Is Ocean joining the ranks of Very Strange Blogs?

I noticed that the side bar with a blogroll is up and running! But….are you saying that the only blog you read is that of Bozzo?
What makes you think that?

Take a look: it’s all about Bozzo
Bozzo rules. Actually I should go ahead and change that. Bozzo & Lee rule.

Who is Lee?
Lee is in on the partnership. You know: There are two Bozzos and then two Lees in the household.

I see. How delicate.
No, you don’t understand. It’s all one family and always has been. And they rule.

Obviously they rule your blog. Again, have you looked at your sidebar lately?
Looked at it! I created it! Actually, big Bozzo created it. Hence this moment of Bozzo stardom. The blogroll is all about Bozzo. At least for the next hour or so.

Big Bozzo. Suddenly you’re writing about size. So…crude.
My eating companions tonight included a big Bozzo and a little Bozzo. And a Lee. Look – the last time I had such a roll of bad days (weeks? months?) was decades ago where I said to those within spittin’ distance (that would be my immediate family): get me out of this funk! I need to go to Canada! They knew not to tinker with that one. We went to Canada. But times have changed. Everyone’s going to Canada these (post election) days. It doesn’t provide the exotic relief it once did. All is not lost, however. So long as I have advice from afar (thank you), a reader for my text (thank you) and Bozzo, Bozzo, Lee and Lee cooking me up spaghetti and meatballs, I’ll be okay. Here, before I get to work on my Bozzo sidebar (by tomorrow, this post will totally not make sense, as all but one of the Bozzos will be erased), admire the photo of one of my Bozzo hosts for the evening:

my dinner host let me know: utensils are passé.
 

March came in demonstrating that if things are rocky rocky at the outset, they can get even worse!

I would be remiss not to blog about the 11th hour today (it is the one that immediately follows my teaching). It could be that, if I spent a day at a spa doing total body relaxation, I may let my mind reach for memories of worse work hours, but I would be hard pressed to do so.

Hard pressed, Exactly. I would say that this hour, and therefore this day could provide nice competition in terms of evil and torture with what once was endured by a person locked in the Maiden of Nuremburg, an ancient contraption looking, to the best of my web searching efforts, something like this:


Oh, not threatening enough? The Maiden of Nuremburg is described thus (and please read it carefully because the highlighted by me phrases quite nicely replicate my 11th hour of today):

This instrument has four main features, whose wickedness … deserve to be analyzed. The inside of the sarcophagus was fitted with spikes designed to pierce different parts of the body, but miss the vital organs, so that the victim was kept alive, in an upright position. Its second feature is that the victims were kept in an extremely confined space to increase their suffering.Its third feature was that the device could be opened and closed without letting the victim, who had been pierced from the front and the back, get away. Its fourth feature was that the container was so thick that no shrieks and moaning could be heard from outside unless the doors were opened. When the sarcophagus doors were shut again, the spikes pierced exactly the same parts of the body as before, and thus no relief was ever possible.

Spiky wickedness, with targeted suffering, no chance of getting away, no relief in sight. Exactly!

Where Ocean strives to encourage feelings of empathy among those living south of us:

March 1st:

Temp outside: 15 degrees F
Windchill: something like 5 degrees F
Snowcover: more than it was on the day I decided to forego shoveling thinking it would all melt before my eyes imminently.

I am sitting at a table, reading my text, waiting for the tires to be fixed…

…and I notice he is back. Have you ever seen him? He comes to the Borders Café with his computer. He gets a drink. He goes to the newspaper shelves and picks out a few fat papers from all over the country. He takes these to his table and he reads them. Then he folds them up (more or less) and proceeds to do his computer stuff. Hours later he throws the papers over to the bench, packs up and leaves.

I cannot stare him down into shame. And it really is none of my business. Borders can afford the loss of a paper or two. People (myself included) leaf through books. Why not newspapers?

Because what small pleasure remains in the reading of a paper is in the freshness of it, the smell, the neatly folded sections, corners uncurled. And he ruins it for the next person. Oblivious. It bothers me that he is so oblivious to it all.

