———————————————————————————————-
From: {{Ex-landlord}} <##SMS##Hidden##@unknown.email>
Date: Sat, Sep 3, 2011 at 8:21 AM
Subject: SMS with {{Ex-landlord}}
To: karlwinthrop@gmail.com
It’s unfortunate you weren’t unable to demonstrate how responsible you claim to be.  Actions speak louder than words. your actions were disrespectful and careless. This is not the kind of room-mate I’m looking for.
———————————————————————————————-
From: <karlwinthrop@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 4:26 PM
Subject: SMS with {{Ex-landlord}}
To: {{Ex-landlord}} <##SMS##Hidden##@unknown.email>
FYI: I’ve hired movers to come get the majority of my things Saturday morning (just got moved up due to a cancelation). The search for a new operational base is underway but I can’t plan to be out earlier than Sept 30, although that may happen. I’m late at the store tonight but I will be there Friday night to get things reorganized from what little unpacking I did. I’ll keep you updated as things occur.

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From: {{Ex-landlord}} <##SMS##Hidden##@unknown.email>
Date: Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 5:51 PM
Subject: SMS with {{Ex-landlord}}
To: karlwinthrop@gmail.com
Karl, I’m not sure it’s a good decision to let you stay, but I’m willing to reconsider.  Don’t make me sorry if you decide to stay.

———————————————————————————————-
From: <karlwinthrop@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, Sep 10, 2011 at 10:34 AM
Subject: SMS with {{Ex-landlord}}
To: {{Ex-landlord}} <##SMS##Hidden##@unknown.email>
Thanks for keeping the pups under control while the.movers were there. FYI: the wardrobe doors are being bought next week, and should be picked up Monday or Wednesday. Never meant to be such a hassle.

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From: <karlwinthrop@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 3:11 PM
Subject: SMS with {{Ex-landlord}}
To: {{Ex-landlord}} <##SMS##Hidden##@unknown.email>
Will you be around Friday eve? I’d like to give back the key and get the deposit back. Also please confirm that you’ve discontinued the bank debit.

———————————————————————————————-
From: {{Ex-landlord}} <##SMS##Hidden##@unknown.email>
Date: Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 3:19 PM
Subject: SMS with {{Ex-landlord}}
To: karlwinthrop@gmail.com
I won’t be here Friday eve.  What wardrobe doors?
Bank account deduction has been discontinued.

———————————————————————————————-
From: {{Ex-landlord}} <##SMS##Hidden##@unknown.email>
Date: Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 3:21 PM
Subject: SMS with {{Ex-landlord}}
To: karlwinthrop@gmail.com
Lock door put keys in mail slot.

———————————————————————————————-
From: {{Ex-landlord}} <##SMS##Hidden##@unknown.email>
Date: Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 3:28 PM
Subject: SMS with {{Ex-landlord}}
To: karlwinthrop@gmail.com
And leave your forwarding address.

———————————————————————————————-
From: <karlwinthrop@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 3:44 PM
Subject: SMS with {{Ex-landlord}}
To: {{Ex-landlord}} <##SMS##Hidden##@unknown.email>
Are you available Thursday eve or Saturday afternoon? I saw that the previous occupant was still requesting return of his deposit more than 6 weeks after his departure. I would like to resolve this more quickly.  The doors that had been in the garage were purchaed and picked up last week.

———————————————————————————————-
From: {{Ex-landlord}} <##SMS##Hidden##@unknown.email>
Date: Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 3:51 PM
Subject: SMS with {{Ex-landlord}}
To: karlwinthrop@gmail.com
Are you planning to put the furniture back the way it was?

———————————————————————————————-
From: <karlwinthrop@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 3:53 PM
Subject: SMS with {{Ex-landlord}}
To: {{Ex-landlord}} <##SMS##Hidden##@unknown.email>
If you do not feel the reconfiguration was an improvement, I can do so.

