Tramp Street

“We believe that according the name ‘investors’ to institutions that trade actively is like calling someone who repeatedly engages in one-night stands a ‘romantic.’”

~Warren Buffet

Two legs at a time like everybody else

Honk if you’re…

Nice article on honking in Slate.  This excerpt is encouraging:  “In July, traffic police in Mumbai launched a “No Honking Movement” led by taxi drivers who took an oath not to toot.  Last year, Shanghai banned honking downtown, with the prohibition set to expand to the entire city.”

Honking is annoying and, it turns out, mostly useless.  Of the many suggestions for curbing this ill, raising the volume of the horn inside the car is a personal favorite.  I’m sure several people will take credit for this ingenius idea, but I first heard it from cuddly curmudgeon Todd Hartley, so kudos to him.

Salutation to the Dawn

Look to this day!
For it is life, the very life of life.
In its brief course
Lie all the verities and realities of your existence:
   The bliss of growth,
      The glory of action,
         The splendor of achievement,
For yesterday is but a dream
And tomorrow is just a vision,
But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well, therefore, to this day!
Such is the salutation to the dawn.

~Kalidasa

“Ooh, Barack, that was a good one”

Obama is an incredibly poised individual.  I mean, that is one cool cat.  But since he’s human, he must have some way to release the incredible amount of tension in his life.  Yet the mechanism for this release is a mystery.

I wonder if he just has terrible, noxious, plant-wilting gas.  That might be enough.  For all we know, before he takes his place behind the podium to face 100,000 people and the rest of the planet, he just lets ‘em rip backstage.  I imagine his handlers must have a pretty good read on his scent by now.  I can almost see them, on those nights when he’s particularly malodorous, waving their hands in front of their faces, smiling at each other and saying, “He’s going to be good tonight!”

iTunes’ Genius Sidebar pretty much is

I know the technorati will say I’m late to the party (at least when measured in “internet time”), but I’ll still throw some props out to iTunes’ (relatively) new Genius Sidebar, not to be confused with the Genius Bar in the Apple stores.

Pick a song in your library, and the Genius Sidebar will create a related mix of 25 songs from your library.  It also recommends other songs you don’t own yet.  Along with Pandora, it’s a good way to search for those diamonds in the massive rough of modern music.

Perspective

Reflection

Each time I see the Upside-Down Man
Standing in the water,
I look at him and start to laugh,
Although I shouldn’t oughtter.
For maybe in another world
Another time
Another town,
Maybe HE is right side up
And I am upside down.

~Shel Silverstein

M&M Elementals

The Holly Golightly Playbook

Finally saw Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961).  George Axelrod (the writer of this adaptation of Truman Capote’s book) and Audrey Hepburn managed to create, in Holly Golightly, a perfect representation of the tease that you can’t help falling in love with even though she takes you for granted.  It’s that subtle combination of attention and care (she buys him the typewriter ribbon), love and laughter (they kiss and have fun together), and disregard, insensitivity and dismissal (several occasions, like when she ignores him in the library after their romantic kiss in the foyer.)  Holly seems to treat Paul a bit like a shampoo:  Lather, Rinse, Repeat.

I now suspect that some of the teenage girls I knew back in high school somehow got hold of a Holly Golightly playbook.  Might have been nice to have a copy of that back then.

Reminds me of a line from the film Dangerous Liaisons (1988):

“Why do you suppose we only feel compelled to chase the ones that run away?”

Or maybe I’m offbase entirely, since our NetFlix DVD did conk out with 1:55 left in the film.

Afterthought

I tried to explain to her
The meaning of the poem

It was God, I said,
The embrace of God,
When the cloud-filled sky descends over you
As you lie in the snow.

Why does it have to be God, she said,
I thought
It was the embrace of the world,
That the whole world was embracing you.

Well, I said,
What’s the difference?