In defense of good counting skills

Ann writes this in support of her position that Chris Rock inappropriately brought anti-Bush material to the Oscar podium last night and alienated with it a great number of viewers (bold emphasis is my own):

Actually, I think the people who voted for Kerry should be worried. But they'll have to get past their in-group enjoyment of themselves and their own imagined superiority and get some concept of how the people who didn't vote for Kerry -- AKA the majority -- respond to this sort of display.

True, the majority of the viewing public did not vote for Kerry. But nor did they vote for Bush. The crude statistics told us that 60% of eligible voters cast a vote in November. Of those, 51% voted for Bush (CNN). That would put a generous bid of 60,608,582 who may have been offended.

But wait. Current support for Bush in this country is a more relevant marker of audience disenchantment with the jokes. According to a 1/05 NYT/CBS poll , 56% say things are worse now than five years ago. Let’s give the benefit of the doubt to Ann and agree that those who believe things are the same or better might be offended. That would be 44% of the viewing American audience. So perhaps it is more accurate to say that maximally, 19,140,000 were offended (based on New Yorker stats that about 43.5 million Americans, or about 15% watch the Oscars).

Assuming that none of them had a sense of humor. Because I, for example, would have laughed at a good anti-Kerry joke last night if Kerry had been our president. I would have been so tickled at having him there that I would not have cared that Chris Rock compared him to a clerk in Gap pretending that Banana Republic had tanktops. I’d say a whooping ha ha to that! So let’s reduce the numbers by a bit – Bush supporters at this point are a somber lot so assume that only 10% can be discounted for having a sense of humor. So, we are now at 17,226,000 of Americans watching offended.

Still more: what of the rest of the world? Assume none of them cared about the budget deficit joke, so all offense has to be taken with respect to the anti- Banana Republic (targeting the war, but with no countries mentioned) humor campaign. Assume that only a percentage of the audience, perhaps corresponding to the Coalition of the Willing would take offense (though I have to say, anti-Bush sentiments are growing even in Poland these days). But I think I can safely say that the international Oscar audience does not consist of many from the Coalition of the Willing. Why? Because 1. the vast majority does not have cable access and therefore does not carry the Oscars (see New Yorker article for more accurate analysis of this) and 2. Just about every one of them do not have a Gap, nor a Banana Republic and so that what meager audience is generated from Bush-supporting (Coalition) countries, it will not get the joke, thus being spared the offense (honestly, you cannot be offended if you do not get the joke). I think that just about leaves all foreign audience (the distributors of the show put it at “several hundred” million in the international category) unoffended. Conservatively, that’s 200,000,ooo unoffended on both sides of the ocean and north and south of our borders. Okay, I’ll generously throw in 5,000,000 offended just to show I am not skewing the numbers here.

So, Ann, out of a conservative audience of 243,500,000 (international + national), 22,226,000 (17,226,000 offended American viewers and 5,000,000 generously granted international offended viewers), or fewer than 11 % may have been offended. A humoirist takes his/her chances. These are pretty good stats in favor of the joke, in my opinion.

Blame it on your agent. Or maybe your lawyer?

Thanks to jwz for the link to the other awards: the Razzies (given by the Golden Raspberry Award Foundation on the night before the Oscars), where Halle Berry was named worst actress of the year for her appearance in Catwoman.

Showing up for the award, she offered this:

"I want to thank Warner Brothers for casting me in this piece of shit," she said as she dragged her agent on stage and warned him "next time read the script first."

Other winners: George W. Bush picked up a Razzie as worst actor of the year for his performance as president in Fahrenheit 9/11. I'm not sure who accepted the award on his behalf (given his need for a rest after his travels to Europe last week, I'm certain he had to send his personal regrets).

Good Monday morning to you, too

Starting the day with two flat tires is a good indication of where this week is heading.

What will you say when the clock is ticking and you have only ten seconds of breath left?

