Friday, January 14, 2005

A letter

It may seem odd that this Madison blogger who is really very Polish and a little bit New Yorkish has a good pal in Sri Lanka, but circumstances have it that I do. She is, in fact, one of my very oldest of friends, dating all the way back to elemntary school days in New York.

Not surprisingly, I have been anxious about her – not so much because I thought her harmed, since after all, so many more survived, but because I thought it nightmarish to live in the state of chaos and mourning that must describe life in her country now.

Tonight I finally got an email from her and she writes this:

I think we really are under a curse. We were just recovering from a war and now this. The devastation is unimaginable especially in terms of human cost- Everyday I see the face of one of my directors who saw forty members of his family die- it was once a lively face and now there is so much sadness. Another friend was vacationing- she lost her father, mother, husband and children- she saw them swept away while she clung to a tree. She has asked me to come this a week to see her- visitors are regulated. I just feel so frightened for her.

And toward the end of the letter, she adds:

We have all these grand visitors- Colin Powel,. Kofi Annan, Paul Martin- hope we will not miss this opportunity to rebuild a strong and humane society.

Yes, yes, may we all get on with it already? In all corners of the world?

A Young Old House

A year ago, on just her second day of blogging, my colleague and friend, Ann, wrote this about the name of her blog:

After some deep thought, I've decided to go with my last name.
1. It's fairly unusual. I've never met anyone outside of my own family who has this name, though I always can find one or two in a phone book when I travel about the United States. Especially Pennsylvania.
2. It has the word "house" in it, which makes it seem like a place, and a blog is a sort of place.
3. I think the trend may be more toward using one's own name, but that is just a casual observation.
4. People who know me will eventually find this blog, and it's good to remember that what one writes in public counts against (or for) your reputation.
5. My family is so very small, so why not have a shred of visibility for the old family name--which really does mean "old" (along with "house").
6. I considered This Old House, but that too was taken.

Her predictive talents were average: I haven’t noticed many using their last names for blogs. I also do not think she could have predicted then the thousands that would flock to her House each day to read her musings. What’s truly splendid is that not everyone who visits Althouse on a regular basis agrees with all that she has to say. But they come anyway and they read because hers is a calm, smart and reasoned voice, without the anger and the menacing assertions so often found in blogs that touch on politics and culture.

Ann: congratulations for your year in cyberspace! On Sunday, during a long and delicious car trip, three of us questioned the necessity of space exploration just now, when the world continues to demonstrate such great need for economic resources. Is it that boys need always to be playing with rocket toys? – we asked. But we didn’t mean cyberspace.

I, for one, am happy that Ann explored the blogshpere and stayed. My attention to her blog goes beyond clicking to the top of the alphabet and beyond the fact that she is the most regular purveyor of posts on this planet! May she keep snapping with her little Sony and jotting things in her moleskin book. I’m looking forward to the second year of Althouse.


thanks, NASA, for the photo art. You're useful after all! Posted by Hello

Looking for a warmer spot...

Temperature at midnight, January 15, 2005, Novosibirsk, Siberia, Russia: 10 F.

Temperature at noon, January 14, 2005, Madison, Wisconsin, USA: -2 F.

A sure way to make me feel disconnected from mainstream culture is to place me on the Ticketmaster mailing list

Ever since I used Ticketmaster to buy tickets to MoMA back in November, I have been receiving emails with reminders of upcoming events that I may want to attend. I do not think that they especially pair the events with professed interests because thus far I have received a half dozen of such emails and I have never heard of any of the artists announced therein. Today, for instance, I was reminded to purchase my tickets for Toby Keith. Call me a cultural hermit, but I have no idea who he is. A cursory check revealed that he seems to favor cowboy hats. My one certainty is that he does not have art on display at MoMA.

Why not simply remove my address from the email list? For the same reason that I am reluctant to erase myself from any number of lists: WHAT IF I MISS SOMETHING IMPORTANT?

Spying on cabbies

Every time I am in Poland my sister reminds me to be careful when using cabs. Me, I love the Polish cabbies. They talk openly about the politics, about their families, about what’s kickin’ around in the news. This guy took me into the mountains and promised he’d look for me in the woods if I wasn’t back at our appointed hour:

My trusted highlander cabbie who talked even faster than he drove.  Posted by Hello
But my sister is right in nudging me to be a little less trusting. Taxis are plentiful, passengers are not. If a ruthless driver smells cash, he (I’ve never been in a cab with a woman driver in Poland) can be unflinching in giving you the final inflated tally.

The same is true in Prague. BBC reports that the mayor there decided to test the vulnerability of the foreign tourist by disguising himself as an Italian and then hailing a cab:



His masquerade was so successful that he was overcharged by 500% on his first cab-ride.

Not many mayors could pull this off. Imagine our own (I did some crude “Italianizing” of the photo – sorry, my tools are few and my technological acumen is low; luckily the photo, borrowed from daveformadison.com, already had him sporting a pair of goggles):

Can I make an American of Polish descent look Italian? Posted by Hello
But why do this in Madison anyway? Our cab fares are already so inflated that any higher number on the meter would give the rider a heart attack. Mayor Dave can busy himself with more important things, like pushing ahead with the city swimming pool or increasing the number of affordable housing units.

Can I apply for the charge card of the celebrities, where you never have to pay the bill?

Yet another reader wonders why I passed the opportunity to blog about the Trump wedding. Not that Ocean is known for its society-gossip (please, no jokes about how I don’t know one Hollywood personality from another), but there was something especially compelling (therefore bloggable) about the idea of the richest man in the world getting married for free (as you’ll note here, most of the standard wedding expenses were donated, because Trump is so damn rich that he is a desirable candidate for free goods and services, simply for the publicity of it all).

My answer: I do not know sometimes why I do the things I do, nor what propels me to blog about the things I blog about. The Trump wedding would, indeed, seem like a good post candidate, especially since the Trumps are just about neighbors. [Indeed! As I posted earlier, I have a “second residence” this year in New York which happens to be very proximate to such luminaries as the Trumps. That makes them candidates for friendly, neighborly gestures, such as borrowing a cup of sugar from one another, or shoveling each other’s sidewalk. Or am I too *Wisconsin* in my thinking?]

In fairness, it is reported that Trump has refused the generous services of hairstylists, preferring to mess with his own coiffure. Luminaries have no shame.