———————————————————————————————-
From: {{Ex-landlord}} <##SMS##Hidden##@unknown.email>
Date: Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 3:54 PM
Subject: SMS with {{Ex-landlord}}
To: karlwinthrop@gmail.com
Also, the trash is outside the garage in the back not the container in the garage.  No, it wasn’t an improvement

———————————————————————————————-
From: {{Ex-landlord}} <##SMS##Hidden##@unknown.email>
Date: Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 9:30 PM
Subject: SMS with {{Ex-landlord}}
To: karlwinthrop@gmail.com
Keys have not yet been returned and the bedroom furniture is not back in place.

———————————————————————————————-
From: <karlwinthrop@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 9:50 PM
Subject: SMS with {{Ex-landlord}}
To: {{Ex-landlord}} <##SMS##Hidden##@unknown.email>
You said you weren’t available to meet. I made other plans. Are you available tomorrow afternoon?

———————————————————————————————-

From: {{Ex-landlord}} <##SMS##Hidden##@unknown.email>
Date: Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 10:05 PM
Subject: SMS with {{Ex-landlord}}
To: karlwinthrop@gmail.com
You won’t get your deposit back until the room is returned along with keys.

———————————————————————————————-
From: {{Ex-landlord}} <##SMS##Hidden##@unknown.email>
Date: Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 10:05 PM
Subject: SMS with {{Ex-landlord}}
To: karlwinthrop@gmail.com
Your last day is today with rightful entry. You didn’t pay rent for Oct.

———————————————————————————————-
From: {{Ex-landlord}} <##SMS##Hidden##@unknown.email>
Date: Fri, Sep 30, 2011 at 10:07 PM
Subject: SMS with {{Ex-landlord}}
To: karlwinthrop@gmail.com
If u want your deposit back you aren’t going about it very well.

———————————————————————————————-
From: <karlwinthrop@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Oct 2, 2011 at 5:33 PM
Subject: SMS with {{Ex-landlord}}
To: {{Ex-landlord}} <##SMS##Hidden##@unknown.email>
Let me know if you will be available, Tuesday or Wednesday eve. My friend and I can stop by to rearrange the room. Or if you prefer, I can try to coordinate with Steve to be home for the reset; and we can make later arrangements for the key/deposit exchange.

———————————————————————————————-
From: {{Ex-landlord}} <##SMS##Hidden##@unknown.email>
Date: Sun, Oct 2, 2011 at 5:54 PM
Subject: SMS with {{Ex-landlord}}
To: karlwinthrop@gmail.com
Karl, I told you the keys need to be returned before the end of the month that you paid for.  The house will get rekeyed at a cost of $150 and I will have to pay movers to put the furniture back the way it was. This comes out of your deposit.  You don’t have the option to come back and it’s not required t
u moved out.

———————————————————————————————-
From: <karlwinthrop@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Oct 2, 2011 at 6:55 PM
Subject: SMS with {{Ex-landlord}}
To: {{Ex-landlord}} <##SMS##Hidden##@unknown.email>
Really? Is room configuration a reasonable part of a rental agreement? Or my request that you be present to assure things are placed to your liking? And also my request to meet in person to return the key? Are any of these things outside the realm of common courtesy?  Am I to infer that you refuse to meet me? If I am misunderstanding you, please clarify your position. Do things really have to continue like this?

———————————————————————————————-
From: {{Ex-landlord}} <##SMS##Hidden##@unknown.email>
Date: Sun, Oct 2, 2011 at 10:26 PM
Subject: SMS with {{Ex-landlord}}
To: karlwinthrop@gmail.com
Karl, it’s very simple as I told you earlier. 1) return your keys., 2) return the room to it’s configuration. This is reasonable since the furniture you moved is extremely heavy and you didn’t have the courtesy to ask if it was ok to move it and now expect others to correct this on your behalf. This is irresponsible (again), to think that this is ok and that you seem to not think it’s your responsibility.  This is why you cant live here. 3). I need your forwarding address to return your deposit.  We don’t need to meet since I already told you this.  YOU instead decided to not do any of these things and now are troubled by the consequence.

———————————————————————————————-
From: Karl Winthrop <karlwinthrop@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Oct 2, 2011 at 11:47 PM
Subject: Re: SMS with {{Ex-landlord}}
To: {{Ex-landlord}} <##SMS##Hidden##@unknown.email>
I have returned the key. I request that you return the enterity if my deposit by Saturday October 8th or I shall file legal action for its return.

