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Showing posts from July, 2006

Fallujah, Gaza, Tyre

My thoughts circle back to certain moments: waking before dawn in California on successive days and hearing Ivan Watson's reporting on civilian deaths in Tyre ( here and here ), the missile hole burned through the top of a Red Cross ambulance in a newspaper photo glanced at my cafe, the bitter debate and rift at that same cafe between a Polish / Israeli / Jewish-American friend of mine and a progressive Pacifica-listening / Znet-reading friend of mine... and NPR Baghdad reporter Jamie Tarabay's unforgettable and ghastly reporting last weekend about the retrieval of bodies from the Tigris in Iraq. These are potent stories and images and discussions. And before one's thoughts coalesce, before one's convictions harden impressions into conclusions, it seems to me that there's a responsibility simply to witness, on a human level, the bloodshed, the destruction, the loss of life, the disruption that has been visited in the Middle East on all sides these last weeks an

World Cup recap

I made what follows as a comment on Roger Cohen's World Cup blog . (Btw, he quoted me in the New York Times/Herald Tribune the other day...) Yes, there's been a glut of World Cup posts, none of them linking to the good stuff ....but, since this blog is about writing, I thought you might like it: The World Cup Best Place to watch a match: The Red Sea, an East African restaurant in Oakland where the clientele knows how to watch a match on a single television with seventy people packed into a small room. Imo, the acceptance I found there = the true meaning of the World Cup. Best international camraderie: a table of Latinos split between Argentinia and Mexico at the Starry Plough in Berkeley...cheering for either teams' goals. Starkest silence: tie the end of the England/Portugal quarterfinal at the Kezar pub in San Francisco...and the lone person clapping for Italy's third goal against Ukraine at the Red Sea. (My buddy did not realize that Italy was not a "hous

a visit to new york city

I went to visit Columbia U. when I was already 18 years old in the spring of 1987. I'd never been on a plane or taken a subway. I travelled alone. Now, I had taken the Amtrak to Chicago by myself that winter to visit the University of Chicago. And before that, I'd taken the train to Winona Minnesota...just to get away from my home town of St. Paul. (I remember now that I made a bunch of black and white photocopies of Marc Chagall etchings at the Winona public library...an incident...some high school kid from St. Paul making b&w photocopies of art while visiting by train on a day trip...unlikely to have been repeated since.) Since I'd had Guillain-Barré syndrome at an age when most kids learn to drive, I didn't yet have a driver's license. So, those two trips were the total travel "experience" I took with me to New York. My dad, out of the sheer goodness of his heart, had got me a last minute "red eye" flight to NYC when the financial a

awol on Iraq

awol, sometime guest poster here, has an interesting piece up on Iraq . Upon reading the piece it occured to me that we are very nearly arriving at a time when the "justifications" for invading and occupying Iraq...in advance of the invasion, on the fly over these last years and now, retroactively...are all coming together towards the narrative that was inevitable from the very begining. Watch for the Bush Administration and "stay the course" advocates to start talking about the U.S. geostrategic need to occupy Iraq for its oil and the oil in the region. They won't do this explicitly, but we've already begun to hear it in the rhetoric, as an aside. There is talk about how our "allies" rely on the region's energy reserves. There are references to our "geostrategic" interest in Iraq. Blood for oil. It's the only card they have left.

Schubert Arpeggione Sonata

I walked into Amoeba Berkeley one rainy day and asked the guy in Classical if he could recommend some chamber music that would match my rainy mood. He walked straight to the used section and pulled out this CD: Decca Legends, Rostropovich/Britten, Schubert Arpeggione Sonata . I like chamber music. I'm not an afficionado. I just like it. It sounds better on speakers at home. It's rich and warm. It's moody. It's rewarding. The thing I like about this recording is that it's very simple and direct. It's romantic, yes. Schubert is. But both performers...Rostropovich and Britten...fully believe that even the simplest phrase is worth playing well and to its fullest. And, well, the Arpeggione Sonata is full of simple, direct and beautiful phrases. I know I'll sound a fool for saying so...but a bit of cello is almost always the salve for my cosmic wounds. It's just such a wise instrument. At it's highest range, it's still in a register that is

