1. Her Majesty's Government has granted me unrestricted leave to remain in the UK until January 2011. Suckers!
2. I have left the gentle world of publishing to enter the gladiatorial corporate arena. I work in Mayfair, I have business cards. I am a headhunter.
3. I am returning to the East Coast for a brief tour from 22nd May, to include Boston, Providence, and NYC. I will be accompanied by a particular young man with an English accent. See y'all then.
08 April 2009
05 November 2008
ch-ch-changes
One of the things about America is this perpetual dream of upward mobility, of individual potential and endless access. When we are very young our teachers look around the room, at scores of six-year-olds sat cross-legged on the carpet, and they say, 'Any one of you could become president'.
Of course, having had only privileged white male Protestant presidents - and one Catholic who was quickly assassinated - that wasn't really true.
Until now.
Finally, finally, the progression and enlightenment that my generation can promise is beginning to shine through the cracks of a long history of oppression, elitism, and exclusion. The real work will begin soon, and our new president will be tested and criticised and eventually he'll falter, but today we can just be excited. Happy. Optimistic.
And next time let's elect a woman, okay?
soundtrack: Human - The Killers
Of course, having had only privileged white male Protestant presidents - and one Catholic who was quickly assassinated - that wasn't really true.
Until now.
Finally, finally, the progression and enlightenment that my generation can promise is beginning to shine through the cracks of a long history of oppression, elitism, and exclusion. The real work will begin soon, and our new president will be tested and criticised and eventually he'll falter, but today we can just be excited. Happy. Optimistic.
And next time let's elect a woman, okay?
soundtrack: Human - The Killers
15 October 2008
leave the bourbon on the shelf
Tomorrow I have a temp assignment - the first one I've managed to acquire - at a stock music company near Baker Street.
When Catherine Tate was a temp, she met Doctor Who.
Just saying.
soundtrack: Under the Gun - The Killers
When Catherine Tate was a temp, she met Doctor Who.
Just saying.
soundtrack: Under the Gun - The Killers
09 August 2008
practically floored
Writing this dissertation is by far the most challenging academic venture I've ever attempted. With 15,000 words ahead, how do you pick the first one? How do you write the beginning when you're not sure what the end will say? And, many many pages into History of Sexuality, what the hell is Foucault talking about?
There may not be enough Diet Coke in the world, friends.
soundtrack: The Hindu Times - Oasis
There may not be enough Diet Coke in the world, friends.
soundtrack: The Hindu Times - Oasis
11 July 2008
sum of our days
Lots of things have happened. Some very good things, some very bad things, and many in between. And I suppose on this dull, rainy Friday, I thought I would tell you that I'm still here, and I still miss you all.
xx
'Every moment in your life is a turning and every one a choosing. Somewhere you made a choice. All followed to this. The accounting is scrupulous. The shape is drawn. No line can be erased.'
- Cormac McCarthy
xx
'Every moment in your life is a turning and every one a choosing. Somewhere you made a choice. All followed to this. The accounting is scrupulous. The shape is drawn. No line can be erased.'
- Cormac McCarthy
15 May 2008
they are the lanterns
Yesterday I went to Leicester for a freelance job. And I decided that if this whole publishing/acadaemia/whatever thing doesn't work out, I'll become a train conductor.
St Pancras is as amazing as they say, distant cathedral ceiling, well-dressed women drinking champagne and speaking French, soothing digital displays instead of the old tat-tat-tat ticker boards. In my business attire I tried to adopt the air of someone catching a Eurostar to Paris, a quick but essential meeting, I'll be back tomorrow, it's just they require my expertise, my power.
Illusion fades as I ascend the escalator to the East Midlands area, where an anxious crowd has gathered as the trains to such exotic locations as Sheffield, Derby, and Nottingham move from 'delayed' to 'cancelled'. I read about John Cleese's divorce and the Myanmar junta in The Sun and, thirty minutes late, make it onto a crowded train.
Then it all works out.
My iPod plays all the right songs as the train barrels out of London, racing across great green swathes of countryside, past sheep and dappled grey ponies, through fields spread with yellow flowers. The train glides to a stop beside the ornate, country-cute carved trellises at Wellingborough, then resumes its northbound roll. Something about the speed, the view, the baby blue sky, the sight of a distant church spire piercing a low, lazy cloud, is so invigorating, so redeeming.