———————————————————————————————-
From: {{Ex-landlord}}
Date: Mon, Oct 3, 2011 at 12:22 AM
Subject: Re: SMS with {{Ex-landlord}}
To: Karl Winthrop <karlwinthrop@gmail.com>
Karl, please do, I would welcome the opportunity to talk with your attorney.

As I stated earlier, the furniture is extremely heavy and you moved it with out permission and apparently consideration that you would have to put it back.  The original configuration is preferred and it is not unreasonable to expect the room to be returned in the same condition you found it. Extra effort beyond what would be considered “normal” is required.  That furniture is very heavy and not appropriate in its current location. You were renting a furnished bedroom.

You were advised of all this prior to your departure.  Instead you chose not to. It is irresponsible although not surprising I guess, to think you would be due a full refund.  I will return your deposit once I know the cost to hire someone to return the furniture to its original position as one person can not move the furniture.  You knew this when you and your accomplice moved it to it’s current location.

I’m sorry that you are unable to be responsible enough to take ownership for your actions.  As I guessed shortly after you moved in you are not the kind of responsible room-mate that I would care to live with, and much to my disappointment you proved me right.

Sincerely,
Sent from an iPhone
———————————————————————————————-
From: Karl Winthrop <karlwinthrop@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Aug 24, 2011 at 8:53 AM
Subject: SMS with {{Ex-landlord}}
To: {{Ex-landlord}} ##SMS##Hidden##@unknown.email
Some things that I believe you have overlooked in your evaluation of the situation: 1)  On the day I viewed the room, I indicated that I would be bringing some of my own furniture, and wondered if that would be a problem. Your response was that if there were any items that I did not need in the room they could be moved for storage to the basement. I specifically mentioned that the closet organizer would not be necessary. 2) On the Friday when I completed the move of my boxed items I inquired about where you would like the antique radio (that was in the room) moved to should I not be able to include it in the reconfiguration of the room. Your response was that it could be stored in the basement. And there was no indication that shifting the configuration was in any way an issue.  3) I moved “heavy furniture items” with the help of my brother with minimal effort and in a short amount of time.  4)  The closet organizer that I had been temporarily removed from the room was returned prior to my departure.  5) Prior to my departure I made it clear that I am willing to rearrange the furniture at a time convenient to your presence.  I have repeatedly provided my availability and continue to be willing at a mutually agreed upon time to place the furniture in a configuration of your direction.

In the run up to the “Commonwealth Games” scheduled for the second half of next month here in Delhi, there have been a number of editorials in the dailys on how playing host to a large multi-sport competition will make India look to the rest of the world: a lot of put your best face forward, and tackle corruption while the spotlight is on, sort of stuff. One magazine decided that it would handle things from a different angle. M, local competition to GQ-India and FHM, decided to present a series of essays and photos that discussed the zeitgeist of a striving for modernity yet exasperating republic.

Below the author tackles both his current predicament of feeling like a foreigner in what should be his homeland; but also touches on a not-so-uniquely-Indian problem of how to cobble together a national Identity.

Including the Excluded

By Pradip Phanjoubahm

Are you an Indian? Where was the last time I heard this thrown at me? Difficult to remember, for there have been too many occasions. Not too infrequently and painfully, this is also the experience of most others from the Northeast when they travel abroad, or to the so-called ‘mainland’ India. Mainland? Well, North—east India is almost an island, connected to the rest of the country by just a twenty—and-something kilometer ‘Siliguri Corridor’, or the ‘chicken’s neck’ as this narrow strip of land is more popularly known. Indeed, for most in the North—east, the existential question ‘Who am l?’ has to be renegotiated the day he or she crosses this corridor.

I am reminded of a classic story. Some years ago, one of our reporters was invited to Bangkok for a three—day workshop on climate reporting. He reached the hotel a day in advance, and with religious punctuality, arrived at the conference hall for the opening session, The meeting, however, did not begin for long after he completed the registration formalities. The organizers, it seemed, were waiting for another participant. When he inquired, one of them apologetic calmly told him that they were waiting for an Indian participant to reach the venue.

