How To Write A Love Poem

Poetry occupies a cultural space in Contemporary American Society somewhere between Tap Dancing and Ventriloquism. People are certainly aware that poetry exists, but this awareness comes upon them only vaguely and in passing moments. During commercials, mostly, which feature corporate poetry. When people think of a poet, perhaps they imagine the finger-snapping beret-wearing beatnik. Or the slammy mike-wielding poet-ranter. Both proud poetic traditions. But most people who write poetry are people just like yourself. Scruffy, broken wordpals. In the age of Twitter, casual word-shaping may be at its all-time high worldwide. As we attempt to fit all the meaning and emotion we can into a few short lines, no doubt Maya Angelou and Walt Whitman and Bashō are looking down from heaven and smiling. (I know Maya Angelou isn’t dead. She just lives in heaven.)

Love poetry has, of course, been with us since the beginning of time. Lame pick-up lines were passé even in Mesozoic times; we diminish ourselves with cheap dating gimmickry. And who would want to woo anyone who could be gotten so cheaply anyway? It’s the chase that's the fun—and the poem is the map you use! To get to Someone’s Soul! (Excited trumpets!)

When is the right time in a relationship to present someone with a poem? A good question. The line between creepy and romantic is ever shifting. Some people might like a poem written about them at first, and then later come to find it creepy and taser you. Others might, upon first reading, feel creeped out and then later come to love the poem you wrote. You never know. Love makes us put ourselves out there in crazy ways; it's a roller coaster except there are no safety restraints. You could find yourself floating or smashed on the boardwalk like a heel-crushed hotdog. That’s the fun of it! It starts as a funny feeling in the stomach and then quickly goes on to flood the brain. Soon we're constantly thinking about them, wondering what they look like without pants on, trying to remember their schedule at the yoga place. Poets actually know more about longing than they do about love. Poets fall in love with other people’s wives, people who don’t love them back. They're human, in other words; and humans weren't built for happiness. They were built for dissatisfaction and yearning.

So, what’s your story? For whom do you yearn? Could be your parole officer. Or the guy you hired to kill your ex. We generally are attracted to complication: people who it might be impossible to pursue. As the great John Wieners wrote, “The poem does not lie to us. We lie under its law.” I quote that a lot, because it’s the most important thing a poem can do: communicate energy and Capital T Truth to the reader. In this case to someone you think is pretty special. So make your Truth sound pretty good.

The first step is to stare at a blank piece of paper for a while. This is actually a helpful step. Like the way Michelangelo stared at a block of stone for a while and then figured out that there was a man with a strangely small penis inside of it. Or Jackson Pollock would stare at a blank canvas and realize that a bunch of random painting droppings and swirls were underneath, waiting to be dripped out. Or Eve Ensler saw an empty stage and a microphone and then decided that she wanted to talk about her vagina. What does the blank page tell us? A lot. It's a mirror of our own minds. Especially, in my case, when I have spilled coffee on it.

How does one proceed from this blank page? Hopefully, you don’t stare at the page all day and go insane, and then start committing crimes around town under the alias of “The Blank Page.” That would be a terrible outcome. And you’d probably end up a Batwoman villain. There are easy ways to get started writing a poem. And easy is the way to go. No one wants a really tangled and complicated love poem written about himself. Dante wrote about following Beatrice through Heaven, Hell and Purgatory, and he still never actually got to be with her. But they didn’t have OkCupid then, so it’s understandable. Plus, Beatrice was, like, 13, and who knows what 13-year-old girls like? Bieber, I guess. Please don’t send love poems to 13-year-old girls. Unless you are 13.

One way to get started with your love poem is to use the recipient's name. Names are good. Find out what his or her name is and then write it down the page like so:

J
I
M

T
H
E

H
A
M
M
E
R

B
E
H
R
L
E

There is probably a word for this kind of poem. Acrostic. I just looked that up. That is a good way to start a poem! And it shows someone that you know his name. Which is a good thing to know. This is a great starting point. So in the first line you could start with a "J" word.