As an American it can be easy to write off Britain, to decide not to take it seriously. It's too small, too homogenous, too old-fashioned, the police don't even carry guns. But that's about as ethnocentric as eating McDonald's in China. England is Albion, ancient, crowded, a bit fraught, a bit worried, but always looking forward. Always looking up.
soundtrack: Antichrist Television Blues - Arcade Fire
St Pancras is as amazing as they say, distant cathedral ceiling, well-dressed women drinking champagne and speaking French, soothing digital displays instead of the old tat-tat-tat ticker boards. In my business attire I tried to adopt the air of someone catching a Eurostar to Paris, a quick but essential meeting, I'll be back tomorrow, it's just they require my expertise, my power.
Illusion fades as I ascend the escalator to the East Midlands area, where an anxious crowd has gathered as the trains to such exotic locations as Sheffield, Derby, and Nottingham move from 'delayed' to 'cancelled'. I read about John Cleese's divorce and the Myanmar junta in The Sun and, thirty minutes late, make it onto a crowded train.
Then it all works out.
My iPod plays all the right songs as the train barrels out of London, racing across great green swathes of countryside, past sheep and dappled grey ponies, through fields spread with yellow flowers. The train glides to a stop beside the ornate, country-cute carved trellises at Wellingborough, then resumes its northbound roll. Something about the speed, the view, the baby blue sky, the sight of a distant church spire piercing a low, lazy cloud, is so invigorating, so redeeming.
As an American it can be easy to write off Britain, to decide not to take it seriously. It's too small, too homogenous, too old-fashioned, the police don't even carry guns. But that's about as ethnocentric as eating McDonald's in China. England is Albion, ancient, crowded, a bit fraught, a bit worried, but always looking forward. Always looking up.
soundtrack: Antichrist Television Blues - Arcade Fire
22 April 2008
07 April 2008
safety in numbers
Still vulgar, still the same great taste in footwear.
soundtrack: Bombsite Boys - The Adverts
16 March 2008
choose your own adventure
Okay. You're in London. It's a rainy St. Patrick's Day-ish Saturday night, and in pursuit of cultural authenticity you've spent the evening listening to a seisun and talking to a guy called Eoghan in a pub that's so Irish there are more moon faces than an almanac.
Suddenly you realise that the clock didn't fancy waiting for you to finish singing along to "Dirty Old Town," so you plunge forth into the drizzle and navigate puddled sidewalks to the Wandsworth Town rail station. Your boyfriend may or may not pause on the way to find a non-CCTV-monitored peeing spot.
You run up the stairs to the platform but it's too late - in fact it's way too late - and you've missed the last train by more than ten minutes. So, how to get o'er the river and across the city to your now distant and seemingly inaccessible home in Camden Town?
First you hike to Putney Bridge, scrutinising every bus stop you pass until you find one that goes to Kensal Rise. Not ideal, but it'll work... except it only stops once an hour. Luckily fate smiles, and within five minutes the relevant double-decker pulls up. You clamber on and spend the journey into Fulham scouring the A-Z, trying to figure out whether you should take a chance that the Lancaster Gate bus runs all night or give in and trek to Victoria.
Meanwhile the bus pulls to a halt in Chelsea, and randomly you notice that the stop also serves the 14, which will get you almost all the way home! Back on the sidewalk you realise you're on the wrong side, and when you glance across the street there's a bus already pulled up. "Which is it? What does it say on the front?" "Warren Street! GO!" You shove your boyfriend into oncoming traffic and, thanks to a girl who is rooting through her purse to find her Oyster card, you're safely on the 14.
It's a long ride through vacant South Kensington and around Hyde Park, past dark, imposing embassies and silent shops, and as you approach the eerie flickering neon of Piccadilly Circus an American girl squawks into her phone, "So I was like, you don't even like me a little bit, do you, and he was like, it's not that, but it's like, I just think I'm like, too crazy for him, you know?"
When you stop at Warren Street you sprint for the convoy of two Camden-bound buses immediately in front, and even though they see you running - because you know they see you running - they pull away from the curb, smug and cold. So you wait, trying to forget that the rain has shrunk the canvas in your shoes so you can literally feel the blisters forming, and telling yourself that at least the 29 stops really close to your house, as though that will make up for the fifteen minutes of vomit, fights, and mobile phone music that is more or less guaranteed at this point in the night.
