Month: February 2001
They say the Mafia is dead, but don’t believe it: it’s in Afghanistan
“Despite references to camels, Islamic law and Afghan freedom fighters, the terrorism trial has somehow managed to sound a good deal like your average Brooklyn mob trial.”
What were you looking for, going through the papers in the middle of the rack?
“Some stop and read the whole paper from outside the rack. They keep reading and reading and then just walk away without buying it. They get all the news they want from the front page. Others just put a coin in without looking at the paper at all. They fold it and put it in…
The big foreign issue is the one they left in power nine years ago
“One has to question why it is that a man who commits acts of aggression against neighbors on several borders and against his own population is able to generate a certain degree of respect among the average citizen of many Arab countries. The fundamental reason for that is he stood up to the United States.”…
So the people on the train don’t count? How rude
“I’d do it at home if I had time, but I just can’t bear the thought of meeting someone without my makeup.”
Practicing to ride the subway, no doubt
“They looked horrible. They slammed their bodies together in over-exaggerated pelvic thrusts and groped each other in a way that is apparently supposed to be erotic. Not only was I disgusted at this, but I also feared for my safety because they had a habit of attaching themselves to anyone passing by and would then…
Fond follicles from family
“My mother has dog hair in her house dating back to my childhood and the family beagle. One can find a stray hair resting on the chandelier, stuck between the paneling in the wall, lying inside a wine glass stored high up in a cabinet, protruding from a cushion on the sofa, among the dirt…
The mind of a newspaper laid bare
“Obits are, in a sense, arguments. They make the case for why we should care about a particular life. The more space devoted to the obit, the better the argument has to be.”
Let’s leave the young lady’s looks altogether out of it
“She bears the taint; and though not prosecutable in law, in custom and nature the taint cannot be ignored. All the great despotisms of the past
Why not charge people for water? It’s something our food industry has perfected
“Commercially made organic food is not commensurate with quality. You lose the care, the traceability, all the things you believed were intrinsic to the organic manifesto. The giants start whittling away at the corners, because quality is not their prime objective. I’m not saying that the organicness is the problem; more that it’s the cynical…
For me, he was bigger than Madonna, David Bowie and Elvis Costello in one
“‘Card Declined’, read the display. My lungs collapsed. I had Gabriel Garcia Marquez standing in front of me and all I could say to him was, ‘Your credit card has been declined.’”