunday NY Times. Here are a couple interesting notes.

A) The yield-curve, which is a sort of pictorial representation of what bond traders think about the future of the economy, has flattened. Alan Greenspan is telling us not to worry, but (as far as I can tell) he hasn't provide any really convincing reason why we shouldn't. The Revolution is Not a Dinner Party's official investment advice...for all you recently flush summer associates out there...is to take 2 year short positions in market indexed instruments like Spiders. Of course, if you take stock advice from this site you truly are an ass clown.

B) Two book reviews of note--

First, Washington Post veteran John F. Harris has a new look at the Clinton White House. The reviewer tends to think that the only reason anyone would care is that it might help us figure out why so many people hate Bill Clinton. I tend to say "I told you so" a lot. But this time I really was ahead of the curve. I've been saying for years that the reason people hate Clinton is because of his position as the sublimated essence of his generation's dreams and aspirations. Where the author and review miss the boat is by suggesting that Clinton, "suffered as the embodiment of a generation and a set of values that much of the country has never understood." What poppycock! Of course Clinton's unpopularity is generationally related, but what's really going on is much more psychological and internal. For some its pure, unadulterated envy...it irks a lot of people with hugely inflated egos and bloated senses of self to think that someone from a trailer could be that much better than them at being exactly who They thought They were. For others, its wistful regret that the best of their ranks could grab so much power with such good intentions and use it to get blowjobs and to neuter the welfare state. The truth is that baby boomers cannot judge Clinton without looking at themselves in the mirror. In a world full of unsatisfied and unhappy folks, that tends to foster extreme dislike.

Second, some Supreme Court clerk turned junior associate turned junior professor has written a fictional book about life in a soulless, bloodsucking law firm. The plot is about the choices of associates between a pro bono case and a toxic tort case. The review is by Alan Dershowitz. Even though Dershowitz points out that a major plot line plus a major character are practically plagiarized, he recommends the book. God knows why. It seems like boring nonsense to me. The title of the review is funny enough--"Their Finest Billable Hour." This book seems extremely boring, trite, and reductionist to me. If any of you read it, let me know if its worth a place on the toilet. I like my law firm, I'm not a soulless automaton, and people who think all law firm experiences are the same (or worse yet write books capitalizing on people's notion that all law firms are the same) probably just didn't have a good time. Enjoy teaching the Four Corners Rule for twenty years, fuckface.

3) I've been trying to write a tome on movie-going...Hopefully tying together Kingdom of Heaven, Mysterious Skin, and Palindromes....it hasn't been going well (i have 17 footnotes so far). Maybe I'll post it at some point. All three movies come highly recommended from this reviewer, although I only see movies with major characters suffering from leprosy or plots entirely focused on adult-child sexual encounters. What's great about New York is that isn't really much of limiting rule.