The light changes and you squint down the road, certain that the approaching double-decker will be a totally useless 88. As it draws nearer, however, and you make out the number on the front, you think of Ovid, of Phaeton, of Apollo's golden chariot climbing high into a cloudless blue sky...
...it's the 134.
In fifteen puke- and chav-free minutes you've safely arrived on Kentish Town Road. As you disembark, you hear a Spanish girl note that taking the bus is very scenic. Her English boyfriend replies, "Oh yeah, it's way better than the Tube."
soundtrack: Fat Children - Jarvis Cocker
Suddenly you realise that the clock didn't fancy waiting for you to finish singing along to "Dirty Old Town," so you plunge forth into the drizzle and navigate puddled sidewalks to the Wandsworth Town rail station. Your boyfriend may or may not pause on the way to find a non-CCTV-monitored peeing spot.
You run up the stairs to the platform but it's too late - in fact it's way too late - and you've missed the last train by more than ten minutes. So, how to get o'er the river and across the city to your now distant and seemingly inaccessible home in Camden Town?
First you hike to Putney Bridge, scrutinising every bus stop you pass until you find one that goes to Kensal Rise. Not ideal, but it'll work... except it only stops once an hour. Luckily fate smiles, and within five minutes the relevant double-decker pulls up. You clamber on and spend the journey into Fulham scouring the A-Z, trying to figure out whether you should take a chance that the Lancaster Gate bus runs all night or give in and trek to Victoria.
Meanwhile the bus pulls to a halt in Chelsea, and randomly you notice that the stop also serves the 14, which will get you almost all the way home! Back on the sidewalk you realise you're on the wrong side, and when you glance across the street there's a bus already pulled up. "Which is it? What does it say on the front?" "Warren Street! GO!" You shove your boyfriend into oncoming traffic and, thanks to a girl who is rooting through her purse to find her Oyster card, you're safely on the 14.
It's a long ride through vacant South Kensington and around Hyde Park, past dark, imposing embassies and silent shops, and as you approach the eerie flickering neon of Piccadilly Circus an American girl squawks into her phone, "So I was like, you don't even like me a little bit, do you, and he was like, it's not that, but it's like, I just think I'm like, too crazy for him, you know?"
When you stop at Warren Street you sprint for the convoy of two Camden-bound buses immediately in front, and even though they see you running - because you know they see you running - they pull away from the curb, smug and cold. So you wait, trying to forget that the rain has shrunk the canvas in your shoes so you can literally feel the blisters forming, and telling yourself that at least the 29 stops really close to your house, as though that will make up for the fifteen minutes of vomit, fights, and mobile phone music that is more or less guaranteed at this point in the night.
The light changes and you squint down the road, certain that the approaching double-decker will be a totally useless 88. As it draws nearer, however, and you make out the number on the front, you think of Ovid, of Phaeton, of Apollo's golden chariot climbing high into a cloudless blue sky...
...it's the 134.
In fifteen puke- and chav-free minutes you've safely arrived on Kentish Town Road. As you disembark, you hear a Spanish girl note that taking the bus is very scenic. Her English boyfriend replies, "Oh yeah, it's way better than the Tube."
soundtrack: Fat Children - Jarvis Cocker
06 March 2008
stages i have crashed
February 2003: The D4 at Maxwell's in Hoboken, NJ
June 2004: Black 47 at Connolly's in New York, NY
June 2007: Brakes at Mercury Lounge in New York, NY
February 2008: Dropkick Murphys at Brixton Academy in London, UK
June 2004: Black 47 at Connolly's in New York, NY
June 2007: Brakes at Mercury Lounge in New York, NY
February 2008: Dropkick Murphys at Brixton Academy in London, UK
soundtrack: Margarita - Brakes
19 February 2008
feel my bones
Older but not, thankfully, necessarily wiser.
soundtrack: Moon Over Asbury - The Bouncing Souls
soundtrack: Moon Over Asbury - The Bouncing Souls
10 February 2008
moo
Apparently I've learnt to add videos to teh blogz0r. Rather than begin with one of the several videos I've taken at various obscure but personally notable concerts, I present you with...
...the Manhattan, KS cattle auction.