Just to let you know

Okay! You’re building up to something. So far so good. Don’t use italics to emphasize certain words, though. People use italics too much in poems to mean This is really, really deep. This is so breathlessly important. So skip the italics.

Just to let you know
I think you are pretty cool

That’s good! Building on the "I"! Bringing yourself into it. Being direct! That’s good, because it takes some people a little while to get the gist of something. Just get right to it.

Just to let you now
I think you are pretty cool
Mostly because of your ass

Humor! Excellent. You may not want to mention someone's butt in the first stanza, or maybe at all. It just happens to be my finest feature, and I’m always glad when people have opinions about it. Some people are weird about that, but whatever. Safe things to mention when you don't know somebody that well, or you just know him from work or following him around on the N train or whatever, are hair, eyes and elbows. Mouths, bellybuttons, noses, ears, coccyges—anything that can be used during some kind of sex act—can be approached only metaphorically and with the greatest of caution when you’re writing for people who do not already know that you love them.

by Jim Berhle, The Awl |  Read more:
Image: Warner Bros.
[ed. Repost: 10/1/2011]

[Repost:  9/28/2011]

Flower Collotype, by Ogawa Kazumasa, 1895
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Boobs

[ed. Jayne Mansfield and Sophia Loren. I don't know who the other two are, but... who cares!]

via: here and here

The Real Butlers of the .001 Percent

It's the first morning of butler school in London, and I'm flanked by eleven classmates who paid $2,700 for the privilege of learning to be servants. We've convened in a conference room at the London headquarters of Bespoke Bureau, the elite staffing agency that runs the school. Compared with the royal grandeur just outside—a medieval stone courtyard where the lord mayor's coronation carriage is on display—the office space itself is more Dunder Mifflin bland, perhaps a first taste of the upstairs-downstairs dynamic to come. We're soon joined by instructor Steve Ford, 47, a sturdily built Welsh butler charged with teaching us formal table service, etiquette, and household management.

Ford gives each of us a good once-over, making sure we look the butler part: neat hair, clipped nails, no visible tattoos or jewelry other than wedding rings, even on the women. (Genderwise, our class is split fifty-fifty.) He checks our shoes, which, he says, should be "polished, enough that you can shave in them, but never outshine your boss's." Then he passes out our uniforms for the week—black ties and white shirts over black trousers—and orders us each to take a turn at an ironing board set up in the center of the room, introducing ourselves as we press the wrinkles from our duds. (Or in my case, replace them with fresher wrinkles.)

My fellow trainees range in age from 25 to 49 and include a stewardess on the yacht of an American cosmetics billionaire, a Singaporean hotel manager, and a British-army sniper formerly stationed in Afghanistan who once worked as the concierge at a five-star hotel. All have previous experience in the high-end-service sector. Meanwhile I can't tell you if the dinner fork goes to the left or the right of the soufflé fork. Or do you eat soufflé with a spoon?

Lucky for me, my livelihood won't depend on knowing the answer (spoon). I'm here doing research, part of a larger mission to learn the truths of being a butler, a vocation that's booming. For that, you can thank our New Gilded Age, with a wealth gap that's become a yawning chasm. There are currently more millionaires worldwide than ever—the total jumped by 10 percent in 2012 alone—which means a huge demand for those who serve the super-rich, like the butler. The Russian oligarchs, Middle Eastern oil barons, and Asian moguls buying up expensive real estate in and around London are also exporting the Euro-aristocratic lifestyle back home. Thirty-five years ago, there were only a few hundred butlers left in Britain; today there are roughly 10,000, plus thousands more abroad, including the fastest-growing butler market of them all, China. "For the Chinese, it's a status thing," says Sara Vestin Rahmini, who founded Bespoke Bureau. "They're like, 'Just send us somebody who looks British, wholooks European.' "

China now has over 1 million millionaires, with 90,000 minted just in 2012. Gary Williams, a London-based staffing agent who himself was a butler for fifteen years, credits much of China' s butler demand to Downton Abbey. Watched by millions of Chinese, it's one of the biggest British TV imports ever. The show is more than just a soapy diversion, he says; it's a guidebook for living in a stratified society. "The Chinese aren't even really sure what a British butler should do," says Williams. "It will take them ten to fifteen years to really understand that."

