Friday, January 23, 2009

the ghost of employment past

The company that employed me when I first came to Prague has long been a source of comedic gold for those of us (and we were legion) who worked there.

I left many years ago, after I'd been rudely deprived of the opportunity to quit, but my understanding is that subsequently, wearied by the demands of dealing with adult employees, they switched first to part-time students, then later to one of the less-uppity breeds of monkey to staff their enterprise.

I've always been vaguely aware they were still out there, doing that thang they do, but today I found them listed as a sponsor of a seemingly presitigious world alternative energy summit, and their company "bio" is worth reproducing.

[NAME EXCISED TO BE ON THE SAFE SIDE, THESE PEOPLE ARE LITIGIOUS] is a digital news provider and media monitoring service scanning more than 50,000 news sections from over 5,000 newspapers and online publications and indexing nearly 80,000 new articles every 24 hours. [NAME EXCISED] is hand edited providing the most comprehensive and up-to-the-minute information available in various delivery formats regarding world affairs including the latest developments in every country's economy, business, industries, politics, international relations as well as human rights, religion, terrorism, and much more.

Hand edited. Did you catch that? None of that funky foot editing we were all up to in the early years, or that brief, glorious period when Stepan introduced his 'editing machine' (bulky and coal-fired, but surprisingly accurate nonetheless).

And I have been searching high and low for a source monitoring the "latest developments" in terrorism! Bravo, old company of mine! Most news sources refuse to acknowledge terrorism as a sector with a future.

I also like how emphatic they are about covering every aspect of "every country." The evil ex-employee in me wants to write and ask why they don't have any coverage of Freedonia, or Aftakislamastan, or Shangriladida Valley because, I can assure you, if they didn't immediately launch such a service, they would certainly consider it.

oh what a night

Oh sure, Michelle Obama looked like she was having fun on the night of the inauguration but did she wake up with gum in her hair?

I ask because I did, and as I'm trying to spin it as a sign I had a really good time that night, it would help immensely to know the First Lady had had a similar experience.

I honestly can't explain the gum: I remember noticing a piece of paper with writing on it in an ashtray, I remember being intrigued enough to try and open it and read it (found correspondence and all that), and I remember realizing it did not contain a piece of someone's life but rather, a piece of someone's gum. I do not, however, remember transferring that gum to my hair.

My companions that evening claim not to remember either, but I'm not sure I believe them.

I will endeavor to rise above this unfortunate beginning to what was supposed to be a brave new era. After all, Obama began it by retaking his oath of office, what's a little gum by comparison? (Although I have to say, it would be way better if I could blame it on the Chief Justice of the American Supreme Court, but try as I might, I just can't seem to do that).

Sunday, January 11, 2009

what to wear to a financial crisis


Finally, the antidote to all the "gloom and doomers" who will go on about credit crunches and bad loans and looming financial ruin when all I really want to know is, WHAT SHOULD I WEAR?

Stepan, who clearly shares my concerns, was kind enough to send me this clip, in which New York Times photographer Bill Cunningham takes to the streets of New York to find out how women in that fashionable city are coping with the current financial crisis. As Stepan put it, "It's like if Jimminy Glick got on his bike and started stalking women, snapping photos of them around NY and rambling about what they're wearing."

What New York women are doing, it seems, is wearing old clothes - and so can you! Dust off that classic Balenciaga coat from the '60s - you remember it, the one with the spiral seam? The masterpiece you loaned to the Metropolitan Museum of Art? It's still there? Well, get it back, sister! Break the glass if you have to - this is an emergency!

Reach into the family trunk and pull out a Schiaparelli from 1938! Preferably one with a large sea urchin embroidered on the shoulder (I believe 'schiaparelli' is Italian for sea urchin).

I don't have access to the "family trunk" at the moment (my own fault, of course, for having opted to live abroad, my sisters are no doubt sashaying around covered head to toe in decorative crustaceans even as I write), but I reached into my closet (actually a wardrobe thingy from IKEA but passons, passons!) and found clothing so old it should have been given to the Smithsonian, never mind the Metropolitan Museum of Art! Much of it, mind you, is ragged, or moth-eaten, or too small, but I'm sure if I wear it with the proper devil-may-care attitude, I'll be able to carry it off.

On the other hand, the ragged, moth-eaten, too small look was big during the last major financial crisis, and could very well come back. Fashion is cyclical, after all - just like something else I could mention but won't. No "gloom and doomer" I!

[Pictured, above right: Another woman who managed to dress well during trying times - Scarlett O'Hara, who found the answer hanging not in her closet, but in her window.]



Thursday, January 8, 2009

and another thing

I have to say one last thing about my new apartment and then I promise I'll find something else to talk about (just a heads up, though, that "something else" might be Joan of Arcadia, a TV show I've become addicted to this holiday season about a teenage American girl who talks to God).

As I type, somebody up there (as in my upstairs neighbor, not God) is learning to play "Killing Me Softly" on a saxophone. This is so wonderful words almost fail me. "Strumming my pain with his fingers/Singing my life with his words." It doesn't work on any level - you can't strum a saxophone (and yes, that is the voice of sad experience talking) nor can you sing and play one simultaneously. This may be the most inappropriate song for saxophone ever, second only to "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" or "Piano Man."

And just when I thought things were as good as they could possibly get, his DOG started HOWLING along! Clearly, that puppy has been the victim of a love gone wrong.

This is all greatly preferable to the ambient noise in my old apartment, which consisted of all the other people in the building getting along smashingly because they were all RELATED. The hallways echoed their happy family chatter, the footsteps of children running upstairs to visit Grandpa (whose old Hustler magazines were stacked merrily in the hallway outside his door, awaiting some lucky recycler), the clink of glasses as they picnicked in the verdant backyard, the buzz of the circular saw from their in-house sawmill - it was like an entire village crammed into one building.

They were killing me softly with their sheer propinquity.

And yes, that's a word you'll be seeing more of in 2009.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

snow


I started reading Orhan Pamuk's "Snow," and lo and behold - it started snowing. Coincidence, or is 2009 to be my year to control the weather? I'm leaning toward coincidence, personally, but will put off reading "The Perfect Storm" until 2010, just to be safe.