Ten minutes later, when the Indian man (or woman) still did not turn up, our reporter began to have a nagging suspicion that they could be waiting for somebody who may already be at the venue. He was not wrong. When he asked the organizers how many Indians were participating at the conference in the first place, it turned out there was only one. A look of surprise, a recheck of the attendance register and a hearty laugh later, the meet began. This happened in Bangkok, and therefore evoked nothing more than a hearty laugh. Had a similar thing happened in New Delhi, which is not an impossibility, the hurt and alienation caused would understandably have been much deeper.

The much talked about ghettoization of communities from the Northeast in New Delhi and other Indian metropolises is indeed not just a matter of the northeasterner preferring the security of a Northeast ghetto, but equally one of his or her being pushed into it. For many middle-class young men and women in Manipur, especially among the Hindu Meites who have grown up amidst a devout Vaishnav culture, the question ‘Who am I?’ normally begins troubling them at the college-going age - the time when their parents send them away in pursuit of higher studies to the better political and academic climes of other Indian states. Till then, most would have had no problem in believing themselves to be Indians, by definition as well as culture, without having ever felt the need to reflect on what it means to be an Indian.

They would hence cheer for the India an hockey and football teams without reservation. Cricket is a little alien, although its fan following is on the rise thanks to television and the game’s new packaging. They would celebrate Holi and Durga Puja and other Hindu festivals, and also know that they share these faiths with a lot of others in other parts of India, establishing, in this way, a sense of a loose national community. Unlike other ethnic groups in the region, a good majority of whom are Christians, their sense of a letdown when they discover there is more to the Indian identity then they believed, is peculiar. Needless to say, many end up embittered.

Just to give a sense of Manipur’s demographic profile, the Meiteis are one of three major ethnic groups of the state; They are predominantly Hindus, although seven percent of them are Muslims and an unspecified percentage follows the original pre-Hindu animistic faith of Sanamahi, now given new life by a strong revivalist movement in the 1960s and ’7os. (The percentage of Sanamahi followers will be known after the current Indian census exercise, which has allowed them to enter ‘Sanamahi’ as their religion, although today, it must be said, this faith has become somewhat an extension of Hinduism. The fact that Hinduism is not a structured religion has helped in this.) The other two major groups are the Nagas and Kukis, who are today almost a hundred percent Christian. (This followed the proselytizing path opened

115 years ago by the pioneering and revered American Baptist missionary William Pettigrew.) Their sense of aleinatiation to the idea of India is (or at least was) a substantially different equation. politic secular, is culturally still predominantly the land of the Hindus, or Hindustani. In modern times, Hindu nationalist political parties.,by trying to give this cultural identity a political use, have only accentuated this belief.

Not so much In Mipur, but a good majority of the Nagas in Nagaland, for instance, would even today say they are not Indians. But then there would have to be finer distinction made here. The ‘Indian’ that the Nagers in Nagaland say they are not Las an imagined ethnic category and not a citizenship status. So when a Nagger says he is not an Indian, more than citizenship, he means he is not a non-mongoloid, Dravldo—Aryan, generally dark-skinned plainsman, which he believes is the ethnic profile of an Indian. In Manipur, there is a separate category for the plainsman Indian - Mayan. A Meitei, Kuki or Naga from Manipur hence wll say he is not a Mayang (obviously), but wall have less trouble calling himself an Indian, for Indian here signifies citizenship. This is also true of th other Northeastern states. In Mizoram, the word for Mayang is Val, In Meghalaya it is Dkhar etc. So am I, a Meitei from the Indian state of Manipur, an Indian? On the face of it, yes. I am a citizen of the secular republic called India. I fulfill all the obligations of being an Indian citizen and, in turn, enjoy all the benefits (although with some hiccups such as the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, AFSPA—1958) the Indian state guarantees its citizens. But the trouble is, being an Indian does not end here.

In fact, it only begins at this point. Quite to the contrary of what the republican Constitution of India says, ‘lndianmesn’ is often quite intuitively also projected as the state of belonging to a civilizational, historical and cultural stream. By this definition, to be Indian is a primordial state of being: Anybody can become an Indian citizen, but he cannot become an Indian, he has to be born as one. The case of the wide opposition some years ago amongst a good section of Indians to Sonia Gandhi emerging as a Prime Ministerial candidate is just one alibi. Quite ironically, even former Lok Sabha Speaker Puma Sangria, from Meghalaya, was one of the staunchest campaigners against this possibility, and he had even resigned from the Congress party on this count. This was, perhaps, a demonstration of the psychological phenomenon of self-hate that Frantz Fanon explained in Wretched of the Earth, in which the oppressed identifies his own degradation in others in a similar predicament, and despises that image.

This 5ooo-year-old historical mainstream of Indian culture is what the Northeast has never belonged to. The image oft Indian man projected both abroad as well as in the country has little of the northeast, which is why our reporter in Bangkok and other overseas travelers from the region are called upon to apologetically qualify their claims of being Indians every time they hold out their Indian passports. This may be just another unfortunate fact that the North-east man has to get used to and not be too sensitive about, but he cannot also prevent the hardening of the deep sense that he is a different Indian, The North—east has always belonged to historical stream that have flowed separately, and if there has been a forced confluence it is thanks to British colonialism. which yoked them together for its own ends. Under such circumstances, and especially when the boundary between ‘Indianness’ and ‘Hinduness’ is sought to be thinned down through political overtones such as ‘Hindutva’, the North-east finds itself recoiling.

This fact of the northeast being distant from the ‘mainstream’ is evident in the familiar appeal to it, to ’join the mainstream’. The question is, how about widening the Indian mainstream so that Northeasters do not have to leave their streams to join the ‘mainstream’? They can then remain in their old streams and still be part oft ‘mainstream’. To be a proud Indian, politically and culturally, then would only mean to be proud of what you actually are. And to this there would be no dispute, there would be no resistance, for then there would be nothing to resist. Nation building would then not involve either leaving any stream or joining another ‘mainstream’. In one stroke, the excluded would have automatically become included.

(The author is editor of Impala Free Press)

http://www.nationalmuseumindia.gov.in/

http://ngmaindia.gov.in/index.asp

http://www.akshardham.com/

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/india/delhi/restaurants/386305

http://www.fabindia.com/storesfrontdetails.asp?Indian_Stores=23:National%20Capital%20Region

http://club18.in/

They asked us what our degrees were in and were surprised to learn that neither of their trainers had a degree in business/finance - although they seemed to perk up when it was mentioned that their other trainer was in school for MBA (we didn’t mention that his first class wont be till he gets back in Sept). These guys had studied computer programing, and marketing at their various institutions, but in a down economy had thought that getting time in with a global-outsourcing firm would look good on their CV’s and give them a leg up on competition when internal management positions become available. It sounds a lot like how I started at the Job almost 7 years ago.

I’m more amazed at the similarities in the cultures than at the differences, and if it’s not to patronizing a thing to say — looking a out at Delhi (I know I’m in a suburb but out trip into the city Sunday revealed not so different a landscape from the one outside my balcony) I see the US 120 years ago, perhapse the mash of social classes, climbers, entreprenuers, migrants, visionaries, and those just struggling to get by, that existed in the New York City at the turn of the 19th century.

Another telling answer to our icebreaker questions was the what would you do if you won the lottery — although lotteries have been banned here recently for reasons having to do with fixing and corruption, they all knew what we meant. (I suspect though that in his description of American lottery, my colleague made us all seem like wastrel gambling addicts - but no matter.) 5 out of the six had in mind a sort of charitable foundation to assist all their countrymen & women that the upheavals of the last decades seem to have left behind.

I doubt than American group would answer so selflessly, either out of cynicsm at the effects of charity; or because of a lack of knowledge on the full extent of the domestic needs. Conversely I think it noble but perhapse futile to think that one lottery winning will have an impact on the fortunes of an entire country. (It’s hard enough to coordinate the schedules/motivations of my family so hundreds of millions seems impossible.) Maybe I’m wrong (and a part of me hopes I am) but “poor” is a relative state and there will always be some among us that are less advantaged, our efforts at charity do more to help the giver feel good than it does the situation of the recipient.