But they'll pay—and pay well—to find out. A new butler willing to go east, to Shanghai or Dubai or anywhere else suffering an Anglo-servant shortage, can start at $60,000 a year and run his employer's estate from the start. In the West, where standards are higher and the competition more fierce, a rookie typically apprentices for a few years and earns a starting salary of maybe $40,000. A butler in either market should hit six figures within five to six years—sooner if he learns a few dirty secrets or gets poached by one of his boss's billionaire friends.

So the money is respectable and the demand is high. Yet buttling—which is the very ludicrous, very real verb for what butlers do—obviously isn't a career that one takes on lightly. I couldn't help but wonder: Who wants to become a butler? There are easier ways to make a living that don't entail all-consuming servitude. So I tracked down butlers from Shanghai to Los Angeles, and even enrolled in butler school, in an effort to peek behind the velvet curtain.

What I saw was the intense, sometimes thankless existence I suspected. A butler supervises his boss's household staff, oversees his meals and entertainment, and attends to his every whim and desire. He must be equal parts concierge and Michael Clayton-esque fixer. In that sense, the basic job requirements haven't changed much in a hundred years. What has changed: the boss. Forget about the dainty lord ringing for his cup of tea. The butlers of today serve paranoid money managers, manor-owning supermodels, Chinese celebrities, and horny sheiks. And they all have stories—horrible, hilarious, sometimes hooker-fueled stories—that they never get to tell, because nobody talks to the butler. Until now.

by David Katz, GQ |  Read more:

Image: Sean McCabe

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Mid-century brick on Ambrose by Chris Turnham

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Math Shall Set You Free—From Envy

Maegan Ayers and her then-boyfriend, Nathan Socha, faced a dilemma in the fall of 2009. They had found the perfect little condo for sale in the Boston neighborhood of Jamaica Plain: on the ground floor, just a mile from the nearest “T” train station, and close by Boston’s Emerald Necklace, a seven-mile chain of parks and bike paths. Federal incentives, low prices, and high rents had made home-buying an unusually attractive proposition, and the pair was eager to snap up the condo.

But, as the couple’s parents gently pointed out, Ayers and Socha were not yet married, or even engaged. If their relationship were to sour, they would have none of the protections that married homebuyers enjoy. As “tenants in common,” one of them could legally rent out or even sell his or her share of the condo to a total stranger. In the event of a break-up, Ayers and Socha wondered, how could they avoid conflict over their jointly owned condo?

Many families are faced with some version of Ayers and Socha’s quandary—how to fairly divide coveted goods. Some achieve a satisfying division, and are even strengthened in the process; others are ripped apart. Despite these high stakes, the methods families use to divide their assets tend to be very ad hoc.

Ayers and Socha did something different: They turned to mathematics.

Perhaps the oldest fair division method on the books—one which has been used by children from time immemorial—is the “I cut, you choose” method for dividing up, say, a cake between two people. One person cuts the cake into two pieces, and the other person gets to choose which piece to take. Abraham and Lot used this method to split up the land in which they would settle: Abraham divided the land, and Lot chose Jordan, leaving Canaan for Abraham.

“I cut, you choose” has one very appealing property: It is envy-free, meaning that neither participant would willingly trade her share for the other share. The person who cuts the cake—or tract of land, or other divisible good—has an incentive to make the two shares as equal as possible from her perspective, since she doesn’t know which she’ll end up with. If she does a good cutting job, she will be content with either piece. The other participant gets to choose her favorite piece, so neither person will wish to trade.

But when the good being divided is not homogenous—when the cake has an assortment of different frostings, or the land has a mix of fertile valleys, mineral-rich mountains, and arid deserts—the “I cut, you choose” method falls short on other important measures of fairness and desirability. (...)

