The Quaking of the Meats

Intuit

From dictionary.reference.com:

The use of intuit as a verb is well established in reputable writing, but some critics have objected to it. Only 34 percent of the Usage Panel accepts it in the sentence Claude often intuits my feelings about things long before I am really aware of them myself. This lack of acceptance is often attributed to the verb's status as a back-formation from intuition, but in fact the verb has existed as long as other back-formations, such as diagnose and donate, that are now wholly acceptable. The source of the objections most likely lies in the fact that the verb is often used in reference to more trivial sorts of insight than would be permitted by a full appreciation of the traditional meaning of intuition. In this connection, a greater percentage of the Panel, 46 percent, accepts intuit in the sentence Mathematicians sometimes intuit the truth of a theorem long before they are able to prove it. See Usage Note at enthuse.

The marginal cost of leisure

Leisure comes at a cost.

I have long intuited this cost; staring at the wall while listening to The Roots has occasionally felt unreasonably idle, even consumptive.

But a rare showing at my macro-econ class (I had to do a midterm, see) yielded a framework by which I can quantify this cost of leisure. Ahem. Let us consider a thought experiment.

I am a household at equilibrium between consumption and leisure, which is to say that the current amount of labor I exert fuels precisely the amount of spending that I consider optimum at my current wage. Presumably there are many such consumption/leisure pairs that make sense for me for a range of wages. Then the marginal cost of leisure is the amount by which I am willing to reduce my wage (approximated by consumption) for a unit of leisure. While I cannot begin to approximate the entire marginal cost function ...

... bear with me, please, I am boring even myself ...

... I can consider what I would give up for one hour of leisure, at my current equilibrium. This should be easy to imagine. It's 5PM. I have work to do, and my boss is still in the office. I should really stay till 6, because face time, goddammit, that is what matters in life. But I can deduct some amount from my paycheck for a guilt-free ticket out of the office. So: ten bucks? Twenty?

What am I doing with this hour? I am staring at the wall, listening to The Roots. Sometimes I am listening, without shame, to the Innocence Mission. Often I am staring not at the wall but the television. While surfing the Internet. Googling casual acquaintances. Thinking about lunch. Thinking about dinner. Seeing casual acquaintances in person. Talking, even. Walking to the river. Flipping through old pictures. Remembering things, trying to forget others. Stuck in the subway. Waiting for the train. Avoiding eye contact with the bright-eyed Athena wearing the garbage bag. Cleaning, if only because I do not want to study for the econ midterm. Waiting for emails, texts, hellos, a light brush of elbows, anything, goddammit. Waiting for nothing. Happy about something or another, maybe at another memory. Sad about nothing. Beating the crap out of pads, on prompt. Jab. Overhand. Hook, hook, uppercut, left knee, right roundhouse. Three sets of squat thrusts, clapping pushups until the bell rings. Sweating on the mat. Thinking donuts in my head. Tasting donuts in my mouth. Seeking cheap noodle soups in dingy Chinatown restaurants at nine P.M. Feeling fortunate for possessing a remarkable capacity for melancholy without depression. For being the sort of person whose idea of an evening well spent revolves around half-baked interpretations of modern economic theory, going on and on about nothing. Twenty bucks, forty bucks. Three thousand bucks. Keep the goddamn paycheck. No, give it to me. Give it to me, and I will turn labor into leisure. I am the ideal household, a labor market of one and consumer extraordinnaire, yes, yes, yes.

Summer

You are not usually awake for a Sunday morning, but you were then. The coffee tasted bitter. Secondhand sunlight crept into your room. The window was open and the world was your bed, the half-cinched and shimmering white curtain, a couple of sparrows in a roof puddle, the jangling chain on the lonely dog in the yard, and the faint suggestion of slowing cars around the corner.

Good/Bad

It is possible, apparently, for an insolvent financial institution to better its fortunes by carving out its diseased parts from the functioning ones. What remains, then, is an operational "good bank," the health of which is beyond reproach, and a "bad bank," the gangrenous stench of which we choose to ignore until it goes away (we hope).

Why stop there? I think we can apply the concept to our nation with success. California and Florida, the epicenters of the real estate collapse, should be packaged away into a "bad country." Add Michigan, obviously; the stench of the dying auto industry is more than we can bear. Louisiana, if only for the noxious fumes coming out of its governor's mouth. South Dakota and its Badlands. New Jersey? Fuck you; it should be the jewel of our "good country."

Alas, our current troubles are global. Let us restore the health of this world by creating a good world and a bad world. Let's be quite granular in our distinctions, and very eclectic in our criteria. Laughing old ladies making buckets of kimchi in a backyard in Seoul: good. Piles of poop revealed on the sidewalk in the Upper West Side after the snow melts away on a slightly warmer winter day: bad. The knowledge that, at any given moment in time, people are doing it somewhere, and doing it out of something that resembles love: good. The sudden and unexpected reflective side revealed in a formerly douchebag-like classmate after his recent layoff: unclear.