The other thing that makes this group of trainees amusing is the degree of camaraderie that they show toward each other. I learned that these guys have been mentoring with the firm’s new business teams for the last month while we were delayed in getting here (damned visa issue) and so they seem already pretty familiar with each other. The first night of training we accompanied them to the the small food stand/pavilion that had been set up in the vacant lot next to the office tower, they offered to buy us food - as if we were paying for our food ourselves anyway.

The degree of back slapping, hand holding, horsing around and general physical affection on display would be unthinkable in the American workplace, it made my colleague wonder about the idea of “sexual orientation” in Indian culture. From my limited knowledge there is no such thing as a homosexual-Hindi (although if there were they would no longer be considered criminal by national law). I explained that it was typical in most gender separated societies (as most of the non-G8 countries are) the assumption of marriage and child rearing are so strong that any activity short of being caught by the paparazzi in a man-on-man-on-man orgy wouldn’t lead to suspicion. Not that I’ll be picking up boys at a bar while I’m here — sorry Brett & Paul.

Again I think back to the mores of 19th century America, where the future president could share a bed/house with his law partner and nobody would assume that they were “life-partners”. The question remains as to how this may develop as the country grows more affluent. Will they loose this expression of friendship as trying to out-macho each other becomes a symptom of competetion, or will the strides toward gay-rights in the US and elsewhere allow them to leapfrog past that stage in their economic growth.

More later. Tomorrow afternoon we visit the India division of the corporation.

I suspect that these observations could apply to any of the rapidly-industrializing/post-consumerism-attempting economies of the world (BRIC, and the like) but there will be Indian specifics that will undoubtedly creep in. And my scope of view will likely be a bit limited due to the short leash I’ll be on given that I’m here to work.

I arrived at the Delhi in the dark but even as the driver sent to pick us up there were signs that the new wealth was not accruing to everybody evenly. There were people at the air port that wanted to help me with my bags for a small fee, but as I only had two small rollers there wasn’t much need — still they kept calling out, asking  if they could help me.

There were guards with rifles as we left the airport, and as we arrived at the gated residence complex (called Central Park — I assume that because once phase II is complete there will be gardens between the two sets of apartment towers)
and an unarmed desk clerk at the building entrance. With the number of security personnel you would think that the buildings were Trump-elaborate monstrosities of excess, but the furnishings were right out on a Ikea catalog (although not actually from the Swedish housewares giant, the style and construction techniques are definitely stolen from them) as I had predicted from looking at the photographs.

The one thing I hadn’t though through after looking at the photos was the house-man who lives here and does the cooking/cleaning/laundry for the people that are visiting the company’s India division. I’m not sure what time away from the apt he is afforded, nor his salary, but I have seen others like him walking around the complex, and I assume that a good portion of occupants have “domestics” (the promotional web-site for Phase 2 indicates that all units will have servant’s rooms) to help with all those things that I hate doing for myself.

With labor as cheap as it likely is - and most definitely is by comparison to the US — there is no shortage of hands to prepare food, do laundry and make my bed when I’m away. That’s just the thing that will likely be hardest the thing to get acustomed to, especially for a “bleeding heart liberal” like myself — my first any only twinge of rich-guilt. It comes as I’m riding down the highways and see the throngs of children, disfigured women and old men wandering alongside all the mini-vans, rickshaws and motorcycles. The last of those often carrying three people on it’s two wheels.

Tomorrow starts my work at the “night-office” as it’s affectionately known. I will  have more  after that. Till then I leave you with a picture of my morning view.

More to come as the trip nears. The current departure is set for July 7th.

Right now I’m “between relationships” and by relationship I mean a period of monogomus dating. I did once reach a stage where I lived with a significant other, but that was long ago and illconsidered. Most of my “relationships” since then have lasted 18 to 24 months aproximately the gestational period of an Elephant calf. Metaphorically I guess that implies a lot of miscarriages (or just that the “where’s this going” question takes that much time to become big enough to force acknowledgement). The elephant in the room indeed.