Mathematicians have proven that when two people are dividing a cake, there is always some division that is simultaneously envy-free, equitable, and efficient (to get a sense of why this is true, see Sidebar: Cakes Are Fair Game). But there’s no simple algorithm for identifying this ideal split. And, in some other division problems, mathematicians have shown that no ideal split even exists. In its stead, mathematicians have, over the past 20 years, developed a rigorous framework for exploring the trade-offs required by different kinds of divisions, helping to bring clarity to the fallout from divorce, death, and divestment.

One straightforward approach that Ayers and Socha might have taken is called “the shotgun clause,” a close analogue to “I cut, you choose” that is common in business contracts. This clause stipulates that if, for example, two owners of a business want to part ways, one of them will propose a buyout price, and the other will choose either to buy or be bought out at that price. Like “I cut, you choose,” this method is envy-free but not equitable: It’s better to be the chooser than the proposer. As a result, arguments about who should propose and who should choose sometimes lead to years of litigation, says James Ring, lawyer and CEO of Fair Outcomes, a Boston company that provides division algorithms.

Instead, Ayers and Socha committed that in the event of a break-up, they would use a relatively new algorithm called Fair Buy-Sell to determine which of them would buy out the other’s share, and at what price. Fair Buy-Sell was devised in 2007 by Ring and Steven Brams, a professor of politics at New York University, and requires each partner to simultaneously propose a buyout price. If John proposes $110,000 and Jane proposes $100,000 then John, the higher bidder, will buy out Jane for $105,000. Unlike the shotgun clause, this method is equitable: Each participant ends up with something—either money or the business—at a price that is better than his or her offer. “Both participants always get a solution that’s better than what they proposed,” Ring says. And the business always goes to the partner who values it more.

This algorithm joins a long list of others, with names like Adjusted Winner and Balanced Alternation. Just as important as prescriptions for fair division, though, is understanding when perfect fairness is impossible, or comes at the cost of social welfare (which measures the extent to which items are going to the people who value them most.). In the January 2013 issue of The American Mathematical Monthly, Brams—together with Christian Klamler of the University of Graz and Michael Jones of Montclair State University—showed that when three people are dividing a cake, it is sometimes impossible to find a division that is simultaneously envy-free, equitable, and efficient. Similarly, when three people have to divide a collection of indivisible items, it is sometimes necessary to choose between an envy-free solution and an efficient solution...

by Erica Klarreich, Nautilus |  Read more:

Image: Emmanuel Polanco

Where There's Smoke

"This is a hybrid. This is a cross, ah, of bluegrass, Kentucky bluegrass, featherbed bent, and Northern California sensimilla. The amazing stuff about this is that you can play 36 holes on it in the afternoon, take it home and just get stoned to the bejeezus-belt that night on this stuff."
—Carl Spackler, Caddyshack

The first tee at Denver's City Park Golf Course sits at an elevation of 5,250 feet, just short of a mile high. If a player has ingested two cannabis-infused lemon drops and part of a gingerbread cookie laced with 100 milligrams of THC, as I recently did, it will feel a little higher.

It would have been far more typical for me to have a Bloody Mary, an Irish coffee or a beer before stepping to the tee, for golf and alcohol have enjoyed a long and happy relationship. In fact, the earliest known references to golf and Scotch whisky date to within a mere 40 years of each other, in 15th-century Scotland. These days, it's the rare course that doesn't have a bar attached: the 19th hole.

Golf and marijuana do not share such a bond. Yet opinions about weed are changing fast. A Gallup survey in October 2013 showed 58 percent of Americans supported legalizing marijuana. In more than four decades of polling, it was the first time more than half the respondents backed legalization. Golf Digest surveyed its readers and social-media followers and found that although only 3 percent said they smoke pot playing golf, 11 percent of those in the 18-34 age group admitted to partaking some or all of the time (see page 151). Which is why I find myself standing here—already a little lightheaded—on the first tee at City Park with Ryan Cook, Josh Malman and Mark Scruggs. As of Jan. 1, it has been legal to buy and consume marijuana for non-medical purposes in Colorado—and these three are among the many enjoying the privilege.

