Ewww. That goes with an old New Yorker drawing with a single guy at a restaurant table, saying to the waiter (paraphrased): "I'll skip the appetizer. I ate the flowers."

I've heard of orange flower water, but....

The Deputy Assistant Commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police is called Cressida Dick.

Feedback has not been good regarding FPP (food personality person). "Too self-centered and seems to difficult to work with".

What a waste of time and resources. Definately learned a lesson here which is trust my instincts about people and not go the route of being too nice and helpful. Christ, it is surreal when someone can't accept assistance and guidance in the spirit it was meant. But that's the thing with someone who so focused on themselves, their rules of engagement with other people are predicated by notions of constant power/ego struggles. I think there is a particular kind of person who needs flattery so much that they overinflate it, they overinflate the importance and significance of it. Instead of accepting it as a social lubricant to create a positive mood, they take that leap into being "great in their own minds". People don't think you are great because you keep telling them, it has to come from substance, the substance of your words, experience, actions, etc... And in a big city like Los Angeles, when you are dealing with the "big leagues" (so to speak) of different commercial activities the higher up you go the more people you will meet who are quite extraordinary. Blowing into a speaking engagement or a meeting like you are the hottest, superstar shit in town just doesn't cut it. Here you will meet people who are smarter, more beautiful, more experienced, better educated, more traveled, more cosmopolitan, uber-superachievers, etc...

Anyway, yeah about LA versus NYC LA is very interesting to me (not only because it is my home town) but because the city doesn't really have a center of activity, we have multiple centers. And different "ethnic" groups are heterogeneous as well. For example, the Armenians, Koreans, Chinese, etc.. aren't just from those countries, they come from the diaspora as well. The mix of multi-lingual Armenians from various Near Eastern countries is a fascinating case study. Same can be said of the Chinese, Koreans, and so many "groups" here.

You mean there's a second kind of social lubricant?

Hanging out post-Purim services with two 23-year-olds. Everything about their conversation made me feel horribly ancient.

I attended a 5 year old boy's birthday party yesterday. It was a beautiful day in LA and this party was outdoors. These parties all follow pretty much the same script. The guests gather. There's some snacks. There's either a play or entertainment component, partly depending on the locale. In this instance it was entertainment: a woman arrived handling a variety of reptiles and amphibians (from tree frogs to a 12 foot boa) all available for touching. Then there's the pinata bashing. This was missing this time (just as well given the frequent pinata disappointments and injuries). Then there's more snacking and drinking. Then there's the cake (this one had a dinosaur motif) and the song. Then there's the goodbyes and dispersal of the goodie bags (we get very upset if there are no goodie bags).

At one point I was over at a cooler fishing a coke out from among the beers. A nice mom in her early 30s appeared and looked around sheepishly before hastily grabbing a coke as well. "I don't want my boy friend to see me drinking this," she said. "He says caffeine is bad for your health." She quickly guzzled much of the coke before hiding it near a plant.

Later, I saw the boyfriend. He was over by one of the coolers grabbing a Corona to replace the Newcastle he had just downed. His arms were covered but he was wearing long shorts, exposing his lower legs that were completely covered in black, blue, yellow and red tattoos. To your health, dude!

Dinner party last night. Farid and Clifford Wright could be long lost relatives, very similar personalities. Both have a fondness for making inappropriate comments (and hysterically funny) and Cliff's son and Farid look like they could be brothers. Surreal part is how strangers can seem more like relatives than actualy family does.

Well, well, it looks like the English, Irish, Scots and Welsh are the same. Tell that to the Scottie football crowds. "You're telling me that there's nae difference between a Scotsman and a Taffy? Y'er insane, man."

NYT article.

i want a newcastle right now

given that from the point of view of social identity culture is more important than genetics, this would seem to be a pointless exercise. but then what do you expect from scientists?

they're all wrong anyway. t'was the aryans, bored with having finished composing the vedas and inventing civilization, who swept westwards, populated europe and then came back to india in time to fight the mahabharat war.

Do you want to go to a 5 year old's party to get it?

Not to get too political, but there has been for a long time this whole racist thing in Lebanon where some of the extremist maronite groups claim to be directly descended from the phoenicians, unsullied by icky "arab" blood. A recent study using broad-scale genetic testing showed that, genetically at least, all Lebanese were pretty much identical. Boy it would be fun to compare genes from Thurmond and Farrakhan lines...

