monkey wrestles ghost

Spectacular

This past Saturday was International Pillow Fight Day and thousands of revelers gathered in Union Squareto mark the occasion. I was on hand to take pictures and get whomped dozens of times while trying. Eventually I took up arms myself, and had a blast. The event evoked the carefree joy of children playing in a broken fire hydrant, and the release that comes from uncontrollable infectious laughter. Sure, it was also a spectacle, but what else do you expect from New York these days? This is where we gather to share spectacles.

Speaking of spectacles, last month I experienced the thrill of attending KAIJU BIG BATTEL, which bills itself as “the world's only live, monster fighting spectacle”. KAIJU BIG BATTEL (I think it should always be shouted) is pro-wrestling performed in elaborate Japanese monster costumes. That in and of itself makes KAIJU BIG BATTEL worth attending.

But where traditional pro wrestling manipulates its fans through storylines and characters based on a putrid (and fascinating) mix of sex, race, and violence, KAIJU BIG BATTEL turns that formula on its head with arbitrarily fantastical teams like "Team Space Bug”, and patently absurd characters like Kung-Fu Chicken Noodle (the “unfriendliest rogue consomme”), and a giant radioactive sea urchin named Unibuzo, whose origins are described as follows:

Unibouzu once is the geek boy. Snort when laugh and no friend or lady in school. Lucky for dork, atomic urchin biting and grow strong. In not the luck for boy, getting the most stupid too.

With such delightfully absurd elements, the audience can cheer, boo, and otherwise engage their fandom in total freedom. When was the last time you could root for something just because you wanted to, and for no other reason? This is the genius of KAIJU BIG BATTEL.

Enough. Good clean fun shouldn’t be subjected to such analysis.  Pics here (I think you'll be able to figure out which are the Kaiju pics).

Maybe I think too much

I recently had a conversation which made me realize just how much I’ve changed since I arrived in the city. With just a few questions over a few minutes, it was revealed that many of the activities I now devote myself to (biking, photography, obsessively reading blogs, less obsessively writing one, compulsively exploring the city and its eateries) have been added to my life in the last six months. It made me feel a bit like a fraudster, a bit like a youngster, and a bit like a New Yorker.

It also made me realize that I’m at risk of violating the “2 ½ rule”, which holds that you only have the time and energy in life to properly devote yourself to two pursuits, and can semi-successfully squeeze in a third. For most of us, work takes up one spot (and perhaps more), leaving the remainder for relationships and family, interests and hobbies.

When the rule was first postulated by a friend many years ago, I scoffed and argued that I knew plenty of people whose lives were packed far beyond what the rule supposedly allowed. But the point of the rule isn’t that you can only have 2 ½ pursuits in your life, but that you can only devote yourself to 2 ½. Any more than that and you start to slip along the scale that runs from devotion to dabbling.

Which is not to say one end of the scale is more meritorious or rewarding than the other. I’ve always been a dabbler at heart, but envious of those who can muster the combination of passion and discipline that makes true devotion possible. Observing them, I’ve come to believe that the rule is for the most part sound.  Everything requires time and energy, even supposedly routine activities like maintaining friendships or a home.  And neither time nor energy are limitless, so how we live is a constant state of decision, whether conscious or not.

In any case, whether you agree or disagree with the rule, it can be a useful tool for reflecting on one’s own life. How does your life measure up against the rule?  Are you over or under, dabbler or devotee? If you’re over, what would your 2 ½ be if you had to cut back to that level, and what might you gain or lose if you limited yourself to 2 ½? For me at least, contemplating the rule ultimately made me ask myself what I actually wanted from the things that occupied my time, and also whether my actual priorities matched my stated ones. At times, I may have inadvertently proved the rule true by devoting a bit too much time and energy to contemplating it.

The Dungeon Master

Gary Gygax, the creator of Dungeons & Dragons, passed away today. In the days before NVIDIA cards and MMORPGs, D&D was the creative outlet and imaginary landscape for generations of gamers, young and old alike. While today the socially marginalized can often find acceptance and camaraderie online, in the pre-internet age we took refuge from society’s scorn and derision in basements, bonus rooms, and back corners of libraries, huddled in small groups around our polyhedrals and handbooks. It was Gary’s world of elves and dwarves, paladins and thieves, dragons and demons, and of course, owlbears and bulettes, that brought escape and inspiration to our lives.

I carry the lessons that D&D taught me to this very day:

- never stab black pudding with your favorite sword (think before you act);

- drow elves are to be avoided (hot women are dangerous);

- every paladin eventually gets a +5 Holy Avenger (good things happen to good people);

- if you piss off the dungeon master, expect to encounter many undead creatures and rust monsters (power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely).