No one would confuse my playing partners with Carl Spackler, the stoner groundskeeper in "Caddyshack." Cook, a clean-cut 34-year-old, is general manager of The Clinic, a marijuana dispensary with six Denver-area locations. Malman, 34, is head of The Clinic's growing operations. Scruggs, 45, is the general manager of Weedmaps, a sort of Yelp for legal marijuana.

Scruggs got into golf in his late 20s and plays two or three times a week. He enjoys an occasional beer but prefers weed. He finds it helps him "relax and focus without becoming upset or frustrated." Unlike booze, pot doesn't "impair my dexterity or motor skills," Scruggs says.

Cook, who took golf lessons as a kid and started playing again in his early 20s, praises weed's capacity for taking the edge off a frustrating game. "It can really help to provide a calming demeanor," he says.

The guys do their best to make sure I keep calm throughout our round, offering me hits from a little glass pipe packed with different strains of cannabis. The weed has its strongest effect on me during the back nine. I'm definitely...loose. My mouth has gone pretty dry, and I notice that I keep absent-mindedly putting my glove on to putt when I've just taken it off to putt. But otherwise I'm in control and able to swing my clubs without any major complications. Though Malman is driving the cart, on this wide-open course I'd be perfectly comfortable doing so if needed. We finish our round in a little over four hours. My score: 99. That's 10 to 15 strokes worse than usual for me, but not way outside my realm of possible outcomes.

by David Courtney, Golf Digest | Read more:
Image: Zachary Scott

Thanks, Bank of America

We have learned that your Bank of America® credit card information may have been compromised at an undisclosed merchant or service provider. This does not mean fraud has or will occur on your account, but we are taking precautionary steps to help protect your account.

We're mailing you a new credit card with a new number and deactivating your old card on 05/14/2014. Your new card should arrive within 5-7 business days in an unmarked envelope. Upon receiving it, please:

Activate your new card immediately so you may continue making transactions without interruption 

Destroy your old card and start using your new card

If you've set up recurring payments with a store or service provider, provide those companies with your new credit card number and expiration date 

Keep in mind that if you have a Personal Identification Number (PIN) it is secure and remains unchanged 

Remember, your account has the Total Security Protection® package which provides you with greater defense against theft, loss and fraudulent use of your card.

-----

Dear Bank of America,

Thanks for the heads up. I'd like to ask a few questions, though:

How is it that an "undisclosed merchant or service provider" could compromise my credit card account? What does "undisclosed" mean, and undisclosed to whom? Don't you have standardized security measures in place for all merchants and service providers that use your services? Was it just me, or is this a systemic BoA problem that affects millions of other customers? What was the nature of the compromised activity, and how are you dealing with the issue (other than making me jump through these hoops?)

How can I properly evaluate this risk and possibly avoid similar situations in the future when the only statement provided is "this does not mean fraud has or will occur"? Don't you have algorithms and monitoring systems designed to red flag purchases that are inconsistent with my history? (You certainly did when I drove through Canada and suddenly found my card inactivated so I couldn't buy gas, or call you with my cell phone. That was a good one, thanks!). What does it mean if other "compromised" activites occur again? Are you going to just keep replacing my cards? And what does this say about the rigor of your monitoring systems?

Lastly, and most importantly, do you have any idea what it takes to change all the autopay accounts most cards are currently registered under? (rhetorical question, I'm sure you do and don't really care). It's not insignificant. Utilities, banks, brokerages, Netflix, Amazon, PayPal, cable tv... on and on and on (I'm sure other customers have more accounts than I do, things like smartphone and computer apps, music services, etc. Maybe even country club accounts like your executives enjoy). The time and aggravation involved in calling, emailing, and simply trying to remember all these accounts is, well, let's just say it again, not insignificant, and doesn't enhance anyone's productivity. In fact, it occurs to me to ask: why don't YOU call and update all my accounts? You have all the information.

So Bank of America, I'm asking you, please explain your Total Security Protection package and how this makes my life better? I was under the impression that you had tighter controls on your services than you actually do? What about your claims that unwarranted purchases can be identified quickly and won't be credited to my account? If all that can be undermined by one "compromised merchant or service provider" what does that say about your service?