And I should perhaps compartmentalize the bad parts of myself. What is on display, then, walking in your midst, will be the good, smiling, cordial but confident me, clearly thoughtful but transparent in my intentions, shaking hands, building a career, hanging with friends, petting dogs, and being nice to my family. And, when no one's looking, I will tend to a brooding, vengeful, fraudulent and petty me, the indecent motives of whom threaten to destroy the whole self unless repressed and hidden away. I don't know if it's possible to cleanly extract these things, but doing so -- sorting out the mess into bins, and passing judgment on each -- might me a better person, or at least a less entropic, and therefore more human, person.

Weekend in San Francisco

It is worth the wait at the Shanghai House ... right?


Comrades Sullivan and Zhang, spearheading the redistribution of juice buns


Roli's porchetta (lunch #2) beats the hell out of Porchetta in the EV


Before the porchetta: lunch #1


Teapot incubating alien life form


Braised short ribs, ass


Unfortunately for these lobsters, Dungeness crabs were out of season


Pasta, paper towel


Two squabbling Asians


Either gross or beautiful, depending on your point of view

Porchetta, Hair Mates and Ippudo: an Afternoon in the Life of an Idle President of Vice

I went to the East Village today for a haircut. On the way, I stopped by Porchetta for a plate of pork, beans and greens.

But I am totally lying. I went to the East Village specifically for the Porchetta plate. People have been raving about this place. I had to check it out.

But the plate left me hanging. The pork and the beans both seemed underseasoned. The burnt ends were good, but I only had a few pieces to savor. And the portion was less than generous. At fourteen bucks, I consider this neither a bargain nor some kind of ecstatic foodie experience.

So I found myself unsatisfied, but also just a few blocks from Ippudo, which supposedly has the awesomest ramen in the city. The thing was, I had an hour to kill before Ippudo opened for dinner at five.

Fortunately, Hair Mates was on the way, and they were taking walk-ins. An hour and forty bucks later, I emerged with fabulous hair and an even greater appetite for porky noodles.

I was the very first dinner guest at Ippudo. The entire staff greeted me as I was seated at the supa trendy-looking counter. I ordered the Hakata Classic. It came in a smallish bowl, but I was not looking for something huge. The rich broth was opaque with porkiness. Lest I miss the point, succulent slices of pork belly topped the noodles. This, too, was fourteen bucks. Not a bargain, really, but definitely the most refined and fantastic bowl of ramen I have had in New York.

This does not mean I am giving up on my Midtown Men Kui Tei fixation. I don't always need refinement; in fact, usually I need hearty, gut-busting fare. Hear that, Men Kui? The usual, with a mini curry, please.

From the Dead Mouse Archives

...

For most of Thursday, I felt reasonably fine. Then I went to the airport, and I no longer felt fine.

Perhaps I should have seen it coming. I am a mystery only to myself.

Self-absorption, apparently, does not equal self-sufficiency. I can't shake this sense that I exist mostly in the minds of others, and I fear that I will wither away when I stop mattering to those whom I adore.

Wandering Past Midnight in a Snowy Central Park

Of the numerous public properties that belong to the Park clan, Central Park is the closest from my apartment.

At midnight, following another moderate snowfall here in New York, I headed out to take some pictures. I had the entire place to myself.

















On the way home, I slipped on some black ice on Columbus Avenue and busted my ass.

Muammar Qaddafi, Peacemaker

The New York Times ran an op-ed by the leader of Libya, who proposes a one-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Qaddafi was once seen in the West as a terrorist on the order of Yasser Arafat. In his old age, he seems to have reinvented himself as a diplomat and a man of reason, but as long as he is pushing the right of return, I doubt his proposal will gain much traction among the Jews.

What to Do in Korea

For my friend Lindsay, who's headed to Korea (yay!): the following are some activities that you might find interesting.


Go check out a big fish market with your camera. Then go to a big department store like Lotte and hang out on the food floors.


Eat some seolleongtang.


Eat kimchee.


Time and weather permitting (it snows a lot there), go to Seoraksan National Park.


More Seoraksan.


There is a cool concentration of arts and crafts in Insadong in Seoul.


Insadong

Sweatbox

I don't care who you are; your first financial priority should be to keep your credit cards paid off. The minimum payment is a tool of the lender, not you. If you are not convinced, please read this. The lenders want to keep you sweating as long as they can manage.

What to See in California

Moon, trees


Barn in Point Reyes


Yuan's living room at night


Alcatraz


San Francisco, from Alcatraz

What to Eat in California

Raw pork is not good for you, but it is often very tempting.


Cooked pork.


Raw oysters.


This fruit was really weird but pretty delicious. Yuan, what the hell is it called again? (Answer: cherimoya)

The Fauna of California, Continued

Birds


Winnie!

The Fauna of California

Yuan: my host, cook and navigator for much of the journey


Stephanie laughing after wine, nuts


Visiting Lisa in prison


Stacey is about to get smacked


My verdict on Bjorn's ice cream: delicious, not at all like a woman's bathroom


Rosemary


It appears that baboons are good with babies, specifically Isabella.


