west north

“Maybe Americans should be paid consumers.” Walter Kirn

Perhaps this “singing scoopers” thing needs to be reevaluated: I headed to a local Ben & Jerry’s to get a cone, only faintly realizing something was amiss. Once inside, I shared the space with a very confused tourist family, a few panhandlers asking for ice cream, and… two dozen voices packed behind the counter — the cast of “The Lion King,” playing down the street — who broke into “The Circle of Life” at top volume, including clapping, and at very close range. One singer managed, somehow, to take my order, and I escaped largely unharmed.

Found on the sidewalk outside: shards of glass, from a bottle of South Australian shiraz. I’m not sure whether this beats the Frappuccino bottle or the discarded Ann Taylor suit.

Overheard, as maybe a dozen men left a packed elevator: “whew, that was hot in there.”

“Governments cannot behave in a trigger-happy manner. Governments have to think and then decide.” Hamid Karzai

8 May 2003
“Many heterosexuals simply don’t believe that gay people are like them, that our sexual orientation is as deep, as natural, as involuntary and as profound as their own.” Andrew Sullivan

27 May 2003
Spotted last week in front of my apartment: a woman (Trixie-ish) walking her dog by SUV. She double parked, carried the dog to the sidewalk and gave it a go, then slowly drove alongside the curb behind the dog.
Finally, I’ve found a ministry I can believe in.

12 May 2003
CWRU budgeted $28M for the Lewis Center, spent $62M, and ended up with, hm, something kind of, ah, insecure.

10 May 2003
Who in the military-industrial complex has seen my Book of Virtues?

5 May 2003
Those evil but influential right-winger Straussians from the U of C apparently do breed, if this family tree is to be believed.

3 May 2003
Time for more big dreams: e-commerce logistics systems are still gelling. Maybe there’s still time to make it work for the environment.

2 May 2003
Now anyone can be Superman and fly through New York’s urban canyons. Well, virtually, at least.

1 May 2003
Re-ordered the stuff to the left to better reflect what I’m doing. A day of firsts: first croissant from Half & Half (Kaleidescope’s replacement), first cuppa coffee at Intelligentsia, first visit to the new gym, first wacky street theater in a while.

27 April 2003
So I’m sitting by my window, reading quietly, when someone on a motorcycle outside decides to rev up a loud (unmuffled) engine. The vibrations from that set off a car alarm. And now I’m pissed. Damn rude noise polluters!

25 April 2003
The renovation of the North Avenue Baths really is quite nice, but not all historic buildings have a ready market of $2,000-a-month rentals and James Beard Foundation-honored restaurants, or zoning that wouldn’t allow more floor area (and thus makes a teardown silly).

24 April 2003
More ZTEC press in the Reader: [photo of me!] [article text coming soon]

23 April 2003
“Neighborhood collective efficacy,” or social capital, doesn’t just make for friendlier, more sustainable places, but also stops juvenile delinquency.

22 April 2003
Aerial photographer Alex MacLean has an almost definitive answer to the eternal question: what does density look like? Well, here’s low and here’s high.

21 April 2003
“Like ugly clothes and extreme sports, Pabst [Blue Ribbon]’s value lies in its expression of individuality and choice, a rejection of consumer society by those who feel manipulated by it… While most young consumers buy clothes and cars to make themselves seem as affluent and desirable as possible, the materialism of many of today’s counterculture youth is just the opposite. It is meant to reflect the economics of “reality,” of working-class thriftiness, of the notion of America at its best, at its most optimistic, at its blue-collar prime. Of course, this is not America. This is Americana — and an appetite for what was good when things are going bad.” As poetic a description of hipsters’ attempts to overcome pomo ennui with false nostalgia as any, from the Washington Post.

20 April 2003
Perhaps hope does spring eternal: “That grown men and women can make a living pondering such matters [in this case, topology] is a sign that civilization, as fragile as it may sometimes seem, remains intact.” NYT