Since it looks like I'll have to change the information on all my accounts anyway, maybe it's a good time to start looking at other card options.

by markk
Image via:

[ed. Tried responding to this, but here's the reply: "Because email is not a secure form of communication, please do not reply to this email. If you have any questions about your account or need assistance, please visit http://www.bankofamerica.com and select the Contact Us link."

[Thanks again, BoA!]

Mother Gaia

[ed. Someone retrieved this from the archives and I thought I'd repost it. Still relevant as ever.]
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The Solutions to All Our Problems May be Buried in PDFs that Nobody Reads

[ed. Halleluja, somebody finally confirmed what I've always suspected. Current pdf design/technology needs to go the way of the dinosaur.]

What if someone had already figured out the answers to the world's most pressing policy problems, but those solutions were buried deep in a PDF, somewhere nobody will ever read them?

According to a recent report by the World Bank, that scenario is not so far-fetched. The bank is one of those high-minded organizations -- Washington is full of them -- that release hundreds, maybe thousands, of reports a year on policy issues big and small. Many of these reports are long and highly technical, and just about all of them get released to the world as a PDF report posted to the organization's Web site.

The World Bank recently decided to ask an important question: Is anyone actually reading these things? They dug into their Web site traffic data and came to the following conclusions: Nearly one-third of their PDF reports had never been downloaded, not even once. Another 40 percent of their reports had been downloaded fewer than 100 times. Only 13 percent had seen more than 250 downloads in their lifetimes. Since most World Bank reports have a stated objective of informing public debate or government policy, this seems like a pretty lousy track record.

Now, granted, the bank isn't Buzzfeed. It wouldn't be reasonable to expect thousands of downloads for reports with titles like "Detecting Urban Expansion and Land Tenure Security Assessment: The Case of Bahir Dar and Debre Markos Peri-Urban Areas of Ethiopia." Moreover, downloads aren't the be-all and end-all of information dissemination; many of these reports probably get some distribution by e-mail, or are printed and handed out at conferences. Still, it's fair to assume that many big-idea reports with lofty goals to elevate the public discourse never get read by anyone other than the report writer and maybe an editor or two. Maybe the author's spouse. Or mom.

I'm not picking on the World Bank here. In fact, they're to be commended, strongly, for not only taking a serious look at the question but making their findings public for the rest of us to learn from. And don't think for a second that this is just a World Bank problem. PDF reports are basically the bread and butter of Washington's huge think tank industry, for instance. Every single one of these groups should be taking a serious look at their own PDF analytics the way the bank has.

by Christopher Ingraham, Washington Post |  Read more:

Image: World Bank

Alessandra De Costanzo, Twirl

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Catalonia, Spain
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Howlin' Wolf
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Two Problems With One Solution

On Monday, sports labor lawyer Jeffrey Kessler filed an antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA on behalf of college basketball and football players, attempting to remove the market restrictions on college athletes.

As the introduction to the suit explains, “The [NCAA and five major conferences] and their member institutions have lost their way far down the road of commercialism, signing multi-billion dollar contracts wholly disconnected from the interests of ‘student athletes,’ who are barred from receiving the benefits of competitive markets for their services even though their services generate these massive revenues. As a result of these illegal restrictions, market forces have been shoved aside and substantial damages have been inflicted upon a host of college athletes whose services have yielded riches only for others. This class action is necessary to end the NCAA’s unlawful cartel, which is inconsistent with the most fundamental principles of antitrust law.”

That paragraph neatly encapsulates a conversation we’ve been having for a few years now. What’s happening to college athletes is bullshit. We know this.

Maybe it wasn’t bullshit 50 years ago, but now that TV revenue has pushed the whole college sports economy into the billions, refusing to pay the actual labor force has become increasingly reprehensible, and generally untenable, as more and more people slowly connect the dots. The lawsuit from Kessler & Co. is the latest installment in a steady stream of litigation, and none of it will end until the college model gets overhauled forever.

“We’re looking to change the system. That’s the main goal,” Kessler said Monday. “We want the market for players to emerge.”

And that will happen. Maybe it’ll be this lawsuit that does it; maybe it’ll happen in a few years. But this is a problem that’s going to get fixed, because it’s too obvious to ignore for much longer. (...)