If you are Hillary Swank (on stage at the Oscars and the trumpets are sounding), you’ll say --- wait! wait! I have been saving Clint Eastwood for last, don’t cut me off. Oh, but let me just say this: I want to thank the lawyers...

You're welcome.

Surviving, though not thriving...

A little one said this once and I drag it out on evenings like this one. I will be glad when the Oscars are over. Blogging about them proved impossible for a million reasons. This is as simul- as I get tonight.

To a better week!

This place is littered with good souls

A trashy day (weekend? winter?) made better by people sitting behind computer screens – you know who you are! But so that this does not become an inside story, let me acknowledge some of you in turn. Thank you so much for these messages today:

[On the subject of the Oscars, in response to this, from me: I am, however, dragging these days and so I'm guessing that I'll be reluctant to leave the house, let alone the neighborhood:] You should do whatever you prefer, whatever is more comfortable or fun…

[In response to my tattoo idea:] Anyway, if you weren't exaggerating for comic effect, I'd probably be compelled to drive over there and throw myself under the wheels of your van until the impulse passed.

[In response to my threat to come visit a certain blogger couple living in the Polish highlands this May and blog away from their family b&b:] Na pewno cos wykombinujemy. W najgorszym wypadku w moim starym pokoiku mozna sie podlaczyc do gniazdka przez modem. Czekamy na dalsze wiesci.

[And finally, the succinctly perfect one, in response to my own email saying this: I'm still up for a walk, but you may change your mind after you hear that I am not a little sullen all week-end, make that all week, make that all month:] I still want to go. Sullen's alright.

In answer to the emails that ensued, after my tossed around idea about a tattoo (see post below):

Here’s why it wont happen: I would never be able to decide what piece of “art” I would not regret carrying with me for the rest of my life. Surely the choices are limited and snakes and dragons and astrological signs just do not do it for me. Now, if there was a Monet water lily, I may cave, but unless they got the colors precisely right, I’m afraid it’s a no go. If I am fussy about getting a blogroll set up exactly right, you can well imagine that I would be fussy about the creamy yellow tones to the petals of that lily. Body part hosting the tattoo? That’s easy: something perpetually covered up. Back of an earlobe maybe?

The one flower I would never get tired of: 

Promises, promises…

Okay, blogroll is in production but production has been stalled for reasons having to do with the technical incompetence of the production team (me). I will prevail. I WILL PREVAIL, but the project is on hold until I bribe someone to help me do this in the complicated way I want to do it. Ocean is fussy. It has to look minimalist and cool. Your patience is deeply appreciated.

[You can laugh at me behind my back if it makes you feel better.]

On this day, I should do something significant, like announce a major move or go get a tattoo or roll in the snow in my pajamas at midnight

Oscar night. So many things to so many people. I dare say, no one could treat this event more seriously than I do. It’s not the awards per se, it’s the evening of watching them being handed out, like gifts bestowed to nobility, jewels and crowns and promises of undying loyalty.

If life is one capricious frolic and tumble, then mine certainly can be said to have been given a jumpstart the day that Rocky walked off with the Best Picture/Director award and Faye Dunaway and Peter Finch hauled it in for their acting in Network.

It was the year of Great Changes for me and each Oscar night is a reminder of that, a celebration of sorts, except each year, it is a quieter celebration.

And finally comes 2005 – the quietest of them all. Tonight, I’m staying home. I would love to spend the evening with my friend and her son – they are as knowledgeable about the industry as people who were in the room with me watching back in 1976. They will open the door for me gladly, they’ll even let me watch and write, too. Or, I could simply go across the street to my sweet sweet neighbors who are also movie nuts, in addition to having hearts of marzipan and dark chocolate and gold.

I wont do either. It’s one of those things. It’s my time to descend into quietness.

Or, I may get a tattoo. Body piercing is out of the question and the snow looks solidly iced-over. A move? I could, I suppose, conjure up an announcement of a major move, without necessarily committing to a physical relocation. Day is young. Possibilities are numerous.