France could have won

I haven't read this point anywhere. So, I'll make it. France could have won. Soccer is played with 11 players, but many a team has made do with less...and won. France had chances to score the length and breadth of the 2nd half and the overtimes. France, with 10 men, after Zidane was sent off, still pushed for a goal. Buffon stopped the Zidane header with aplomb...and, friends, Buffon will rank very high on the list of all-time keepers. That moment was a legend denying a legend...Dr. J blocking a shot by Magic Johnson. It could have gone another way...it didn't. Barthez had always been a potetential weak point. But when it came to PKs...the French side made theirs except for one. That's it. That was the difference. Buffon stopped nothing. Trezeguet hit the cross bar and it failed to spin in. That was it. That determined the outcome of the match. Italy played well enough for it to go to penalties...and the French failed in the box when they had glorious cha

Zidane again

Someone asked me how I can speak for this post...after the final. Here's what I had to say: At this point, reading that post...it's hilarious and clear how I didn't take account of the full reality. Yes, Zidane is both "focused and composed"...but he is also capable of the violence we saw on Sunday. Hell, even his headbutt was focused and composed...which is part of what made it so shocking. I don't think that Zidane's bad behaviour can be written off or written out of the story...it's part of him and part of the history of this World Cup. So, I have two thoughts. First, I think Zidane's performance has always been about controlling that rage and focusing it...in one way or another. It was, most of the time, a beautiful thing to behold. On Sunday, at the end, he failed. The British like to say of football players..."In the end, he got the job done." That was not Zidane in the Final. The same motor that propelled him proved to be his und

Zidane, Zidane, Zidane...ugh...

I thought France played the game they had to play to beat Italy. I was never very optimistic that they would win...but I was thrilled to see how much skill and pluck the French team showed the whole way through...in the second half and into the overtimes, they played like a team that deserved to win...missing only the finish that would bring victory... However, we can't not talk about it...after scoring another great penalty and burning the image, the world over, of an old man young enough to scorch a header on goal...Zinedine Zidane snapped. That head butt was shameful. It was "thought out." It was onscreen when hundreds of millions of kids could watch it. No matter what the Italian said or did, that kind of premeditated foul is...foul. Hell, even, let's say that Materazzi used some truly wicked insult...using violence to respond to that insult only gives power to the insulter, power to the abuser. Clear red card. Moment of extreme drama. For us fans of Zidane

one night in high school

I finagled my way to accompany my girlfriend, her mom and her brother to walk around a Lake late one night in Minneapolis. I was 16. I'm sure there was some "teenage tricky business" that I used on my parents to weasel permission for this adventure. I just don't remember what. At any rate. I remember driving down Lake Street holding hands in the backseat while Connie's mom drove us into Minneapolis. What joy. Holding hands. Surreptitiously. How scandalous and sweaty. I was wearing this green Ford Trucker hat that I'd bought when on vacation with my dad in South Dakota when I was eleven. (The troll who used to lambaste me as a 'trucker hat wearing liberal'...was two decades too late, I guess.) At any rate...we went for a walk around one of the Minneapolis Lakes one summer night. Connie, her mom, her brother Jack, and me. It was a warm night. There were other folks strolling around the Lake. And, for some stupid reason...love, I guess...I

Chapati Kid

Chapati Kid is a blogger in Toronto....I came across this piece on Zidane and then read on in appreciation of his memories of a house in India. Good stuff... Chapati Kid . And if you like Chapati Kid, don't forget to visit Revolution Island . Okay, if sports isn't your ticket, try this one...arts/neighborhood/Brooklyn =... the Williamsburg Nerd . This piece is pretty interesting for what it says about Brooklyn...and where the kids are moving to.

Okay, more Zidane

Zidane is a man of gestures...in fact, he is a master of them...and it is well worth paying attention to the fine points of his conduct. Especially since we've got just one more match to savor his presence. Yes, Zidane was mortal for the match with Portugal. (Of course, most of us would love being called "mortal" after scoring the winning goal in the semis of the World Cup.) I was left with these impressions after the match. First, Zidane's grimacing smile in the Tunnel before the match. Is there anyone who can match this man for focus and composure? Second, his little-remarked-upon open-armed...perhaps religious...gesture to the heavens after his successful Penalty Kick. It was a gesture that was gentle, ancient, quiet. It had an abscence of macho. (Click here and go to image #9...you'll see.) Third, after the match Zidane did not simply trade jerseys with Figo, he donned Figo's sweat soaked jersey. In effect, this gesture said to the world "In th

Bedlam for Soccer Fans: Grosso, Pirlo & Co. go through

Okay. I've mentioned that I've been watching the World Cup matches with friends at the Red Sea cafe in North Oakland. Well, about sixty of us soccer fans got treated to "one of those matches" again today. It wasn't so much that it was a "great match" in the first 90 minutes. It was fantastic soccer, but not great. It wasn't so much, either, that the teams did not engage in bits of strategery and over-dramatic stuff. They did. Hell, when the Italian midfielder Gattusso pretended to "pal" around with his German counterpart Michael Ballack after a collision and then, I'm guessing here, pinch him with his hidden hand...the crowd at the Red Sea murmured with a somewhat disgusted admiration at the ballsiness of the gesture. Here's the thing. World Cup soccer should not be about penalty kicks. The team that wins should be the team that decisively did what was needed to win. Italy in those two overtime periods was that team. (To b

Hidden Connection

guest post by awol "Invading Iraq after September 11th, is like invading Mexico after Pearl Harbor." --Richard Clarke, Meet the Press , Sunday, March 28th, 2004 Let's see. The 9/11 attacks were carried out by Al Qaeda. Saddam Hussein had a primarily hostile relationship to Al Qaeda. The 9/11 attacks were carried out by Shiite fundamentalists. The Sunni Ba'ath party discriminated against Shiites. The 9/11 attacks were co-ordinated by Osama Bin Laden. Hussein and Bin Laden were political rivals. The 9/11 attacks were conducted by ethnically Arabic people. Iraq, save its 20% Kurdish population, is also an ethnically Arabic country. It's amazing how little our political culture -- even the culture of opposition -- really acknowledges this simple, damning truth. At the core of the Iraq war, and the 38,000+ killed in Iraq, is an equation that flows necessarily and bluntly through an inescapably racist logic. (A racist and thus hideously malformed logic). But our cou

Why Gore Should Run?

guest post by awol Reading the Sunday paper today I suddenly had a thought about Al Gore and what is at stake in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections. What's arguably the single most important issue in the presidential election is before us this week but, for various reasons, it is not something emphasized in our political culture. I'm not thinking here of the Iraq war, taxes and the economy, energy policy or the environment but rather the (continued) changing composition of the Supreme Court. The ruling of the SCOTUS in Hamdi v. Rumsfield on the last day of the term's session should not provide any comfort about the long-term direction of the Supreme Court and the still potential implications of this direction. On the contrary. What the Roberts and Alito appointments seem to have done is to have starkly increased the polarization of the court. The essential spectrum on the court now is legible in three different perspectives: four liberal/left members, four conservat

Zidane, Zidane, Zidane

Brazil is out . And Zidane once again has proved he is the giant of the current game. Spinning, cajoling, directing, weaving, observing, striking...Zidane's performance was effortless today. That was one to write up in the history books. Zidane, captain of the French midfield was not simply the best player on the pitch, he proved himself once again to be the player with the deepest understanding of the game. What he lacked in speed and agility...and that's surprisingly little for a 34 year old...he made up for in savvy and wisdom. Zidane knew what it would take, did it, and made it look so simple that one asked oneself...did I just see that? A break around Cafu, a flip over the head of Roberto Carlos, a spin upfield that zig-zagged between two Brazilian defenders who were supposed to be doing that very thing to the old man. Zidane untied the knot of the Brazilian defense with a few quick strokes. When Zidane sent that ball arcing over the Brazilian back line in a huge r