Meanwhile, it’s March, and the entire country’s about to fall in love with college basketball again. The March Madness broadcast rights are worth $771 million alone every year. That’s before you factor in a merchandise industry that was worth $4.62 billion in 2012. Or events like the Final Four, held in an 80,000-seat stadium where prices on the NCAA-sanctioned secondary ticket market range from $130 to $2,750. Everyone knows NCAA players are getting screwed out of a fortune, but sometimes it’s good to repeat the numbers out loud just to make sure we’re all on the same page.

If you’re one of the people who still thinks college athletes are fairly compensated with a $40,000 scholarship, think of it like this: That’s not even $40,000 they’re getting. That’s a voucher. It costs the schools nothing. It’s like cooking at a restaurant that clears hundreds of millions of dollars every year, and they pay you by giving you free food for the year. It’s total bullshit.

by Andrew Sharp, Grantland |  Read more:

Image: uncredited

The Real House Candidates of Beverly Hills

Brent Roske lives on a 45-foot yacht off the coast of Marina del Rey, which is technically on the Pacific Ocean, but for jurisdictional purposes is considered part of the city of Los Angeles and, more to the point, the 33rd Congressional District of California. In January, Henry Waxman, the liberal stalwart who has represented the district with little resistance since the year after Roske was born, announced that he would not seek re-election. Now Roske, who is 39, is part of a field of 18 candidates hoping to represent the heartland of Beverly Hills, Malibu and Bel-Air in the United States Congress.

A former creative director at NBC Universal, Roske is not without assets. He is the producer of a web series called “Chasing the Hill,” which chronicles the campaign of a fictional Democratic congresswoman. He also has support from the White House — or at least the soundstage White House of “The West Wing.” Richard Schiff, who played Toby on the series, has a big role in “Chasing the Hill” and is a Roske friend. So is David Hasselhoff, who played the governor of California on the web series. Should Roske get elected, he already has some bold ideas. He plans, for instance, to hire a film crew to document his every move in office. “People have a right,” he says, “to know what their elected representatives are doing.

Roske describes Waxman as “an honorable man,” but one whose extended status in D.C. has meant that he “no longer really represents the people.” This raises the question of what it means to represent “the people” in America’s second-wealthiest congressional district. (It trails only the 12th District of New York, which includes parts of the East Side of Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens.) California 33 is, after all, home to what might be the highest per capita population of political dilettantes, “creative activists,” foreign-policy hobbyists and flush Democratic donors in the nation, not to mention large numbers of people who like to tell you about their good friends Bill and Hillary. (And how they were just talking to Bill the other day, in fact, and stay tuned for who they think Hillary’s running mate will be.)

News of Waxman’s departure unleashed a kind of political anarchy on the Botox Belt. “When you represent a district for 40 years, it does tend to produce pent-up demand,” Waxman told me. Initially, fantasies were spun about celebrity candidates jumping into the race and vying “Survivor”-style for the privilege of serving in the People’s Chamber. Roll Call, the Capitol Hill publication, put out a call via Twitter for the likes of Courteney Cox, Danny DeVito and Betty White, as well as a roster of other A-through-C-listers. Ricki Lake and Richard Simmons replied — to say no. Lorenzo Lamas came back with a maybe.

Even so, the existing field reflects the vibrant collection of humanity that resides in California 33. Some are serious candidates, some not — three Republicans, three Independents, one Green, one Libertarian, the rest Democrats. You’ve most likely not heard of any of them except Marianne Williamson, the self-help guru, who dislikes being called a “self-help guru.” (Her spokesman has suggested the term “thought leader.”) Williamson has spoken of turning our political dialogue into “a conversation of the heart.” Katy Perry shows up at her events, as do multiple Kardashians. Kim officially endorsed her in a blog post just before press time. Williamson also received the support of Alanis Morissette, Nicole Richie and, for added sex appeal, Dennis Kucinich. (...)