Rest in peace, Mr. Gygax. I wish you had made your roll to save.

I'm too sexy

I’ve been gathering dust at the back of society’s closet ever since 2000, when Newsweek declared Asian men the “fashion accessory of the moment”. But “fashion is cyclical”, as they say, and the New York Times has announced that “the man of the moment is an urchin, a wraith or an underfed runt”.

Here’s a sensuous description of the new hot man:

Their waists . . . measure 28 or 30 inches. They have, ideally, long necks, pencil thighs, narrow shoulders and chests no more than 35.5 inches in circumference[.]

Check, check, check, check, and CHECK! I’m back in style!

But wait, the Times also lasciviously notes that sexy is now “chicken-chested, hollow-cheeked and undernourished.”

Two out of three ain’t bad, right? In any case, I can walk around all day sucking in my cheeks (even if it does give me kissyface, one of the clear symptoms of douchebaggery).

For those of you who used to mock my slender physique, who’s laughing now? Yeah, I’m talking to you, former DC officemates. Little did you know that the “I’ll bet we could trade jeans” challenges I issued to the women in the office were a chance to get in the pants of tomorrow’s sex symbol. Who’s the “ass-less wonder” now, bitches?

And for those of you who have always thought of me as hot, you now have bragging rights. Imagine if you became a Creed fan when they played at your church picnic before they got popular! How cool would that be? If you thought I was hot before this year, it's the EXACT SAME THING.

If at this point you can’t wait to get your hands on me, may I suggest the following mental exercise: Imagine a chopstick. Yes, Asian and slender, very good. OK, now put a hot dog on it. Use the chopstick to throw the hot dog down a hallway. Cuddle.

I think you get the gist. I do my little turn on the catwalk.

My feeble Obama endorsement

The ongoing presidential campaign has swept up two friends in very different ways. One, a complete political newbie, has thrown herself into the Obama campaign with the fervor of a born-again Christian. The second, a reporter, took a break from his vaguely satisfying but confined everyday beat to go on the trail and cover the Republican primary. For both, the campaign has been a source of invigoration and inspiration, as it has for so many. The chance to play a role, even a tiny one, in something meaningful, momentous, and precarious, is a rare opportunity. Strangely, I have been largely immune to the moment.

I once believed that government sat at the top of our societal food chain. The three years I’ve spent in corporate America have shifted my views, but the change has actually been many years in coming, from when I started observing the power of market forces and money as a staffer and culminating in the raping and pillaging of the federal government during the last seven years. Watching the occasional elected leader whore himself for sums of money corporations consider insignificant can be demoralizing. Watching the entire apparatus of government turned to the purpose of showering the privileged with wretched excess is devastating, especially when you’ve come to believe, as I have, that it may be inevitable.

Capitalism is not an invention, it is a discovery. Ever since it was unleashed, it has slowly but inexorably shaped human history, seeping into every nook and cranny of our societies like a rising flood. But unlike a real flood, it never recedes, drawing as it does from the endless font of our will to power. And as it rises, it washes over our religions, unions, open spaces, childhood innocence, family farms, revolutionary movements, and ultimately, our nations and governments. The Bush Administration, for all its unique outrages, is nothing more than the levees of government breaching before the Katrina that is capitalism.

Here then is my feeble endorsement of Barack Obama. Feeble not because of qualities he lacks, but because scream it as loudly as I may, I suspect it can barely be heard buried as I am beneath the muck of my fatalism. If the breach can be repaired at all, it will not be through the thrust and parry of partisan combat, but because we set aside our weapons and gripped our hands together to swim against the current. Obama offers his hand – we should take it before we are all swept away.

All I Really Need to Know About China I Learned From Patrick Swayze

If you asked me the first Chinese film I ever saw, I’d answer “Red Dawn”, the 1984 Cold War would-be apocalyptic starring Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen. The film imagines a successful Soviet invasion of the United States, and has absolutely nothing to do with China, except for one exchange between Patrick Swayze's teenage American guerilla and a soldier reporting on the state of the world at war. “Who's on our side?'' asks the youth. ''Six hundred million screamin' Chinamen” replies the grizzled veteran. “Last I heard there were a billion screamin' Chinamen,'' the youth responds. ''There were'' is the grim reply.