When they end I usually take a period to mourn, usually llasting about a week for each month that the relationship lasted. By that token I was “over ” the last BF by the time my brother got married last year. Since then I’ve had a lot of first dates, a smatterin of seconds and a grAnd total of 4 third dates. So much for the sucess rate of Match dot Com.

Every time I get the “I’m really busy” brush off I wonder what it was that put them off. Was it my busy schedule? Was it my nerdiness? Was it the fact that I’m always running late? And easily distracted? I never get an answer like that - which would be easier to understand. Mostly it’s the cliché ” not you, it’s me”, or the even more generic “just not working”.

This gives me no direction for improvement. Which could at least a way to channel the anger at getting dumped. I could get to the gym more often, spend more time cleaning my apt ( which usually needs it, but I’m not usually motivated unless I have an impression to make) or even discontinuing the use of phrase X. (I’ve recently caught myself starting to say the useless tautology “It is what it is”, I thankfully stopped before I got through “Wha”.) I’m left strugging to come up with a blueprint for how to be a better boyfriend. So I’m looking for all the advice I can get.

All suggestions welcome. All criticisms are acceptable. Let the commenting begin!

Bit with the invention the “electronic friendship generator” the once remote possibilities have been born into a world not quite ready for the self-awareness that always-on water cooler discussions. The essay was mainly dealing with people from long gone eras of ones life coming back to haunt an interminable highschool reunion. My haunting isn’t from quite that far back but like that other author I’m struggling to decide what amount of contact I want to have with this person from my past

Some years ago my sister got married; I wasn’t all that impressed with the guy (can’t say that anyone really liked him). As a group my family tolerated him and made nice with his rather tragic family. The one bright spot was my sister’s new step-daughter who was very happy to have all the attention my mom and her new aunties lavished upon her. She also gave me a nickname - one that I hope my other nephews and nieces will pick up when they’re old enough. I did really like being an uncle. She had a great sense of humor and really lived being a big sister. I had visions of my extended family being a needed stabalizing force in her life that would allow her to grow into the beautiful young-woman that everyone saw as her potential. I also hoped that I/we could shepherd her through the Impending onslaught of teen angst.

Saddly none of those hopes came to pass. Shortly after my nephew was born, his father did some horendous things and was sent to prison. The marriage ended and it was decided that she would live with her mother. It was a difficult time for everyone, and I suspect that there was not nearly enough time to prepare emotionaly for the change. (Her mother seemed like a grounded person but no having lived together for many years, the parent child relationship was in need of an overhaul.) I only saw her a few times after the house was sold.

There was some discussion and disagreement as to what level of contact was appropriate after the divorce. Stemming from the nature of his crimes, it was difficult to disentangle wanting to be sympathetic to her from wanting to never see her father again. For a while my sister continued to act as a girlscout leader for the troop she belonged to, but gradually she fell away from the troop.

Every so often news would filter to my sister — she and the mom have a few of the same friends — and it was nice to hear how her life was going. A sort of 4 degrees of gossip that let me know she was OK and that she was moving well through life. It would be nice to be assured that the damage wrought by her father was repairable, and that nothing but the normal teenager drama was happening.

Lately though it seems she has been having a bit more than the normal teenage problems, and I’m wondering if it would be appropriate to accept her recent friend request. And like just after the divorce I’m wondering if the possibilities for a positive impact out weigh the connection to a low life scum bag.

I first heard Matt Alber when my favorite news agregator/blog posted a video for his “End of the World”. Reading about him recording/producing/mixing the album in his apartment filled me with awe and that the video, directed by his brother, features a waltz with two men made me fall in love. The rest of the songs are beautifully instrumented and feature well his warn tenor. The have a timeless classical quality that I suspect comes from his involvement with Chanticlear, a Grammy winning choral group. At first listen I was wowed just by his technique, and have been repeatedly impressed by the song structure and lyricysim.

The themes of love as a natural world phenomenon are everywhere on the album - the opener “Monarch” connects being in a relationship to the migration of butterflies. And like Case he has the ability to bring to mind a prairie field teeming with life.