Isabella, and one of her ancestors named Jon

A Salute to a Near-Genius

The robber pepper sprayed the armoured car guard on September 30 outside a Bank of America branch in Monroe, grabbed a bag of money and ran towards a tributary of the Skykomish River where he was seen floating off on a tube.

More hilarity.

Standing on dead horses

One more from the archives

Alberta is also thankful for

the relatively small size of this recent space rock.



As a teenager, I once had the pleasure of sailing around Cape Cod aboard a schooner. One night, while I was on bow duty, I saw a falling star that completely lit up the night sky and left a glowing trail that lasted for a couple of seconds. That was the most spectacular natural event I have ever seen.

I am thankful for

near misses by space rocks.

The below object flew through the atmosphere in 1972. This footage was taken by a tourist in Grand Teton National Park.



Now, if only people would stop attacking one another ... has anyone looked into this problem?

Please allow me a moment of self-congratulation.

I made chowder today. A pound and a half of cod and a can (sorry!) of lump crabmeat went into this concoction. There was also a bacon sighting.

It is delicious. I should sell this stuff. The business plan: supply the customers with on-demand hot chowder through underground pipelines. Citibank will provide the seed funding of 1 billion dollars. I will go public within a year, before the company develops any meaningful financial history.

Dick Cavett, Ladies and Gentlemen

From "The Wild Wordsmith of Wasilla."

What on earth are our underpaid teachers, laboring in the vineyards of education, supposed to tell students about the following sentence, committed by the serial syntax-killer from Wasilla High and gleaned by my colleague Maureen Dowd for preservation for those who ask, “How was it she talked?”

My concern has been the atrocities there in Darfur and the relevance to me with that issue as we spoke about Africa and some of the countries there that were kind of the people succumbing to the dictators and the corruption of some collapsed governments on the continent, the relevance was Alaska’s investment in Darfur with some of our permanent fund dollars.

And, she concluded, “never, ever did I talk about, well, gee, is it a country or a continent, I just don’t know about this issue.”

It’s admittedly a rare gift to produce a paragraph in which whole clumps of words could be removed without noticeably affecting the sense, if any.

There Will Be No Severance for the Undead

Photo credit: Tim, the guy who wanted also to take a picture of his junk

A Have-Not Wordle

By Wordle

"Drunken sailor with Warren Buffett's credit card"

I love reading The Epicurean Dealmaker because of passages like the below. The context is the suspected flameout of Harvard's once-swinging endowment, and emphasis is mine.

Last year, on the occasion of a reunion visit to the leafy groves of my own alma mater, I was dismayed to discover that practically all of the verdant green expanses of my salad days (perfect for snoozing over a physics textbook on a sunny day) were no more. There was almost no plot of grassy space left on campus that had not been filled with the hulking form of yet another architectural monument to the pride and vanity of some self-fellating panjandrum.

Ha, ha. Haha. Hehe.

Related: my somewhat humbler alma mater reports a somewhat humbler loss.

AIG: Not Funny.

Naked Capitalism gets indignant at the latest (but not guaranteed to be the last) stage in AIG's fleecing of America.

Let us recall that AIG was rescued a day after The Man allowed Lehman to flame out spectacularly into bankruptcy. How the hell does AIG still have any leverage to demand anything? We should all be pissed.

Why You Suck, and Why I Don't Care

Dear reader, before you get your panties all up in a knot, you don't suck (for the most part), and I do care.

To wit: I recently started looking at some analytics about the traffic on this humble journal.

[Let me tell you, I spent a good half-hour when trying to select the goddamn category for the blog. "Absolute Truth" was not among the available choices, so I went with "Misc," though I think that belittles the absolute seriousness with which I post my musings. Ok, fine, not really. I would have selected "Senseless Drivel," which is perhaps the most accurate label.]

Anyway. It turns out people read this stuff more than I thought. This is hardly an achievement, since I expected three hits on a good month, but whatever. And while I cannot really be sure, you seem to represent a diverse cross-section of my known world; my original intuition turns out to have been correct.

That's a little embarassing, because I often write stuff under the assumption that I am the only person who will care to read it. But really, what do I have to hide? I harbor no profound mysteries. I do sometimes emit some embarassing sappiness, but I ask you to please overlook these moments, and I will continue to stick to my original pledge of writing anything I want.

But I will be careful to avoid implicating anyone else in this embarassment. That is: if you object to any personal appearances here -- photographic, typographic and otherwise -- let me know, and I will get rid of it pronto. My bad.

In the past 24 hours, around 15 people from 4 different countries have peeked at various parts of the Have-Not Journal. I find this absolutely amazing. It also does not reflect well on your social lives, but really, who am I to meddle?

Mostly I just want to thank anyone who finds this stuff readable, let alone interesting. You rule, and I care deeply. Keep reading. Really.

Cider Donut Porn

Donuts from the Tree-Licious Orchards stand at the Greenmarket (Fridays at Union Square, and Sundays at 77th and Columbus). For the record, I prefer the non-sugared kind. But they only had these today, and we all need a little suga every once in a while, no?

No Father to His Style

Rest in peace, O.D.B.