...the Manhattan, KS cattle auction.
soundtrack: Sam's Town - The Killers
02 February 2008
descamisada
My manager is a Scottish ex-bouncer who asked me how to say "more beer please" in Spanish. Still terrified of money, actual customers, and my seemingly limitless capacity for error, but feeling optimistic.
soundtrack: Famous for Nothing - Dropkick Murphys
soundtrack: Famous for Nothing - Dropkick Murphys
20 January 2008
here again
Long weekend sans MLK and on the wrong end.
Thursday: homemade chili con carne; proper Irish pints; nearly ceilidh; juggling act.
Friday: O'Neil's in Covent Garden; Becks in Fuel; British boys in boots; "me and the Spider".
Saturday: Green Park meander; Mrs. Windsor at home; Oxonians o'er London Bridge; curry in Brick Lane.
soundtrack: Bitches in Tokyo - Stars
Thursday: homemade chili con carne; proper Irish pints; nearly ceilidh; juggling act.
Friday: O'Neil's in Covent Garden; Becks in Fuel; British boys in boots; "me and the Spider".
Saturday: Green Park meander; Mrs. Windsor at home; Oxonians o'er London Bridge; curry in Brick Lane.
soundtrack: Bitches in Tokyo - Stars
16 January 2008
rockstarspotting
At approximately 11.33 this morning my flatmate passed GC on the sidewalk outside Camden Road Station. Rather than cry, have a fit, and/or say "wtf? where's my GC spotting?" I am taking this as a sign.
GC as beacon: don't give up.
soundtrack: Calendar Girl - Stars
GC as beacon: don't give up.
soundtrack: Calendar Girl - Stars
16 December 2007
all things go
Year In Significance: 2007
soundtrack: Chicago - Sufjan Stevens
- 17 February: Birthday excursion to Tiswas with Anna, Sarah, and Carla.
- 22 February: First graduate school acceptance letter.
- 21 March: Got into Oxford.
- 2 May: Off to Ireland.
- 16 June: Sang on stage with Brakes.
- 17 August: Said adios to W.W. Norton.
- 18 September: Officially (and literally) traded NYC for LDN.
- 27 November: Babyshambles at Wembley Arena.
- 16 December: Walked along the Thames, touched a stingray at the London Aquarium, kissed my boy in Trafalgar Square.
09 December 2007
things i will miss while away
1. £2 pints of Strongbow at ULU on lazy afternoons.
2. Getting an upper-deck, front-row seat on the 24.
3. The Crowley cup of tea.
4. Camden Lock late on weeknights.
5. Touching out of the Tube with feigned disaffection.
soundtrack: Blue Monday - New Order
2. Getting an upper-deck, front-row seat on the 24.
3. The Crowley cup of tea.
4. Camden Lock late on weeknights.
5. Touching out of the Tube with feigned disaffection.
soundtrack: Blue Monday - New Order
27 November 2007
13 November 2007
05 November 2007
bonfires
It's strange to think this is my second UK-residential Guy Fawkes Night; the England of 2003 and Oxford seems so alien and far away now, another country entirely. Which is all the more ironic given my current beau, and the unexpected recognition of at least three Oxonians at the Battersea pub on Friday night. The weather has not improved, the class consciousness remains palpable, and the sunsets are still guttingly early, but something about this City of London - a little bigger, a little brighter - is making all the difference.
The days pass on the tops of double-decker buses or in the sharp-angled descents of Tube escalators; frowning at tightly printed pages of Conrad in my room or hastily recording a particularly salient point at the wide wooden seminar table; drinking at the Hawley Arms, drinking at the ULU, drinking at the Lord Stanley; markets under railway trestles, misleading slips of paper, wine-fuzzy kitchen gatherings and standing, skunk-stoked and spinning, on a balcony on Camden Road watching fireworks glitter and explode in the heavy evening sky.
And I wonder, what was I so afraid of?
Happy Guy Fawkes y'all.
soundtrack: Unstookie Titled - Babyshambles
The days pass on the tops of double-decker buses or in the sharp-angled descents of Tube escalators; frowning at tightly printed pages of Conrad in my room or hastily recording a particularly salient point at the wide wooden seminar table; drinking at the Hawley Arms, drinking at the ULU, drinking at the Lord Stanley; markets under railway trestles, misleading slips of paper, wine-fuzzy kitchen gatherings and standing, skunk-stoked and spinning, on a balcony on Camden Road watching fireworks glitter and explode in the heavy evening sky.
And I wonder, what was I so afraid of?
Happy Guy Fawkes y'all.
soundtrack: Unstookie Titled - Babyshambles
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