in a new york minute...

see, that last post was supposed to be about new york city. though i took the u.n. statistics and veered off seamlessly into a completely different direction (from cities and city life to cultural identity), i curbed my urge to veer wildly back to my original thought process, which would have consequentially destroyed the flow of thought. to many, the post would have been rendered incomprehensible.

aren’t you proud of me Reader?

on culture, part 286...

a recent u.n. report found that half the world’s population lives in urban areas. the npr reporter working the story spoke from karachi,
pakistan, one of the fastest growing cities in recent times. the estimate is that 12 million people live in karachi today, though pakistanis say the number is close to 15-18 million souls. in the background of the reporter’s narrative were the familiar sounds of cars and motorcycles, rickshaws and honking horns.

i wonder if a person’s birthplace subconsciously influences a person’s psyche for the rest of their lives? even if no recollection exists, there must be buried memories somewhere.

pay-per-bagging

(no duh)

the cultural baggage of countries now seems to include...er...bagging.

paper or plastic? - i'd never known it any other way. you went to shop rite, you bagged (or someone bagged for you) your groceries in either the yellow plastic shop rite bags or in the brown paper ones (or, if you're my mom, in both, wherein the paper bag goes into the plastic bag and voila! has spiffy, easy-to-carry handles).

i love mark twain

i never used to. in high school, i thought "huckleberry finn" was the most boring book i had ever read. and "the adventures of tom sawyer" was 10 times worse.

but twain is also a humorist and a satirist, and i find myself drawn to those writers. his undercurrent of love for the europeans in his "tramp abroad" is also obvious to those who can sense it in his writing, and it always goes hand-in-hand with his fondness for the foibles of americans. any culture you experience has its ridiculousness, and that is fertile ground for the humorous mind. we love the deliciousness of it.

so here are some of my favorite quotes from twain...

"Classic." A book which people praise and don't read.

MARK TWAIN, Following the Equator

To string incongruities and absurdities together in a wandering and sometimes purposeless way, and seem innocently unaware that they are absurdities, is the basis of the American art, if my position is correct.

MARK TWAIN, "How to Tell a Story"

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.

MARK TWAIN, Autobiography

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.

MARK TWAIN, Innocents Abroad

a little bit of heidel-lovin'

because i'm nostalgic, and because it's just so goddamn gorgeous...
also:
the heidelberg webcam
for live pictures

on procrastination

procrastination it seems is only a permitted indulgence to one class of careerist - the writer. i'm reading about mrs. parker's first few meetings with ernest hemingway, in which the already-established writer impresses her with the common knowledge among novelists that a single passage or a single page may be re-written 60 or 70 times before it finally sounded right. creativity also hardly strikes everyday, unless you are an innately talented individual with a recipe for avoiding writer's block. there are days when you wander around aimlessly, looking for the right wording or inspiration, or an idea of any sort.

today's a day when i can't write words. yesterday was fantastic - all day, i wrote vignettes in my head, waiting for the chance to post them to my blog. when i finally sat down at my computer at 11 last night, all vignettes promptly fled my brain, and i haven't been able to express anything properly all day. there aren't always opportunities to capture your own personal genius and bottle it. just rest assured that it exists, even if it's just in your head.

intellectualism

during our formative years (which - if you maintain the idea that we are constantly learning, whether at 8 or 80 - lasts all our lives), we have a tendency to want to like things. the want is there, but the fulfillment of it may not be. for instance, i've always wanted to like jazz. i've always wanted to like flaubert's "a sentimental education." i've always wanted to like depressing new wave french films by truffaut. because even in the intellectual world, there is certain pressure to like things, as that will make you a truly intelligent intellectual.