Danger, Danger! High Culture!

The architect Philip Johnson died last week at the skyscraping age of 98. As happens, that for which he was criticized in life, he is feted in death. (See Susan Sontag for same.) Johnson was an aesthetic skank who slutted from Modernism to Post-Modernism and back again. Good for him. Both mods and post-mods tended to be ideologues (see Adolf Loos), and as such, crashing bores too.

Johnson designed the IDS building, the anchor of the Minneapolis skyline. In our old house there I was once small enough to slip through my bedrom window--which opened only halfway, forcing me to inhale sharply as I pushed through in one rib-scraping motion--and crawl out onto the roof. From there I could see the skyline, and the IDS held reign over it. The commanding heights of my imagination.

In this sense the IDS reminds me of the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey, a large opaque slab that draws the awe of those who look at it. And like Johnson, the building too is contradictory. On the one hand it is indeed a dominatrix, on the other it is one of the most humble of the city's skyscrapers. Perhaps it's the noblesse oblige that comes with great power properly understood. The IDS is humble in shape: a simple trapezoidal slab, easy enough for a small boy to draw obsessively in an impasto mash of dark blue crayon.

Which brings us to color. It is a brooding, obsidian shade of blue only occasionally. The fascade is entirely glass which means it reflects its surroundings. On a day of mottled clouds the skyscraper camoflauges itself in cumulonimbus fatigues. Seen while in downtown, the IDS reflects the colors and shapes of its neighbors. It defers to them. It even acts as a mirror to its prima donna co-star, the Wells Fargo building (itself a gorgeous cascade of golden light).

Once when I was twelve and riding into downtown Minneapolis on highway 396 with my grandparents, the IDS seemed to loom so large--larger and yet larger as we approached--that it necessitated comment. And to me specifically, as my IDS fetish is well known in the fam.

"Philip Johnson designed the IDS, Grant." My grandma said.
"I know."
"He's gay, you know." Though I couldn't see her face, she said this as if with an arched eyebrow.
"Mm." The most politic thing I could think to say. Or at least intone.

Speaking of. I hung out with Matt W. tonight. There are many reasons I like hanging out with him, one of them being that for as much as I may feel like a raging queen, my flame always seems to dim when compared to the roman candle of homosexuality that is Matt.

But not this night. We saw the movie A Very Long Engagement. (Incidentally, yes the movie is a very long engagement. Very long, but not long enough.) With absolutely no parking spaces at the megaplex we were forced to park at a nearby Hooters restaurant. I had never seen one up close, so before zeroing in on a space I drove past closely at an idling pace and looked through the windows. So exotic! alien! I felt like Jane Goodall. "Matt, is that wood paneling on the walls?? I love it!" I said. "Yeah but did you see the size of the breasts on the waitress?" Matt gawked.

No! I hadn't! That's right, instead of looking at the hooters of the girl at Hooters, I was checking out the interior design of the restaurant, while Matt was all about the mammaries. For at least a while I was the gayer of the two. That is, until after the movie when Matt said "And what about that little soldier boy in the movie [Gaspard Ulliel]? I'd suck his nose!"

Hail to the Queef

Inauguration Day 2005.

And as hope kindles hope, millions more will find it. By our efforts, we have lit a fire as well as a fire in the minds of men. It warms those who feel its power; it burns those who fight its progress. And one day this untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of our world.
--G.W. Bush, Inaugural Address

When my words were honey,
Flies covered my lips!
--Mahmoud Darweesh

There was very little one could disagree with in the President's Inaugural Address . Rather than that being a sign of good political thought however, it is a sign of its poverty. Just as bad science is unfalsifible, if one can't take issue with the points in a political speech it, it hardly seems to have a point.

Yet it is worse than pointless. With his vaulted language--as if his second term was the second coming of some avenging Messiah of "freedom"--the President has raised expectations so high that the reality will never be able to match them. Without a substaintial volte-face change in U.S. foreign policy, the President's crusade on behalf of "democracy" will become a crusade on behalf of hypocrisy. But no such change will be forthcoming.

The reality of world politics--and nonnegotiable U.S. national interest--will make hypocrites out of all of us. George W sees this "War On Terror" as a war for freedom, of course, but essential to prosecuting this war are alliances with, and aid to illiberal regimes (to put it euphamistically) in Pakistan, Egypt, Uzbekistan, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. Indeed the President's aides, as well as his own father, have said that this speech marks no real change in U.S. policy. Given the soaring altitude of the President's rhetoric and the reality of how little actual policy will fundamentally change, the U.S. can only lose additional international crediblity, while charges of hypocrisy will resonate--whether they deserve to or not--all the more. Flies will cover our lips.

The All Singing, All Dancing, All-cohol Blog

Not that I have been doing too much singing or dancing. Anita Ekberg, in La Dolce Vita, splashing in the Trevi Fountain did enough of that, and so well that I have been deterred. If I were drunk and an American in early post-war Europe, sure I would. But I am an American in post-post-post-war America, so as it stands I am lying in a fetal position. Such is The State I Am In.

I've been drinking gin and juice from a teacup. Um, times five or six. Better I do that here, alone, than in public. A bit too precious even for a party affectation.

S'my right though, to overindulge in both alcohol and ironic use of chinaware. It's there in the Fourth Geneva Convention, Section III, concerning the rights of those living under an occupying power. That's what America is these days,right? An occupying power? Mm, I like how when the right gets hysterical, the left thinks it's cool to act hyperbolic as well.

One gets the television one deserves at 3:30 am. The viewership is small enough that you can take the programming and targeted advertisements personally. These people know their demographics. Evidentally I need to wrest my abs from a winter's coat of averdupois, ask my doctor about getting my diabetic supplies from Liberty Medical, and invest in a Hoveround. Anything's possible with a Hoveround! I am told. That will be my acceptance speech when I use the little joystick to wheel my way up to the podium in Stockholm to accept my Nobel Prize in Advanced Theoretical Banality. "Anything's possible with a Hoveround!"

My head feels like the discharge from a near-empty can of aerosol. Which is the same way I would describe the tone of voice of that breathless, gee-whiz eschatologist Rexella Van Impe, currently on the tiv. "Oh my, Jack! What exciting times we are living in!" Last week they said the prophecy of the book of Revelation was at hand with Luxembourg's assumption of the EU presidency. The end is nigh indeed.

Funny, I don't think I am going to feel hungover. That's probably because I've done most of my barfing here into this blog. Le sigh. Time for me to stop playing the absinthe-minded professor.

Kinky Bastards at New Learning Media, LLC

I had to take an on-line sexual harassment test today for work. Some people bemoan our paranoid, politically-correct, litigation-addled, vicitimization culture. Not me. It makes life interesting, doesn't it? E.g. the fact that I took an on-line sexual harassment test today for work.

Preventing Sexual Harassment it was called. Copyright 2004 New Learning Media, LLC! Yes, the emphasis was on prevention, sigh.

The first part of the training module was educational, with lots of background information. This, I suspect, is the first step in preventing sexual harassment: freighting the idea of sex harrassment with so many definitions and prolix footnote-studded paragraphs that any of its imagined piquancy becomes lost. By the end of this portion of the program I would need to memorize the controlling opinion in the case of Faragher vs. Boca Raton (1998) in order to even attempt to sexually harass someone.

Sexual harasment was made against the law by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and is defined as "unwelcome sexual advances" that has at least one of two effects: either the creation of a quid pro quo [hereinafter known as 'a little sumpin sumpin for a little sumpin sumpin'], or the creation of a 'hostile work environment.'

Say, it's stuck with me. I guess the people at New Media Learning are pretty good at this pedagogy shit.