I call “Red Dawn” my first Chinese film because for much of my youth, everything I knew about China was summed up in that bit of memorable dialogue, the same way the country itself seemed no more than a sum: “one billion”. A country and a number so large it defied individuation, a notion reinforced by my parents’ frequent observations that individual rights (and perhaps even individual life) mean far less in China than they do in the soft liberal West. “Life is tough in China,” they frequently reminded me.

My impressions of China changed as actual Chinese cinema burst onto the international film scene in the 1990s. The dramatic works of the Fifth and realist works of the Sixth generations of Chinese filmmakers shifted the focus away from the monolithic mass of China the nation to its people in all their teeming individuality. Nevertheless, you cannot separate the Chinese from China. The sheer force of Chinese history, billions of lives hurtling through time together, permeates even the most intimate Chinese films in much the same way 20^th century Chinese history has consumed the lives of individual Chinese.

This consumption is the subject matter of the ruthlessly unsentimental but beautiful work of director Jia Zhangke, whose latest film “Still Life” opened in New York this week. The two primary characters in the film search for lost spouses amidst the chaos and upheaval of the destruction of the city of Fengjie by the Three Gorges Dam. Their stories unfold fatalistically, as if pre-ordained by the forces unleashed upon their lives by their society, their culture, and their government.

If you believe that the human condition has improved over time, films like “Still Life” present a formidable challenge to that belief. But the fact that they are made at all is evidence that we struggle against the downward pull, and I believe (or at least want to believe) that filmmakers like Jia are not the chroniclers of our eventual ruin, but guides who keep us focused on our path forward.

My R.A.A.K.

Last week, it was so cold that after my 10-minute walk home, I tried to say something to my neighbor but my face was so cold-stiff it came out "plehkoaaerrr" ("pretty cold out there"), with perhaps a bit of drool.  Tonight, it was sixty degrees and I went for a ride in a t-shirt.  [insert requisite witty global warming comment here.]

I did a loop in Central Park, which loyal readers will recall as the site of my raccoon incident.  Unfortunately, due to technical difficulties, I was not able to employ the Raccoon Accident Avoidance Kit my friend J gave me for our office secret santa:

Yes, that's a real raccoon skull.  Attached to a stick.  With a clamp to affix the entire contraption to my bike.  And streamers.

Best.  Christmas.  Present.  Evahhhhhh.

Reflections on the year at work

Most rewarding aspect of work:  the product counsel team

At some point in our lives, most of us experience the exhilarating yet sinking feeling of joining a new group and realizing how much more intelligent, capable, interesting, wise, virtuous, and/or accomplished everyone around us is than we are ourselves.  If you haven't had this feeling, perhaps you should take a closer look at those around you.

I've been tremendously lucky to have this feeling with each new job that I've taken, especially my current one.  Over the past three years, my product counsel colleagues have become valued friends, mentors, and comrades-in-arms.  And when I stop to reflect on the sheer amount of work the team has carried together, without any pettiness or strife, I almost can't believe it -- except that I know these people and how we made it possible together, by picking each other up and sharing work as needed and credit equally.  To those of you who marveled at Trinity University's fifteen-lateral touchdown, I'll just say, that play's got nothing on what Google's product counsel team achieved this past year.

Most annoying aspect of work:  Facebook envy

A tinge of Facebook envy crept into many conversations I had this past year at work. Some seem to think they are "the next big thing", a label that has particular cachet in Silicon Valley to strivers, treasure hunters, and those who are anxiously ready to declare the post-Google era.  But whether Facebook ultimately becomes a passing fad, a new entrant into the internet corporate pantheon, or “a paradigm-shifting platform for the next generation open gadgetized Web X.0 wowee zowee!", I don’t think a comparison between the two companies is warranted quite yet. At least, not from the perspective of why I joined Google.

When I left public service to work for Google, it was the only corporation I considered joining.  I spent eight years in politics fighting to change the world, and when you man the trenches you become keenly aware of just how much bigger the battle is than you.  I watched with envy as this young and quirky company took its ideas and ideals and reshaped how information was controlled and by whom, throughout the entire world. When offered the job, I jumped at the opportunity (I’m still the laughingstock of the legal department for blurting out “I’d work for you guys for free!” when my boss broached the subject of salary as she offered me the position).

I’ll be the first to admit that the company has changed a lot since then, and that the spirit of mission and revolution is harder to find. And there’s no question that Facebook has potential, but I’m guessing that even ardent Facebook fans (and I count myself among them) would agree that the company has yet to have anywhere near the impact that Google has had, even when comparing the companies at similar stages of development.