Mass media distinctions of Arab or Berber are utter shite. They are based on categories created by Europeans. And please stop using the word "tribes" when referring to African peoples. Elizabeth Colson is a must read for anyone interested in African studies. And Arabic: 'qabila' is not really a 'tribe' in a bounded/finite sense.

Um . . . Sharpton, actually. But point taken. And in fact, such analysis is being considered. Too bad ol' Strom is finally gone; wouldn't you love to see Rev Al walk up to him, and give him a big hug while shouting, "Hi, Cuz!"

Eh? I'm not sure what you mean. At least historically, Arab tribes (modulo intermarriage and stuff) are a fairly unambigious thing.

Better to take it to another forum.

Smacks of effort.

I can't find a way to discuss it without getting into politics and religion. Besides on another forum there are many more people who specialize in various aspects of African, North African and Middle Eastern studies.

I should qualify, that I look at this from a more West/North African pov.

Well, they say English, but are we talking Geordies? Scousers?

[yorkshire]You didn't get Geordies till Scotsmen started fookin' pigs.[/yorkshire]

Good point: I hope there's no suggestion that Yorkshiremen and Lancastrians are genetically related, or it makes a nonsense of Yorkshire County Cricket Club's historic recruitment policy.

Talk about your inconvenient truths -



http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/article.html?...45&in_page_id=2

As if you are subtle. More like we say the obvious thing, pointing out the elephants in the room. And boy did Cliff really, really, really like you. The lusciousness that is The Scream (brains too ).

Oh get a room.

You're jealous, aren't you?! Admit it, math girl surrounded by math boys all day. And you have to listen to sweet nothings whispered in German or a German accent when you get home. *shudder*

While the scream is the glam girl out nobbing hobs with celebrities and food/wine people.

I might edit this post later, I feel like Rancho Gordo is channeling me.

I saw a woman walking her dog last night. The woman was wearing a leopard print hat. The dog was wearing a matching leopard print sweater. I guess the old adage about people looking like their dogs is true....

To quote a friend of mine, I have the best of both worlds: I can feel really smart in LA, and really good looking in the math department.

I could feel smart in LA and good looking in the average math department.

Well, I don't doubt that!

Meat-loving calf eats chickens

Says they taste like chicken.

I have to ask.

Was it a brand-new leopard-skin pillbox hat?

ooh, ooh, Arab fight! Arab fight! I don't know who started it, but I suggest you stop before you are both taken to the council of Arab tribal leaders.

It's slightly surreal to me that a whole lot of traffic to my weblog is coming from AmishCookOnline.com.

I'm sure you could feel smart anywhere. Since we judge everything on appearances in LA, the question is: could you look smart in LA?

I find you incredibly sexy right now. I am getting seriously hot under my chef's whites and my bedouin tent.

I find you incredibly sexy right now. I am getting seriously hot under my chef's whites and my bedouin tent.

Tribes? That's some Middle Eastern stuff. We don't have tribes in Algeria. Besides I am an indigenou African person.

Ew. Way too much information.

I mean my tent, the big one for my nomadic family, which I have all to myself at the moment. I don't know what you are thinking, but it sounds icky and very Arab.

Well, someone has to say it.

Nice pole, Farid.

Please, people, don't force me to post the lyrics to Vivian Stanshall's "Tent" again...

We had a few friends come by while we were away.. I had noticed that there was a bottle of hot sauce strangely out of place upon our returning.. It was not in the side door of the fridge, it was right in the middle of the bottom shelf, before the crisper.. Uncapped of course.. Well this morning, while looking for something, I knocked the bottle out of the fridge, on to the floor.. It fell directly on its bottom making an air bubble sound.. Hot sauce shot out of the bottle, directly into my eye.. There I am standing in the kitchen at 630 in the morning half asleep, holding my incredibly stinging eye ball.. That is certainly better then coffee..

i've meant to post this for a while: iggy pop's "lust for life" over an ad for a royal caribbean cruise featuring a bunch of sassy women.

Iggy cashes in.

He's all over NYC bus shelters in a John Varvatos ad.

That cruise ad cracks me up.

I just got my tickets in the mail for his April show at the United Palace Theater.

On my laptop at work, one of the songs in one of my Windows Media Player playlists keeps renaming itself.

Good luck to him. He's sixty in April.

i have no objection to iggy making money. i just find the juxtaposition in that ad to be surreal.

Oh, most certainly.

I am sure "Venus in Furs" was used in a TV ad, but I can't remember what for. It wasn't whips.