After being given sufficient background information and definitions to bold-face words, the program proceded to the test itself. This consisted of twenty or so scenarios where the test taker is tasked with deciding whether an instance of sexual harassment existed in each. A) Yes, B) No, C) Somewhere in between.

Invariably, A) was the answer. The test made it seem as though harassment was so pervasive that only through hyperawareness and immaculate mental hygine could it be avoided. The message was that if there was ever a moment of social awkwardness in the office, either you were just sexually harassed, or someone just sexually harassed you. Refill the toner? That's disgusting.

Most amusing though were the pictures that accompanied the individual questions. These pictures too were designed to act as some sort of deterrent against harassment, with both harasser and harassee so homely--ugly as if on principle--that the displayed harassment lent itself more to a shudder than frisson. Sidney Greenstreet pulls off five pounds of flesh from the doughy Midwestern bundt cake of an ass that happens to be in front of him. And same sex harassment too! The litigation that dare not speak its name! A man from the Johnson administration (skinny tie, Robert MacNamara thinning, combed back hair) corners against the watercooler a man from the Carter administration (fat tie, fat hair, a general look of malaise about him, 'lusting in his heart' to be out of his current predicament).

A score of 75% or less on the test would have consequences for one's employment. I would have thought that a score of 75% or less would have consequences for one's respitory and pulmonary function. My score of 100% merely denoted my sentience as a living being.

Perhaps a powerfully lame living being. Should it really have been so intuitive? Here's hoping the theory is more black and white than the practice. I mean if I have to go down for something, it might as well be for going down on...I'll stop right there. Double entendre interruptus.

God is a Pre-Op Tranny

I cashed out all the karma and good-will-toward-men I've got coming to me in 2005, and on the first day of the year.

Mac and I were on the stalk for some falafel in the East Village, close to his place. When I patted myself down--as I am wont to do--I noticed my flat front pants were flatter in the front than usual. No wallet in the pockets. Nor in my jacket, though keys, change, gum and cell were all accounted for. We retraced our steps, which turned into long, bounding strides. Still, no wallet.

Well, that's that, I thought. Because I still had my debit card and some cash (which I carry on me, away from my wallet for this very reason) I figured at least some damage had been contained. Credit cards could be canceled in minutes. And the lost money could be thought of as a moron tax which I deserved to pay, since I was pretty sure my wallet had fallen out of an open pocket along with my phone when it had fallen out earlier. All of this I could resign myself to, but with an early morning flight to Detroit the next day I absolutely needed my photo ID.

In the wallet, naturellement.

That being that indeed, Mac continued questing after Middle Eastern food. I went back to the apartment just in case the wallet was there after all. It wasn't. Two friends helped me resume the futile search. On a crowded Manhattan street, once out of my pocket, that wallet was gone. It probably never even hit the ground.

Still, there were motions to go through. Reality to avoid. My eyes were cast downward, but not out of any hope of finding the wallet; I wasn't really looking at anything. As the three of us made our way down the narrow sidewalk, a transvestite made eye contact with me.

"What's your name?" (S)he asked.

My friend put his shoulder between us, in a gentle attempt to prevent the tranny's attempted pick-up. This, in a moment of raw vulernability. But I answered anyways. "Grant."

Oh, my name was my shame! Saying it out loud sounded like an indictment. "Grant" as in "(comma) the idiot who lost his wallet on New Year's day and missed his flight home, remember him?"

But the transvestite persisted. "Did you lose this?"

She refused my offers of money as a reward. In the face the transcendent beauty of her act money did seem garish. "No, no" she said "I'm a good person."

Money? That's nothing. I would have done anything .

She slipped into a cab while the three of us reeled from such a flaming display of integrity. By the time we came across her, at least ten if not fifteen minutes had passed. And yet she remained there--exactly where I was sure the wallet had fallen out--until she could bring grace to some out-of-state 'mo.

At that moment, God was a pre-op tranny in the East Village.