My car has a dashboard CD-changer. It's a thick plastic clip that holds six discs, primitive by modern audio standards but just enough for the trip from Lexington to Cincinnati and back. For the past six months, I've been listening to the same discs. They're good, but they're tired. So they're out now. Here's a tribute to the music I've heard too ( Read more... )

The manager bawled out one of the servers at work. It wasn't John. I'm down with John. This guy was just another petulant jerkass child of the service industry. "You think I can't fire you because I don't have enough people? I can have another trainee serving tomorrow." The holler of a manager sounds like... opportunity.

No Country For Old Men - ( Read more... )

If you've ever wanted to feel like more of an outsider than you are, the way is simple; study mathematics. Oh, and leave the ivory tower. In the grove of academe, mathematicians are an accepted oddity. A standard deviation, if you will. But outside ( Read more... )

I'm employed. Hoo hah. Apparently I pass muster to train as a server at Don Pablo's. So if I can stomach a few months of fake smiles and "authentic Mexican-inspired cuisine," I'll be sitting pretty. Also, I have to make it through a 90-day probation period during which they can fire me at any time, for any reason. So, in order to not be a travesty ( Read more... )

In Anansi Boys, Neil Gaiman writes that every life has a song and that few people know their own songs, but occasionally someone will unconsciously hum a few bars in the shower or on a bus. I hope I haven't found mine. Because if I have, it might be... "Slow Ride ( Read more... )

In Amsterdam now. Sara wins the bourgeois (whatever that means) merit badge for her outrage, outrage! at paying 10 euro too much for the room. Me, I plan to go to the ATM, go to the supermarket, and turn on the red light ( Read more... )

- The Louvre beat me today; four hours were enough to send me into art shock. It didn't help that I was ambushed by unexpected wonders at the very start. Walking into the wing devoted to Louis XIV sculpture, I saw Desjardins' busts with lace ruffles carved from marble, a statue of Saturn devouring one of his children (he looks like Father Time, and ( Read more... )

A little bit more on Goya: I went again with Sara to show her the picture of the Virgin Mary tittysquirting milk into a saint's mouth. I spent another half hour with the Black Paintings. The guitar player in "El romeria de San Isidro" is more interesting than ten of his portraits put together ( Read more... )

Today is Prado Day. On Prado Day, I can do anything. I can get up early and go to the train station. I can book a train back to Paris on the day I want, in the sleeper car I want. For the first time on this trip, I am going where I planned to go when I planned to go there. Because it is Prado Day ( Read more... )

So we got into Madrid two hours late because our train hit a sheep and a mule. I don´t know if you´ve ever seen a fight between a train and a meat-based organism, but the smart money is on the train. Around 5:45 we heard a disturbing *crunch* from the front, followed by a squealing metal and tearing noises. The lights and AC went out. Some people ( Read more... )