What can you say about an ostensibly close to you person who tells you the following on the phone?

You are home on a Saturday evening?
Yes, I have some writing to do. You know, work stuff.

You work at home??
Yes, I very often work at home.

Really? Like what kind of work?
[I pause and cosider the very real possibility that this person doesn't actually know what my job is.] Work work.

I’m surprised. Anyway, I just talked to [a young person, known to the two of us; in fact, a relative].
And?

I enjoyed it. Unlike [a not too oblique reference to two grown women residing an ocean apart], he actually listens to me, is interested in what I have to say.

I mean, it’s a conversation stopper, isn’t it? Not to mention that I distinctly remember having like a ten hour spell of listening just a few days back.

More on tracking the size of an audience

Just remember, when they say tomorrow that more than a billion are watching the Oscars, it's not really true.

A post where Ocean takes on both the mysteries of the universe and jokes about garlic breath

As the health of the Pope makes headlines on an almost daily basis, stories about religion and Catholicism are trickling into blogs and bookstore lines.

For example, this Thursday I was standing in line at the University Bookstore downtown and a man was telling a quite funny joke about a Pope who needed a heart transplant (it’s about feathers and unwilling donors and garlic breath in Italy; really a nice little chuckle). A small group gathered and we had ourselves an impromptu discussion as to how Pontiffs get elected. I’d forgotten how long it’s been since there has been a change in the Vatican. Most students weren’t even born at the time of the last Papal inauguration (1978).

In the meantime, matchingtracksuits is posting about how difficult it is to admit to atheism in Poland (citing my comment on that blog about there being no reward for keeping an open mind to possibility of an absence of a God). I’d always felt that a lack of tolerance toward atheism should be especially pronounced in deeply Catholic countries. But is that really true? It is an accepted truth that an atheist would have no chance at political success in the States. The same cannot be said for Poland. Moreover, as matchingtracksuits points out, a Pole’s response to atheism is typically one of pity (“I cannot imagine living without God”). In the States, I think it breeds distrust (“So what else don’t you believe in? Democracy? Freedom? The American Way?”).

On the other hand, no one standing in a line in Poland would have thought the joke about a Pope’s heart transplant was funny. Rather than lingering, I would have looked for the nearest exit. It’s not safe to be in the midst of an angry mob.

Rolling around the blog, linking games and traffic updates

At the Wednesday blogger dinner, Bozzo and Oscar* cooked up a linking game, whereby they increase the number of links to each other, so that their blogs reach an elevated status in the ecosystem rankings, where such things count.

But count for what? If you reach a higher level for a day, for a week, forever, as a result of machinations and manipulations, what have you actually demonstrated except that your game was a success (which we already know will be the case)?

Again, the question has been raised as to why numbers – of links and readers – do not fascinate me as much. And it really is quite simple. Once I knew I had readers (and I do know, from emails that people write, which I absolutely treasure) I felt that I have an obligation to write for them, these real people who are already connected to me. Who cares if there are 100 or 500? What possible difference does it make?

Much as I like fashioning my own rules and sticking to my own way of doing things on Ocean, I will, however, give in to one recurring request: that I list the blogs I read on a regular basis. That will be my project for this week-end. And I want it to be an inclusive list, so if you have included Ocean on your blogroll and want to be mentioned here, please send me an email. Since I am not a checker, chances are I do not know about Ocean’s appearance elsewhere, if indeed it does appear elsewhere.

*Why am I on a first name basis with Oscar but not Bozzo in my references to them here? Because tradition has it that we’ve used last names in posting about blogger dinner attendees. Oscar muddled things up by giving himself the last name of Madison. It is too odd to refer to him as Madison. It’s as if I am writing about my home town. Thus – he shall be Oscar, while the rest of us will suffer away with our authentically honest last names.

Lattes and juniper berries

Some days are out of control. We all have them. They begin early, finish late, and you wonder what it is that took up all of that middle part.

I happen to (sometimes) capture the essence of things by having my trusty non-rusty camera throughout. This is what I came up with: