Civilization and its Discothèques

Thank Hitchens

2011-12-16T03:15:00.000-05:00

If it weren't for Christopher Hitchens I wouldn't be here. I don't mean this in any metaphysical sense, but quite literally: I wouldn't be sitting in this seat, at my folding card-table, with a glass of retsina and a cigar, unable to sleep, in front of a word processor writing. Hitchens deserves almost all of the credit for my own intellectual awakening about ten years ago, and my subsequent

Sluts on Parade: The Importance of Being Dressed

2011-06-24T21:16:00.005-04:00

Edit: I'm adding the following link to a good round-up of the feminist arguments against SlutWalk. I agree with a majority of the points, although the authors are undoubtedly on various other points on the political spectrum. Although I'm not particularly convinced that we live in a culture which actually encourages rape. While women are continually objectified in our society, I resent the

Death of a Tyrant

2011-05-05T21:39:00.002-04:00

Epitaph on a Tyrant by W. H. Auden Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after, And the poetry he invented was easy to understand; He knew human folly like the back of his hand, And was greatly interested in armies and fleets; When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter, And when he cried the little children died in the streets. Once again, people who look to poetry for

My Valentines Day falling in love at the library's rare book and manuscript room.

2011-02-14T20:36:00.000-05:00

I have a not-so-secret fetish: archives. To be sure, libraries in general are intensely erotic places: the quiet, the rows of books on shelves standing silently like accidental arcades, the feeling of being surrounded by thinking people, each entirely alone in her own thoughts. Topped off with the recent addition of timed lights in the stacks, meant to conserve energy but also encouraging a

A Defense of the Amazon Kindle

2011-01-26T14:31:00.000-05:00

I'm often asked about my Amazon Kindle. When my friends ask me it's because they know I'm a compulsive reader (I try to swallow down at least 4 books a week.) If strangers on the subway ask me it's because they don't care about interrupting me while I read to satisfy their curiosity. Still, I don't really mind. But so many people ask me about it that I thought I'd go ahead and give it a review

Uganda 3

2010-12-19T18:37:00.001-05:00

I've written before about how superstitious India is (...a thousand gods look on and do nothing) but Africa is serious (and probably more dangerous) competition. Witchcraft is widely believed in, with women and children often taking the brunt of the reprisals. The punishments can be almost unbelievably inhumane. For example, one popular method of exorcism (execution, rather,) involves injecting

Uganda 2

2010-12-12T14:04:00.000-05:00

We arrived at Mwenge Tea Estate, near Fort Portal in Western Uganda, in time for a late lunch. My aunt A--- who I hadn't seen for more than ten years, greeted us with hugs and kisses at the door. My uncle B--- was off touring a different estate and wouldn't be joining us until the following day. So we spent the afternoon eating and settling in, and the evening drinking Scotch and smoking Cuban

Uganda 1

2010-12-04T17:44:00.002-05:00

My plane from Dubai had a brief stopover in Addis Ababa airport in Ethiopia before continuing on to Uganda. Ethiopia is rather famous for Emperor Haille Selassie, but one of the many things I learned from the brilliant British television show QI is a story about Selassie's predecessor. He was entertaining a European visitor and he showed him the gallows where prisoners were hung. The visitor,

Garfield Mailed me to Abu Dhabi

2010-11-30T07:48:00.002-05:00

Do you remember when Garfield would threaten to mail Nermil to Abu Dhabi? These days I imagine Nermil would be happy to go to the glittering capital of the United Arab Emirates. My plane flew into Dubai airport very late at night and I had a two hour taxi ride to Abu Dhabi to look forward to. The ride was lovely and peaceful. After a quick zip through the city, where I got to see a few glimpses

Ciao Italia

2010-11-30T07:45:00.000-05:00

Touchboy and I took the train from Nice to Genoa. Actually, travelling by train from Nice to Italy was more complex than we'd expected. First, we had to stop for a little while in Ventimiglia Stazione. We disembarked and, with a few minutes to kill, headed to the rest area. Ventimiglia is a small station, but is apparently a large hub for transfers. Knowing that, we expected there to be a place

Nice is Nice (Except for the Groupies)

2010-11-22T15:46:00.000-05:00

Touchboy and I had bought rail passes. It would have been cheaper for us to buy plane tickets, but this would save us the trouble of getting to airports, going through security, and ruining the crease of my pants in too-small seats. One of the unexplained advantages of the rail pass we'd bought was that we were entitled to reserve first class seats. In fact, we weren't allowed to reserve anything

Halloween in Berlin

2010-11-18T10:58:00.002-05:00

Berlin is probably the hippest city on the planet. It's almost like all the actually cool people that used to live in New York coordinated some secret exodus to Deutschmark. Although I have a sneaking suspicion that if I spent too long there I'd end up feeling just as antipathetic toward the city as I do to Brooklyn. Still, Touchboy and I turned up with a sense of reverence to what is, after all,

Au Revoir, Auf Wiedersehn, Ciao, Toodle Pip, Arrividerci, Goodbye Europe

2010-11-09T17:01:00.002-05:00

I know I haven't written about Berlin, Nice, Rome or Venice yet, but the time is right for this. I'm writing this in a Cafe in Florence on the day before I leave for Abu Dhabi. I've spent the past three months or so in Europe, mainly in London working on my first book, but also throughout the continent visiting friends and playing shows in Amsterdam, Utrecht, Paris, Austria, Berlin, Nice, Rome,

The First Shave is the Deepest

2010-11-08T19:38:00.000-05:00

Here is yet another break in the chronology of my travels. I have decided that the time has come to confess one of my great loves and sing its praises I am speaking, of course, of shaving. We men (well, some of us, at any rate) are fortunate enough to grow hair on our faces. Some, like me, grow hair so rapidly that we can rapidly change our beard-and-moustache combinations like one of those

"Goodnight Vienna..."