Then whence the envy? I suspect it kicks in not when you compare what the companies can do for the world, but what they can do for you. I’ve got nothing against anyone who makes that comparison in their own life (in fact, a few of my friends have left Google for Facebook and I’m thrilled for them), but the envy I sensed at work often made me worry we’ve lost sight of what makes us Google.

2007 in lists: commerce and transit

Most favorite store opening: Muji (SoHo, Broadway between Grand and Howard)

Mujirushi Ryohin mean “no label, quality goods”, and the new SoHo branch of this Japanese department store delivers on its name. Everything that I would say about this charming store has already been said in this charming NYT review of the store. Some choice quotes:

"I entered the carefully considered, gloriously affordable new Muji store in SoHo, and something inside me unclenched . . . it is the folded-down, crisp origami essence of a superstore . . . I fell in with other shoppers, all of us quietly marveling at the simplicity of each object, touching them with our fat American fingers."

Least favorite store opening: Little Marc Jacobs (West Village, Bank and W. 4^th St.)

For several weeks this past fall, each time I passed the tiny empty storefront on the corner of my block I was filled with anticipation for what the future might bring. I dared to hope for a shop which would add to the uniqueness of my neighborhood.

Oh, I got something truly unique alright. Proof that Marc (and my neighborhood) has jumped the sharc.

 

Favorite bridge: the Manhattan Bridge
Runner-up: Verrazano Narrows Bridge

The Manhattan Bridge lacks the landmark quality of its southern neighbor, the Brooklyn Bridge, as well as the spacious bikepath and lively end destinations that bracket its northern neighbor, the Williamsburg Bridge. In addition, bridge access for bikers is a nightmare on both sides of the bridge.

But despite all these shortcomings, this bridge is my favorite of the year for several reasons. First, the bike path runs alongside the northbound subway tracks, providing an opportunity to engage in the rambunctiously fun diversion of racing the B train across the bridge. Second, unlike the Brooklyn and Williamsburg bridges, the bike path is on the outside, not the center, of the bridge, and the protective railing is relatively unobtrusive. As a result, as you approach Manhattan from the Brooklyn side, it doesn’t take much imagination to feel like you’re actually flying over Chinatown. Finally, the Manhattan side of the bridge is surrounded by lower Chinatown, one of my favorite neighborhoods.

The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge was a close runner-up, but I decided to disqualify it because I haven’t actually crossed it. Before this year, I had no idea the bridge existed, and was blown away by its sheer size the first time I saw it this past summer. According to the MTA:

"Its monumental 693 foot high towers are 1 5/8 inches farther apart at their tops than at their bases because the 4,260 foot distance between them made it necessary to compensate for the earth's curvature . . . Seasonal contractions and expansions of the steel cables cause the double-decked roadway to be 12 feet lower in the summer than in the winter."

I’m looking forward to making it my favorite bridge of 2008, after I cross it during the Five Borough Bike Tour.

Favorite subway line:  the A train northbound, between Canal and 4th St.

I vividly remember the moment I fell in love with the New York subway, in the summer of 1998 in the 103^rd Street station. I was already nearly overwhelmed by the heat, humidity, and stench, when the express train shot through the station in a blast of air and wave of roaring and clacking that so overloaded my already taxed senses that my mind went blank for several moments. Ever since then, I’ve never gotten over the rush that comes from being in a station as a train roars through. It fills me with an exuberance that makes me want to holler at the top of my lungs in chorus with the cacophony, and which often expresses itself in an irrepressible grin that has puzzled many a transit companion.

But what makes the northbound A train segment between Canal and 4^th my favorite of the year is precisely the opposite sensation. As the train leaves the Canal Street station, it accelerates rapidly, and the jolting, screeching and clacking fade into a soft ambient whirr as you accelerate through the dark tunnel. If you’re lucky, you might also enjoy a glimpse into a C or E train running alongside you before they veer off on their own tracks, leaving the A train rushing alone in the dark. And just as you start to wonder if you’ve left reality for some other plane, you emerge full-speed into and then past the Spring Street station. It’s the most wonderfully otherworldly experience I’ve had on mass transit.

In a family way

Location doesn't matter when you're with family. To family I was with, and family I wasn't able to be with, I love you all very much.  Thanks for everything, especially to H and R, who have been there for me this year in so many ways.

As thanks, I'll spray pictures of their kids all over the internet.

(For those of you who haven't met him, the finger puppeteer is my dad.  I can assure you that he was more stern a father than he is a great-uncle, although no less loving.  My mom has always been a teacher in so many ways:)

But for all the gift-giving, eating, mahjong, karaoke, and general merriment, nothing says Christmas like the booty dance performed in your Sunday best: