Why I love living in this city, reason number 14.
Friday, May 13, 2005
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Multicultural
When I get fortune cookies, I ignore the "fortune" because it usually says something like, "You are a joy to all your neighbors" or "Your life is happy." Which aren't really fortunes, so I ignore them. And I never look at the lucky numbers. But some people do, apparently, and 110 people won the Powerball lottery. "That's ours," said Derrick Wong, of Wonton Food, when shown a picture of a winner's cookie slip. "That's very nice, 110 people won the lottery from the numbers." But I still don't intend to start reading the numbers on my fortunes.
In unrelated news, I am still on the job hunt (do you think a fortune cookie would have good advice for me? Hm.) but hoping for my current (temporary) position to turn permanent. It's finally spring, and I can wear all kinds of short skirts and open-toed sandals. By George, we've earned it, after last week's FROST WARNING. The family is back from their much-deserved vacation to the Far East, the baby is even cuter than before and has now learned to say very useful words like, "Baby," "No," Daddy," and the Japanese version of "Aha! I found it!" "Here you go," and "Who is that?" I, by extension, have learned these words too, expanding my Japanese vocabulary to a total of 10 words.
D.C. is, I think, a vortex into which everyone is eventually pulled: just this week I met my Los Angelian friend Stacy (well, she's an Angelian, but we met in Paris and did the Italian hostel thing together) who happend to be in town with her boyfriend doing the East Coast Tour. Then Fatema and I ate a yummy Malaysian dinner with two very smart, very cool, very fun Indian girls we met in Jordan; they were Fulbrighters at the time but now are in D.C. studying and preparing for upcoming exciting careers. Small world. People like this make me excited to see where our lives will go. In 20 years, will we run into each other again? What will we be doing? I think it's sort of inevitable that we will, for once in the Middle-East-study-abroad-circle, always in the circle. You'll just keep running into each other. Here's to the next 20 years and future reunions.
In unrelated news, I am still on the job hunt (do you think a fortune cookie would have good advice for me? Hm.) but hoping for my current (temporary) position to turn permanent. It's finally spring, and I can wear all kinds of short skirts and open-toed sandals. By George, we've earned it, after last week's FROST WARNING. The family is back from their much-deserved vacation to the Far East, the baby is even cuter than before and has now learned to say very useful words like, "Baby," "No," Daddy," and the Japanese version of "Aha! I found it!" "Here you go," and "Who is that?" I, by extension, have learned these words too, expanding my Japanese vocabulary to a total of 10 words.
D.C. is, I think, a vortex into which everyone is eventually pulled: just this week I met my Los Angelian friend Stacy (well, she's an Angelian, but we met in Paris and did the Italian hostel thing together) who happend to be in town with her boyfriend doing the East Coast Tour. Then Fatema and I ate a yummy Malaysian dinner with two very smart, very cool, very fun Indian girls we met in Jordan; they were Fulbrighters at the time but now are in D.C. studying and preparing for upcoming exciting careers. Small world. People like this make me excited to see where our lives will go. In 20 years, will we run into each other again? What will we be doing? I think it's sort of inevitable that we will, for once in the Middle-East-study-abroad-circle, always in the circle. You'll just keep running into each other. Here's to the next 20 years and future reunions.
Monday, May 02, 2005
Enhancement
If performance-enhancing drugs are so scandalous, why aren't these? There is a thin line between acceptable and unacceptable performance enhancement, and while I understand that altering your physical ability chemically crosses the line, what about altering your physical ability, well, physically? Tiger Woods, for instance, recently had LASIK surgery, a perfectly acceptable form of eyesight correction, especially since he already wore contacts that improved his vision. But as the Slate article points out, athletes aren't allowed to doctor the ball, the bat, or use extra devices in the field of play, but you can doctor yourself. If you take this argument too far, it could apply to swim caps and bike gloves, both performance-enhancing. Maybe we should all practice sports like the Greeks...? That would eliminate all this fuss about performance enhancement.
And speaking of performance enhancement, they say that frog cocktails are popular in the Andes because of their aphrodisiac qualities. I have eaten frog legs. They are yummy, if a little bony. But I could not, would not, swallow them in a cocktail.
Maybe after you get your 20/15 LASIK vision, your steroid dose, and your frog cocktail, your performance will be enhanced enough to climb a mountain of Chinese buns. Sign up now for next year's competition.
And speaking of performance enhancement, they say that frog cocktails are popular in the Andes because of their aphrodisiac qualities. I have eaten frog legs. They are yummy, if a little bony. But I could not, would not, swallow them in a cocktail.
Maybe after you get your 20/15 LASIK vision, your steroid dose, and your frog cocktail, your performance will be enhanced enough to climb a mountain of Chinese buns. Sign up now for next year's competition.
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Weekends, Here and There
Some of you have heard me explain that Mapquest is irrelevant in Beirut, Amman, and Cairo. Further proof. When I was in Beirut I once asked for directions to a church I had heard about. “Oh,” he said, “just tell the taxi drier “al balad” and he will take you there. It’s a white church with a steeple.” He seemed generally unconcerned with these directions, so I figured that the church would be obvious upon my arrival at al balad.
Well. Al Balad means, sort of, “Downtown.” The driver dropped me off downtown. Downtown is huge. I must have looked confused, or lost, because the driver reassured me that this was, in fact, al balad, and this was, in fact, where I had said I wanted to go. So I got out. I never found the white church (and when I did find a church to go to, which happened to be white, it was nowhere near al balad.) Downtown Beirut on Sunday morning is, um, quiet, and the few people I asked had no idea of any church, anywhere, so I ended up following a French woman to her church, a very nice, if somewhat bewildering for an American Protestant, French Catholic service.
...
There’s this club downtown called the 9:30 club and Martin and I went there last Friday (because the Washington Post recommended it.) Despite its name, the concerts do not start at 9:30, or even around 9:30, but the doors are open by then, at least. It was well on its way to being 11 and I had finished my Dos Equis by the time Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra sauntered onto the stage. And what an orchestra they were: we left at 2:30 after two long, practically uninterrupted sets of, well, Afrobeat. The standing-room-only crowd seemed only slightly enthused by the vehement political statements intermittently made by the long-legged trumpet player: they were there for the rhythm, disco ball, black walls, beer, and opportunity to dance however you want. At Meg’s high recommendation, I plan to return for Aqualung on May 9.
In other, more cultured, news, I saw original Toulouse-Lautrecs! At the National Gallery! I am a huge fan. One of my disappointments (albeit minor) in Paris was the small number of original Lautrecs in the Musee D’Orsay. But now I have seen them, and they are wonderful and huge and colorful and I wanted to look at them all day. It might go back: it’s free, after all.
Well. Al Balad means, sort of, “Downtown.” The driver dropped me off downtown. Downtown is huge. I must have looked confused, or lost, because the driver reassured me that this was, in fact, al balad, and this was, in fact, where I had said I wanted to go. So I got out. I never found the white church (and when I did find a church to go to, which happened to be white, it was nowhere near al balad.) Downtown Beirut on Sunday morning is, um, quiet, and the few people I asked had no idea of any church, anywhere, so I ended up following a French woman to her church, a very nice, if somewhat bewildering for an American Protestant, French Catholic service.
...
There’s this club downtown called the 9:30 club and Martin and I went there last Friday (because the Washington Post recommended it.) Despite its name, the concerts do not start at 9:30, or even around 9:30, but the doors are open by then, at least. It was well on its way to being 11 and I had finished my Dos Equis by the time Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra sauntered onto the stage. And what an orchestra they were: we left at 2:30 after two long, practically uninterrupted sets of, well, Afrobeat. The standing-room-only crowd seemed only slightly enthused by the vehement political statements intermittently made by the long-legged trumpet player: they were there for the rhythm, disco ball, black walls, beer, and opportunity to dance however you want. At Meg’s high recommendation, I plan to return for Aqualung on May 9.
In other, more cultured, news, I saw original Toulouse-Lautrecs! At the National Gallery! I am a huge fan. One of my disappointments (albeit minor) in Paris was the small number of original Lautrecs in the Musee D’Orsay. But now I have seen them, and they are wonderful and huge and colorful and I wanted to look at them all day. It might go back: it’s free, after all.
Thursday, April 21, 2005
Bollywood
Washington has blessed us this week with positively balmy weather and flowers of every color bursting out from window boxes, corner plots, and hanging baskets. The restaurants have opened their patios and the seersucker-clad crowds start trickling in at 5. They only start to dissipate at 11, and the night is still warm. Women are ignoring pantyhose, their hair is getting blonder, their shoes are getting brighter, and their suits are getting slimmer. Men are seen walking home after work, swinging their briefcases to the tunes on their iPods. It sure feels like summer.
As if to complement this summer garden-party atmosphere, the DC Film Fest is held this week. Fatema and I went last Sunday to see Black, an Indian movie based on the Helen Keller story. I do like Bollywood, though I’m not at all an expert and cannot discuss it intelligently at all. But we went, and the crowd was incredible, mostly from S. Asia. I felt very white, but very cultured. And Amitabh Bachan (who played the deaf/blind girl’s teacher), arguably the most famous Indian actor, made a guest appearance. And the crowd went wild. Especially when he recited lyrics from one of his movies to a girl from the crowd: shrieks of adoration. I hope the crowds at tonight’s Film Fest installment are equally exuberant.
As if to complement this summer garden-party atmosphere, the DC Film Fest is held this week. Fatema and I went last Sunday to see Black, an Indian movie based on the Helen Keller story. I do like Bollywood, though I’m not at all an expert and cannot discuss it intelligently at all. But we went, and the crowd was incredible, mostly from S. Asia. I felt very white, but very cultured. And Amitabh Bachan (who played the deaf/blind girl’s teacher), arguably the most famous Indian actor, made a guest appearance. And the crowd went wild. Especially when he recited lyrics from one of his movies to a girl from the crowd: shrieks of adoration. I hope the crowds at tonight’s Film Fest installment are equally exuberant.
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