Many people have noted a fondness for animals in Neko Case’s songs. I came to her first after hearing “Tiger on a chain”, and have been folowing ever since. There is nobody that sounds quite as good with such uncatagorizable a body of work. Earlier in her career she sounded pretty old school country and honkey tonk but over the course of 6 albums has crafted a niche all her own. She seems to be heading in a Yankee Hotel Foxtrot direction but still keeps it all organic. Referencing magpies and killer whales the new set of songs fits in with her earth mother aura (and a cover of the Sparks’ “Mother Nature” adds just a slight bit of hippy granola crunch).

Still I’m glad she’s getting the attention she deserves. Cyclone was even sold at Target. In a few years maybe Matt will be as well known.

This poses a problem for the director, in that the material was itself a piece of visual storytelling, and what, if anything, does a director need if not a unique vision. It seems fittingly poetic that the main flaw of the movie was that its director tried to prove that he was a necessary element of the production — Gibbons should have received a director credit because of the number of sequences that were lifted directly from his illustrations.

The only place that the Snyder seems to have had visual input was the extension of some fight sequences and the unnecessary gratuity of female nudity. (The blue nudity makes perfect sense for the character and is part of the source material.) Which is blatantly an attempt to keep what, without the massive existing fan-boy base, would be it’s target demographic, teenage boys, happy.

What fan-boys already know is that Watchmen is more complex than a typical super-hero story. Contained with it’s 12 issues were the “origin stories” of half dozen characters, the the sketching of a parallel history where the US was not unsuccessful in Vietnam, the zeitgeist of impending nuclear doomsday, an exploration of existential determinism, the duality of female characters in the medium and a pirate story. 

Even at almost three hours, the movie could not possibly keep all this detail, but I was happy to say that it got most of the high-points right. (The “Black Freighter” meta-comic looks to be an extra on the DVD.) The characterizations of Rorschach and Night Owl were particularly well rounded, and with the emergence of motion capture technology as a viable tool for enhancing performances a new Oscar category seems ripe for Billy Crudup’s Dr. Manhattan to take home (or to become model for). 

The art direction and FX were awesome and I was happy to see so much of the novel brought to greater detail. But while it was good to see these drawing brought to life; the conceit of the mission statement, bring the graphic novel to the screen, was  its greatest flaw. (My review of 300 compared it to an animated David painting.)

While the serial novel poses its own sets of problems, Moore worked well within those to make each issue sufficiently self contained, but still be contained enough momentum to give each issue a cliffhanger. I think that the movie stayed to close to that narrative pattern, so that there seemed to be a sort of climax every twenty minuets or so. It would have been better if the screenwriters could have adjusted the pacing a bit for a more cohesive arc.

While I will confess an appreciation of multiple chronology storytelling, found that, on screen, the lack of narrative pattern to be jarring. I remember my first exposure to Moore’s work and having an immediate affinity for his ability to collapse and expand narrative time, which I later realized had been learned from the best of the 20th century, Woolfe, Joyce and Proust. Their lessons: the past is never really past and that writing allows anyone to be their own version Dr. Manhattan. (I’d be happy to be half as sexy without hair as Billy Blue. Sitting in a theatre however is not the same as sitting in an armchair and the movie cannot function in that same temporal environment.  

Pacing is just one way that a movie needs to be different than a book. The most successful adaptations understand this and edit accordingly. The few movies that have been better than the books from which they were taken apply a light approach to their sources. (example: Cider House Rules and Wonder Boys.) Taking so much directly from the series chopped up the action and the addition of unnecessary sequences dragged out run time.

However I am happy to say that one small detail was changed that I completely agree with; changed I assume because, even for a super-hero movie that postulates a consciousness made up something other than a brain, it was just to far fetched to believe. The original story used this as a way to make a conspiracy once discovered implausible to those who would read of it in Rorschach Journal. (I too am glad that was kept Justin.) 

Other reviews I’d categorize into those that applaud the reverence, those that applaud the direction that the movie takes the superhero genre and those that were annoyed by Akerman’s inadequate performance. I’ll give it 3.25 stars B- only because it tried to please the wrong audience - those fan-boys slavishly praising the faithful transcription - but movies being the business they are that was maybe that was a wise decision.