2010-11-08T15:44:00.000-05:00

"...you city of a million something or others..." --Hugh Laurie as Bertie Wooster I took another incredibly short flight, this time from Paris to Vienna. When I arrived at the airport, Mr. W---, who had organized my and Touchboy's concert in Vienna was there to pick me up. He drove me along the Danube into town in a car he'd borrowed from a friend, chain-smoking out of the

Up and Down in London and Paris

2010-11-06T20:36:00.000-04:00

My last night in London was an emotional one. London is my favorite city and in the two months I spent there I made several friends who I hope to know and keep in touch with for the rest of my life. I played a concert with some of my Chip Music comrades – everyone played their best, the room was packed, and the crowd was responsive and inspiring. The night ended with me walking to the train with

Schipol Smoke

2010-11-04T07:17:00.000-04:00

If you ever want to convince someone not to smoke cigarettes then I'd recommend taking a seat opposite the smoking lounge in the bar of Amsterdam's Schipol Airport. I sat there waiting for my return flight to London and indulging in a glass of Westmalle Trappist beer. I probably occupied the seat for an hour and I soon abandoned my book to watch the spectacle of smokers. On the automatic

Utrecht Rock City

2010-11-02T18:00:00.000-04:00

This story, like many of the best ones, begins with a hangover. Well, speaking strictly chronologically it ends with a hangover, but for the sake of variety I'm telling you that I had a hangover which felt like a small horse with epilepsy, poor coordination and golf cleats was dancing on my prefrontal cortex eliminating his waste into my digestive system. Now I get to tell you how this happened.

Am-Dam

2010-10-27T12:47:00.004-04:00

I spent a week in Amsterdam. I'd been there once before, but it was only for two days and I was on a high school trip, so I didn't get to see much apart from some paintings, Anne Frank's house, and ladies in windows. This time I was going to stay with my friend Miss J---, a philosophy student who I met several years ago at a conference on secularism. I arrived in Amsterdam after the shortest

Eurostar – Across the Channel; Chanel in the air and on my mind.

2010-10-25T06:51:00.000-04:00

People like coincidences. Some people find the hand of fate in them, or assign superstitious significance to them. Our minds seem to seek them out – think of a number and you're more likely to notice it when it happens to crop up. This is a break from the chronology of my trip. Yesterday I took the Eurostar from London to Paris. I always prefer train travel to air travel. Trains are civilized,

Circuses, Mazes, Trees, and Wool (Part 2 - Mazes/Trees)

2010-10-20T12:38:00.005-04:00

After a full Saturday devoted to circus-recovery (which actually involved playing a gig in Shoreditch and drinking more,) I was ready for a relaxing Sunday. Earlier in the week, in the upstairs wood-panelled room in a pub in central London, I had attended The New Sheridan Club's monthly meeting with my friends Miss E-- and Miss A-- We drank beer surrounded by men young and old in various

Natty/Touchboy Split Album

2010-10-17T13:08:00.003-04:00

In 2010, Natty and Touchboy set out on their first musical excursion to Europe. Releasing this collection is an important part of that tour. Natty and Touchboy have both given away music for free in the past and will continue to do so in the future, but selling this collection will help them recoup some of the cost of a largely self-funded tour. The collection features over an hour and a half of

Circuses, mazes, trees, and wool. (Part 1: Circuses)

2010-10-11T13:04:00.000-04:00

It was only on Friday evening half an hour before doors opened that I realized my bottle-green Tonik jacket with high-cuffed skinny Levis, burgundy tie, red spots, and reverse black-and-white checked silk pocket square just wasn't going to be enough. So I ran out, bought a tub of mascara, and ended up somewhere comfortably between A Clockwork Orange and a young Elizabeth Taylor. I donned my

English

2010-09-08T06:37:00.000-04:00

"Alright?" This is the inquisitive English greeting of our day - their version of the American "What's up?" Sometimes it is followed by the word "mate," and sometimes it is preceded by a pleghmy Y-apostrophe combination signifying something akin to "are you." Needless to say, this single-word question can be difficult for an American to get the hang of answering. Most probably it is meant to be

Work Begins

2010-09-02T10:15:00.001-04:00

I'm sitting in the Humanities 1 Reading Room at the British Library. Yesterday I came here and finished a successful application for a reader's card. Unlike the private corners and cubby-holes of American libraries, the reading rooms here are vast, with slanted and layered walls like the imagined interior of a ziggurat. The rooms are filled with people, sitting at long tables and facing one