None of them, however, are enjoying themselves as much as Brent Roske. I met him last month at a diner in West Hollywood. He ordered a meatloaf sandwich, and after a few minutes, Richard Schiff showed up. I wanted to call him Toby — because he is Toby, basically, self-serious, intense and irritable. A group of about a dozen schoolchildren filed into the diner for milkshakes. One had a distinctive, shrieking laugh, which kept making Schiff jump slightly in his chair. “I almost shot that kid right in the head,” he said at one point. “This is why we shouldn’t have a gun culture, because I would have shot him.”

Schiff has many opinions about politics, which we were obligated to hear because he once worked in a TV White House. At one point he said that people from the Obama campaign told him how much “The West Wing” inspired them to get into politics. I don’t doubt this, as Washington is filled with operatives who routinely quote lines from the show and have come to mimic the characters’ fast-talking mannerisms and heady sense that they are always shaping history. “I came to the conclusion that without ‘The West Wing’ — ” Schiff said, then slightly changed gears. “I don’t think Obama — ” He seemed to be struggling for a way to credit the show he was on with the Obama’s election. By contrast, today’s political productions, like “House of Cards,” are darker shows for darker times. Schiff joked that people probably “go up to Kevin Spacey and say, you’re the reason I decided not to” get into politics.

by Mark Leibovich, NY Times |  Read more:

Image: Holly Andres

[ed. Remember when computers almost seemed to have personalities of their own? Maybe not.]
How I Introduced a 27-year old computer to the web.
via:

This is the Life

Any culture tells you how to live your one and only life: to wit as everyone else does. Probably most cultures prize, as ours rightly does, making a contribution by working hard at work that you love; being in the know, and intelligent; gathering a surplus; and loving your family above all, and your dog, your boat, bird-watching. Beyond those things our culture might specialize in money, and celebrity, and natural beauty. These are not universal. You enjoy work and will love your grandchildren, and somewhere in there you die.

Another contemporary consensus might be: You wear the best shoes you can afford, you seek to know Rome's best restaurants and their staffs, drive the best car, and vacation on Tenerife. And what a cook you are!

Or you take the next tribe's pigs in thrilling raids; you grill yams; you trade for televisions and hunt white-plumed birds. Everyone you know agrees: this is the life. Perhaps you burn captives. You set fire to a drunk. Yours is the human struggle, or the elite one, to achieve... whatever your own culture tells you: to publish the paper that proves the point; to progress in the firm and gain high title and salary, stock options, benefits; to get the loan to store the beans till their price rises; to elude capture, to feed your children or educate them to a feather edge; or to count coup or perfect your calligraphy; to eat the king's deer or catch the poacher; to spear the seal, intimidate the enemy, and be a big man or beloved woman and die respected for the pigs or the title or the shoes. Not a funeral. Forget funeral. A big birthday party. Since everyone around you agrees.

Since everyone around you agrees ever since there were people on earth that land is value, or labor is value, or learning is value, or title, necklaces, degree, murex shells, or ownership of slaves. Everyone knows bees sting and ghosts haunt and giving your robes away humiliates your rivals. That the enemies are barbarians. That wise men swim through the rock of the earth; that houses breed filth, airstrips attract airplanes, tornadoes punish, ancestors watch, and you can buy a shorter stay in purgatory. The black rock is holy, or the scroll; or the pangolin is holy, the quetzal is holy, this tree, water, rock, stone, cow, cross, or mountain and it's all true. The Red Sox. Or nothing at all is holy, as everyone intelligent knows.

Who is your "everyone"? Chess masters scarcely surround themselves with motocross racers. Do you want aborigines at your birthday party? Or are you serving yak-butter tea? Popular culture deals not in its distant past, or any other past, or any other culture. You know no one who longs to buy a mule or be named to court or thrown into a volcano.

So the illusion, like the visual field, is complete It has no holes except books you read and soon forget. And death takes us by storm. What was that, that life? What else offered? If for him it was contract bridge, if for her it was copyright law, if for everyone it was and is an optimal mix of family and friends, learning, contribution, and joy of making and ameliorating what else is there, or was there, or will there ever be?

by Annie Dillard, Billemory.com |  Read more: